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A/N - Another chapter. Hoepfully should answer some questions...and leave others.

All characters fictional. New London (No relation to actual New London, NH) and Thompson State Park are fictional.

Chapter 10 - Men are not born...They are Made

"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win."

Stephen King

New London, NH

October 21, 2011

"Dalis? What the hell are you doing?"

What the hell was going on...What did Dalis have to do with this...and how the hell did I cause it? My mind was stuck at warp speed, trying to walk myself back through my own history...to try and find where I had crossed paths with this lunatic before.

The brooding younger man just stayed silently out of reach, calmly closing and securing the two doors into the room. His quiet demeanor, particularly after that parting comment to myself and Amy, was nothing less than completely unnerving. 'Sweeter than any blood'...why do I have a feeling that Dalis is more than a man...or at least something different than me.

"Agent Dalis, what the hell do you want with him. He's done nothing to you. And please, for the love of God, tell me why I'm that 'traitorous bitch.' Before this whole robbery case, I'd never even met you."

Apparently Amy was just as confused as I was. I didn't know whether I should be relieved or even more alarmed. This was her town, after all. If she didn't know what was going on, what else was I missing?

I mentally slapped myself for that thought. The past few weeks had shown me just how much you cannot know about people, that black little shell of the real individual being all that they reveal to the public. We all have our deep, dark little bit of evil and anger...that little demon which lives within us all, just waiting to get out. That tiny little shred of darkness leads us to cloak our lives in a flurry of lies until the only truth that people can see into us are those which we cannot hide, our fears and insecurities. Mine were on full display as I continued to scan the room, looking for any opportunity to escape. My scans fell across the sight of Amy, dressed merely in jeans and a T-shirt, apparently having been off-duty when the bombings occurred. Her short brown hair was slightly mussed up from the captivity and her right eye had a nice shiner starting to appear, but I could see her sharp green eyes searching the room, just as mine were, flicking between the environment and Dalis. Our eyes met for a minute and we could each see the confusion and fear in the other...but also something else, something that could at best be described as determination, at worst as delusion. We had to do something.

Something was wrong; those deputies should be coming in after hearing the shots? Fearing the worst, I had to assume they were either in on whatever Dalis had planned, or were dead...I didn't know which I would prefer, to be honest. I hated to hope for someone else's death, but if they were dead, at least I would know whose side they were on.

"Dalis," I called, "What do you want. What did I do to you to 'start' all of this?"

Surprisingly, Dalis laid his rifle on the exam table in the center of the room, placing his jacket and vest atop it. The pistol on his hip was now the only arm he had against me...unless he had a backup somewhere, a possibility I couldn't discount, particularly seeing as he knew I carried a knife as my only backup, perhaps a little too confident.

"Mike," Dalis began, a smug sneer crossing his face, "Your family has been fucking mine over for my entire life. And you," he turned to glare at Amy, "You fucking hypocritical bitch. You destroyed my family...all while you did the exact same thing. You and your precious rules...just ways for you to prey on those of us who listen to you. Now I have the both of you, and can finally return the favor...Oh, and those three little deputies you put outside, they're next. I hope they enjoyed their coffee," He finished with a sadistic grin.

"Dalis, what the hell are you talking about?" Our response was simultaneous. Neither Amy nor I apparently had a clue what the hell Dalis was talking about.

As Dalis turned toward me, the look in his eyes was enough to turn my blood cold. It was that feral look that I had seen before, in the eyes of mission driven fundamentalists...the kind that the only way to stop them from killing you, and all of your close friends, was to put a bullet between their running lights. And even that was never a guarantee.

And suddenly he backed off, that feral look softening, but not disappearing. Still wary, he leaned against the exam table and got this far away, wistful look in his eyes.

"Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, in a town not too far from where we are now, there was a small, happy family. There is a mother and father, still caring for each other and two children, both boys. Now these boys grew up together and were inseparable, roughhousing like all boys should and fighting to best the other in all manner of challenges. The parents, like all good parents still doted on both children, taking trips every summer to different locations to introduce their children to new people, new friends and new places. One summer, when the younger boy was fourteen, this family took the trip to New London, and Thompson State Park."

Somehow I knew something was going to happen. He was describing his childhood. This little trip, this happenstance, was the cause of all of this bottled up anger? I almost started to interrupt Dalis when his glare returned and cut me short.

"Now, these boys were just getting used to their puberty, so they spent plenty of time in town, trying to attract the attention of the fairer sex. One, in particular kept drawing them to her, but she just looked through them, lost in her own world as if she just wanted to be alone for her entire life. Challenging, but doable, prey, or so the boys thought. Every approach the boys made, however, was rebuffed easily.

Meanwhile, the boys spent their nights playing in the woods, still competing against each other. Until that fateful night where the competition ended...and only one left the woods.

The boys were trapped and taken captive, their captors treating them as wild animals, caging them and feeding them nothing but rotting meat. All the while, a massive pyre was being built, gasoline liberally being added to the ever-growing stack of wood. The fear growing in the boys was palpable, and exciting their captors.

Meanwhile elsewhere, the boys' parents were getting worried. They had neither seen nor heard from their children for a day...far too long. While the father went out to look for the two boys, the mother goes to try and find the park ranger. Your father, Mike. He's the one that's supposed to protect everyone and everything in this park. Don't think he wasn't aware of what Amy truly was.

And it came back to bite him. Literally, but I'm getting ahead of myself."

The look of shock on my face was apparently enough for Amy to glance away, hiding some inner guilt that she couldn't unconsciously evade. Damn, and I thought we had been truthful to each other...or at least I thought she had been truthful to me. Sadly, I realized that I still had my own skeletons stuck in that closet that I needed to let out. It was getting a little cramped in there with all of them jockeying for space.

"The mother ran to the park ranger's home, only to find it dark and empty. The man had taken vacation, taken time to get over the fact that his son had completely cut off ties with his family, and with everyone who had ever known him. The new ranger was not going to be there until the next morning, so the family was on their own.

The father, however, managed to find his sons...albeit too late. The first son had already been placed on the pyre, the smell of burning flesh and hair filling the night as his screams rent the night sky. The second, younger boy was still there, trussed to a pole, ready to be tossed into the bonfire like a child would throw a Styrofoam cup in to watch it melt. The attitude around him was one of merriment and laughter as the screams echoed through the night. A couple of the captors even played with tossing knives at the burning child.

The end result of the father's meeting with this group was bloody, no doubt. In the end, all but a handful of those captors were lying on the ground, blood pooling out of their lifeless corpses. The father untied the younger boy, telling him to rush off to the campsite, and then to go to town, to get help. As the boy left, he heard a booming voice pierce the wilderness.

'Go no further, murderer. Explain yourself.'

The boy stopped just far enough in the woods not to be seen or sensed as a small pack of Lycans came out of the woods. The male leading the group was powerful and proud, a thick pelt of brown fur covering his powerful body. The two females with him were smaller, but no less imposing, one with a cream colored coat and the smallest wearing a mixture of the two larger beasts.

The boy was amazed. From what he saw, there's no way these creatures could not tell what had happened. The pungent smell of burnt flesh and hair was apparent even to the boy's weak nostrils. For these canines, they had to be able to tell what had happened.

The father explained that his son had been killed and attacked. He had found the captors and exacted vengeance, and needed the help of these lycans to find the other killers. The response was not what he expected.

The male leapt forward, trying to pin the boy's father under his own body. As the man fought back, inflicting his own injuries on the monstrous beast atop him, the other two beasts tore into him as well. The last sight of his father that the boy saw was the sight of the small, brown and cream Lycan with her jaws about his father's throat, blood staining the muzzle as she ripped and tore.

The boy ran and never looked back. He managed to escape, running back to the campsite, only to find the body of his mother splayed across the campsite, peppered with silver buckshot and bullets piercing her body. Her unseeing eyes told him all he needed to know. There was evil in the world, and, rules be damned, he needed to end it.

The boy managed to get away, forging a new identity and becoming a completely different man...but he never forgot that horrid night in the woods of New Hampshire."

Dalis turned to look at me, loosening the tie around his neck and removing his sidearm and leather belt. I looked at him quizzically, the story ringing through my head, facts not all adding up, when he decided to finalize the story.

"And imagine my surprise when I found that this bitch had been found red handed, so to speak, with a bloody, chewed victim and another missing. And this is why my parents were killed. The shear hypocrisy is enough to sign her death warrant.

So I waited and bided my time. A few suggestions here and there and lo and behold, I manage to make myself a leader to the very group that destroyed my own family years before. A few well placed suggestions and a plan starts to build that will bring all of my targets together and end them all at once...once and for all."

The pieces all suddenly came together in my mind...oh crap.

"Dalis, I'm sorry for your parents. Really, I am, but you don't need to do this, we can go through this the right way without anymore death. Please stay in control of yourself and let Amy at least try and explain."

Dalis turned and looked at me, death gleaming in his eyes. Yeah, my fears were right.

From those amber eyes, I saw the pure hatred and anger that this creature was radiating right now.

"No more talk."

The room was filled with the cracking of stretching bones and the popping of joints dislocating. Starting with Dalis' face, I saw the mouth and nose merge, pushing out into a canine, or rather Lycan muzzle, quickly filling with sharp teeth, teeth designed for rending flesh. I had the feeling that we were going to die the same way that Dalis's parents died. The dark black fur that quickly filled over the creatures face was as dark as the black recess to which the carefree child that Dalis had, at one time, been had been banished, never to again see the light of day. His ears quickly drew to a point and migrated to the top of his now furry head.

Meanwhile, I could hear the stretching and complaining of fabric as Dalis' body tortured it to its breaking point. The white button down and black slacks that Dalis had been wearing simply disintegrated, revealing a much larger and more muscled body than could have logically been contained under that tailored suit, all of it covered in that same black fur. As the transformation completed, Dalis seemed to gain a few inches of height as his stance transferred from a plantigrade human stance to the digitigrades method common to the Lycans. From the tip of his muzzle filled with sharp, deadly teeth to the ends of the powerful black claws adorning his foot-paws Dalis was now designed to be a hunter. Ok. Plan D...Or is it E by now? At best, I was dead. My only hope was that Amy could get out, maybe.

"Dalis." The massive beast turned to look at me. "Your parents were killed without honor. And you say that I am the cause of their death. I ran away from my problems, I admit that. I didn't mean to hurt you, but I did. May I at least ask for a last request?"

"And why should I honor that?"

"Your parents were killed without honor, without dignity. You honor your father for going out fighting, but your captors did not give your brother that same courtesy, nor your mother. And your father was not given the chance of a fair fight given the odds were three to one. All I ask is that you prove that you are the better man and do not stoop to their level. Uncuff me and let me fight for my life...and for Amy."

"And why do you want to protect this bitch. She killed your parents."

"I cannot believe that, but even if she did, I don't blame her, but those who put my parents in that position. I have lied to her too many times and caused her too many problems. I owe her at least one positive memory of myself if we are to die today."

The monstrous beast before me actually appeared moved by my request. He picked up a keychain in a massive paw and flung it at me.

"I am not without honor, but, to be honest, a good fight is always more fun than just ripping the throat out of bound prey." His lips were pulling back in a fearsome canine smile as he said this. "The hotter the blood, the tastier."

Uncuffing myself, I stood up and readied myself for my death. I may have had a lot more training in hand to hand than this beast did, but he was built for this...and it sounded like he had practice. Sneaking a look at Amy, I saw tears streaking down her face as she silently sobbed, before she hid her face in her hands realizing that this may be the last time that she would see me whole.

God help me.

Suddenly Dalis charged at me, and the fight began in earnest. As his inhuman form charged at me, I dodged to the right, my shoulder hitting the ground as I threw myself out of the way, twisting my way behind him. The only way I had a chance was if I could stay behind him and find some weapon to take advantage of.

From behind him, I threw myself at him, hoping maybe to grapple him from behind to secure his arms. Maybe that way I could get a little bit of time. Feeling his heavy pelt against my exposed arms and face, I locked my arms across his heavy biceps, grappling him from behind and somehow managing to have just enough strength and leverage to lock those fearsome arms. The beast let out a fearsome bellow as he lifted my body, clinging to his chest just off the floor as it thrashed about, trying to free me.

"Let me go dammit!" Dalis growled as he thrashed about, finally rushing backwards into that steel examining table smack in the center of the room. The sharp, searing pain as the edge of that table rammed into the small of my back made me gasp in pain and lose my grip on him as I felt the table actually move, and its contents clatter to the floor.

He pulled forward, leaving me slumped against the table as I tried to get my bearings. Recovering after a second, I tried to stand and get myself on the other side of the table, but that second of recovery was just one too many.

Again, I found myself lifted off the ground by my neck by one of these Lycans, but looking into Dalis' eyes, feeling his rank, canid breath washing over me and inhaling the coppery scent of blood emanating from him, I could see no trace of the humanity which supposedly resided inside. Even David's cold stare, all those weeks ago, had had some searching humanity...some spark that I hadn't recognized as being there...Now as I looked at Dalis, his inhuman visage twisting in my mind as the burning hatred and bloodlust in his eyes were supplanted by the gaping, carnivorous maw which had just opened up and was aiming for my throat.

Acting purely on reflex, I brought a knee into Dalis's exposed junk, feeling it make a solid impact, while simultaneously driving both my hands into his flanks. The quick exhalation and momentary sense of falling told me that I was free for the moment, although I knew that he was going to be pissed. I needed to get a little more distance for a new plan.

Catching my fall with a hand on the exam table, I scurried to the opposite side of the table as Dalis quickly recovered. Now that I was here, what were my options? The only one that came to mind was to just run away from Dalis, but I knew that wouldn't work. Curly across the table may be pissed, but not stupid. I had no weapons on hand and there wasn't anything that I could do to try and fight this beast. I was dead, but I had a moment.

A bellow from across the table and a heavy, painful thud against my chest announced Dalis' arrival on my side of the table. I felt my already complaining back strike the floor as my left are went across my chest and my right splayed out beside me. A sharp pain in my leg told me that my semi-healed wound had probably opened up again from all the motion, but that was the least of my worries right now.

I saw Dalis' monstrous visage, a seemingly unending maw of teeth starting to fill my vision as he aimed for my throat again. I knew enough to understand that if he got those teeth into my throat, I was done. Automatically, my left hand went for Dalis' throat as my right brushed against a piece of hard plastic...a piece of plastic that I was intimately familiar with and that was now my only hope.

Dalis' head shifted its target, and I felt his teeth entering the soft flesh and muscle of my bicep as he shook his head angrily, rending and tearing flesh from the bone. The searing pain ran through me, but I focused all of my attention to my right hand, feeling it lose on that narrow plastic handle. Dalis's attention suddenly returned to my throat as he tried to again go for the kill, eyes glazed in a fearsome bloodlust for the life of the one upon whom he blamed all of the hardships of his life.

As I felt Dalis' jaws brush my neck, my right hand finally made contact with the beast's massive chest. The large bladed hunting knife wasn't the greatest close combat tool, but as a last ditch weapon, it did what it had to do. Jamming the blade into the beast's massive chest until the hilt was almost in contact with the beast's pelt and sharply twisting the blade, trying to maximize the size of the wound, hoping I had struck something vital.

The bellow from Dalis nearly deafened me. The loud, bellow quickly turned into a long, crying howl as Dalis felt the life draining from his body. Dalis again came for my neck, but I was ready for him, left hand weakly grabbing his throat, and, surprisingly, being able to stop his maw just an inch from my neck. With my right, I pulled the knife from the beast's chest, feeling hot blood gushing over me, covering my shirt. My right arm slashed the knife, catching Dalis in the neck, creating another cascade of blood across my body. Feeling Dalis weakening and becoming heavier as he became more and more dead weight, I rolled him off of me.

That glassy look in his eyes told me that he was dying. Feeling sorry for the man, I took my blood stained shirt off, pressing it against the chest wound, trying to at least staunch the bleeding a bit to hopefully give him a chance, my inner angel finally clawing back to my shoulder after years of abuse, neglect and abandonment.

The ragged breathing of the beast, however, soon ebbed and Dalis' glassy eyes completely lost their focus as he breathed out his last words.

"Father...You...Avenged..."

With that, the body went completely slack, eyes no longer responding and blood just slowly dribbling from the wounds. He was dead.

I shouldn't have been hit as hard as I was, silently kneeling next to the body of this monster, someone who had killed tens at the very least, but who had seen fit to terrorize an entire region, all in order to get back at two people. I still had a nagging feeling in my chest that this wasn't over, but...at least for Dalis, it was.

The body before me, could no longer look just like a monster. It was the body of a man consumed. A man who saw his entire life uprooted and destroyed, who went from having a royal flush in his hands to absolutely nothing. The sheer power of being so utterly destroyed will destroy a man, and it made the young carefree child that was the Dalis of his youth into a heartless monster of revenge.

Standing silently, I grabbed a dressing and wrap from the Kevlar vest on the floor behind the exam table, using them to dress the wound on my left arm, a wound that, surprisingly, wasn't bleeding very hard, but which would take a while to heal, nonetheless. Seeing no other damage, I grabbed my utility knife from the floor where it had scattered and went to Amy.

The tears falling from her face were proof enough that she was just as moved by this as I was, and I moved behind her, slicing through the wire and plastic cuffs holding her captive. As soon as her hands were free, we simply embraced, burying her face in my shoulder as she wept. I was stunned into silence as I helped her to her feet. Grabbing the rifle, Amy and I staggered toward the door until Amy stopped me, eyes red from crying, but looking as resolute as ever.

"Mike, before we leave, let me be straight with you. I did not do anything to your father, and your mother asked me to end her life. I wish I hadn't had to do what I did, but she was already dead. Please forgive me."

"Amy, you didn't need to tell me. I knew. I grew up with you...I can't see you being bloodthirsty enough to hurt anyone. I've read the letters, felt the sadness that you put into them. We all have this little germ of evil within us. Dalis let his grow and take him over, transforming him from man to beast. I know that there is a lot that you want to explain, but let's wait."

"No, Mike, I can't. There's something that Dalis didn't tell you. His father had gone completely feral when we found him. We saw bodies ripped apart, the wolf reveling in the slaughter. The final straw was that Dalis' father didn't ask us to help find these men and stop them, but to 'devour them'. He was a danger to everyone, so we tried to stop him...but...he nearly killed my parents as he tried to escape them. That's why I killed him; he was a wild dog and would have destroyed us if I hadn't.

He still succeeded. That beast is the one who finally killed my mother. She survived the fight, but the wounds destroyed her, and the sights and smells of that battle destroyed her sense of worth. The suicide just shattered my family, and those letters were the only way I could try and make sense of everything. I just couldn't figure out how to tell you the truth."

I couldn't help but feel sorry for her. All of her life she had been hiding a secret, one that cut her off from much of society, and of all the people she trusted, I was the one she had cared for and she couldn't share herself with me. And on top of all this, I abandoned her at her time of need.

Not knowing the words to properly explain or defend myself, I just embraced her closer to me as she leaned on my shoulder for support.

We walked out of that decrepit lab as the dark sky embraced the world. As we walked out of the lab, I just hoped that we could get some answers and closure from that farmhouse. Dalis had used these werewolf killers, but why...and his final words still haunted me. Why had Dalis "avenged" his father? Something just wasn't sitting right...not right at all.

"You're hurt, why?" Amy was apparently a little confused. She was there, wasn't she?

"Dalis bit me. Don't worry, it's not bleeding right now and I'll get it looked at."

At this, Amy started, turning to me, eyes open wide and unseeing. "He what? Oh crap, that's not good."

"Why?" I started, "It's not like..."

My sentence was interrupted by a brilliant flash of light coming from the North, the bright orange luminescence piercing the night and erupting into a rolling fireball quickly climbing over the treeline.

Finally everything fell into line, jarring my mind as if the clutch had finally kicked in and dumped it from neutral into third gear.

"Oh Crap, the farmhouse."

A/N Please Read and Review.