'Hello, Boy.' The old man had some sort of heavy Eastern European accent.
'Are you God?' I asked.
He laughed hard. 'Me? Ha! Is good one. 'Fraid not. I just friend.'
'Am I dead?'
'Almost. But you need go back. You have work to do. Yes, much work.'
'Work?'
'A calling. Is hard, but is good.'
'A calling?'
'From before you born. How you say?'
'Preordination?'
'More like you get short straw. Now go. No time. I send you back.'
'Will we meet again?'
'Only if you are slow-witted boy and get dead again.'
The nice dream ended and my world exploded in pain.
There was a steady beeping noise. It matched pace with my heartbeat. Bump-bump. Two black shapes stood over me.
'I say we waste him now.'
'Not yet.'
'No way he's clean.'
'You know the rules.'
'The rules are wrong. I could smother him with his pillow and nobody would ever know.'
'I would know.'
I went back to sleep.
I awoke to the smell of hospital antiseptic. My eyes were matted shut, my mouth was horribly dry, and my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. I had that weird, tingly, high on painkillers feeling, which I had not felt since the last time I had surgery years before. Forcing my eyes open and gradually adjusting to the muted light, I could see that I was in a hospital room. Hospitals make me nervous and uncomfortable, though right now it sure beat the alternative.
Trying to sit up, I realized that I had an IV running into my arm, bulky bandages placed on my chest, legs, and back, and my left hand was in a cast.
Wincing at the tightness in my scalp, I gingerly reached up and touched my forehead. There was no bandage there, and I counted at least fifty prickly stitches that ran from the crown of my head, right between my eyebrows, across the bridge of my nose, and ended on my cheek. I was thankful that I did not have a mirror. Being naturally curious, and of course fearless on a morphine drip, I lifted up the edge of the big bandage on my chest. They had used staples to close the deeper lacerations there. In my drug-induced stupor, it struck me as funny that the doctors had shaved my chest. That would probably itch bad later.
I did not remember how I had gotten here, or even how long I had been out. My watch could tell me what day it was, but it was missing, as were all my clothes. All I had on was a flimsy gown and a medical supply store's worth of bandages.
As my senses gradually returned, I started to remember what had happened to put me here. I had to admit that at first I blamed my strange memory on the drugs. Killer werewolf boss? Yep, whatever they gave me, it sure was some good stuff.
You imagined the whole thing, the logical part of my brain told me. You must have been in some sort of accident, and woke up here. There's no such thing as monsters. Mr. Huffman didn't turn into a werewolf. You didn't push him out a window. Those can't possibly be claw marks. They're from a car wreck or something. The whole thing is a bad hallucination. Everybody at work will laugh when they hear your crazy story. Huffman is probably there now, complaining that you are out and running up workers' comp.
Screw you, logical brain. I know what I saw.
There was one way to find out what put me in here. There was a call button attached to the IV. I pushed it and waited, trying not to dwell on the image of Huffman's face turning into an incisor-filled muzzle. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the door opened. Unfortunately, it was not a nurse.
'Mr. Pitt. I'm Special Agent Myers and this is Special Agent Franks. We're with the government.' The two men flashed their credentials in my general direction. One agent was a dark brooding type, obviously muscular and grim of attitude. The speaker was older and looked more like a college professor than a Fed. They were both wearing off-the-rack suits, and neither looked very happy. They pulled up chairs. The professor crossed his legs, steepled his fingers, and scowled at me. The younger one pulled his gun.
'Move and I'll kill you,' he said, and I did not doubt him for an instant. It was a Glock, and it had a sound suppressor screwed onto its muzzle. I did not know what caliber it was, but from where I was sitting the bore looked freaking huge. The suppressor did not waver. I did not move.
The professor spoke. 'Mr. Pitt. Would you care to tell us what happened at your office?'
Speaking was difficult with my bad case of cottonmouth. 'Msssph umm suh…' I told them. 'Wah um fa?' They could probably tell that I was either asking for water or speaking in tongues. The professor hesitated and then obliged, taking a cup off of the dresser and pressing the straw to my lips. The cold wetness was the best thing in the world. The agent called Franks leaned slightly forward so he could still shoot me if necessary. That guy obviously took his job very seriously.
'Ahhh… Thanks,' I croaked.
'You're welcome. Now tell us what happened before Agent Franks here gets cranky.'
I paused, not really wanting to tell the FBI that my boss had transformed into a monster and tried to eat me, before I managed to snap his neck and shove him out the window. They would lock me up for sure if I said that, so I improvised.
'I fell down the stairs.' Hey, I was on morphine. It was the best I could come up with on short notice.
The professor frowned. 'Cut the crap, Pitt. We know what happened. We watched the security tapes already. Five days ago, your supervisor, one Cecil Huffman, transformed into a lycanthrope, a werewolf in this case, and attempted to kill you. You fought him off, and pushed him to his death.'
I was shocked. The FBI agents seemed to not have a problem with the idea that my boss had turned into a werewolf. I was also surprised that I had been out for five straight days. But mostly I was surprised that Mr. Huffman's first name had been Cecil.
'It was self-defense. I'm the good guy here. Why the gun?'
'You know how people become werewolves, don't you, Mr. Pitt? That's one thing that the movies get right. If you're bitten by one you, too, will be infected. The DNA-altering virus lives in their saliva. If you're clawed there is a smaller chance that you can be infected, but it's still possible. If we had found a single clear bite mark on you, we would be disposing of your body right now. Under the Anti-Lycanthrope Act of '95 we're supposed to terminate all confirmed were creatures immediately. I'm sorry.'
'I don't think he bit me,' I squeaked. But I felt a lump of dread in my gut. He had mauled me pretty badly. Was I going to turn into a werewolf? Or was the FBI just going to shoot me first?
'Silver bullets,' grunted Agent Franks. He kept the Glock centered on my head. I don't know what kind of Jackie Chan move he was expecting me to pull, but I wasn't planning on going anywhere. I could barely move. 'Just in case.'
'So now what?' I queried.
'We wait. A sample of your blood has been sent for testing. If it comes back positive you will have to be put down. If it comes back negative, you're free to go. We should be getting a call shortly.'
He said 'put down' like I was some sort of dog. This encounter was just strengthening my already strong anti-authoritarian tendencies.
'You'll just let me go?'
'Yes. Though if you ever speak of this in public you will be in violation of the Unearthly Forces Disclosure Act, and you'll be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.'
Franks nodded and muttered, 'Lead bullets.' His conversation skills seemed rather limited.
Myers' eyes betrayed an emotion that I thought might have been pity. 'Look, Mr. Pitt, this is for your own
