The giant stared at me for a minute before answering. “Lucas, I was called Lucas,” he finally replied.
I washed quickly while he waited. I considered my circumstance and tried to think of a way out. Lucas didn’t seem dangerous, not like the ones that kidnapped me. His comment confirmed what I had hoped was just a bad dream, werewolves had brought me here. If this was all true then Joel was probably a werewolf, too. I had to ask.
“Lucas, do you know Joel Latro?”
It was the wrong thing to say, Lucas screamed as if bitten by something then backed away from the enclosure.
“Latro killed my Linda, KILLED MY LINDA!” he hollered.
His face started to lengthen as did his hands, the dirty outfit he was in split away at the sides and I was suddenly 1 piece of plywood away from the largest scariest creature I had ever seen.
The wolf man had to be eight feet tall, he towered over me. He stared at me with large golden eyes, his long ears twitching and flicking. Suddenly he changed again, shifting into the form of a large wolf with no human characteristics at all and bounded off.
I was terrified and wanted to run back into the cabin, but the idea of smelling like those awful dogs was disgusting. I heard a mournful howl in the distance and decided the giant was not coming back anytime soon. I soaped and washed quickly figuring the bath out faster than I thought I would.
I ran back into the cabin and dried off with a clean blanket I pulled from the bedroom. Looking around I found a dress in the closet, it was so old the fabric nearly crumbled under my fingers. In the dresser were several newer sets of men’s undershirts and boxers. They smelled clean, so I slipped them on.
Wandering back into the kitchen I drifted over to the pot by the fire and stirred it absently with the large hunting knife. Not being someone that cooks I had no idea if I should be doing anything to it or not.
My shivering slowly abated and I started thinking back on the last twenty-
four hours. I tried to come up with some semblance of normalcy.
I tried to reason why I was here. Joel was obviously not the reason, Lucas had confirmed that. It looked like I was being taken from Joel, not taken to him. There was unexpectedly a deep sadness in me when I thought about never seeing Joel again.
Looking out at the gathering dusk I suddenly remembered a barely heard conversation that happened during my torture in the van. I was so wrapped up in what was happening to me I had barely registered it at the time.
“Why not just kill her?” the first voice whispered, “It’s what she asked us to do.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of insurance?” came the second voice quietly, “If this goes badly we tell Latro his girl was kidnapped by that stray in the woods. We’ll tell him we saw them while we were on a run. The old Kook won’t hurt the girl; she looks too much like that old bitch he used to have. If we need to be, we’ll be the heroes for finding her.”
“How do you know what the stray’s bitch looked like? That was years ago.”
“Eve has that old family album, before the great rift. I looked though it, saw the Kook and his girl, and recognized him from up on the hill. He’s so crazy now he’d never be able to tell them what really happened. How many times have we been up here and what’s he ever said to us?”
I cried a little as the rest of the memory crashed down. I was still huddled beside the fire when I heard the steps on the cabin’s front porch. The steps were lighter than the giant’s and then I realized I heard more than one set of feet.
Gripping the hunting knife tightly I backed toward the wall next to the fireplace. If the monsters from the van were coming back I would at least manage to draw blood this time.