Changes (25 page)

The wolf’s hand disappeared from his face, and he watched it move down the front of his shirt, down towards his belt and with disbelief, he watched the hand remove the keys that he had fastened on his side. With the keys in its claws, he watched as it moved back up his belly and move towards the card hanging from the left breast pocket of his shirt. It took the card with a simple pull. All of this, made him sigh.

A purring growl came from its mouth, causing him to look back to its face. Its yellow eyes sparkled in front of him, and seeing them, and he didn’t know why, but at that moment, he felt relieved. It didn’t seem like it was going to kill him. It almost seemed as if it was content to let him live.

Sure enough, it did turn and left him standing at the side of the counter. He watched it move to the doorway to the stairs that went down to the basement at the left wall. He watched as the tall, heavy beast opened the door, and continued watching it as it disappeared with the door closing behind it. Seeing that, and realizing that it was gone, he finally breathed.

What the fuck did you get yourself into, Mattie?
He cried as he looked back to the front gate. Seeing it, amazed and feeling everything at once, his bladder relaxed and he pissed his pants, right then, and there.

Richard Ross sat behind his desk, going through the paperwork that he wasn’t able to go through for the last few days and, quite frankly, didn’t feel like doing after he lost his prize when it was killed last Friday morning. Now with James, he had to get back to work. He had to prepare for the change that he knew was about to come. He had to get ready for everything after that. Quite frankly, he couldn’t wait for any of it. He actually had the opportunity to watch it happen for the first time, and that made him feel excited beyond words. What was the human body going to look like the first time it changed? How much pain can it endure? It felt like all too much to take in at once. Knowing that, he was deep into reading one of the many reports, when he heard footsteps running towards him from outside his open office door. He didn’t want to, but he had to look up.

“Mister Ross?” a young man, Greg Hunter, came just inside the open door and stopped. He felt all out of breath, and it forced him to have to go to his knees and grab them with the palm of each hand. “The new specimen—it’s—changing.” He stood back up right and placed his hands on his hips.

Ross couldn’t believe what he just heard. He knew that it wasn’t time yet, and it made him feel beyond shocked. It made him feel almost dumfounded beyond words. “That’s impossible.” He stood up from his chair and placed both hands to the top of his desk, leaning forwards, towards the door. “We have two more nights before the full moon?” As far as what he knew about it, from Collins, a wolf doesn’t emerge until the first full moon after the first bite. So what he heard had to be wrong, it just had to be?

“It’s true. Reese just called it in over the radio.” Hunter caught his breaths.

“What is Reese
doing
with him?” Ross walked around the desk to the center of the room. If he and Gary were harassing his prize again, then there was going to be hell to pay. He had too much to lose for them to be playing that same old tired game yet again.

“The woman, Doctor Garland, was trying to take the freak. They almost made it out through the front lobby when they found them,” Hunter tried to explain. He didn’t know anything more than this, so he could only say what he heard.

Ross listened, trying to understand everything. He didn’t like any of it. How did Garland become involved in this? How did she know anything at all about what was going on? How did she know the guard? No one was supposed to know what they were doing. If Garland knew about it, then there was more going on than he was aware of, and he didn’t like it. Not one damned bit! “Where are they now?”

“It’s still in the lobby.”

Ross nodded. He had to get to work. He had to stop it from getting away. “Get all of your teams ready.” He ran past Hunter and headed out through the doorway, strode down the hallway heading towards the stairs, and didn’t look back. He had to see it. He had to see him change. “I want everyone ready, and this time no one is to harm him, do you understand?” he called behind him as he ran.

Hunter ran with him. He nodded. He didn’t agree with the order, but he wasn’t the one that signed the checks was he. It wasn’t his show to complain.

They came to the stairs quickly and found that two others of his security team were already at the top of the stairs, waiting for him. They looked scared. It flared over their faces.

“No one is to harm him, do you all understand?” Ross reached them and stopped.

Each one of them nodded. None of them wanted to go down the stairs first. None of them wanted to move. None of them wanted to die.

Ross sighed, and took a deep breath. He went down the stairs cautiously. He went down first.

Anyone that had a weapon had it out and in front of them as they moved down the stairs to the lobby.

Ross saw them and shook his head. “Put those damn things away.” He flared. He kept it to a whisper, but still stressed his voice. He didn’t want to scare the creature. He needed it, and wanted it to need him and it wouldn’t do that if they came at it armed.
When are these idiots going to learn? I need him. I need him to come to me willingly.

They looked at each other and shook their heads. They didn’t have a choice, so slowly, they replaced their weapons back into their holsters, and each sighed a heavy breath after they complied with the order.

Ross was the first one down the stairs, and he was the first one to walk to the counter.

Gary was the first one they found. He was lying on his back, and was slowly coming back to his senses when they reached him. At first, he didn’t even know where he was. “What happened?” His memory came back to him quickly as he moved. His right arm reminded him of all of it with one good shot of pain.

One of the guards went to him and bent down over him, and helped him to a sitting position.

Ross looked to him first, but it wasn’t what drew his attention the most. That fell to the gate that was down and covering the front doors. Seeing it, he knew that the creature must have gotten out just before it came down. “Get your teams in their cars and begin,” he started, but Hunter cut him off.

“Mister Ross?” Hunter stood by the side of the stairs, just before the security’s control room door. His voice sounded sickened and his face looked pale. At the last step, just at the side of the stairs, someone wearing a deep blue uniform lied there motionless, and looked completely covered with blood and torn flesh. He looked mangled. He couldn’t even recognize who it was.

Ross turned towards the stairs and saw him. He gasped his breaths. “My God?” He could barely hear his own voice.

“Mister Ross?” The third guard, Jeff Aluria, went behind the counter just near the hallway that went back towards the offices under the stairs. There he found Mattie, leaning up against the wall. Half of his face looked covered with blood. The front of his shirt and pants looked completely soaked too. He looked like he was dead. His eyes were open and he was staring straight ahead at the wall opposite from him. He could tell, however, that he was still breathing.

Ross walked around the poor soul, dead on the floor, and made his way to the side of the stairs. Another one of his boys was there, sitting on the floor, and seeing him, he sighed. “Is he alive?” His voice still whispered. He knew that his specimen was dangerous, they all did, but never in a million years was he ready to see all of this. This wolf seemed different. It seemed obviously vicious. It would put up a fight; he could see that now.

Jeff nodded. “Yeah.” He stood up from kneeling in front of Mattie, and looked ahead of him to the floor leading to the door to the basement. There, he could see what looked like bloody paw prints heading to it, and seeing them caused an instant shutter to rake through his body and through mind. “Sir?” He pointed a heavy arm to the floor.

Ross followed the arm and saw the prints. He couldn’t believe what he saw. “Why didn’t he get out?” he heard himself ask.
Collins had always tried to get away.
This one didn’t do it and that was more than obvious, but why didn’t it try to run? Where did it go? Why didn’t it try to escape?

Gary stood to his feet. His mind tried to fight the numbness that stayed deep within his thoughts. However, now he could remember everything again with complete clarity. “He’s going after the woman.” He placed his left good hand to the top of the counter, and kept his right arm up against his chest. It helped with the pain, so he kept it there.

Ross turned towards him with a flash. “You mean Garland? Where did you put her?” He felt his face flushed over with anger and sighed. He couldn’t believe that he had to go through this all over again. Their brutality towards the creature made everything more difficult than it should have been. If they would just listen to him and stop it, he knew everything would move more smoothly. If only they would listen? If only they would understand, what he was trying to do with it.

Gary sighed painfully. “I had her taken downstairs. I wanted to explain to her what she couldn’t talk about.” He grimaced from the pain his arm. It now felt like it was starting to throb. It felt more than just broken, it felt shattered.

Ross burned totally from within. “This would have never happened if you weren’t so brutal with the last one.” He allowed his anger to flow. This wasn’t the time for such blame, but he felt like it had to be said, so he said it.

Gary scoffed at the idea. “If you had killed the fucking thing when it came to you in the first place, we wouldn’t have had to do what we did?”

It was Ross’s turn to scoff. “It was your treatment of him that made him want to get away in the first place. You just couldn’t let him be. You just couldn’t let me work with him?”

“Mister Ross?” Hunter came around the side of the counter, passed Gary, and stepped between them. “We’re going to have to bring it down. It killed one person already. It might kill everyone here?”

Ross shook his head violently. “No. I want no harm to come to him. He is worth all of this.” His voice rose with every word. “I’m not going to let this little
misunderstanding
get in the way of everything that we’ve accomplished so far.”

“Misunderstanding?” Gary grimaced again, trying to hold his arm in place, and found that it was hard to do it. “We have to bring it down!”

Ross didn’t want to hear anything more. “The first one to harm him is going to find out how evil I can be.” He looked to the others that stood around him. “We’re going to capture him, but first, we have to corner him. If he’s down in the basement that means that there are only two ways out of there. One way is here, the other is a stairwell at the other side of the building. You stay here.” He pointed to the younger officer, whom he couldn’t for the life of him remember his name, and then turned to Hunter. “Get several people over to the other shaft. We’re going to go down and corner him.” He nodded as he put his plan together. Everything he thought about made sense, and he only hoped it would work. His career passed before his eyes. He had to find it. He had to have it. He couldn’t think of anything else but that.

To the others, all they could do was nod with what they heard, all except for Gary. He knew exactly what he was going to do. He was going to go to the security office the next chance he had, and get the bullets that he needed to kill the fucking thing once, and for all. First, he had to wait for Ross to leave, and then he was going to find the thing, and blow its fucking head off. It sounded like a good plan, so he replayed it over, and over again in his mind as he waited.

Ross took the other guards and went for the door to the basement. One of them, the one that he couldn’t remember his name, opened the door so that Hunter could go through it first. Ross followed him, and together they headed down the stairs, but they wouldn’t get far. When they reached the bottom step and looked to the door to the basement, they found the keypad on the right of the door smashed and shattered on the wall.

The sight amazed all of them, but Ross even more than the others. “Clever aren’t you?” He had to marvel.
It is different and smart too
. With the pad smashed, they couldn’t use their cards to get through the door. They now had to find another way in.

Hunter couldn’t believe what he saw. “How would it know to do that? It’s just a fucking animal?” If he wasn’t afraid before, he sure as hell was now.

“Obviously, he’s more than that, don’t you think.” Ross looked to the door and back to Hunter. “Use your key.” He pointed to the key ring clipped to his belt.

A frog began forming fast in Hunter’s throat so he tried to clear it as he reached for the key ring, and unclipped it from his belt. Quickly, he found the right key, and put it to the handle, but he couldn’t get it into the keyhole. Something felt like it blocked it. It wouldn’t go in. He grew frustrated and had to bend down to look at the keyway to see what it was. What he found shocked him beyond his own belief.

Ross noticed him having problems with the key. “What’s wrong?”

The frog came back again. “It looks like it broke a key off in the lock?” He tried to swallow the thing back down, but wouldn’t move. It just didn’t seem to fit.

Ross’s eyes widened as he looked back to the door. “Clever, clever, clever.” It felt beautiful. He felt the amazement flow through his heart. It felt too magnificent to be happening to him. If he didn’t see it with his own two eyes, he would have never believed it. “We’re going to have to break it down?” He tried to think, but nothing came to him for what to do next.

Hunter listened, and didn’t like what he heard. “You’re not breaking down this door, Mister Ross. It’s solid steal.”

Ross didn’t like that answer one damn bit. “I don’t care what you have to do to open it, but do it.” He had to get the thing safe. He had so much more to learn from it now, he now saw that much.

Hunter thought about the problem, and came up with an idea rather quickly. The only way he could think of was to cut through the door, so he looked back to the other guard, Jeff. “Go upstairs and get the torch. We’re going to have to cut it off its hinges.”

Jeff nodded, turned and went back up stairs.

Watching him leave, Hunter turned back to Mister Ross.

Ross sighed. “Clever, clever, clever,” He repeated it again, again, and again.