FEVERCHAIN 8

Lesbian werewolves, et cetera. FEVERCHAIN is a contemporary horror-romance serial set in the fictional Pinetown, New Jersey.

Voiceover by the unmatched Emily S Hurricane. 🌪️

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Gwen Marie Dyer is not in the hospital. Cotton in my mouth as I sprint out. I shouldn’t be surprised. I shouldn’t have been gullible enough to waste time driving here instead of the Dyer residence.

I’m almost more furious than afraid. Mom’s car is clanking and shaking down 206. I’m breathing as fast as I’m speeding until I see holographic eyes reflect my high beams. “Fuck!”

I slam the breaks. Not supposed to do that. My chest hits the steering wheel. The doe outside my windshield is frozen in place.

“Move! Please move!”

She stares like she’s already dead. I see headlights in my rearview. Gotta keep driving. I honk my horn. Unsteadily, the deer strides away. I keep it 70 or below. Can’t figure out what the fuck is going on with Gwen if I flip this tin can and break my neck.

The Dyers live on the western edge of Pinetown, past the big blueberry farm in a wheat and cream farmhouse style home they renovated half a decade ago with two garage doors and a fenced in backyard. In their front, an overturned soccer goal. I notice a blue tarp over part of the roof. Oh my god.

I pull in behind Wade’s Jeep, palms slick with cold sweat. It’s almost 2 a.m. Mom and Clyde are sleeping. The Dyers have the lights on, creeping out through cracks in the shades. Incriminating. Inviting.

I open my driver side door. Music is playing. So loud I can hear it from out here, some hypnotic, bluesy tune.

I walk the stone path to the front door. A resinous scent from the woods wafts to me, and I know I’m about to step in something sticky. Of course there’s one of those camera doorbells, glowering at me with a red light. “You are being recorded,” it warns. I’m aware. Thumb it in the face, and chimes ding dimly behind a gravelly voice:

Whoa, smokestack lightnin’

Shinin’ just like gold

Why don’t you hear me cryin’?

A-whoo-hoo, a-whoo-hoo, whoo

I ring again. Smother the button.

Whoa-oh, tell me, baby

What’s the matter here?

Why don’t you hear me cryin’?

I knock. Can they hear me over that damn song?

A-whoo-hoo, a-whoo-hoo, whoo

“Hello?” I shout. “Is Gwen there?”

The music cuts off.

I miss it. The song was more sympathetic than this silence. The back of my legs are shivering, making my ass twitch. Maybe I should get back in the car.

The door swings open. Mrs. Dyer literally pulls me inside. “Oh, hurry in, Bianca, hurry in!” I’m engulfed in warm light, warm tones. I haven’t been here since before it was renovated, since I was dating Wade and there was a pool in the back.

“It’s so cold, honey,” she says, closing the door. With a deft hand, she locks it. Locks many locks that jangle and clack. She’s wearing the same outfit, the same weapons. “Go on, go down the hall, by the fireplace.” Like she’s been expecting me.

I begin to follow her instruction. “Where’s Gwen?” I ask the house. It answers with a low scrape, some ponderous dragging below my feet, below the floorboards. I feel it, vibrating up my bones into my teeth.

“Just this way honey, just this way.” Behind me, a scuff. Metal against leather.

My shoulders go tight. But what can I do, when she can put a bullet in my head?

“Does anyone know you’re here?” She confirms the threat.

“No.”

“Good, honey. That’s good. Go on.”

I step, locking and unlocking my knees down the red rug runner. The house is warm, smells like cinnamon smoke. A deadbolted door draws my eye.

“Go on,” Mrs. Dyer whispers. The danger is there, so heavy she had to lighten her voice. So great it shakes this house, from bottom to top.

I was right: everything is wrong.

Breath bursts in and out of my mouth until it’s bone dry. I’m so thirsty, so awake. I continue and turn into the living room. The fireplace is lit.

Wade is on the leather couch, staring at me and strangling a remote control. Books are strewn on the wide wood coffee table, ancient pottery pictures. Furniture looks antique. Nothing is dusty. Stuffed pheasants hang on the wall. Smart looking TV. My gaze returns to the coffee table and follows the boots, jeans, shotgun. Mayor Dyer cocks it, the gun’s stock catching amber in the lamplight.

I turn. Mrs. Dyer is pointing her pistol at me, just as I’d imagined.

“Well,” the mayor says. “You took the carrot. Now you’ll have to take the stick.” He sets the gun down in his lap and pats it. Raises a short, full glass. “Whiskey?”

I shake my head, keep shaking it, backing into a hutch, rattling the items inside. All the curtains are drawn.

A constellation of pictures on the wall. More of Gwen than Wade. Tiny Gwen with blonde pigtails. With her mom, wearing soccer gear. Photos of Gwen in high school, hugging her dad after a win.

The mayor downs his whiskey. Makes a face like he doesn’t even like it. Clicks his tongue.

“Sit down, Bianca. Next to Wade.” He leans to pick up an opened book, pages printed with pictures of black and white bowls. As he’s bent over his gun, I wonder if it could accidentally fire into the kitchen. And maybe that could catch someone’s attention, and they’d call the police, and someone could save me. But there’s about a mile between this house and the next. And Sheriff doesn’t strike me as a hero.

“Sit.”

I sink into leather cushions. Wade’s head is in his hands. He isn’t crying, but he’s elsewhere. Also armed with a pistol, I note.

Mayor Dyer taps the picture book with a calloused finger. “A thousand years ago, the peoples of the Mimbres Valley in New Mexico painted men combined with birds and animals. See?” He flashes the image at me. The bowl has a big hole in the center, and it’s painted with figures of people and pointed-eared predators along its inner curves. One person with a tail is holding a baby. He sets that book down, picks up a smaller one. “The human-animal figurines of ‘Ain Ghazal.” He tosses it on the table pile. “The evil eye of Ethiopia. Witchcraft. Bad spirits. Invoke god’s name!” He throttles the heavens. “But what if he’s the same? In Greek mythology, gods became beasts. The Christian god turned King Nebuchadnezzar into one for seven years. Seven.” His voice chokes.

Oh. They’re insane. Got it.

“The point, honey,” Mrs. Dyer interjects like a switchblade. “Get to it.”

The mayor takes a breath. His forehead glistens. “We don’t want to hurt you, Bianca. We won’t have to if you listen, very carefully.”

My stomach hardens to stone. If I try to leave, will they really shoot me? Wouldn’t that totally ruin their lives? I consider running, calling their bluff. But if they’re insane, which they might be, they wouldn’t hesitate—

“You came here because you… care about my daughter?”

I try to swallow so I can speak. “Yes.”

“Hm.” The mayor tilts his head, thoughtful. “Do you believe in god, Bianca?”

“Pierce.”

The mayor’s eyes twinkle at his wife’s impatience.

Wade sighs beside me. I decide to be honest. “I-I don’t know, really.”

“The Bible says god made man to subdue the earth. Are you familiar?”

“I—” just go with it “—yes.”

“And so we did. We did. Perhaps too easily. Care, love, it requires sacrifice. Stakes. Maybe god is trying to challenge us again, to call forth humanity’s greatness through subduing this disease.”

“Lupus?” I croak.

“Canis lupus.”

What?

“Lycanthropy.”

I think I’ve heard it in a movie. A fake word, sounding fake-scientific.

The mayor frowns at me like my trigonometry teacher used to. “Gwen is a werewolf.”

I look at Wade, but he’s staring at his hands. I look at Mrs. Dyer, and she nods behind her steady pistol.

“Gwen is a werewolf. Knowing that, you have two options. The first: welcome to the family. You guard this secret. That shouldn’t be hard. No one will believe you, even if you try to gather ‘evidence.’ You guard this secret, and you help us protect our child. Especially from herself. She doesn’t know she’s a werewolf. She. Can’t. Know. We four, in this room, are the only people in the world who can ever know. Understand?”

My mouth hangs open, but I bob my head. If I just go with it, if I just go with it they won’t hurt me. He said that. He did.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He sighs, strokes his gun. “Option two. You die. I wish it didn’t have to be that way. But it must. If you agree to our terms today, but later violate them? Try to leave town? Try to call the police, tell them everything? Sheriff won’t believe you. By the time someone does, it’ll be too late.” He leans, levels his face with mine. “Your mother is not beyond our reach. And you will never be. Understand?”

Scrape, scrape. Below, something drags. The mayor closes his eyes. Lids twitch.

“I don’t believe you,” I tell him.

He laughs. “Show her, Wade. Keep it short. Then bring her back up here to further discuss our terms.” He rises, taps his phone. The blues careen through ceiling speakers. “I’m making coffee. We’ll need it.”

Wade looks like he could hurl any second. “You stupid, nosey bitch,” he spits. “You stupid, nosey fucking bitch.”

His honesty relieves me. “Wade. Please. What’s happening?”

“You shouldn’t have come here. Can’t you take a fucking hint? I told Gwen not to get involved with you, but no. This is what she forces us to do.”

“She was lonely, Wade,” Marie says. “She has to keep her sanity.” A pause. “And please, watch your language.”

“Jesus fuck, Mom! This isn’t any better than it was. This is worse!”

“Bianca will be a smart girl. Won’t she?” Her gun isn’t pointed at me anymore, but she’s holding it, and her words hit like lead.

Wade rises. “Get up. I’m taking you to the basement.”

“No.”

“Wanna see Gwen or not?”

“Don’t-don’t lock me down there.”

“Better hope we don’t have to. Come on, you need to see it.”

We go to the door. The deadbolted door in the hall. He unlocks it and there’s a staircase descending into darkness. He picks up a crowbar left on the first step and wields it. I hear the scraping sounds, clear and close. Makes me shiver, like I can feel them run over me, cold and hard. Chains and groaning equipment.

The steps creak as we walk down. I smell ammonia and copper. Musk. The scraping stops. A guitar’s song slides down from the top of the stairs.

It’s wet dog. I smell wet dog. Goosebumps prickle all over. “Wade.”

“A couple more steps and I’ll turn on the light.”

“Wade.” My lip trembles. The air is dense. The smell is overwhelming. “I believe.”

“Come on. Almost there. Gotta prove to you we aren’t crazy.”

“I can’t.”

He sighs, flashes the crowbar. “Just do what I say because my parents—they might kill you. I can’t stop them. They do CrossFit.”

I step. I step. I step. Closer to a threshold I don’t want to cross. Creak. My universe bends, about to snap. Wade halts. Light from the open door upstairs doesn’t reach this far—an expanse of darkness ahead, thick with the presence of animal. Worse than looking down the barrel of a gun. Nothing moves. A harmonica cries.

“Sorry I couldn’t warn you.” Wade flips the lightswitch.