Greg Krojac - WTF?

“Yes.”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

Trevor knew his request was probably going to go down like a lead balloon, but he asked anyway.

“Can he stay with us? Until it’s time?”

“Us? There is no us at the moment, Trev. Go live in the woods with your friend.”

“But he’ll need to feed.”

“I don’t care. Do you think anyone’s going to let it feed after what it did to Adrienne.”

“How will they know? I’ve only just told you.”

“Do you seriously think I’m going to keep this to myself? Our friends have looked after us for decades and I’m not going to betray their trust by not warning them that there’s a werewolf in our midst. It could attack any one of them next.”

Trevor knew it would be difficult to get a donor for Arnold, but he had to try.

“If he doesn’t feed with us, he’ll hunt. He won’t be able to help himself. And you know what that means.”

Tracey knew very well what that would mean. Randomly selected innocents would be preyed upon. She didn’t want that on her conscience.

“Find someone who’s willing to donate blood to it and I’ll think about letting it in. Just for the month though. If you don’t kill it next full moon, you’ll both be out on your ears – with no coming back.”

Back in the car, Trevor brought Arnold up to speed. The zombie wasn’t very optimistic.

“Who’s going to want to donate for me after what I did to Adrienne? Nobody will. And I wouldn’t blame them.”

“Somebody will, I’m sure. I’ll explain to them what will happen if they don’t.”

“What will happen if nobody volunteers?”

“The craving for blood will become unbearable and you’ll go out looking for prey. It’s what we used to do in the old days. You won’t care about what happens to your victims – whether they turn or even die.”

Arnold’s good eye looked down.

“I really am a monster.”

There was no way that Trevor could disagree.

“I’m sorry, Arnold. I didn’t realise that I was a carrier of the werewolf gene. I’ve never even felt a hint of werewolfism about me.”

Trever didn’t know if the word werewolfism was a thing or not, but it seemed to portray what he wanted to say. Arnold felt like his world was collapsing.

“So you not only made me a vampire but a werewolf too. Thanks a bunch.”

Trevor knew that he was the cause of most of Arnold’s problems, but he wasn’t responsible for all of them.

“To be fair, Arnold. You were dead before I even met you.”

Arnold couldn’t argue with that.

“So what now?”

“Now we – I – try to sweet talk one of our donors into allowing you to feed when the time comes.”

Just as Trevor had expected, it wasn’t an easy task finding someone willing to let Arnold feed. Adrienne had been a well-loved member of the group and nobody was in the mood to forgive Arnold for killing her. That was fine by Arnold – he couldn’t forgive himself and didn’t expect forgiveness from anyone else, but to deny him the two feeds needed before the next full moon would put everybody in the village at risk.

Trevor’s first port of call was Tom and Edna’s house. He’d hoped that being medical professionals, they’d be able to see the bigger picture and help Arnold out, but they had always thought of Adrienne as the daughter they never had and couldn’t bear the thought of letting her killer feed on their blood.

Jared, the professional skateboarder, refused point-blank. He’d always fancied Adrienne but each time he’d asked her out she bounced him right back into the friend zone – he just wasn’t her type. And now he’d never be rejected by her again.

Miss Filchett, the librarian, had never been able to look Arnold in the face even before he had become a werewolf, so it seemed pretty pointless to ask her. But he did. And she said no.

Father Pickles, the Catholic Priest, said that Arnold was an abomination and he would not suckle the evil demon. Trevor wondered what that made him and Tracey then – the priest seemed to have no problem accepting their stipend every month.

Trevor was feeling less than confident when he knocked on the next door. The door opened quickly and Howard and Hilda stood side by side. They spoke in unison, as they often did.

“Where is he?”

Trevor knew who they were referring to, but pretended he didn’t.

“Where’s who?”

The couple answered.

“The werewolf.”

Trevor looked back to where his car was parked on the road.

“He’s in the car.”

Howard spoke on his own.

“We know why you’re here. The others phoned and told us.”

Trevor was relieved. It looked like he wouldn’t have to go through his spiel again. He was about to say something when Hilda spoke.

“We have one question.”

“What’s that.”

“You’re going to kill him when the time’s right?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not going to bottle out?”

“No. Arnold wants to die. He doesn’t remember anything about what he did. And I’ll need everybody’s help to kill him too.”

Harold looked at Hilda. Hilda looked at Harold and spoke for the two of them.

“OK. We’ll do it. There are two feeds before the next full moon. Harold will do the first feed and I’ll do the second one.”

“Thank you so much, you two. You don’t know how much this means to Arnold and me.”

Hilda scowled.

“We’re not doing it for you. Or the zombie. We’re doing it for the poor men, women, or children that would be at risk if we didn’t.”

Trevor jumped back into his car where Arnold was anticipating yet another negative response. The vampire didn’t even give the zombie a chance to ask how it went before he told him what the couple had said.

“They said yes. They’ll do it. So now all we have to do is to convince Tracey to let you stay at our place until the next full moon.”

Finding donors was half the battle; now they just needed to get Tracey on board.

Trevor rang his own doorbell for the second time that day. The door opened and Tracey’s face still looked like thunder.

“Well?”

“Harold and Hilda have volunteered to be Arnold’s source.”

Tracey didn’t seem very interested.

“Good for them.”

“So, if it’s alright, can we come back?”

“If you do, I’m not feeding it.”

“Arnold doesn’t eat. You know that.”

“Well, I’m not doing anything to help it. It can stay in the room until the next full moon. Then I want it out.”

“With the help of the rest of the group, I’ll kill it next full moon.”

“How?”

“How what?”

“How will you kill it? You said it’s not easy. I want to know that you’ve got everything planned.”

“It’s an old Norse ritual. The Vikings used it as a form of execution for their enemies and also found it was an effective way of killing werewolves. There were a lot more of them around in the old days. In fact, it’s the only way to kill a werewolf.”

Tracey thought for a moment.

“5 pm. I’ll be out. I don’t want to see it.”

Arnold’s first feed was taken in his room at Trevor and Tracey’s house. Howard arrived just after three in the afternoon and passed Tracey in the hallway. She wasn’t going to stay around whilst Arnold fed. She hadn’t even seen him since he’d been back at the house and that suited her just fine. As far as she was concerned, he didn’t exist. And in about three more weeks he would no longer exist; that would do for her.

Howard sat in the middle of the room, on a kitchen chair that Trevor had taken upstairs specifically for the feeding ritual. Looking straight ahead at the wall, he offered his neck up to the zombie who marked his target and plunged his fangs into the man’s neck. Howard didn’t say a word. He was doing what he considered his duty in order to protect the innocent. He had no interest in chit-chat.