Life With A Werewolf

Walmart Parking Lot Survivors Club - Getting Sarah part 3

          I was pinned against the cheap wall of a local diner in a tiny town in the middle of Arkansas. The dawn was far off, and thanks to the encroaching darkness that pressed in at the edges of my vision, it felt as if it would never arrive. As I hung, grasping at the hands that were choking the life out of me, Sarah stood and turned towards a vision of someone else that stood in the doorway. In hindsight, it resembled the meth-headed vampire that was trying to kill me. However, at the time it could have been King Kong Bundy for all I knew and could see. My life was being drained literally by a vampire with rotted-out fangs and red glowing eyes. When Leeroy’s eyes began to glow was about when everything faded to black.
          If you will humor me but a moment, picture in your mind a door. A draw bridge of a door. This draw bridge is sturdy and strong and protects the castle of your mind that holds everything you are. Your identity, your memories, every lever and pully that your spirit uses to run and operate who you are. Now picture a massive, fierce beast of a creature outside of this draw bridge. It has pale white skin, is rail thin, and has massive claws. It exists in a dark grey cloud of some sort of smoke that slowly begins to drift over your castle. That demon that towers over the draw bridge has its claws on it and is pulling downward. The chains holding the drawbridge wrench, squeal, and fail, collapsing into the darkness that was the ground below. Normally, when this happens, you’re done for. The demon, in this case, the vampire, pretty much has control of the keep. Every lever, every pully. Every memory and feeling even your every thought is at its command. Everything you are is no longer under your control.
          Not everyone has the image of a draw bridge. For some it’s a car, others it’s a house. For me, it’s a castle. I suppose it goes back to my military training, and love of history. I won’t turn this into a history lecture, but medieval castles at the end of that age were some of the best-built defensive fortresses around. Even the stairs were designed to thwart invaders and made it nearly impossible to penetrate. I guess that’s why my mind picked that to represent the interior battle that was being waged. I needed security and defense. So my mind picked the best defense it could conjure on short notice.
          When the invading demon that was the meth-headed vampire in my mind wrenched down the drawbridge of my mind, instead of stepping inside and enslaving its sole resident, me, it met a massive wall of muscle, fur, and fangs.
          What happened afterward I only have glimpses of in my memory. A shove with my feet to break a hold. A pistol in my hands, and rapid gunfire in a diner, far faster and more accurate than I could ever have been capable. Two angry monsters in a rearview mirror give chase as I and Sarah race away in Crash’s Buick, leaving small town main street Arkansas behind us.
          When I came to, I was sitting in a Walmart parking lot. The car parked to take up about six spaces, parked longways in one of the slanted rows. The blue and gray façade of the store resembled a bit too much of the mental castle, so I looked away, and stared down for a moment at the dashboard. Sarah sat beside me, her eyes wide with terror, her hair looked as if it had been in some sort of wind storm. “Are you back? Jason! Are you here?”
          I took two deep breaths and nodded. A headache was coming on. But at least I was alive. And free. Kind of. “What the hell was that?” I asked, a note of slight panic in my voice.
          Sarah exhaled loudly as she looked toward the sky.
“Thank God!”
          “I’m serious, what the hell was that?” I asked.
A note of panic crept into my voice. Okay, so my voice squeaked like a scared twelve-year-old girl. But it was my first time being possessed by anything, so sue me. Well, the second time. There was that entire thing with the lawn gnome. But that all happened when I was asleep, so I don't think that count.
          “Drive.” She said.
          “Where?” I asked. “Where are we going?”
          “Anywhere.” She said, waving her arm at the road. “Just get us as far away from Arkansas as possible. Go northeast towards Chicago. I hear there are plenty of werewolves and things there.
We’ll be safe.”
          “As fun as this random road trip sounds, I need a bit more information than 'drive',” I said, stepping out of the car.
          “Jesus, are you stupid?! I just barely escaped those monsters. They nearly ate you till your pet werewolf took over.” She was near hysterics, waving her arms as she spoke. Behind her eyes sat months of hell that she went through, a pain that was only communicated in wide-eyed terror and furtive glances as she spoke, as if she was a caged animal with a predator circling outside.
          “Look,” I growled, leaning on the door of the convertible.
“Let’s play pretend. Let’s pretend I have no clue as to what the hell is going on. Would you please, for the love of God, start from the beginning and explain it to me!”
          Then it happened. The glare that I had been used to getting all of those months ago, back when we were unhappily married and still pretending that we had a thing for each other. Back when it was just the two of us in that apartment complex, existing but despising each other. “Why do you never trust me.”
          “Look, I trust you, but I don’t know what the hell I’m running from. I don’t know what the hell just happened. I prefer to know what I’m fleeing before I just start running.” I growled.
          She laughed, then said, “You don’t know a meth-headed vampire when you see one?”
          We had been together for almost ten minutes now by my calculations, and already things were approaching a boiling point. I clenched my fists hard, turned to her, and said, “I know about the damn vamps. I also know that something was trying to crawl around in my brain before something else kicked it out, so if you know what the hell is going on, I would love a little understanding, some fucking courtesy, and an explanation!”
          That last bit was said louder than I’d have liked. I didn’t want to fight. I wasn’t trying to make her feel bad. She did just escape a horror that I couldn’t begin to understand. Anyone in such a circumstance might have started crying. Any number of guys would have just punched me to avoid the tears, preferring a physical fight they could win to an emotional one they can’t. Sarah did none of those things. She just looked down at her hands for a moment, rubbed them together, and said, “Crash kicked them out. It may have been his dying act. He took control of you, fought them off, and got us out.”
          I swallowed hard. “Dying act? Nothing can kill him! He’s a werewolf!”
          She looked down at her hands for a moment then rubbed them together. “Yes, something can. Silver is poisonous to them after all. Especially when it’s in bullet form.” She swallowed. Took a couple of deep breaths, then began speaking again. “They’ve been planning it for months. They didn’t know I was starting to gain control back. The meth clouds their thinking, it weakens their abilities a bit. So, the higher they got, the crazier their plan became, but the more control I had over myself. They were selling meth and other drugs, buying up cheap silver trinkets online, melting it down into bullets. Building an arsenal.”
          “What for?” I already knew the answer before she said it. For war. She explained their plan, in shaky, horrified words. They had one crazy idea. The meth just gave them the will to do something that most others in their position would have been too terrified or too smart to try. Take out the local protections. Leave the regular civilian stuff. Take control of them. There were no vampires in the area other than them. No other real mythicals besides the resident sheriff. No one else to help the poor unsuspecting citizens if the sheriff were to be captured and killed. The people would become their cattle, for only God knows how long. “And no one can stop them.” She said, more horrified. “Nothing. Not even the meth can stop them now.”
          “Almost no one,” I growled, clenching the butt of my pistol tighter.
          In the past, especially with my training, I’ve learned that if you have a choice between anger or panic, always choose anger. Anger can be tamed; honed. Turned into an attack dog to be used on those who would destroy you. As long as you know how to keep that dog on a leash, anger can be a very effective weapon. If you lose control of that leash, your attack dog will turn on you, and destroy your very life. Crash, the werewolf who had saved my life, the subsequent creature that had adopted me and done everything he could to turn me into a respectable member of society instead of letting me rot and die like the rest of the world said to do needed help. He needed rescuing. I could panic. I could cry for my friend, or be afraid for him. But none of those things would save him.
          Sarah looked at me as if I was crazy. “What the hell can you do?”
          “Look,” I said as I ejected the magazine from my weapon. It was empty.
Nothing in the chamber either. Crash had used every round I had in his effort to save me. I slipped the magazine into my back pocket as I looked back at Sarah and spoke. “I’m a crappy boyfriend. I’m a worse husband. I know. But there’s one thing I was actually decent at doing when we were together.”
          “What’s that?” She asked, in a tone that said she already knew the answer.
          “A soldier. Come on. We gotta stock up on supplies first.” I turned towards the Walmart and began walking towards it.
          “Supplies?!” She cried. “For what?”
          “For going to war.”