Breeds 2 by Keith C. Blackmore

doorknob and regarded the sitting warden with growing unease. “Like what?”
    “Like… more.”
    Kirk suddenly felt very cold.
    “More… substance. Y’know?”
    The cabin seemed small to Kirk then, the walls constricting. His guts clenched and froze as if he’d just downed a shovel’s worth of ice.
    “I, ah,” Morris sniffed and swallowed thickly. “I get these urges, y’know? I mean, we all hunger for meat, people being the best cuts, but you know how that is. Can’t have steak every night so we make do with other cuts. It’s takeout compared to prime rib. But… ever since Borland, whatever I eat just isn’t doing the trick. I want… I want more.”
    “Jesus Christ, Morris,” Kirk hissed, knowing exactly what he meant, what was coming.
    The Pictou Warden stayed firm, however, and didn’t change course. “Yeah. More of that. More of what I had on the island. You know what I mean, right? Ever since Borland. And every day since then, the, uh, craving is only getting…”
    “No,” Kirk said in a low tone. “I don’t have any of that.”
    Morris closed his mouth and studied his companion. “You sure?”
    Kirk left the cabin.

10
    Gravel crunched under the pickup’s tires as Kirk drove along the dirt road. Flower arrangements tastefully adorned with purple and pink ribbons lined the shoulders. The attack only took place a night ago but people moved quickly to respect the dead. The sun splashed gold across the lake’s edge, the water glimpsed through tall posts of birch that reminded Kirk of prison bars. A cage.
    Life’s a cage , he thought darkly. This caged life .
    He clung to that thought, using it like a flimsy shield to divert his mind from darker, more insidious paths.
    The outpouring of sympathetic flowers blurred by and Kirk took his foot off the gas, realizing he was speeding. He crossed his wrists as he turned the wheel and eased onto the brake. Up ahead, the blackened husk of a ravaged lakeside cabin stood in the strengthening morning light, the one blemish in an otherwise picturesque October dawn. Yellow strips of police tape spanned the driveway and sections of the front lawn beyond, like a spider’s web left in ruins by something much too big to catch.
    Kirk put the old truck in park and ran a finger across his brow in a contemplative line, absorbing the destruction at the end of the driveway. The roof of the cabin had fallen in and, looking at the skeletal beams pointing at the sky, Kirk was struck by the impression that something mighty had descended from above and pinched the roof away, causing it to crumble. Morris whispered at the absolute fringes of his mind, an eerie but electric line of syllables Kirk mentally shoved away.
    Only to have his own traitorous conscience gnaw away at his thoughts.
    What if Morris was right? What if the werewolf called Bailey was trying to kill him? Kirk winced at the idea. Why would Bailey attempt to kill him? Because he was crazy? Like Borland? But if he wasn’t crazy, then why was he trying to kill Morris? And if successful in killing Morris, would Bailey have then hunted down Kirk?
    That train of thought arrived at an even more disturbing destination.
    Who sent Bailey?
    A sensation of nausea erupted in the base of his stomach, just above his jeans, and Kirk frowned at the unwanted feeling. Just what he needed—to suspect the elders. But if the elders hadn’t sent Bailey, then who? Or was Bailey merely operating alone?
    A tapping on the window startled him.
    An older, bearded man stared into the truck. Concern clouded his face. Kirk composed himself and fumbled for the window crank. As the glass descended, the old guy’s face lightened.
    “Mornin’,” he greeted in a voice that bespoke a three-pack-a-day habit.
    “How you doin’?”
    “Good. Good mornin’.”
    “Better for some, I imagine,” Kirk said, nodding toward the cabin’s remains.
    “Yeah, I suppose it is. You a friend of the deceased?”
    Kirk had to think for a second.