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.”
23
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.
Trevor stood on the far side of the room; he and Tracey – who were gradually becoming friends again – would feed in the evening, at Tom and Edna’s house. That way, Tracey could continue to avoid Arnold completely.
Once the feeding was completed, Harold bade Trevor goodbye and left without saying a word to Arnold. Trevor felt sorry for his zombie friend – he understood better than anyone that Arnold would never have hurt a hair on Adrienne’s head if he hadn’t been taken over by the werewolf psyche. He knew that Arnold had probably loved Adrienne but he also understood other people’s reactions. If he had been less informed about werewolf lore he would almost certainly have reacted the same way. But he’d watched his father’s tears mingle with his mother’s blood as her life was literally ripped out of her in the most grotesquely horrific way imaginable. His mother couldn’t bear to live with the guilt of what she had done to friends and neighbours and had begged her husband to kill her, much as Arnold had begged Trevor to kill him. The killing of the werewolf would be more an act of mercy than an act of attrition.
24
Three weeks later, the sun set, the moon rose, and nightfall drifted across the landscape. The only sound was the ticking over of car, pickup, and motorcycle engines as the donor group waited for darkness to set in.
Tracey knew what was going to happen that night but didn’t feel that she could take part in the killing. For her, it would have been an act of retribution, not mercy, and she didn’t know if she had the inner strength to cope with the aftermath. Trevor had enough helpers – twenty or so – and whether she was there or not wouldn’t make any difference to the outcome. She’d spend the evening at a friend’s house, eating popcorn and watching movies on Netflix.
Jared and Trevor were sitting in the lead vehicle when Arnold’s bedroom window slid open. Arnold stood looking out of the window, as if he was trying to absorb the full moon into his body, before disappearing from view again. Something didn’t make sense to Jared.
“This may sound a stupid question, Trev, but why didn’t you just chain him up in his room, let him change, and then kill him when he changes back?”
The vampire looked at the skateboarder.
“Do you know how strong a werewolf is?”
“No.”
“A German Shepherd dog can easily maul a human to death. A regular wolf is about one and a half times the size of a German Shepherd. And a werewolf is about ten times as strong as a regular wolf. Add the killer instinct to that mix and you’ve got a terrifying killing machine.”
Jared glanced towards the cottage.
“But still—”
“Look, the truth is that Tracey wouldn’t let me. She said she’s just got the house how she likes it and she’s not going to risk it getting smashed up.”
Jared pointed at the window where he could see Arnold’s shadow apparently tidying up.
“Dude, what’s he doing?”
Trevor shook his head, knowing that what he was about to say would sound crazy.
“He’s taking off his clothes, folding them neatly, and putting them on the bed. He’s still human – well zombie – at the moment, although the werewolf in him is beginning to take him over. In a couple of minutes, any vestige of what he was will be gone.”
Sure enough, about two minutes later, the group’s communal jaw dropped as a large semi-decomposed wolf leapt out of the bedroom window and onto the neatly trimmed lawn.
Clutches were dropped, and engines roared as the vehicles raced off in pursuit of the fleeing beast, which zigzagged along the road, leaping over hedges and low fences, and cutting through gardens making it difficult for the cars to keep up with him. This is where the motorcycles came to the fore; they were far more agile than the cars and kept the animal in sight, relaying any changes in direction to the rest of the pursuers.
A message came through from one of the motorcyclists, as he drilled through a bed of early flowering daffodils.
“It looks like he’s heading towards The Green.”
Trevor knew who Arnold’s next target was.
“It’s almost as if he has a sliver of human memory that’s guiding him to targets. I don’t know what importance the Great Oak had in his life, but he went to Adrienne’s house and now he’s heading in the direction of The Green.”