Faux DC presents

"Prey"

by Clay Arceneaux

The familiar sounds of gravel popping beneath his tires greet a weary driver as his truck rolls into his driveway. The first hint of fall wafting in the breeze flowing through his open window, a welcome relief from the summer's relentless heat. A glimpse at his brown lawn in the fading sunlight makes him wish the change of season would bring some much needed rain as well. But at least his wife hadn't nagged him about mowing the grass in weeks. Looking at the dark windows of his house, he notes he's beaten her home yet again.

Flipping through the collected credit card and insurance offers that makes up the bulk of his mail, the broad shouldered man makes his way across his front porch and into his simple country home. As soon as he enters the house, he realizes something isn't right, something subtle. He doesn't see anything out of place in their modest living room, and he certainly can't smell anything other than the scented candles his wife favors. But still…
There it was again, a small sound of something moving in his house. Something bigger than the raccoon that snuck in last spring. Steeling himself, the man steps through the doorway that lead to the kitchen and breakfast room in the rear of his home.

"Well, well. Look who finally got home from work." A nasal voice chuckles from the man's kitchen table. "Tough day at the job?"

The voice was disturbingly familiar, and in disbelief and anger, the man lunges for the light switch that confirms what he already knew. There, sitting causally at the table, is a thin little man, with dark rat-like eyes and dark hair in a distinctively ridiculous bowl haircut. “MILO?”

"Anthony… or do you prefer Roman these days? You're looking better than when I last saw you." Milo smiles mischievously, pointing some kind of pistol-like weapon at the still reeling Anthony.

“How did…”

How did I find you? When you've been so carefully hiding all the years since your sister's transplant?" Milo continues to grin, enjoying his quarry's confusion. "Oh yes, Anthony Lupus has nearly completely disappeared, but Mr. Roman Alexander had to take a drug test as part of his employment several months ago. Now of course, that test didn't show your condition, but then the people I work with have standing arrangements with every testing firm in the country. You'd be amazed at all the metas hiding around the country. So basically I ran your unique genetic marker through their database and here we are."

"You're masking your scent…" Lupus stares, his confusion slowly turning to rage as Milo's voice grates on.

"Ah, yes. Wonderful little device, wish I could take credit, but a colleague actually developed it." Milo begins to ramble, clearly still loving the sound of his own voice, until he sees Anthony starting to advance on him. "Ah ah ah. Let's not make this any harder than it has to be, Tony. I wouldn't have tracked you down if I didn't need you for a new project I'm working on." Milo points his weapon more emphatically at Lupus and gestures to the back door. "I have a van waiting out back, and a long drive ahead of us, so let's get going."

"My wife…?" Tony asks as he moves from the kitchen through the back door and out into the evening air.

"Wife?" Milo shrugs following behind his captive. "Never saw her, and if we hurry, we'll miss her completely. You'd hate for her to get involved, now wouldn't you?"

With a small chuckle, Tony Lupus stops well short of Milo’s waiting vehicle.

“Oh please.” Milo says exasperatedly. “You’re not going to do something stupid now that you don’t think your woman is in danger are you?”

"Actually I just wanted to get you outside." Tony smiles as he turns to face his tormenter. The salt-and-pepper hair from his beard begins to spread across his face and neck as he speaks. "If I kill you in the house, I'd never get all the blood cleaned. But out here, we can claim you were a prowler who had the bad luck to get attacked by a wild animal while you were breaking into our home. Plenty of black bear and cougars here on the Blueridge."

"Oh look, you've actually completely mastered your transformations." Milo tries to appear unphased. "That makes you even more valuable."

Milo fires his weapon, which turns out to be a modified taser. The darts strike Tony in the chest and an instant later electricity races down the attached wires bringing the wolf-man to his knees. Milo continues to squeeze the trigger, pumping the voltage into his victim until Tony stops struggling to stand.

"Sorry my friend," Milo sneers. "But I'm not in the mood to hear some long whining tirade about it being my fault you're a monster. You took my wolf-based steroids for years, looking for your little edge that the judges couldn't detect. And when trying to stop taking them caused you headaches, you came back for more. So don't try to play victim with me."

“Actually…” Tony snarls as he rips wired darts from his chest as he rises to his feet. “I’m going to kill you because you tried to use me as a weapon, tried to put me on a leash and yell “sic ‘em”. No one tames me!!”

“You… you shouldn’t…” Milo takes a few steps back in disbelief. “This taser would have dropped a rhino.”

“Bad darts maybe?” Tony smiles again as he continues to transform. “Should have used silverrrrrrrr!!”

Shrugging off his shredded clothing, Tony Lupus now looms head and shoulders above his "captor", his eyes almost glowing in the gathering darkness, and a low growl rising from his elongated wolf-like mouth. Milo recovers his wits and makes a run for his van. Muscles tense under gray fur, as Lupus lets Milo get almost to the vehicle before he bounds after him, his lupine hind legs coving the distance in two quick leaps. Milo stumbles just before he reaches the van's back doors. Rolling to his back, Milo stares up at his creation bearing down on him with equal parts horror and pride. For his part, Lupus begins to salivate in anticipation of the kill as the creature now slowly moves to stand over his prey.

The werewolf howls in victory, and prepares to deliver its killing strike, when something erupts from the van's back doors in a blur of movement, smashing the beast back several feet. Before he can recover, huge fists batter his furry body again and again. The wolf fights back, clawed hands slashing at its opponent's thick throat. Milo's defender is only partially successful at avoiding the attack, and roars in pain as the claws scratch into his hide. Grabbing the arm that struck him, the wounded man whips the were-creature through the air, smashing in into the hard mountain soil. Before Lupus can recover, he is sent hurtling back over the man's massive shoulders and back again to the earth. Four more times the wolf-man is slammed hard to the ground, until Lupus feels his consciousness fading. As he struggles to remain awake, he sees Milo's smug face staring down at him. Milo's protector stands there too, panting from his exertion. The rising moonlight glints off the large frame, revealing strange, almost scaly skin.

"Mr. Lupus, this is my client Mr. Jones." Milo sneers. "And if you think Waylon's tough now, with your help we're going to make him even tougher."

The Begining.

The DC Universe of characters, which includes 90% of all the ones written about on this site, their images and logos are all legally copyrighted to DC Comics and it's parent company of Time/Warner. We make absolutely no claim that they belong to us. We're just a bunch of fans with over active imaginations and a love of writing.