Chapter Thirty-Six
Jean was trying to
finish up…
Jean
was trying to finish up the trim around his front door. While the simple back
door wasn’t too badly disfigured by the use of plywood, spruce two-by-sixes,
and a low-cost grade of vinyl siding to finish it off, the front entrance to
the grand old house was another matter. The back door had ended up with simple
store-bought aluminum, insulated, painted doors. The fronts were more
decorative. They had multiple panels, and the one on the right had flush-mounted
top and bottom bolts. It took some figuring out for the fledgling carpenter.
The new doors, with decorative colored glass panels, were awfully expensive in
his book, but he took the plunge after doing a fairly decent job of the back.
The
carpentry itself was easily understood, especially once you took the old stuff
apart. The ornately carved gingerbread-work all over the old porch was a labor
of love, and a source of endless frustration with drills and a jig-saw and a
scroll-saw.
He
planned to stain it as dark as he could reasonably get and still show
wood-grain, varnish it five or six times and live with the results. Getting the
old stained glass panels reinstalled beside the doorway was even kind of fun,
within certain limits. Jean had never really thought about being a carpenter as
a job. How long could it take to learn? There were all kinds of young bucks out
there on construction sites. Presumably they were making a living. If he could
at least get the outside done, he could insulate the inside of the frame,
staple on some plastic, and then begin the drywall board. He had to do it in
proper sequence.
Jean
pulled a nail out of his mouth and shoved the piece of vertical trim up tight
with the toe of his left foot. For some reason he always had a hell of a time
getting the nail to go in straight, especially when he was on the wrong side
and half upside down like this.
Tunk-tunk-tunk…there. It looked
okay to start. Now was when the problem usually started. A couple of good
whacks and then it would start to bend. He had to really concentrate to get it
all the way in. Otherwise, he would have to pull it out and start over.
Since
he was standing outdoors, he always tried to keep the cussing to a minimum.
That
was just good neighborhood relations. Jean was avoiding trouble like the
plague. Time heals all wounds, and it was best to keep busy. In the last couple
of weeks, Jean had finally gotten his beginner’s driver’s license. Now when he
and Janet went to the local big-box building centre, he got to drive, sometimes
showing off like a teenager. When spring rolled around, Jean was looking
forward to taking her and Jason for a ride in the red Triumph TR-3 in the
garage, if they could get it safety-checked cheaply enough. At her age, Ashley
might not appreciate it, but he’d give her a ride as well. As long as there was
something to do, and something to look forward to, he was doing okay.
The
scar tissue on his inner being was hardening up nicely.
***
One
last time, then. If he couldn’t make the shape-shift complete, with what
strength and vitality he had in him, then he never would. He would be doomed.
The
coyote had feasted on half-eaten cheeseburgers, French fries he found on the
ground in a parking lot, competing with the ever-present sea gulls for them. He
feasted on fish, landed by local ice-fishermen, but too small to take home. He
feasted on stale doughnuts, and stuff he licked out of tins, until he figured
he could go no further. If he had eaten another bite, he would have burst. The
change was upon him. The coyote was holed up in a hay-barn that didn’t even
have a door on it, just a few dozen big rolls of hay pushed in by the
landowner. The coyote valued his privacy at the best of times, but he would
need all of his concentration. He needed to focus. This weather-beaten old
place was a hundred metres away from any houses. While a laneway led in there,
there were trees on both sides and brush out back. His senses would be all out
of kilter, and he didn’t want to be surprised. Like an athlete, he had trained
up to this point. To let the opportunity slip, meant it might never come again.
If
he couldn’t change back into a man again, then all of his plans would come to
nothing. Worse, he would be condemned to being an animal for all of eternity.
Carlo
knew the magic was somehow depleted inside of him. When the time came, when he
began to realize what was happening, he began to suffer anxiety attacks.
That’s
what it meant to him, to be able to change at will, or even on a whim. But he
admitted privately to himself that he had abused the privilege. The temptation
was just a little too strong. His heart was racing, but not unpleasantly,
exactly.
“One
more change.” He sang softly to the rafters of the barn.
“That’s
all I need, one more change.” There was sweat, big balls of it, running down
his sides.
His
legs began to grow, but it seemed so abysmally slowly—would it be enough?
 |
Would it be enough...???
|
Already
he felt himself to be weak and not as prepared as he would have thought—God,
would it be enough? The searing pain in his paws, no. Little hands and feet
now.
His
neck, and shoulders began to bulge, and distort, and stretch, and now Di Rocca
began to grow taller, even as the pounding in his chest, his temples, and in
behind his eyes began to become unbearable. A searing agony was the direct
reward of his efforts.
Few
would attempt this process lightly. There was always a price to be paid.
Retching.
Was
he too far gone to make it happen? Oh, Great Giitchi Manitou. Please.
The
sickening sensation in his guts was the result of the change coming over his
internal organs, as they distended, swelled, and morphed into something much
more complicated in layout, the sheer difference in size making the transition
a painful one. He gasped as whole organs shifted around inside of him of their
own volition, a completely and subconsciously-controlled series of events. A
huge lump in the wrong place made it extremely difficult to breathe, yet he
also noted in approval his own objectivity. Surely he could get through
this…argh. Argh. Argh.
Dizziness,
retching, retching. Euphoria.
Excruciating
pain shot through his chest, yet this was not unexpected. Humble experience
reminded him that it was always like this—but was it always this way? The
irrational thought troubled him not one whit, and he realized that he was
indeed doing it, at least it was possible. It was far from over yet. The coyote
known as Carlo Di Rocca prayed and retched, sweated, and convulsed, and tried
to change himself back into a human being.
***
He
was taking it badly, and he knew it. Teddy no longer cared. He didn’t care what
anyone thought. He didn’t even care what he thought anymore. He was just
reacting. It felt good and he planned to just keep on doing it. All those times
his mom had said, in response to some, cock-a-mamie get-rich quick scheme, all
those times when she had asked him, what’s
your Plan-B?
Teddy
didn’t have a Plan-B. He’d never wanted one, never thought he needed one.
Ted
Hiltz was fixing to shoot Frenchie, when the man went inside, to answer the
phone. He must have to replenish his nails every once in a while. Teddy watched
from the slats located halfway up the steeple on the church across the street
from Gagnon’s.
It
was brutally cold up there, but he had seen worse, out on the hunting trail.
The tune of Fred Bear, by Ted Nugent,
went through his mind endlessly. Teddy
had seen this old movie. In it, a guy called Shaft cut a hole in a potato, then shoved it over the muzzle of a
high-powered sporting rifle. He'd shot out some guy’s tire with it, from the
balcony of a high-rise apartment building. The gunshot sounded like a smoker’s
cough. Teddy figured the same thing could work for him. He fantasized about
just winging him, and watching him flop around on the ground, struggling to get
up, just like a bear he once shot from about three hundred metres away. He
laughed and giggled at the thing’s antics until Slick or Harry put the thing
out of its misery with a bullet to the head. Ted lovingly caressed the butt and
breech area of his Heckler and Koch HK-91 assault rifle, which he had never
actually used. What a shame that was. Imagine spending all that money and never
firing it. He was going to get his money’s worth tonight. Everything was riding
on this one shot.
 |
Tedy's HK-91.
|
Due
to the slats, a scope would have been useless. There just wasn’t enough
clearance, but he looked through a hand-held one, watching traffic come and go
at the stoplights immediately adjacent to Gagnon’s house. Everything jumped up
at you when you got it up to your eye, but holy fuck was that thing cold. Those
little details will look good in my memoirs, he thought with a quirky grin.
At
this angle, at this range and distance, it was an easy shot. He figured on
poking a little wee hole in the window, and no one would even hear Gagnon’s
body thud when it hit the floor.
So what
if Jeff and Harry weren’t talking to him anymore? They had come at him pretty
strong, but he just told them he spilled some gas filling up the snow machine,
and they had to let it go. Slick was putting his house up for sale and moving
someplace else. Well, good for him. But Teddy wasn’t ready to move yet, to live
in poverty, to cook his own meals and do his own laundry, and iron his own
shirts.
Frenchie
had ruined everything. The boys didn’t even hunt anymore. It was no fun going
everywhere by yourself, he had quickly discovered. Teddy got hired at the mill
on his eighteenth birthday. He bought a brand-new car within six months, and
what with one thing and another, Teddy liked his toys. His softly-featured moon
of a face was invisible in the blackness of the steeple, and any small glint
off the scope was unlikely to be seen at this time of the night. There was no
one about at this hour.
Dinner
time, and night was fallen. All he needed was a little patience.
***
It
was easy to slip in as Gagnon puttered with the trim in the twilight hour. The
front porch light was on, and its yellow glare was all he had for warmth out
there. Jean’s tired eyes told him he had better give it up for the night. But
one last piece remained.
The
coyote heard a faint tapping, tapping, and then a mild cursing, softly, barely
audible.
The
tapping came again. This had a firmer, more confident tone as the hammer rang
with a kind of toink-toink-toink, the
tones climbing the scale as the nail pounded deeper and deeper.
Di
Rocca found a place under the cellar stairs where he could hole up
indefinitely. He slipped out of the floppy, felt-lined winter boots, seeing as
they were leaving puddles behind.
When
Gagnon passed down the main central hallway, on his way out to the garage for
the umpteenth time, the rest of the house was open to his inspection, and he
knew the way from his previous reconnaissance. He checked a couple of rooms.
Jean
had some scrap wood and junk mail, multi-colored flyers and such all lined up
and stacked beside the fireplace in the front parlor. Carlo nipped back to the basement, heart
thudding at his exertions. Gratefully, he hadn’t seen any big puddles in the
kitchen by the back door. But with Gagnon coming and going, even that might be
okay. He wouldn’t want Gagnon to go to the bathroom, and return to find a big
blob of snow melting away in the exact centre of the living room. He could
hardly fail to notice.
 |
His feet, slightly sweaty...
|
The
coyote’s sense of humor was piqued by the way he looked now, in his insulated
coveralls, which had been hanging on a nail inside the barn. That was one of
the main factors in choosing that particular barn. One stained old over coat.
Yes, and the piece de resistance, (with some kind of accent on there somewhere), the ensemble topped off by an incredibly
greasy old camouflage hunting cap complete with ear-muff type flaps held by
snap-fittings.
While
he had no socks, the rubber boots had kept his feet warm if slightly sweaty.
On
his way through town, Di Rocca had blended right in, totally anonymous, walking
down the streets of Scudmore. It was just too easy to get into Jean Gagnon’s
house.
Gagnon
had a miter saw set up in the garage, mostly empty now that the Jaguar was
gone. He kept going in and out of the back door, and into and out of the
garage. The occasional whine of the saw had a timing, a rhythm to the process.
Gagnon measured, and marked things, and cut them painstakingly. His amateur
status was evident in long delays, with occasional outbursts of profanity.
Janet had loaned Jean the saws and most of the other tools, some of the few
things of Don’s that she hadn’t sold already. After weeks of study, there was
very little about the routine or the layout that the coyote didn’t know or
anticipate. As long as he stayed on the sidewalks, in the dark of night, he
could come and go as he pleased. He just had to be careful not to leave
footprints in fresh snow.
It
happened in the kitchen. Jean was going back and forth, tape measure on his
belt, and one small piece of board or another in hand, when the coyote
confronted him.
Gagnon
stopped on a dime, with a look of surprise and a thin squeak from his shoes.
“What?
Who the heck are you?” He gasped, he still had that preoccupied look on his
face.
The
coyote smiled into his eyes. Gagnon’s brow furrowed. There was something oddly
familiar about this guy. Coyote stood about his height, and was this guy maybe
the plumber?
“I
want the money, Mister Gagnon.”
“What
money?” Gagnon, completely flabbergasted.
What
the hell was the guy talking about?
“I
kind of figured you’d be that way.” The coyote sighed. “And now I have to kill
you.”
“Oh,
that money.” Gagnon’s face flushed with anger. “I’m so fucking tired of you
people.”
He
stood there glaring at Di Rocca, who had momentary flashes as if he was winking
in and out of existence. But the other paid no notice to it.
 |
Gagnon: I've fucking had it with you guys.
|
“You
mean there’s really no money?” The grey eminence of the ancient one smiled.
“Maybe it’s even better that way. That Janet Herbert sure looks like a pretty
nice lady.”
“What?”
Gagnon grunted, his visage darkening and lowering like a July thunderstorm
ready to strike.
Jean’s
chin came sticking out all of a sudden. Revelation struck. This man was
supposed to be him. He stared at himself, the other Jean Gagnon from across the room.
Something
in his look must have given him away. He knew it now.
He understood.
The other being, another shape-shifter,
took up a fighting stance. He raised his hands up to shoulder level, crouching
slightly. He circled in closer, and closer, looking to get a grip. The coyote
bared his teeth in a feral snarl, growling like a rabid thing. The pale eyes
were cold and dead, lifeless and bleak, but with a glitter of something vicious
and cruel, hateful inside them. The two circled in the midst of Jean’s kitchen,
the hair on the back of his neck standing straight up.
What
kind of evil had he stumbled upon?
Kill
or be killed.
“Have
you ever heard, have you ever wondered, if like maybe everyone in the world had
a twin?” The coyote smiled.
Magic
crackled in the air.
Jean
understood.
“You son of a bitch.”
End
Chapter
One.
Chapter
Two.
Chapter
Three.
Chapter
Four.
Chapter
Five.
Chapter
Six.
Chapter
Seven.
Chapter
Eight.
Chapter
Nine.
Chapter
Ten.
Chapter
Eleven.
Chapter
Twelve.
Chapter
Thirteen.
Chapter
Fourteen.
Chapter
Fifteen.
Chapter
Sixteen.
Chapter
Seventeen.
Chapter
Eighteen.
Chapter
Nineteen.
Chapter
Twenty.
Chapter
Twenty-One.
Chapter
Twenty-Two.
Chapter
Twenty-Three.
Chapter
Twenty-Four.
Chapter
Twenty-Five.
Chapter
Twenty-Six.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven.
Chapter
Twenty-Eight.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine.
Chapter
Thirty.
Chapter
Thirty-One.
Chapter
Thirty-Two.
Chapter
Thirty-Three.
Chapter
Thirty-Four.
Chapter Thirty-Five.
Images. Louis.
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Thank you for reading.
