Werewolf Suspense (Book 2): Outage 2 (The Awakening) (6 page)

"Thanks for letting us in," Ashley said, breaking the silence.

Mark nodded. He eyed each of them in the pale glow of the flashlight. His eyes were ringed and bloodshot; it looked like he hadn't slept in days.

"What's going on out there?" Tom asked.

Mark cleared his throat. "Damned if I know," he said.

He avoided their eyes as he walked toward an open window across the room. The room was square, about fifty feet wide and long. Tom, Billy, and Ashley followed him, dodging tables and machinery that adorned the floor space. A row of large windows lined the opposite wall, allowing moonlight to seep into the room's edges. The windowsills were only a few feet off the ground. Before Tom could get acquainted, Mark switched off the flashlight.

"We need to call the police," Tom said.

"Can't. Phone lines are dead," Mark said. "I tried."

"Do you have a cell phone?"

"A prepaid. I left it at home. I don't use it much, anyway. I mostly use the landline." Mark reached out, swung the window inwards, and latched it closed. Tom assumed it was where he'd fired at the beast.

"What do you think we should do?" Tom asked.

"Stay here and wait out the storm. Even if we got a hold of someone, no one would know what to do with these things."

"What are they?" Tom asked.

Mark hunkered by the window, but didn't answer. Did he know more than he let on?

Tom walked across the room, keeping his voice low. "I saw people changing into them," he said. "A man and a woman, they
transformed
. These things are human underneath."

"I know that already. Look." Mark crouched next to one of the windows and pointed. Tom hunkered beside him and followed his hand. Across the parking lot, Tom saw his crumpled SUV wrapped around the telephone pole, the headlights blazing. Next to it was the barely-clothed body of a human. It took him a second to realize it was the creature who'd attacked him earlier.

"You killed it."

"That wasn't the first one, either." Mark adjusted his rifle.

"I don't understand. I shot one of them an hour ago. I put six goddamn bullets in the thing, and it barely wounded it. In fact, I'm pretty sure it even—"

"Healed?" Mark asked, his eyes wide and manic.
 

"Yes. How'd you know that?"

"Because that's what happened when I shot one for the first time."

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't use the ammunition my brother gave me, and the thing got back up and attacked me. But I've wizened up since then."

"I don't understand."

"I should've listened to my brother. I should've listened to Colton." Mark reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a handful of bullets. He held them next to the window, allowing the glare to capture the silver surface. "If I'd used these the first time, I wouldn't have had a problem. I won't make that mistake again."

Tom felt an inkling of something he'd known before. Something he
should've
known. And yet he'd refused to believe it. Couldn't believe it. Things like this shouldn't be happening in the real world, not outside the realm of fantasy and television. For the second time that night, he entertained the idea that he was dreaming, that the entire night had been an elaborate hoax. But the chill in his bones and the cold fear in his stomach told him it was real. And so did the body outside, lying in the snow.

Mark replaced the ammunition in his pocket and stared out the window, his rifle tucked rigidly under his arm.
 

"Where's your brother now?" Tom asked.
 

"He's dead," Mark answered.

Tom's fear was replaced with pity. Up until now, Mark had seemed hard, calloused. Uncaring. But now he understood why. He recalled Lorena's gutted body in the forest, his guilt at leaving her behind. He lowered his eyes. "Did they get to him?"

"No. I did." Mark stared over at him, his eyes lit by the moonlight. "He was one of them. I had to kill my brother."

Tom, Billy, and Ashley drew back in shock. Mark watched out the window in silence for a minute, ensuring the landscape was quiet. Then he began speaking. His voice was eerily calm, despite the tale he told.

"My brother's name was Colton. For the past twenty years, we've owned this machine shop," Mark said. "It was passed down to us from our father. About a year ago, Colton started behaving strangely. He started telling me he was having strange dreams. Violent dreams. In these dreams, he did awful things to people, and he was unable to stop himself. He felt sick about it. I told him he shouldn't worry about it; plenty of people had nightmares."

Mark readjusted.

"After a while, I got the feeling Colton might've actually done these things. One day I asked him point blank. Colton started to cry. He told me he'd done
all
of it, but that it wasn't him. That something else had taken him over; had
changed
him."

"Like the things outside," Ashley whispered.

"Yes, but not quite. A year earlier, he explained, he'd met a woman at a bar. They'd hit it off and he'd taken her to a hotel. They were both drunk. He and the woman were on the bed together when the woman bit him. She ripped a chunk from his shoulder. Colton threatened to go to the police, but she pleaded with him not to. He kicked her out of the room."

"Later that night, Colton started feeling sick. He was lying in the motel room, unable to sleep, when he started convulsing. Colton managed to get to the bathroom, thinking he was dying. But he wasn't. His body started…changing. His limbs stretched. He tried to hold it back, but it felt like something was inside of him, trying to get out. When he looked in the mirror, he saw what he'd become, and he went into shock. He collapsed on the floor and blacked out."

"The next morning, Colton woke up covered in blood. It wasn't his. He knew he'd done something horrible, but at the same time, he knew he'd be locked up, whether he remembered it or not."

Mark cleared his throat quietly. He stared out the window while he talked.

"The change kept happening. Colton started handcuffing his wrist to the bed at night, thinking he could control himself, but when he woke up, the cuffs were on the floor and he was covered in remains. Eventually, he started remembering things. The memories made it impossible for him to focus. He started drinking nightly. One night, a few months after the first incident, he ran into the same woman at the bar."

"They got to talking; they ended up at the hotel again. Colton was so intoxicated he'd probably forgotten what she'd done. He told her everything. He confessed all the things he'd done, everything that had happened. Instead of being terrified, the woman smiled and told him that she was the one who'd changed him. That she'd seen something in him." Mark swallowed. "That's why she'd bitten him. That's why she'd turned him into what he was. She told him what he'd become. What they all are."

"What are they?" Tom asked, afraid to hear the answer.

"They're wolves, Tom. Lycans." The light of the window illuminated enough of Mark's face to tell he was serious.

"How did your brother react?"

"He went into a fit of rage, screaming at the woman to fix what she'd done. But there was no going back. She told him he was a coward, that she'd made a mistake in turning him. And then she left and he never saw her again."

Tom gazed outside the window, as if speaking about the creatures would somehow call them to the building. He shook his head in disbelief. The story confirmed everything that had happened. For the past few hours, the rational part of his brain had been in constant battle with his senses, trying to disprove what he was seeing. But Mark's story gave it a layer of truth.

"So… You said you killed him?" Billy asked after a moment, breaking the quiet. The young man leaned forward, listening attentively.

"After he confessed, he wanted me to. He said there were more like him. He'd seen them in the night; he'd even talked to a few of them. He told me he'd already tried to kill himself, but couldn't. It was like the beast inside him wouldn't allow it." Mark patted his coat pocket. "He gave me the bullets I showed you, but I wouldn't hear of doing that to him. He said he had a whole stash of bullets at home, and that I should use them to protect myself. I told him he was crazy. I still didn't believe him, you understand. I didn't want to feed his delusions."

"What happened?" Tom asked.

Mark shook his head sadly. "We tried to move past it. Colton stopped talking about it as much. But he continued drinking. A few days ago, he warned me that I wouldn't be able to ignore it much longer. He said a storm was coming, that all the beasts were waiting for it. A bunch of them had migrated to the northeast in preparation, he said. It was one of the few times they could kill without fear, without repercussion. They all knew it was coming, like they sensed it in the air or something. While man was preoccupied, they'd feast, he said. They called it The Great Storm."

A cold terror gripped hold of Tom. He turned to look in the darkness behind him, as if the machines themselves would spring to life, but the room stayed silent and still.

"What happened to Colton?" Billy asked.

Mark shook his head. "Earlier today, while Colton and I were working, he made me promise to keep an eye on him. He said we should lock ourselves in here tonight. He was crying. I promised to do it. I still didn't believe him, you understand. I thought this whole thing was a hallucination, and after tonight he'd have no choice but to get help. So I locked all the doors. And then the storm hit. Everything was fine, at first, and then he…he turned. His whole body, his whole face…"

"Where is he now?" Billy whispered.

Mark raised his arm and pointed across the room. His eyes glistened with tears in the pale light of the window. "He's in that storage room. I killed him. And when this is over, I'm going to bury him where he'll never be found."

Tom stared across the room at the door. Billy and Ashley inched backward.

"Don't worry," Mark assured them. "He's dead. I made sure of it. Colton's finally at peace."

The door was little more than an outline in the dark. Tom fought the fear that the man-beast would come bursting from inside, rending them to pieces. Mark had already confessed to killing his brother, but Tom had never considered the dead man might be so close.
 

Mark patted the rifle in his lap. "Colton was right about everything. After he turned, he came at me like I was nothing, like we weren't even blood. I shot him several times, but he kept coming. I finally locked myself in that storage room. That's where I'd stashed the bullets he gave me. If I hadn't found them, I'd be dead right now." Mark swallowed.

The group peered through the window, watching wind kick up the snow outside.

"So what do we do?" Ashley whispered.

Mark sighed. "I have a feeling if we wait out this storm, we'll be all right. That's what Colton said. According to my brother, the beasts only hunt by the light of the moon. This storm has significance. They knew it was coming; they've been waiting for it. They knew most of us wouldn't be prepared." He pointed to the sky outside, where the outline of the moon hung behind the storm clouds. "I think it's something in their blood that tells them what's coming, kind of like animals sensing a change in barometric pressure. They've detected the storm for a while. Their senses are like animals, only much more heightened."

Tom thought back to a few hours earlier, when he'd stared at the moon through his basement window. If only he'd understood what it meant. If he had, maybe Lorena would still be alive.

But how could he have?

Tom gripped the tire iron and glanced back at Billy, who was still carrying the empty rifle. If they were going to survive the storm, they'd need to be prepared.

"Are there any other weapons in here?" he asked Mark.

Mark shook his head. "I have some tools. But they won't be much defense against the things. The only thing I'm sure of is this." He held up his rifle. "Why don't we load yours with the ammunition I have left? Is that a .22?"

Tom nodded. "Yes, it's an older one. With a tubular magazine."

Billy handed over the rifle, and Mark loaded it with the remaining bullets he'd gotten from Colton. He handed the weapon to Tom. When Mark was finished, there were six rounds in the gun—not enough to make Tom feel safe, but definitely an improvement.

"I should've listened and taken the rest of Colton's ammunition." Mark sighed. "But I didn't want to acknowledge what he was saying. I thought I was helping him by ignoring him."

"Where does he live?"

"Over on Chestnut Street. Number twenty-three. It's a yellow house at the end of the cul-de-sac, a good eight miles away on the other side of town. He said his basement was filled with supplies."
 

"Dammit."

"If we were closer, we might have a chance at getting them. But I don't think we should risk going out there. I think we're better off hunkering down in here." Mark set the flashlight on the floor next to him.
 

Tom recalled how he'd seen the light earlier, and felt a surge of gratitude.

"I saw the light before we crashed," Tom said.

"I was trying to signal you," Mark explained. "I saw the creature coming up behind you and knew you'd need help. Thank God it worked out."

"I appreciate it," Tom said again. "If you hadn't shot that thing, I don't know where we'd be."

The group fell silent, listening to the keening wind and the creak of the old building. The air grew colder by the minute. Without the distraction of conversation, Tom felt the chill of the building working through his joints, numbing his fingers and toes. He was gloveless. His boots were filled with ice.
 

He stared out the frosted windows, taking in the parking lot and the road. Spirals of smoke still wafted from the SUV. The dead man-beast lay nearby. The body was covered in a thin layer of snow, partially buried by the elements. Tom wondered how long it would take until the man was fully covered.

The parking lot across the street was deep and wide and filled with snow. The buildings were lifeless. Tom stared at each of them as if for the first time. The storm had painted them with a thick white brush. All of them looked the same. Tom's eyes started to glaze. The longer he stared, he started seeing things: creatures in every doorway, faces in every grime-covered window. He blinked to rid himself of the images.