Dark of the Moon
© 2024 by Walter Reimer and E.O. Costello

Thumbnail art by  Pashtelle

Thirteen


In hindsight, I should have guessed that if the packs were keeping an eye on me, others might have been doing the same. But hindsight’s 20/20, so I’ve been told, and what mattered right now was that I was in a police precinct that was under attack.

Also in hindsight, I shouldn’t have been too worried. Police stations are pretty well fortified, and everyone inside was armed. Besides, the room we were in didn’t have any windows, so there was little chance of a stray or aimed shot getting to any of us.

And I had three werewolves in my corner.

Green was hunkered down in a puddle of his own urine, his hands over his ears. Michael was crouched in a corner, while George had the door open a bare crack and was peering out. I was right behind George. “See anything?” I asked.

“Not since the original rush,” he growled. He had Shifted, of course. A werewolf may not be bigger than they are when human, but they still have teeth and claws and are tough to bring down. “Think we have reinforcements coming?” he asked as he glanced back at me.

I could see what he was remembering, and he knew I was thinking the same thing. Me and a detachment of the Special Service Brigade were aboard a troopship off the Italian coast, shut up in a windowless room, and a rumor had surfaced that there were U-boats and Stukas in the area. My memory didn’t really need to recall the smell of piss – Green was supplying that – but there was that same claustrophobic feeling of dread. Thankfully, there were only memories of the close smell of unwashed bodies, shit and vomit, but memories were bad enough.

I came back to the here and now and nodded. “No one attacks a precinct house and gets away with it,” I said, “and the packs will have probably noticed by now.” I lowered my voice. “And you know how they’ll handle it.”

George nodded. “It’ll be messy.” He and I both knew how messy it could get. There was one village outside Stuttgart that was almost completely depopulated of werewolves. Men, women and kids.

Yeah, some memories are best left buried.

George stiffened. “Someone’s coming,” and I edged backward. I wasn’t a werewolf, of course, so I stood, grabbed a chair and got in a position to clobber whoever stuck their nose in.

I needn’t have bothered. “Hey, it’s me,” Cunningham called out, and I put the chair down as George scooted back and the inspector stepped in. “Everyone all – phew! Who did that?”

We all pointed at Green, who said in a shaky voice, “S-Sorry.”

Cunningham nodded but looked like he wanted to hold his nose. “It’s okay, you’ve been under a lot of strain the past few days.”

I leaned against the back of the chair. “What the hell happened?” I asked.

“Well, near as I’ve got it so far, three or four werewolves started shooting at the front of the station. The desk sergeant – “

“Is he all right?” I asked.

“Yeah, he’s fine.” Cunningham smiled. “He hid under the desk and screamed bloody murder before he started returning fire. Had three officers come out to help him, while the watch commander called for help. Then the howling started.”

“Howling,” I said.

“Yeah. A lot of howling.” He glanced from Michael to George, and back to me. “You’ve got some friends, Walshe.”

“He owes it all to clean living,” George piped up.

“I’ll bet. Anyway, the shooting stops, and we sent an armed squad out the garage entrance, down a couple blocks, and up to try to outflank ‘em.” He paused and shook his head. “Two dead werewolves, their throats ripped up like someone took an axe to them. A third one lying in his own blood, unconscious but alive.”

“I’d better call Barclay Street,” I said. “They’ll want to know about this before Armbruster gets here.” Cunningham nodded, and he took charge of Green while Michael, George, and me left the room. I needed to get to a phone, and luckily I found one that wasn’t occupied. I sat down and dialed the World-Telegram&Sun.

“Knocko!” my editor said when he answered and I identified myself. “Thank God. Have you heard the howling?”

“I was right in the middle of it,” I said, and I gave him a quick summary. “Look, can you do me a favor?”

“What?”

“I need a photographer up here, and – could you get in touch with Mr. Howard and ask if we can make this an extra?” See, the W-T&S is an afternoon paper; competitors like the Daily News would scoop us if we kept to schedule.

“Yeah, I’ll try to get in touch with him,” the editor assured me. He also said he’d send a camera guy. Some of the cops were giving us funny looks by this time, so we decided the coast was clear and left the station.

Michael said, “My folks’ll be worrying about me,” and he left. George hung around as we took a look at the scene.

The roads leading to the station were blocked all the way to the next corner, and despite the time of night a crowd was starting to gather. There were police cars everywhere, along with a few ambulances.

There were two forms on the pavement, covered in bloodstained white sheets.

Police photographers were taking pictures of the bullet holes on the front of the station when the paper’s camera jockey showed up, and I had him get a few pictures of the bullet marks and the shrouded forms as they were loaded into an ambulance. It was easy to tell that the corpses were werewolves.

As soon as he got the last picture, me and the photographer headed back to Barclay Street, with George in tow. “Look,” he explained when I told him to go home, “my Alpha told me to keep you safe, so that’s what I’m going to do. You don’t want me getting in Dutch with my Alpha, do you?”

Of course I didn’t, so he tagged along.

The editor was waiting for me. “Good! You’re back,” he said. “Get cracking; Howard’s okayed a special edition to hit the streets tomorrow morning.” He grinned at me and nodded at George. “Friend of yours?”

“Old Army buddy,” George said, and he went off to wash his hands while I got my typewriter set up.

I ended up writing two stories. The first described how we found Lou Green in the old subway station, pointing out the police had been looking for the barber as well, because he was the only witness to whoever shot Terhune. I included that he was now in police custody, and that he was safe.

The second article was my firsthand account of what happened at the police station, and admitted the fact that at least three were werewolves. Two were dead, the third injured but, like Green, also in police custody. I stressed that I was speculating, but I hoped that the wounded wolf would be able to tell the police what happened and why the Alpha had been murdered. George went out for sandwiches, and came back with Wally, who took over watching me.

“I told him what’s been going on,” George said as he passed me a corned beef on rye.

Wally was shaking his head. “I’m almost sorry I missed it.”

The two werewolves then chorused, “Almost,” and we all had a good laugh.

The editor made very few changes, and we sent the two articles down to the printer as soon as the editor selected what photographs to include.

I was on my third cup of coffee when the special edition was loaded up on trucks and sent out into the city. Hopefully we had beaten Armbruster and the News to the punch, and the editor said I could go home and get some sleep.

“Exciting night,” Wally remarked as we walked back to my place.

I chuckled. “You didn’t miss much, really. Not like we got into a shootout or something.”

“More exciting than night classes on contract law.”

I grinned at him. “Yeah, sounds really boring.” He Shifted and took a swipe at me, which I easily ducked. “Still, I was glad to have people watching my back.”

Wally returned to human form and laughed. “Well, hopefully we won’t need to much longer.”

“Yeah. Be glad when things get back to normal,” I said as we reached the steps of my apartment building. “See you later, Wally.”

“See you,” and he waited until I’d gone upstairs before he left.

Nice of him.




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