"Then get the hell out of danger!"
George turned to check on the woman. She
hadn't shut her car door. In fact, she was no longer in the
vehicle. She was running toward the gas station attendant, which
seemed like the exact opposite direction in which a young woman
who'd already been mauled by a dog should be running.
The attendant wasn't struggling as much, but
he was still alive. The woman had something in her hand.
Lou reached through the open window and
smacked George on the arm. "Get in the goddamn car!"
That was an excellent recommendation. Lou
scooted back into the driver's seat as George opened the passenger
door, got inside, and slammed the door.
As the woman rushed over to the
attendant, the dog that was ripping apart his legs let go of its
bloody prey and turned on its new victim. She blasted it with a
dose of what was looked like pepper spray, and the dog howled and
ran off in the other direction.
Before she could get the other dog, it tore a
huge strip of flesh out of the attendant's throat. George winced
and slapped his hand over his mouth. Even if he wanted to be a
hero, that poor bastard would be dead within seconds.
The woman sprayed the dog. It yelped, but the
pain wasn't enough to keep it from tearing out a second piece of
the attendant's throat.
Lou sped forward. The van bounced as he ran
over one of the dead dogs. "Get the lady!" George said.
Lou drove up next to her, George opened his
door, and she jumped inside the van, squeezing onto George's lap.
He pulled the door closed most of the way, then threw it open
again, bashing yet another Doberman in the face. Then he closed the
door and, tires squealing, they sped out of the gas station and
back onto the road.
The woman began to sob. "You'll be okay,"
George assured her. "We'll get you to the emergency room. They'll
fix you up."
"Did you see what they did to that man?
He...he...I don't think we can help him."
"That was the weirdest thing I've ever seen,"
said Lou. "They couldn't all go rabid at once like that, could
they? I mean, do you think they escaped from a medical center or
something?"
"No idea. Not a clue. Jesus." George hurt in
several places and wanted to check out the extent of his injuries,
but he couldn't do it with the woman in his lap. He did glance at
his wrist, which had a couple of puncture wounds, but the blood was
seeping instead of spraying so he figured he'd be okay.
Clang
!
Clang
!
Clang
!
George cursed under his breath. Ivan kicked
at the bars of his cage once more, and then smiled at the sound of
the woman's gasp. "My name is Ivan. Lou is driving. You're sitting
on George's lap. They're driving me to my death. Because you know
this, I assume you have to die, too."
George pointed a warning finger at him. "Shut
up."
"Oh, I'm done. No, wait, I missed the part
about you thinking I'm a werewolf."
"I said, shut up."
"What are you going to do, come back
here and beat me up in front of a witness? That doesn't seem very
smart. When you kill her, are you going to snap her neck quickly or
drag her death out, slowly?"
"One more time--"
"I think you should drag it out slowly."
"
Enough
!" George shouted. Then he
closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, trying to get rid of the
sudden migraine. He hadn't had one of those in over a year, and
he'd been in a lot of stressful situations in the past
year.
"Don't take it out on me," said Ivan. "I'm
not the one who let her into the car, Mr. Intellect."
George took a deep breath, willing himself to
remain calm. The situation was screwed up enough already without
him letting Ivan send him into a rage. He had to ignore the
werewolf, keep himself from losing his mind, assure the woman that
she was in no danger, and think this whole thing through.
They drove in silence for a few seconds. The
woman looked as if she wanted to lunge for the door handle. They'd
almost definitely let her go free fairly soon, hopefully outside of
a hospital, but George couldn't have her making any wild escape
attempts until this was all figured out. He reached over and locked
the door.
"So what now?" she asked.
CHAPTER FIVE
Questioning What The Hell Just Happened
"How's your shoulder?" George asked.
"It's fine," the woman insisted. "Just let me
go, okay? I won't say anything, I promise."
"What's your name?"
"Seriously, who am I going to tell? You saved
my life. I wouldn't turn you in."
"Ma'am, just tell me your name."
She hesitated. "Michele." The way she said
it, George thought she might be giving him a fake name, but that
didn't matter--he just needed something to call her.
"Michele, we're not going to hurt you. We're
FBI agents, and the man behind us is a federal prisoner. We're just
transporting him to a maximum security facility."
"The FBI doesn't transport people in
cages."
"Okay, look, forget about the guy in the cage
for a minute. We're not going to hurt you, and we're not kidnapping
you. We're going to take you to a hospital."
"If you're not kidnapping me, then let me
go."
George's headache got even more
intense. "Fine. We're kidnapping you for now. But we're not going
to hurt you."
"You'll be locked in here with me pretty
soon," Ivan said. "Assuming they decide it's okay for you to
live."
"Can we muzzle him?" Lou asked.
"No! That's exactly what he wants us
to try to do! Let's just get situated and figure this out." George
gently slid Michele off his lap, putting her between him and Lou.
Though he liked having cute young women on his lap, now wasn't the
time. It was a tight, uncomfortable fit on the seat with them
squished together, but he didn't plan to keep her around for much
longer.
"Are you going to bleed to death?" George
asked.
Michele shook her head. The shoulder of her
shirt was soaked with blood, but though the wound was grisly, it
didn't seem to be that deep. "If you're going to force me to ride
with you, do you at least have some Band-Aids?"
"Yeah, we've got some stuff. If you
reach behind the seat there's a brown suitcase." George pressed his
wrist against his pants as Michele reached back and got his bag. He
ran the index finger of his other hand over his chest. The bite
wasn't too bad, and the lines where the dog's nails had raked
across his chest felt more like scrapes than gashes. The traces of
gasoline didn't exactly feel pleasant on his wounds, but he was a
tough guy, he could handle it. George gestured to the upcoming
exit. "Go ahead and get back on Tamiami Trail for now."
Lou nodded and took the exit.
George opened the suitcase, dug
through his dirty clothes, and took out the first aid kit. He
handed the suitcase back to Michele and she returned it to its spot
behind the seat. The first aid kit was fairly small, but it had
enough supplies to take care of various on-the-job injuries one
might sustain when one's job involved dealing with unsavory and
occasionally violent individuals. George took out a handful of
bandages, gave half to Michele, and they began to tend to their
wounds.
There were so many things to discuss, George
wasn't sure where even to begin, so he started with the first one
that popped into his mind: "Lou, why the hell did you shoot when I
told you not to?"
"Because you had a great big dog trying to
rip your guts out."
"What if there'd been a spark?"
"Dogs don't produce sparks when bullets go in
them."
"What if you'd missed?"
"I wasn't gonna miss."
"Lou, you're a shit shot!"
"Watch your mouth around a lady. The
dog was five feet away. I wasn't gonna miss. I'd rather take the
chance of blowing us all up than letting you get eaten. If I hadn't
fired the gun, you'd be sitting there with only one arm and one leg
whining at me going 'Why didn't you shoot it? Why didn't you shoot
it?'"
George considered that for a moment. "Okay, I
probably would be. But the next time a flammable substance is all
over the ground, don't shoot, got it?"
"Screw you. The next time gas is involved,
I'm going to find a frickin' flamethrower."
"Is this really the most important thing you
two have to argue about?" Michele asked.
"I'm sorry. Lou, I'm sorry. But when I make
an important judgment call like that, it's very frustrating to have
you--"
"You can't keep talking after the
apology."
George closed his eyes and rubbed his
forehead again.
"How are your bites?" Lou asked.
"They're fine. They hurt like hell, but
they're fine." He inspected his wrist wound again. It was badly
swollen but the flow of blood had almost stopped. Apparently the
dog had been polite enough not to sink its teeth into an artery. "I
can't believe I killed those dogs. I wouldn't even spank Quincy for
going potty off the paper."
"You did what you had to do."
"Did I?"
"Oh, no, no, no, no," said Lou. "If you're
going to have a dark night of the soul over those dogs, save it for
when I'm not around."
They'd had countless lively debates over the
years, but George and Lou rarely bickered like this. Of course,
they rarely found themselves in a situation so far out of their
control.
"I apologize," said George, wrapping a large
bandage around his wrist. "I'm not going to say anything else. And
I thank you for shooting the dogs."
"No problem."
George turned his attention to Michele. "Do
you know anything about what made those dogs go berserk?"
"I don't have the slightest idea."
"I didn't think so." With Michele on the
seat, there really wasn't room for him to turn around to face Ivan,
so George adjusted the rear-view mirror to give himself a good look
at their captive. "Ivan, what do you know about this?"
"Why, whatever would I know?"
"You can drop the smart-ass tone. Tell me
what just happened out there."
"Baffling, wasn't it? All those dogs going
nuts. What an odd occurrence. I guess Lou was right, there must
have been some sort of problem at a local medical facility, causing
a bunch of rabid dogs to escape and go on a rampage. Unfortunate
timing for you two, huh? I'm glad I was safely locked in this cage.
You should probably report this incident to your superiors."
"Maybe he's right," said Lou.
"He's not right." George
tried to look menacing, although that was difficult when he and
Ivan were just looking at each other with a tiny mirror. "We get
hired to drive a werewolf across the state. That's weird enough.
Then we stop for gas, and every dog in town comes after us--dogs
that were
not
rabid, because some of them had obviously just pulled away
from their owners."
Ivan smiled. "A riddle wrapped in a puzzle
cloaked in an enigma."
"What do you know about this?"
"Well, George, I suppose the
first possibility is that I have friends who train vicious dogs for
a living, and that I cleverly surmised that you would need to stop
at that particular town to get fuel for your van, after I cleverly
surmised that you wouldn't be taking the most efficient route to
get from Miami to Tampa. Pretty brilliant of me, although to make
this plan
truly
foolproof I'd need an army of dogs waiting in all of the
neighboring towns. Let's stop someplace else for another tank of
gas and see if that's the case."
"I want to know how you made that
happen."
"It wasn't me. That would lack
credibility."
"I'm dead serious, Ivan. How did you make
those dogs lose their minds? Or do you just give off some kind of
scent or something?"
"I can't believe you're trying to pin this on
me. That's as silly as the idea of me being a werewolf."
"Look, asshole, wolves are dogs--"
"Oooooh, look who knows his biology!"
"--and there's no way this is a
coincidence."
"Well, then, if it's not a
coincidence, I must have the power to control dogs, or at least
make them go nuts. Is that what you want to hear?"
"If it's the truth."
Ivan let out a high-pitched, incredulous
laugh. "Listen to you! Has the big bad thug-for-hire opened his
mind to the possibility of the paranormal?"
"I didn't say that."
"Oh, but two hours ago, if I'd told
you that you shouldn't mess with me because I've got the power to
send a bunch of killer dogs after you, you would have just made fun
of me. You would've been all 'Oh, dude, if you're trying to scare
me with your doggie powers, don't do it from inside a cage,'
right?"
"You were the one insisting that the whole
werewolf thing was ridiculous."
"Yes, but I was the one who had
something to lose by being a werewolf. You came at it from neutral
ground. Now you're a believer, and all it took were a few nasty dog
bites. I'm proud of you, George. This has opened a whole new world
of excitement for you."
"I didn't say I was a believer."
"You implied it. That's all I need to declare
victory."
George glanced at Michele. "I don't really
believe he's a werewolf."
Michele said nothing. She still looked more
concerned about being murdered by kidnappers than whether anybody
believed in lycanthropes.
"Let's take a vote," said Ivan. "I believe
I'm a werewolf. George reluctantly believes I'm a werewolf. What
about you, Lou?"