Pocket Apocalypse
Page 66
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“Shelby! Down!” I shouted. She didn’t turn. She just hit the ground on her elbows, going down hard in the pool of her father’s blood. The werewolf’s head whipped around to face me, lips drawing back even farther, a growl vibrating up from the depths of its chest. I took a deep breath, stabilized my stance, and opened fire.
My first bullet caught the werewolf in the center of its chest: I had aimed for the point of greatest mass, judging it as the best way to stop the thing before it slammed into Shelby. It howled. I fired twice more, hitting it in the shoulder and the forehead.
The third shot did it. The werewolf collapsed in a heap, emptying its bladder onto the floor. The smell of hot urine filled the air, overwhelming the smell of blood. That was a good thing, disgusting as it was: it meant the beast was almost certainly dead.
“Almost” doesn’t count for a damn thing. I strode past Shelby, much as I ached to stop and help her up, and emptied my gun into the werewolf’s head. The body jerked with every bullet, but that was all. It didn’t twitch or try to get up. It was well and truly dead.
“Daddy!”
The werewolf was dead, but Riley wasn’t . . . and given the amount of drool the beast had been generating, that might mean we had another werewolf on our hands. I turned, arms hanging loosely at my sides, to see Shelby now huddled against her father’s chest, her arms wrapped tight around him, sobbing. Riley wasn’t holding her. He was just sitting there, a befuddled expression on his face, bleeding on the floor and staring at the crumpled werewolf.
“Shelby.” She didn’t move. I tried again: “Shelby. I need you.”
“Is it dead?” Shelby peeled her face away from her father’s shoulder and twisted to follow his gaze to the fallen werewolf. “It’s dead.” The relief in her voice was indescribable, and it made me want to hug her, almost as much as it made me want to get her out of the room. “You killed it. Thank you, Alex. Thank you so much.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” I said grimly. I tilted my head back and checked the ceiling. The lights seemed to be behaving normally now: they were only on in the small slice of room that we occupied. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. This space was massive, and the trouble with motion detectors is that most of them aren’t sensitive enough to pick up on someone who decides to hold perfectly still. Breathing is not going to keep the lights on. I started reloading my gun as I swung my attention back around to Shelby. “I need you to go find your mother and bring her back here. Bring at least two people with guns, and have someone call Dr. Jalali. We’re going to need her.”
Shelby blinked, relief melting into incomprehension. “Why do we need Dr. Jalali? The werewolf is dead. You killed it.”
“This isn’t a movie, Shelly,” rumbled Riley. He sat up a little straighter, seeming to snap out of whatever fugue he had fallen into. “Killing the master werewolf doesn’t make everyone it’s bitten go normal again. If it did, we would have wiped them out centuries ago. It’s a virus, and I’ve been bitten.”
“Dr. Jalali isn’t a mammal, and that means she’ll be able to treat your father without worrying about blood-borne contamination. He’s not infectious yet, but not all the blood is his.” As I spoke the words, I finally saw how much blood was on Shelby’s skin and clothing. She was practically marinating in the stuff, and it was all I could do to hold my position rather than running over and yanking her to her feet, away from her father, away from possible contamination. I resisted. “Shelby, you need to go, and you need to take a thorough shower before you come back here. Please.”
She would also need to be checked for open wounds, for cuts on her hands and face—what if she’d skinned her palms when she fell? Oh, God, what if she’d hit the floor so hard that she’d broken the skin on her elbows? She’d been kneeling in the pool of blood, and there was no way of telling Riley’s blood from the dead werewolf’s. They could both be infected. I could lose her.
I’d only been in Australia since yesterday, and was not very impressed with it thus far.
“Please, Shelly,” added Riley. “I’ve got Alex to watch over me. He’ll make sure I don’t get eaten by anything else that might be lurking.”
Shelby looked from him to me, uncertainty plain, before climbing to her feet. She slipped twice in the blood, smearing it across the industrial carpet, and I had to once again fight to keep myself from running to her side. “I will be right back,” she said. “Daddy, don’t you do anything stupid while I’m away. Alex, don’t you let him do anything stupid. I’ll never forgive you if you do.” Then she whirled and ran out of the room, leaving bloody footprints in her wake. They were going to need a full decontamination crew in here, and even then, it might be a good idea to rip up and burn the carpet. There was no telling how long lycanthropy could live in cloth.
“We need a virologist,” I muttered. “Why didn’t I ask Helen if she could find us a virologist?”
Riley was scowling at the fallen werewolf. “In the movies they always turn back when they die,” he said. “How are we supposed to know who this fucker was if it doesn’t turn back into a human?”
“We don’t know that it started off as a human,” I said—although if it hadn’t, that meant someone would have had to let it in, which left us with at least one werewolf unaccounted for. I really, really hoped this one had been human when it started. “I think it’s likely, but it could also have been a large dog, or a kangaroo, or even a sheep. When Helen gets here, after she takes care of you, I’ll see if I can get her to perform a superficial examination. We can at least determine whether the werewolf was male or female, which cuts our potential suspect pool in half. What did Shelby mean by ‘don’t do anything stupid’?”
“She was telling me not to shoot myself.” Riley sounded calm, like admitting that his own daughter was concerned he would commit suicide was perfectly normal. “We don’t have much experience with infectious monsters here, but we have plenty of venomous ones. A few of them, there’s no treatment, there’s no cure; there’s just rotting from the inside out while you wait for your family to give you permission to die. Most people who get bitten choose to take the easy route to the grave, and no one blames them. It’s one hell of a way to go.” His gaze flicked back to the dead werewolf. “Of course, so is this. It might be kinder if I shot myself.”
My first bullet caught the werewolf in the center of its chest: I had aimed for the point of greatest mass, judging it as the best way to stop the thing before it slammed into Shelby. It howled. I fired twice more, hitting it in the shoulder and the forehead.
The third shot did it. The werewolf collapsed in a heap, emptying its bladder onto the floor. The smell of hot urine filled the air, overwhelming the smell of blood. That was a good thing, disgusting as it was: it meant the beast was almost certainly dead.
“Almost” doesn’t count for a damn thing. I strode past Shelby, much as I ached to stop and help her up, and emptied my gun into the werewolf’s head. The body jerked with every bullet, but that was all. It didn’t twitch or try to get up. It was well and truly dead.
“Daddy!”
The werewolf was dead, but Riley wasn’t . . . and given the amount of drool the beast had been generating, that might mean we had another werewolf on our hands. I turned, arms hanging loosely at my sides, to see Shelby now huddled against her father’s chest, her arms wrapped tight around him, sobbing. Riley wasn’t holding her. He was just sitting there, a befuddled expression on his face, bleeding on the floor and staring at the crumpled werewolf.
“Shelby.” She didn’t move. I tried again: “Shelby. I need you.”
“Is it dead?” Shelby peeled her face away from her father’s shoulder and twisted to follow his gaze to the fallen werewolf. “It’s dead.” The relief in her voice was indescribable, and it made me want to hug her, almost as much as it made me want to get her out of the room. “You killed it. Thank you, Alex. Thank you so much.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” I said grimly. I tilted my head back and checked the ceiling. The lights seemed to be behaving normally now: they were only on in the small slice of room that we occupied. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. This space was massive, and the trouble with motion detectors is that most of them aren’t sensitive enough to pick up on someone who decides to hold perfectly still. Breathing is not going to keep the lights on. I started reloading my gun as I swung my attention back around to Shelby. “I need you to go find your mother and bring her back here. Bring at least two people with guns, and have someone call Dr. Jalali. We’re going to need her.”
Shelby blinked, relief melting into incomprehension. “Why do we need Dr. Jalali? The werewolf is dead. You killed it.”
“This isn’t a movie, Shelly,” rumbled Riley. He sat up a little straighter, seeming to snap out of whatever fugue he had fallen into. “Killing the master werewolf doesn’t make everyone it’s bitten go normal again. If it did, we would have wiped them out centuries ago. It’s a virus, and I’ve been bitten.”
“Dr. Jalali isn’t a mammal, and that means she’ll be able to treat your father without worrying about blood-borne contamination. He’s not infectious yet, but not all the blood is his.” As I spoke the words, I finally saw how much blood was on Shelby’s skin and clothing. She was practically marinating in the stuff, and it was all I could do to hold my position rather than running over and yanking her to her feet, away from her father, away from possible contamination. I resisted. “Shelby, you need to go, and you need to take a thorough shower before you come back here. Please.”
She would also need to be checked for open wounds, for cuts on her hands and face—what if she’d skinned her palms when she fell? Oh, God, what if she’d hit the floor so hard that she’d broken the skin on her elbows? She’d been kneeling in the pool of blood, and there was no way of telling Riley’s blood from the dead werewolf’s. They could both be infected. I could lose her.
I’d only been in Australia since yesterday, and was not very impressed with it thus far.
“Please, Shelly,” added Riley. “I’ve got Alex to watch over me. He’ll make sure I don’t get eaten by anything else that might be lurking.”
Shelby looked from him to me, uncertainty plain, before climbing to her feet. She slipped twice in the blood, smearing it across the industrial carpet, and I had to once again fight to keep myself from running to her side. “I will be right back,” she said. “Daddy, don’t you do anything stupid while I’m away. Alex, don’t you let him do anything stupid. I’ll never forgive you if you do.” Then she whirled and ran out of the room, leaving bloody footprints in her wake. They were going to need a full decontamination crew in here, and even then, it might be a good idea to rip up and burn the carpet. There was no telling how long lycanthropy could live in cloth.
“We need a virologist,” I muttered. “Why didn’t I ask Helen if she could find us a virologist?”
Riley was scowling at the fallen werewolf. “In the movies they always turn back when they die,” he said. “How are we supposed to know who this fucker was if it doesn’t turn back into a human?”
“We don’t know that it started off as a human,” I said—although if it hadn’t, that meant someone would have had to let it in, which left us with at least one werewolf unaccounted for. I really, really hoped this one had been human when it started. “I think it’s likely, but it could also have been a large dog, or a kangaroo, or even a sheep. When Helen gets here, after she takes care of you, I’ll see if I can get her to perform a superficial examination. We can at least determine whether the werewolf was male or female, which cuts our potential suspect pool in half. What did Shelby mean by ‘don’t do anything stupid’?”
“She was telling me not to shoot myself.” Riley sounded calm, like admitting that his own daughter was concerned he would commit suicide was perfectly normal. “We don’t have much experience with infectious monsters here, but we have plenty of venomous ones. A few of them, there’s no treatment, there’s no cure; there’s just rotting from the inside out while you wait for your family to give you permission to die. Most people who get bitten choose to take the easy route to the grave, and no one blames them. It’s one hell of a way to go.” His gaze flicked back to the dead werewolf. “Of course, so is this. It might be kinder if I shot myself.”
