Where Wolves Run: A Novella of Horror (6 page)

On his second attempt, he dropped to his knees and dug into the dirt beneath the boulder. He strained to lift it, and, at first, nothing happened. He tried again, and this time, the rock released from its earthen grave with a wet pop. Father rolled it onto its side and wiped his brow. He could hear insects skittering through the grass, their home disturbed. Something slender and black uncoiled and slithered out of sight.

Father stood and circled the rock. Its thickest part now stood upright. He squatted and wrapped his arms around the boulder where it began to narrow, scooping beneath the bulk of its weight. Using his legs and arms and all of his will, he lifted.

Father could hardly believe it when the rock rose in his grasp. But its weight was instantly unbearable. He moaned as he struggled to carry the infernal weapon over to where the beast lay.

Somehow, he made it. The boulder fell from his arms the moment he had reached his destination. The impact came with a nauseating squish. The werewolf’s head smashed like rotten fruit beneath the tremendous force. Its twitching stopped.

When humanity did not return to the beast, Father rolled the rock off it and repeated the process. The werewolf’s mashed head smeared blood and brain matter upon the rock and Father’s arms. Three more times, Father raised and dropped that rock. On the fourth time, his arms gave out.

“Die, for God’s sake, you filthy demon.” Father cursed. He rolled the log off the shattered, flattened mess that had, at one time, comprised a human head. Blood, bone, and fur covered the ground like a mat.

His temper besting him, Father grabbed the pressed-thin remains and yanked, intending to separate head from shoulders. Making no progress, he dragged the beast’s claw up to its deformed neck, gripped its finger as if it were the hilt of a blade and, using its own nails to carve into its flesh, began to saw.

After half an hour of countless curses, explosive stomping, incessant sawing, and another spine-shattering pummeling with the boulder, Father succeeded. Though the severed head could not be recognized as such, the body was once again Timour’s. Father fell to the ground and laughed, raising his blood-stained hands to the Heavens in thanks.

Only then was Father certain that the beast was dead. It was over. He and his son had won.

Konrad
.

Father sighed deeply. Konrad was on his own against a monster, just as Father had been.
The beast is secure. I checked those chains for faults myself. Konrad will be okay. He will forgive me when he hears what I have done
.

Victory was not victory at all if Konrad was not safe. Father stood. The events of the last two days were etched and painted into his body and clothes. He kissed his cross, knowing God was with him. God had protected him. Surely, He would see fit to protect Konrad, too.

Just in case, Father sought out his horse. He found Vulkan lying on his side, his heart pumping so fast that Father thought it might explode. He soothed him until his breathing slowed. When at long last Vulkan appeared to calm, he coaxed the horse to his feet. Slowly, gently, Father mounted his horse. Love and duty summoned them home.

12.

Twilight brought with it
a tempestuous mind. Konrad paced in front of the house, biting his nails and clawing at his face, chanting “where is he” over and over again. He saw beasts in every elongated shadow, constant movement just beyond the corner of his eye. He could wait for Father no longer. He entered the house.

Joren was awake. Yellow eyes watched Konrad as he entered, but they were only partway open, lacking luster. A low grumble emanated from his throat, muffled by the bit. His cheeks were wet. Had he been crying?

“Mmphh,” Joren grunted. His words were incoherent, faint noise without will. His face was drawn, his stare blank. Looking upon him, Konrad saw something all too familiar: fear.

“Mmphh,” Joren grunted again. He tried to speak, to utter what might be his last words. Was he trying to confess?

Konrad looked upon his captive, and his hatred turned counterfeit. The burden of his task smothered the fire that had been consuming him. In Joren’s face, he saw desperation, pitiful and mortal. In Joren’s defeated mumbling, he heard the truth of anguish. In Joren’s festering wounds, he smelled the rottenness of decay, of human agony. Even the air about him tasted foul, saturated by the sweat of a man having knowledge of his impending death.

Konrad’s stomach twisted. Was it compassion that begged him to act? Though he could not free Joren, he could make his passing go as gently as he could manage, for manage he must. But he would allow the man to repent, to find forgiveness, to make peace with the Almighty. He loosened the tethers affixed to the bit.

“Please,” Joren said as soon as his mouth was free. “I do not want to die.”

Konrad set his jaw. He wanted to show his prisoner that, unlike his father, he still had morality. But if Joren saw it as weakness, he would have to correct him.

Calm, head down, he said, “My mother did not want to die either.”

Joren sighed. He sounded like the calf Father had slaughtered one summer when it broke its leg and gave up on standing. Like that calf, Joren seemed ready to be put down.

“I did not kill your mother,” he said quietly. “You are making a mistake. Your father has deceived you. I know I cannot convince you of that. But you will see now, as the sun sets, that I am nothing but a man.”

He fell silent and looked away. Konrad rubbed the back his neck. Did the man inside the monster value his life so little that he would toss it away without a fight? Did he care so little for his soul? If the man were in control, he should seize the opportunity and confess his sins. At least then, perhaps he would find peace in the afterlife.

Or, was there some truth to what Joren said?

“Use this time wisely,” Konrad said. “Ask the Lord for forgiveness. Confess your sins so that you may appear pure before Him.”

Joren did not beg. He offered no more pleas to reason. He simply said, “I have nothing to confess.”

Konrad shook his head, trying to dislodge doubt’s snare. “We will see. Darkness is upon us. The moon shall rise, and you will begin to turn. I will kill you before your transformation is complete. If you are not the beast Father says you are, you will not change, and I . . . I will release you.”

“Bless you, boy!” Joren exclaimed. “You are wise and merciful.” He smiled widely. Laughter, nearly hysterical, burst from his belly.

Konrad watched Joren’s hope returning. His doubt multiplied.

For a second time in two days, he climbed atop that gruesome table, kneeling over Joren’s stomach, ready, he hoped, to end a cruel monster’s life. He raised the dagger high, watching Joren intently, waiting.

The vibrant yellow of Joren’s irises welled to the surface, swirling with revived vigor, the sparkle of life renewed.
Do it!
A voice inside Konrad’s head screamed.
Even if Father is wrong, you cannot release him now. Finish it!

A candle flickered as a cool draft blew through the room. The candlelight’s orange glow grew and collided with expanding gloom. The last embers of the sun’s rays were lost beneath a veil of black and mystery. Night had come too fast.

Konrad jumped down and paced the room as time ticked by. Joren showed no signs of transformation. Konrad could not kill a man who was not a monster.

Joren’s breathing quickened. “See? The moon, and I have not changed! I am no monster. Do you see?”

Konrad stared outside the window, his gaze fixed upon that luminescent circle. There it was, low in the sky, the moon in all its glory, full and proud. As it rose, his heart sank. His father had been wrong, so horribly wrong. He was the real monster, and he had made a monster out of Konrad.

A trickle ran down his cheek. “What have we done?” he asked himself aloud. He ran to the door and yanked it open. Stars twinkled across a black expanse like tiny faeries laughing down at him and all his misguided deeds. The moon was not laughing; it stared down, all-seeing, all-knowing, a harbinger of vengeance.

Konrad fell to his knees. His sobs came uncontrolled. He pulled his dagger from its sheath and let it drop from his fingers. It fell to the ground where he was content to leave it. He had captured and tortured an innocent man. Surely, he was damned.

“What have I done?”

“You could not have known,” Joren said, surprising Konrad with remarkable hearing. His own ears perked up, but he could not yet face the man he had wronged, the emblem of his shame.

“You were obeying your father’s wishes as a good son should. But please, child,” he said. “Unchain me so that I may tend to my injuries while there yet is time.”

Still crying, Konrad leapt to his feet. “I am sorry,” he muttered. He would try to right his wrongs. That first meant freeing Joren.

He kept apologizing as he worked the clasp on Joren’s right wrist. He had it undone when he noticed Joren’s fingers had somehow grown back. No, they had grown back longer. The nails were back, too, protruding like scythes from fingertips sprouting hair.

Konrad gasped, his lungs forgetting how to breathe. What he was seeing could not be.
The moon—

He was shaken from his trance by Joren’s wild thrashing. He bucked like an unbroken horse. The shackles rattled upon the board. The board pounded the table beneath. The sound of cracking wood split the air.

Konrad gaped in horror as the human bridle snapped against the strain of Joren’s evolving features. His ears stretched into malformed triangles. They shifted upward on his head. His nose elongated, the nostrils moving up and out. His jawline narrowed but jutted outward to meet what looked like a snout. From it, fangs as sharp as honed blades dripped with drool and curled over black lips. The bit shattered within their bite.

Everywhere, clothes stretched and tore. Muscles expanded. Dense black hair covered Joren’s face and body. Shackles strained but held, digging trenches into his flesh.

Joren howled and gnashed throughout his transformation. Konrad watched speechless, too amazed to look away, too terrified to move. The contortion, anatomically impossible without fiendish sorcery, was nearing completion. Only Joren’s eyes remained his, but the gleam in them somehow seemed wilder, more appallingly beguiling. In them, Konrad saw only violence, rage . . . hunger.

He snapped himself free of the devil magic that had entranced him and wrapped himself around Joren’s bulging arm. It pulsated and writhed. Bones cracked and reformed beneath the furred flesh. Konrad needed both hands to grasp Joren’s thick wrist. He tried to pin it against the table.

But Joren could be contained no longer. His strength was fearsome, inhuman. In the throes of agony, Joren, more beast than man, did not seem to notice Konrad. The shackles’ spikes cut him deeply, matting his fur in blood. He flailed wildly.

With all his might, Konrad tried to force his arm back into the clamp. But it was no use. Joren would not budge.

Then, silence. Joren—or what used to be Joren—stopped moving. His head rocked back. His eyelids fluttered. A large pink canine tongue dangled out of his mouth. His arm went limp.

Slowly, carefully, Konrad dragged it toward the clasp. Centimeter by centimeter, he lugged the dead weight closer. A finger spasmed, its vicious nail slicing lines in the air. Konrad started, choking back a yelp. He almost had Joren secured.

Almost.

Joren’s eyes sprang open. His head jerked toward Konrad, who jumped back in fear. The man-beast, the
werewolf
, glared at him with evil intent.

Its nostrils flared, sucking in air, the beast oblivious to the metal jabbing into its throat. Its lips stretched at their corners, curling back over pink gums, revealing a mouthful of hideous incisors. Konrad thought it was smiling. Then he heard the guttural growl, starting softly but quickly becoming loud enough to invoke caution in proud men. It rose from the beast’s throat, sizzled through bared teeth—teeth of a true carnivore, made for tearing muscle and flesh.

The beast was snarling. Its growls insinuated a desire to ravage Konrad piece by piece, to open his belly and gnaw on his guts.

Konrad made one last attempt to drive Joren’s wrist into the shackle. It cost him dearly. Sharp, searing pain shot through his chest. With uncanny speed, Joren had lashed out at him. The claws of his freed hand-paw dug deep, ribboning Konrad’s shirt and goring canyons across his body.

He fell against the table, howling with pain. The werewolf howled back in mockery.

Konrad checked his wounds. They were gruesome for sure, but not immediately deadly. Had Joren’s range not been limited by his binds, Konrad’s life would have been forfeited. A centimeter or two deeper, and Joren would have chipped bone and sliced organs.

Though he knew this, Konrad did not feel fortunate. He understood, even then, that the wound would curse him. And that meant Father would—

A shrill howl pierced the air, shaking Konrad in body and mind. If he did not devise a plan or means of escape, his father would be of no concern.

The werewolf’s struggles continued above him. A shackle clanged against the floor. Its freedom could not be far behind.

My dagger!
Konrad remembered, fighting through the pain to his hands and knees. He crawled toward the door. Another clang sounded behind him, then another. He scurried faster.

The dagger lay where he had left it, its silver blade shimmering in the lantern light just outside the open door. He crawled toward it, reached for it, and almost had it when the beast grabbed him by his ankle. He screamed in pain, the beast’s nails slicing deep into his skin as it lifted him into the air. The beast tossed Konrad as though he was weightless, and he crashed against the wall, falling in a heap upon the floor.

The werewolf was just beginning. It careened toward Konrad like a boulder from a catapult. Konrad scrambled onto his hands and toes and rolled out of the beast’s path. He came upon his feet near his bow and quiver.

The werewolf slammed into the wall with a loud crash, nearly taking the entire house down. Pots and utensils fell from the spots on the walls. The beast did not seem harmed, but it was slow to change its trajectory. Konrad seized upon its delay, grabbed his bow and arrows and hurried into the night.

When the werewolf followed, squeezing through a doorway not meant to accommodate its girth, Konrad was waiting. He loosed the first arrow into the beast’s chest, a direct hit, though it barely penetrated the demon’s thick muscle. The werewolf pulled the arrow from its body and tossed it aside as if it was a minor inconvenience.

Konrad’s second shot was even less effective; the werewolf effortlessly swatted it out of the air. Konrad did not get a third shot.

The werewolf leapt off its back paws, propelling itself high into the night sky. It crashed down in front of Konrad. Its long fingers grabbed around his head. Again, Konrad found himself flying. He braced for the impact.

He hit the cold, damp earth with a soft thud. His bow was no longer in his hand and his arrows were strewn about the grass. Out of the corner of his eye, Konrad saw the werewolf leap. He rolled like a log until he found his belly and pushed himself up to his feet.

Again, the werewolf was slow to turn. Konrad rushed toward his dagger. Instead, he ran straight into the beast, who had pounced directly into his path.

The werewolf rose on its hind legs, standing like a man. Konrad gazed up, way up, at a towering, slobbering horror.

The beast stood thrice as tall as Konrad. It began to circle him, dropping back down to all fours. Its loathsome snarling fumed hot breath that smelled of corpses and plague. Here, it would swat at Konrad. There, it would gnash at nothing beside him. It was baiting him, toying with him before making the kill.

As he came full circle back to the threshold, Konrad’s foot brushed against his dagger. The beast swiped half-heartedly at his head, and Konrad easily ducked it. While he was crouching, he picked up his blade.

When Konrad drew it before him, the werewolf seemed amused. It swatted at Konrad’s hand, but he pulled it back in time. The two continued to circle. Each time it swiped, the beast bared its chest, an opening if Konrad had the courage to take it. The beast clearly thought nothing of him despite his silver dagger. He was a plaything to discard after use, an appetizer before the main course.