Bump

  Chapter 21

  The first sensation was heat. Oppressive, suffocating heat that stole all the oxygen from the air. In the back of his mind, Ryan knew it was Evelyn’s doing, but the rest of his brain was concerned with breathing freely once again.

  The burden over his face and chest seemed to lighten, but he was still buried. Ryan sucked putrid air through his long nostrils and the smell was even worse than before, but it was air.

  The heat intensified, but the more it did, the more freely Ryan was able to move. After a moment, he was able to open one eyelid and survey the carnage.

  Ruby watched in awe behind Evelyn as she stood, both arms extended out over the mass of corpses. Body after body found itself immolating into ash and bone in mere seconds, and the fire spread from one corpse to the next in rapid succession.

  It had started with a single shot from Evelyn’s paintball pistol; she had been too impatient to fire more. She had stretched out her hands and fire had erupted instantly within the throng. Her face had been a furious scowl of rage and concentration ever since, and now the bodies were dropping one after another.

  Exhaustion was setting in and Evelyn could feel her power weakening, her concentration and mental stamina quickly fading. But Ryan was still trapped. She let out a desperate scream of exertion and the flames shot higher and spread faster, but only for a moment.

  The sound of the scream fell away and with it, Evelyn collapsed to the floor in an unmoving heap. Ryan wrenched himself free and then savagely dismembered the few corpses that remained.

  The hallway was filled with smoke, fire, and piles of smoldering things that Ryan didn’t want to take too close a look at. Ruby’s purple line had long since disappeared, but the hounds had been caught in the first blast of Evelyn’s flame and were no more.

  Ruby was holding Evelyn in her arms as Ryan limped over, and he saw Daniel lying on the floor next to her, his head sticky with clotting blood.

  The wolf faded from Ryan.

  “Is she alright?” He asked hoarsely.

  “I don’t know.” Ruby said quietly. “Ain’t never seen her do that before. Ain’t never seen anybody do that.”

  “But she’s not-”

  “No, but she’s out cold. I got no idea when she’ll wake up. If she’ll wake up.”

  Ryan sighed and looked at the almost lifeless form of the beautiful girl who had just single-handedly saved his life. Then he looked over at Daniel.

  “What about him?”

  “Got his head slammed against the wall when they were closing in on us. It’s bad, and he’s out, but I think he’ll live. We’ve just got to get ‘em both out of here.”

  Ryan nodded and took Evelyn’s hand in his own. Her skin was cool.

  The glass from the windows above them exploded inward and a huge brown shape barreled into Ruby and Evelyn. Ryan heard a dull thud as Ruby’s head slammed into the linoleum, and the next thing he knew, he was being dragged violently through the window and into the snowy courtyard.

  Grayle stood over him, his hot breath sending wisps of cloud out into the freezing night. Ryan looked up at him with hate brimming in his eyes.

  “WHY?” Ryan screamed at him from the snow.

  Grayle let the brown fur fade from him and stood before Ryan as a man. He smiled cruelly. “Why didn’t I kill you at your friend’s house?” He asked in a gravelly voice.

  Ryan nodded.

  “You were still human.” The man replied simply. “I wanted to feel your blood run down my throat, but not the blood of a boy, the blood of a wolf. I can kill a human any time I want, but I want to kill a wolf. I want the fight. The blood.”

  Ryan looked up at him, and when replied, he did so quietly, almost at a whisper. “You’ll get it.”

  Gray and brown fur sprouted almost simultaneously, and Ryan launched himself out of the snow and straight for the brown werewolf. Ryan hit his target and the two tumbled to the ground in the silent courtyard, clawing and biting fiercely. His first instinct had been to dive back into the building and make sure his friends were alright, but he knew Grayle would never let him get that far. Ryan had to finish this here and now.

  Snow continued to fall into the rectangular courtyard in spinning flakes that made their way lazily from the sky to the ground. There was no wind, no birds, no crickets, only stillness and silence as the two monsters fought to the death.

  Grayle sank his claws into the muscle of Ryan’s chest and flung him headlong into the wall. Glass shattered and stone smashed as Ryan collided with it, and Grayle’s claws had ripped out large holes from the flesh of his torso. Ryan shook himself and tried to clear his head as Grayle attacked again and slammed him back up against the wall. Ryan roared in frustration and pain and Grayle snarled in triumph.

  Ryan shoved at Grayle’s body and flung him away, and then pounced on him where he landed as he delivered a savage slash across the muzzle. Grayle hissed and his hand shot up to grab Ryan around the throat and he held him there. Ryan scrabbled and clawed at the hand blocking his windpipe, but the grip was too strong. Grayle waited until the lack of oxygen was almost too much, then he spun Ryan to the ground and slammed him into the snow.

  The more experienced werewolf leapt onto Ryan’s back and dug in his long claws. Ryan roared in agony once again, but was cut short by Grayle bashing his head into the ground.

  Ryan scrambled out from under the werewolf and looked back at the red streaks his blood had left in the snow. It seemed like it was all his blood. Ryan leapt back at Grayle and caught him by the throat as he drove his hand forward and hammered the brown body against the stone architecture.

  Grayle kicked at Ryan’s injured chest and Ryan lost his grip and stumbled onto all fours. The older monster was on him in a flash, and grabbed him with both hands before he bashed him against the hard trunk of the dead tree.

  Ryan crumpled to the ground and Grayle kicked at his head once, twice, three times. Blood seeped into Ryan’s eyes and the world became hazy and out of focus. He twisted to the side and Grayle’s next kick missed and sent him off balance. Ryan sprang up, half blind, and tackled Grayle once more. He clamped his jaws down on the werewolf’s shaggy neck and felt his teeth pierce flesh until they struck bone.

  Grayle roared in anguish and grasped Ryan’s head in his hands as he tried to pry Ryan’s jaws apart. He was stronger and tougher than Ryan and the younger werewolf couldn’t keep his grip. He felt his mouth forced open and detach from his prey, and then he felt it open wider and wider. Grayle had his neck out of Ryan’s jaws, but he continued to pull them apart just the same. Ryan felt the muscles stretch and become taught and refuse to go any farther. Then Grayle pushed them farther.

  The pain that shot through Ryan’s head was excruciating, and with what little strength he had left, Ryan finally managed to twist his head out of Grayle’s grasp. Ryan flailed blindly with his claws as he staggered backward. He stumbled back to the tree and leaned against it, knowing that any moment Grayle would be on him again.

  Ryan had barely a second’s reprieve before the other werewolf kicked him hard in the small of the back and sent Ryan’s head and chest slamming into the tree once again. Ryan slumped, exhausted and bleeding to death out of more open wounds than he could count. The snow around the tree bore large, dark splotches of his blood.

  Grayle spun him around and wrapped a clawed hand around Ryan’s throat, pinning his head and neck to the trunk of the tree. This time, Grayle held him there, and Ryan felt life slipping out of him.

  He was angry: angry to have come so far just to fail. Angry that the sacrifices of Miles and Ruby and Daniel and Evelyn would mean nothing. Angry that this man, who gave no more thought to killing than Ryan gave to breathing, would probably wake up tomorrow without a care in the world, and Ryan would never wake up at all.

  Ryan was angry that he hadn’t been able to save Dr. Webster, and that he wouldn’t be there to help Evelyn through the loss if it turned out the doctor hadn’t survived.
Ryan was angry that he hadn’t been given enough time to atone for what he had done to Frank Spalding; that he would die a murderer. Most of all, Ryan was angry that with him dead, he had no way of protecting the people closest to him. He had no power over the safety of his family or Eli. Or Vanessa.

  In fact, it was her face that Ryan saw as the lights began to go out. He thought of the first time they had ever met: in the lunch line in first grade. Girls had been gross, but Vanessa had never seemed to have that problem. They sat down with their milk cartons and began discussing the merits of each Ninja Turtle. Eli had joined them a few moments later and thrown in his two cents. Vanessa had smiled.

  Something took hold of Ryan: something far deeper and far stronger than Grayle’s hand. Ryan couldn’t see, he couldn’t breathe, and he could barely move, but it was enough. With all the strength he had left, Ryan sank each and every one of his claws into the sinewy muscle of Grayle’s hand and arm. He sank them in as deep as they would go, and then he ripped them back out and took with him as much flesh as he could.

  Grayle roared in pain and instinctively released his grip on Ryan’s throat. He staggered back and cradled his bloody arm next to his chest.

  Ryan’s senses began to return to him and he sucked in deep lungfuls of freezing night air. He knew he had to recover faster than Grayle if he wanted to live.

  Ryan staggered over to the werewolf and grabbed him. He slammed Grayle, headfirst, through the nearest window. It shattered, and Grayle roared again as the shards of glass buried themselves deep in his neck and chest. Ryan ran him through the next window, and the next, until Grayle’s head was covered in blood and glass, fur matted and sticky. Then Ryan began to slash at him. He slashed at his eyes and muzzle and his neck and his chest and he slashed and slashed until the snow was crimson, this time with Grayle’s blood. Then he slashed some more.

  After a moment, Ryan realized that Grayle had stopped fighting back. He was simply lying there, unmoving. He could see that the monster was still alive; its ragged, bloody chest rose and fell slowly with each strained breath. Ryan knew that as soon as Grayle turned back to human form, his wounds would heal. If Ryan was going to kill him, it had to be here and now.

  He lifted Grayle’s limp form off the ground and held it aloft by the throat, ready to take the life of the thing that had taken so much from him. He pulled back his paw with its blood-soaked claws and prepared to strike.

  Ryan was ready. He was poised to do it. This was the only opportunity he would ever have to end once and for all this monster’s reign of blood and death. Ryan was ready, and then Spalding’s face flashed in his mind’s eye.

  Ryan dropped his hand. He knew he couldn’t kill this man, not even for the things he had done to Ryan and his life, to his future. Spalding’s face still haunted him, and Ryan could not bring himself to kill again. Grayle began to stir and his eyes flickered slowly open. They locked onto Ryan, then narrowed cruelly.

  Blood and skull fragments exploded out of the side of Grayle’s head and spattered all over the far wall as the gunshot echoed in the courtyard. The light left the werewolf’s yellow eyes and his head lolled back on his neck. He was dead.

  Ryan spun around to the shattered windows Grayle had pulled him out of. Lying weakly in the snow was Evelyn, Daniel’s special silver gun with wooden grips smoking in her hand.

  He dropped the corpse and watched as it reverted slowly, peacefully, back into the human Grayle. All of the wounds pulled themselves together and healed, all except the silver bullet still lodged in his skull.

  Ryan released his grip on the wolf and felt the slashes and bruises on his own body disappear. He was sore and aching all over, and he could barely stand, but he was no longer bleeding to death.

  He collapsed in exhaustion and dragged himself through the snow as he made his way back to Evelyn and the smoldering corridor. Ryan reached out and grasped her hand, both of them panting from the effort.

  “I couldn’t do it.” He said.

  “I know.” She replied softly.

  They lay there in the snow for a long time, hardly even feeling the cold. Finally, Ryan spoke again, his words coming between gasping breaths.

  “Do you want to maybe go out sometime?”

  Evelyn scoffed and dropped her head, then raised it again, smiling, exhausted. “Can you think of a second date that will top this?” She asked.

  Ryan laughed weakly. “I really hope not.”

  They helped each other to slide back down into the hallway. Ruby and Daniel were still unconscious, but still alive.

  “Can you walk?” Ryan asked.

  “I can if you can.”

  They hobbled together, painfully slowly, down the hall. They passed the carnage of countless bodies, but did their best to remain focused on their goal: the door at the end of the hall. With only a few feet to go, Evelyn collapsed and Ryan fell with her.

  “I can’t.” She said. “I can barely move. You’ve got to find him…save him.”

  Ryan stared into her green eyes. “I will.”

  He helped her to the edge of the door and propped her up against the wall. He pressed the pistol into her hand. “If I don’t come back, whatever’s through that door…go down swinging.”

  She smiled weakly up at him and nodded. Ryan’s eyes ran over every detail of her face as he tried to etch each contour into his mind’s eye. He swallowed hard and blinked away the beginnings of a tear as he leaned forward to press his lips against Evelyn’s forehead. The temperature of her skin skyrocketed when he made contact, but he held it anyway. After a moment he felt the heat fade away and Ryan pulled back to look at the young girl in his arms. Her eyes had fluttered closed and once again she had slipped into unconsciousness. Ryan was on his own.

  He put a weary hand to the heavy door and felt the rhythmic pounding reverberate through. He pushed with what little strength he had left, and the door gave way. Ryan pulled himself over the threshold.