Lycan Fallout: Rise Of The Werewolf (18 page)

My small fire and the roasting of two rabbits is what got Lana stirring.

besnede="+0">That smells delicious,” she said, rubbing her eyes.

“It’s just about done.” I told her. Oggie was foaming at the mouth waiting for his portion.

“How bad were they?” Lana asked, referring to our earlier guest. “I’ve read about them, but the people that were writing about them had never seen them. They were relating stories that had been handed down to them.”

“It was a nightmare from which we could not wake,” I told her as I stared into the flame. “They were everywhere, fast ones, slow ones, smart ones,
and fat ones and they all had one thing in mind. It was a relentless pursuit of the hunted. They were never sated, no matter how much they ate.”

She shuddered in the dying sunlight.

“At the height of their reign, they must have outnumbered us a thousand to one or more. Never did the math; the only ones that mattered to me were around me. The only reason we won was because we became so scarce.”

“That’s not a great tactic,” she said as she got closer to the fire.

“Not so much, and it wasn’t by design, that’s for sure. But the less readily available their food source, the more likely they were to go into a stasis or hibernation. It wasn’t uncommon to find great hordes of them numbering in the hundreds maybe thousands just asleep or whatever it was they were doing. We burned them, we burned them all. Well…except for that one.” I pointed with a stick to the approximate place I had disposed of our holdout, finally taking my gaze from the flame.             

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?”

“For all you’ve been through.”

I stood. “Eat before it burns.” I strode away, grabbed my saddle, and did my best to undo what I had done when I had taken the thing off.

Oggie was growling playfully as Lana stripped meat off the small animals. The smell was alluring, but my stomach had turned. After a few minutes Lana came over and adjusted some straps.

“Not bad,” she told me.

Another five and we were back on the road. Twilight faded to dusk, dusk faded to night a
nd still we rode on. The industrial section gave way to a neighborhood, although, without knowing what to look for, you’d never know it. There were few remnants left. A few shingles, an occasional piece of a toy that may have been unearthed by playful raccoons; occasionally there was a hint of a car or some broken glass. Another hundred years and a traveler would never know anyone had inhabited this place. Maybe that was for the best. I’d always thought mankind was an aberration upon the world, a genetic abnormality that should have died in prehistoric times. We weren’t equipped to deal like other animals were. No long teeth, no claws, no heavy fur for the elements. The best that we could muster was huddling in deep dark caves that other bigger animals had vacated.

Fire was the tilting point. One hairless monkey was just bright enough to figure its importance. One lightning strike had spelled a near disaster for the entire world, at least up until the point we got so smart we figured out how to get rid of ourselves
en mass of">
ene
. If nothing else, we were resilient. How many years would it take until we were, once again, in a position to make our extermination final? Again, it was time to question why I was bothering with what I was doing. Killing Lycan would not let me recover my soul, and I didn’t have enough love for man to care, at least what was on the outside of them, the delicious stuff flowing inside was another matter.

“Michael, I can’t see anything,” Lana said nervously. The moon was currently alternating between shining brightly and hiding completely. Thick, heavy clouds raced past, sometimes blotting out our illumination for many moments. The horses liked this less than Lana. “The horses could get hurt,” she added when I didn’t say anything in reply. For as little as I cared about man, I cared less for the
horses, and if they fell I would drink them dry then cook their flesh.

No horses, however, meant slower traveling. “Dammit.” I got down. I grabbed Lana’s lead and began to walk the horses, I couldn’t see perfectly, but I was the best suited.

Lana didn’t say another word that night, I think a higher echelon of self-preservation had kicked in somewhere within her. I’d almost be able to justify what I did to her if I couldn’t see her face when I twisted her neck to the side. I kept my head down, looking for any unsure footing and just marched.

It was a hundred and seventy years earlier in my head – summer break, freshman year. Paul, my best friend who had suffered an end that should befall no one, had come down to my house; he lived about a half hour away. His girlfriend had to work, and I think mine was off on vacation with her parents or busy screaming at babies and taking their candy (she was a mean one, never figured out why I hadn’t seen that, oh
yeah, now I know, it was difficult to see anything past her large mammaries – sue me, I’m a guy – I eventually got it right). However it happened, it was just my best friend and I. My dad had split for the weekend and my mother had actually moved out of the house for some reason or other, I think the word “infidelity” came up a few times, but I was too wrapped up in my own drama to pay them much heed. Either way, I had the house to myself; well…and Paul…and a lot of beer. I liked the company they both afforded. Again, I’m a guy, sue me. We were three beers in when he pulled out a small baggie.

“Wanna know what I’ve got in here?” he asked, shaking the bag my way.

“I don’t know…do I?” I asked him, enjoying my beer. “Well, it sure as shit isn’t weed.” I looked at the flat baggie.

“Cid.”

“What? You have acid?”

“Wanna take it?” he asked, no more concerned than if he asked if I wanted potato chips.

“Sure,” I answered, no more concerned than if he had offered me said potato chips.

It was about twenty minutes on the dot when we began to feel the effects, although I’d be lying if I knew exactly
. One isn’t necessarily concerned with the mere frivolity of time during a trip. All I knew was that the next time I went to refresh my beer, it was something akin to a quest of near mythical proportions respite with orcs, trolls and one furry beast of a dog named Dusty. Before we knew it, it was dark out and our minds were in shards.

“The hill?” I asked.

We both knew what that meant; I was asking him if he wanted to take the two-mile trek to our old childhood playground. Rumored to be an ancient Indian burial ground, Indian Hill as it was called among the local teenagers was more of a party hot spot. At least until the cops had found a way to get their cruisers onto the expansive parcel of land. The parties had died and moved on. But nostalgia has a powerful siren call to it. Odds were there’d be nothing more up there than the ghosts of parties past and maybe a pissed off Shaman or two.

The night was charcoal black, illuminated only by a sliver of moon no larger than a cat iris. There were a couple of spots that required crossing man-made impediments, but in the middish 80s – 1980s that is – Walpole was still a sleepy town, only on the cusp of becoming a burgeoning yuppie-ville. Once the enemy roadways were traversed came the woods. Trees swayed without movement, a secret language was spoken among them as their leaves rustled in the breeze. The snap of twigs and the crunch of leaves as we moved was amplified and echoed within the cavernous chambers of our minds.

More than once we had to call out to each other due to the darkness; one could almost imagine that they had been lost in the vacuum of internal space. We were walking like zombies, now that I think about it, hands outstretched; not in search of meaty treats, but rather to keep our faces from making contact with oak. I’m not sure how we navigated so successfully without taking an eye out or at least getting a bloody nose. My guess is that the trees moved out of the way. But, like I said, that’s just a guess on my part.

I can’t be sure how long it took us to get up The Hill
; it had become something of a Homer-esque epic by this time, interspersed with bouts of uncontrollable laughter, followed by beer toasting for our latest accomplishment. When we finally did come to the end of our quest – the Great Oak that dominated the open field – we sat and enjoyed each other’s company, talking about all manner of profound ideas. I would imagine we solved world hunger, found a way to incur World Peace, and may have turned the theory of relativity into a working model. Of course, if anyone had recorded it, I’m sure it was mostly a couple of guys cooked off their rockers talking about women, sports, and beer and intermingled with tears of laughter.

I tried to hold onto that bygone time as long as I could while I walked through the night. Oggie was snoring loudly in his basket and I hadn’t heard from Lana in quite some time. I kept expecting to hear a thud when she fell out of her saddle. I had been looking down at my feet and barely recognized that they were getting brighter. Well, I mean not just them
(they weren’t on fire) but rather, this region of the world was receiving sunlight again. Birds were chirping and a fine layer of dew was soaking through my boots as I walked.

“Have we been traveling the entire night?” Lana asked.

I looked back at her. “Were you sleeping?”

She nodded.

“How the hell did you stay in your saddle?”

She shrugged. “Can we stop for a moment?”

“I’d like to keep going. They can’t be that far ahead of us.”

“Okay
, let me restate. I need to stop and so do the hors an do thees.”

“Right,” I said, remembering that she was completely human.

Oggie jumped into my arms and headed off in search of grub. The stop turned into a half hour layover as Lana and I ate dried beef…or lamb I think she said. Oggie came back, dejected he hadn’t caught anything. I was all too happy to share my portion of the dried lamb, never did like the stuff, but he had no problem with chowing it down.

“Your friends’ tracks are fresh,” Lana said, scouting the ground out ahead of us. “What are your intentions?”

I had been absently sliding my finger along my sword. “I don’t know,” I told her honestly.

“We should be able to catch them by noon. Let the horses eat a little more and we can go.”

I nodded to her; I deferred when it came to the beasts.

“Do you find me attractive?” She leveled her gaze on me. “I want an honest opinion from a man that is not trying to woo me.”

“I find you to be extremely young.”

“That is not what I asked.”

“And yet, that was my answer,” I told her. “Are we about ready to go?” I stood, not at all comfortable in which direction the conversation was going.

She didn’t press it as we got the horses into a slow trot. The encompassing woods finally gave way to an opening that looked over an expansive greenway; we were roughly a hundred feet up on a bluff, a trail traversed down the side of the hill and across. In the middle of the field below us was our quarry. Tommy turned and waved the moment we broke into the opening. They were a mile from us and about a half mile from a settlement. My concern was they would get lost in that village. Unfounded perhaps, but I was sick of the chase. It was time for a payout. I spurred my horse on, well
, at least as much as someone can without spurs on.

Lana got her horse going. “You should be careful!” she yelled as we made our way down the incline.

“Probably.” Oggie had placed a paw on each of my shoulders and was watching intently as we chased down Azile and Tommy. His tongue was lolling back like we were riding in my old Jeep and he was sticking his head out the window. “Having a good time?” I asked him.

He rewarded me with a slobbering kiss up the right side of my face, which was now rapidly cooling as wind rushed by. I had many moments of fear as I pushed my horse faster when we hit level ground; I was being bounced around like I was riding a trampoline.

“Graceful!” Lana yelled as she pulled up alongside.

I smiled weakly at her.

“Get lower and lean forward!” she shouted while demonstrating.

I did as she showed; it was marginally better – from trampoline to the equivalent of four-wheeling without any shocks. How Oggie was staying so steadfast was beyond me. The distance was closing and it was going to be close as to whether I killed them outside or within city limits. I vaguely wondered if the laws would be any different based on locale.

“Just fucking stop!” I shouted at them when I was within distance. “I know you know II kou knowm behind you. The game is over!”