Daniel.
The other door led to another bedroom.The bedding was a simple neutral.There was a desk and a dresser.The closet doors were still on their tracks, but open to show shirts and pants hung neatly by color.A phone charger.An iPad.A glass of water.
Where was Daniel?
From the front of the house, Jem’s breathing sounded labored now.Exhausted.
He had to find Daniel.
Tean retraced his steps to the kitchen.The stairs were still dark.He almost closed his eyes; he saw the barn, the kennels.A little switch at the top of the stairs made a clicking noise when he flipped it, but no lights came on.He took out his phone.A tinny voice on the speaker reminded him that someone was still trying to talk to him, but he ignored the voice and turned on the flashlight.
At the bottom of the steps lay one of the wolfman.Akimbo, that was the word for it.Arms and legs spread out like he’d tried to catch himself at the end of the fall.Head turned to one side.One yellow wolfman eye stared up at Tean, unblinking.
On the kitchen’s worn linoleum lay a bloody knife.Tean picked it up.
Treads creaked under him as he made his way down.He slowed near the bottom, watching the wolfman for movement, a surprise.The light bobbed back and forth because he couldn’t keep his hand still.In the wandering light, he saw another bank of switches.He had to stretch past the wolfman to flip them on, but the wolfman didn’t move.Lights groaned and buzzed on.Flickering snaps of light: the washer and dryer; the furnace; a stack of cardboard boxes sagging under their own weight.
And then the lights steadied, and somewhere, a boy whimpered.
“Daniel?”Tean said.His voice cracked.“Daniel?Can you hear me?It’s Tean.”
“Uncle Tean?I’m here!I’m back here!I’m here!I’m here!”
Tean took the final step down, holding on to the rail to swing himself over and past the fallen wolfman.The floor here was a concrete slab, and the soles of his Keens squeaked as he made his way past the furnace and toward the far corner of the house.
It was a kennel: black, shining where the light touched it.Daniel knelt inside it, hands clutching the wire panel.He had a bruise on one side of his face.He was terrified.To judge by the smell, he’d had to relieve himself in the cage.But he was alive.
Daniel was making noises—not quite words, but groans, like the combination of strain and relief were too much for him to handle anymore.He rattled the panel as though trying to pull it free, and scrapes and scratches showed where he’d hurt himself trying to escape.
“Hey,” Tean said.“It’s okay.We’re here.You’re okay.”
He crouched in front of the kennel and set down the phone and the knife.His hand was tacky with drying blood.A padlock and chain secured the kennel’s door.Tean examined it.If he had a pair of bolt-cutters, he could get the chain off.For that matter, if he had a pair of pliers, he could probably just pry out a section of the panel and take the whole door off.He was starting to think of how to tell Daniel that he had to go find some tools—had to go help Jem, his brain hollered at him—but before he could, Daniel screamed.The boy threw himself toward the back of the kennel, still screaming, kicking, thrashing.
Tean turned.
The wolfman, the one who had lain at the bottom of the stairs, stood maybe ten feet away.There was something wrong with his posture.A broken shoulder, maybe.A cracked vertebra.But those explanations came from that cold room inside Tean’s head.The part of him thatwasn’tclinical—the part of him that was still an animal, that still knew to be afraid of the dark—stared at this thing with the long, shaggy fur and the blank eyes, and all he could think was that it wasn’t human.Humped.Misshapen.A werewolf caught mid-transformation.
And then, over the thrum of blood in his ears, Tean heard it.
The wolfman was making a small keening noise.The noise grew into a howl—still soft, but it was impossible to mistake it for anything else.There was something tentative about it.As though this thing—a man, it’s a human being, it’s not a monster, but then Tean remembered the bodies, the burns, the cuts, the head smashed in—as though thisthingwere trying something new.
The howl grew louder.
Trying it and liking it.
“Get out of here,” Tean said.
The knife lay at the edge of his vision.Light licked along the bloody blade.
The wolfman took a step forward.
“Go,” Tean barked.He made himself bigger.He clapped his hands.Most animals didn’t want a fight; even if they won, there was a chance they’d be injured.“Get lost!”
But not all animals.Not always.
Not if they were sick.
Rabid.