Lycan Fallout (Book 2): Fall of Man (5 page)

Chapter Seven – Mike Journal Entry 5

The people cowered as I got closer. Looked like the world’s first clothed orgy. “You do realize I just helped you, right?” Nothing, not so much as a whimper out of any of them. “No, no it’s okay, you can thank me later. Wait, what? You want to shower me with gifts? I couldn’t possibly accept this medal as a token of your town’s undying gratitude.” I was being a dick, plain and simple, I knew it. They’d just been through some of the worst few days of their lives, and I wanted my back patted for saving them. Ungrateful bastards.

I kept waiting for the third Lycan to make himself known. I could feel his cold eyes upon me like the greasy scales of an eel brushing up against my skin. Yeah, he was out there, what was he waiting for? Then it nailed me, almost in the center of my forehead. He was waiting for the advantage. I’d thought at first that the huddled mass of humanity in front of me was afraid of the approaching night because of the darkness it would bring but that wasn’t it, not entirely anyway. It was the oncoming moon that they were concerned with.

“Who among you was bitten or scratched?” I asked gruffly. “What’s the matter with you!” I yelled, their timidity infuriating me.

Of the four people, there was only one even looking at me. The rest had their heads down as in solemn prayer or in hopes I would stop looking at them. This wasn’t the fifth grade and I wasn’t their teacher so they could not avoid answering me. I could find myself extremely outnumbered and soon.

“I won’t ask again!” I raised my axe above my head. I did not even stop to ponder my decision and subsequent action to kill all of them. If it came down to them or me, I would choose me; especially if they were going to turn into werewolves. It was not lost on me that I would kill them even if there were only a chance they might turn.

“Stop!” one of the women finally said, looking at me with a defiance that had not yet been beaten out of her.

“Start talking. You don’t have much time.”

“My name is Ilysse. This is my sister, Anna, her husband, Buell, and his mother, Gretchen.”

“I don’t care. Giving me your names will not prevent me from killing you all before the moon rises. I have killed two of the Lycan, and I know they look alike, but chances are some of you weren’t infected by the one missing. Some of you could be saved.”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters little to me. You will all be much easier to dispose of in this fashion than the next. Do you speak for the rest as well? You do realize the virus in you dies if the one that gave it to you dies as well, right?”

“Breealla, Nemmon? Mommy is coming!” she wailed, her head falling into her hands.

“You have got to be kidding me. Those are your kids?”

“What have you done to them?” She sprung up so quickly and violently that she caught me off guard.

I had to grab her arm and threaten to lodge my axe in her forehead to get her to stop swinging at me. “Besides feed them, nothing.”

“Where are they?” She pulled away and started calling out for them.

“They are nowhere close, they are with my...” I paused. Could I call Bailey my friend? “They are with my traveling companion,” I answered with as accurate description as I could come up with. “She is taking care of them while I am out here trying to save them. So before you go all Mike Tyson on my ass again, I need to know who is still infected and who is not.”

Ilysse was stone silent. She was either protecting herself or someone in the group.

“You’re not getting this, Ilysse. I’m not much more human than those things I just killed. I will not be hampered by feelings of guilt if I kill you all. I’ll give you a moment to let that sink in.” It was less than a minute, most likely felt like an eternity as I walked back towards them. “Got anything for me?”

She shook her head. “Please promise me you’ll take care of my children.”

“Do I look like a fucking orphanage?” She was sobbing uncontrollably. I’d love to say that some of my humanity bubbled to the surface and I assured her that I would care for her children. It didn’t happen. Those fragmented pieces of me stayed cemented to where they were. There was a time a woman crying would have broken me down and made me as pliable as tin foil. That time has long gone by. “How about this? If they don’t turn, and my traveling companion doesn’t have to kill them, I’ll bring them to someone I know so they can have a somewhat safe place to live. That’s the best I can offer.”

She nodded curtly at me.

“Please wait,” the old woman spoke, Gretchen, I think was her name. “It’s just my son and I who were infected.”

“Gretchen, you can’t!” Ilysse cried out.

“Is this true?” I pushed Anna, who had yet to say anything, with the toe of my boot.

“She’s in shock!” Ilysse spat.

“I am not a liar, sir!” Gretchen answered with her head held high.

“I’ll make this quick,” I told her.

“Gretchen, no!” Ilysse was in my face again doing her best to prevent me from moving forward.

“It makes no difference to me whether your children have a mother or not. Get out of my way before I toss you into the brush.”

“I’ll do it!” Gretchen yelled. She pulled a small knife from her boot. “I was going to use this on one…one of them if I had gotten the chance. Now I’m going to use it to kill my son.”

“No, Gretchen.” Ilysse turned and fell to the ground next to the woman.

Gretchen moved fast for a woman who looked like she was having a hard time gripping the knife with her gnarled fingers. She pulled the sharp blade along the side of the man’s neck. He barely moved. If he felt the parting of his flesh he didn’t let on. He looked as if he had passed into the realm of unconsciousness a while ago. From the severe beating he’d taken, he would have died on his own soon enough even if the Lycan hadn’t made a meal out of him. Anna finally moved. She didn’t speak or cry out as her hands tried to stem the tide of blood coming from her spouse’s neck. As one cupped hand filled up and spilled over, she would replace it with the other. I had to appreciate her diligence.

Gretchen cried out and hunched over. I thought it was from the loss of her son, but I couldn’t have been any more wrong if I tried. She was changing and fast. This was no movie stop-motion photography. From the span of one second to the next the changes on the cellular and physical levels were profound. I pulled up on Ilysse’s dress and yanked her way. I did the same with Anna, her hands still moving in rhythmic fashion, though she was no longer touching anyone. If she made it through this night she would not go much further, as her mind was too far wasted for recovery, at least in the time that would be allotted for her. Perhaps in a different day and age…and enough therapy.

The Gretchen-thing wrapped one large hand around her son’s neck and the other grabbed his nether regions. She snapped him in half like a dry Popsicle stick as she stood. I thought Ilysse’s scream was in response to the horror we were all witnessing. That would have been a reasonable assumption, I think. Unfortunately it wasn’t true, at least not completely. The Gretchen-thing had changed from her carnival sideshow freak-looking self into a woman wolf as I was swinging my axe. It was happening that fast, and even in the crippling pain that must have been accompanying that transformation, she was able to spare me a momentary flash of her extending canines. I buried that blade deep within her sternum, neatly bisecting her left breast as I did so. Yellow fat deposits spilled out first, immediately followed by the red of blood.

I received the backhand of her paw for my efforts and was flung backwards. Ilysse’s screams were cut short. I turned to see her suspended in the air. A huge Lycan had his hand wrapped almost completely around her midsection, and he was squeezing her like a tube of toothpaste. Her eyes were beginning to bulge, her face turning an angry red and her tongue lolling out. I squared off to face him.

“What are you?” he asked in a guttural speech.

I was a hair’s breadth from speaking the cliché of, “Your worst nightmare” although how common of an adage would it be now? The saying probably was brand spanking new and novel at this time. I gave him a dose of the truth instead, hoping it would make him run off into the night. It was already too late for those kids if he had a hand in marking them. I’d failed on that aspect and I’d be damned if I added my death onto the list of missed accomplishments for the evening.

“I am an Old One.”

He paused, didn’t run, though. Didn’t have that kind of luck going for me. “An Old One? They are merely legend, stories to keep the young ones scared and close to the pack where no harm can befall them.”

“Yup, that’s me, I’m a myth. This myth just killed two of your kind.”

“You did not kill them. The stick that is over there did,” he said very astutely.

“You caught that, huh? Wouldn’t have seen that coming. Didn’t think a brain would be able to fit in that head of yours with all those teeth.”

“I am Panthros and I will be your undoing!” I heard a crunching sound as the Lycan crushed Ilysse’s rib cage like one might a walnut with a nutcracker. Her eyelids impossibly opened wider before they drooped closed. He lowered his grip and swung her around, nearly colliding our skulls together. I could make out the faintest of moans as she whistled past. I’m fairly convinced it was her soul, I was thinking of ways to hitch a ride when she was coming back for a return visit. Her neck snapped as she was beaten into my side. I was being bludgeoned by the body of a recently deceased woman. I ducked and rolled, slamming my axe into the left foot of the beast. I narrowly missed being punted like a football. Exceptional healing powers or no, if he had connected with that kick, it would have been a showstopper.

I had to keep rolling, as he was beating Ilysse against the ground mercilessly in an attempt to hit me with her body. I was getting hit, but only with fragments; teeth and blood, mostly. Soon there would not be much in her body that was not broken. It would be like trying to swing a cooked pack of spaghetti. He took two more steps and slammed her down five more times before he slowed up, the pain now finally beginning to register within him. He tossed Ilysse away like so much discarded garbage. He kept a close watch on me even as he checked out his foot. I was ten feet away, and it looked pretty nasty from here. Even now, the silver from the blade as it reacted with his body would be causing him scalding pain. It wouldn’t be enough to kill him unfortunately.

I stopped moving on the ground and was finally able to get up on my feet. I got down into a crouch, my axe up and to my side. Panthros was pissed; he looked like he’d been waiting at the DMV for four hours to only be told he didn’t have the right paperwork and would have to come back. I knew that look. He wanted to kill me in the worst way, but he also didn’t want to risk another swing of my axe connecting with his body. A stinging whip cracking across his back would have burned with less intensity.

“Come on, you ugly mutt,” I goaded him. “Your mother mated with sloths.” Apparently it didn’t much matter the species, you talk shit about someone’s mom and you were going to elicit a response. Panthros roared and charged. I barely had enough time to put my blade between us as his powerful arms attempted to wrap around my neck. He wasn’t successful in choking the life out of me, but he had forced me to the ground with him on top. Even with my arms fully outstretched trying to keep him at bay; I had to turn my head so he wouldn’t rip my nose off. I was very much in danger of becoming this age’s next Van Gogh without the painting talent.

We stayed locked like this for a few more moments. I knew I would succumb eventually, as he was too strong for me to hold off indefinitely. I collapsed my left arm and moved to the right as quickly as I could. He didn’t let go even as his hopefully sensitive snout banged into the dirt. He may have whined or he was dislodging a pebble from his sinuses; either way, I was going to count it as a moral victory. I could not get a proper chopping motion in but I was able to drag the blade across his side, leaving an angry, oozing welt in its path. It was enough for him to push off and give me some much-needed breathing room. Anna looked on with a passive, dismissive blasé. She could have been watching a golf game on a lazy Sunday for all the reaction that she emoted. A little help from her would have been nice, but I had a better chance of a yeti showing up and doing a little song and dance routine. The Lycan was on his feet before me, hazarding a glance at his stinging side.

“Bet that smarts. You up for more?” I honestly think I would have let him go if he said, “no” and counted myself lucky.