The Wolfman

“Prettyboy,” I said, like that was his name.

“I guess you’re the lucky chap who found the one guy in this shit-box town that everyone is looking for. You look like you had one hell of a day,” he said, pointing at my various wounds.

“You could say that, you fucking devil.”

“Take it back, it hurts.” He laughed. “You know what they say. Sticks and stones. Sticks …” He sliced me across my left cheek with the knife. “… And stones!”

I cried out. He laughed, then licked the blade clean.

“You look like you lost a lot of blood already, so what’s a little more? Besides, that one was for taking a shot at me.”

Deep inside, I could feel the pull of the moon tugging at my bones, trying in vain to lure me to its light. I was in no position to oblige.

“Enjoy your final moments, Marlowe. Make your peace with God and all that shit. While I have a smoke, why don’t you come up with a last request like in all the old movies, huh?” He pulled out his cigarettes from a hip pocket and lit one up. “I could never be accused of being a bad sport.”

I started looking around. We were in the shack. That much was obvious. The slats in all the walls had spaces between them, and nothing was coming through except a cool breeze and the smell of the evening. Darkness. It was night.

The wood floor was covered in dust and dried blood. Blood was splattered everywhere, and there was too much for it to be just mine. Rose stems were scattered in a corner, their flowers gone and used in horrible ways.

Color photographs were pinned to the walls. I recognized Josie Jones in some of them, and the teacher in a few others. In some, they were alive, in some, they couldn’t have been. In some, they were clothed, and in some, they were naked. The rest of the pictures must have been his other victims. In the corner behind him, a camera rested atop a tripod like a bird of prey. More than any weapon, that camera seemed to be his accomplice in this whole sordid affair.

I brought my head back and saw there was a window behind me with a strip from an old rug nailed over it. If one thin beam of moonlight could hit me, I’d change, but with things the way they were, I was fucked. Anthony could very well kill me.

I had to ask myself if things deserved to be any other way. Anthony had destroyed dozens of lives, and, if he were to survive another night, would probably go on to kill another one, two, or even a handful of innocent people before he was apprehended. But in that darkened one-room shack were two monsters. I had ended lives in the hundreds, and if events tilted into my favor, I would be responsible for perhaps thousands more before I perished of old age. We were each of us as bad as bad can be, neither one any better than the other.

We were two sides of the same coin. It didn’t matter that I had tried, had, to a large degree, learned to control the wolf and had built a life for myself on the most salted and rockiest land. I had done the best I could given my circumstances, but I was still inhuman. So was the Rose Killer. No matter how hard each one of us tried to blend into the world around us, we deserved no part of it, and it would be much better off without the both of us, and when we were both dead, I knew we’d have the chance to maybe laugh about the old times in a very hot climate.

The fact was that the Rose Killer targeted and murdered people because he thought they were evil. I did the same thing. We both hunted. Neither of us could help doing the things we did, but the difference between us was that he liked it. Pearce’s death wasn’t my fault. It was Anthony’s. That’s why, I decided, he had to die.

“Hey, Anthony,” I said. “What was with the church break-ins?”

He turned pale. “How do you know about that?”

“They don’t call me Nancy Drew for nothing.”

He thought for a minute, then put his cigarette out underfoot.

“That’s not something Anthony wants to talk about right now.”

“What does Anthony want to talk about?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his eyes darting like frightened fish.

“Where’s my rifle?” I asked.

“In the corner. I may kill you with that. Or I may cut you in half. See if you’re as gutsy as you act.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“You have a wicked sense of humor, Marlowe.”

Being almost immortal does that. He’d have to get truly severe on me to put me down for good. I thought he was the type of guy that wouldn’t have a problem with that.

“How did you find me?” he asked. “I mean, how did you know it was me?”

“Marshall Falls, Anthony. You have a big mouth. That Polaroid box you left behind was traced back to a mom-and-pop shop down in New Mexico. It was that simple. That, and you hate women. I put two and two together.”

“How did you find out about the box? I thought your friend on the force had died.”

“I bet that didn’t break your heart, seeing as how you used his grave as a fucking …”

“A frame,” he said. “I never met a cop I liked. By the way, I put the bitch on his grave for you. You made me very angry that night by hitting me in the face. The bitch was the one who had to suffer for it. Now it’s your turn. And what were you planning on doing? Blowing a hole through me like Charles Bronson?”

“Actually, I was going to tie you up first, but you stole my routine. This right here is the exact opposite of what I would’ve liked to have happened.”

“Does anyone know you’re here?”

“Does it matter? One of us is going to die here tonight. You know that, right?”

“I know. I’m the one with the gun.”

The camera on the tripod made a noise. It was a video camera. He was filming this, the sick bastard that he was. “You took pictures of all the girls?”

“Damn right. They’re mine forever. All mine. No one else’s.”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened, Anthony. Tell me what happened to the eyes. Help me understand.”

“You never would, you fucking redneck.”

“Try me.”

He lit another smoke. “Women, Marlowe. More than any bullet or bomb, they are the most destructive force on this fucking planet. I hate them so much …”

“Why the roses?”

“Roses for girls. I think it’s funny. No one else seems to think so. Women’s eyes can lie to a man’s soul. They’re all demons, those eyes. And roses are truly beautiful creatures, aren’t they? Seems fitting enough, taking away the evil, putting in the … true.”

“And you filmed all this?”

“I’m documenting my journey. It’s all about … this is what happens to a man when he’s pushed too far. Watch the fuck out, because this will happen to you. That’s the point. This is me doing what I want.”

“Do you even believe your own shit? You sound like a fucking lunatic.”

His face shriveled up—I didn’t even recognize him—and he came at me with the knife again, screaming animal sounds I couldn’t understand. The wolf might have.

He sliced me above my eye real deep, then planted the knife into a space between my ribs. It hurt so bad, I couldn’t even make a sound. He drew the blade back out, and it shone red with my blood. Within seconds, I could feel my organs filling up with blood. With that, I got light-headed. I was dying. I was actually dying.

“And why the break-ins?” I asked, wheezing.

He went quiet again, then asked, “Are you trying to stall me?”

“I’m tied up and bleedin’ on the inside, prettyboy. Do the math.”

“The break-ins were to make everything right.”

“How?”

“Holy water,” he said.

“Holy water,” I repeated. “Holy water …”