After School Special

I should have taken the day off, Zoe thought to herself.

She eyed the ugly splotches that circled her wrist; a dark purple, near black, that faded to a sickly mottling of green and yellow around the edges. She supposed it wasn't really that bad. The night before, she'd been a hot mess. Like something the cat dragged in out of the rain, as her mother was fond of saying. Soaked from head to toe, stockings torn, sweater in ribbons, shoes all but lost under a heavy cake of mud. She'd been attacked. Attacked. In her own town. Cleaned up, she'd crawled into her bed, mind swirling over what had happened, and what could have, and what her next move would have to be. She'd lain in the dark, eyes wide open, until they grey light of dawn began to peek over the horizon and she fell into a fitful slumber.

But somehow, when her alarm went off, and she woke to bright sunlight filtering through the lace curtains on her bedroom window, things didn't seem quite so bleak. She contemplated calling in, taking a sick day to regroup, but in the end, couldn't bear to do it to her students... it was too early in the school year, and they needed her. Or so she told herself. It made it easier to wear the mask. But looking at the bruises, she could feel it starting to slip.

"Miss Madison!"

Zoe started, jerking her arms behind her back, out of sight, and quickly tugged her sweater over her hands. "What is it, Adam?"

"Come and see! You have to see!" The seven year old grabbed her hand and began to pull her across the playground, towards the grassy area on the far side of the four-square courts.

Zoe shrugged to the aide monitoring the jungle gym, and allowed herself to be pulled, chuckling as they went. "Do I get a hint about..."

She trailed off, a hint no longer needed when the scent of blood reached her nose.

Adam let go of her hand and ran to the base of a large maple, kneeling in the golden leaves at its base. "I think he's hurt," Adam said of the squirrel, his face serious. "We'll have to take him to the nurse first. But not near as bad as when Kimmy Miller got hit in the face with that basketball in gym class and bled all over her shirt. But after that, Miss Madison, can we keep him?"

"Oh, honey, I don't know..." Zoe sighed. The squirrel was beyond hurt. Its hindquarters lay limp and still, and from the smell of it, was the poor thing was suffering through the late stages of some sort of infection in addition to its broken spine. Its chest rose and fell in rapid, shallow breaths, its black eyes glassy. It was dying, and painfully so. Zoe knew what she had to do, but she didn't know that she had the right or the will to introduce that sad part of life to the little boy kneeling at her feet.

"Please?" he asked.

"Well, the thing is, I think, um," she swallowed hard. C'mon, you can do this. "I think Mr. Nutters here is hurt pretty badly..." At this, Adam's lower lip trembled. Zoe quickly continued. "... and he's going to need to see a special doctor. Just for squirrels."

"Oh," he said, sniffing. "Is it a lot of money? When my dog needed a..." he squinted, straining for the word. "... a speshlist," Close enough, hon, Zoe thought. "My mom said it was too ex.. exp.. cost too much money. And so he died."

Zoe frowned. Adam's mom was clearly a bit of a you-know-what-rhymes-with-itch. "Adam, honey, no.. it's not expensive. It's, um, it's just going to take a really long time for him to get better. Maybe a couple of months, or the whole school year..." Or however long it takes for you to forget about poor old Mr. Nutters.

A single, fat tear rolled down Adam's cheeks. "Well, that's okay, I guess.. if he gets better."

"Why don't I just take him to my car now, and get him comfortable, while you go play with your friends. See if you can't get a game of Red Rover going, maybe."

"Red Rover, yeah!" Adam pumped his fist at the notion of his favourite game and ran off, waving over his shoulder. "Bye, Mr. Nutters! See you soon!"

Let's hope not, Zoe thought, and gingerly gathered the squirrel, hugging the fence as she made her way behind the school. She kept going until she neared the bank of dumpsters by the cafeteria, until she was positive she was out of sight. In her hands, the squirrel shuddered, its labored breathing elevating to a high-pitched wheeze.

She gave its neck a sharp and sudden twist, and it was still.

"Sorry Mr. Nutters," Zoe whispered, dropping the corpse into the bin. "It had to be done."

She looked down at her hands, feeling queasy as she stared at the streaks of already-drying blood on her palms. She could smell it. It smelled of death before she killed it, and now it was on her. She could hear her students playing around the corner, but they sounded far away. Zoe felt herself sway on her feet. She reached out to steady herself, but instead of the cool, rough edge of the dumpster, her hand landed on something warm, but no less solid.

Instinctively, she jerked away from the man, away from him. But he was faster, and yanked her back into the shadows. The back of her skull struck the brick of the school, stars exploding in front of her eyes.

"You troublesome bitch," he snarled. Meaty fingers dug into her shoulders as he gave her another shake, snapping her head again into the brick.

"Please," she whimpered.

But his hands were gone from her shoulders, replaced on her neck. She clawed at them with her own, but she may as well have been prying at steel. "Red Rover, Red Rover, send Kimmy on over..." They were so far away. Fading farther. Her vision began to tunnel, black creeping in along the edges, the center going grey. Please.

And then she was on the ground, her knees scraping the pavement and snapping her back to consciousness in time to see his heavy work boots retreating down the alleyway.

"Jesus, Zoe! Jesus, say something! Zoe!"

"Trudy?" she asked, squinting at the redhead.

"Oh, thank god," Trudy breathed, dropping her pack of cigarettes to the ground to help Zoe to her feet. "She's okay," she called.

"The cops are on the way," Mac called back from the kitchen. He struggled to prop the door, then ambled out as fast as his portly frame could muster, a baseball bat clutched in one hand.

Zoe could already hear the sirens in the distance.

"It's okay, honey," Trudy cooed, clutching Zoe to her overly-perfumed bosom. "It's over now."

But Zoe knew she was wrong. It wasn't over. Not by a long shot.

Dammit.

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

Dammit.

He had been there, right there, hands around her throat.

He’d been waiting all day. Sitting outside the school, watching, waiting. He had to have an opportunity. No way this mutt was getting away again. And if he didn’t get it here, he’d be able to follow her somewhere he could. He’d spent hours in the cramped rental he’d paid cash for. Not like his semi would be subtle on the streets.

His biggest fear had been that some overprotective mom would see him sitting there and sick Chris Hansen on him. To Catch a Predator…they had no idea what a predator was.

Victor slammed his fist down, putting a dent in the crappy little foreign jobs dash. One more reason to buy American. It had all been going so good. Better than he could have planned.

She came out to the playground. She was surrounded by munchkins, but Victor could see her plain as day, her annoying little blonde pony tail swishing as she walked. He had a quiet spot where he could see her, but she couldn’t see him. All his instincts went off when one of the little brats brought her some ball of fur. Try not to eat it in front of him, bitch!

Victor looked around. He had to bail, get out of Dodge while the heat died down. He felt trapped.

When he saw her heading back to the back of the school with the ball of fur, he’d hustled to beat her there, hiding behind a trash dumpster. He closed his eyes and allowed his ears and nose to tell him as she approached. Finally she was there. He peeked around the corner of the trash bin, but she wasn’t paying attention. She was looking back at the schoolyard at those rugrats she called students. When she blindly reached to throw away what looked to be a squirrel, he struck. He moved as fast as he could, grabbing her and pulling her behind the dumpster with him.

As fast and hard as he could, he slammed her into the wall, glorifying in watching her head bounce off the brick. There was no way she was getting away this time. He had her and he wasn’t giving her a chance to get her balance. She was as good as dead.

She was still alive. Those damn do-gooders had interfered, and he’d had to run. Didn’t they know who they were saving? She was a mutt menace, as likely to eat them as say good morning. Idiots!

************

So this was it then. He had been following her essentially all day, cramped up in a tiny car and dying to stretch his legs. But she’d finally made a mistake. The brazen bitch had decided to go for a run. Not a werewolf run, but a human run, an evening jog. Victor thanked the gods of daylight savings that it was already dark and people were already pulling into their homes for the evening.

Once he realized about what her route would likely be, he did some quick planning. There was a construction site up ahead. She’d be stupid to run by it. The way things were going, that was a dead giveaway that she would. This was the girl that ran into the windowless basement in a horror movie. He was amazed she’d made it this long. He guessed she relied on her werewolf strength, speed, and senses. It had worked so far, but she had just run into a bigger, badder wolf, and she was running upwind.

Victor rolled his vehicle around a couple of corners and parked behind the site. He easily jumped the chain link fence on his side of the site and said another silent prayer of thanks for the nice tall board fence on the side the mutt bitch would be running past. At a quick jog he ran up and positioned himself behind the fence but by the gate and waited.

Sure enough, a few short minutes later he heard the quick pace of her steps and heavy rhythm of her breathing. It made him realize he had another edge he hadn’t thought about; she’d be tired out before the fight ever started. He took a slow gathering breath and readied himself.

Just as she passed it, he kicked open the gate and reached out to grab her, throwing her quickly into the construction yard behind him. He turned to watch as she tripped over a loose brick and fell in the dirt. He had to wait just a second and smile at her. It was finally going to be over.

As she rolled over he pounced, landing on her with all his weight. Fuck! And the knife she’d rolled over with. As he looked at her in disbelief she grinned back up at him. “What?” she asked. “Did you think I was stupid? Some little girl with big boobs in a horror movie?” And laughed. She laughed at him!

As she pushed deeper with the knife, he pushed himself up, essentially throwing himself off her. He could feel his blood leaking out, fast. He stumbled back, trying to get away from her. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a ramp leading up into the building frame. If he could just get high enough, then he could throw her off and let his own metabolism take care of the injury.

As he climbed, she came behind him, knife held out and evil gleam in her eyes. He made the fourth floor before he had lost too much blood to continue climbing. He backed slowly up to the edge looking over at the ground as she came off the ramp and onto the concrete slab that was the fourth floor of the frame. Below him was a helter skelter stack of used rebar, essentially rusty iron bars sticking up into the night at all angles. If he could throw her down on that, she would be poked through with more holes than a pasta strainer.

He turned and faced her, “OK. You got the drop on me, bitch. Come over and see if you can do it when I’m ready.”

And come over she did, but not quietly. “I’ve been waiting to meet you. Following behind me, burying bodies, hiding the evidence. You’ve been my best friend.”

He hadn’t had a choice. Leaving them out would have left weres too vulnerable to discovery. Maybe the Pack would have been able to chase her down and end it, but not before the bodies were discovered.

As she approached him he reached for his own knife, the one that had fought off that Pack wolf the night before. He pulled it out and tried to hold it in front of him, but he had lost too much blood. His hand weakened and he lost his grip. He felt impotent as he listened to it clattering its way to the ground below.

She laughed at him. “Oh, you are something, aren’t you? You’re here for your last stand and you’re worse off than Custer. I almost feel dirty killing someone as pitiful as you. And you call yourself a wolf.”

She lunged at him with her knife. As she did so he reached to grab her and throw her over the side. Once again his weakened arm betrayed him, gaining no purchase. Her knife slid like a dog on tile into his other arm, leaving it just as worth it. He tried to stop himself, but he had committed. She bumped him with her shoulder, and even her light weight was enough. He felt his stomach lurch into his throat as he lost purchase on the slab beneath him. As he felt the rebar pierce through him in a dozen places, his wolf ears picked up what would be the last sounds he ever heard. Her snicker as she said one last time, “Pitiful.”

And then nothing. Sweet blessed nothing. One more worthless mutt out of the world.