ass back the way we came. I could see he would catch her, though she was running a lot faster than I’d thought she could, so I took off after them, and bunching my legs under me, sailed into him just as he was reaching out to slash down with his claws.
I came down on his back, and he fell and went skidding. I held on to him and sank my teeth into the left side of his back, going through bone, muscle, and cartilage, and ripped his heart out. That’s how you kill a ghoul. I held the nasty thing in my teeth - yuck - and slung it far off to the side. Leave it too close and the bastard might be able to pick it up and put it back in. I’ve seen it happen.
Then I heard the most beautiful sound in the world. I heard my husband howl. I turned to meet the rush of the first big ghoul, back on his feet now, the tear in his throat closing, and saw his eyes go big as he heard Sam’s howl. He stopped, and the other one came to a screeching halt with him. They both began to back up. He knew they couldn’t fight two werewolves and win. They took off for their car and I took off behind them. I wasn’t about to let them go for reinforcements. And as I went sailing through the air and crashed into the smaller one, Sam, golden fur gleaming, blue eyes flashing, leaped seemingly out of nowhere, and brought down old big and ugly. I heard his neck snap as Sam landed on him.
We both slashed at the same time, and the world was suddenly free of two more, ugly, stinky, stupid ghouls. I could hear Eloise still screaming. At first, the sounds were receding in the distance, then suddenly, she gave an extra shriek and was running back toward us. Hoo boy. What now?
Then I saw them. Our wonderful neighbors. They had changed. Well, most of them. Some are human. Some of them are werewolves, some are were-something-else’s, or other kinds of paras, and they’d either heard the ruckus or Sandy had put out the alert when Sam left Annamae there. They were coming to help. Poor Eloise. She undoubtedly thought she was caught in a very bad nightmare - or had gone completely around the bend. I morphed back into my human shape. Which also hurt - ouch. I was naked of course, but I’m use to that in these circumstances. My torn and ripped jeans and shirt, and my busted shoes, were lying back up the road near the cars. Tsk. The shoes were old and I needed a new pair anyway, but I loved that particular pair of jeans and was going to miss them. The tee shirt - not so much.
“Eloise!” I called as she came toward me at a fast run, eyes and mouth stretched wide. Man, was she ever going to be hoarse. “Stop, they’re gone, you’re safe!”
She slowed down and came to a halt about ten feet away, trembling all over. I noticed she’d run right out of her cute little designer flats. Sam, still in wolf form, moved up beside me. “You know, that was a real brave thing you did back there,” I told her. “You attacked that big guy, trying to protect me. I thank you for that.”
She wouldn’t come any closer. She looked back at the people, and…things…behind her and turned back to me, her eyes wild. I could see her swallow hard. “Wha…what are you? What were those…those… things that attacked us? What’s going on?” she asked hoarsely in a wobbly voice, glancing nervously behind her at our neighbors.
Oh man. I looked beyond her and spotted Shamika, my four-doors-down neighbor who is totally human. I motioned for her to come up. “Look, I know you’re scared, Eloise, but believe me: you’re safe now. These are my neighbors and they came to help us. None of us will hurt you, and Sam and I have taken out the bad guys who were looking to hurt you. Let’s go back to my house, and we’ll tell you as much as we can.”
Shamika walked up behind her and said, “Hey, Hun, your name’s Eloise? Well, Eloise, my name’s Shamika. I’m a P.A. You are in shock right now, and we need to get you inside and get you calmed down.” She smiled kindly at Eloise. “I bet you could use a good stiff drink, too.” Shamika turned to look at the rest of our neighbors, and called, “Y’all, they’re okay. Sam and Cady took care of the ghouls. Hey, bring that blanket over here, Brad, it’s not that warm tonight. Cady’s getting cold.”
Damn good neighbors. They’d come prepared. Brad stepped around the still trembling Eloise, nodded and smiled amicably at her and handed me the blanket. I thankfully wrapped it around myself as Sam, who is almost as tall in his wolf form as I am as a human, bumped me with his snout.
I’m going back to the house, Babes. I’ll get Annamae and be changed by the time you get there, he said.
Okay, Hun. I gave him a pat on his rump as he turned and loped off into the dark. The neighbors were dispersing. They would take care of the ghoul’s car. Wasn’t much left of the ghouls. They tend to shrink down and start looking pretty much like regular road kill once they’re dead. Somebody would remove that, too, though. No sense in leaving them there to uglify the road. I did wish we’d had time to question them before we killed them, though. I still wondered why they’d wanted Eloise.
“Eloise?” said Shamika, placing her arm around her shoulder. Shamika is tall, almost as tall as Sam, and is the kindest, most-able-to-sooth-anybody, person in the world. Talk about your bed-side manner. In a moment she had Eloise leaning on her and heading for our house.
Brad spotted my tools and grabbed them for me as I followed behind holding the blanket tight, my adrenaline rush from the fight dying and leaving me feeling kind of depleted. I looked up at the sky. You could still see stars here in this area. Not as many as could be seen, say, in the mountains, but more than you could if you were in the city. As long as you didn’t look toward the city. It felt late. I figured it was close to midnight. Geez. I was going to be sore in the morning. And the night wasn’t quite over yet. We’d have to talk to Eloise and get her into some semblance of back-to-normal.
She would be made to understand that we didn’t care if she told anyone what happened tonight, but if she didn’t want to be forever considered a nut job, she should keep it to herself. Anybody coming around to try to verify anything she told them would get a whole lot of innocent, wide-eyed “Huhs?” and a heap of head scratching. We’d tell her what she needed to know. She already knew Sam and I are werewolves, we’d tell her a few other things. I thought she could handle it. And she had moved up in my esteem tonight when she had jumped in to try to help what she thought was a small black woman about to be demolished by a huge white man. Gotta give her creds for that.
I felt less hostile toward her. Even if she had brought ruin on our lovely unexciting stretch in this area - and interrupted Sam’s raised eyebrow.
I reminded myself to call the eye doctor first thing in the morning. I had to get Annamae’s eyes checked. Before she killed any more clumps of hair.
End
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Other Works by Bea Cannon
(Novels)
*Boucher’s World: Emergent
(Book 1 of the Boucher’s World Trilogy)
*Boucher’s World: Transformations
(Book 2 of the Boucher’s World Trilogy)
*Boucher’s World: Encounters
(Book 3 of the Boucher’s World Trilogy)
*Bridge
*Turner: Bitter Change
(Book 1 of Spaceships and Magic)
*Turner: World Change
(Book 2 of Spaceships and Magic)
*Turner: Unexpected Change
(Book 3 of Spaceships and Magic)
*Turner: Inevitable Change - coming 11/17/2016
(Book 4 of the Spaceships and Magic series)
*First
(Novellas)
*Seed
*Swallow And Dove: A Tale From The Turmoils
**A Blankie for Baby
(Novelettes)
*Raven and C’elie: A Love Story
**Living in the Moment
*Hard Changes
(Short Stories)
Moving Day
Why I Started Smokin' Cigarettes
(or what happened th' night Daddy went to Hooter's to git some chicken wings)
Adams and Eves
*Available in paperback an
d ebook
**Also available in ebook and paperback as a collection in A Short Trilogy of Quiet
About the author:
Bea lives in Charlotte, NC.
In addition to writing science fiction and fantasy (and a smidgen of horror) she enjoys a good read, working crossword puzzles, walking, drawing, and painting.
She is a retired electronics technician and admits to having worked at a variety of other jobs during her life, including being a dishwasher, a busgirl, a house maid, a motel/hotel maid, working in a fast-food joint, a telephone operator, and a store clerk. There have been other, not-so-glamorous jobs, including picking cotton.
She daydreams a lot, too.
Blog: https://pcannon16.wordpress.com/
Face Book Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bea-Cannon/295432397242703
Twitter: https://twitter.com/pbeacannon
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6869960.Bea_Cannon
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