Good Bones (24 page)

He couldn’t recall where he was or how he’d gotten there. He moved just a little, and the searing pain almost made him black out. And then he remembered.

“Chris?” he tried to say, but it came out an incoherent croak.

“Goddamn it! Stay still!” A big hand pinned his shoulder down. Dylan would have fought, but the scent finally registered, and he stilled at once.

With some difficulty—and more pain—he rolled his head slightly to the side. “Chris,” he said again, this time in a hoarse whisper.

Chris’s usually tan face was pale as paper, and Dylan could see the whites of his eyes all the way around his irises. “You gonna die?”

Dylan had to think about that. He was in worse pain than he’d ever experienced before, so much that it took him some time to localize the sources of his agony. The right side of his face hurt and so did his left leg, but his belly was the worst. It felt as if something had taken a large bite from his midsection—which, of course, something had. But his consciousness felt fully tacked on, and he figured if he wasn’t fading away he was probably not mortally wounded. “No,” he answered, with slightly more confidence than he felt.

Chris licked his lips nervously. “I… I ain’t called for an ambulance. I didn’t think…. You want me to?”

Dylan pictured trying to explain his injuries to doctors and what would happen to him if medical professionals discovered he wasn’t exactly… normal. “No. Please don’t.”

“Dyl—Dylan. You’re hurt really bad. I don’t…. Fuck. I don’t know what to do.” There was a raw edge to his voice, and Dylan didn’t know whether he was hearing near panic or the onset of shock. Either would be justified under the circumstances.

He thought about the small scratches and scrapes he’d received during each monthly foray into the woods and the way they had faded to nothing by the following evening. He’d received a lot more than scratches from Andy tonight, but maybe these wounds would heal on their own as well. It was strange how little he knew about his own capabilities and limitations. Was the old myth about silver bullets true, and if so, did that mean he couldn’t be killed by more usual methods? But no—he’d killed Andy with his teeth, hadn’t he?

“Dylan?” Chris’s concern seemed to have grown as Dylan remained lost in thought. “Are you—”

“Andy. Where’s Andy?” Now Dylan felt close to panic as well. What if Andy was only wounded and was lurking somewhere nearby, waiting to attack Chris?

Chris shook his head. “In the other room.”

“Dead?”

“Just about fuckin’ decapitated.”

Dylan let out a long sigh of relief, which hurt. He was in Chris’s bed, he realized, probably ruining the bedding with his blood. “You have bandages?” he asked.

“I got… I got fuckin’ Band-Aids. Not… not what you need.” Chris chewed on his lower lip and eyed Dylan’s torso. “I gotta take you to the hospital, dude.”

“No!” Dylan said it so forcefully that he grunted in pain. More quietly, but with a shaky voice, he added, “Please. Please don’t. I’ll be okay. Just… just gotta rest.”

Chris reached for him but then drew his hand back without quite touching. “I can’t… can’t….” The expression on his face was almost as painful as Dylan’s wounds.

And then a terrible thought made its way through Dylan’s thick head. “Did you get bitten?”

Chris shook his head mutely, and Dylan sighed again. Chris just stared at him. “I’m sorry,” Dylan said, so quietly he wasn’t sure whether Chris could hear. He wanted to say more, although he wasn’t sure quite what, but suddenly his tongue felt thick, and his eyes were impossibly heavy. He didn’t want to leave Chris with this mess to clean up. “Call Rick,” he rasped before the gray overtook him.

W
HEN
he woke again there were new voices. At first he couldn’t draw any meaning from them—they were like the talking adults in the old Peanuts cartoons. But like a radio station coming into range, the voices gradually became more distinct, and he recognized them: Rick’s was a deep rumble, while Kay’s was higher-pitched and tight with tension.

The pain had receded a little, but there was a strange rigidity around his body that he realized must be bandages. He felt so weak that even blinking took enormous effort. It took several seconds before he collected enough energy to say, “Hey?”

Immediately, all conversation stopped and frowning faces appeared over him. “Don’t move!” Kay commanded firmly.

“Okay.” There wasn’t much risk of that anyway. “Is Chris… is he all right?”

Kay and Rick exchanged a glance that he couldn’t read, and then Rick nodded. “He isn’t hurt, if that’s what you mean.”

“Where…?”

“He’s… out.” Rick squeezed his eyes closed and then opened them, and for just a moment he looked so much like their father that Dylan almost cried out. “He’s, um, burying… the body. We figured getting the police involved was probably a bad idea, and Chris says he can, uh, hide it somewhere on your property. Is anyone going to be looking for that guy?”

Dylan considered the question. He didn’t really know anything about Andy—whether he had any family or friends, if he had a job of some kind. He didn’t even know how he had become a werewolf or what had become of Andy’s alpha. But deep in his injured gut, Dylan was pretty sure Andy had been alone in the world. “No,” he answered. “He probably has a motorcycle somewhere nearby, though.”

Rick nodded. “Okay. We’ll look for it.”

Kay pushed a curl out of Dylan’s face. “Sweetie, what can we do to help?”

“You already did,” Dylan said, waving his hand a little, trying to indicate his somewhat mummified state. “Thanks.”

“You’re healing really fast,” said Rick. “We could practically watch you get better while we were patching you up. I guess that’s a werewolf thing.”

“I guess,” Dylan agreed. And he supposed he should have asked a lot of questions, but suddenly, all he could remember was the expression of horror on Chris’s face right after Dylan killed Andy. Maybe surviving the fight wasn’t the best outcome after all. “Can I have some water?” he asked quietly.

Kay nodded, left the room, and returned a moment later with a glass. Rick helped Dylan prop up his head so he could swallow a few sips. It was tepid and slightly metallic, and it tasted wonderful. But even that much effort was enough to wear him out, and his head fell back onto Chris’s pillow.

“Rest,” Kay said kindly. “Everything’s fine for now.”

“But… Chris….”

Another look was exchanged over his head, and Rick grimaced unhappily. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to move you yet. Chris said you can stay here.”
For now
, was the unstated addendum.

Kay brushed more hair from Dylan’s face, and Rick squeezed his shoulder. Dylan closed his eyes and waited for the welcome abyss of sleep.

N
OISES
woke him again: shuffled footsteps, the monstrous-sounding flush of Chris’s toilet, water running for a few seconds.

Dylan discovered that he could move a little, although he was very stiff and sore. He managed to prop himself slightly upright on the pillow so he had a better view when Chris entered the room. Chris’s steps faltered slightly when he saw that Dylan was up. “You ain’t dead,” he said gruffly and tossed some clothing into the corner of the room.

“I don’t think so.” Dylan saw that a half glass of water had been left at the bedside. He moved his arm cautiously and grasped the glass, but when his hand shook and he seemed in danger of dropping it, Chris darted over and grabbed his wrist to steady him. He helped guide the cup to Dylan’s mouth so he could drink. “Thank you,” Dylan said softly when the water was gone.

Chris set the empty glass back on the table. “You wanna eat?”

Usually Dylan was ravenous after he had changed, but right now he wasn’t sure he could keep anything down. “Not now.”

Chris hovered uncertainly, his face set in a scowl. When he turned in the direction of the door, Dylan was suddenly terrified to be left alone. He reached up and grabbed Chris’s arm. Chris looked down at his hand and then gently pulled away.

“Rick and Kay?” Dylan asked miserably.

“Sent ’em home. Don’t need ’em now.”

“Will you….” Dylan cleared his throat. “What happened?”

Chris looked away, narrowing his eyes at a frayed Allman Brothers poster on the wall. His hands hung at his sides, clenching and unclenching rhythmically. “Stayed up late and fell asleep on the couch, then I woke up a while later. Couch hurts my fuckin’ back. I was just about to go to bed when I heard this noise out back. Shit gettin’ knocked over. I thought it was a stray cat or somethin’, and I opened the back door to scare it away. But I saw a big fuckin’ dog, and it came after me. I got inside and slammed the door, and that bastard just crashed on through.”

“The door wasn’t reinforced,” Dylan muttered, earning himself a frown.

“It’s just a goddamn door. Never needed no reinforcing before. The dog got me in a corner, just pinned me there, and that’s when I saw it wasn’t no dog. I thought maybe some asshole had one of them wolf-hybrid pets. You know, the ones they claim are half malamute or somethin’ so they can keep ’em. And that goddamn wolf kept me trapped there and howled.”

“I heard him.”

Chris’s shoulders slumped a little, and his gravelly voice grew very quiet. “When you—when the other wolf came in, I thought I was gonna die. Thought maybe there was a whole fuckin’ pack out there. Stupid goddamn way to die, too—torn apart by wolves in my own living room.”

Dylan nodded. He’d once almost faced the same fate himself.

With a slight shudder, Chris went on. “And then you—well, I guess you know the rest. You turned on him. Fought him.”

“He was going to hurt you.”

Chris paused for a moment, his frown deepening. “I didn’t understand what the fuck was goin’ on, and then he… he
changed
. He fuckin’ morphed like somethin’ in a bad movie and then… then he was just a dead guy, and you….” He shook his head. “I looked in that wolf’s eyes, and I saw you lookin’ back. You kinda collapsed. I was still tryin’ to figure out what the fuck to do when you changed too. I thought you were dead at first!” he added accusingly.

“I’m sorry,” said Dylan, because what else was there to say?

Chris walked across the small bedroom and stood facing his dresser, his back to Dylan. “I wasn’t sure what to do.”

“It’s not like most people have contingency plans for that scenario, Chris. You did fine.”

Chris was silent for a very long time. At first, Dylan wished he could see his face, but then he reconsidered. He didn’t want to see what was there. Disgust? Hatred? Fear? Rage? “I’m sorry,” he whispered again, helplessly.

Suddenly Chris whirled around. “What the
fuck,
Dylan? What the everlastin’ fuck?”

“I… it happened a couple years ago. Andy did it.”

“So you go all
Call of the Wild
when the moon is full, just like in a horror flick?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you control it?”

Dylan shook his head slightly. “No. Can’t stop it. Once a month I have to be a wolf. And… I’m a real wolf then, Chris. I hunt.”

“People?” Chris asked in a tight voice.

“The first time, when I didn’t know what was going to happen, Andy showed up again and we chased… we caught a man. Andy killed him. I ran. After that I tried locking myself up, but… but that wasn’t working too well.”

“That’s why you moved to the sticks.”

“I’ve been hunting animals in the forest. No people, but I have to hunt, Chris. I have to.”

Chris’s eyes were as flat and reflective as a frozen lake. “A fuckin’ werewolf.” His voice was flat too.

“Yeah,” Dylan sighed.

“I been livin’ next to a werewolf, and I been workin’ with him, cookin’ for him. Been fuckin’ him.”

“Yeah.”

There went the fists again. Open, closed. Open, closed. “You can stay here ’til you’re on your feet again. Then get out of my goddamn life.”

Dylan had known those words were coming—hell, he’d been expecting them for months. But even though he had braced himself for them, they still ripped into him, causing pain worse than anything Andy had done. It increased his distress to know these emotional wounds wouldn’t heal anywhere near as fast as the physical ones.

“Chris, I—” He stopped, unsure of what to say. Not
I’m sorry
again—those words felt so meaningless. Not
Please don’t make me go,
because begging wouldn’t help. Not
I love you
, because that was surely the last thing Chris wanted to hear. Dylan swallowed thickly. The taste of Andy’s blood was still on his tongue. “I’m glad you weren’t bitten,” he finally said.

Chris worked his jaw and shot him a look of pure fury before stomping out of the room.

Chapter 21

I
T
WOULD
have been easier if Chris didn’t touch him. But Chris did touch him. He held Dylan’s hand steady until Dylan could eat and drink on his own. He more or less dragged Dylan to the bathroom and, humiliatingly, helped him on and off the toilet. He unwrapped miles of bandages, and they both looked down in amazement at the long pink scars across Dylan’s torso—scars that had been open wounds only two days earlier. Chris’s touches were never harsh—they were patient and firm and purely clinical. They were torture.