“Should they be here by now?” Calvin asked anxiously. He was once again wearing women’s sweatpants. This time they were bright pink and said “Juicy” on the back. They were still too small and only barely went past his knees. The shirt they had found was no better, it was a tank top that proudly declared the wearer of said tank top to be a “Slut” in bold letters across the chest. Given the clothing they had found inside the car, Calvin and Rhoslyn had not been at all surprised that its owner had simply panicked and run off rather than drive away in her car, but at least Calvin was no longer naked.
“I’m not sure how far away that next rest stop is,” Rhoslyn said. “It may take them a while to get back here.”
Calvin frowned worriedly. Marla obviously knew that they had been here so it was possible that Sara and Logan could turn up any second. Of course, if they did then Calvin could just transform into a werewolf and fight them, but getting into a brawl was hardly a guarantee of safety.
“Oh, God dammit...no, no, no!” Calvin groaned when he saw Nel padding aimlessly down the side of the highway. He and Rhoslyn ran over to Nel.
Nel seemed surprised to be meeting them here. “Oh...hello,” she mumbled as she kept walking.
“Nel, I need you to focus,” Calvin told her. “What happened to the others?”
“The others?” Nel asked, clearly confused.
“Yes. The other people who were with you. Kari. Harris. Their families. My family,” Calvin reminded her.
“Oh, them.” Nel waved her hand dismissively. “Marla has them. Still alive though,” she said, perplexed by that fact.
Calvin fought down the urge to swear. As his temper rose he felt the transformation coming over him and he forced himself to take a deep breath. “Where did Marla take them?”
Nel shrugged. “How would I know? Marla’s never left anyone alive before.” A black SUV pulled into the rest stop and a dead man got out of the driver side door. “Oh...oh no...I--I don’t like them,” Nel whimpered.
Calvin gawked as Tim Kane, business werewolf scanned the rest stop parking lot for danger, evidently decided it was safe, and opened one of the rear doors. A tall, regal looking woman with thick silver hair down to her shoulders stepped out of the SUV.
“I don’t understand. He’s dead. I saw him die.” Calvin could not tear his eyes away from the man he had supposedly killed.
“Who? The guy in the suit?” Rhoslyn asked.
Calvin nodded. He didn’t really want to tell Rhoslyn about how Sara had made him shoot Tim Kane in the head.
“Did the necromancer bring him back, then?” she guessed.
“Could be. Everyone else she’s brought back has still had their wounds, though. Sara’s stomach was all torn up. I just don’t know.” Calvin shivered. Tim and the woman were walking over to them.
The tall woman in the business suit looked Calvin up and down, then turned to Nel and asked, “This is the supposedly successful specimen?”
Nel nodded. It was the most coherent thing Calvin had ever seen her do. He wondered if it was a fluke or if Nel had genuinely understood the question and responded to it appropriately.
“Very well,” the woman said somewhat skeptically. “Commence with the test.” She turned towards the woods behind the rest stop.
Everyone else did the same as three zombies came staggering out from the trees. The woman and the business werewolf waited patiently. Calvin snarled and silently berated himself for only now realizing what was going on. This woman must have been the CEO of Werewolf Corp or whatever organization Tim Kane was a paper pusher for and she wanted to see the freak daytime werewolf perform live.
Calvin stripped off his girly clothes and closed his eyes. He found it easy to summon up the anger and adrenaline necessary to start the transformation. Once he was in werewolf mode he bounded over to the zombies and ripped them apart easily. After he was done he trotted back over the group of spectators.
“Fascinating,” the woman declared. “He even seemed to retain control during the change. Well done,” she told Nel.
“I told you I could do it,” Nel answered proudly. Calvin felt his jaw drop. There was no mistaking that Nel was having a real, honest to goodness conversation with this woman who had appeared out of nowhere with a werewolf who should be very, very dead.
“Yes, but there were all those unpleasant early...test subjects,” the woman said distastefully.
Nel waved her hand dismissively. “Necessary setbacks. This, my dear woman, is what you paid me for.” She gestured grandly at Calvin, still in werewolf form.
“So I see,” she admitted. Finally, she addressed Calvin. “Well, young man, how do you feel?”
“Very confused,” Calvin told her. “Who are you?”
“You may call me Miss Avery,” the Chief Executive Werewolf replied. “What other silly questions do you have?”
“What would really make me feel better is a quick summary of what the hell is going on,” Calvin told her. “Why is Nel sane now, how are you involved with the zombies, why did you do this to me, will you help get my friends back...you know, the high points.”
Miss Avery arched a questioning eyebrow at Nel. “I don’t quite see how ‘Nel’ is short for ‘Marla,’ but she has always been...well, perhaps sane is a strong word, but a reliable eccentric genius when it comes to necromancy and other dark magic.”
Calvin groaned audibly. “I’m such an idiot,” he moaned. He turned to Nel. “You’ve been Marla this whole time.”
Marla grinned mischievously. “Yes and no, but we can talk more about that later. Try to behave in front of the client.” She nodded at Miss Avery.
“Wait.” Rhoslyn held up her hands. “What the damn hell? This is the necromancer that chased you out of your home and tried to kill you and your friends?”
“So it would seem,” Calvin answered.
“Why are we not running for our lives right now?” Rhoslyn demanded.
“Because evidently the necromancer never wanted to kill me, she just wanted to experiment on me.” Calvin sighed.
“Finally figured it out. Better late than never.” Marla smiled at him.
“Where are my friends?” Calvin asked as calmly as he could.
“Safe, of course!” Marla replied. “I’ll take you to them as soon as we’ve concluded our business here.” She turned back to Miss Avery. “Where were we?”
“You can reproduce these results?” Miss Avery asked.
Marla nodded. “Absolutely. Everything went exactly as planned. One hundred percent repeatable procedure!”
“Very well. You have fulfilled your end of the bargain. I will insist that the Witches Coven, Warlocks Guild, Vampire Council, and the Yeti Protection Society all issue you blanket pardons for your past crimes. Given this sudden, dramatic increase in our power, they will all bow to our demands,” Miss Avery replied. “You do remember the second half of the agreement, yes?”
“Of course. All the werewolves in your faction will have the procedure performed on them and I will refuse this service to anyone else,” Marla answered happily.
“Good girl. Now run along and retrieve my progeny’s friends. I would hate for him to become distressed.” Miss Avery turned on her heel and strode back to the SUV, Tim Kane in tow.
“Progeny?” Calvin asked Marla.
Marla nodded. “What? You didn’t think I would let an imbecile like that business werewolf turn my most ambitious project yet from a simple human into the future of all werewolf-kind, do you?”
Calvin took a moment to reflect on that. He had finally come face to face with the werewolf who had attacked him eight months ago and left him in the woods to turn. Alone. After meeting Miss Avery, he was somehow unsurprised that she had done that to him.
“Now let’s go get your friends,” Marl said cheerfully.
Right on queue, Sara drove up in her mom’s beat up old minivan. Calvin transformed and quickly dressed when he woke back up.
Calvin and Rhoslyn climbed into the middle row of seats. “What’s that smell?” Rhoslyn whispered as they buckled their seat belts.
“Bacon flavored squeeze cheese and gin. Sara’s mother isn’t the classiest of gals,” Calvin whispered back.
“But why does her car smell like that?” Rhoslyn wondered. “I mean, surely she wasn’t drinking gin and eating bacon flavored squeeze cheese in the back of her van!”
“I know you’d prefer a world where that was true, but that ain’t the world we’re living in,” Calvin told her.
“Oh.” Rhoslyn and Calvin remained silent for the rest of the van ride. So did Sara and Marla, for that matter. Sara drove them to an abandoned K-Mart where they all got out and went inside. Judging by the state of the door frame, Sara had told Logan to force the door open.
Inside, everyone was tied up and gagged, sitting in a circle facing out. Logan stood over them vigilantly.
“Any trouble?” Sara asked. Logan shook his head. “Good. Now what?” she asked Marla.
“Now we all go home, everybody’s happy.” Marla grinned manically.
Sara frowned. “I’m not happy. We didn’t even kill anyone.”
“All in good time, my dear,” Marla told her. “There’s a war coming, after all.”
“War?” Rhoslyn asked worriedly. “With who?”
Marla smirked wickedly. “Everyone, of course. You know how werewolves are, silly little fairy. They only respect strength and now they’ll be ten times stronger than they were before my little experiment went so swimmingly.”
“No! I mean, they can’t! Everyone will team up against them. Even werewolves can’t fight every other type of supernatural at once,” Rhoslyn said.
“True,” Marla admitted. “But they will certainly try. Werewolves are stubborn that way. Remember how your new buddy tried to stay in werewolf form even after the moon went down? Stubborn. Which is exactly why I chose them. I mean, it would have been much simpler to make a vampire who could walk in the daylight, but vampires are so damn cautious and calculating! No, I needed a bunch of super werewolves to start a war big enough that even the idiot normal humans would notice. Then we won’t have to hide what we are any more.” Marla’s grin had gone way past manic to full on maniac.
Calvin leaned over to Rhoslyn and whispered, “Did she just give a speech that told us every detail of her evil master plan?”
Rhoslyn nodded. “Yeah, she did. I’m not really sure she’s all there upstairs.”
“Right again!” Marla cackled. Evidently, she had fantastic hearing along with her ability to raise the dead and create super werewolves. “Poor little Nel has no idea though, so mums the word, eh?” Marla put a finger to her lips.
Calvin and Rhoslyn stared at her, waiting for the punchline of whatever psychotic joke Marla was telling. Nel had been Marla the whole time, she had even admitted it!
Marla made a pouty face. “What? You still don’t understand? How delicious!” She cackled wildly again. “Luny little Nel lost her marbles when she accidently brought the old woman her neighbor murdered and buried in the backyard back as a zombie and lost control of it. Damn thing ate her whole family and that murdering old bastard! You can imagine the meltdown she had. She completely lost control of her new powers and the whole town was overrun with the undead. That’s where I came in,” Marla gestured to herself proudly. “Nel imagined someone else doing all those horrible things. She even gave this someone else a name and a personality. She imagined ‘Marla’ chasing her, tormenting her with hordes of zombies. Nel created me so she wouldn’t have to face what she’d done.”
Calvin gawked at Marla. “You’re insane,” he said finally.
Marla tilted her head to one side. “Well...technically I’m the sanest person in here.” She tapped the side of her head before bursting out laughing. When her gales of laughter had subsided, she wiped a tear from her eye and said, “What’s everyone standing around for? Let’s go home!”
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