So this is the first thing I ever wrote that I finished and had any kind of pride in, it’s just shy of a year old, I’ve submitted it to magazines and been turned down. But now I’m going to post it here for people to read.
I imagined this as one episode/event/story within a larger setting I’m working on setting more stories in. There’s a few easter eggs and references, at least in the characters, let me know if you catch them. Also let me know if you like it, Kessler will appear in more stories as I’m currently planning them.
“Yes, I understand. No. I’ll take care of it myself.” Agent Lawrence Kessler informed the woman on the other end of the line before hanging up. The breath out of his lungs misted in the cool mountain air.
Kessler shut the office door behind him, keeping his eyes away from the old kennel and its current occupant. His rookie partner, Scott Cord. OMEN had sent the pair of them after reports of a werewolf in the Wallowa National Forest.
Tonight Cord lay on the floor of the long unused dog kennel, groaning weakly as he had been since the night before. His uniform had been stripped down to the shirt on his back and hispants. The rest of it was in the truck. The home office had told Kessler that he had to stay strong and follow the infection protocol. There was no quarter given in their line of work and he knew what he had to do before leaving.
If there was a single ounce of liquor in this building or any of the little sheds surrounding it, then he would have found it. There wasn’t anything. Dry as a bone. “Damn.”
The sun had set twenty minutes ago. Soon the choice would be taken out of his hands and he didn’t know if that was a curse or a blessing. It wouldn’t make him feel any better about this. Cord was a good kid. Reckless, liked to run his mouth, but he was a good kid when he didn’t feel like he had something to prove. He could still make the choice himself. Lawrence should have taken point and gone in front. That decision would have saved him this whole position. Scott would have made the call a lot easier and he’d have made the right call. Lawrence’s trigger finger was faster than Scott’s. It was the fastest in their whole agency. But he had to be prepared to pull that trigger.He should have called in when the kid had been bit. But he’d held off, hoping it had been a dry bite. But werewolves weren’t vipers. Every bite spread infection. The way the kid’s fine blonde hair had gone dark and coarse gave away that he was changing and there was no hope for him. In two hundred years of active scientific research there was no signs of a cure. Just silver.
He could leave him here. Hope that the kennel kept him in place until he starved, or turned back and decided to end it himself.
The gun lay on the desk in front of Kessler, the desk lamp keeping it easy to see, easy to grab. It wasn’t loaded. The clip lay next to it on the old beaten wood. Protocol dictated that an infected agent be executed to contain the spread.There was half a clip, seven rounds in that clip. He only needed one. It was like putting down a dog who had contracted rabies. He did always hate how Old Yeller ended.
Suddenly Cord sat up, and then he was convulsing. It was hard not to look because it sounded as if he was beginning to choke on his own tongue. And then came a sound like drowning. Two days ago Scott Cord was the healthiest little shit Lawrence Kessler had ever met. Now the choice was out of his hands. Except it wasn’t. He could still walk away, but he couldn’t. Not really, not in good conscience. He kept his eyes on the gun and the ammunition.
Cord was sounding less and less human.Then he was screaming. The louder the noise from the kennel, the more intently Kessler stared at the gun in its spotlight. The more he thought about the way the dust smelled when it mixed with the blood coming up in Cord’s throat. Spilling on the floor as his body rejected its former nature for the new one.
Could he pick up the gun without trembling? He’d never shot and killed anyone before. He’d never even put down a dog. He had killed monsters. Never a person. As long as he didn’t look then he could keep thinking of Cord as the stupid kid who charged off after the werewolf. The gun did tremble in his hand, but remained empty. He could refuse to look but the sound was impossible to ignore. The clip lay on the desk not a second longer and was locked and loaded as the weight of the thing Cord had become pressed against the metal trappings of the kennel. Kessler’s eyes finally met with Cord’s, or what used to be Cord. The firearm was raised, the hardest part was he could still see the human beneath the fur and the blazing yellow eyes. The sound of thunder cracked the air and then Kessler delivered to the kid his saving grace. A blessed death before he could be the thing they hunted.
The truck felt unbalanced as he drove away. Like he was missing something. He wasn’t. OMEN was an agency for protecting people from the things that went bump in the night. The kid had just been another victim of the age-old struggle. Kessler had to believe that or he’d killed him for nothing. It was a long drive back to the home office, DC was far from Idaho. What was the story they’d spin for the kid’s mother?
