Wolves and Men

“These are the monsters here, William. These are the demons that feed on the youth and vitality of the human race.” Efraim let go of the girl and shifted back to his human form. “What do you think this place is?” William had no answer. “This place is a feeding ground for them. The vampires have places like this set up all over the city, right under the human’s noses. People flock to these places, especially now in this age of free sex and instant gratification. They have no idea that they are just cattle and lambs, except they don’t need to be led, they come here of their own free will to be slaughtered!”

“We don’t have time for that right now Efraim,” Pepromene said over her shoulder. “The humans don’t know any better and now is not the time for another one of your, ‘America is a Godless country,’ rants.”

“IF this country had some humility in God maybe we wouldn’t need to attack and burn places like this.” Efraim shot back with some venom in his voice.

“America is where it is right now because of WHAT America is,” Ryan said as he turned away from a filing cabinet. “America hasn’t had to fight for its survival in a long time; this breeds complacency and a sense of invincibility. These people don’t know what it’s like to live in fear every day of being invaded or attacked by a neighboring country. Not everyone has lost family in the name of God and religious beliefs. May, Israel live on.” He turned back toward the files he had been sorting through.

Efraim looked as if he wanted to say something more but didn’t. It seemed to William that this group had had conversations like this before and he had just walked into an argument that was several years old. William watched as Efraim glanced at his pack mates once and went back to the stack of files and papers on the desk.

William regarded his bloody claw and shifted back to human form. The blood was still there. He didn’t know if he expected it to be gone or not, but seeing it now against his white skin just made it darker and more real. He wanted to wash himself off. He felt dirty, he needed a shower.

The smoke from inside the club was now ballooning into the open door of the office. The light from the fire itself was dimming which was a bad sign. Any moment the lights would go completely out and then they would have to rely on emergency lights or memory to get to the exit. Luckily it was right down the hall from the office door.

William turned to open the filing cabinet next to him. The smoke was getting worse and his eyes were starting to water. The overhead fluorescent lights started to flicker. He rifled through the name tabs on the files as fast as her could.

“I’ve got it. Let’s move!,” Ryan’s voice rang out behind him.

William slammed the cabinet drawer shut as the group filed out of the office into the thick smoke of the hallway. The three men dropped to their hands and knees and followed after Pepromene, who had shifted back to her natural wolf form.

The four of them made their way down the dark smoky hallway. William could barely see Efraim who was right in front of him. The smoke swirled and moved around them, darkening by the moment. William thoughts were bombarded with images of the fire licking up the walls and eating the hallway out from under them, he saw himself falling three stories to be lost in a sea of fire, burning to death.

Suddenly something moved in front of him and the smoke began swirling past him. It didn’t make breathing any easier but the rush of heat around him escaping ahead of him made him feel better. A few moments more of crawling and he was outside on a steel grating fire escape. He coughed and hacked a little. He had inhaled a lot of smoke but having fresh air filling his lung once again only made him cough harder.

After a few moments Efraim grabbed William’s shoulder and they all made their way down the fire escape. Pepromene led the way as the three men followed her down the final stairway into an alley around the back side of the club.

The front of the building was surrounded by people as they watched the orange and red flames lick up toward the sky. The building threw a huge pillar of black smoke into the sky. People were so busy looking up at the building and playing with various phones and other things that the four of them passed down the street almost invisible next to the carnage that they left behind.

They cut across four blocks of the city as the roar of fire engines and police squad cars sped past them toward the scene of the fire. They kept their heads down and walked at a leisurely pace. William watched as Ryan lifted his head up to inhale deeply the cool night air of the city. How he was able to ignore the smell of this place, even after the smoke of the fire they just escaped, was beyond his understanding.

Finally, Efraim asked, “So what did you find, Ryan?”

Ryan smiled and withdrew a stack of invoices and receipts from his pants pocket. “I only found a stack of invoices that has a whole chain of names and addresses, a pretty good place to start looking for this Kenneth character. Oh, and one even has his name on it as the signing official, though there’s not anything else on it except his name. Just a delivery invoice I’m afraid.”

Efraim grabbed the stack of paper from his hands and scanned through the receipts. “There’s not even a last name on the invoice just a signed name, ‘Kenneth’.”

“Oh, forgive me. Next time I see the man sign his name I’ll make sure he puts his last name on it,” Ryan shot back.