"What the hell was that? Is this the zombie apocalypse? I don't have my leather duster! We can't start the apocalypse until I go home and get my black leather duster!" Harris was either gasping from their sprint or hyperventilating because he was about to have a panic attack, Calvin wasn't sure which. They were safely out of the pool and the zombies did not seem to be following them. Several screaming swimmers in various states of undress were pouring out the front doors now that there was a safe path out.
"Calm down and breathe for Christ's sake," Calvin snapped. "And shut up about your damn duster. No one is going to care what you look like during the zombie apocalypse, which I hate to burst your bubble, but this isn't it."
"How would you know that?" Harris asked, but Calvin ignored him.
Logan did not look like he was in a good way. He was bent over with his hands on his knees. "I couldn't save her. There was nothing I could do. I couldn't save her. There was nothing I could do." He kept muttering the same thing over and over.
"Easy there, buddy," Calvin told Logan gently. "We need to get in my car and drive away now."
"I couldn't save her. I -" Logan threw up, spewing an ungodly quantity of purple kool aid and hot dogs onto the pavement.
"That's it," Calvin declared. "Grab him and throw him in the back seat. We need to get out of here."
Harris did as he was told and the two of them dumped Logan rather unceremoniously into the back seat of Calvin's old Hyundai. Harris' hands were almost shaking too badly to buckle his seatbelt, but eventually he managed. Calvin's hands did not shake. He felt no fear, this close to the full moon it was difficult for him to be afraid of anything. His first instinct as a werewolf always seemed to be to fight. He was angry. He needed to find this Marla woman and deal with her before anyone else got killed.
So intent on his vengeance was Calvin that he nearly ran Nel over when she came darting out of the bushes. Calvin stood on his brake pedal and Nel yanked the front passenger door open. She leapt into Harris’ lap and shouted, “Drive, mother fucker!”
Zombies came stumbling out of the trees Nel had just emerged from and Calvin did not need to be told twice to speed away. “Where is Marla?” Calvin demanded.
Nel shook her head. “I don’t know. I didn’t see her. They just came out of nowhere! I had come here to meet you after your swim practice.” She shivered and kept glancing out the rear windows to make sure no zombies had snuck up on her.
Harris was clearly torn by this unusual turn of events. Not torn enough that he didn’t have his hand on Nel’s ass while she sat in his lap, but definitely unsure of how to process the appearance of a strange young woman directly following a zombie attack. “Who’s this?” he finally managed to ask.
“This is Nel. She is being chased by the zombies and the necromancer creating them,” Calvin explained.
Harris stroked his chiseled jaw thoughtfully as though he had a long beard covering it. “Yes, yes, I see. About that...HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?”
Calvin took a deep breath. He was speeding towards Logan’s house so they could drop him off with his parents. All he could think about was finding Marla and finishing this tonight. The moon would be up soon and he needed to be somewhere far away from people when the transformation overtook him. There was no room left in his head and certainly no time left for clever half-truths and deceptively sarcastic comments. “I’m a werewolf,” he said plainly. “I found out that zombies exist just last night when they attacked Nel. I need to drop you and Logan off somewhere safe before the moon comes out so that I don’t lose control when I transform and kill you all.”
Harris stared at him, his bright green eyes widening by the second. He turned his head slowly to see if Logan was conscious enough to have heard. He wasn’t. His head swiveled back to Calvin. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m a werewolf,” Calvin repeated. “For the three nights when the moon is fullest each month I turn into a seven and a half foot tall man-wolf hybrid and I roam the local forests hunting deer.”
“I...what?” Harris looked thoroughly befuddled.
Calvin groaned. “Just deal with it, dammit. We need to drop Logan off and then get you home. Can you keep Nel safe while I deal with the zombies?”
Harris looked at Nel, his face the very definition of panic. “Does...um...will you...uh...what?”
“Useless. Where’s Kari when I need her?” Calvin grumbled. He leaned forward to look up at the sky. There wasn’t enough time to drive to Kari’s house, explain everything, and then get far enough away to transform safely. “Listen, just do as I say. Pretend you’re cheating off my math test and you just need to follow direct instructions that I give you. Can you do that?”
Harris nodded.
“Good. Here, we’re at Logan’s house. When I stop the car, get out and help me haul Logan to the front door. I’ll get his keys out of his pocket and we’ll dump him inside,” Calvin said.
“We’re just going to leave him there?” Harris asked.
“No time for explanations. Let’s go.” Calvin parked the car and they pulled Logan out of the back seat and dropped him just inside his front door. Calvin locked the door and threw the keys on the carpet next to Logan.
“What if he needs help? Like he has some kind of wuss disease from passing out like a little bitch?” Harris wondered.
Calvin rolled his eyes. “At least I know you’re feeling better if you’re making fun of Logan. Get in back so Nel doesn’t have to move seats.”
Harris continued doing what he was told. Calvin sped off towards Harris’ house. He pulled into the driveway and parked the Hyundai.
“Just keep her safe. I imagine your parents are used to you bringing strange girls home all the time so just tell them whatever lie you would normally tell if Nel were one of your girlfriends, but for the love of God, just try to keep your hands off her!” Calvin ordered.
“Sir, yes, sir!” Harris chirped. He still had that shell-shocked look on his handsome face, but he escorted Nel into the house and locked the door behind him.
Calvin took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to have time to go all the way back to his parents’ house to park his car. He sent his mom a quick text that said he was staying at Harris’ house again tonight and drove the car out to an empty side road filled with empty lots that had never had houses built on them. He stripped, left his clothes in the car, hid his keys under a nearby rock and waited for the moon to rise.
Transforming into a werewolf isn’t nearly so painful as they make it look in the movies. In fact, it’s quite exhilarating. Calvin’s muscles would all stretch in what he assumed was just like what happened after a great yoga session. Not surprisingly, Calvin was not much of a yoga practitioner. He felt incredibly strong and suddenly had boundless energy. As the transformation happened, Calvin felt like he could do anything.
Then the hunger hit. Calvin felt as though he had not eaten for a week. Somewhere, deep in the back of his mind, he knew that the hunger would subside in a few moments, but in that instant he could have and would have tried to devour an elephant without hesitation. Underneath the hunger was a fiery rage that yearned to release his limitless energy by brawling with everyone and everything in sight until he was the undisputed king of all he surveyed. In his madness he considered running into city hall and taking over the police station. He could do it easily, the madness told him. He was invincible.
Then he slowly began to regain control. This was why he couldn’t let anyone be near him when he transformed. There was no way to know whether or not he could contain himself. Calvin sincerely doubted that he would be able to stop himself if a tasty morsel was sitting there next to him all scared and defenseless right as the moon rose.
Now that he was himself again, Calvin bounded through the woods back towards the pool. He needed to try and track Marla down before her trail went cold. The zombies would still be there, but he was glad for that. He wanted to rip as many of them apart as he could for what they had done to Sara.
When Calvin reached the pool there was a police officer standing in the parking lot with his hands on his hips. He looked very annoyed at the six boys in speedos standing shivering in front of him. Calvin listened to their conversation as he hid in the trees nearby.
“Zombies?” The officer shook his head. “Someone obviously played a trick on you boys. Go home.”
“No! Officer, we swear! There were zombies here! Lots of them! They broke through the glass and we heard screams from where we were trapped in the locker room!”
“Kid, give it a rest. You got fooled. It happens. You’ll get made fun of on Monday, but that’s the worst of it. Just be glad I don’t suspect you of vandalizing these windows,” the policeman warned.
“But...but we saw them!”
“Kid, what part of go home and be glad you aren’t being taken downtown for questioning are you not understanding?” the cop growled.
The swimmers dispersed forlornly under the watchful eye of the police officer. Then he put up a bunch of crime scene tape over the broken windows and left.
When the coast was clear, Calvin emerged from his hiding place. He smelled zombies and chlorine, but nothing unusual that might be a necromancer. He remembered from his encounter with the Olympic Mountain werewolves that they had had a very unique smell. Now, necromancers might not have the same type of odor, but if they did it would be the easiest way to track Marla. Unfortunately, Calvin found no unique supernatural odors so he ducked under the police tape and inspected the scene at the pool.
Everything was as he expected, except for the lack of blood in the deep end of the pool. He had wondered how the cop had been so stupid as to not believe someone had been attacked, but the necromancer must have some ability to siphon away or somehow else remove the blood from the pool.
That gave Calvin a brilliant idea. He could follow the smell of Sara’s blood. Blood was a different smell from chlorine and rotting flesh so he should be able to track it to wherever the zombies had gone after they left the pool.
The hunt was on!
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