Psycho Within Us (The Psycho Series Book 2) (73 page)

The dire wolf snarled.

Spencer looked back at it. 
It knows
. 
It smells the idea on me
.

It all happened very quickly.  Spencer turned and ran.  He only got one step before the dire wolf was in midair.  He didn’t go for the door, instead he leapt through the open window and kicked his legs up, knowing they would be the only thing
s hanging out, and the dire wolf would clench them in his jaws and never let go, not until Spencer was torn and eviscerated in the middle of the street.

The wolf missed, and Spencer clambered into the back seat
, drawing the Makarov.  Not a second later, the wolf’s massive head came in through the window, snarling and biting at the door’s perimeter, gnawing at the steering wheel, its paws clawing at the seat as it tried to pull itself through.  Spencer sat in the passenger seat and put a foot against the wolf’s muzzle, pushed its head against the ceiling, and fired repeatedly into its neck and body until he was empty.  Blood spattered against his face, the seats, and the windshield, but the dire wolf only became more incensed.

Spencer fell into the floorboard in the back, knocking over the boxes of hacksaws and the one hatchet.  The dire wolf fought hatefully against the confines of the window, raping its way through the small opening.  He lifted the hatchet, and began beating against its head even as it advanced, a foot at a time, into the front seat.

Two other wild hounds leapt onto the SUV’s hood, and started snapping at the windshield.  Another one was clawing at the back driver side door.

Spencer’s foot touched the chainsaw.  A Husqvarna, with a good solid bar, a sixteen-incher.  In one move, he snatched it up and dove out the back passenger side door, and onto the snow-covered sidewalk.  He didn’t even bother to stand up—it would have wasted a precious second—he me
rely grabbed hold of the handle, jerked once, twice, and brought the angry saw sputtering to life.  It roared over a hundred decibels, and summoned every other wolf around him.

He caught the first one leaping on him, put the blade right to its belly and squeezed the trigger.  It was a large black creature, about half the size of its pack leader
, and the blade went through it like butter.  Blood splashed across Spencer face, and viscera splashed into his lap.  He rolled over, kicking the wolf free of his blade, and stood up, turning a circle and spinning the chainsaw around to create a clearing between him and the other wolves already surrounding him.

The pack leader was still inside the SUV,
thrashing madly at the interior, tearing across the back seats to get at him.

Six others swarmed all around him.  Spencer backed away, into the street, revving up the chainsaw and shoving the blade at each of them.  One of them nipped at his foot, and he
slashed at it and sawed the top of its head, sending it yapping and scampering away.  The others backed away, reassessing him.

Howling.

Spencer turned.  Up the street, there came at least a dozen more—he didn’t bother to count—and all of them running towards him.  Some of them looked like normal strays, a couple of Labradors, a German Shepherd, a Collie, but for the most part they were all mutts, and some of them had the distinctive wolfish form and grin.  They ran at him like eager children for the dinner table, and once they had gathered around him, they just barked and snapped at him, while the Husqvarna barked and snapped back.

Then, the dogs suddenly backed away from him.  He knew why.  He felt it in his hair follicles.  Spencer turned and met the dire wolf eye to eye again.  It had finally torn its way free from the Acura, and from its jaws clung pieces of stuffing from the seats it had ravaged. 
Its face and neck were gushing blood from the multiple gunshot wounds.  The others made a hole for it, and it approached him, snarling and lowering itself and adjusting its shoulders for a possible pounce.  Spencer circled it, revving up the chainsaw, and the dire wolf did the same.  Its nose wrinkled, sniffing the air, savoring the meal to come.

Movement from behind!

Spencer turned just in time, and sliced a half-Cocker-Spaniel-half-something-else across its left side, exposing its ribs as it landed and crawled away.  In a sickening display, a few of the others, sensing weakness, pounced on it, grabbing it by its neck and legs and tearing it to shreds like a school of starved piranhas.

Two more wolf-things leapt at Spencer in the span of a heartbeat—two quick swings
of the chainsaw saw to them; half a leg gone, and the other’s face a ruin.  A few others jumped on these wounded, as well.

The dire wolf advanced a few steps on him.  Spencer backed further up the street, near the Civic.  He put his back to it, figuring there was no way they could surround him now.  He heard clambering, though, and turned to spot a part Labrador, part wolf climbing up the hood, over the windshield and onto the roof.  Spencer swung high over the roof, taking out one of its legs, and then ran and leapt onto the hood himself.  As the wounded beast yapped away, he laughed, “A three-legged dog walked i
nto a bar, and said ‘I’m looking fer the man that shot my Paw!’ ” He laughed, and the dire wolf’s grin turned into a kind of grimace.  “C’mon, big honkin’!  C’mon!”  He revved the Husqvarna and tapped the hood of the Civic, sending up a few small shards of fiberglass.

The dire wolf dashed through the crowd of others, knocking them aside, and leapt up onto the hood just as Spencer dashed up onto the Civic’s roof.  The creature slipped on the ice covering the hood, then regained itself and snarled at him, those twisted fangs dripping with blood and the tongue still licking out, still spurting pus.  “You got a pretty mouth!”
Spencer said, and thrust forward with the blade.  The dire wolf tested those chains, snapping at them and even biting down on the blade.  A few of its teeth were ripped out or cut in half, and a slice of its tongue came flopping out, but the dire wolf didn’t seem to mind.  Its grin never wavered.

Spencer backed away, onto the Civic’s trunk.  The other dogs were leaping up, trying to climb the back.  They formed a pit of churning fur and anxious teeth for him to fall into.  The dire wolf came at him, swatting at the chainsaw with a testing paw
even as its weight buckled the Civic’s roof.  It lost a piece of its front left paw, and again, it didn’t seem to care all that much.

Spencer looked back at the pit of death waiting for him, then back at the dire wolf.  “All right, big honkin’.  You wanna end this here?  Let’s do it!  Let’s work, motherfucker!  Let’s work!”

It was as though the beast had been waiting for the invitation.  It opened up its mouth and bellowed, a kind of battle cry completely unwolf-like, and leapt at him.  On an instinctive level, Spencer had sensed it a moment before it happened.  The chainsaw roared to life as he threw himself fully into a tackle.  The two of them merged, the blade went straight straight through the dire wolf’s belly and out its back.  Its forward momentum took Spencer over the side and slammed him onto the pavement, half squishing one of the smaller wolves underneath him.  The dire wolf snapped its massive jaws at him and Spencer kept squeezing the chainsaw’s trigger, grinding on the insides of the monster as he pushed it away from him.  A few of the clipped teeth grazed his cheek, even as blood poured out of the beast’s mouth and surely into its lungs.

Its great weight and mass caused it to sag on him.  Spencer
brought his heels close to his butt, and bridged his hip off the ground, rolling it over.  He yanked the chainsaw’s blade free of its stomach and swung the blade wildly at the others surrounding him.  He clipped a mutt, which whimpered and darted back.  “Not like this!” he cackled.  “I ain’t dyin’ here, not tonight!  Ya got that, bitches?  Not tonight!  Not here!  And—not—like—
this
!”  He slashed at another, and it leapt back.

Desperate, dying cries just over his shoulder.  He glanced back.  The dire wolf was up, and had hold of one of its pack, its throat clenched in its considerable jaws.  The dire wolf shook
it like a ragdoll, and then threw it to the ground, put both paws on it to hold it down, and ripped out its throat.  Three others dove in to join the meal, but the dire wolf snapped at them. 
Big dog eats first
.

But it wasn’t planning to eat.  The dire wolf just wanted to make its point.  The foolish animal had perhaps tried to make good on the opportunity—with the dire wolf wounded, perhaps it had soug
ht a moment to usurp the throne?  The dire wolf wanted it left alone, as an example to the others.  It glared down at its dead challenger. 
I did this to you
, those eyes said.

Meanwhile, Spencer had backed further down the street, slicing at the air around him, warding
off the others.  His face was dripping in blood and his clothes were soaked with it.

The dire wolf turned its attention back to Spencer.  Having made its point with the others, it now had control again.  It came at him, as surefooted and eager as ever,
oblivious to its gaping wounds.  Only one thing had changed: its eyes.  The eyes had become more deranged, twitching like a maniac off his meds.  Spencer had heard of bears driven mad after having swallowed a plastic bag.  The bag got lodged in the intestines, and, being unable to digest food, the bears just kept vomiting up the food.  Crazed because of the hunger and agony, they were said to have eyes that didn’t blink, and salivated constantly like a slobbering lunatic.  The dire wolf also had something in its gut, Spencer wagered, but it was something more than just a plastic bag.  A rotting need buried deep inside, fighting to get out.

Two other wolf-things tried to come at Spencer, but the dire wolf shoved them out of the way, even lifted one up by its black mane and flung it against a mailbox.  Two or three other dogs fled.  Another four just backed off
, watching.  It seemed that, though moments ago they had been very confident about their attack plan and their leader’s capabilities, they no longer knew which way this thing would go.

The dire wolf didn’t care.  It didn’t need them.  It came at him, snapping and spitting up its own blood.  The eyes never left him.  Spencer laughed.  “Well, come on then, big honkin’!  Let’s see it!  Let’s see what you got! 
Come on, big honkin’!  Come on!”

It did come on.  Hard and fast.  It leapt at him and Spencer shuffled to his right, slashing out with the chainsaw.  His right arm screamed at him, telling him it still wasn’t up for that kind of activity just yet.  But the chainsaw’s blade glanced off the beast’s teeth, and ran down the side of its face, giving it a half Glasgow smile. 
Like mine!
he thought madly.  The dire wolf landed in the snow, slide sideways, lost its footing, and struggled to regain it.

Spencer seized the moment.  He ran
straight at it and raised the chainsaw above his head, and brought it slamming down on the wolf’s head.  He squeezed the trigger and the blade went deeply into its skull.  Then, something grabbed him, another wolf pulling at the bottom of his left pant leg.  He spun and slashed at it, ripping off half of its snout.  It cried havoc and turned and bolted.  Other dogs chased it, no doubt eager to make a meal out of it.

They’re all mad
.

He turned his attention back to the dire wolf, but it had already leapt back from his next slash.  Despite half its skull missing, and a portion of its brain spilling out, it still persisted, circling him like it meant for another assault.  It came at him, slowly, head down, its mangled snout snarling.
  “Come on, big honkin’!” he shouted, tapping the chainsaw’s blade on the pavement.  “Come on now, it ain’t finished yet!  Come on!  Let’s git-r-done!
Hahahahaaaaaa!
”

The dire wolf glared supreme enmity at him, and then answered his challenge.  It came charging at him.  It leapt, and Spencer got a slash across its neck, opening its throat.  Gallons of
blood spill across the snow, and yet it still kept coming.  It swiped at him, its claws ripping at his upper thigh, taking a piece of flesh with it.  Spencer staggered backwards, recovered, and aimed the blade at the beast’s muzzle.

The dire wolf moved slowly towards him, blood pouring from various wounds, and still the fire in its eyes never dwindled.  Then, on its next step, it staggered.  It was just a moment of weakness, and it quickly recovered, and again came slowly lumbering at him.

Spencer tapped the chainsaw on the pavement again, and backed further up the street.  It was strange that no cars or pedestrians chanced this way.  Strange, but perhaps not surprising.  Some creatures knew when to stay away.  Squirrels, rabbits and chipmunks sensed when predators were near in a forest, sensed when two predators were having territorial disputes, and knew when to keep huddled inside their little warrens, waiting for the clash to take its course.

The dire wolf lumbered at him once more, staggered, and fell.  “Come on, big honkin’!  You ain’t finished yet, are ya?”  At his challenge, it pushed itself back up.  But it couldn’t stay up.  It fell back to the pavement, and
got back up.  It came at him, staggered, fell over again, and this time stayed.  It rolled to one side, impossible amounts of blood spilling across the snow, a gargantuan red stain that moved up the street, rolling into the gutter.

Panting heavily,
Spencer looked around at the remaining animals.  Only three mutt-things remained, snarling at him and backing away.