Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set

CHAPTER THREE

Lycanthrope Chatter

“Holy crap, look at all of those things.” Lou pointed out the window at where eight or nine alligators were sunning themselves along the edge of the water. The wretched creatures were all along Tamiami Trail--Lou had stopped counting about an hour ago when he reached one hundred, much to George’s relief--but that was the most they’d seen at once. The fact that they were on the other side of a fence didn’t provide much comfort.

“That’s why I’d never live in Florida,” said George.

“The gators?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think anybody ever gets eaten by them. Maybe in extreme cases, if somebody’s dumb enough to go messing with them, but aside from that I think gator attacks are pretty rare.”

“Still, I wouldn’t want to live around them.”

“We’ve got rats in New York.”

“Rats don’t bite people’s legs off.”

“If you lived in Florida, I can almost guarantee you’d never get your leg bit off by an alligator, whereas in New York City, I can almost guarantee you will get your car crapped on by a pigeon. Which is worse?”

“I’d rather take the one-hundred-percent chance on pigeon crap than the one-percent chance on an alligator bite.”

“I think it’s way less than one-percent.”

“Any percent is unacceptable.”

“It’s probably not even one in a million. So what’s that...one percent would be one in a hundred, so you’d times it by, uh...ten thousand?” Lou frowned as if mentally checking his math. “One ten-thousandth of a percent chance of getting a leg bit off by an alligator. That’s pretty slim.”

“They also have hurricanes.”

“Again, low odds.”

“And it’s too damn hot.” George had grown up in Cleveland, and moved to New York City in his late twenties. As far as he was concerned, the entire bottom half of the United States could just fall off into the ocean.

“I completely agree about the heat. That’s what should keep you away from Florida--the climate, not the alligators and hurricanes.”

“Are you two entertaining yourselves?” asked Ivan.

George turned around and glared at him. “Yeah, it’s called a conversation. Do you have a problem with it?”

“No, no, by all means, continue your insipid conversation.”

“We’re driving across this miserable state on a road that has nothing to look at but alligators. Why shouldn’t we talk about alligators? If we drive past an anti-abortion billboard, we’ll be sure to have a spirited philosophical debate for your entertainment, but for now it’s alligators and pigeon crap. Are you going to be okay with that?”

“Sure. Go right ahead.”

George grinned. “You didn’t think I’d know what ‘insipid’ meant, did you?”

“Nope. Surprised the hell out of me.”

“Well I do. Fuck you, werewolf.”

Ivan settled back against the bars of his cage. “You know, if I was a werewolf, this cage wouldn’t hold me. I’d be picking my teeth with your ribs in about thirty seconds.”

“Is that so?”

“Yep.”

“Then I’d deserve it, because I would’ve let my guard down and failed to take the necessary precautions. If you do that, you deserve to have your ribs used as toothpicks. But Lou and I, we don’t let our guard down like that. Would you like an example?”

“By all means.”

“Right now, I want nothing more than to smack that smirk right the hell off your face. Not torture you, not beat you bloody--just smack you really, really hard. If we pulled off to the side of the road, I am ninety-nine point nine-nine percent sure that I could get in this smack with no danger to myself, and then we could proceed on our merry little way. But even though it would give me intense pleasure to do this, I’m not going to. Instead, we’re going to continue to drive your werewolf ass to Tampa, just like we’re supposed to.”

“Then I salute you,” said Ivan, saluting him. “A lesser man would have succumbed, but not the mighty George.”

“You’ve become kind of sarcastic all of a sudden.”

“Hey, if I can’t appeal to your common sense or your sense of decency, I might as well be a dick for the rest of the ride. How are we doing on gas?”

“No need to worry yourself about the gas situation. We’ve got everything under control.”

“I’d hate to be stranded out here. I know how concerned you are about the alligators.”

George glanced at the GPS. “We’re going to get gas in a few minutes at someplace called Hachiholata. Nice Indian name.”

“Native American,” said Lou. “Indians are from India.”

“I thought ‘native’ was offensive?”

“No, ‘native’ is offensive to people in the jungle with spears, like if you say ‘the natives are restless.’ Native American is fine. Did you know that the word ‘midget’ is offensive?”

“To Native Americans?”

“Very funny. To a little person, the word ‘midget’ is as offensive as the n-word to a black person. Can you believe that? You hear midget, midget, midget all the time, and it’s like saying n-word, n-word, n-word. If a politician said the n-word, his career would be over, but he could probably say ‘midget’--hell, he could probably tell a midget joke--and he’d be fine.”

“Can other midgets say midget?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t say it. It’s not their fault they were born like that.”

“So anyway,” George said to Ivan, “we’re stopping for gas in a few minutes. Does that make you feel better?”

“It does indeed. Can we get a burger while we’re there?”

“No.”

“Come on, I’m starving.”

“No.”

“You can just toss it through the bars.”

“No.”

“What am I going to do, throw a deadly bun at you?”

“You can’t have a burger. Drop it.”

“It’s pretty sad that a couple of big strong guys like you are scared of a man in a cage.”

“We’re not scared of you.”

“Yeah, you are. You’re scared that if you toss me a hamburger and fries I’ll somehow use them to my advantage. That, my friend, is fear. You have to be pretty damn afraid of somebody for them to intimidate you with a sack of fast food.”

“What about those overcooked fries? Those tiny sharp hard ones at the bottom of the bag? You palm one of those, we let our guard down--smack! French fry in the eyeball.”

Ivan stared at him for a long moment. “You know, I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not.”

“I’m kidding, but you still don’t get any food.”

“See? Fear. Knee-shaking, bone-chilling fear. It’s okay, we all have our phobias--it’s not your fault that yours is a helpless man in a cage. I’m going to take it as a compliment.”

“Is this supposed to be the part where my masculinity is so threatened that I give you a burger just to prove I’m not scared?”

“I wasn’t thinking about your masculinity, necessarily, but that was the general idea, yeah.”

“I’ll make you a deal, werewolf. If you can go ten full minutes without talking, we’ll buy you a value meal.”

“Seriously?”

“Well, I was serious, but you just talked.”

“Prick.”

“Now I’m going to buy the biggest, juiciest burger they’ve got, with mayo and ketchup and onions and bacon and maybe even bleu cheese, and I’m going to eat it right in front of you. Do you prefer fries or onion rings?”

“Onion rings.”

“I’m going to get those, too. Big greasy ones, with just the right amount of breading. Some places use way too much breading, so it’s like you’re eating fried dough, but I’ll make sure that these onion rings are perfect.” George felt kind of guilty after he said that. He normally didn’t behave like this, but something about Ivan just annoyed the living hell out of him.

Ivan smiled. “You both realize that you’re going to die today, right?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. We’re all having a grand old time right now, busting each other’s chops, kidding around like best buddies, but what you two don’t realize is that you’re in hell. You’re burning in hell right now and you can’t even feel the flames. If you walked right up to the devil and tugged on his horns, your soul could not be more damned than it is right now.”

“I don’t think that’s how damnation works,” said George. “I think God has to do it or you have to make some kind of deal for vast wealth or something.” He nudged Lou. “Did you make any deals with the devil recently that I should be made aware of?”

“If I had, we sure wouldn’t be spending our day driving this loudmouth across Florida.”

George looked back at Ivan. “Sorry. Your intimidation tactic didn’t work.”

“A pity.”

“Intimidation is a big part of how I make my living, so let me give you some pointers. First of all--and this is a big one, Ivan, so write it down--when you’re trying to intimidate your opponent, the most important thing to remember is to not be locked in a cage in his van. If you fail to follow that rule, your chances at a successful intimidation attempt drop to just about nil. Did you write it down?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t have a writing utensil.”

“Well, then just try to remember it. Your ‘hell’ speech works much better when you’re not in a cage, that’s all I’m saying.”

“You’re a confident man, George. I admire that. I enjoy licking up blood that comes from a confident man.”

“That’s gross.”

Ivan nodded. “Yes, it is. Also irrelevant, since what I’m really going to do is set off this explosive device that’s strapped to my left leg.”

George felt a sudden flash of panic. He couldn’t help it. Then he immediately relaxed--the little creep was just messing with him. “Oh, really?”

“Yes.”

“Bateman captured you and caged you up without realizing that you had a bomb on your leg?”

“You’ve had me in the car for two hours without realizing it.”

George looked at Ivan’s leg. There didn’t seem to be a bulge, but...

“I call bullshit.”

“Or maybe Bateman knows about it. Maybe we just haven’t reached the designated detonation point yet.”

“Or perhaps you’re conversing out of your ass.”

“Aren’t you going to order me to pull up my pant leg?”

“Nope.”

“Not going to pull a gun on me?”

“I might pull a gun on you if you don’t shut up, but I’m not going to do it to make you pull up your pant leg.”

The female voice of the GPS announced that they had one mile left until their exit.

“Make you a deal. Buy me a burger and I won’t blow us all to smithereens. That’s a fair deal, right? A combo #1 and your scorched head doesn’t land three towns away.”

George turned back around in his seat. He had to admit that Ivan’s endless chatter was preferable to the sobbing and begging and screaming that he and Lou sometimes had to endure, and probably better than the whining that Ivan had subjected them to at the beginning of the drive, yet it was still pretty grating. And they had another three hours to go. He wished they had a tranquilizer dart.

They pulled off at the next exit. They could’ve gone up to Interstate 75 and then quickly found an easy-on, easy-off place to get gas, but whenever possible George and Lou preferred to fill up at mom-and-pop gas stations. Less chance of security cameras. And they liked to support small businesses.

“Welcome to Hachiholata,” said Lou, as they stopped at a red light.

The town, if you could even call it a town, was quite a bit smaller than George had expected--just a two-lane road lined by a few non-chain businesses. He didn’t even see a McDonalds, and traffic was almost non-existent.

“Looks like a peaceful place,” Lou noted. “I could retire here.”

“What? You hate Florida!”

“I mean I could retire in a place like this that wasn’t in Florida.”

“Well, we’ve got a long way to go before retirement. And when I do, it’s sure as hell not going to be--wow, look at that dog.”

George pointed out his side window. A dog--a collie, one of those Lassie dogs--was about a block away, running toward the van, barking furiously. A yellow leash dragged on the ground behind it, though George didn’t see any sign of the owner.

“He looks mad,” Lou noted.

The light was still red. The dog continued racing toward them, moving at an alarming pace, with the van clearly its target. “Make sure you don’t run him over when you go,” George said. “Jeez, he’s really not slowing down...”

The dog slammed into the side of the van. George’s heart gave a jolt and he let out a cry of surprise.

“What the hell?” Lou asked, sounding even more startled than George felt. “How do you hit a dog when you’re not even moving?”

The dog slammed into the side of the van again, still barking. George quickly adjusted the side-view mirror, and saw the dog throw its entire body into the van, face-first, over and over, leaving behind smears of blood. The van rocked a little with each blow.

“Fucker’s rabid!” George shouted. “Get us out of here!”

The light had already turned green, so Lou gunned the engine and they sped through the intersection. George spun around and saw the dog, broken and pitiful, limping after them.

“Holy shit!” said Lou. “Have you ever seen a dog do that before?”

“Never.” As a rule, George didn’t have sympathy for anything that attacked him, but he felt terrible for the poor beast. “Should we go back and put it out of its misery?”

Lou looked incredulous. “You mean run it over all the way?”

“No, I mean shoot it or something.”

“Yeah, let’s whip out some guns and shoot a rabid dog when we’ve got Ivan in the back. That won’t attract any attention. Real smart, George.”

“You don’t have to be sarcastic.”

“I’m not sarcastic. I’m freaked out!”

George looked back at their prisoner. Ivan sat silently in his cage, his expression unreadable, almost serene. George considered telling him to shut up anyway, but didn’t.

“What do we do now?” Lou asked.

“Same thing we were going to do before. Get some gas and deliver the werewolf to Tampa. Let’s not lose our heads over a Cujo.”

“You’re right, you’re right.”

“I hope its owner is able to fix it up.”

Lou looked as if he wanted to make another sarcastic comment, then just shook his head. “There’s a gas station up there.”

They pulled into the gas station, Hachiholata Gas & Gulp, which had four pumps and a small convenience store. Their rule for the past nine years was that whoever drove, the other guy had to pump the gas, so George got out of the van. There were several dents in the side of the vehicle along with the blood. George wondered if Bateman would be pissed. He didn’t seem to care enough about his Porsche to keep it in pristine shape, so he probably wouldn’t get all upset over a few dents on a dumpy old van.

George swiped his untraceable credit card and began to pump the gas.

He picked up the gas station’s squeegee and dipped it into the cleaning fluid, which was gray and murky and probably hadn’t been changed in weeks. He wiped off the blood with the squeegee, rinsing twice before he was done, and finished off the task with a paper towel.

That was totally surreal. Maybe the dog knew they had a werewolf in captivity and was trying to pull off a rescue mission. A little shared-species courtesy.

Nah. Only a rabid dog would bash itself bloody like that. He hoped its owner found it in time to get it to the vet, although he didn’t think the dog had much of a chance even if it wasn’t diseased. At times like these, George wished he weren’t a criminal, so he could safely put a dog out of its misery without having to explain why he had an unregistered firearm.

Another car pulled into the gas station, a small blue one that George and Lou probably couldn’t have fit inside without ripping out the front seat. The driver, a hot young brunette in shorts and a tight t-shirt, got out of the car, gave George a friendly, not quite flirtatious smile, and began to pump her own gas.

George opened up the passenger-side door. “Do you want a Snickers?” he asked Lou.

“Nah.”

“I’ll take one,” said Ivan.

George ignored him and closed the door. Maybe it was more of a Three Musketeers moment. He needed something light and fluffy.

There was a sudden growling to his left. George looked over at the source and saw a dog, this one a scary-ass-looking Doberman, come around the side of the van.

More growling behind him. George turned around, and the second dog charged at him. A fucking rat terrier?

The Doberman launched into a ferocious barking fit, spittle flying from its jaws, and charged as well.