“I’ll come back for you,” I told her as I dashed away and never looked back. I ran as quickly as I could through the forest, letting the twigs, the snow, and the freezing air beat me in the face as I took off. I could see the lights of the gas station in the distance, but I saw no commotion. I started to fear that whatever caused Priscilla’s screams of terror had now finished the job. God knows that’s probably the only way to silence her.
By the time I reached the hill leading up to the gas station, I was already out of breath. My lungs felt encased in ice, and every breath I took rattled and hurt. It was a lot colder than I realized.
I walked to the gas station parking lot and saw my car still parked in front of one of the pumps. I narrowed my eyes to focus in on what was in front of me and immediately saw that someone was sitting with their legs crossed beneath them on top of the hood. It was Priscilla. She looked safe and unharmed, but she was rocking back and forth and smoking a cigarette.
“What the hell happened?” I asked. “Where’s Daggett?”
“Inside,” she answered and puffed on the cigarette in her grasp, her hands shaking violently as she held onto the stick.
I came closer to her, putting my hands on the ice-cold rim of the hood. She had her feet propped up on the bumper, and her legs were bouncing up and down uncontrollably. Something was horribly wrong. “What’s going on? You look like you’re gonna throw up.”
“Oh, I already did that.” She took another puff and then blew a cloud of smoke into my face. It was unintentional. I hope.
Daggett came bursting out of the gas station, and when he saw me, he stopped dead in his tracks. “Max,” he said and with a white face, he pressed his hand to his chest. “You scared the crap out of me.”
I threw my hands up. “What the hell is going on?” I heard hollering just minutes ago, but neither were willing to open their mouths and tell me what the hell was going on.
“There’s a body,” Priscilla’s shaky voice spoke up.
I looked at her. “A body? What do you mean a body?”
“Someone killed the cashier,” Daggett answered. I knew something had caused all the screaming, but I don’t think I was prepared for him to say this. “We came back here to wait for you two and found him dead in the bathroom. He was leaking all over the floor, man. I think a werewolf got to him.” Daggett peeked over my shoulder and said, “Where’s Dana?”
“She’s fine,” I answered quickly. I wanted to stay on the topic. “Where’s the body?”
“I put it back in the bathroom.”
I threw my head back and groaned. “You touched it?”
“Was that not the right thing to do?”
“Yeah, if you want your DNA all over the scene,” I replied and then went storming past him and into the gas station. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe them about the body, I just needed to see it for myself.
As soon as I walked through the glass door, I gagged. Daggett didn’t even need to lead me in the right direction, because all I could smell was the body. It wasn’t quite the aroma of decay, which meant the death was recent, it was the blood. Oh, Christ, it was all I could smell.
“You find it?” Daggett asked. He was suddenly standing behind me.
I turned around and said, “You left her outside by herself?”
“She doesn’t want to come in here again.” He lowered his voice and added, “She puked twice.”
“Yeah, well, if the cashier was really murdered like you say, then she’s not safe alone. Go get her.”
Daggett groaned and left. I knew it was because it was going to be a struggle to get her to cooperate.
I followed the scent of blood to a dirty door with a restroom sign on it. I tucked my hand into my coat and used its sleeve to turn the doorknob, just in case the cops came and investigated. I didn’t need to leave fingerprints behind. The door was open only an inch and I was blasted by the fragrance of sewer water, bugs, and guts. I swallowed and hoped I didn’t lose my lunch all over the floor like Priscilla.
The body was a male in his late-thirties, and his body was twisted around the toilet floating in gallons of his own blood. I stepped closer and saw the root of all the blood were puncture wounds on the side of his neck and a couple more running down his arms. There was no doubt about it, these were bite marks. His death wasn’t caused by some random robbery gone wrong. He was eaten.
“Disgusting, huh?” Daggett appeared behind me again, and I had half a mind to punch him in the face for sneaking up on me twice in the span of a minute. “I know not everyone can control their shifts, but it’s not even a full moon. I wonder what the heck happened.”
He brought up an interesting point, there was no full moon tonight. The only time someone can change without one is if they did so willingly, or the curse was recently triggered, but even the initial triggering turns you for just a few moments and that’s not all that common. It doesn’t always happen.
I knelt so I could get a closer look at the body. The wounds on his neck were small and circular and in a pair. They were also only a few inches apart. A werewolf’s jaw was much wider than this. “You think a werewolf did this?” I asked.
Daggett shrugged. “Well, yeah. What else? We’re in Lunar City
