Enter the Werewolf

We were down to nine and even one of those – Souness – was missing; in the house somewhere, probably the one doing the killing according to Keith Jackson but we all knew to ignore him as Keith has a reputation for using any old excuse to lay into anything to do with Rangers.  We had retreated from the kitchen and were in a room two floors up watching the commotion outside through a window and the gaps in the locked storm shutters; word had obviously got out and the emergency services were everywhere.  Curiously there was no sign of any press, tv or otherwise – a sign of just how tightly Lawwell has the media wrapped around his little finger.

 

We could hear the noise of someone trying to communicate with us through a loudhailer but you know those things, even if you were standing right beside one you still couldn’t make out what’s being said through it.  “I think I heard him say ‘negotiator’” said Tom English.

“I heard that too, and something else about ‘quim or a cunt’ or something,” chirped Haggerty and as she said it a helicopter approached the house and it had something dangling from it - the figure of a man on the end of a cord.

“Is that...?” asked Jackson.

“It fucking is,” shouted Lawwell.  “Spiers, is tonight a full moon?”

“Eh?  I don’t know, why?” I replied, confused.

“Because those idiots out there think this is a hostage situation and they’re sending in Jim Delahunt as a negotiator!”

“Jim Delahunt?” puffed Campbell Ogilvie.  “Mellifluous and honey voiced arbiter of reason?”

“Which Delahunt are you thinking of, fruit-dick,” screamed Lawwell in Ogilvie’s face.  “Because that pinch nosed little cunt they’re about to drop in here is a fucking werewolf – Spiers, get to the kitchen, fetch some silverware.  Haggerty, prepare to sacrifice yourself to him, he likes hairy women!” 

 

They dropped Delanhunt into and down a chimney and he crashed into the room next door in an explosion of soot and random curses.  There was no way I was going down to the kitchen on my own, not only was there a killer on the loose but now the authorities in their infinite wisdom had decided to turn to a fur-faced lunatic to come to our aid – we all know nobody in their right mind would turn to Delahunt for help but he has a knack of sticking his nose, uninvited into all sorts of business.  That and he tends to turn into a werewolf when there’s a full moon.  I peeked outside and sure enough, low to the east, illuminating the clouds, was the biggest moon you’ve seen all year.   

We ran for the door but it flew open before we even got close and there was Jim Delahunt, covered in soot, his clothes torn and a face, well, with a face like a werewolf peering over a dyke as my old granny used to say.  He pounced and in the time it takes to wet yourself he had a hold of both Haggerty and Keith Jackson by the necks and was shaking them.  It was at this point that Tom Devine showed his mettle; he cried, “Angela!  Mon amour!” and ran at Delahunt, tackling him around the waist and forcing him back against the window which shook under their combined weight until it eventually gave way and all four of them toppled out the window.

“Begorrah, that was close,” laughed Tom English but he’d barely said it when the floor gave way beneath his feet and he disappeared screaming through a trap door.

“Anyone else want to be a smart arse?” asked Albertz and we all stood in silence, the dark of the room lighting up as police spotlights shone at the hole in the wall where Delahunt, Haggerty and Jackson had been pushed out by Tom Devine.  That left five: me, Lawwell, Albertz,  Souness -  wherever he was lurking, and Campbell Ogilvie and who could believe that after all we’d gone through that he’d still be alive?  Certainly not Lawwell who pulled out a Luger and shot at him out of frustration but Ogilvie was quick on his feet and got out of the room without a scratch as we all chased after him, not because we wanted to catch him but because nobody wanted to be left alone in a room.  Ogilvie sprinted down a hall and round a corner into another wing before tripping and tumbling into an open lift.  In moments we were all in there beside him, Lawwell pointing his Luger and pulling the trigger at Ogilvie’s head even although he knew he was out of bullets - click click click went the pistol and then the lift doors shut.

 

The lift started rising and I felt that usual tingling down the back of my legs that tells me that the game is more or less up.  “Are you crying?” asked Lawwell.

“No!  I just have soot in my eyes,” I lied.  “This is it, isn’t it?  We’re all doomed.  When we reach the top these doors are going to open and something horrible is going to be standing there waiting for us” and then the doors opened and something horrible was standing there waiting for us.