Changes (27 page)

They busted down the door, and brought it down to the floor with a bang. Free now to do so, they went into the basement’s darkened hallway, and flanked it on all sides. They collectively held their breaths. Each one of them didn’t know what to expect, so they each had to stay cautious. They had to be ready for anything.

Ross didn’t have any such inclinations. All he knew was that he had to see it. He had to find it. He had to get it to stop. He ran into the hallway and at the center of it, looked down it both ways and heard the crash of metal echo from somewhere towards his left. It sounded like thunder. It sounded like it came from the other side of the basement. It had to be where it went, so he ran towards the sound.

He came to the conference room quickly with the others following closely behind him, and there he stopped. Finding the door broken and shattered inside the room, he knew that it had already been there. Knowing what he did, he felt pointless to stay there any longer than he had to.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” one of the men behind him gasped, seeing the blood on the floor and the shattered door to the right of the room. He saw a pant leg, and with it, a body on top of the table. Whoever it was, they didn’t move. He looked to the right, and saw Robby on the floor. The look on his face felt worse. He looked terrified.

Ross didn’t need to look at anything. As far as he could tell, the wolf wasn’t there. He cared of nothing else. “This way?”

He left the doorway and jogged down the hallway to the next turn, and once there, he stopped. Looking down it, he could barely make out another doorway up on his left. A howling sound came to him just as he saw it burst open with a resounding crash. “This way?”

He ran down the hallway and came to the new open door.

Inside the stairwell, he found the door at his feet. Two uniformed guards were laying there, one on the left side of the stairwell and the other on the right. Both looked dazed and confused as they slowly picked themselves back up to their feet.

“Dear boy?” He felt shocked. It made him take a deep breath. The wolf seemed far stronger than he ever thought it could be. “He’s moving upstairs?” He crossed the wreck of what was left of the steel door and headed up the stairs. Two of the guards followed him as he ran up them to the first floor.

When he reached it, he heard a howl come down the stairs. Hearing it, he could tell that it was still heading up. Knowing that, it had only one place left to go.

“It’s heading for the roof?” Hunter heard it and looked up.

“Come on.” Ross left the landing and continued climbing up the stairs. He now felt almost completely out of breath, but he didn’t care. He had to get to it before it could get away. Nothing else mattered. Everything felt worth it.

Gary waited for Ross to leave before he left the counter and made his way to the security office under the stairs. Quickly, he opened the door and went inside. Doing so, he had to use his left hand to turn the handle. It felt so unnatural for him to do it. Doing it only added to the rage that built up in his chest.

He stepped into the control room and headed straight for the dark gray cabinet that stood opposite the door, and again, he had to use his left hand to open the double door cabinet to get inside it. He found it difficult but the rage helped him with the effort.

With the doors open, he reached for one of the four bolt-action rifles that stood up inside it, took the farthest left rifle, and pulled it free from the clip that held it in place. He took the weapon out and sat it down, butt first to the floor and stood it up next to him. Finished, he went back to the cabinet to the last shelf at the bottom of it, grabbed one of the boxes sitting there, and removed it from the cabinet. He took the box to the counter behind him, set it down and turned back for the rifle. Now, all he had to do was load it. He couldn’t wait. He felt more than ready to kill the fucking thing once, and for all.

Rachel made it to the back of the building and ran to one of the emergency exits at the far back wall. She burst through the door just as fast, setting off the fire alarm to the building behind her as she ran. The sounds of the horn blared through the air as she made it down a small flight of stairs to the sidewalk below it, and never looked back. She had only one thing on her mind. She had to find Jimmy. She had to help him. She had to stop them from hurting him if she could.

She headed for the grass, ran towards the creek that ran along the backside of the building, and there, she looked up to the roof. At first, she couldn’t see anything. With the two floors above her, it made it difficult to see the roof. She had to move further out, so she ran another few yards, and there, she turned back. She now looked up.

From her right, she saw a deep black mass suddenly move out towards her left. Seeing him, she sighed. She heard him howl. She caught her breaths.

“Jimmy?” She tried to draw his attention, but he didn’t look.

She saw him move towards the back wall. She could see that he looked down to the ground below it. The emergence of three new heads, dancing along the roof’s top, drew its attention almost instantly as it spun back to her right.

Seeing them, she gasped. “Oh God?”
They have him cornered.
She held her breaths. She had no idea what would happen next.

Ross came to the top of the stairs and came out onto the roof.

Hunter and Jeff still followed behind him, both they stopped at the top of the stairs. They didn’t intend to move from where they were. They pulled out their weapons again and aimed them at the wolf that stood at the back wall. Seeing it, they gasped.

Seeing it for the first time, Ross felt in complete and total awe. He could see that it looked far larger than Collins looked, and it made him gasp. It looked the same, but just looked stronger. It looked huge in fact. “Well?” He barely heard his own voice. “You’re beautiful, aren’t you?” He smiled. The wolf looked perfect. It had deep black fir that covered its entire body, and it seemed to shimmer in the bright moonlight overhead. The fir around its legs looked longer, and the hair around its head looked almost like a lion’s mane. He could even see a hint of white along its snout. Its tall ears pointed straight up from the sides of its head, and with them, they made it look ten times larger than it really was. Its entire body looked powerful. It looked so magnificent, as it stood there on its hind legs and looked the other way.

The wolf heard him and turned around violently, staring right at him and snarled. Its lips curled up on its snout. Its nose wrinkled and its eyes squinted becoming nothing but slivers of a bright yellow shine.

The sight blasted his mind, and caused him to gasp. “I know you can hear me?” Ross stepped away from the door and came out into the moonlight overhead. He wanted the beast to see him clearly. He had to have its trust. He had to have it give itself willing to him. His plans wouldn’t work any other way.

It responded to him with another snarl and growl.

He stopped and sighed, and held his breaths. “I know you can understand me? James, isn’t it?” He forced himself to sigh. It felt far more wonderful than he could ever believe. He stared at this magnificent creature and couldn’t believe what he saw.

The wolf tilted its head to its right side.

He knew what it meant. It listened to him. “I don’t want to hurt you my friend.” He turned from the creature, and looked back to the two men behind him. “Lower your weapons,” he ordered them.

Hunter and Jeff looked at one another and then looked back to Ross again. They both shook their heads. They didn’t intend to do what they were told. How could they disarm themselves with the beast right in front of them like that?

Ross noticed their hesitation. “I said drop your weapons!”

Again, they looked at one another and then they nodded. Their arms came down and with them, and the weapons went to their sides.

“See?” Ross looked back to the beast. “We’re not going to harm you James. I would never let that happen.”

The wolf tilted its head to its left, and began to moan. It came as such a subtle sound that it seemed to be carried on the wind with a beautiful grace.

He knew that it tried to understand him. What he said seemed to be working, so he kept with it. “I’m not here to harm you. I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to help you.” He stepped closer, coming towards the beast as cautiously as he could move. He wanted to make sure that it didn’t think of him as a threat.

The wolf looked straight into his eyes. It moved its head straight. It didn’t move, and stayed right where it was.

He nodded, liking what he saw. “God, you are beautiful, aren’t you?” He stopped again, and now found himself less than five feet away from it. “I so want you to trust me James. There is so much that you and I can do together. There’s so much that we can give to this world. Can you hear me, James? Can hear what I’m trying to say?”

The wolf moaned, and a whining came out of it next.

Confident in what he said, he continued. “Yes. You do, don’t you?” He took another step, but kept it at one. “You can give us so much, James. You can help us in so many people. You are the key to immortality. You are the key to healing the sick and the injured. You are the reason for their opportunity at a second chance. Everything you are is like magic to so many dreams. You are the gift, my friend. You are so much more than that.”

The wolf whined as it tilted its head back to its left.

Ross reached out with his right hand. “Take my hand James? Take it, and join me. Take it so we can start.”

The wolf looked down to his hand, tilted its head again, and looked back up to his eyes.

He could see the yellow sparkle. He felt it close—it seemed so close to it taking his hand. He could almost feel it. He could almost see it. It felt like just the matter of seconds before he would have his prize back in his control. It would be only seconds for all of his dreams to come true. It would only be a matter of months, he felt sure of it, when his fortune would be made through all of what this beast could give him. It now stood only feet from him. It now only seemed to be a hand taking his. He looked to its eyes, and they told him that it was going to happen. When the eyes turned away from him, looking over his right shoulder, everything seemed to change.

The wolf stopped whining and the snarl returned as its snout curled up to a scorn.

Ross turned, keeping his hand up, and saw another man standing at the doorway to the stairs. He had something out in front of him. It looked like Gary, and he knew what that something was. “No.” He looked back to the wolf.

The wolf’s snarling turned into an all-out growl and then a roar.

“No!”

Gary aimed his rifle. It seemed hard to do with only one arm, but he did manage. He took a deep breath and aimed directly at the freak’s heart. When his breath felt full, and he exhaled, he pulled the trigger.

The shot echoed out.

The flare blasted a shell through the air. The sound cracked hard like a baseball bat just smacked a ball.

The bullet streaked by the side of Ross’s head. He heard it whistle as it passed by him.

It struck the wolf hard in its upper chest. It let out a howl and then a yelp.

Ross turned back to it, and watched blood spray from the wound. “No, God damn it! NO!”

The wolf yelped as its right arm came up to its chest and its hand covered the wound. It swaggered some and stepped back to the back of the roof. It stumbled. Its legs came up as it carried off the roof. It disappeared almost looking like it all happened in slow motion.

Ross ran to the animal just as its feet fell off the side of the building. He caught the roof’s edge, and looked down in time to watch it fall into the creek than ran along the fence. Quickly, he watched it vanish beneath the waves. “No.” With it, he watched his dreams sink away. His heart did the same as he bowed his head. He couldn’t believe that he lost it.
How could this happen? How could I let it fail like this again?
He felt bitter. He felt awful beyond words.

He turned back around, left the sidewall, and made his way back to Gary. He reached him as he lowered the rifle back to his side.

Gary grimaced, holding his right arm up against his chest. His arm still hurt, but now he didn’t care. He did what he wanted to do. It made his night, and it made everything else feel worth it.

“What have you done?” Ross stepped in between him and the other two guards that now flanked him on both sides.

Gary sighed. “Doing what I should have done when you brought it here.” He smiled. It looked more like a grimace than a true and hearty smile, but all in all, he felt satisfied. He felt right again, and that’s all that mattered.

“How dare you?” Ross looked at him and blinked. His life now felt gone. His future looked empty. His dreams turned into nothing more than just a shattered memory of a whim.

Gary sighed again and scoffed. All felt finished the way that it should have been.