A Canadian Werewolf in New York

Chapter Thirty-Three (Part Two)

[Chapter Thirty-Three was broken into two parts - this is the 2nd part]

One of the assistant stage managers greeted me as I exited stage right and whispered something about the nearest facilities.

“I’m fine,” I muttered as I pushed quickly past her, my eyes darting around to see where I might be able to get to the catwalk. I dashed well past her before I heard Knell speak again.

“Three!” Knell said. “And then, I’ll rip your heart out.”

There! I leapt toward the metal stairs that I was certain led up to the catwalk with superhuman speed knowing that Knell could hear the metal clanging that my feet made as I raced up the stairs three at a time and that I was getting near.

“Two!” Knell said. “And perhaps I’ll feast on them both!”

I reached the top of the stairs, turned to my left and could both see and smell Knell and Gail about mid-way down the catwalk – they were a good fifty feet away from me and I raced towards them, conscious of every precious inch that I cleared as I moved steadily toward them. As I approached, I was considering how I could grab on to Knell’s free left hand, the one I supposed he would attempt to deal a death blow to Gail with, while debating whether, with my other hand, I should go for his throat, or for the other hand where he held Gail in a tight grip just below her left shoulder.

I was less than halfway toward them when Knell said “One!” and I realized with a disturbing chill that I wasn’t going to make it to them in time.

I pushed myself to move more quickly, and was still a dozen feet away when I could detect the change in Knell’s heart-beat and breathing that signaled he was about to attack.

“Zero!” Knell yelled, and raised his left hand back in an open clawed gesture, readying for the strike. “Now watch her die, Andrews!”

Gail’s heart leapt in a similar fashion to Knell’s, which I interpreted as her preparing for the killing blow.

Only I was wrong.

Just as Knell’s arm began it’s descent toward her, Gail twisted toward Knell and drove her fist directly between his legs. It was a solid punch, a direct hit and I could actually hear one of his testicles pop. Knell let out an anguished groan, the left hand he’d been in the process of striking with bounced feebly off her right shoulder, and his right hand released her left arm.

I was still a foot away when Knell’s right hand batted up, striking Gail in the side of the head and knocking her onto her back.

A split second later, I was upon Knell, gripping him by the shoulders and driving him backwards onto his own back on the catwalk with the force of my forward momentum.

I then delivered three quick punches to his face with my left hand, relishing at the fact that I didn’t need to pull my punches on him; knowing that, with the super-human strength he possessed, the blows wouldn’t kill him the way they would a normal man.

Knell grinned up at me and the blood from his smashed lip drizzled between his teeth.

“She punches harder than you do,” Knell said, laughing. Pushing his right elbow into my throat, his left hand grabbed my belt and his knees drove up, flipping me up into the air and overtop of him. I managed to twist in the air so that I didn’t land on my back; but by then, Knell was up and racing down the catwalk in the direction I had come from.

I looked at Gail who was now sitting up, the side of her head red and swollen where his knuckles had connected with her face, a trickle of blood dripping from her left nostril.