Greg Krojac - WTF?

The police car skidded to a halt on her driveway as Arnold galloped off into the distance. Two officers leapt out of the vehicle and sprinted into the house. Immediately one of them sprinted out again and threw up over Adrienne’s prized black rose bush. Once his stomach was empty he joined his partner back at the bedroom.

“Sorry about that, Sid.”

Sid had seen it all before.

“Don’t worry, mate. You did the right thing, not contaminating the crime scene.”

PC Nick Grobbler was still embarrassed.

“Should we go in?”

“Nah. We’ll stay here until the SOCO boys and girls get here. There’s nothing we can do except keep the place secure. I mean, she’s dead. She’s not going anywhere. Other officers will look for the bastard who did this.”

Nick didn’t want to look at the scene anymore. It looked like a madman had gone crazy with a chainsaw in an abattoir. Blood and guts were strewn about everywhere and Adrienne was hardly recognisable as a human being. Sid took a plastic bag from his pocket and handed it to Nick.

“Just in case you want to barf again.”

Nick was grateful for the bag – he wasn’t convinced that he could keep down what was left in his stomach – and was relieved when he saw two figures in Tyvek suits coming up the stairs. The leading figure, a bespectacled man in his early sixties, nodded a greeting to the two police officers.

“Another animal killing, officers?”

“Too early to say, Dennis. I mean, it looks like it, yeah, but that’s for you to say, isn’t it?”

Nick cut in.

“We did see a big dog, like a wolf, running away from the house.”

Dennis slipped his hands into a pair of latex powder-free gloves, grateful that he no longer had to dust the gloves first before putting them on. Technology was a wonderful thing. He stepped over the threshold of the doorway.

“Come on, Miss Winch. We have work to do.”

Susan followed her mentor into the bedroom, taking care not to disturb anything. A third figure, a forensic photographer followed them. Dennis clasped his hands behind his back.

“So Miss Winch, tell me what you see.”

This was going to be a particularly difficult experience for the trainee. She knew whose house she was in. She’d known the victim. Adrienne was her friend.

“The room is approximately 5 metres by 4 metres, tastefully decorated in a Gothic style, with purple walls and –“

Dennis held a finger up.

“Just the relevant facts, Miss Winch.”

Susan looked down at the floor briefly.

“Sorry, sir.”

She tried again.

“The room is approximately 5 metres by 4 metres, which will be confirmed by a laser measuring tool.”

“Good. And the perimeter has already been assigned as the boundary of the property. Step two?”

“Establish security. The tape is already in place and police officers assigned to guard the perimeter.”

“Step three?”

“Step three is umm…”

“Determine the type of crime that has occurred.”

“Of course, sir. Homicide.”

Nick, who was still at the door, although looking anywhere but into the room, nudged his partner.

“You think?”

Susan continued with her checklist.

“Identify any threats to the evidence. Inside the house, none. In the garden, yes. The weather. It could rain or even snow. There’s a team processing the exterior as we speak.”

Adhering rigidly to procedure was probably the best thing for Susan right now. She reported her observations to her superior in a methodical and objective manner although inside she was in turmoil. To Dennis, the victim was a female Caucasian, in her mid-twenties, of average build. Her wounds consisted of numerous bite-marks to the head, neck, and torso, removal of the long intestine, and a severed spinal cord (which would be recorded as the cause of death). To Susan, the victim was a dear friend, a young woman who enjoyed life and knew how to have fun, a young woman who didn’t judge but accepted people for who they were, a young woman who didn’t deserve to have had her life cut short in such a horrible and obscene way.

Finishing up his evaluation, Dennis handed Adrienne’s mobile phone to the detective who had been assigned control of the case.

“She took a photo of her killer.”

Detective Sergeant Nigel Dunstable opened the picture gallery and saw a photo of an emaciated – no, partly decomposed – wolf with different coloured eyes and a ring of industrial staples around one of its legs.

Trevor and Tracey hadn’t been able to even get close to Adrienne’s house, but the flashing blue lights they saw in the distance told them all that they needed to know. They were too late.

Tracey slammed the door in Trevor’s face as she stormed into the house, forcing him to use his own keys to get into the building. She’d stonewalled him for the rest of the car journey and was in no mood to speak to him now. But she had to.

“You know what, Trevor? What I’m really pissed off about is that you kept this big secret from me. You don’t think I deserved to know the truth? You don’t think I deserved to know that my deceased mother-in-law was a werewolf? Imagine if we’d had kids – would they have been vampire-werewolf hybrids? They could’ve been.”

Trevor tried to say something, but his wife was in full rant mode.

“And you had this, this abomination living in our house. He could have ripped our throats out at any time.”

Trevor tried to defend himself.

“That’s not strictly true, Tracey, he’s only a danger at full moon.”

“Oh, so because he only transforms at full moon, that’s alright then is it?”

Trevor tried frantically to think of something that might diffuse the situation.

“No. Of course not. But it means he’s more manageable.”

“Manageable? Bloody manageable? That must make Adrienne feel much better, mustn’t it? Oh… wait. Adrienne’s dead isn’t she? Ripped to shreds by your bloody friend!”

“He’s your friend too.”

“You bit him. You brought him home. And YOU kept it secret that he wasn’t just a zombie-vampire hybrid.”

“To be fair. I wasn’t sure.”

Tracey needed to punch something. She wanted to punch Trevor but she wasn’t finished with him yet.

“When were you sure then? When local pets were mutilated? When that poor boy, Ronnie Whatsisname was killed? Or now that our friend Adrienne is dead.”

“I started to think it may be him when Ronnie Williams was killed, yes.”

Tracey was livid.

“Why the hell didn’t you say anything then?”

“I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s been nothing but a perfect guest since he’s been here.”

“Benefit of the bloody doubt?”

“Look, Tracey. You know that werewolves can’t control their actions when they transform. They’re like rabid animals. They’re in another world, a world of confusion, where nothing makes sense and reality is suspended.”

“No, I don’t, Trevor. I’ve never dealt with werewolves before. My mum was normal. I didn’t even think they were a real thing until now. Not like you, whose bloody mother was one.”

She turned away from her husband.

“I don’t want anything to do with you right now. I don’t want to speak to you. I don’t even want to see your face. I need space.”

The couple had never fought like this before. Trevor tried to placate his wife.

“But—”

“I said. I don’t want to speak to you. I don’t care where you go, but I don’t want you in this house tonight.”

Trevor didn’t try to persuade her otherwise. She was right. If he had said something as soon as he suspected, Adrienne would probably still be alive. He closed the door quietly behind him as he left.