Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Desire To Feed

Michele’s entire body was on fire.

Her vision was red.

She thought her flesh was going to blister and split open, sending bursts of hellfire throughout the world.

She wanted to die.

She wanted to live.

What was happening to her? Was that George? Why was she in a cage? Why was he with her? Were they lovers?

The pain was blinding.

She could feel the blood rushing through her head.

Her bones were breaking inside of her body.

“Michele...?”

She couldn’t tell who said that. Dad?

Why did her arms look like that? Were they hers? Whose were they?

Why did her teeth hurt so much?

Who was Michele?

She wanted to die.

She wanted to live.

She wanted to kill.

* * *

Ivan bit the inside of his cheek and tasted the coppery blood. He hated this. Hated losing control. Oh, he still had every intention of taking George somewhere nice and private, and destroying his body one square inch at a time. But he’d completely lost control of the situation. And if he had to abandon the van, he’d have to postpone his revenge, and possibly lose George to Michele’s newfound ravenous hunger.

That was bullshit.

He wondered why there weren’t any choppers in the air. If the news was reporting the path he’d taken, why wasn’t there a police helicopter overhead searching for him?

He wasn’t going to be able to easily back the van around this upcoming corner. He’d either have to take it really slow, or risk going off the path and getting the van stuck. Damn it.

Ivan slammed on the brakes as a white van came into view. As he saw that Lou was driving, he transformed his hand into a claw and raked his talons across the passenger seat, howling in fury even though the rest of his body remained human.

Now he had no choice. He had to cut his losses.

* * *

Lou stopped his van just a few feet away from the other one. Though he couldn’t see who was inside, he assumed it was Ivan driving.

Prescott and Angie had taken all of the silver-tipped bolts with them, but Lou had placed several grenades on the seat, ready to go. Even if it didn’t kill him, a blown-off leg would certainly slow down the werewolf.

Ivan got out of the van, transformed into a full wolfman, and darted off into the trees.

Lou got out as well, a grenade in each hand. He pulled the pin from the first one, and heaved it toward where Ivan had run. It was a good throw. Unfortunately, the blast was not accompanied by a lycanthrope scream.

He’d save the other one.

Lou hurried to the front of the van, as quickly as he was able, and peeked inside. The passenger seat was empty. George was in the cage with Michele, who was flailing around and tearing at her hair.

“Get me out of here!” George shouted. “Hurry!”

“Jesus.” Lou limped to the rear of the van and threw open the back doors. What was wrong with her?

From this angle, it was obvious: she was half wolf.

“Unlock the cage! Unlock the cage!”

Michele ripped out a huge chunk of her hair, exposing bloody scalp underneath.

Lou tugged on the cage door. “Does Ivan have the key?”

“I don’t know! Go find it!”

Michele pounced upon George. He cried out and tried to fend her off. She mounted him like a lover, slicing at him with her new claws.

“Push her over here!” Lou said. “I’ll get her!”

“Find the keys!”

Lou went back to the driver’s seat, praying that the keys were dangling from the ignition. They weren’t. Ivan had them.

He fought off a momentary dizzy spell. The loss of blood was really starting to get to him.

* * *

“Fight it!” George shouted as Michele raked her claws across his chest. He didn’t expect this to work anymore, but it was certainly better than shouting something like “Get off of me!” He punched her in the chin. Her head flew back, almost dipping back far enough that it looked like she had no neck, and then it snapped back into place.

George could see the fur sprouting all over her arms and legs. The bandage fell off her shoulder, revealing no trace of a wound underneath.

“Ivan has the keys!” Lou shouted. “Get her over on this side! I’ll take care of her!”

George threw another punch but she blocked it. Though she was a werewolf now, she was still smaller than him, and he shoved her off of him. She hit the bottom of the cage, snarled, and bit at his arm. He pulled away.

Oh, God, don’t let her bite me. I don’t want to become something like that.

What a horrible fate. Better to die at Ivan’s claws, with some degree of honor, than to become a drooling, snarling beast and have to be put down like an animal.

He screamed as she bit him.

* * *

Lou couldn’t believe how much he was being forced to move around with injuries like his. He went back to the van, climbed inside, and slammed his foot through an opening in the bars, kicking Michele in the head as she bit George on the arm.

Her mouth popped free. George had a red mark but it didn’t look like she’d broken the skin.

Now she was out of Lou’s range. He turned his attention away from the cage and opened the glove compartment. He grabbed a handful of the contents and tossed them onto the floor, flipping through random papers until he found several of them fastened together by a paper clip.

He pulled off the paper clip and began to unbend it as he returned to the back of the van.

* * *

She was almost fully transformed now--or at least appeared to be, since George had no idea how far this was going to go. She seemed to be more of a traditional wolf form than Ivan was in his changed state.

He didn’t bother asking her to fight it anymore.

Her claws sunk into his shoulder, deep, the same shoulder he’d dislocated. He grabbed her chin and slammed her head against the roof of the cage. That didn’t seem to rattle her.

* * *

Lou jammed the paper clip into the lock and jiggled it. He wasn’t very good with locks. When necessary, that was usually George’s job.

He had the grenades, but they were fragmentation grenades. They wouldn’t blow the door off a thick steel cage like this. If the paper clip didn’t work, he’d try to shoot it.

He jammed the paper clip in deeper, as George and Michele struggled, her jaws snapping shut over his face. He slammed her head against the top of the cage again, then a third time, and though it seemed to be helping she still had a hell of a lot of fight left in her.

Lou’s spirits soared as he thought he heard a click, but he tugged on the cage door and it didn’t budge. False alarm. He continued to wiggle the paper clip around in the lock, having no idea what he was doing but hoping that he’d luck out. He prayed to every god that he could think of that he’d get this right.

“Open the cage!” George shouted, unhelpfully.

This wasn’t going to work. Lou had no idea if this was even the kind of lock you could pick with a paper clip. If it was, Ivan would have no doubt figured out a way to make his escape sooner than he did. Hell, if nothing else, he could have used his talons.

Shit.

* * *

Michele was wild-eyed and scary and George had thoroughly gotten over his qualms about fighting with a woman. There was nothing left of the real Michele, as far as he could tell.

Why was Lou still screwing around with the lock? Popping that thing should have been no problem. Couldn’t he see that the she-wolf was winning?

She hadn’t bitten him yet, at least not hard enough to pierce his flesh, but not for lack of trying. In fact, her jaws never stopped snapping open and closed, almost like a slower version of a pair of chattery teeth. His hand was clamped over her throat, and he pushed up as hard as he could, trying to keep her teeth away from his face, but he wasn’t going to be able to sustain this for much longer.

“I can’t do this!” said Lou. “Get her away from you! I’ll get a gun and shoot her!”

“What? No!”

“What else do you want me to do?”

“Get the cage open!”

“I can’t get the cage open!”

“Fuck!”

“I know!”

George’s hand slipped off of Michele’s throat, but he elbowed her in the face before she could bite him. He slammed her into the side of the cage.

Her growl deepened. She seemed absolutely furious.

* * *

Rage.

Pure unrestrained fury.

Nothing else mattered.

Kill the prey.

Eat him.

* * *

Lou pulled the paper clip out of the lock and tossed it aside. He was wasting time. He took out the gun and fired two bullets into the lock, turning his head and squeezing his eyes shut in case there was a ricochet.

“Be careful!” George shouted.

Lou opened his eyes. “I am being careful!” No impact. Bullets weren’t going to do it, either. He could try to shoot Michele and see if bullets worked better on her than Ivan, but there was no way he could guarantee that he wouldn’t put a bullet in George instead.

Once again he ran to the front of the van and climbed inside.

He shoved his foot into the cage again, but this time Michele avoided his kick. She grabbed his foot and he had a momentary flash of terror as she pulled him toward her.

George slammed his fist against her arm, breaking her hold. Lou withdrew his foot from within the bars, but then braced both feet against the side of the cage, tightly held the seats of the van, and shoved as hard as he could.

He was already shot and mauled. Why not add a hernia?

The pain was intense but not quite unbearable as the cage began to slowly slide along the floor of the van. It had good traction. After everything he’d been through today, he deserved to have something work out.

Michele slashed George’s chest. It looked like a savage wound, although George had suffered so many injuries that Lou wasn’t sure if that was a brand new one or an old one being reopened.

The edge of the cage slid over the back of the van.

* * *

George cried out as Michele’s claws ripped into his chest. He’d been hit in that same goddamn spot at least two other times today. If it were on the other side, his heart would practically be exposed.

He grabbed her arm, squeezing hard enough that it might have broken a bone if she were in her human form, and tossed her to the other side of the cage. She struck the door, twisted around, and came back at George.

Lou continued to shove the cage forward. George wasn’t entirely certain that this was a good idea.

George began to frantically kick at Michele as she lunged at him. Her jaws closed over his shoe and it took three tugs to get it loose.

The cage began to tilt.

* * *

Ivan watched the struggle with a combination of disbelief and amusement. Yeah, he should’ve just run away, but he had to know what was going on. It was absolutely crazy. Lou should be sobbing over his buddy’s corpse while Michele feasted on George’s remains. He should most definitely not be pushing the cage out of the van.

Insane.

He planned to remain hidden unless it was absolutely necessary to join in the chaos, but there was no way he could turn away from the show.

* * *

There was definitely a hernia in Lou’s future.

His legs were now extended all the way. The cage wasn’t quite ready to topple over the edge, but it was getting close.

* * *

George kicked Michele for what felt like the hundredth time since she transformed. His muscles were so sore that the agony almost threatened to overpower his flesh wounds.

Michele struck the cage door again, and her weight started the point of no return. The cage did a sharp downward tilt and then slid off the edge of the van, crashing to the ground corner-first with a teeth-rattling clatter. George bashed against Michele, nearly knocking the wind out of him but hopefully hurting her just as bad.

The floor of the cage slammed down, stirring up a cloud of dirt.

Michele dove at him. Nope, the impact of the fall definitely hadn’t hurt her as much as it did him.

She pinned him down. George was having difficulty focusing his vision. A trio of she-wolf faces loomed above him.

Then she slid away as Lou grabbed her leg.

“I’ve got her!” Lou announced.

George scooted to the back of the cage. “What good does that do me? Are you gonna hold her forever?”

Lou pulled until her leg was entirely out of the cage, and then grabbed the back of her shirt, holding her tight.

“Get some silver!” George shouted.

“We don’t have any!”

“What do you mean, we don’t have any?”

“Prescott and Angie took it all!”

“Why’d they do that?”

“They didn’t think they’d get killed!”

“Well, do something!”

Lou glanced to the side. George thought he might be looking for an item that might prove to be useful in this situation, but realized he was wrong as Ivan’s werewolf form knocked Lou away from the cage.