Shifters

Chapter 7

Jared and Alex walked back into the room together.

“What is this? Surely you aren’t giving me a human to feed off of? You have no idea what you are getting into. What you are tempting me with.” Gregor looked at the two men.

Alex sat in the chair and pulled the knife from its sheath. The vampire stared at him, and it made him feel a little uncomfortable. Like he was dinner. He put the blade to his hand and made a small cut. It burned a little but the blood started to drip.

“Make sure you get some on the floor,” Jared had suggested.

Alex leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, letting the blood drip onto the pavement.

Gregor growled and lunged for the bars. He reached between them at Alex, trying to feed, trying to get to what would stop the burning ache in his throat.  He kept straining and reaching but could not get close enough.

Alex laughed and reached his hand out far enough to be within an inch of the vampires reaching hand. “You tell us what we want to know and maybe we feed you.”

“You’ve made a big mistake you idiots,” Gregor hissed and this time everyone understood. He backed up almost to the rear of the small prison that was made for him. His eyes rolled back into his head and he started shaking.

His hands seemed to grip and flex at something in the air. He made a gurgling noise in the back of his throat and the sound of bones popping filled the air.

The scientist’s hands were starting to form into hideous mutated half wolf claws with human fingers.  Where there was a human man’s head was now a half formed canine snout with half a mouth of razor sharp teeth.  Oddly enough only one side held them.

The popping and snapping continued and the scientist looked like he was growing rather than shrinking in size, he started gaining inches and his spine started curving him forward so that he looked like he had a slight hump.  But his back skin was still moving, small sprouts started to protrude like hair was trying to grow but it wasn’t hair at all.  It was small black looking spikes.  Like the hair itself was deformed.

“Alex get out now,” Jared commanded, “NOW GET OUT!” Alex stood and the vampire didn’t look at all like a vampire now. It was starting to look like a grotesque version of a dog, man thing. Alex ran out of the door and hit the alarms.

Looking through the glass, Alex thought, this thing can NOT escape.

Jared was staring at a horrific monster. It was neither man nor animal but a weird mix of both. The head looked like half of it was stuck in limbo. It had the miss-formed mouth of a wolf but the rest of the head was human with sporadic patches of grey fur. The eye’s looked like they would bulge from the sockets. The things arms had looked like they were half formed as well.  Paws of a wolf but attached to the arms of a man with claws at the ends of fingers. Patches of grey fur were thrown in here and there like some unfinished painting.

Watching the beast try to shift was painful. The legs had completely formed into wolves legs with grey fur but it looked as if they had mange. The hair was sparse and oily looking. Jared backed up a bit closer to the door. The shifting looked almost complete thou the monster in the cage wasn’t fully formed. It was a horrific view like out of some abstract painting.  He heard it growl, or thought it was a growl. It was standing there bent over, the back had formed a strange arch to it. It had a tail that was protruding and if it wasn’t so monstrous looking, might have been almost comical.  It was standing on all fours now, looking at him.

With a garbled and painful sounding voice,”You should have,” the Gregor thing gasped, “listened to me mutt.”

The hideous Gregor thing lunged forward and slammed into the bars, rattling the cage that was specially built for the vampire. But not this thing. Jared thought that it may not hold it.

Lunging again and again at the bars, it started knocking them loose. Snarling and growling it kept slamming itself again and again into the bars.  Men rushed through the door shooting at it with darts, trying to knock it out but it seemed to have no effect on this creature. Over and over they shot tranquilizers into the creature.   It was an undead, shifter. A monster that could not be controlled Jared thought. That’s what this is. Some kind of half breed vampire. Sedatives weren’t going to work on it and the bars were coming loose.

Alex came in yelling, “We have to destroy it, and we cannot let this get out under any circumstance!”  Pointing yet another rifle at the creature he started shooting. Only this time the creature started to howl in pain.  It stood in the middle of the cell, shaking with pain and fatigue. It was succumbing to whatever it was they were shooting into it. Alex took a few more shots as the creature lunged one last time at the bars. They broke finally and the creature lay at the feet of the men in the room.

Jared stepped over and shoved it with a foot.

“Well whatever you did, you either killed or knocked it out good,” Jared scoffed.

“It was a mix and I am god damn glad it worked. This thing could have killed a lot of people before we took it down.”

“Yes,” Jared replied, “but what the hell is it?”