Monsters in the Midwest (Book 2): Northwoods Wolfman (2 page)

“Better send Pam and
the girls to the outlet mall in case he’s still drunk tomorrow,” Jerry decided
as he pulled into his driveway. Sore and tired from a long drive, he groaned
his way out of the car and headed inside. Slipping into bed with his wife, he
closed his eyes, made an effort not to think of the strange events from earlier
that night, and waited for sleep.

Chapter 1

Dallas’s alarm clock
was a right bastard. A whiny, self-righteous twit. “Don’t get mad at me,” it
buzzed. “Is it
my
fault that you
drank a fifth of Wild Turkey?”

He really wanted to
come up with a truly devastating response. If the damn thing would just
shut up,
he’d think of a zinger that
would put that bleating piece of plastic in its place. But no, the noisy little
nuisance wouldn’t shut up. It just kept complaining and complaining and
complaining...

A hand fumbled out
from under the covers and moved across the surface of a dark wood nightstand,
knocking over a half-empty can of beer and getting tangled up in a pair of
fuzzy handcuffs. A second, well-placed grope landed the hand directly on the
clock/radio, fingers working to decipher the complex code of a snooze button.
For a moment, there was quiet, followed by a loud snore.

Dallas flipped onto
his side to see what had made the horrible noise. Squinting in the dark and
trying to bring his still-drunk eyes into focus, he made out the curve of a
shoulder, back, and hip partially covered by zebra print sheets. Closer
inspection revealed a nice display of side-boob and dark trusses spread across
the pillow. For a moment, Dallas thought a little somethin’ somethin’ would be
just the thing to get his day started, until the sleeping beauty’s mouth opened
a little wider and sawed another log.

Yeesh,
that girl can snore!
he thought as he turned over.
Wait a sec
.

Rolling back toward
the girl, he reached out and shook her shoulder.

“Hey. Hey you. Wake
up for a sec, would’ya?”

The girl groaned and
smacked her lips. First one, then both eyes cracked open to glare blearily at
Dallas.

“Wha?” she asked.

“Um, who are you?”

“Fuckyouasshole.”

“No, seriously.
What’s your name again?”

“Mandy.” The
disgusted glare shut off as the eyes closed again, followed by another long
snore.

“Huh. Mandy. Okay
then.” Dallas swung his legs out of the bed and dropped his feet to the
beer-soaked bedroom carpet. Unfazed by the squishing between his toes, he
wobbled upright, staggered toward the bathroom, and started another day.

Mornings were usually
like this. In the month or so since he’d killed his best friend, Dallas had
done an excellent job of pickling his liver. It wasn’t like he’d planned to
party and drink all the time. He just didn’t want to think about that night. As
it turned out, sex and alcohol made that very reasonable goal much more
attainable. Shaking his head to clear away the memories, Dallas made his way
downstairs.

Time
heals all wounds,
he reminded himself. Although in his case, ‘time’ had been replaced with
whiskey and beer. Speaking of which, it was time for breakfast. A glance at the
clock reminded him he needed to be quick about it. Jerry’s furnace was on the
fritz, and Dallas had to save the day.

When he finally
arrived at Jerry’s house, Dallas was feeling fine. Jerry seemed a little sick
though. He kept covering his nose and turning his head away.

“Whassa problem,
Jimmy? Flu?” he asked.

“Ah, it’s Jerry,
actually…”

“Whatever. You said
the fan’s broke?”

“No. I think it’s the
thermostat. Seems like it doesn’t kick on until the temp gets about eight or
ten degrees below what we set it at.”

“Thermostat?
Bullshit. Blower fan. Guaran-frickin-tee.”

“But the fan works
fine. It’s just that,”

“Who’s the goddamn
furnace guy here?” Dallas snapped. His good mood was slowly giving way to a
grinding headache. When Jerry didn’t respond, he nodded. “Thought so. Now
where’s that furnace?”

A few hours later,
Dallas had replaced the thermostat, blower fan, filter, electric pilot, and
vacuumed out the vent stack. At least, he thought so. While he’d been working,
he’d also emptied the flask he kept in his toolbox. Looking to Jerry for
confirmation, he shrugged. “Guess I got a little carried away, huh? So I guess,
I mean. Well, ya know. I’ll only charge you for the…”

“Thermostat.”

“Right. That, and
the…”

“Thermostat,” Jerry
stated flatly. “I didn’t want the other stuff and told you repeatedly not to do
it, so I’m not paying. Pam would kill me.”

Dallas’s blood
pressure pushed up a few points, causing a vein to pulse in his forehead. He
really needed a drink. “Shit. Well, you know.” Dallas shrugged in resignation.
“Tell your friends I did a damn good job, and we’ll call it even.”

Jerry nodded and
turned to find his checkbook. After working his way through the office,
bedroom, and kitchen, he returned, looking perplexed.

“Huh. I know it’s
around here somewhere.”

Patting down the
pockets of a couple of coats hanging on the wall, Jerry noticed his briefcase
sitting innocently on the bench by the door. Leaning over, he flipped the
latches and popped it open. After pushing a few miscellaneous brochures out of
the way, his hand emerged victorious with a checkbook.

As the two men
dickered again over the price of a thermostat with additional free services,
neither noticed the small tick climb out of the case, fall to the floor, and
wriggle toward its next unsuspecting meal.

Chapter 2

Mandy
was gone by the time Dallas got back from Jerry’s. Unfortunately, so was his
buzz, and some right unpleasant thoughts were starting to creep in. Pulling
open the fridge, he popped the tab on his last Milwaukee’s Best and drained it
in one long pull, throat working industriously to move the beer from the can to
his stomach. With a loud sigh, he eyed the empty can with disappointment. He
didn’t have any other service calls for the day and figured a trip to
Steinknocker’s was in order for a real lunch.

Pushing
his way inside the local bar, Dallas shouldered past the regulars, nodding in
response to the usual greetings but doing his best to get to the bar without
actually engaging anyone.

“That’s
him!” he heard an unfamiliar voice say in a loud whisper. “Says he killed a
vampire.”

Muted
laughter followed the comment which Dallas pointedly ignored, along with the
visions that followed closely on its heels. He didn’t want to see the inside of
Bay City Bowler’s karaoke bar, didn’t want to see Herb’s face as he realized
there was a two-foot length of lacquered wood extending from his chest, and he
definitely didn’t want to see the slow fire burning his best friend from the
inside out as Herb turned to ash.

Shifting
his gaze to look for Stein, owner and proprietor of Steinknockers Bar, Dallas’s
eyes couldn’t avoid the framed picture of Helen up on the wall. A decorative
vase filled with plastic flowers rested serenely beneath it, surrounded by
sympathy cards for Stein. Former waitress at Steinknockers and stripper at
Nekked’s, Helen had been one of Herb’s victims. The full sequence of events was
never quite unraveled, but Dallas figured that Herb seduced her, turned her
into a vampire, and then torched her in the strip club’s tanning booth in a
vindictive rage when she interfered with his frat-boy dinner. It was so
completely
not Herb
that Dallas had
to choke back a harsh laugh. Hell, seemed like the whole summer Herb had been
not Herb
. It made Dallas wonder how well
he’d ever known the man he’d considered his best friend since their school
days. He missed his friend terribly, but the thing he’d stabbed at Bay City
Bowlers, that wasn’t Herb. He stopped being Herb when someone, some
thing
turned him into a goddamn monster.
Dallas wished he knew who, so he could bust another pool cue and stab that
vampire, too.

Stein
made his way over and offered a, “Howdy, Dallas.” Noticing the direction of
Dallas’s gaze, he wiped at an involuntary tear.

“Yeah,
she was a gem. A right gem, taken a’fore her time. Never late. Always cashed
out even at the end of her shift. Great rack, too,” Stein observed with a shaky
sigh.

Dallas
just nodded as Stein poured two whiskeys and raised one up.

“To
Helen,” he toasted, eyes moist.

“Helen,”
Dallas agreed, whiskey burning away his self-doubts. He’d killed a goddamn
monster. Too late to save Helen, but he’d saved Lois and saved the whole town.
He was a hero. A goddamn hero.

Chapter 3

“You’re
needed.”

The
nasally voice cut through the whiskey fog, rousing Dallas from his stupor.
Before he could put meaning to the words, turn his head, and identify the
speaker, the person was gone.

“Haven’t
seen him b-before,” Stanley commented.

“Stanwee?”
Dallas slurred. “Whend’choo get here?” Stanley had hung around with Dallas and
Herb for years. Wiry, fidgety, and a terrible bowler, he had rounded out their
backwoods version of the Three Musketeers, or more like Two Musketeers and That
Stuttering Guy Who Claimed He Was Abducted by Aliens. Since Herb’s death, he’d
been Dallas’s near-constant drinking companion.

“J-just
now,” Stanley replied. “Saw you talking to that guy,” he said, pointing toward the
door.

Dallas’s
bleary gaze followed Stanley’s finger, and he locked eyes with a stranger
across the bar. The two considered each other for a moment before the man
nodded and walked outside.

With
a shrug and a short belch, Dallas returned his attention to Stanley. His friend
was scrutinizing a business card, a perplexed look layered on top of the
usually perplexed look he wore as a matter of course, making him look
especially… Dallas groped for the right word…
perplexed
.

“Crap
on a cracker, Stanley. You looking for the cure for cancer on that thing?
Give’er here and let me help you with the big words.” Swiping the card, he read
out loud.

“Find
us. You’re needed.”

Dallas
borrowed Stanley’s perplexed look and tried it on for a moment. He’d heard that
before. Recent like. A nasally voice. For some reason, the face of the man he’d
just been trading looks with popped back into his mind. The voice he recalled
seemed like it would fit the man’s face. Gaunt, squinty eyes, straight brown
hair slicked back from a dark widow’s peak, scraggly hairs making a go at
becoming a goatee. Yeah, it could’ve been that guy, but why was he talking to
Dallas? What did they talk about? Why leave the card? A closer look popped the
tab on a deeper mystery. Why leave a card telling him to find someone but not
leave an address or a number? It was a mystery, pure and simple, and there were
few things Dallas hated more than mysteries.

“Guy
must have a busted furnace,” Dallas reasoned out loud, causing Stanley’s head
to bob in assent. “Jackass didn’t leave a number though. How the hell am I
supposed to help if he didn’t leave me a number?”

“Something’s
on the b-back,” Stanley offered, a touch of drama coloring his tone. Unlike
Dallas, Stanley liked mysteries. He had every season of
Murder, She Wrote
,
Columbo
,
and
Veronica Mars
, and took great
pleasure in rewatching them and solving the crimes before Angela Lansbury,
Peter Falk, or Kristen Bell.

Dallas
turned the card over, and sure enough, there was more.

TURN
2 2 AT 2 2 2

Dallas
read the line once, then twice, trying to make it make sense. Sometimes, the
right amount of alcohol allowed for just the kind of out-of-the-box thinking a
riddle like this might need to solve. Sadly, this wasn’t one of those times.
This time, the amount of alcohol Dallas had imbibed didn’t help him to think
around corners, so to speak. It just helped him get more upset in less time. A
win from an efficiency standpoint perhaps, but otherwise a complete loss.

“The
hell does that mean? Well, I guess the jackass will just have to freeze.” With
a grumbled curse, Dallas crumpled the card and dropped it on the bar. Slapping
Stanley on the back, he stumbled toward the door and into the gathering night,
the strange man and even stranger card already forgotten.

Chapter 4

It
was the same dream. Usually with enough whiskey, say, the amount needed to fill
a small aquarium, Dallas could keep it at bay. Tonight though, his blood
alcohol level must’ve dropped below point-one-two because here he was, stuck in
the dream… no, the nightmare again.

He
bounced along on a sea of shoulders while faces beamed up at him, eyes wide and
grins stretching ear to ear. The bouncing had a cadence to it, a rhythm. As
Dallas bobbed like a ducky in an endless tub, the crowd marched in step and chanted
in time.

Ding-dong the vamp is dead. Mean
old vamp, wicked vamp. Ding-dong the wicked vamp is dead!

Dallas
laughed, whooped, rolled to and fro across the sea of uplifted hands. He closed
his eyes and opened them again and now was inside a bathroom. A quick glance
around and he recognized it as the school bathroom from eighth grade. Sure as
shit, there was Joey O’Connell. The little punk was always bullying the weirdos
in school. He had some red-headed kid by the undies, a textbook-perfect wedgie
in progress. Dallas knew this day. It was the day he first met Herb and started
their life-long friendship. He also knew that for it to be an accurate memory,
he should be in a stall making out with Denise
Landry
,
not outside watching events unfold.

That’s the thing with nightmares,
Dallas
thought.
Always getting things mixed up. Scarier that way.

True
enough, the fear was building. Having had this same dream countless times in
the past few weeks, he knew full well what happened next but remained powerless
to stop it.

Joey
laughed, the sound a high-pitched, manic warble that pattered on Dallas’s
eardrums like BB’s on a metal roof. Dallas laughed as well, unable to stop
himself. Joey kicked open the door of a bathroom stall, and Dallas sprang out
like a jack-in-the-box, busted pool cue in hand. The jagged end slid into
Herb’s chest, a slight tug the only indication that the chunk of wood was
driving through skin, bone, and heart.

Lois
screamed, and he pressed his hands to his ears, shouting back in response.

Ding-dong the vamp is dead! Wicked
vamp, no good vamp!

He
was still screaming as the crowd pulled him limb from limb while Lois wailed
and Herb cried, “I love her. I love her. I love her.”

Dallas
woke with a start, cheek pressed into scratchy shag carpet, and bed sheet
wrapped hood-like over his head. Shuddering breaths pulled the sheet into his
mouth and blew it out again. Contorting, he managed to bring his feet off the
bed and down to the floor where the rest of him had ended up. Wrestling himself
clear of the sheet, he gasped and swallowed as his heart rate slowed. The room
was mostly dark, lit only by the red numbers of his alarm clock. Squinting, the
lines came together well enough to convey that it was one forty-three a.m. As
the adrenaline from the nightmare drained away, so did the details. Soon, all
that was left was a lingering unease. Shaking his head, he pushed himself back
up to the mattress and sat with his elbows on his knees, forehead in his hands.
The sudden ring of the phone scared the hell out of him, causing him to jolt
upright so quickly that he slid off the edge of the mattress and thunked
heavily back to the floor.

“Better
be a booty call,” he groused.

Another
insistent ring was followed by a third before Dallas was able to get to the receiver.
He’d barely picked up when Stanley started talking. It must’ve been something
really important, to Stanley at least, because he was talking so fast and
stuttering so much that his first few sentences were completely
incomprehensible.

“Slow
the hell down Stanley! Just… no, you have to slow down.” Dallas pulled the
phone away from his ear, flipped it upside down, and spoke loudly into the
handset.

“I
don’t know what, ‘Burn woo-tu-tu tuh-tu-tu-tu’ means. If you want me to
understand, talk like a normal person.”

Dallas
counted to three, flipped the phone back over, and returned it to his ear.
Stanley still sputtered and stuttered, but it was a little better than before.
Even so, Dallas needed a drink. Whatever had crawled up Stan’s butt and
injected him with crazy was of lesser concern. Still holding the phone with his
shoulder, Dallas fumbled around, looking for one of his many flasks.

“Right.
Uh, sure. Okay, a T.V. show. On in a couple of minutes. Yeah, yeah. Channel two
at one-fifty-eight. Okey doke, Stan. G’night.”

With
a long sigh of satisfaction, Dallas slid a still-full flask from the back
pocket of a nearby pair of jeans. A quick swig accompanied his hanging up on
Stanley.

“I
either gotta find a not-crazy friend or change my number,” he mumbled to the
flask. The flask was an excellent listener as always, but this time it had
something to say back. Incredulous, Dallas glared at the back-talking little
flask.

“You,
too? Well eff’off, flasky. I don’t know what he was babbling about, but I gotta
say, I’m a little surprised you’d immediately take his side.”

Dallas
cocked his head as if listening to an informed response. Nodding, he returned
the flask to his lips and took a long drink.

“Okay.
You convinced me. I got nothin’ else to do. Might as well watch the tube.”

Dallas
grabbed the remote and flipped on the bedroom television. The good shit was
usually on Showtime or Cinemax this time of night, but he knew Stanley was
going to call back right after two o’clock. If he didn’t at least pay a little
attention to channel two first, Stan would be crushed. Dallas was well-aware of
being a little rough around the edges but tried not to be a jerk all of the
time.

Punching
the remote’s buttons, he landed on the local public broadcast channel. What
looked like a televised garage sale being hosted by a wiry dude in a Gilligan
hat filled the screen. For a passing moment, Dallas wondered if he knew the
guy. His gaunt face and squinty eyes looked familiar, but no recollection
sparked in his alcohol soaked brain. A glance at the clock told him it was one
fifty-seven a.m. Another minute and he could flip to some boobies.

Dallas
watched the clock hit one fifty-eight. The guy on the T.V. was talking about a
life-sized, silk-lined casket bookshelf, and if you called right away with a
major credit card, he’d include a collection of horror novels. Suddenly,
mid-sentence, the rambling hick looked up from caressing the casket to stare
straight into the camera.

“If
you have turned to channel two at two minutes to two a.m., you’ve cracked the
first code. That means you’re a very sharp cookie, which makes you even more
important to us. World’s got enough morons. We need special people. People like
you. We’ll be in touch, but you have to prove that you cracked the first code.
I’m going to say something. Write it down, memorize it, and then burn the
paper.”

Dallas
stared at the screen, trying to get the game. Why did Stanley want him to watch
this crap? He figured it would be a rerun of
Jeopardy
or something so Stan could prove he knew the answers.
Instead, he was suffering through some kook’s cable access show. Stan was going
to catch hell for this.

“Things
only get as bad as you’re willing to let them,” the man on the T.V. said,
staring straight at the camera, at Dallas himself.

Suddenly,
his eyes lost their laser-blaster intensity and dropped back to the creepy
bookcase. “…yours for only sixty bucks. You gotta admit, this would make a
great conversation piece in your living room, even if you had crappy books on
it...”

Dallas
hmphed
and flipped the channel, the
stupid cable-access show already tossed into a mental dustbin.

When
the phone rang a moment later, Dallas had just landed on
Porky’s
on Cinemax. It was the shower scene, his favorite, and he
was in no mood to miss the good stuff. However, he also knew that Stan would
just call back again and again until he did.

“Stanley,”
he barked, picking up the phone. “That was some really interesting television,
buddy. Pretty awesome. Thanks for the tip. Now if you don’t mind, I’m gonna
watch a little softcore and call it a night.”

Dallas
took another pull from the flask, reclining on the floor with his back resting against
the foot of the bed. The whiskey and classic cinema boobage were starting to
work their magic when something Stan said snagged his attention.

“Wait
a sec. Back up. I was chosen? By who? For what? Well shit, Stan. If you don’t
know that, then why did you call? Uh huh. Yup. Yeah, I remember the weirdy guy
at Stein’s. Yeah. Yup. Wait…” Dallas leaned forward, suddenly tracking
Stanley’s rambling. Standing, he cast around the room until he found the
previous day’s clothes. As he fished through the jean pockets, he growled at
Stanley.

“I
don’t
know
what was on the card,
Stanley, and I can’t find it. Oh, well why didn’t you
say
that you have it? Crap on a cracker, you’re making this tough.
Okay. ‘Turn twenty-two at two-hundred-twenty-two.’ A code, and you cracked it.
Hooray. What? Oh, yeah. ‘Turn to two at two to two.’ Channel two, two minutes
before two. Clever, and you’re right. That’s exactly when the garage sale
weirdy guy made them comments about being contacted and being special.”
Dallas’s brow furrowed in deep thought.

“Hell,
I’m glad I caught that. Damn right that guy was trying to contact me. I’ll bet…
Hmmm. I’ll bet he’s C.I.A., or F.B.I., or Special Forces, maybe even NASA. Holy
hell, Stanley,” Dallas breathed, possibilities exploding through his mind.

“I’m
a shadow recruit. Damn right, I am. I bet they got terrorists all over, and
they need someone to take out the local cell. Like MacGyver. The A Team. That’s
gotta be it, and they need me.” Dallas started to pace with excited energy.
“They
need
me. The guy said that. ‘You’re
needed.’ That’s what he said.”

Dallas
nodded between sips from the flask.

“Well,
sure you helped, Stanley. They knew that when they saw me. I’m a good
delegator. The important people can’t be doing everything in a situation. Oh,
by the way, that’s what they call it when shit hits the fan. A
situation.
Now I just gotta connect with
the main unit. Which would be. Um. Huh… I don’t suppose you know where the main
unit is?”

Dallas
listened again, his face a mask of concentration. “No shit, Sherlock! Of course
they wouldn’t just blurt that out over the T.V. Obviously, the guy gave the
next piece of code. For when I get contacted again. By them. So I can. You
know. Break the code.”

Dallas
nodded again. “That’s what I said! Probably a question that I have to answer
right. Exactly. Now,” he continued in a no-nonsense tone. “Why don’t you tell
me what you got for the answer, and I’ll let you know if that’s right…”

As
Dallas listened to Stanley and scribbled on a half-torn envelope, he smiled at
the sense of purpose swelling in his chest and wondered when he’d be contacted
again.