Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The Final Fight

The explosion had already started a flood of terrified people fleeing for the exit, and the werewolf running out of the arcade added to the screams. George was right behind him.

Though he didn’t want to waste his last grenade, if Ivan went for kills rather than escape, this might be George’s last chance to use it before Ivan started slicing his way through a bunch of innocent people. If he could at least keep Ivan from going out the main entrance, the werewolf might try to run out the back, in which case Lou could take care of him.

A heavyset woman nearly knocked George over in her stampede to get out of there. Ivan was not going for the entrance--he was going for a crowd of people at the snack bar.

George had only a few seconds before a grenade would cause collateral damage. He pulled out the pin and lobbed the grenade at Ivan’s back.

It came up short, but not too short. The grenade went off as it hit the floor, spraying Ivan with incendiary material. He stumbled, lurched forward, and fell.

George rushed at him.

The werewolf was back up before he got there, but Ivan changed direction, jumping down a few stairs to the actual bowling lanes. Every step felt like his legs were being pressed against a hot grill, but George continued to follow him.

George jumped down the five stairs. With the impact, he literally believed that his legs were going to collapse underneath him like an accordion, but they mercifully remained intact.

Ivan ran onto the lane.

Then he slipped.

He didn’t fall, but the slip was all George needed. He scooped up a bowling ball and did an overhead throw, hurling it at Ivan’s back.

Unlike the grenade, this throw did not come up short. The ten or twelve pound ball struck Ivan in the center of the back, knocking him down onto the shiny wooden lane.

George jammed his fingers into the holes of another bowling ball and ran onto the lane with the werewolf.

If he ever got to retell this story, George would enhance this portion, laughing gently as he told his grandchildren about how he rolled the ball down the center of the lane, bashing the werewolf in the face. And then I shouted “strike!” he’d tell them.

Instead, he adjusted his grip so that he held the bowling ball with both hands, and brought it down upon Ivan’s head.

Though Ivan’s skull didn’t crack open, the force of the blow definitely left a dent.

George bashed him again. Then once more.

The ball popped out of George’s hands and rolled into the gutter.

Ivan scrambled forward. George wrapped his arms around the werewolf’s leg, forcing him to drag George along with him. George tried to rip off chunks of fur as they moved down the bowling lane.

He was losing his grip on Ivan. He couldn’t let that happen. What if the werewolf ran back the way they’d come, rushing out the main entrance and hacking up new victims left and right?

Ivan got one of his legs free, and kicked George in the face. It definitely drew blood. George didn’t care.

Several pins fell. Was some idiot really still bowling?

No, it was Lou, coming to the rescue.

Lou kicked away the remaining pins and crawled through the back entrance to the lane. Later--again, if he survived--George would thank him profusely for deviating from the plan. If Lou had been in here and George had heard explosions, he probably would’ve come in to make sure everything was okay, too.

Lou picked up a bowling pin as he got back to his feet.

George made another grab for Ivan’s legs. Ivan caught George’s wrists and gave them a powerful tug that sent twin bolts of pain all the way to his shoulders. Both of George’s arms flopped uselessly onto the lane. He would’ve expected it to hurt twice as much as when he’d had one shoulder dislocated earlier, but it hurt a lot more than that.

Ivan ran at Lou.

Lou swung the pin, bashing it so hard across Ivan’s face that the pin broke in half in a shower of wood chips.

George couldn’t catch his breath. He felt like he might be having a heart attack. Considering the amount of pain he was in at the moment, that sounded almost relaxing.

* * *

Lou slammed the broken pin into Ivan’s chest, trying to use it like a broken bottle. The splinters wouldn’t kill him, but Lou just needed to hurt Ivan enough to make him run away. If he ran away, Lou was confident that he could get him with the dynamite that was currently wedged into the waist of his pants.

Mostly confident, anyway.

He really hoped that stuff was stable.

* * *

Ivan had no intention of running away.

He was going to fuck these guys up.

* * *

George rolled onto his side, prayed that his shoulder was in the right spot, and bashed himself against the bowling lane. He thought he might be screaming louder than the blast of the grenades, but he didn’t care. God that hurt.

He repeated the process with the other shoulder.

Lou seemed to be holding up...well, poorly. He’d gotten in some good hits, but the werewolf was nowhere near out of commission.

* * *

Lou punched Ivan in the stomach. It was a solid, powerful blow, yet it did nothing.

What if he lit the fuse? Blew them both up.

He’d kill himself, but end the werewolf’s rampage forever.

No. Fuck suicide, even heroic sacrifice suicide. He’d poke out the werewolf’s eyeballs, kick him away, then blow his ass up, after which, he and George should probably make a hasty retreat for the exit. They were having good luck with the slow arrival of law enforcement agencies today, but that winning streak couldn’t last forever.

He extended his thumb and jabbed at Ivan’s right eye.

Ivan grabbed Lou’s wrist, twisted it, and then shoved it into his mouth.

Lou shrieked as the werewolf’s fangs tore through muscle and crunched through bone.

* * *

He bit his hand off! Holy shit! He bit Lou’s hand off!

George’s arms still weren’t working right, but he managed to push himself to his feet. His partner stumbled backwards, slipped in the gutter, and landed hard, blood spraying from his arm.

Ivan gulped down his hand and licked his bloody chops.

Then he frowned.

Shook his head violently.

Gagged.

“The cross!” Lou shouted. “He swallowed the cross!”

Ivan spat out some foam and clutched at his throat. George staggered over to the werewolf. He couldn’t believe it. Lou had been right--that furry son of a bitch couldn’t deal with a cross, at least one that was sliding down his goddamn windpipe.

If that cross was burning through his insides, George had to make sure it didn’t take an efficient route.

Knowing that Ivan was an agent of Satan or something like that made George feel even better about the violence he needed to inflict. He punched Ivan in the face, sending bloody spew flying into the air. Ivan’s lower jaw went off-center. A dime-sized hole formed in his throat.

No. That wasn’t good enough.

George kicked Ivan’s feet out from under him. The werewolf fell. George got down with him. Ivan’s eyes were wide with fright as the tiny silver cross continued to do its damage.

Ivan’s entire body began to shift from wolf to human and back again, a wave of transformation that ran back and forth from head to toe.

George punched him in the face, then grabbed him by the hair and pulled him to a sitting position. He didn’t want the cross to burn out through the back of his neck.

Had to get the heart.

Ivan wailed and swiped at George, but they were weak efforts. Another spot of blood appeared on Ivan’s chest, so George tilted him, hoping that he was aiming the cross properly.

Ivan’s face became human. He tried to say something but couldn’t speak. Probably trying to get in one last smart-ass comment.

Too bad for him.

With a sudden burst of strength, Ivan leaned his head forward and bit at George’s arm. His human teeth scraped harmlessly across George’s flesh.

Then Ivan gasped, loudly.

His eyes rolled to the back of his head.

Blood poured from his mouth as all strength vanished from his body.

George let him drop.

Ivan, his body half-human, half-wolfman, lay motionless on the bowling lane.

Dead.

Finally.

George tore off his shirt as he hurried over and pulled Lou to his feet. He quickly wrapped the shirt around Lou’s bleeding stump, as tightly as he could.

“It’s going to be fine,” said George. “I promise.”

Lou looked like a zombie, but he hadn’t completely checked out quite yet. “Is he dead?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, good.”

“Just come with me,” George said. “If we can beat the cops, everything will be fine.”