The Other Side of the Tracks

Posted on June 28th, 2007 by Jaybo.
Categories: Jaybo.

MOONLIGHT

Episode 1 - Chapter 5

The Wolf continuted to feast beneath the man-hole cover long after John Piper’s last heart-beat.  His eyes, gorged with blood, looked to the round entrance of the street and continued to eat. He was being watched and his own eyes were being used against him, but the kill was fresh and he dared not leave it behind for the rats. He kept his head down, eating; all the while his eyes roamed the surface watching those who watched him.

After having had his fill, the Wolf moved to safer surroundings. He left the clothes from John’s lower half floating in the sewer water, but grabbed the untouched torso by the head, placed it in his massive jaws and crawled into the tunnel. The blood of Jose and John left the dingy metallic flavor in the Wolf’s mouth and it was continuing his rage. Beginning to sprint down the corridors, the Wolf didn’t feel the skin itching on his back and shoulders as it regenerated over the damaged areas; nor was the pain of it being re-scraped away from his body and bones noticable as he picked up speed in the cramped waterway.

The Wolf reached his human cadavar dam and gently placed the new kill in place. He retreived the body of Ju as well and did the same. The blood-rage was subsiding and he was beginning to feel his senses return to normal. He was regaining control. As his eyes slowly faded from red to yellow, he took another long look at the faces fading from view and stared at them with a burning hatred. He could see their eyes condemning him. If I ever find you, the Wolf thought, the first thing I’ll do is tear your damned eyes out one…

———————————————————————————————

by one,” they heard him say. Ten Merrick’s sat quietly in the plush room three levels below the Main Hall of the Pen. Their cataract-blinded eyes fixated into empty space, but watching with full knowledge of what had just taken place in the Hell’s Kitchen sewer ducts. From the moment the Wolf tasted the blood of Jose, their power cried out for them to see the unspeakable actions of the Wolf in the sewer. Though the horror of what they witnessed terrified them, they could not look away. The power drew their minds and opened their eyes to see.

As the scene of Jose and John’s deaths unfolded, they called out their visions to the control room and spoke the details of the location in a tone that would lead you to believe they were drugged. Immediately, the mainframe began to search through the countless maps and descriptions of sewer tunnels beneath the city and the schedules of inspections. The men’s clothes were cross-referenced with city workers, their various boroughs, the districts within them, then finally accessing all possible individuals from the city’s own database. The whole time, the Merrick’s eyes searched for the clues. Only once the Wolf reached John in his fruitless climb to the street did they stand and cry out:

“BHK3496! BHK3496!”

John nor the Wolf had noticed, but scrawled into the wall in various locations at the entrance to the sewer tunnels was the marking left by the Pen. THe code gave the exact location of the man-hole cover. The system sent an alarm to the sergeant on duty. He checked the location and saw a Handler/Wolf team was 20 minutes away. He barked the location through the radio and the Handler laid his foot to the floor and sped to the now closed man-hole cover. Meanwhile, the Merricks maintained watch, seeking identifying clues, calling out all they saw and witnessed.

The rouge Wolves at the beginning of a blood rage paid no attention to the blind eyes that watched them. The desire for the kill was too great and their hearts pounded with excitement. Only once the rush subsided would they feel the stares; notice their eyes wandering to areas they didn’t command them to go. The Wolves had control over their bodies, but had to fight their eyes as the Merricks used them. Time was limited. Once the Wolves’ blood rage ended, so did the Merrick’s vision. The rouge Wolves were free to roam again, and the Merricks returned to the darkness of their useless eyes.

———————————————————————————————

By the time the rage of the Wolf had subsided, the Handler and Wolf were on their way. The Wolf, having carefully placed his trophies against the dam, decided it was time to leave. He crawled through the tunnels to the hole in the sewer wall that led to a seperate line no longer used. After winding through the empty sewer maze, another entrance opened to an abandoned subway line that ran parallel to the sewer. The line was guarded by various gates and doors which eventually opened to the surface world. From here the Wolf was free to come and go.

As the Handler and Wolf entered the underground labyrinth far behind him, the rouge Wolf was already long gone; his trail washed away by the water of the sewer. He made his way unhindered through the various twisting and turning corridors until he reached the subway tunnel. The Werewolf had enough of crawling for the evening. He exited the sewer into the subways track area and stood, stretching his muscles as he walked across. He sniffed the air for intruders. Only the rats, he thought.

With uncanny power he lept over the useless tracks, a good 25 feet, and landed on the platform. He stood and looked at himself and began to clean his filth soaked fur with long strokes of his tounge. Long, long ago men and women stood on this concrete floor and waited to be whisked awaw into the dark tunnels, leaving for another area of the city. I’d have killed them all, the Wolf thought as he continued to clean himself.

After an hour, the Wolf was satisfied with his bath. He walked to the corner of the platform away from the tracks where he found the garbage bag he had left before. He hated what was coming, but knew what had to be done. Given the chance, he would stay a Wolf forever, but the otherside of him knew the dangers of being caught and eventually killed. It was safer to spend time hidden among the men of the world, than to live forever looking over your shoulder as a Wolf.

The Werewolf dropped to all fours and waited. His heart picked up pace and his eyes dialated into black disks. A sharp heat began to run from the top of his head to the back of his hips. It was like have a white-hot knife run down your back, burning and cutting at the same time. The Wolf squinted and gritted his teeth in pain. Slowly the skin along the back of his body split and curled away from his spine like paper in a fire. The Wolf gripped his hands into the concrete, tearing chunks out as the transformation continued. The skin flaps fell over the sides of his ribs and pain encompassed the Wolf’s body and mind. As the flesh peeled away, it became dry as leather. The outer layer of the Wolf fell from his sides and down his legs, tearing off with ease. There was no blood spilled, only a paper-thin pelt, once thick with power and fur floated to the ground. The last of the Wolf’s flesh fell to the ground and what remained on the subway platform was a large black man, 6′ 8″ and 340 lbs, on his hands and knees. His massive muscles shook from the trauma of the transormation. He was competely naked and his skin was dry and dusty from the change. His arms and hands bore the scars of terrible burns. He rose to his feet. As in all transformations, all the skin falls away but that of the Wolf’s head. The man reached up and removed the now over-sized Wolf mask as he’d done a thousand times before and looked at it with a morbid curiosity. He tossed it aside with the rest of the skin.

The man walked to the garbage bag at the corner of the platform and opened it up. Inside were his street clothes. He had worn underwear, jeans and a t-shirt along with socks and shoes into the tunnels earlier that night. He dressed and chastised himself for the evenings events. He’d never be able to return to those sewer lines. They were necessary kills tonight, but he had exposed his obvious location to those who could see him and now it was too dangerous to return.

He began to leave when he noticed he’d forgotten something. He walked back to the folded trash bag and opened it. There in the bottom of it was his golden wedding ring. He grabbed the ring and slipped it on his finger. He refolded the trashbag and placed it back again.

As the man unlocked the rusted subway gate to exit through another set of tunnels, he looked back over his shoulder. He saw that the Wolf’s skin was already disintigrating into a pile of dust. The man smiled, locked the gate behind him and began the long trek back to the world above.

7 comments.