CHAPTER V
Lady Luck

If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck, at all.

Ever since she hadn’t replied to that damned chain letter, things have been unraveling in Laura Wheeler’s life.

1:

“I can’t believe this,” said Laura. “The publisher has cancelled my comic.”

“Why?” asked Greg, her boyfriend.

“They say the monthly sales have been too low,” she replied.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “But is there really enough interest to sustain a SWAMP THING comic book?”

2:

Left without a job, neither Laura nor Greg has the means to uphold their life. They lose their credit cards and their car, and the mortgage on their house is looming.

“I’m going to take a bath,” said Greg. “All of this is wearing me out. I need to go soak for awhile.”

Laura smiled at him. She knew that he was doing his best to find a job, but there didn’t seem to be anyone replying. It was the damned recession she told herself.

She sat down at the kitchen table. She lit herself a cigarette and poured a glass of bourbon. She smiled as it slid down easily and exploded in her stomach. It made her feel so good after everything else that had been going wrong in their life.

If I had the money, she thought to herself, I think I’d become an alcoholic.

“Greg,” she called, “I just thought of something funny. Do you think we could swing me becoming an alcoholic?”

There was no answer.

“Greg? Do you hear me?”

Only silence.

Laura got up from the table. She walked over to the bathroom and opened the door.

“Greg?”

What greeted her was Greg lying in the bathtub, his wrists slit. He was leaned back in a steaming pool of blood.

Laura screamed.

3:

She was pregnant.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” said the sheriff. He wiped away the brown streak of tobacco juice that streamed out the corner of his mouth. “But I have to foreclose on your house.”

“Please,” said Laura. “Let me go to the bank. I’m sure that we can figure something out.”

“It’s too late for that, ma’am,” replied the sheriff. “I’m going to have to ask you to evacuate the premises.”

Laura was desperate.

She lifted up her shirt, exposing her pregnant belly and bare breasts.

“I’ll give you anything you want,” she told him.

The sheriff looked away.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “But it’s my job.”

“Calling it your job doesn’t make it right,” said Laura.

She watched as he went back and got into his police cruiser. Then he drove away, leaving Laura with her unborn baby and bare breasts hanging out.

4:

Laura was sobbing as she came out of the abortion clinic.

Her sister, Annie, put her arm around her shoulders. She gently kissed Laura’s forehead.

“It was for the best,” she said. “You wouldn’t have been able to take care of the child.”

Laura could only respond with a rifle of sobs.

“I know it sounds shitty,” said Annie, “but think positive.”

She led Laura over to the car and opened the door for her. Laura was still crying as she dropped into the passenger seat.

Annie went around the car and got in on the driver’s side. She started the car and pulled out on onto the street.

There was a fine mist of rain falling from the heavens.

She was looking at Laura when she accidentally ran the red light. Her car sped through the traffic and was hit by a cement truck coming the other way.

Annie was flung through the front windshield. Her head was neatly decapitated on the burst glass as she splattered out onto the road.

Thankfully, the truck hadn’t been going at full-speed. Laura, save for a broken arm, was saved.

At the hospital, she had to confirm that the bloody mess lying on the morgue gurney was her sister. Only half her face remained on the busted skull.

Outside the hospital, Laura burst into tears. Crying, aside from bad luck, seemed the only constant thing in her life.

“Why couldn’t it have been me?” she cried to the heavens. “Why couldn’t it have been me?”

5.

“Do you really want to kill yourself?” asked the Swamp Thing.

“Yes,” said Laura. She reached up and kissed him on his verdant cheek. “It’s fate.”

“If you say so,” said Swamp Thing. “But it just seems that there would be a better way.”

“No,” she said. “This is it.”

Swamp Thing nodded.

“Will I ever see you, again?” he asked.

“Oh yes,” said Laura. “There is still one chapter left to relive.”

“I thought when you perished,” said Swamp Thing, “that that would bring things to a close.”

“It nearly does,” said Laura, “but there is one thing last thing I need for my soul to rest. You must play one more part.”

“And that is?”

“You will see,” Laura told him. “It shall be your fate.”

And with that, she began to walk into the bayou.

Swamp Thing watched her until she disappeared. Then he viewed the bubbles of her air supply until the last one popped.

“My fate,” he said, “shall be sealed.”

And he rambled off into the bayou to consider his destiny.

It’s colder than a witch’s tit!”

Davy turned around and looked at Gary, who was stomping snow from his boots.

“Close that door,” said Davy. “It’s getting cold in here.”

Gary shut the door. Then he walked over to the space heater located in their security hut. He stared to warm his hands.

“Truck is warm for you,” he said.

“Thanks,” said Davy. He got up and slipped into his jacket. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

“I’ll be here, kid,” replied Gary.

Davy walked outside into the swirling snow. The wind howled down through the buildings. He climbed into the truck, hit the headlights, and began his nightly routing of canvassing the Black Oak distillery.

He drove the truck through the distillery every year when he was off from college. That meant every holiday he spent working. You got used to the smell of booze perforating the air before too long.

Besides, the owners gave you a free fifth of whisky on every Christmas. It wasn’t Jim Beam, but Black Oak bourbon went down as smooth as the best of them.

Davy drove the truck through the snow. At every building, you had to get out and swipe a magnetic card to show what time you’d been there. It was the bitch part of an easy job.

After finishing with the last of the distillery buildings, the last stop one had to make was up to the old Richards place. When Black Oak had bought the property, Richards had told them they could have the land as long as he could live there until the day he died. The distillery had agreed.

They hadn’t accounted on him living another twenty years, though.

Now, with Richards dead, the company had still not done anything with the property. The only thing they did was allow it to deteriorate. However, it was still a part of the security check, and Davy had to go up there to make sure everything was secure.

He drove up the snowy hillside to the house. Once there, he swiped his headlights over it, making sure nobody crazy enough was out here destroying it tonight. The only thing he saw was a dog that looked like it hadn’t eaten for weeks.

On his way back down the hill, he had to stop and swipe his card on the machine that was fastened to an old oak.

He pulled up beside it and hung his arm out the window.

And that’s when it attacked.

The werewolf bit down on his extended arm. It chewed through his coat, burying its muzzle down to the bloody bone.

Daniel screamed as the werewolf ate on his flesh. He reached out, trying to bash the monster in the head with his flashlight, but it only made the monster that much more mean.

It reached up with its claws and ripped away half of Davy’s face.

Then it tore off the truck’s door. It pulled Davy’s corpse from inside and layed it on the ground. And then it began to feast on his remains.

Overhead, the man in the moon stared down.

Gary was sitting in the guard shack when he heard the werewolf howl. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he figured it to be one heck of a big dog. He felt the skin on his spine crawl.

He’d been playing solitaire with a greasy deck of Bicycle cards. And now he lay them down.

He got up and went over to the guard shack’s door. He immediately locked it.

“This is bullshit,” said Sheriff “Mean Joe” Green.

He stuck a plug of Red Man chewing tobacco into his jaw. Then he spat out a brown stream of it that sizzled on the cold ground. He wiped his mouth clean.

“What’s that, sheriff?” asked Deputy Raines.

“The body count continues,” said Green, staring down at Davy’s remains. “And I don’t have the first clue as to who’s behind it all.”

“I think I do,” said Raines. “Come with me.”

He led the sheriff over to the side of the truck where Davy had been pulled out. He shone his flashlight down on the ground. The snow was painted red with gore.

“Look at these tracks,” he told the sheriff.

Green bent down and inspected them. They were wolf tracks.

“But look at them, though,” said Green. “It shows the damned thing walking on two legs.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Raines.

“What’s that?”

“Do you believe in werewolves?”

“Don’t give me that crock of shit,” said Green. “I don’t want a monster movie suspect. I want a human one, damn it!”

Green stood up as the ambulance arrived. Behind it was Dobbs. He watched as the old man climbed out of the hearse.

“What do we have here?” asked Dobbs.

“Another stiff for your morgue,” said Green.

“Indeed.”

Suddenly, from the crowd, Jerry Rivers walked up. He took a quick photograph of the body. Then he smiled at Green.

“What’s this I hear about werewolves?” he asked.

“None of your goddamn business,” said Green. “And I don’t want you writing anything about that in your paper. I’ve got enough trouble as it is.”

“Don’t worry,” said Rivers. “I don’t believe in make-believe monsters, either. Only humans ones.”

Roy and Tommy climbed out of the ambulance. They rifled through the crowd with their stretcher and came to a halt at Davy’s corpse.

“What do we have here?” asked Tommy.

“Get this body out of here,” said Green. He turned to Raines. “I want this crime scene locked up.”

“Not a problem, sheriff,” replied the deputy.

“Any ideas on what you’re going to do to catch the killer?” asked Rivers.

“Not a one,” said Green. He spat out another wad of tobacco. “And I don’t want you to quote me in that paper of yours.”

Rivers laughed. “I won’t, sheriff. But it’s getting hard with all these stiffs the killer is leaving behind. The people are going to want to know something.”

“Well,” said Green, “tell them to kiss my ass. I’ll let you know something the minute I hear anything.”

“Fair enough,” said Rivers. He took another photograph and disappeared back into the crowd.

“What the hell am I going to do?” said Green.

“What’s that, sheriff?” asked Roy as he backed the stretcher up to the corpse.

“Huh?”

“Oh, I thought you were talking to me.”

“No, Roy,” said Green. “I was just thinking out loud.”

Tommy went and bent down over Davy’s remains. He blew a chewing gum bubble. “Come on, Roy,” he said, twitching his fingers. “It’s time to get your hands dirty.”

Roy put a hand over his mouth to keep from vomiting. Davy’s remains were getting to him.

Sheriff Green turned away from the sight.

Tommy laughed and popped another bubble. “You’re nothing but a bunch of pussies.”