I-29 was covered with snow. Although it had been plowed well enough to reveal the surface of the concrete, there were drifts on the side of the road where empty cars and pickups were embedded like peanuts wedged into a candy bar. Most of the wrecks were tagged and all of them were empty. A few still blinked their hazard lights onto the pristine surface of the white layers that had collected on the vehicles. In the morning, patrols would come along to check the freshest of the accidents to see if someone either needed to be brought to a shelter or shot before they turned. Those unlucky enough to have crashed without being spotted by the irregular patrols would have to stay inside their cars for the night, lock their doors and pray the only thing to gnaw at their faces was the cold.
As if responding to the panicked thoughts of those stranded motorists, three Half Breeds trotted along the side of the interstate, sniffing wildly at each car. Their gnarled faces twitched with every flake of snow that came to rest upon their snouts or ears. Half Breeds didn’t need a reason to flinch, because they were always in pain. Having been born to the sounds of the breaking of their bones before their muscles could stretch out to hold them together, the werewolves were in a constant state of wincing, whining, or snarling. The cold, it seemed, only made them worse.
A man and woman sat huddled inside a blue Dodge, its two right tires buried hopelessly in the slush. Their faces were pressed together and their eyes widened when frightened breaths drifted from their lips to smear against the glass. That hint of movement was enough to catch one Half Breed’s eye a second before its companions caught the humans’ scent. The trio of werewolves lowered their chests to the snowy ground and stalked toward the car.
Both of the people inside wore glasses. Their lenses were fogged, but not enough to keep them from seeing what was coming. As the unexplainable terrors spread across the country, people had no choice but to either hide or carry on as best they could. Judging by the tears streaming down both sets of reddened cheeks, these two were reconsidering their choice.
As the Half Breeds approached the car, they bared their teeth along with two sets of tusks curving down from one row of teeth and up from another. The tusks were thicker than the rest of their teeth, but thin enough to scrape against each other like scissor blades as the werewolves opened and closed their mouths to sample the frigid, late night air. Once they spread out to form a semicircle around the vehicle, the creatures planted their feet and fixed their eyes upon the trembling humans. After hunkering down for a moment, the Half Breed in the middle of the group lunged forward to ram its head against the car door. It made a dent, but it could tell it wasn’t going to get inside like that, so it reared up and began scraping at the window.
From within the car, muffled voices wrapped around each other in much the same way the people’s bodies clung together for warmth. When something moved beneath the car and scraped directly below the passenger compartment, the couple began to scream.
By now all three of the Half Breeds were doing their best to find a way inside the car. Thick paws slapped against the frame. Twisted faces pushed against the doors and windows before the weight of a heavy body caused the entire vehicle to groan. The thing that scraped against the bottom of the car quickened its pace toward the side being attacked by the Half Breeds. As soon as it reached the driver’s door, the scraping against the window stopped. Soon, the other two Half Breeds were pulled away from the car as well.
When the man inside wiped the frost off the window to get a look outside, he found several shaggy bodies wrestling in the snow. Blood sprayed through the air in a fine mist cast from fangs and claws. It was impossible to tell which creatures were winning or even where one ended and another began, so the man eased away from the window before he was noticed.
“I think we should make a run for it,” he told the trembling woman.
“Where are we going to go?”
“I don’t know. Just away from here!”
And, as suddenly as the creatures had appeared, the fight was over.
The wind scraped against the car’s exterior, its slow rustle the loudest thing in the world at that given moment. Glass creaked and bits of ice rapped against the side of the car as if the winter itself had sprouted claws.
“Should . . . we still run?” the woman asked.
Two sets of claws wedged into the driver’s side door, one at the base of the window and another near the handle. With a minimum of effort, the door was separated from its frame and tossed aside. Outside, a tall creature stood wearing a thick coat of light blond fur peppered with streaks of darker brown and encrusted with chunks of snow. Blood was already frozen where it had been spilled. Kayla had presided over Kansas City since her pack had taken part in ending Liam’s siege. Although the Mongrels under her command had been thinned out due to treachery within her ranks or combat with the encroaching werewolves, she wasn’t about to step aside so any invader could have their way with her territory.
“Yes,” she snarled through a snout that seemed just a bit too long for her feline facial structure. “You should run.”
The couple within the car pressed themselves against the opposite window and nearly jumped from their sweat-stained coats when another Mongrel appeared outside the passenger window. Ben’s appearance was even more disturbing than Kayla’s. Being a digger who could practically swim underground, he was accustomed to remaining out of sight. Gill flaps along his neck stretched out and immediately snapped shut after drawing in too much freezing air instead of the soil they were meant to process. Blood and ice stuck to the beak that dominated his face, and his black eyes remained calm beneath their vertical lids as they studied the people within the vehicle. His fingers slipped beneath the door’s handle and were strong enough to force it open despite the ice that had sealed it shut. “There is another car further up the road,” he said. “White four-door just past a minivan facing the wrong way.”
Dazed by the words that came from the Mongrel’s beak, the woman stammered, “We can’t just . . . steal a car.”
“Get away from us!” the man snapped as he tried his best to squirm in the cramped confines in order to put himself between her and the Mongrel.
Ben merely stepped back, allowing the man to play his role as protector without reacting to the threatening tone in his voice or the way he grabbed a long flashlight and wielded it like a club. “It’s not stealing,” he told them both. “The owners of that car were killed by the same creatures we just chased away. My advice is to take that car and get somewhere safer. Also,” he added, while dropping to all fours and scraping away the top layers of snowy earth using long, curved claws, “don’t look too hard at the mess in the ditch.”
When the man turned to where Kayla had been standing, he found only the bloody remains of two Half Breeds. The third had already bounded down the interstate, chasing after a lean figure that slid gracefully into another lane.
“I think we should go,” the woman said.
Taking his eyes from the sight of the chase toward the row of lonely abandoned vehicles on the side of the road, the man swallowed hard and zipped up his coat. “Right. Do you have our suitcase?”
“Just move!”
He followed her order and bolted from the car. Along the way he thought about the fire that had all but consumed Topeka after the werewolves sprung up in the autumn. Only during the drive to KC had he asked his fiancee why they might have been spared. The conversation had lasted until they pulled over to fill the gas tank and their stomachs at a place that had a Subway sandwich shop and Pizza Hut tacked onto it. Every seat was filled, with people of all ages, genders, and nationalities. Each stunned face was focused intently on their meals. The terror implied within their features was all too familiar to the man from Topeka. He’d been wearing it ever since he abandoned his hometown.
It hadn’t been an easy decision. When the first werewolves showed up, everyone he knew wanted to fight them. A call to arms swept throughout the entire country at about that same time, encouraging everyone to buy a gun and defend their homes from the animals that meant to do them harm. Explanations would wait for later. Now was the time to fight.
That lasted for a few weeks.
When the angry voices died down, it wasn’t because of victory or fatigue. The people who’d bought their guns and started firing at the wild animals in their yards had been torn to shreds. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t spectacular. Even the few who’d rigged explosives with some degree of success barely managed to do any damage. After that, the wolves had swept in to kill them all.
The police were just more men with guns.
