Into the Wolves' Den

by Jon Athan

A white windowless van cruised past them. The van rolled to a stop about a quarter mile ahead of the girls. They didn’t notice it.

The driver wore a silicone werewolf mask with a gray face and a head of beautiful, voluminous dark brown hair.

The passenger wore a silicone pig mask.

Like the driver, he wore navy coveralls. They didn’t wear nametags, though, and they didn’t look like plumbers or janitors.

The Wolf and Uncle Oinks leered at the girls, disrobing them—molesting them—with their eyes.

The old vehicle’s engine emitted a soft, normal sound, but it sounded monstrous to them, like the roar of an animal.

Uncle Oinks jumped out from behind a tree and startled them. He oinked and squealed and laughed, his arms away from his body as if he were welcoming a hug.

Their parents lectured them about dangerous perverts, but they didn’t teach them how to fight—how to survive.

The girls couldn’t see the men’s faces because of the masks, but they could feel their emotions.

He wasn’t the creepy, old, out-of-shape child predator her mother had warned her about. And that terrified her.

He kept leaning against the tree, unperturbed by his own actions. Aiming loaded weapons at children was second nature to him.

Mid-sentence, just as she took a step towards her friends, Mr. Wolf shot Brooke in the stomach.

The burning pain raced across her body, entering her limbs and her skull, as if her blood were replaced with acid.

Death and violence weren’t part of her world yet. She was innocent.

Uncle Oinks was silent, but Mr. Wolf had a lot to say. He was scolding Brooke.

The boom of a second gunshot roared through the area.

Brooke screamed in pain. She was shot in the leg. The bullet was lodged in her thigh.

Someone else was piloting her body, leading her to safety.

Mr. Wolf shot Brooke in the other leg. The bullet went straight through her right thigh.

Without looking at her, Mr. Wolf pulled the trigger and shot Brooke in the head.

He stepped on Brooke’s head, pushing half of her face into a mound of mud, then he twisted his foot left-and-right as if he were crushing a cigarette.

Uncle Oinks hit the back of her head with the butt of his pistol. Carrie was instantly knocked unconscious by the blow.

In the kitchen, on that grim day, her eyes were hollow and dim. Keith didn’t notice the concern in her eyes or the fear in her voice.

Devastation—it was written on her eyes.

Her mother’s intuition told her something had gone terribly wrong.

Dale Hill stood in the basement, only wearing a pair of boxer briefs, gloves, and chukka boots.

Dale was Uncle Oinks.

The sound of skin shredding tore through the room. The crackling of her weak muscles and the crunching of her bones dampened the sound of her ligaments tearing.

He was prepared for everything. He had been in that situation numerous times before.

Allen Cooper walked down the basement stairs, the steps creaking under his boots.

He was Mr. Wolf.

With two decades in the business, he grew accustomed to the violence.

Dead body disposal was his specialty.

“Well, I did see an ice cream truck out west.”

“I’m talking west, kid. You know Green Street, don’t you? Every house on that street has been abandoned and condemned and beat-up and fucked up for years.

Lisa was right, he thought, every second mattered, and I threw time away.

“This is the Wolves’ Den.”

Curtis Cox, an employee at the Wolves’ Den, tortured him. He wore a silicone mouse mask to protect his identity.

grown man couldn’t pleasure a child. The idea was wrong. It was immoral. It was horrific.

Lisa had always said: those type of men will hurt you to please themselves.

The hands are very sensitive to pain. That’s one of the reasons why a splinter under a fingernail hurts so damn much.”

They drove to a red two-story house on Hill Lane, unknowingly moving closer to the site of the abduction.

He was wearing a–a mask. It was a… a wolf mask, like a werewolf.

She was smart and spunky. She wasn’t very strong, but she could act like a brave lion to protect her sister.

“At least you almost finished the food. It was delicious, right? I cooked it myself.”

“Did you tell her it was human meat?”

“Cook up some more of that meat for me, will ya? That bastard annoyed the hell out of me, but damn was he delicious. I love Thai food!”

They were receiving distress signals from their daughters telepathically.

When I heard about the struggle in the woods, I thought it was over.”

Pessimism turned his daughters’ distress signals into funeral memorial cards.