The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf (16 page)

It gave one sharp bark, before launching itself towards him.

FOURTEEN: Crazy Like A Wolf

FOURTEEN
Crazy Like A Wolf

As the door crashed shut, Angelina snatched at it, but Pete caught her around the waist and almost threw her backwards. She hit him in the shoulder with a flailing arm, but still ended up back in the hallway.

She and Lettie exchanged wide eyes, and then turned to Pete.

“Pete,” Lettie started, “what’re you doing?”

“Did you tell
her
?” Pete indicated Angelina. “About… about him?”

“Yeah, sorry, I just… had to talk to someone.”

“You were supposed to wait for me!”

“You weren’t here!”

“For fuck’s sake, couldn’t you…”

All that bickering was cut off by the loud roar of a dog barking outside, and Angelina found her voice. “Oh God, is that the wolf?”

Pete rolled his eyes. “It’s not a wolf, it’s a wolf
hound.
A huge one, but still, don’t be so hysterical.”

“Is it about to eat Hobson?”

“That’s what I’m hoping for.”

“Then why shouldn’t I be
fucking hysterical
?”

Angelina reached for the front door, grasping and clawing for the locks. Once again, Pete kept her back without even needing two hands.

“Into the living room,” he beckoned. “Where we can see what’s happening out there.”

Without much hope of escape, Angelina followed his orders.

*****

Hobson hadn’t fought many animals in his time. Dog, wolf, whichever this was, it scared him. He backed away down the pavement as it dribbled and stalked away from the car.

Panicking, he tried a massive slap towards it, in case it instinctively backed off. Remembering Matt Michaelson’s dissected arm didn’t give him much hope, but maybe it needed a firm hand.

His blow swept through the air, missing the dog’s head, and the black shape took both a swipe
and
a bite at it, baring hundreds of sharp teeth. It had red, bloody eyes with thin slits for pupils, just like wolves on TV, howling as well as barking. Its grey fur was either naturally red-tinted or still blood-stained because Pete hadn’t bothered washing it.

The dog shook its head with another growl, taking a few paces back as Hobson recoiled. Its swipe hadn’t reached his arm, but raked through his coat, which cost him a whole case worth of wages. Hobson took a kick at the dog’s head with his heavy boot. Let’s see the little fuck walk this off.

The foot glanced off its ear, leaving his leg open for the jaws. The black suit trousers provided some cover, but nowhere near enough. He roared a medley of horrible swearing, sinking down to one knee trying to pull it away. Blood trickled down his shin, as the creature went after his lower leg like it was a bone.

The residents of the square stayed close to their front doors, keeping their mobile phone cameras trained on Hobson and his dogfight. Hopefully one of them had the decency to call the police.

*****

Pete pulled the curtains wide to see the fight, without stepping too near the window. The other two were side-by-side on the sofa as he’d instructed.

Lettie was beginning to glare at her brother with familiar fury. He looked back whenever they made a sudden movement, but no-one said anything until there was a roar from Hobson outside. Didn’t sound like the fight was going well, so Angelina wouldn’t livetweet it.

Instead, she unfurled to her feet, and Pete took his eyes from the window to say “Sit down.”

“No. So it was you all along?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s
the
dog out there, isn’t it? The one that killed Yalin Makozmo, William and Matt. You were keeping it somewhere.”

“Sit down,
please
.” His teeth gritted, fist clenching. Maybe he
would
punch her, Angelina thought, until Lettie stood up too, placing herself in front of Angelina.

“Pete. Enough, okay? Let’s just both go outside, tell them what happened and take our chances.”

“Don’t be so fucking stupid, Lettie.”

“I’m the fucking stupid one?” Lettie exploded. “You just set the murder weapon on a fucking detective in fucking broad fucking daylight!”

“Look, I thought maybe it would kill him, then the police would take it out, then maybe…”

“Maybe what? A dozen people saw it come out of your car! It’s over, okay? We’ll do this together.”

“No. We’re not both going to prison for this.”

“What happened anyway?”

Angelina kept level eyes with Pete as she asked the question. May as well try and get some information out of him. She read the introduction to that A Level Psychology textbook, she was almost prepared to negotiate with someone properly crazy.

*****

Hobson dragged himself along the pavement, jabbing at the dog with his good foot. Fuck. The injured leg picked up a head of steam as it bled, leaving a smeared trail behind. The dog growled itself into a frenzy, chasing him and clawing for the wound.

His trousers were fucked, leg didn’t look good either.

It stopped following him along, grazing at the injury. Hobson stared its red eyes down, at the same level as his now. Listened to the heavy rasp of its breathing and hoped it would go bother someone else.

A moment later, it lunged for his torso and head.

*****

Pete looked like he might ignore her question or punch her for a moment, but at last, he shrugged.

“I’d just had a huge argument with William over Emily, he told me she thought I was sad and creepy. I went to sulk in the garden, kinda a habit I’d gotten into, and that’s when I saw it.”

Angelina didn’t need to ask what he meant.

“The dog already had blood on its muzzle anyway. So I whacked it around with sticks, got it good and angry, then managed to shove it at William. And while it was ripping him up, I locked the door and kicked the thing through from outside.”

“And why Matt?”

“I heard about his meet-up with these two, and he might’ve worked it out. He’d heard stuff from Emily, they sat next to each other.”

“Wait!” Lettie stepped so close to Pete, she was breathing into his mouth. “You killed my boyfriend because he
might’ve worked it out
? Are you absolutely crazy?”

“Well, I couldn’t just let him… I mean, I didn’t…”

“And after all that, you did this shit anyway?”

“Oh, come on Lettie. Hobson definitely knew, this was the last chance. If he survived, he’d make sure I went down.”

Angelina spoke up. “And I wouldn’t?”

“You’re just a kid. I was going to give you this chance to keep quiet.”

“She won’t,” Lettie said, without even checking with Angelina, “and neither will I. What’re you going to do now, Pete? Kill us both?”

He didn’t reply, just stared over at the sharp edges of the ceramic figures Lettie smashed earlier. Angelina didn’t like that look in his eyes.

*****

Ever headbutted a dog?

Hobson wouldn’t normally, but with both his hands clasped around his own bleeding shin and a pair of stinking jaws coming fast for his nose, there wasn’t much choice. Eyes closed and fists clenched, he rolled his head forward as hard as he could. The beast’s teeth scraped across his forehead, doggy legs flapped around its body as it bounced away.

His eyes opened again, only to wince back shut as blood poured from a gaping hole in his brow. Hobson tried to rub them clear but only made his fingers sticky, crawling up the pavement as his trailing leg roared at him to stop.

A couple of the thing’s teeth were broken but the rest of it still worked fine. It reared up for another go, but Hobson could only see a prowling outline. He could hear a little girl screaming and didn’t know whether it was real.

He was going to die, wasn’t he? Bleed out on the pavement because of some stupid yuppies and their rabid puppy.

A strange defiant acceptance came over him. His hand slacked and fell open. There were sirens in the distance. Ellie said
John
, but it wasn’t real. He knew that, because a second later, another female voice, deeper and older, said “Mister Hobson?”

The dog looked up, growling. Hobson tried to do the same, then fell back down again.

*****

“Lettie, grab her!”

Pete went for the broken china, while Lettie and Angelina stood dead still. No one grabbed anybody. Couldn’t look away from Pete scrabbling around on the carpet.

His hand closed around a broken porcelain fairy, vicious spike sticking upwards where her skirt should be. Pete jerked back up to face them, eyes wide. Lettie shook her head at him.

“Put the thing down, Pete,” she said. “Mum’ll be pissed off enough that I broke it without you getting blood all up it.”

“Lettie, if we don’t stop them we’ll never…”

“Pete, I don’t know if you were always this crazy, but we’re screwed either way. You can’t save me or yourself by stabbing Angie. Even if she died and the wolf ate Hobson, we’d still be locked up.”

She held her hand out to him, unable to stop it shaking. Angelina’s entire shoulders were trembling even more.

“Now give me the stupid fucking fairy-spike and let’s get this over with.”

There were definitely sirens outside now. Angelina heard Hobson roaring, another burst of dog noises. She bit back the urge to rush to the window.

Pete stood there, twitching all over. The jagged china in his hand moved, and Angelina thought he’d shove it into Lettie’s gut. Instead, he reached out to place it in her outstretched palm.

Until a woman’s voice outside, gruff, posh-accented and loud, said “Mister Hobson?”

The dog growled, as the two Vole siblings turned to the front of the house and shouted:
“Mum?”

They both bundled into the hallway and started ripping at the front door. Unsure what else to do, Angelina hurried along behind them.

By the time she made it out to the front step, Pete had thrown himself down to street level and torn across the square.

Mrs Vole was returning from the big shopping centre down the road, swatting at the vicious dog with an overloaded TK Maxx bag. For a moment, it played along, batting at the swinging plastic with a huge spiked paw. Before Angelina could breathe easy, it got bored and ripped the whole thing open with a swipe.

The garish clothes dropped out, covering its head and sending it back into a rage. Mrs Vole let out a scream that made Angelina’s ears hurt. Just as the dog was ready to tear into her, it heard footsteps behind and turned to see Pete.

After all the time locked up, that animal
hated
him. Losing interest in Mrs Vole, it let out a savage noise and sprang forward immediately, taking a slash at Pete’s midriff and tearing into his coat and stinking hoodie.

He backed up to get away, just about making enough distance to avoid a gutting. Lettie pulled their Mum back, as Pete tripped over the kerb and lost his footing, falling to one knee. Sensing easy victory, the bloody, tangled dog barked roughly and slashed forward, claws out.

If Pete hadn’t been holding that spear of broken china, it would’ve been the end of his head. Instead, he impaled the black shaggy shape hard through the neck as it raked its claws across his cheek. The two of them collapsed onto the road, dog’s blood running out over Pete’s face and mingling with his own.

As they both fell still, Angelina’s eyes zipped from there to the pavement outside the house, where Hobson was still collapsed in a pile. The emergency services were pulling up in the square, arriving in time to be no help at all. Angelina let out an irritated huff before kneeling down next to her boss. She made sure not to look at the blood smeared across his face and trailing out from his leg.

“Hobson! Hey!” No response. “You alright? Hobson?”

She shook one huge shoulder with both hands. “Hobson?”

He focused his eyes on her long enough to seem exasperated, before the paramedics shoved her aside.

They worked on him, more blood came out. Angelina felt squeamish again, so tried to get back into earshot of the Vole family as they spoke to Ellie. The police detective kept looking over towards Hobson.

Pete sat on the pavement, a large bandage over the cut on his face, not looking much like a crazed serial killer. A paramedic hovered nearby, worried expression on her face, but Ellie wasn’t letting him go for medical attention yet.

“So, this is the dog that killed all those people?” She gestured down towards the huge canine body on the floor. Even dead, it was terrifying, Angelina thought, flopped down with tongue hanging out. It might be bigger than she was.

“Yeah,” Pete said. Lettie almost opened her mouth too, before he cut her off: “So, it was me, okay? I killed them
all
. I didn’t use the dog on the last kill because it was too conspicuous.”

Ellie nodded. “Okay. Peter, you’ll be coming with us after you’ve had treatment for that cut. You may want to wait until you have a lawyer present before you say any more.”

“No, look…” Lettie said.

“Lettie,”
Pete shouted her down. She looked ready to yell over him, until Mrs Vole spun on her feet and fainted. She came close to squashing the dog corpse as she fell, and she wasn’t a small lady, it might’ve burst like a furry blood-balloon. Angelina would have
hurled
.

Instead, she thudded to the pavement with a crack, paramedics hurried over to attend her. Ellie waved a few officers around to supervise Pete during his stitches, and told Angelina and Lettie not to go anywhere.

At last, Ellie let herself check on Hobson. Only Angelina and Lettie left standing outside the Vole house, a strange quiet between them. No one in a high-vis vest nearby, so Angelina felt free to ask: “Well, um, I guess you’re not going to prison.”

“I suppose not. But part of me feels I should just confess to killing Lyne. I mean, my fucking brother came clean, and he’s off the hook mental.”

“Maybe he’s trying to do some good by taking the blame.”

“He’ll regret that when I kill again.”

“That was a joke, right?”

Lettie gave a wry, mirthless smile. “Yeah.”

“Good.” Angelina jabbed at the ground with her toe. “Good, good.”