Ken Douglas - Nightwitch

He touched his left check and winced again. It was wet and sticky. He removed his hand and wiped the blood on his Levi’s. His face would be scabbed over soon. That along with his neck, would make him noticeable anywhere, but in this small town he would stand out like a man wearing a tuxedo in jail.

He stepped around a puddle of water and wished he was some place warm, but wishing wouldn’t change the tire. He opened the trunk and pulled out the jack and the tire iron. He set them on the ground and reached in for the spare. His hands screamed as he wrapped them around the tire and his arms and shoulders roared as he lifted it. He dropped it by the jack and hoped his body wouldn’t quit on him before the night was over.

He bent and picked up the tire iron and frowned. The right front tire was sitting in a puddle of muddy water. He had two choices, move the car and get only a little wet as he changed the tire, or kneel in the puddle and get a lot wet. He decided on the latter, mounted the jack and raised the car till most of the pressure was taken off the tire. Then, using the tire iron, he popped the hubcap and loosened and removed the lug nuts. The rental people weren’t going to be happy about the state of their car, he thought, as he was loosening the last nut.

He was back at the jack, raising the car the rest of the way, when he heard the wolf howl. Three quick pumps and the tire was off the ground. She would find him soon. He moved to the side of the car, no longer conscious of his tired and whipped body, and pulled the flat off and set it aside. The wolf howled again, but instead of filling him with fear, the piercing animal scream fused him with new energy. It would wake the whole town, he thought, as the wolf cried again, closer.

He picked up the spare and was bending to fit it in place, kneeling in the wet, when he heard the wolf growl. Fast, well trained reflexes commanded him to stand, turn and face the enemy. He had no weapon save the tire, which he clutched in front of himself with a double fisted grip, like a heavy shield.

The enraged animal came at him for the kill. She leapt from fifteen feet away, turning herself into an airborne missile, deadly as any that ever rained from a warplane. Jaws gaping, she collided with the tire’s metal rim. The force of the attack sent him reeling. The wolf flew over him as he fell. He rolled away from the beast, toward the car, grabbing onto the tire iron. He would not surprise her again. If he waited for her to attack, he would be a dead man.

He pushed himself off of the wet pavement, raised the tire iron over his head, and charged the wolf as she turned to face him. She growled, but it was cut short as he swung the tire iron across her right foreleg. She howled as the leg broke. The fight was over. She growled at him defiantly, then hobbled away. He stood back as the wolf was engulfed in fire and watched again as flame shot upward, through the fog and into the night.

He turned back toward the car, wondering if he could get the tire changed before she came back. He stooped, picked up the tire and rolled it to the car. He knelt in the puddle, but his adrenaline stopped pumping almost as quickly as it had started and he was covered in pain. He dropped from his knees onto his ass in the muddy water, caught a few seconds of rest, and started to plan.

Cold shivered through the room and the radio on Carolina’s dresser came on by itself, filling the air with the mono music of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band asking their audience to enjoy the show. The volume cranked itself up to full blast by the time they told the audience to sit back and let the evening go.

The Beatles were only a few words into the chorus, when Arty came to the conclusion that the two pinpoints of red light were eyes staring into the room and they meant to do Carolina harm. He was starting to rise even before they faded.

“ Get down!” He dove across the bed, landing on her before the band had a chance to introduce the one and only Billy Shears. Without a thought of his own safety, he put himself between whatever was staring in the window and Carolina’s small body.

The ferret screamed its baby wail and Arty screamed as he felt the furry animal scoot between himself and Carolina. But he didn’t let go.

Three great explosions ripped the night and the Tiffany lamp by the dresser exploded, showering purple and blue glass shards down on Carolina’s dresser.

Arty screamed again as a searing slice of heat ran along his back, sending him rolling off the bed. He kept his arms vice-tight around Carolina, taking her and the ferret with him to the floor. His chest banged into hers when they landed, causing the whoosh of air rushing from their lungs to meet midway between their lips, just before they banged heads.

They both gasped, seeking air, but he didn’t let go. They took in small, quick breaths. The ferret shifted and Arty, not used to it, yelled-but the sound of his terror was covered by a howling wail that tore through the neighborhood, sending a shock to Arty’s ears that made him forget about the fear and the pain.

The radio went silent, but Arty still held his charges in his protective grasp.

Seconds later they heard the sound of a car speeding away, laying rubber halfway down the block.

“ Arty, you’re crushing me,” she said, after it was quiet again. She relaxed her body and the ferret slid out from between them, sensing that the danger had passed.

He took a deep breath and pushed himself off of her and into a sitting position, by the side of the bed. “Are you all right?” He gasped for breath. “I didn’t hurt you or anything, did I?”

“ I’m okay.” She sat up too. Sheila jumped into her lap and Carolina stroked her fur. “How about you, girl? You’re not hurt are you?”

“ I think I was shot.” Arty clenched his fists against the pain. His face had gone white.

“ What?” Carolina turned her attention from the ferret toward Arty.

“ I think I was shot,” he said. “In the back.”

“ Let me see.”

“ It stings.” He moved his shoulders slowly from side to side.

“ Can you get up?”

“ I think so.” He pushed himself up from the floor. “Are you okay?”

“ Yeah, I’m all right. I’m just worried about you.”

“ Ah, it hurts.” He stood. Then he sat on the bed, before he fell down. His back was on fire. He wanted to cry, but not in front of Carolina, so he grit his teeth instead.

“ Let me look.” She got off the floor and sat on the bed behind him. “Egads, your back’s all bloody,” she said, setting the ferret down.

“ It hurts bad.” He balled his fists against the pain, but he felt good, despite the fire on his back. He had saved her.

“ We should call the police,” she said.

“ No! Don’t do that. They’ll call my parents and I’ll get into a gang of trouble. My dad would go nuts.”

“ But what if you’re really hurt bad? He’d want you to go to the doctor.”

“ No, he wouldn’t. You don’t know him.”

“ Arty, I don’t know what to do.”

“ Let’s see what it looks like before we do anything. It really hurts, but it doesn’t feel like I got a bullet in me or anything.”

“ Okay, I know about getting in trouble. It seems like that’s my middle name, the way my mom is always yelling at me lately. It’s like I can’t do anything right.” She frowned, making the muscles on her neck stand out. “But I would never be afraid of my mother if I got shot.”

He bit his lip and didn’t answer her.

She sucked in her breath when she saw all the red. His sweatshirt was stuck to his back, held there by an oozing river of blood. “I don’t know if I can do it.” She shook slightly.