Monsters in the Midwest (Book 2): Northwoods Wolfman Read Free Page B

squinty eyes, straight brown
hair slicked back from a dark widow’s peak, scraggly hairs making a go at
becoming a goatee. Yeah, it could’ve been that guy, but why was he talking to
Dallas? What did they talk about? Why leave the card? A closer look popped the
tab on a deeper mystery. Why leave a card telling him to find someone but not
leave an address or a number? It was a mystery, pure and simple, and there were
few things Dallas hated more than mysteries.
    “Guy
must have a busted furnace,” Dallas reasoned out loud, causing Stanley’s head
to bob in assent. “Jackass didn’t leave a number though. How the hell am I
supposed to help if he didn’t leave me a number?”
    “Something’s
on the b-back,” Stanley offered, a touch of drama coloring his tone. Unlike
Dallas, Stanley liked mysteries. He had every season of Murder, She Wrote , Columbo ,
and Veronica Mars , and took great
pleasure in rewatching them and solving the crimes before Angela Lansbury,
Peter Falk, or Kristen Bell.
    Dallas
turned the card over, and sure enough, there was more.
    TURN
2 2 AT 2 2 2
    Dallas
read the line once, then twice, trying to make it make sense. Sometimes, the
right amount of alcohol allowed for just the kind of out-of-the-box thinking a
riddle like this might need to solve. Sadly, this wasn’t one of those times.
This time, the amount of alcohol Dallas had imbibed didn’t help him to think
around corners, so to speak. It just helped him get more upset in less time. A
win from an efficiency standpoint perhaps, but otherwise a complete loss.
    “The
hell does that mean? Well, I guess the jackass will just have to freeze.” With
a grumbled curse, Dallas crumpled the card and dropped it on the bar. Slapping
Stanley on the back, he stumbled toward the door and into the gathering night,
the strange man and even stranger card already forgotten.

 
    Chapter 4

 
    It
was the same dream. Usually with enough whiskey, say, the amount needed to fill
a small aquarium, Dallas could keep it at bay. Tonight though, his blood
alcohol level must’ve dropped below point-one-two because here he was, stuck in
the dream… no, the nightmare again.
    He
bounced along on a sea of shoulders while faces beamed up at him, eyes wide and
grins stretching ear to ear. The bouncing had a cadence to it, a rhythm. As
Dallas bobbed like a ducky in an endless tub, the crowd marched in step and chanted
in time.
    Ding-dong the vamp is dead. Mean
old vamp, wicked vamp. Ding-dong the wicked vamp is dead!
    Dallas
laughed, whooped, rolled to and fro across the sea of uplifted hands. He closed
his eyes and opened them again and now was inside a bathroom. A quick glance
around and he recognized it as the school bathroom from eighth grade. Sure as
shit, there was Joey O’Connell. The little punk was always bullying the weirdos
in school. He had some red-headed kid by the undies, a textbook-perfect wedgie
in progress. Dallas knew this day. It was the day he first met Herb and started
their life-long friendship. He also knew that for it to be an accurate memory,
he should be in a stall making out with Denise Landry ,
not outside watching events unfold.
    That’s the thing with nightmares, Dallas thought. Always getting things mixed up. Scarier that way.
    True
enough, the fear was building. Having had this same dream countless times in
the past few weeks, he knew full well what happened next but remained powerless
to stop it.
    Joey
laughed, the sound a high-pitched, manic warble that pattered on Dallas’s
eardrums like BB’s on a metal roof. Dallas laughed as well, unable to stop
himself. Joey kicked open the door of a bathroom stall, and Dallas sprang out
like a jack-in-the-box, busted pool cue in hand. The jagged end slid into
Herb’s chest, a slight tug the only indication that the chunk of wood was
driving through skin, bone, and heart.
    Lois
screamed, and he pressed his hands to his ears, shouting back in response.
    Ding-dong the vamp is dead! Wicked
vamp, no