Wolf Asylum (8 page)

Mary turned her back on the bedroom of her conception and moved to the door across the hall. This had been her room. She turned the knob and the door gave a little creak as it began to open. Nothing existed of Mary. Sally Cardwen had converted this room into a reading and prayer room. Darwin had never set foot in that room but Steve had told him about it. Offset from the corner of the room near the window was a large recliner chair covered in a homemade knit Afghan. The walls were lined with bookshelves that appeared to house mostly religious material. Even having seen the room over Mary's shoulder, it still made him cringe.

“I thought I would feel something, but I don't,” Mary said as she looked into the cathedral without emotion.

Darwin wiped a tear that had escaped his eye, “I thought I would feel something, and I was right.”

She put out her arms to give him a hug which Darwin welcomed. “You can cry. I won't think any less of you.”

Once embraced, Darwin released and began to bawl in the hallway. He sobbed openly for the first time in months and it was clear his pain was still fresh.

Darwin choked through his snot and tears. “Oh, God Mary, I miss him so much, I had no idea how much. I loved him, he'll never know. They took everything from me! I'm tainted because of what they did to Steve and me. Beaten at school, beaten at home, belittled and harassed-told to kill ourselves! Steve wore so much, Mary. He never had peace!”

“He does now,” she said softly.

“Do you believe in God?” he asked through a bursting bubble in his nostril.

“I'd like to think there's more to this life,” she said, stroking his hair.

“I don't. How could there be a God when there's so much suffering? Steve and I were labeled fags! We never even did anything! Ever! Everyone thought it was perfectly fine to attack us for something we weren't. It was okay to stand idly by while notes were passed to us saying we were worthless so we should kill ourselves. Your mom and dad abused Steve; your dad was so cruel. Steve use to hide out at my house for days. I saw the bruises, the lashings from the belt. He joked about it after awhile-Still trying to beat the queer outta me!”

“Was he gay?”

“I don't know. We never talked about it. We heard it all day…everyday at school. When we were alone we just wanted to forget about it. We drank a lot—drugs too.”

Mary assured him as best she could, “you stayed with him though. You could have saved yourself and stopped being his friend…but you didn't. You stood by Steve, even though you got sucked into the abuse. You are a hero—to me anyway. Steve wasn't alone.”

“That damn temple is what made Steve's home life unbearable. The lies from school would filter through to the other parents. Your dad would hear them and take them as truth. That first beating…I think Steve nearly died. Your dad tossed Steve like a doll. That's the big drywall patch in his room. Steve never really said much about it, but I always got the impression his dad wanted him to die.”

“You're right,” Mary whispered into his ear. “They were heartless to me when I got pregnant. They were always more concerned about how the Temple would view them. It doesn't surprise me one bit they demonized him. My poor Stevie.”

“I could have saved him. God knows I tried.” Darwin sobbed.

Mary rubbed his back gently trying to soothe him but the tears kept coming. “I'm so happy that someone loved my brother. Do you have any idea how happy it makes me to know that someone cared for him? I know our parents never would have. To know he had you, even if you two were only friends…you can't understand how much it means to me.”

Darwin pulled away from the hug to look Mary in the eyes. He smiled because for a brief moment, he saw Steve and only Steve. Darwin leaned in for a kiss not even thinking about where he was or who he was with. His lips met with Mary's without protest and within moments, his tongue was dancing around her sweet promise. Darwin began to grind his pulsating groin into her already moistening slash. Skillfully, he slid his hands down the small of her back to her supple ass.

“Are you sure you want this?” Mary questioned in a pant.

Darwin only growled in response, picking Mary up and hauling her down to Steve's room and tossing her onto the bed. Mary snickered and spun her hair around her finger like a school girl who had been naughty. Darwin tore his shirt off, sending buttons in every direction. The animal in Darwin was in charge and what it saw was not Mary.

The horned-up dog leapt onto his bitch tearing away the layers of clothing she was wearing. Darwin was no longer able to talk; he maintained his human form with the exception of extra hair on his chest but his hunger was growing. He needed to taste her; he wanted to be inside of her. His teeth grew and sharpened, allowing him the ability to shred her underwear like paper. Mary approved of Darwin's aggressiveness as she longed for more. Darwin grabbed her legs and thrust them over her head exposing her tight little pink anus. Darwin dove in, thrusting his tongue as deep into her hole as he could and tasted every bit of her.

Mary sighed in relief as Darwin's snake slithered in and out of her. The intimate act had caught her off-guard but it was welcomed. As he ate her posterior regions, Mary reached down and began to masturbate, intensifying her sensations. Darwin pushed his fingers deep into her hole forcing her to groan. He wanted her to ask for it, he wanted her to beg for it, but she remained verbally silent.

As worked up as he could stand and without asking or waiting for the green light, Darwin spit on his cock and pushed it inside of her. She yelped in a brief but satisfying moment of pain before getting into it. Soon Darwin's balls were slapping against Mary and the two began to huff into rolling thunder that was drawing them to the verge of climax. The bed rocked back and forth, slamming the damaged wall behind Mary. Small pieces of drywall crumbled to the bed but it did not impede their momentum.

“Cum in me, please!” Mary finally uttered.

Darwin continued to growl and moan but he adhered to her request and exploded inside her anal cavity while at the same moment Mary began to quiver in her own release.

Darwin rolled over to his side, releasing her legs to the bed. He relaxed and his breathing slowed, satisfied for the moment. Lying on Steve's bed, Darwin looked up at the ceiling and found contentment. The smells he was surrounded by and the primal sex gave him a brief but satisfying taste of what could have been.

“Wow that was a bit of a surprise!” Mary said as she rolled over and placed her arm across Darwin's now hairless chest.

“I guess I had some stored up energy I needed to get out…I hope you were able to keep up,” Darwin said with a horny grin running across his face.

“Most definitely. I hope you've got some more inside of you,” The coy woman replied.

“I think I can arrange that!”

Mary toyed, “Good…you must fuck my hot little pussy next. Go clean yourself up first! I'm a dirty girl, but I'm not filthy.”

Darwin growled as his cock again began to stiffen looking into Mary's eyes. He kissed her lightly on the lips before backing away.

“Mary, what is this?” Darwin asked suddenly.

“You're young, aren't you?” she replied playfully like a skillful veteran. “It's just a little fun, for now. What happens as we go, who can say? Is that so wrong?”

“Not at all.” Darwin smiled, for the moment, content inside.

“What happened here?” Mary asked, tracing the scar on Darwin's chest.

Darwin stumbled for a moment. His scar was small, but it was a constant reminder of parts of his life he wished he could forget. Finally he answered, “I'd rather not talk about it, if it's all the same to you.” Darwin moved in for another kiss to distract his feminine candy.

Soon the two were frolicking again and exploring each other's deepest pleasures. Mary also broke her word—she was indeed a filthy girl.

“They're all werewolves! For God sakes, why won't you listen to me!” Nancy pleaded to the men in white.

At this moment, her pleas were well past the point of being ignored. It was her insistence that was solidifying her fate. “Go there! Please, you will see!”

From behind the one way glass Doctor Giddon observed the new patient with curiosity. He would never know this woman, but in the time Riverview had left to remain open, Doctor Giddon hoped he could cure this new arrival. What interested him most in this odd woman were her origins. Nancy Betmin claimed to have escaped from New Haven, but her claims of what she escaped were far more interesting.

The local police had brought her in after she tried telling her story in an effort to break open the secrets in the quaint little town. Nancy was offered a rest in the hospital where it was quickly determined Riverview would be a more appropriate home. In the short time she had been in observation her story had not changed, but her mental state appeared to be on the decline.

“Miss, we're not going to hurt you but we must put this coat on you for your own protection,” The large orderly assured.

“
I'm not fucking crazy!
” The woman screamed, signaling the orderlies to forcibly place the straight jacket on her. She bawled and fought, but lost the battle rapidly.

“She's all yours, Doc!” The orderly shouted once Nancy was safely secured in the harness.

“Fine, I'll be right in,” Doctor Giddon replied through the intercom. “Sam, I know what you're thinking, but I don't believe in coincidences.”

Kimbel said, “Eddie, I'm not judging. If you want to interview her then go for it, but what do you hope to learn? We've seen hysterics before…this is no different. We'll probably find she's a schizophrenic and after some medications, she'll be fine. You're not giving her ramblings any serious considerations, are you?”

Edward shrugged. “I don't know what I believe. I see it in her eyes, she believes what she says. The fact she comes from the town where the new hospital will be, the same town as Marta Foster…I just must do this.”

Edward Giddon entered the padded room and found Nancy rolling in the corner continuing to cry and shout. The doctor plopped himself down on the floor with only a clip board and pen in hand. Nancy wasn't aware of his presence until he spoke.

“Nancy,” he said softly.

Her shouting ceased and her cries became only muffled sobs. She rolled to her side to see the Doctor sitting cross-legged, giving her a simple smile.

“What the fuck do you want?” Nancy barked.

“The same thing you want I imagine, to find the truth.”

“I tried the truth, look where it got me.”

Giddon nodded. “Nancy my name is Doctor Giddon; I want to hear your story. In your own words, can you tell me what happened?” he asked with emotion.

“Why the fuck should I? I told the police everything, they acted like they believed me and instead I was committed! If I tell my story, you might never let me go!”

“I promise to listen to what you have to say. You have to admit though, if you hadn't seen what you claim to have seen, you might be a bit reluctant to believe it too, right? So my job is to help you either explain what you saw to help your mind better cope with the world around you, or possibly find a medical intervention.”

“What if I'm not lying?”

“I don't think you're lying. I think you believe what you say.” The doctor stopped for a moment, choosing his words so as to not inflame that agitated patient. “It can be difficult for people like me. What you have seen should not exist, but maybe it does. If you ran into a room and said the President of the United States was outside, we probably would all run to have a look. He exists, so therefore there is less doubt in our minds. When you say you were held captive by werewolves, a mythical creature as far as I know, then I have to take a step back and see how we arrived here. If I or anyone could explain or interpret what you have seen, or even find a medical reason for you to make it all go away, wouldn't you accept that too?”

“What if I can prove to you my story is true,
then
what?” Nancy questioned, her eyes bulging as though she suffered from cerebral edema.

The doctor tried to assess her rational thinking. “Then I suppose
I
might need some medical intervention. Nancy, I'm not saying what you claim happened in fact didn't happen, but if we assigned a likelihood to your story—say on a scale from one to ten—what do you think the average person would assign to it?

Nancy huffed in her spot looking at the padded roof. “Zero…I'm not retarded. I know how it sounds but I can tell you where to look to prove my story is true!”

“The coal mine?”

“Yes!” Nancy shouted. “Go there and you will find the place they call-Special Handling. Thousands have died. People are kept there until they are needed for food, then
they
come.”

“Werewolves?”

“Yeah…only they come in human form when they want food. For awhile, we didn't know
why
we were being held. We never saw them as werewolves, then a few months ago—well actually I don't know when it was—you lose track of time underground, but we hadn't been there very long. There was a loud explosion and these people showed up, they called themselves Guardians. They told us to stay on the lower levels. It all happened fast but one of the prisoners ran up to level one, and then we heard animals fighting and yelping. Hours later we found out the truth, they were werewolves. The prisoner who went to level one was one of them. We all thought it was coming to an end after that.” Nancy sulked.

“If werewolves were keeping you captive why was one a prisoner?” he asked, hoping to open up a hole in the story.

“I don't know. I never knew her and no one got a chance to ask. Maybe she survived their attack. Don't people become werewolves if they get bitten or scratched? I just don't know how it happened, but it did. She left through the hatch though; she is one of them.”

“So, you never saw this woman or anyone else as a werewolf, you're only speculating then…so it's possible there's another explanation,” Doctor Giddon stated, hoping he had made one point on the road to wellness.

“Those Guardian people, the young ones all dressed in black military gear told us some of the story. I knew they were holding back. They said an explosion had sealed us in and something very dangerous was on A1. We could hear inhuman sounds from above and animal fighting. Later when the noise stopped, that was when I got my first look at things. The female prisoner and captors were naked when they came down to A2; that was the first time I saw Darwin.”

“Who's Darwin?”

“The young one, Darwin, promised to let us go. He seemed like he was the leader. We were trapped, but they said they knew of another way to escape. But they double-crossed us. They shut us in and left us to die—at least that's how it felt.”

The doctor asked logically, “once you knew where the exit was, did you try to open the hatch again?”

“Yeah! You think I'm making this shit up? The stone block was too heavy. I think people tried lifting that block until they died. We were all weak, I know that didn't help. When they closed the hatch it fell on some guy's arm and cut it right off. He fell down the ladder and died. Nobody paid any attention, it just started a panic. The monsters were strong, they were able to move the hatch, but we couldn't.” She closed her eyes at the memory.

Doctor Giddon remained silent watching as Nancy began to recount her time. Fresh tears began to roll down her cheeks through her sealed eyelids as the movie played out in her mind.

Nancy gave a jerk and sobbed. “We were alone in the dark…thousands of us gathering at the base of the ladder. The hatch was too heavy for us. We couldn't move it—it was panic. The screaming, the clawing. We turned into animals ourselves. I know people died there from our own selfishness. The lights in the mine began to fail not long after they sealed us in. I'm not sure how long the lights lasted but we could see we were going to be trapped in the dark. People like me, near the back of the group away from the hatch realized that being stuck at that end of the mine in the dark would mean death. It was too far from the food, so we turned back. We were the lucky ones. I can only imagine how many died of dehydration in the dark, unable to find their way back after the lights went out.”

“Then what happened?”

“The echo in the chambers started from the terrified down below. So many people didn't make it back to camp before the lights went out. It sounded like hell for days, like being at a baseball game and everyone is screaming all at once, except inside a hollow tube. The people in camp screamed and the ones down below begged for death. It was awful listening to people waiting to die only a few hundred yards from life. We couldn't help them. It was darker than the darkest night. No ambient light, no fire, not even a flashlight. We were blind. It was hard to walk around blind, but on the upper levels we knew the layout and could function. On level four it was a foreign land. It would be easy to get turned around down there.” Nancy convinced herself.

Doctor Giddon refocused his questioning. “After the screams stopped, when did they come back?”

“It took a long time for the screams to stop. One by one they puffed out. Then I woke up to silence one day. I thought I was dead but there was a person holding on to my arm and they were warm. But the screaming was gone. I was so happy to have nothing in my ear but the sound of my own breath. I was more than happy, I was ecstatic to be rid of the noise. I had prayed it would end; I would have given anything to make it stop. I guess my prayer was answered. The screamers died and I got my silence. I bet that cost me my soul Doc!” Nancy chuckled while drooling a bit.

Doctor Giddon remained silent taking a moment to wipe the slick from Nancy's mouth.

“I'd never smelt death before. It's such a unique smell. It overwhelms you. I thought I knew death from my time in the mine. It was a little while after the screaming ended that the smell arrived. Rotting corpses from the people below. I don't think I could even describe the smell. It crept and grew; warm and moist–even though it was cold in the mine. I guess it was like having meat rotting in the garbage, but even that isn't really close. You never forget it though. With death in the air and nothing but blackness to entertain you, you keep drifting back to the smell. Avoiding it, embracing it, dissecting it and for a time, loving it,” Nancy admitted beginning to drift back to the mine.

“Then they came back?” Doctor Giddon asked.

Nancy was still thinking about the death smell as though she was in a form of shock. She had heard the question but was unable to answer. “I wanted to be death,” she mumbled.

“Nancy! Stay with me,” he directed, raising his voice enough to startle her back to talking.

“The smell is death's phone call. It reminds us that we all have an appointment with him sooner or later.” She grinned at her interviewer.

“Did they come back down the ladder for you?” he again asked, forcing the topic.

“No,” she replied. “They managed to reopen the main entrance. We didn't even know they had made it in. The lights came back on, that's how we knew. The light blinded us, too! It was so hard to open our eyes after seeing nothing but darkness for so long. Once the lights were on, it was business as usual. The withdrawals commenced almost right away.”

“Withdrawals?” he asked to clarify.

Nancy nodded. “That's how it was before. They would come and blow a siren, and then a representative from our camp would surface on level one and be told what they wanted. Tara Bollen had been our rep, but she left with them through the hatch. When they came back and the signal was given for us to send someone to level one, a man volunteered. Men and women had been separated before-but now we lived together. When the lights were off the men would rape us. You couldn't see who it was. A woman ten feet away, I'm not sure if it was ten feet but it was close, sounded close-she was raped in front of me. I screamed and shouted, I threw rocks but the sound down there confused you. Such savages. When the lights came back…it became gang rape.”

Nancy drifted momentarily from topic before regaining her train of thought. “This man came back a short time later and told us that Tara was up top and wanted twenty adults and ten children. Nothing had changed,” she said, depressed.

“Tell me about this Darwin?”

Nancy sighed and went on. “Just before I got away, everyone's will to live had more or less been extinguished. People were no longer selected to be handed over to the wolves, people begged for it. I went hoping to die; I could only be gang raped so many times and that's when he selected me; when I escaped in the woods. He chose me to be the one to entertain him. He gave me ten minutes to run as fast as I could. He had friends with him; three other prisoners went with me. We were blindfolded and driven out into the woods and released. Everyone scattered, but I was the fastest. I could hear him and his goons changing and then killing the other people that had been with me. I made it to McCarran Park. I thought about places to hide but I knew they were animals so I knew their sense of smell would be good. I saw an outhouse and thought that would be a good place to hide; a strong odor to cover my own. I went to the lake and then the river to eliminate my trail and to wash me off. I took a chance and I got out of the water and ran back to the outhouse. I hid inside the shit all night, but it worked. I heard this guy Darwin talking with a woman. They changed and fucked by the picnic area, I could hear them.”