Breeds 2 (10 page)

“What should we do?”

“Is Morris with you now?”

Kirk cast a look in the warden’s direction. “Yes.”

“Where do you think they’ll take the body?”

“I’m not sure. Halifax, probably, but where I don’t know.”

The line buzzed with silence, stretching out for uncomfortable seconds, hooked to the farthest side of an unknown void. “Take Morris. Return to Halifax. Return to your address. We’ll send reinforcements.”

Reinforcements
? Kirk’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“They’ll meet you within a day. From there, you must locate the abomination before it awakens. Before the next full moon. You don’t have much time. Find it and kill it before it realizes its true potential. Before it changes. Before the human herds realize what it is, what it represents. Kill it before the next full moon. Do you understand?”

“Are you saying the stories are
true
?”

“All legends and myths are steeped in truth to some degree. Unfortunately for us, this is the absolute worst kind. This has happened before, as you’ve no doubt heard. The carnage wrought during that period is one of the founding reasons we strive for secrecy, and why we established and maintain the system of wardens. In any case, you will do as I’ve said.”

“Yeah… understood.”

“We’ll be in touch.”

Click
.

Kirk’s heart slapped against its cage and a coldness enveloped him, as if he’d been body slammed into a deep freezer. He regarded the small plastic receiver in horror.

“What’d he say?” Morris asked.

“It’s true,” Kirk whispered, remembering the stories of headless werewolves rising after death, possessing a rage unmatched, an unholy power, and a gluttonous craving for blood. The slaughter carried out by just
one
of those monsters wrought in ancient times was something told to frighten young pups. “It’s all true.”

Morris swallowed, clearly disturbed. “So what do we do?”

Kirk faced him. “We find it. And kill it. Before it changes.”

“And if we can’t?”

“The elder hung up before I could ask.”

In a darkened cubicle of a room, where the only light emanated dimly from within an elegant glass lamp, a hand lowered a cell phone––a flip phone––to a nearby table. Murky hazel eyes stared off into space, processing the information reported by the warden, and pondered the consequences.

Bailey had failed.

But in the assassin’s failure there was another opportunity to remove the pack of unwanted ends. An extremely dangerous opportunity, and certainly one which would take a toll on the human herds. Not that it overly concerned the elder. The people of the day were every bit the villagers of centuries past, and while the potential for destruction was great, he believed that his breed’s continued secrecy would be maintained. Any person suspecting otherwise would be characterized as insane, anyway, despite any proof of existence possibly gleaned from the war to follow.

The elder explored the possibilities open to him and arrived at one solution: to do exactly as he’d promised the Halifax warden. He’d provide the one called Douglas Kirk with the means to hunt down Bailey.

Halifax
, he thought and remembered a visit there in the early 1800s, well before the documented explosion there. He hoped the city would survive this with minimal damage.

The lamp burned brightly, the light shimmering behind spotless glass.

He picked up his flip phone once more, paused, and punched in a number.

“Reinforcements,” Morris muttered under his breath. He rubbed the dark velour sprouting from his scalp. It was as thin as a tattoo, but the
were
seemed to draw comfort that his locks were returning. Kirk never thought he’d be driving back to Halifax with a bald Sasquatch riding shotgun, but here he was, hairless Big Foot on his right.

“The fuck we need reinforcements for?” Morris asked. “We got, what, nine days to the next full moon?”

“Yeah,” Kirk said, paying attention to the highway as he drove the truck south. Traffic flow thickened as they neared the city. Evening was also getting on, and a low ceiling of cloud cover foreshadowed dark times. At least that was how Kirk interpreted it, and he was still feeling more than a little spooked over the whole affair.

“Nine days,” Morris said. “Fucking easy. This ain’t the Dark Ages no more. We just go to the cops and say we know the guy who had his head blown away. Say we can identify him. Go into the morgue or freezer or ice cooler––wherever the hell they keep the pizza fixings––and when they show us Bailey’s corpse, we stick him right there.”

“We stick him right there.”

“Yeah.”

“With our knives?” Kirk shook his head and checked his blind spot before overtaking a four-door sedan.

“What?” Morris asked. “What’s wrong with that plan?”

“It’s goddamn idiotic.”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“Whaddaya think I mean? I think goddamn idiotic says it all. Can’t get much clearer than that. Think, y’fucking testicle, think. You go into a cop shop and announce ‘I can identify who that headless guy is’ and what do you think they’re going to do?”

Kirk had Morris’s attention. The biker––as suggested by the black special forces ensemble complete with a leather duster that the Pictou warden currently wore––turned to Kirk with dark intent.

“What?” he asked with a huff of his shoulders.

“They’re going to ask who
you
are and do a background check on you, then they’re gonna find out that Moses Morris doesn’t exist. Or maybe that he’s eighty-something years old. Which will open up another line of questioning, since you’re looking so damn fine and spry these days. Eventually, they’ll get to the conclusion that Morris doesn’t really exist, that you’re a fucking mysterious, livin’-off-the-grid bastard, and then that’ll open up
more
questioning, and before you know it, and I can guarantee this part, you’ll be in lockdown three cells over from whatever box they’re keeping Bailey in.
That’s
what’ll happen. Next thing you know they’ll be wondering why the hell a bald guy is sprouting hair like he’s taken a shot of secret growth tonic up the ass.”

A simmering Morris concentrated on the four lanes of the highway.

“And I haven’t even gotten to the part about trying to stab a corpse with cops present, because they
would
be present.”

No reply to that. Victory was Kirk’s.

“Nine days,” he continued in a softer tone. He hated the taste of the words. “Nine fuckin’ days. Part of me just wants to bug out right now and drive for the west coast, because I got a rotten feeling about this one. This one is going to be bad. Like, epic bad.”

“So what should we do?” Morris asked. Kirk knew then that Morris was every bit as uneasy as he was.

“Get back to my place and wait for the cavalry.”

Morris held his forehead. “Don’t like the sound of that. We should be out there doin’ something.”

“It’s better than watching you sweet-talk your way past some cops, which any other time I’d buy popcorn for, but not this one.”

“You think I can’t do it?”

“
Exactly
what I think.”

Morris didn’t like that either. “Well, why don’t you try it, then?”

“Because I’m not a dumbass.”

Morris regarded the Halifax warden with a dangerous look, dangerous enough to send warning tingles all over Kirk’s person.

“Look, we get back to my place, hole up, and wait for reinforcements. Hammer out a solid plan.”

The sound of passing cars filled the gap in the discussion.

“How many will come, I wonder?” Morris asked quietly.

“Good question. I don’t know.”

“Nine fuckin’ days.”

“Nine,” Kirk repeated. “But I think it’ll all go to hell sooner.”

They pulled into Kirk’s parking spot and shut the truck down. The air greeted them with frosty kisses to the cheeks, prompting both of the wardens to draw their coats a little closer. In short time, they arrived at Kirk’s apartment.

“Place smells like shit and beer,” Morris said upon entering, screwing up his near-hairless face in a pucker of lemon.

“I’ll crack a window.”

“You should,” Morris grumbled and walked into the living room without removing his boots. “Christ. Thought I was bad.”

“Yeah, well,” Kirk stood with his hands on his hips and glanced around. “I’m not big on housekeeping, but it’s not a sty either.”

“My place is better.”

“You live in the sticks.”

“What’s location got to do with smelling like ass crack?”

Kirk set his jaw. “You want a beer?”

“Yeah.”

Kirk went to the fridge and picked out a couple of bottles. When he returned to the living room, Morris had already plopped down on the sofa and inspected the copy of
Salem’s Lot
.

“Make yourself at home,” Kirk said sardonically and handed him a beer.

“Thanks.”

Kirk dropped into the nearby sofa chair. They cracked open the drinks and tossed the caps onto the coffee table. They drank without a toast. A muffled door slam broke the silence somewhere down the corridor, while the rush of traffic outside sounded like the flights of low-flying meteors.

“You live like this?” Morris’s legs were spread wide in a classic trucker’s spread.

“Yeah.”

“I couldn’t. I’d go crazy. Be ripping someone’s head off.”

“That’s about the only thing you hear,” Kirk said, gesturing to the door. “Not much else. They built this place solid.”

“They bother you?”

“Who? Neighbors?”

“Yeah.”

Kirk shook his head. “No one. I don’t interact with anyone. Keep a low profile, like any of us. Been here all of twelve years now. No troubles so far.”

“So far,” Morris grunted and drank another mouthful.

“They stay away from me, probably think I’m a dope dealer or something. Doesn’t matter. Whatever serves the purpose.”

“Y’know, I’ve been thinking,” Morris started. “About Bailey. More I think about it, the more I’m convinced he was there to kill me. That bastard was going to kill me.”

“That’s scary.”

“Yeah. It is. But you know what’s scarier?”

Kirk didn’t want to know.

Morris carried on. “Who sent him.”

“Jesus,” Kirk said. “Listen, you keep that to yourself. A pack of wardens are on their way here. Now. And you do
not
want to be spewing some conspiracy theory all over them. Word travels and each one of them will be reporting back to the elders, you understand that? Each one has the same number as we do. And you’re nothing to them. You’re just an east coast warden they’re being ordered to back up. That’s all. Some of them probably won’t even like you.”

A sullen Morris drank more of his beer.

“So you keep quiet about someone sending Bailey,” Kirk continued. “As far as we know, he went crazy. Borland went crazy. Something in the water, who knows?”

“I don’t believe that anymore.”

“Believe what?”

“That Borland went crazy.”

Kirk exhaled and considered his bottle. He didn’t either.

“How many do you think they’ll send?” Morris eventually asked.

Kirk shrugged. “No idea. Four. Maybe five. There’s no one in PEI. Two in New Brunswick. Two in Maine. They’ll be here the fastest. By car or bus.”

“You think they’ll send over your Ross Kelly recruit?”

“No,” Kirk answered after a moment. “The elders weren’t too happy with me changing Ross over. He’s only got a few months in. They won’t send him.”

“Yeah. Suppose so.”

“So. We wait.”

Morris grunted in the affirmative and propped his feet up on the coffee table, boots out. Kirk joined him. Together, they kept to the soft lighting of the living room, rested, and when the need arose, went to the fridge for more beer.

The soft swishing of traffic reminded them of the world beyond the apartment, and sleep eventually found the two men.

It was Sunday evening at the medical examiner’s main office, and the night was already damn boring. Worse still, it was only the first hour of a scheduled ten-hour shift. Private security officer Deb Cohn stood before the front desk, situated in a modern-designed facility, half-listening to her coworkers’ inane yammering regarding the afternoon’s televised hockey games. She adjusted her belt, shifted her firearm’s holster, and gazed toward the darkened parking lot, clearly visible through a wall of glass. Deb sighed, not caring what the lads thought, and heard a distant noise from deep within the center.

A sound that puzzled the hell out of her. She stood at attention and listened.

“You hear that?” she asked, looking down the inner corridor of glass. A multitude of fluorescent lights reflected in the surface, as if trapped between microscope slides. The men behind the desk stopped talking about face-offs and icing pucks.

“No,” Al said, following her gaze. “What was it?”

“A thump.”

“Didn’t hear anything.”

“Well I heard something.”

“Nothing here,” Noah smirked, and kept his thumbs hooked off his belt while his double chin threatened to burst from his neck. “Ghosts, maybe. Not even three years old and already got ghosts. Everywhere. Fuckin’ ghosts. Makes me sick. More taxpayer money down the shitter.”

“This place doesn’t have ghosts,” Al grated and wiggled a finger into an ear canal, perhaps hoping to improve matters on that side. “Now, the morgue over at Halifax General? That place has ‘em. Heard guys talk about all sorts of weird shit over there.”

“I’m going to take a walk,” Deb said and left the front desk to stalk the corridor.

“Don’t wanna hear the story about the floating baby?”

“No.”

Al shrugged a
suit yourself
but then frowned. “You okay to go alone?”

Deb didn’t dignify that with an answer.

“You got off lucky that time,” Noah said under his breath as she winked out of sight. “I asked her once if it bothered her to be working the night shift, guarding a bunch of dead folks.”

“Ohhhh,” Al winced, knowing where this was going.

“Yeah, she told me to fuck off. Just like that. And when I chuckled, oh my, she didn’t like that. Won’t tell you what she told me to do to myself, but it’s anatomically impossible.”