Scratch That:, Judy Colella [best thriller books to read .TXT] 📗

“I could have tried being a girl, or maybe an earthworm – those little buggers don’t even have a gender! No wonder you never hear about earthworm wars or earthworm Divorce Court, or –”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“About the fact that you’re being such a chick! And don’t tell me your fellow females never get mad crushes on anyone and…and sort of…stalk…look. I didn’t start this – some nasty-ass werewolf bit me one night and that’s how it all began, okay? So get the hell off my case!”

Rochelle glared. She removed her coat and thumped back down on the sofa, arms crossed, and glared. “That’s it. I’m staying right here until my friend comes home, and if you try anything crazy, I swear I’ll bite you!”

“Ha. If you did, you’d become a werewolf yourself.”

She frowned. “Gross. Never mind, then. I’ll just stab you with a silver fork or something.”

Mack groaned and sat down again, too, feeling drained. Already things were going wonky, and Deva wasn’t even back yet with Vec. The spirit of Bette Davis made another brief appearance as he found himself thinking it was going to be a bumpy night.

 

*******

 

“Hey, you guys going to a costume party?” asked the waitress.

Deva and Vec stared at each other, momentarily confused, then back at the young woman; she’d interrupted herself in the middle of taking their order, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“I mean, those are some incredibly realistic-looking fangs. Where did you get them?”

Ah! The fangs! “An acquaintence gave them to us,” said Deva, sparing Vec further tongue lacerations. “So, do you have steak tartare?”

“Certainly,” she replied. “Would you like that with a raw egg?”

“I would. And a salad, please, no dressing.” Roughage – always a good thing to have with raw meat.

The waitress scribbled this down, and turned to Vec. “And what might I get for you, tonight?”

He murmured, “Your throat will do,” but Deva kicked him in the ankle. “Same as the young lady, please, and a glass of water with lemon.”

If she’d heard his first remark, she gave no indication of it. “Also no dressing for the salad?”

“Exactly. Thank you.”

She smiled, took their menus, and left, still scribbling on her pad.

Vector leaned forward as soon as she was gone enough, and in a low voice asked Deva to tell him what had happened after she’d bitten him. She told him everything, or as much as she could remember – the vodka had wreaked some havoc that first evening – and was being very didactic about it, but when she mentioned her embarrassment about Mack’s visit, she hesitated.

“What is it? Why would you be embarrassed about Mack being there? I mean, other than the whole rear-end-of-the-werewolf part.”

“Probably because I was completely naked the whole time.” She shrugged, preparing to tell him about the policeman, too, but was interrupted by his taloned hand gripping hers on the table.

His smile became a rictus of horror; eyes bulging and a little too bright, he grated, “He held a conversation with you while you were naked?”

“Y-yes. I wasn’t even thinking about that, you see, and insisted he come in…”

“And how long did he stay?”

She shrugged. “A half hour or so, maybe?”

“And you were stark naked?!”

“As a jaybird. It seemed quite normal at the time.”

“What…what did he do?”

She gave him an odd look. “What do you mean? He didn’t do anything, except piss me off about being the bastard who bit me – and ruining a brand-new shirt in the process! I forgot to mention that to him, though. Anyhow, that was all.”

“That was enough!” he hissed fiercely, puncturing his lower lip on the final consonant.

“You’re bleeding, Vec.”

His glare still in high-wattage mode, he put his napkin against his mouth.

“Yikes!” The waitress had returned and was goggling.

Prior to the unintentional lip-piercing, Vec had kept his hands in his lap, but now his enhanced fingernails were on full display as he pressed linen to lip.

She put two glasses of water (one with a lemon slice) on the table. “So…did your friend give you those claws, too?”

“Sure did,” Deva told her with a hard smile. “It’s part of the costume.”

“They look…real. Really, really…real.”

Vec looked up at her from under his eyebrows.

“Oh.” She zoomed off.

Nothing more was said, mostly because Deva didn’t quite know what to say, and Vec wasn’t saying what he was thinking. They dug into their raw meat with a zeal never before seen at that restaurant, and at its conclusion, Vec shoved his bloody napkin into the meat juices on his plate, explaining that he was hoping to disguise the stain. They left a hefty tip for the waitress, who had sent someone else to their table with the check, and returned in silence to Deva’s apartment.

Once inside the building, Vec stomped toward her door, his expression murderous.

“What are you going to do?” Deva demanded.

He turned the knob on the off-chance the door was unlocked, and sure enough, it was. He went in.

Voices. Low, growly voices and one querulous female voice. A high-pitched scream. And before Deva could go in to see what was going on, Mack shot out of the apartment, still screaming, Vector right on his heels, and they clattered past her, managing by some kind of miracle not to fall over her.

“What - ” Deva began, then shook her head and followed. By the time she caught up, Mack was perched on one of the branches of the oak tree across the street, Vector snarling up at him.

“You had to stay, didn’t you!” the overwrought bass player yelled. “You couldn’t do the decent thing and leave, could you!”

“I had to warn her about what was going to happen!” Mack whined, clearly terrified, his glance going upward mid-sentence as he sought higher refuge. “I didn’t know what else to do! Besides, I left as soon as I could!”

“Sure you did! And why the hell did you come back today?! Were you hoping for another free show?” Vec was positively bellowing by this time, and several cars slowed down as they passed.

“People are staring,” Deva pointed out, coming to stand beside her agitated boyfriend.

“Let them!”

“You’re bleeding very badly, Vec. You look like a lunatic.”

“Ha! I’m not the one in a tree!”

Deva sighed. “No, you’re not, but it’s really hard to see Mack up there from where the cars are, so you look like you’re yelling at the tree. Or maybe at a squirrel.”

“Wow. Great.”

Unbidden, a newspaper headline hove into view on Deva’s mental television screen. It read, “Member Of Local Rock Group Screams At Oak Tree.” She remembered in time not to bite her lower lip to hold back the grin. “How long are you going to keep him up there?” she asked instead.

“Until he’s ready to have his head torn off.”

“Not funny.”

“Wasn’t meant to be.”

“Fine, but if it’s starting to get late, and if you keep him up there for too long, it’ll get dark, the moon will come out, and he’ll turn into a werewolf while he’s still in the tree.” She tried to picture an over-sized wolf perched on a branch, and her mind nearly short-circuited.

“That’s right!” Mack called, having apparently heard her. “I’d like to see you explain a wolf in a tree!”

“Why would I have to explain anything, Mack? Besides, they’ll probably shoot you first and ask questions later.” Vec smiled, not even flinching as the gashes on his lip widened.

Another headline suggested itself to Deva: “Giant Wolf Gets Caught In Oak Tree”…. Then another, “Giant Wolf Dives Out of Tree Onto Unsuspecting Couple”…. Finally, one of her own, “Wolf In Tree Freaks Out, Loses Control of Bowels, Sends Animal Control Worker To Hospital.” She sat down on the grass and laughed herself nearly unconscious.

“Got it!” Rochelle, who had waited a few minutes before leaving the apartment in an effort to avoid witnessing vast quantities of bloodshed, had heard the shouting and come outside. When she saw the bizarre tableau at the tree, she took out her phone and started taking pictures. This last one was the best, though, having captured pretty much everything: Mack, white-faced as he clung to the branch like a manic spider monkey; Vec, the lower half of his face covered in blood like the creatures in “30 Days of Night,” jabbing a pointing finger upward and clearly showing his claws; and Deva sitting scrunched up on the grass by his feet, laughing hysterically. She figured she’d publish it on Youtube and ask people to provide a caption. Might even make her famous…

From the ground came the odd noise of a long, uncontrolled snort as Deva finally caught her breath. Vec, Mack and Rochelle turned startled stares on her, but she shook her head and started laughing again.

At that point, Rochelle might have given up trying to make sense of any of what was going on and returned home; Vec may have decided to make sure Deva was all right; and Mack could have chosen this opportunity to find another way out of the tree, but none of those things occurred for one very, simple, natural reason.

The full moon arose.

-5-

John Mahoney was a simple, well-adjusted, hard-working family man. He had a wife and four well-behaved children. He made enough money to keep up the mortgage payments on his house and afford nice family vacations. He had a used, late-model car he was proud to drive, and his wife thought he was the best man she’d ever known. His also had a second job of sorts – his actual one was in construction – that paid only a small monthly stipend. Four evenings a week, he helped out at the Animal Control Center in town, and after twelve years of service there, he believed he’d seen just about everything strange there was to see that was animal-related.

One night, he was called on to help get a giant otter off some woman’s front porch. No one could figure out where the thing had come from, and it wasn’t very cooperative, but John was a crack shot with a tranquilizer gun, and the problem had been solved. Another night, he’d had to extricate a howler monkey from a sewer pipe. The beast had escaped from a local petting zoo, and between fury and pure terror, was a frightening challenge, indeed. But once again, John’s deadeye aim had subdued the poor thing and all was well. So what with giant otters, monkeys, an occasional python and a bear or two, John Mahoney had felt sure he’d seen it all.

Until he found himself looking up into a large oak tree – on an otherwise average neighborhood street – at a gigantic wolf. That was pretty damned odd, but what was making it even more so was the wolf’s behavior. It was standing on its hind legs on a thick branch, its front legs wrapped tightly around the trunk, a look of pure horror and fear on its face. Its eyes were uncharacteristically round and bulging as it stared, open-jawed, at the ground far below, and it was emitting strange, mewling sounds.

“What the hell!” John raised the muzzle of his tranquilizer rifle, flummoxed.

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Huh?” He lowered the rifle and looked at the young lady who had appeared by his side. He did a double-take. She’d seemed completely normal