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ROLE REVERSAL
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The window panes shuddered and rattled as an interminable squall lashed against the sturdy, shingled brick and stone house. The slanting rain shimmered down in incessant layers, enveloping the verdant landscape in a glassy shroud. Every sane animal and featherhead had retired to their abodes, leaving the countryside eerily still and quiet, barring the whooshing of the wind and the patter of the rain. Not a soul was in sight, though in the murkiness that prevailed hardly anybody could be seen.
Dolores Carrigan tossed and turned in her lumpy bed. It was like a pajama-clothed puppet lying supine was being flipped over from time to time by an unseen entity working the strings. It was hopeless, she decided. She wasn't feeling remotely sleepy. At one point she stopped tossing around and lay still. Brushing her golden brown tresses off her forehead, she stared up at the off-white ceiling fan that kept up its relentless rotations despite being a decade old.
I hate this place, she thought bitterly. Her father's employers- a hardware company- were downsizing the personnel due to fiscal reasons, but the Head Manager, Mr. Stevens, hadn't the heart, or actually the folly, to let go of Mr. Carrigan who was as hard-working as they come. So he had been 'transferred' to the sleepy small town of Valeford which had a branch of the company, and where Mr. Carrigan had joined a week ago as assistant manager. It had been difficult to find a suitable house in the town proper which complied with their needs and also fell within their tight budget. After pulling a couple of strings, they had succeeded in getting hold of this place on the outskirts of the town. But the sprawling lawn and spacious backyard, coupled with some really warm and decent neighbors made up for it.
They had been welcomed into the neighborhood with enthusiasm, her mother being a charming lady had already made some good friends. But Dolores had been disappointed when she found that no one her age lived in the vicinity. To compound her suffering, all those amusements and comforts that a 16 year-old girl like her sought were either missing or did not exist in that "pathetic" town. For shopping and cinema, she had to travel two miles into the town. Being born and brought up in a city for the entirety of her life, it was agonizing for her to find that there were no malls, stylish restaurants or a bowling alley in Valeford. To top it all, the youngsters attending the high school in town where her mother had recently secured admission for her, were so totally uncool. She felt the guys were dorks and the girls were unfashionable hussies. What a dump it was. Oh, I really hate this place, she reiterated in her mind.
Then she fell into a reverie that transported her back to the familiar ambience of her locality in the city- the cacophonous walks in the company of her girl friends, the thrills of the multiplexes, the joys of marathon shopping trips, the long sessions in the bowling alleys in the malls, the rides on the metro. Then there were the all welcoming environs of her high school, where hunky dudes fawned over her lissome and elegant body as she gyrated to groovy hits dressed as a cheerleader; the bantering in the canteen, the swimming lessons and not to forget Damian- the blue-eyed boy of her dreams! She had to leave behind everything. She missed them all so much, even as spikes of longing and frustration pierced her heart.
A curling flash of lightning threw the room into a sharp contrast against the dark shadows. A distant roll of thunder seemed to accentuate the aftermath of the lightning.
Dolores was rudely shaken out of her pleasant reminiscence by a volley of barks from outside, which were partially mute owing to the buzzing rain. It was followed by a mournful howl that died down as suddenly as it had started.
Dolores did not move, straining her ears to verify if what she had heard was for real. Her perseverance was rewarded by another protracted howl, which by her peculiar notion, sounded closer than earlier.
Are there any wolves near this place? she wondered. She did not remember seeing any hills or mountainous terrains on her arrival three days back. Though she had spied, or so she thought, a forest towards the north, beyond the fields.
The howling was insistent this time and definitely much closer. Dolores could feel the increasing thumps of her heart. Minuscule goosebumps popped all over her body. She shivered, and then cursed the old heater.
She pulled her comforter off and slid her feet into her slippers. She walked to the window and tried to look out through it, but the glass had completely misted over as if some chronic smoker had taken a deep swig on his disgusting stub of tobacco and had emptied the entire smoky contents of his lungs onto the window panes. She pressed her hand against the pane to stop the rattling. Then she hoisted up the window and craned her neck to look out.
The screaming and shrieking wind almost knocked her over and the chilly rain swathed her face. Wiping off the excess water from her face, she peered down into the backyard.
The heavens chose that precise moment to take a celestial photograph, the lightning blazing across the sky to illuminate everything under the tumultuous sky.
Dolores glimpsed someone....... or something standing in the backyard near the flowerbeds. She strained her eyes to see better through the succeeding darkness after the lightning.
The lightning obliged her and this time she made out the features of a teen-aged boy, almost her age, standing silently, his rain-soaked head turned up in her direction.
"Hey, who are you?" shouted Dolores, trying to make herself heard over the din created by the wind.
The boy kept staring, offering no reply.
"You shouldn't be standing out there in this rain. You'll fall ill," she continued loudly, wondering simultaneously whether she sounded like her mother and what the hell was the guy doing in their backyard at that unearthly hour.
"Go home, do you hear me?"
The boy's obstinate silence persisted.
Dolores listened for sounds from within her house. There were none. She wanted to go out and ask the boy why he was out there in this storm and not in the comfort of his own bed. It struck her that perhaps he needed help- some seriously sick relative at home or maybe someone had met with an accident in that inclement weather. She wanted to help him if she could.
Her parents appeared to be in deep slumber and she did not want to wake them unless it was required. She would have gone out the front door but the hallway outside the first floor bedrooms had some particularly nasty creaking floorboards that could wake up even a comatose patient, and she was yet to work out a combination that would allow her to navigate the tricky floorboards without making noise.
She hoisted herself onto the windowsill and grabbed the trellis that grew against the back wall of the house. The branches of a eucalyptus tree nearby provided her with support. Her cheer-leading acrobatic skills and the rope-climbing sessions in gym class coming to her aid, she shinnied down and dropped to her feet on the squelchy ground. The pelting rain drenched her to the core almost immediately.
She looked across the yard at the taciturn young man, soaked to the bones, yet unflinching as the rain lashed his face.
His intent face was handsome enough to appear enticing to her. His average build notwithstanding, he seemed to have an aura of raw magnetism that attracted her towards him. She could not place the feeling, but she felt as if he was there for her.
"Who are you? What are you doing out here in this storm?" Dolores searched his olive green eyes as she spoke.
But instead of replying, he turned about and bolted out through the back gate.
"Hey, wait!" Dolores called out after him. "Where are you going?"
She followed him out into a lane. Rivulets of muddy water flanked the rutted path. The whipping rain made it impossible to see beyond a few meters. She half-ran, half-stumbled over the path, her soggy slippers slapping against her feet.
The rain abated for a moment. She looked ahead. But the mysterious boy had disappeared!
"Hello? Where are you? Are you trying to scare me?" she called out.
There was some rustling behind the bushes to her right. Dolores spun around in that direction.
But the rustling sounds now emanated from behind her.
She twirled quickly on her feet, trying to catch the boy before he disappeared again. But there was nobody, but just obscure shadows around more bushes and brambles.
A tremendous report of thunder followed a bluish streak of lightning that made her nearly jump out of her drenched skin. She rubbed her arms vigorously for the mercury had perceptibly plummeted and faint wisps of warm breath emerged from her slightly trembling mouth.
She turned to have a last look at the path ahead before she went back home. The sight that met her eyes startled, more like terrified her.
A dark furry creature stood just feet away from her, its grimy muzzle open to reveal a set of long jagged teeth with a couple of prominent fangs. A pair of aureolin yellow eyes fiercely bore into her. Its paws were raised, the sharp claws not making for a pleasant sight to behold. A heavy locket of sorts with a carmine globe embedded in it ringed its wide neck. It threw back its hairy head and howled, a long howl that could have evoked dread and alarm in even the bravest of persons.
Having seen countless supernatural movies and TV shows and having read reams and reams of pages about dark creatures of the night and their horrific exploits, Dolores did not need a rocket-scientist or even Google to tell her that the beast in front of her was a werewolf- a dark denizen of the mythical world. She took several steps backward, knowing full well that such an act was not going to save her if the werewolf had already taken a mortal decision against her.
"Who are you? What do you want from me? Where's the guy who was running a few minutes ago?" spluttered Dolores, fear streaming through her.
"I am Kevin," the werewolf growled. "And I'm the boy who was running away from you."
Dolores's hazel eyes enlarged as she registered this shocking news. She wondered if the werewolf was playing a sick game with her.
"You are lying!" she exclaimed with disbelief.
"It doesn't really matter if I'm lying or not, or if you believe me or not," said the beast. "For I'm going to kill you."
The elusive moon- a cratery, spherical slab of bluish cheese- emerged from a gathering of ominous gray clouds. The pall of gloom over the landscape lifted, only to be replaced by a ghoulish harshness.
Kevin the werewolf hesitated as Dolores crouched down. She reared to let out a blood-curdling scream of agony. Amidst a series of sickening pops and crunches, Dolores's body began to undergo a grisly transformation. Her supple limbs lengthened and her fingers regressed, the nails changing into filthy claws. Her gorgeous face elongated to form a muzzle filled with spiky teeth. Her back arched and cracked, losing its concavity to replace it with a hairy convexity. Her hazel eyes became glowing orbs of yellow. She threw back her head and howled.
"So, you were saying you were going to kill me, huh?" snarled Dolores. "Surely you don't intend to harm someone of your own kind?"
Kevin's furry face bore distinct signs of fear and apprehension. "Run," he murmured.
"What?"
"Run," he growled louder than before, panicking.
Dolores was confused. What was he saying?
Heavy thuds behind her made her turn around. A middle-aged man chewing a toothpick, in the garb of a cowboy complete with the hat and leather boots, blocked the path leading back to her house. A malicious, scarred face grinned at them wickedly.
"He's not gonna kill you," he shouted as he strode slowly towards them.
"Who are you?" challenged Dolores, wary of the new arrival.
"I'm Hugo Devilish. They call me 'The Maverick Devil'," he drawled. "And I'm a werewolf hunter."
His right hand shot out from behind his back. He held an over-sized revolver with a laser-sighted scope. In the blink of an eye, he squeezed the trigger.
The glinting bullet that erupted from the gun pierced Dolores in her bosom. A molten fire almost instantaneously began to course through her blood vessels, racking her body with indescribable pain. She let out an agonized roar and collapsed on the ground, writhing and twisting.
Kevin growled with palpable animosity.
"Careful, boy, you don't want me to press this button, do ya?" said Hugo, raising his other hand to show Kevin a remote with a button on it. "I don't have to remind you that if I press this red button, that device you're wearing around your neck would burst and inject you with concentrated essence of silver- which is so detrimental to a werewolf's health." He began to laugh maniacally.
Dolores lay twitching on the ground, her muzzle foaming. Linear swellings had erupted all over her body.
Hugo looked down at her. "It's a silver bullet, dearie, that great bane of werewolves. Its effects on werewolves are similar to what combined strychnine poison and hemorrhagic snake venom would have on humans. When you had arrived here three days back, I had been standing behind the neighborhood 'welcoming committee'. I was observing your parents. All the darting of eyes, the subtle tendency to sniff around almost everything, the adverse reaction of the stray dogs to you all- they were all signs so characteristic of werewolves that I was convinced I had to do something. I got my pet werewolf, Kevin, and formed a plan to verify my suspicions. And here we are, verification done, suitable action taken. One-third of the job's done, now to finish the rest. I'll barge into your house and kill Papa werewolf and Mama werewolf. Any minute now, and it'll be all over for ya."
He began to laugh mirthlessly again. While laughing he turned towards Kevin. As he wiped his tears off his face, Dolores growled menacingly, inches away from him. She was still shaking intermittently, the gaping wound on her chest disappearing by degrees. "You will kill my daddy and mommy?" she snarled. "Not before I have something to do to you."
Hugo was scared out of his wits. "B-b-but.....," he stammered. He tried to fire at Dolores again but Kevin raked his nails across his forearm, making him drop his weapon and clutch his bleeding arm.
"The bullet is just another normal bullet coated with an adulterated and highly diluted silver paint. It will cause a bout of allergic reaction, nothing more, in a werewolf. Our immune system being so strong, we would recover within minutes, as she did. For far too long you have made me behave like a submissive dog, tracking my kin and helping you kill them. All the pain as I saw you blast my fellow werewolves and later as I buried them. It's all going to end now."
"Are you ready?" he asked Dolores. She nodded eagerly.
Hugo tried to drop down to the ground, begging for mercy. The two werewolves pounced on him and tore apart his throat. Crimson blood gushed out of the gaping wound and from his mouth.
Hugo gurgled in his own blood.
By a bizarre twist of fate, the hunter had become the hunted.
It was a whole new experience for Dolores who had just tasted her first blood.
They moved back from the body, wiping the blood off their muzzles.
"Are you alright?" asked Kevin.
"Yeah. Let's go home. I want my parents to meet you," replied Dolores, contentedly.
Spasms in every part of his body, his blood as well as his life flowing out of his body, Hugo lay there in the muck, the rain blending with his blood.
In the terminal throes of extreme pain, his fingers involuntarily pressed the red button on the remote that he still clutched in his left hand.
The device around Kevin's neck exploded, puncturing his chest and sending a lethal dose of concentrated silver essence through his circulation. His vessels burst and his heart went into a massive cardiac arrest.
Dolores kept on screaming and roaring in anguish even after he had crumpled to the ground, dead.
Death- the Great Leveler- is a devious player indeed.
-----DEEP
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