Werewolves: The Gravediggers pt. 7

This story features Dena's father, Jaci, and takes place several years before the events of 'Werewolves: Haven Rising.' 

[If you haven't yet read parts 1-6, click on the Collections tab and select 'Werewolves' to find the previous installments of this story.]

A growl rumbled in the back of Jaci's throat and he realized that he'd blown his cover. Gods damn it all... Sahale was dead and he was in deep shit.

"What the hell?" the tech mumbled to herself as she swiveled the chair in place to look directly at Jaci. Her eyes widened when she saw him standing there, clearly out of place despite being in human form. He realized belatedly that he had never taken off the rain-slick poncho. "What are you doing creeping around like that? You have to be the worst babysitter I've ever had on this job!" The front of her shirt had a small name badge pinned to it, labeling her 'Kaylen S.' of Nova Corp.

 Jaci paused to think before replying. Babysitter? What the hell did she mean by that? He thought back to what the woman said when he got to the door, complaining about being checked in on too often. He could work with that. "They told me not to interrupt you," he said in what he hoped was a nonchalant voice. He twitched uncomfortably, trying not to think of Sahale's dead eyes. The beast really wasn't dealing well with that.

 "So you decided to just stand behind me, breathing hard like some kind of lunatic? Am I going to have to make a formal complaint?"

 "I'm sorry," Jaci said, looking down at the floor. "I'm new here. Just transferred."

 "Wonderful," Kaylen said, her nose wrinkled with distaste. "So you have no idea what you're doing. Don't think I haven't noticed that every soldier transferred to this place has something wrong with them." She leaned forward in her chair, eyeballing him. "You stink, you know that? Like you haven't had a bath in days. What did you do to get yourself assigned here? Kill someone you weren't supposed to? Leak classified information? War crimes?"

 "That's…" He had to think fast. "That's classified, ma'am."

 "Great. Just great." She threw her hands in the air theatrically. "Now I get to work on this creepy-ass video while the world's most awkward guy stands behind my desk and breathes hard as a pug in a CPAP like he's getting off to it. Have I told you yet how much I love this job?" She gestured to a desk on the other side of the room. "Take off your coat and go sit over there. Play on the internet or something." She paused. "No porn. I already heard enough grunting out of you."

 Before he had time to think about what he was doing, Jaci found himself halfway across the room, about to sit down. Gods, what was he doing? He couldn't stick around for long, not if this tech was being checked in on as frequently as she was suggesting. It was just a matter of time before her real handler stepped in and discovered him. If he was going to uncover anything about what happened to Sahale, he'd have to do it fast. Luckily for him, he'd stumbled upon someone who was literally browsing through all the answers to his questions.

 "So…what are you working on?" Subtlety didn't seem to be Jaci's strong suit, today.

 Kaylen threw head back and groaned. "You saw what I was working on—dead werewolf video. It's kinda messed, up, honestly. Last time I worked on one of these I had nightmares for weeks. Does that get you off, Mr. Creep?

 "Um, no," Jaci replied, a bit taken aback. "It bothers me, too."

 That seemed to relax the tech a bit. "Good to know there's someone stationed in this place that actually knows how to feel feelings. Sometimes it seems like everyone I interact with here is a freaking psychopath. The few wolves I've met seemed more human than…" She cut herself off as if she realized she'd spoken a bit more of her mind than she originally intended. "No offence to any of your friends back in the barracks."

 Jaci shook his head as he pretended to play with the computer. It had been years since he used one of the things and this PC was completely different from the interface he was used to. If he had sufficient time, he could figure it out—he was good at stuff like that—but he had to use his time wisely. "I haven't been here long enough to make any friends," he said. "I'm hoping to get stationed somewhere else as quickly as I can." He decided to push his luck and play on her sympathies. "I don't like what the scientists are doing to those werewolves."

 "Seriously," Kaylen replied. "I'm about one gig away from asking Nova Corp to station me anywhere else."

 "What happened with the wolf in the video?" Jaci asked.

 The tech shook her head. "Don't know the whole story and portions of the feed were redacted before I was allowed to see them. They don't have me working with the original footage, but they need it edited down even more for the more squeamish suits working outside this place. I wouldn't normally talk about it to anyone, but you've probably seen worse than I have. Worst they can do to me at this point is fire me and the thought of that doesn't bother me as much as it probably should. "

 Jaci nodded. "That's probably a safe bet," he said. "That I've seen worse than you, I mean. Haven is a bit of a nightmare."

 She gave him a funny look. "Sorry for calling you a creep; you seem like a decent enough guy. Just try to cut back on the whole standing behind people and heavy breathing thing, okay?"

 "Done." Jaci forced a laugh and was pleased that it felt almost genuine. He hadn't talked to a sympathetic human in ages, but he didn't want her to feel like he was pushing. "Should I let you get back to work?"

 Kaylen rolled her chair back and forth and looked up at the ceiling. "It's all good. I'm just about done anyway. Whole thing's messed up, though. This werewolf went after the guy in charge, right? Just popped up out of his restraints like it was nothing. Zero to one-hundred in about three seconds, practically foaming at the mouth, too. That's weird, right? They usually don't do that from what I've seen."

 "Yeah," Jaci said. He chewed his lip. Why on earth would Sahale do something that stupid? "That's pretty unusual, all right." He paused, trying to make his inquiry sound as casual as possible. "You sure it was the guy in charge that the wolf went after? The colonel, himself?"

 "Hard to mistake Colonel Williams for anyone else. The guy has a serious attitude problem, but that doesn't make it okay to come at him like a freight train with claws." She sighed and leaned back in toward the desk again, clicking and dragging her mouse. "Come here for a sec. I want to ask you something."

 Jaci held his breath; he was so nervous he could feel the individual hairs standing up on his arms. It felt so strange sometimes—those tiny human hairs, so different from his natural brown fur. He stood up and walked over, careful not to stand to her side and not accidentally make her uncomfortable again. The more talkative she was, the more he'd learn about what happened.

"See this?" Kaylen pointed at the monitor. She tried to hide a disgusted grimace at the smell of him. The scene was paused sometime before Sahale had been shot. Two men in white coats were standing around their captive.

 "What are they doing to him?"

 She dragged a square marque around one of the doctor's hands and pressed a combination on the keyboard, blowing up the selection for a better look. "He's holding a needle," she said. "They injected the wolf with something and a few minutes later he went berserk."

 "Why would they do that?" Now that he had context for the incident, Jaci knew exactly why, but he wasn't about to let on. The humans were testing out a drug to stimulate the inner beast and Sahale had been unlucky enough to be their first test subject for the new batch.

 Kaylen zoomed back out again and hit the play button. The doctor knelt down beside his captive and jabbed the needle into the werewolf's exposed chest. Sahale howled and arched his back, pulling at the restraints. He settled down again a moment later and Colonel Williams walked into the frame. It looked like he was saying something, but the volume was too low for the cameras to pick up. Two seconds later, Sahale lunged toward him, tearing through the metal shackles like they were made of paper.

 "You see that?" the tech said. "Something he said set the werewolf off like a loaded gun. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear he did all of this on purpose." She resumed the video and the doctors—now armed with sedatives—leapt toward Sahale, as Williams drew a massive handgun. The enraged werewolf lashed out with his claws, tearing out both of the doctors' throats before the colonel could pull the trigger.

Three flashes momentarily lit the camera so brightly that the picture was lost. When the image focused again, Williams was standing over Sahale and the bodies of the two dead men. The wolf was clawing at the floor in a chaos of twisting limbs, leaving jagged tears in the concrete. The weapon was impressive. Not many guns could put a wolf down that fast; Jaci knew that from experience. The colonel watched Sahale writhe in agony for several seconds before stepping closer and pulling the trigger again at almost point-blank range, putting Jaci's friend out of his misery. There was blood everywhere.

 "So much blood…" Jaci said under his breath. "Oh gods...so much blood..."