Chapter the 2nd: What goes around…

The pictures were strewn haphazardly across the ancient metal desk. Someone in the building probably remembered what the original color of the paint had been, but no one could think of who that might be. Moonlight struggled through the dirt and grime encrusting the narrow windows set high in the wall, a pale and wan glow in the dark room. Erin pushed back the errant strand of hair that insisted on escaping her severe bun and rubbed her tired eyes. Harsh white light from the gooseneck lamp on the far corner of the desk glared back at her from the glossy surfaces of the pictures. Black and white newspaper file photos mixed with fuzzy, color Polaroids and the occasional professional-grade picture. She slowly shuffled them around on the desktop like a gypsy fortune-teller, not really looking at them, almost feeling her way to some kind of pattern amidst the scattered images. Lost in thought, she didn’t notice the long-fingered hand extend from the shadows to land heavily across her shoulder.
She managed not to scream, but the photographs flew wildly over the top of the desk, some whipping out of the circle of light and disappearing in the darkness as she reached for a gun that wasn’t there.
“Erin, go home already.”
“For the love of God, Terry Paul! Don’t DO that!” She reached up irritably and slapped his hand away.
“Partner mine, you aren’t going to find anything in the next hour you haven’t found in the previous six” her partner said, bending over to pick up some of the scattered pictures. “Not that you’re likely to get much sleep after staring at this lot. “You have a helluva taste in bedtime stories” he said, fanning several of them and grimacing slightly at the mutilated bodies mixed with wildlife photography of wolf kills and close-ups of different breeds of wolves. “You have a phobia about technology or what? The digital archives are a hell of a lot easier to search and organize.”
“I’m just old-fashioned that way” she said scooping the pictures into a small pile and sorting them by size.
“I’ll say. I don’t think I’ve ever been down here. I don’t think anyone has been down here since maybe Tommy Edison.”
“Smartass” she replied without heat. “Sometimes the old ways are best.”
“Some time after the industrial revolution would be nice.”

“You ever see a wolf up close Terry?” she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “Most people think of them like big dogs that can run really fast. They don’t have anything for comparison.” She pulled out three pictures and laid them side by side on the pitted surface of the desk. One showed the carcass of some large, antlered animal. Bones gleamed whitely amidst the bloody remains and tatters of fur. In another two wolves flanked an elk while a third lunged at its hind leg, teeth bared and inches away from its target. The third was of three wolves curled up together, white snow falling thickly around them, startlingly yellow eyes sparkling in their grey faces. “But after you’ve locked eyes with one you’ll never, ever, think of them as a dog again. Not if you have any sense.”
“You’re the expert” Terry said quietly, gathering up the last of the lost photographs to add to Erin’s stack.
“A dog can be trained to attack but, unless it has gone feral, a dog still sees humans as dominant. When a wolf looks in your eyes, well, nobody told them that you’re supposed to be the top of the food chain.”
“Erin, seriously, you need to get some rest. Get away from this. Come back tomorrow and we’ll look together to see what we find.”
“No need, my dear Watson. I already found what I was looking for.”
“ What? Why didn’t you say so in the first place!”
“I was sure before I came down here,” she continued, ignoring his glare, “but you know what it’s like changing Friendly Phil’s mind.”
“That’s no way to talk about our beloved boss.”
A very unladylike snort threatened the stability of the stacks of pictures. “He’s very enamored of his theory of wolves trained by someone to destroy the evidence of their crimes. It’s mysterious, lurid and virtually guarantees plenty of TV interviews and newspaper coverage. It also completely ignores reality.”
“It is an election year.”
“So cynical, so young. You’re not supposed to steal my lines like that.”
“I do what I can. For crying out loud, Erin, get to the damn point!”
Erin picked up the several of the photos from the top of the stack and riffled quickly through them, tossing one down to land next to the three shining in the lamp’s light.
“There” she said, pointing to the picture of a nude female, the torso gashed open and grey intestines spilled out. Like a macabre Venus di Milo, the arms had been ripped off at the shoulders, the legs folded and bloody but still attached. The face was fixed in a terror-filled rictus; eyes wide open, mouth stretched in a pain-filled, unending, scream.
“The first victim. Denise Trent” he said, voice carefully without inflection. “So?”
“And in each of these” she said, two more pictures falling on the desk.
“Deirdre McCall and Fiona Sharell. I say again, so?”
“The legs, city boy. Wolves hamstring their prey. They attack from behind and bring down fleeing prey by cutting their legs out from under them. They go for the soft underbelly. None of these girls was pulled apart by wolves. Not trained, untrained, or possessed by evil spirits!” She pulled her bag out from between the bent metal legs of her chair and pulled out a manila folder, splaying it open and stabbing her fingernail at the autopsy report.
“Look at the measurements and the probable sequence. No animal has jaws like that. No wolf would leave the throat untouched.”
“Thanks for sharing those reports, partner. Jeezus Erin, how the hell am I supposed to back you up?”
“None of the girls was raped” she continued in a monotone, ignoring his outraged protest, “and there’s no indication that they had anything worth stealing. A diamond ring, a pearl necklace, two gold watches and assorted jewelry were all left at the scene of the attacks.”
“So whatinhell is the motive? Why rip those girls apart?”
“Whoever did this, and I think there are more than one of them, did it for the oldest reason in the world.”
“But the girls weren’t sexually molested, they weren’t rich and there’s no evidence of a jilted lover.”
“No, this wasn’t done for sex or money or revenge”.
“A serial killer, then. A sociopath or psychotic.”
“Serial killers almost always work alone. They always have a logical, to them anyway, rationale for their actions. They’re anything but random. Sociopaths don’t work in groups. They would see each other as victims just as easily as they do everyone else.” She drew in a deep breath of the musty air and let it out slowly. “No, it isn’t any of that.” Her voice trailed off and stopped. Terry waited, but she didn’t continue. Finally, he started to repeat the question just as she sighed and stood up.
“They just want to.” She seemed to sag slightly but then straightened up with urgency in her voice. “They got away with it and now they think they’ve got the perfect scheme. They like making everyone look like fools.” She pushed the pictures over to one side and put the autopsy reports back inside her bag. “Just because they want to” she repeated, reaching for the lamp.
“Let’s get out of here. I’m tired.”

She ran, heart pounding in her chest, each panting lungful of air a tearing rasp down her raw throat, even in the humid summer air. She ran through the trees behind the parking lot, the full moon giving her just enough light to miss some of the larger branches that threatened her as she rushed between the darker masses of tree trunks. Her dress was torn in a hundred places from the smaller branches that whipped her as she fled and her bare feet left spots of blood behind her. Her high-heeled shoes had been lost in the first frantic moments of flight across the inky blacktop of the common parking lot between the nearly deserted dormitories as they quickly flanked her, cutting her off from the safety of the dorms, forcing her into the woods.

She cried out, a small, frightened yelp, as she heard her pursuers close behind her. She made a desperate turn away from the sound of something crashing through the underbrush on her right. For just a second her long auburn hair whipped across her face, the sweat-soaked strands clinging to her dry lips as they blinded her for a bare moment. She misjudged the distance to a huge tree as she turned and twisted her ankle on the thick roots that stretched outward from it.

She hit the ground in an awkward sprawl, barely getting her arms beneath her in time to save her face from slamming into the moist earth. Desperately gulping down air she managed to get to one knee before they were upon her. She couldn’t even find breath to scream as their claws ripped bloody gashes across her upper arm and shoulder and she fell heavily. She writhed in pain, but was able to twist to the side far enough that the next set of claws gouged into dirt rather than soft flesh. She used her good arm to scrabble to her feet once more only to be driven forward by a heavy body slamming into her from behind. She hit the tree with stunning force, the rough bark tearing the skin on her face and chest. The impact forced the air from her laboring lungs and she slid bonelessly down the tree trunk. She rolled over just as the rest of the pack reached her, rushing through the pools of moonlight that filtered through the branches above. She managed a whimper as their hungry eyes met hers, the blood dripping down her cheeks and arms, and then they were upon her.

Chapter the 1st: On The Prowl

“Please don’t screw up the crime scene any more than you already have while you’re ogling my butt” the redhead said without looking as she straightened up, already peeling off the skin-tight, thin plastic gloves she wore. The two campus security officers jerked guiltily behind her. “For the love of God, what were you two doing when they were teaching site integrity? Never mind, I can imagine” she finished angrily. “I realize we’re in the middle of fucking nowhere, but you could at least watch CSI or something and catch a clue! Look at this mess” she said, pointing an accusing finger at the muddy loam churned up around the bloody body of the dead woman. “There are at least four different shoe sizes that tromped anything useful into mush between the time of death and the time you finally called it in. There’s damn little I can do with this now.” She stalked away, raising the plastic yellow tape to lean underneath it.

“Look here, you” started the heavier of the two, a slow red flush rising up from the top of his uniform blouse, taking a step toward her from where she had exiled them when she arrived. He stopped suddenly as she stepped swiftly up to him, angry fire sparking in her hazel eyes.

“Look here what, you Don Knotts knockoff? I find splatter porn pics of this on the Internet and a whole platoon of the backwoods redneck asshole buddies you let in here won’t be enough to dig you out of the hole I bury you in! Understand?” She stiff-armed the only slightly taller spluttering man out of her way and strode back to her car.

“Little harsh on the locals, don’t you think?” said the black-haired detective leaning against the side of the campus cruiser she had pulled in beside. “Not like they’re used to this kind of thing, Erin.” He struck a match and held it in a cupped hand against the end of the cigarette between his lips.

“Hell no! I’ll show you harsh one day. That was just a friendly warning. Those two will have half the campus terrified of werewolves or some other damfool bullshit story before we can even get back to the lab.”

“So you don’t think they’re going to go along with the feral dog story then?”

“Oh Christ no. We’re in the middle of hunting country. They may not know DNA from dynamite, but they know damn well those gashes and bite marks didn’t come from anything the size of a dog. And even ferals, unless they’re rabid, don’t routinely attack humans. No, they’ll start with wolves and then it’ll be werewolves. This whole generation was weaned on Jason and Freddy and unkillable monsters.”

She jerked the car door open, but stood there looking back at the two campus “cops” arguing with each other. The lanky detective pushed himself off the campus cruiser and closed the trunk on the non-nondescript black sedan. He walked around to the open door on the passenger side and slid into the seat. She dropped in beside him and slammed the door shut, twisting the key in the ignition and bringing the engine to life with a roar.

“No, Terry,” she said almost to herself, still watching through the windshield, “they wouldn’t have called us in at all except for the special bulletin that went over the wire to immediately report anything similar to the other two attacks.”

A curl of smoke threaded its way from the corner of her partner’s mouth as he leaned back and closed his eyes. “Yeah, you’re right. Three attacks, each of them during a full moon, each victim chased down and partially dismembered.”

“Ripped apart you mean. Every one of them young and female and a student in the local university. No boyfriends or jilted lovers or something convenient. Oh yeah, they’ll file an official report that says what we told ‘em to say, but the wifi generation will have the werewolf story spread across the whole campus before the news twits splash it across hell and half of Georgia.”

“There’s a difference?” her asked laconically.

“Damn yankee.” She dropped the gear into reverse, the tires squealing on the asphalt of the parking lot as the car shot backward. “Werewolves my pretty pink ass” she said tiredly as she turned the car and sped out onto the access road.

“Nothing there for me” grinned her partner without opening his eyes.

“And don’t you forget it either” came the expected rejoinder, but more quietly than usual.

“Too bony for my tastes anyway” he said, cracking open one eye to glance at her. For a second it was if she hadn’t heard him at all, then she whipped her head around to glare at him. “Don’t let this get too close, Erin” he said before she could say anything.

Her lips tightened into a straight line but she made no reply as she whipped the car through the tight curve of the entrance ramp onto the state highway.

“Yes my friend, we will go soon enough,” she said to her familiar companion, but still she sat quietly as dusk crept across the land and the first tentative stars pierced the vault of the sky. Sighing, she finally urged her mount onto the slight path leading down the mountain. She shouldn’t have taken the time to come up here, she knew, but she had desperately needed a break from the constant grind of the research laboratory. She loved the work, had only dared imagine she would be given an opportunity like this when she graduated from P&ITT, but the safety precautions and unceasing vigilance required while she was working was exhausting. More than one lab assistant had been relieved when the lab cameras or the silent observers standing patient guard detected any hint of irregularity or lack of concentration. She tugged the wide-brimmed hat she wore lower in front as her mount picked up speed headed down the mountain. Grinning, Sarah gave the horse his head and a trot turned into a gallop as they raced the darkness back to the corral.
 
 
 
“Hola Sweet Sarah Mary!” called out the night lab tech as Sarah stepped through the last set of airlocks, slipping her badge into its special holder sewn into an inside pocket of her lab coat. He glanced up from the bank of video monitors and computer displays, but only for a second. “I wasn’t expecting to see you back until tomorrow” he continued as Sarah waved to him.

“Como estas Ernie? I was writing up some reports when I had an idea” she said as she walked around the operations console.

“Did you hurt yourself?” came the laughing reply.

“Be gentle Ernie, you wouldn’t like me when I’m mean” she said, frowning in mock threat. She smiled at the guards as she always did and was rewarded with a reserved nod. She had been working at this carefully hidden installation for almost a year before any of the guards would so much as nod. She also knew they were more than just guards. She had enough experience with the military to recognize soldiers and mercenaries when she saw them. There was something about men and women who had passed through the crucible of the battlefield that set them apart. Moving slowly, she removed two packs of cigarettes from a coat pocket and placed them on a table closest to the guards. Smoking was, of course, forbidden within the lab and even if it was not the guards were too professional to compromise their hands by smoking. However, she played poker with some of the guards at the barracks occasionally and packs of cigarettes were the preferred currency. She had grown up around military personnel; her mother had been a career soldier and commanding officer at a number of bases before her retirement. Sarah appreciated their commitment and professionalism as well as their company and stories. Turning back toward the operations console, she stood quietly behind Ernie as his long-fingered hands flickered back and forth over the touch-sensitive screens that controlled the technological marvel. As was her habit, she slowly surveyed the multiple displays showing environmental conditions, the status of the portal integrity fields, the last 4 hours of grid distortions and many other indicators and recorders.

“And what has the mighty intellect to share with us lowly mortals?” Ernie joked with her without taking his eyes from the monitors.

“From my lofty perch I have had a vision, oh puny and slow-witted one” Sarah replied ostentatiously “and if you were capable of appreciating it then I would share it!”

“You wound me deeply” Ernie replied, looking distinctly unwounded. “Please, enlighten me, for your vast knowledge is a beacon in my darkness.”

“Nice one Ernesto!” Sarah said, slapping him lightly on the shoulder. “Since you begged so nicely, I’ll let you in on my brainstorm.”

“That and the fact that you need my help” he replied with a laugh.

“Well, yes, there is that” she said as she slipped into the chair next to his. There was an uncomfortable moment as the chair read her identity and preferences from the microscopic chip embedded in her upper right arm and shifted its configuration to match its new occupant. Even after all this time, Sarah still wasn’t quite used to a chair that moved around her as she sat down, but since any of the lab personnel might be stuck in one of those chairs for hours at a time, she certainly appreciated it. “Anyway, here’s the thought process” she began. “We’ve never been able to determine what precisely makes this gunk, that’s my official technical term by the way but don’t worry, I’ll slow down if you need me to, that makes this gunk change the way it does.”

“True enough. The ‘gunk’, as you so eloquently expressed it, just doesn’t follow any conventional theories on the structure of matter or energy. We’ve hit it with every kind of test we can think of, even those that fell out of your brain, without much success. The fluctuations we observe don’t follow any predictable, or hell, even repeatable pattern. Lord knows we’ve tried everything the smartest people in this hemisphere could come up with.”

“No need to rub it in Ernie me boy, but that’s exactly where I think we’ve gone wrong.” Ernie glanced swiftly at her face, raising an eyebrow in inquiry before returning to his monitors. “We have the finest scientific minds here and technology that the rest of the world won’t even dream of for another decade” Sarah continued, “but I think that’s precisely why we aren’t getting anywhere.”

“Okay, I realize that I’m not in your league, but where the hell does that leave us?”

“Bear with me Ernie. I do need your help. I want you to set up a containment field in lab 6 and open the smallest portal you can manage. With what we’ve gotten so far, you can squeeze a small amount in there, can’t you?”

Ernie pulled his hands off the console controls and slowly cracked his knuckles. “Yes I can, but you’re going to have to give me more than that before I will. What do you have in mind, sweet Sarah Mary?”

“I want to read it poetry.”

The expression on Ernie’s face rendered any comment superfluous.
 
 
 
She shuffled slowly down the long corridor, her bare feet scuffing gently over the worn carpet. She looked neither right nor left but only down, as if to make sure the ground would not dissolve beneath her. The once-white lab coat draped over her was tattered and torn, ripped along one side and spotted with dark blotches. She paid no heed to the screams that echoed down the corridor. They were like background noise to her now; something that she never noticed, but that she was always aware of. Her face was hidden in the dark shadow cast by the wide-brimmed hat she wore pulled low in front. Dark hair streaked with red cascaded down to her shoulders, gleaming in the overhead lights. Soft murmurings escaped unnoticed from between her lips as she finally reached the thick doors of the first of three airlocks blocking the way into the laboratory beyond. The door beeped softly as she placed her hand over the recognition lock and the electronics hidden inside the thick door matched her palmprint to the data encoded in the chip embedded in her arm. Large bolts slid back almost silently and the airlock opened easily as she pushed forward. Twice more she went through the same process, adding a retinal and DNA scan at the final airlock.
As she stepped into the lab, thick, viscous black tentacles of something that moved of its own volition surrounded her. It caressed her face, touching her lips, her eyes and her sunken cheeks. Stray wisps of something more than smoke swirled about her tall body, urging her farther into the room. Pushing her gently when she strayed, the ebon tendrils slid around the skin-tight white bio-filtration suit she wore, always pulling her deeper and deeper into the room. Eventually she stood in the center of the room, surrounded by softly glowing display screens stacked almost floor to ceiling. Bare cables draped across equipment, broken monitor screens and shattered equipment containers were scattered across the floor. Tears streamed down her face as she reached trembling arms out and clutched at the floating ebony ball hovering there. A wide smile appeared on her lips as she pulled the sphere of blackness to her chest, her tears dripping downward and disappearing into the pulsing darkness. She stepped forward again and was enveloped in the black mass. Wild laughter burst from her raw throat. Her foot caught a book lying on the floor and sent it skidding over the polished surface to crash against a wall panel. Whirling toward the sound, her eyes blazed with maniacal intensity at the dim figure the book had bounced off. As the dark tendrils shifted, shadowy figures resolved themselves into heavily armed and armored men moving through the dark miasma toward her.
“Yesss” she whispered as they surrounded her, “we’ve waited so long. Come my pets, come to me! Come to your sweet, sweet madness!”
One by one, the men kneeled around her slender figure, each one stretching his arms upward toward her. From one she took a pair of black gloves laced with blood-red circuitry patterns and pulled them on. From another, a tactical belt complete with spare clips of ammunition and festooned with buttoned containers that he belted about her slim waist. A long scarf with alternating black and red bands went about her neck from the hands of a third and trailed down her back almost to the ground.
“Oooo, did you bring those just for me?” she cooed as she saw the black leather, thigh-high boots draped across the arms of one of the men. She grabbed the boots up, the circuitry embedded in them leaping to gleaming red life as she touched them. “Down!” she commanded imperiously and the soldier dropped to all fours. She sat down heavily on his spine and stretched out her long legs, lasciviously drawing the boots on. Jumping up she grabbed an assault rifle from another man; absent-absentmindedly wiping off the blood caked on the foregrip.
“Well, I think we’re done here” she said. “You!” she said, kicking over one of the kneeling men. “Make sure you and the others get my equipment loaded. And be careful!” She grabbed his flak jacket and with surprising strength jerked him to his feet. “You I can replace” she hissed mere inches from his face “but that equipment is priceless.” Throwing him aside contemptuously, she turned and cocked her head as if listening. “Yes, yes, I know, I know! But we have to get to a safe place where I can work. You aren’t cheap you know” she grinned happily. “We’re going to need money, lots of money.”
Snapping a new clip into her assault rifle, she spun and strode quickly over to a computer console. Her fingers flickered rapidly over the controls and an insistent bell began ringing. “30 minutes and this place is vaporized” she cackled.
“Get up you idiots!” she screamed at the blank-faced men still kneeling in a circle. “The things I have to do for you” she said. “You two” she said, pointing, “Go get the transport ready. The rest of you get the portal.” She watched as her minions left to carry out their tasks, then she stooped slightly and picked up a small stack of books. “Mustn’t forget these,” she cackled to herself. “After all, where would I be without them?” she said as she turned on her heel and strode toward the airlock. Her laughter trailed behind her, echoing through the halls far longer than should have been possible.

Stopping at a stream he knelt and drank, long slow draws from the cold water, water that fed the earth, fed him. I am the night, I am the earth, I am the power he thought, all the power in the universe. He had forgotten just how good it felt to run, feeling his powerful muscles move him along. Feeling his lungs exercise and work for a change. He pushed his body hard, only to have it respond by wanting more. It felt good, so he ran.

***

The cold morning sun spilled lazily across his legs, entwined in the sheets of his bed. His body looked as if it had been wrenched from the night, twisted and mangled like so much of a rag doll tossed aside by a child outgrowing innocence. With the slow realization of morning creeping into his consciousness, Albert began to join the world of the living. As the sunlight that so gently played upon his face crept into his mind he sat up with a start; realizing he was late; he must have over slept.

He turned and looked about the room in a panic, wondering how he could have slept so late. He threw back the knotted sheets and swung his feet to the floor and it was then that true realization set in, a stark and rude awareness brought on by the sight of mud and dirt on his legs and feet. As he tore his eyes from his lower extremities, moving to his hands he saw more of the dark red clay filled mud.

Horror. He could feel the horror rise from the pit of his stomach, rising to the hard knot now forming in his throat. He could scarcely believe it had happened. He had let it out last night, had let loose the monster. How could it have happened? He had been so careful, what went wrong? He would have to figure out what mistakes he had made, after being so careful and proper. So long had he lived without making any mistakes. So long had the monster been caged; bound and gagged within his soul.

He could not dwell on this, not at this very moment, it was over. Morning was upon him and he was late for class. If he had any hope of keeping a semblance of his life, fortifying that normalized front that was oh so important to him, he had to get to the University. Showering at a breakneck pace, water pouring on him so hot it nearly burned the skin from his bones, as if he thought he could rid himself of his burden this way. His memories were ravaged by his brain trying to decipher the night before. He came up empty handed, with no clue as to what had transpired through the night. His only comfort was in the absence of blood on his person, sheets and clothing remnants. At least, he thought, maybe no one had died this time. Hastily Albert dressed, grabbed his bag and slammed the door behind him, rushing for his car.