Monsters in the Midwest (Book 2): Northwoods Wolfman (20 page)

Chapter 28

His world was shaking. Everything
around him shuddered, each tremor growing more and more violent. Flailing to
keep his balance, Dallas tried to run, to find stable ground. For a moment, all
was calm, and he breathed a huge sigh of relief. Just when he thought the world
had finally decided to settle the hell down, another tremor shook him to the
core. At the same time, he heard a voice calling out his name.

Dallas. Dallas! Are you okay?
Dallas, are you alright?

I would be if the world would stop
shaking.

“Dallas!
W-wake up! C’mon, Big D. You gotta wake up!”

“Churphlegurr
shoobey. Wazzahell. Why you shaking me?” Dallas slurred, finally rousing from
his slumber with a cough turned curse.

Opening
an eye, his entire field of vision was filled with a twitchy, angular face.
“Damnation, Stanley! What do you want? Why are you in my house again?”

Finally
opening both eyes, Dallas saw a very confused-looking Stanley and a very
shocked-looking Lois standing directly behind him.

“Both
of you? What happened?” Dallas paused, a worried look crossing his face. “Did I
get drunk and bust up my door again? Colton’s gonna be pissed…”

As
the dense fog he’d been wallowing in finally started to disperse, Dallas began
to notice details. One, he wasn’t in his bed. Two, he wasn’t in his bedroom.
Three, there was an absolutely overpowering smell all around him, and four, he
really needed to take a crap.

“Where
am I, and where’s the bathroom? I’ve gotta drop the kids off at the pool.”
Dallas braced his arms behind him and tried to stand, but his legs weren’t
quite up to the task. Stanley reached out a hand to steady him and wrapped an
arm around Dallas’s waist when he realized Dallas wasn’t able to stand on his
own.

“Oh,
thank g-god, thank god you’re okay, Dallas. You was c-covered in so much blood,
I thought that werewolf did you in, too.” Releasing Dallas so he could stand on
his own, Stanley stepped back and gave him an appraising look and approving
nod.

“Yep.
I should’ve known. Nobody, not nobody, werewolf or nothing can t-take down Big
D. You’re tough as they come, Dallas, and that’s a fact.”

Lois
stepped forward, her face still wearing a mask of terrified worry. “What
happened here, Dallas?”

Frowning,
Dallas tried to put his thoughts into some semblance of order. He thought he
was doing a decent job until he turned and looked around the run-down cabin,
the resulting view sending his almost-ordered thoughts back into a whirl. It
looked like someone had taken buckets of red, gloppy paint and splashed it
liberally over every surface. The floor, walls, and even the remnants of the
cabin’s ceiling were splattered with tacky, smelly red. Strange, asymmetrical
shapes stood out, scattered haphazardly across the floor. Puzzling over what
they were, he realized they were parts of what used to be a body. Bones, parts
of limbs, a stocking-clad foot, a hand curled into a half-fist. Worse, he
realized that beneath the red, he could make out bits of purple and geometric
patterns in what used to be a riot of colors. Fancy Dan’s pants. Fancy Dan’s
shirt. Fancy Dan’s body parts.

Fancy
Dan’s head.

It
had been ripped off its neck and tossed into a far corner. By cruel
coincidence, it had landed right-side up and was facing where Dallas now stood,
sightless eyes rolled back, and mouth open in what had to have been a scream.

“Nahnahnahnahnah,”
Dallas started to mumble incoherently, stumbling back and falling in a heap
against the wall opposite Dan’s head.

Finally
getting his mouth and brain in synch, Dallas looked to Stanley and Lois. “What
happened to Dan?”

“Dan
was the werewolf, he t-turned when the moon rose, and you beat the crap outta
him,” Stanley pronounced. “That’s what happened, right Dallas? I mean, that’s
how it was… right?”

Stanley’s
eyes looked from Dallas to Lois and back, wide as a startled puppy. When
neither one jumped on his theory, he tried again.

 
“Wait, no. Don’t make sense. N-not enough of
Dan left.”

Looking
down, Stanley chewed on a thumbnail in deep thought before popping his head
back up.

“I
got it! Dan wasn’t the werewolf. My bad, my bad. S-sorry about that. But the
real
werewolf g-got in here and ate Dan,
and
then
you beat the crappers outta
that werewolf. And then you, um. D-drank a whole bunch and, um. Rolled in the
b-blood and, ah… p-passed out. Right, Dal? That’s what happened, right?”

Dallas
finally tore his eyes away from Dan’s face. Unsure of what to say, he turned to
Lois. As he watched, the shock left her face, replaced with a surprising calm.

“No,
Stanley. Dallas didn’t fight off the werewolf. Dallas
is
the werewolf.”

All
of the air in the room disappeared as Dallas sat stunned. His brain chugged
while trying to pull some semblance of meaning from the string of words Lois
had just uttered. Dallas, the werewolf? Him? A werewolf? Like cinderblocks
dropped from a skyscraper, heavy, crushing realizations slammed down around
Dallas’s head, each one shattering more of his paltry delusions.

“Well,
duh,” Stanley said, turning an exasperated look on Lois. “Obviously, Dallas is
a w-werewolf. Everyone knows that.”

“What?”
Lois and Dallas gasped in unison, causing Stanley to backpedal in surprise.

“S-sure
he is,” Stanley sputtered. “I mean, not like forever, but when Colton was
talking about the s-signs, you know. The being really strong and fast, the
hearing things and smelling things, and the, you know, the d-doggy stuff.
Dallas, you’ve been doing that for a few w-weeks now.”

“Crap
on a cracker, Stanley!” Dallas exploded. “You mean to tell me that you knew I
was a werewolf, and you didn’t say nothing?”

Stanley’s
brief glimmer of confidence faltered. “But I th-thought you knew.”

Indignation-soaked
anger drove the weakness from Dallas’s legs, and he launched back to his feet.

“Dammit
Stanley, we were hunting the werewolf! Looking all over town, tracking down
Fancy Dan, dragging him out here, and the whole time,” Dallas seethed, “the
entire time you knew that I was the werewolf?”

Stanley’s
eyes shifted from Dallas to Lois and back. Nervously, he muttered, “But I
d-didn’t think you was
the
werewolf.”

“Gosh,
this is awkward.”

The
tinny voice was a fresh bucket of surprise dumped on the already gigantic pile
of what-the-hell Dallas was struggling under.

“Herb?
You brought Herb?”

In
answer, Lois reached into her purse and lifted out the dented Milwaukee’s Best
can.

“Yes,
I brought Herb, but now isn’t the time to talk about that, or you, or what
you’ve done. We need to clean this up and get out of here.”

“I’ll
keep an eye out.”

“Thanks,
Herb,” Lois said, carefully setting the can on a window sill.

The
absurdity of the moment burst through Dallas’s stupor.

“Herby,
keep an eye out? He doesn’t have any eyes.” A high-pitched giggle found its way
past his lips.

“I
can see. Well, I’m not sure if I’d call it ‘seeing.’ Like, I can see you right
now Dallas, but I can also see Stanley picking his nose, and Lois, and Fancy
Dan’s head over in the corner. All at the same time. That’s not all though. I
can see outside the cabin and even a good part of the woods around here. Weird,
right?”

Another
deranged giggle slipped past Dallas’s lips.

“Oh,
that’s great. Stan got snatched up by aliens and she’s a witch and I’m a werewolf
and the dead vampire can see the whole wide world from a beer can. This just
gets better and better.”

A
hard slap to his cheek brought his building rant to an abrupt end.

“I
don’t think you appreciate the significance of this situation,” Lois snapped. “I
know you’re in shock, and this is a lot to take in, but I repeat – now isn’t
the time and this isn’t the place to talk about it. Now get up, scoop up the
leftover bits of Fancy Dan, and bury them in the woods. I’ll start cleaning up
the blood.”

Still
reeling with the discovery that he was a monster, a goddamn monster, and more
specifically, a monster that had just killed and gobbled up an innocent man, he
couldn’t come up with a better course of action, so Dallas walked over to the
closest piece of Dan.

Innocent, maybe, but he was still a
douchenozzle,
Dallas
reasoned, trying to make himself feel just a tiny bit better about the whole
ordeal,

“Stanley.
Go to my truck. I’ve got a couple of five-gallon buckets in the bed. Empty them
out and bring them here while I start gathering up Dan.” A winding pain pulled
at his innards. “Actually, scratch that. I gotta crap. I’ll grab the buckets on
the way back. You get my shovel and start digging a hole past the tree line.”

Face
gone an unfortunate shade of green and lips pursed to hold in his breakfast,
Stanley nodded and ran for the cabin door. Dallas followed, holding his stomach
and shuffling in a half-crouch toward the small outhouse around the back of the
cabin.

Business
attended to, Dallas walked back inside, the emptiness in his bowels a hollow
shadow compared to the emptiness in his chest. Walking over to the first
Dan-bit he could see, he bent down and picked up a severed hand and gave it a
perfunctory shake.

“Hi
there, nice to meet’cha. I’m the Hero of Trappersville, member of the Society,
oh, and a werewolf. A goddamn, bloodthirsty, murdering werewolf.” Voice
cracking at the end, Dallas used the hand to wipe at an unexpected tear.

“Dallas!”
Lois snapped. “We don’t have all day, so man-up and start scooping dead guy.”

For
the next half an hour or so, Dallas hauled bucketfuls of body bits out of the
cabin while Stanley dug a hole a few yards into the tree line. After emptying
bucket after bucket into the hole, he finished by resting Dan’s head carefully
on top, eyes looking up at a crisp, clear October sky. Taking the shovel from
Stanley, he moved the pile of dirt on top of the improvised grave. The truth of
his nature finally hidden beneath the ground, Dallas levelled the dirt off,
patted it down, and covered it with fallen leaves and an armful of small
branches. The grave blended in with the surrounding ground, and Dallas gave a
satisfied nod. He turned to go back inside, but Stanley grabbed his sleeve.

“What,
Stanley? Christ, I just want this nightmare to be done, alright?”

“B-but
Dallas. We g-gotta say something, don’t we? For Dan.”

Dallas
considered it for a moment. He wasn’t the religious type and would’ve been
surprised if Dan was. What good would a few pretty words do for a dead guy? A
guy Dallas had murdered?

His
mind drifted to Herb. Herb had died, come back undead, got staked and burned to
a crisp, and yet somehow was back again. In a really weird sort of way, sure,
but still. So what did it really mean to be dead? Was there a heaven? A hell? And
if such places existed, which one would a glammed-up ass hat like Fancy Dan go
to? Dallas realized how little he actually knew about the man he’d been bowling
against for years, which made saying something over his grave even more
ridiculous.

“Sorry,
Stan. I got nothing. You want to say something, go for it. Just make it quick.

“Okay,
Dallas. Okay. I’ll m-make it quick.” Clearing his throat loudly, Stanley
lowered his head and folded his hands.

“So,
um. Dear lord or whoever. I mean, maybe God, or B-buddha, or Zoroaster, or
Shiva, or,” Stanley frowned and looked up at Dallas. “Who else is there?”

Dallas
shrugged, so Stanley plowed ahead. “And whoever else might be up there. Um,
we’re gathered here today because Fancy Dan got k-killed, and we hope he’s someplace
better. I mean, I know he’s in a hole. Well, some of him. The parts of him that
Dallas didn’t eat. But the other part, the part that you can’t eat, we hope
that part’s someplace real nice. With, um. D-disco balls and a really big
c-closet with lots of real nice clothes. And bowling. Please make sure Dan’s
the b-best bowler. Even if maybe, you know, the other folks there could kind of
agree to let him win. I th-think he’d like that.”

A
lump the size of Dan’s kidney formed in Dallas’s throat. He’d never known
Stanley had such a way with words.

Seems like there’s a lot of stuff I
never knew,
he
thought. Believing they’d reached the end of Stanley’s improvised eulogy,
Dallas again turned to go when Stanley suddenly spoke again.

“And,
um, God-Buddha-Shiva-person, please d-don’t think this was Dallas’s fault. He
thought he was keeping people safe. He really is a hero, even if he, um, well,
kind of keeps killing the wrong p-people. But he’s trying to do right. Me and
Lois and Herb, we’re gonna help ‘cause he’s our friend, and th-that’s what
friends do. Amen and Namaste and, ah. Sorry, I don’t know anything other
p-prayer words. The end.”