The Supernatural World of Vladimir and Viktor, Chapter 61
It was a couple of weeks after Dorothy moved into the residence in the Flatheads of Montana that Vladimir and Viktor paid her a visit. Eddie was out on a mission and suggested it was time for them to check in there to be sure she wasn't lonely out there all alone. Scraps was their sitter at home this time and insisted they arrive with there with gifts, flowers and food.
So they walked down the steps in the Timms barn in Indiana and came up shortly in the Brooks barn in Montana. Dorothy was Dottie Brooks, they discovered from the address sign on the residence. Vladimir was carrying pink roses in a vase with a spare vase because they had surmised she would not have thought to buy any in the cold weather and they would visit again. Scraps had collected – snitched – the flowers from Glinda's royal gardens. Viktor had a can of popcorn, the big one with three flavors.
They had called ahead but Dorothy still acted like it was a huge surprise when she opened the door. They entered to the smell of coffee and cigars. She offered to fix cocoa, but they boys were intrigued with the coffee. Eddie wasn't a coffee drinker, not that he thought it was bad for the body. He had just never acquired the taste for coffee, tea or alcohol in his solitary life and never thought to introduce the boys to them.
She sent them to the livingroom as she went to get a serving tray and more cups and saucers. Viktor amused himself browsing through the books on the bookshelves. Dorothy had started collecting two book series: westerns by Louis L'Amore and Zane Grey. Vladimir read the handwritten notebooks on the coffee table.
"Those are Lara Koos' diaries, Vladimir," said Dorothy. They were in a box of her belongings Eddie saved when this place was rebuilt. "They tell about the ghost cats and the bigfoots on the property and what it was like living alone with them."
She set the serving tray on the table and served the coffee. Of course the boy's screwed up faces showed their reaction to the bitter taste.
"A pinch of salt first," she suggested, "Then a teaspoon full of cream if that isn't enough. Sugar if you really need to. Then back off with the next cup. In future visits you can play with adding cocoa, vanilla, butterscotch and cinnamon. I just like it black."
After a while Dorothy gathered up her cup and the tray. "Let's go to see the cats. Rinse out your cups. If you need to, there's fruit punch in the fridge you can drink to kill the coffee taste."
Dorothy turned on the outside lights and they walked outside to the opposite end of the barn. Two cats in the side yard watched them.
"Lara wrote that the cats have three forms. They can be seen and touched, or you can see them but cannot touch them. It's like you are seeing ghosts. And then they can disappear altogether. Eddie says they are in another dimension then. Cas is supposed to take me there to see someday. The bigfoots are the same way. That explained why one day one ran right past me and didn't make a sound."
"You've seen them?" asked Viktor. "Can you touch them?"
"They keep their distance. But sometimes I sit outside in the evening under the light and they roam around the woods nearby," Dorothy replied. "Now watch this!"
Dorothy pushed open the door to the barn's back room and the two cats ran right through the side of the barn as if they weren't real. Inside Dorothy dug out a handful of cat treats and threw them on the floor.
The two cats were inside jumping about in anticipation and pop, pop, pop. More cats appeared one by one in the room. "Lara wrote that they don't usually eat in this dimension, but they will if you have something interesting. Apparently they are being fed regularly on the other side."
"What do the bigfoots eat? Berries?" asked Vladimir.
"Rabbits? People?" asked Viktor.
"Lara tested some foods, but the bigfoots weren't interested in anything and she gave up. But I found something they love," Dorothy said as she pulled something out of stone jar.
Beef jerky.
The boys wanted to feed them, but Dorothy made them sit under the barn light as she walked out to a table in the yard and laid out the food. She joined the boys and they watched.
Eventually they saw the reflection of the eyes of tall creatures in the woods. Then the tall hairy creatures approached the table by ones and twos and took some of the jerky back into the woods with them. They noticed the three spectators but gave them barely a glance.
"I thought they would fight over them," Viktor observed.
"Nope! I have never heard them quarrel. Just random calls out in the forest sometimes. Let's go inside a get ready for bed."
"Hey, it's a full moon tonight," Vladimir noticed as they returned to the residence.
Zeke also noticed the full moon that night at his home in Idaho Falls. He had been waiting for the night and it didn't disappoint.
He recognized a howl to the northeast and another due north. He had heard his father's friends say there were more werewolves than just Bennie in the area and Castiel had spirited Bennie away. Zeke was determined to find one of the others tonight.
Sure that his parents were sound asleep, the boy slipped out with his rifle and hunting gear, a specialized vest with gadgetry hanging from it like his flashlight and air horn, and snacks. He set the directions of the two howlers in his GPS tracker and set off in the general northeast direction
'Werewolf hunting,' he texted Vladimir and Viktor. 'Follow me when you wake up.'
The sound led him near the Sasquatch house but Zeke resisted stopping by to see what it was like. Most likely he would find just a boarded up house. He continued on for several more miles into an area of scrub forest on a rise above the city where he heard the sound of a heavy weight breaking branches on the ground ahead.
He stopped and backed into a sagebush where he stood motionless, listening.
The creature passed through the bushes coming in his direction. Except for a brief glint from its eyes in the moonlight, it was just a huge black blob, much larger than a wolf, as big as a bison. A grizzly bear far west of its natural range.
It paused and sniffed and looked around, then slowly walked randomly into the opening until deciding to stride directly towards Zeke. It stopped inches from the boy and reared up. He could see its dagger-like teeth and even smell its breath.
Zeke pressed buttons and strobe lights flashed on his vest. He set off the air horn and shook a nearby branch at the beast. He screamed, too, but that wasn't intentional. Still, it worked. The startled bear backed off and charged off in a different direction.
Zeke needed to regain his composure. And he needed to pee. And he needed a more powerful rifle. Creatures that large did not usually venture this far out of the mountains.
So he listened for the two werewolf callings and reset his GPS. The one he was still tracking was in the same direction as before. It had not moved from its location. He had the location of the other one triangulated.
With more miles behind him, Zeke came upon the silhouette of a small cement block building with a door barred shut from the outside. That was odd.
He listened at the door then circled around the building. An open doorway was on the other side. Other than a few patches of moonlight through the slats in the roof, it was dark inside. Zeke went back to the barred door and unbarred it. The mighty growling from inside confirmed Zeke's suspicions that this was where the protesting werewolf was imprisoned.
He pulled open the door and flashed his light towards the noise and saw the beast beyond the bars in a dark side room. He stepped inside where the creature snarled and attempted to reach at him from its prison.
Back outside, Zeke used the moonlight to set his location on his GPS device and triangulate with the sound of the other werewolf. Then he messaged Vladimir and Viktor that he had found one of the werewolves.
There was a crash inside and it became deathly quiet, so Zeke pocketed his devices and went back in. The noise had been a stone slab dropping to block the opposite entrance. It was some sort of trap.
Zeke sensed movement. Something huge was raised up over him and drool dropped down on his face. He shined his flashlight across his shoulder where claws like huge knives were digging into his arm.
There was another creature in the building with him that practically filled the room. And he had left his weapons outside.
