Half an hour later after coming to agreeable terms, Peter and Greg were in Renea’s car moving at a reasonable speed and following distance toward the residence of one Kinsey Fox. Greg was making a ruckus in the backseat as he prepared his weapons for battle, the clicks and pops of his equipment disrupting the otherwise silent vehicle. When Renea turned into Kinsey’s neighborhood, something occurred to Peter.

“Kinsey’s partner, what was her name? Won’t she be home, too? What do we do if she sees us? Don’t they have a dog?”

“We won’t have to go into the house,” Greg said. “If she transforms, it’ll happen at midnight, and she won’t be sitting on her couch watching TV. She’ll be driven to hunt and feed.”

“Oh,” Peter said, relieved. “Stake out, then?”

Greg grunted his agreement. Renea slowed the car and killed the lights before taking the final turn onto the street where Kinsey lived.

“Her house is that big white one,” she said, pointing ahead. “Three houses down on the right. Do we just sit in here until midnight?”

Peter checked his watch to find they had arrived only 7 minutes ahead of time. “That’s pretty much what a stake out means, dear.”

Renea rolled her eyes and punched Peter in the shoulder, which he rubbed dramatically. That shoulder had a bit of a rough day.

“You two should stay in the car, yes,” Greg said as he opened the door. “I’m going to watch from the roof. That way I’ll see if she leaves the house from any door or window. Just don’t leave the vehicle.”

Without waiting for a response, Greg smiled widely at the nervous married couple, flashed them a somewhat disturbing wink, grabbed his gear, and then closed the black sedan’s back door. The Mayhew’s exchanged a look, and then both exited the vehicle in perfect unison.

“I wonder how he’s going to get on the roof,” Peter thought aloud, now standing in front of the sedan with Renea.

They watched Greg walk casually down the sidewalk armed to the teeth, silently open the gate into Kinsey’s front yard, close it behind him, and finally disappear behind the tall shrubberies separating her property from her neighbor’s. A moment later, they watched open mouthed and wide eyed as the gigantic man scaled the side of Kinsey’s house, effortlessly reaching the three-story domicile’s roof in no more than a few seconds.

“Holy crap,” Renea said, blinking rapidly as Greg walked along the angled roof to the top, where he sat cross legged to wait.

“Right?” Peter agreed. “He’s gotta weigh, what, like 275?”

“At least.”

“That’s a lot of weight to pull. I can’t even see anything to grab onto from here. Think he just finger tipped it?”

Peter checked the time every 1 to 7 seconds, anticipation rising as midnight drew nearer. When the clock finally read 12:00AM, he found himself holding his breath and consciously released it. Greg got to his feet, now holding what looked like a short-barreled shotgun in his hands. Seconds ticked by and Peter felt his heart pounding in his chest. Thirty seconds or so came and went with no sign of a werewolf, or frankly anything else in the quiet neighborhood in the middle of the night, and Peter began to wonder if Greg had been wrong about Kinsey. And then her front door swung open with a crash.

The creature that exited Kinsey’s house was a dark, fuzzy, nightmare abomination of claws, fangs, and fury. It was hard to say for certain between the distance, darkness, and its quick jerky movements, but Peter would have guessed the werewolf - which it simply had to be - was over seven feet tall, even hunched over as it was. It ran into the street and craned its neck to howl at the full moon; the sound, a horrible, high pitched wail that sounded more like a seagull stuck in a wind turbine than the howl of a wolf. As the howl faded into the night, the werewolf sniffed at the air and then sharply turned, looking directly at Peter and Renea with drool falling from its fanged mouth.

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The Mayhews exchanged a look and then each opened their respective doors and hurried back into the relative safety of the car as the behemoth took off, heading toward them at a sprint. Behind the werewolf, Greg Van Helsing pursued, rising from the superhero pose he’d landed in. The huge man charged at an incredible speed to intercept. Renea locked the doors, though they both knew it wouldn’t help. The nightmare monster leapt into the air, soaring through the night with claws raised, and landed on the hood. Spiderweb cracks spread from the bottom of the windshield on impact and, just before the werewolf brought its hairy, muscled arm down to finish the job and pry open the front of the vehicle like a can of tuna, Greg fired his shotgun.

The werewolf howled in pain as the windshield was painted red. Peter watched in horror and relief as it jumped down from the car and galloped toward Greg. The big man fired off another three shells, each landing on his target, staggering it and opening massive wounds all over its body. He tossed the firearm casually to the ground when the beast entered melee range. Peter’s jaw dropped as he watched the large man put up his fists like someone about to begin a friendly boxing match. He sidestepped the first swing, ducked the follow up, and then circled behind the beast. Greg leaped heroically, one arm cocked back, and hammered the back of the werewolf’s head with devastating force, knocking it to the ground with an audible thump. Not wasting his moment, Greg pulled a silver stake from his belt and lunged to drive it into the werewolf’s back. Unfortunately, he appeared to have misjudged just how quick its reaction speed was.

In a whirl of fur and blood, the werewolf twisted out of the way and Greg’s stake hit only asphalt. It kicked up at him with its hind legs, sending the mountainous man into the air. To Peter’s surprise and relief, Greg somehow righted himself on the descent, landing cleanly on his feet and once again began his deadly dance with the nightmare creature - fists held up, head bobbing as he circled. Time and again Greg dodged, ducked, and side stepped attacks that became increasingly wild and desperate as the fight went on. He landed a handful of blows, but the werewolf just kept coming until, finally, its fang-filled jaws clamped onto Greg’s shoulder. Peter’s heart felt like it was going to burst right out of his chest and he opened the car door, rising to his feet and sprinting toward Greg and the werewolf, Renea shouting her fear and frustration at his back before rushing after her husband.

“Stay back!” Greg shouted, but Peter ignored him.

Under the light of the full moon, Peter Mayhew approached the dueling duo not knowing what he’d do when he arrived. The werewolf’s back was to him, Greg squeezing it around the ribs in a bear hug as it ripped its head back and forth, still latched firmly onto his shoulder. Peter saw his opening and took it. At a full sprint, he jumped and planted both feet into the side of the werewolf’s knee. The resulting crack echoed horribly in the night, more audibly traumatic than even the shotgun had been. Peter landed on his back and scrambled away as the werewolf crumpled, releasing Greg from its jaws and trying desperately to stand despite the fact that one of its knees was bent at a disgusting sideways angle, a bloody white bone protruding between hair and skin. Sensing its defeat and inevitable death, the beast crawled wildly with its three working limbs in a vain attempt to escape. Greg sprang up, stake in hand, and plunged it with all of his considerable strength through the werewolf’s back and into its heart.

It twitched on the ground, causing Peter to take a few more steps back, where he bumped into Renea, who promptly wrapped her arms around his waist. And then it was still. The night eerily quiet under the full moon as Greg, Peter, and Renea looked down at their vanquished foe, each breathing heavily.

“Holy freaking shit,” Renea said, eyes widening as the werewolf that had once been Kinsey Fox began turning to ash that flaked away with the slight breeze.

“That’s actually super convenient,” Peter commented. “I’d been wondering what you were planning to do with the body.”

The Mayhews both turned to Greg, who slumped to his knees clutching at the gaping wound between his neck and shoulder. He’d lost a lot of blood.

“We need to get you to a hospital. Now,” Renea said, pulling her phone from her pocket to dial.

“No!” Greg shouted, arm raised with his palm toward her. “No doctors. Long story. I’ll be fine. We just need to clean the wound. I heal fast.”

“Oh boy,” Peter said, realization dawning.

“What?” Renea asked, eyes wide with still-rising panic.

“Isn’t lycanthropy transmitted through bites?”

Renea’s mouth formed an o in understanding. They both turned to Greg. The big man pushed himself to his feet, a groan escaping his lips as he did.

“Van Helsing,” he said by way of explanation. “Immune. I need the vial, the red vial, in my bag. And, Peter, get the core.”

And then he fell, landing with a wet thump on the asphalt. The Mayhews exchanged panicked expressions.

“Core?” Renea asked.

Peter looked back to the quickly dispersing corpse to find that, where its heart might once have been, there was a red, softly glowing rock. He pointed. “Maybe that?”

Peter hesitantly reached into the flaking ash, wrapping his fingers around the strangely warm, pulsing surface of what he had to assume was the core that Greg wanted. He picked it up and placed it in the pocket of his gray sweatpants. And then, working together, he and Renea heaved the massive, motionless Greg Van Helsing back into the car. It was not an easy process. Without the ability to sit like a normal, conscious person, Greg had to be forced into a hilarious simile of the fetal position in the back seat.

Looking around wildly like some paranoid meth-addict, Peter jogged over to pick up Greg’s discarded shotgun and found his black leather travel bag not far from there. He slung it over one shoulder and pulled it open, rummaging around for anything vial-shaped as he hurried back to the car. He got into the front seat, finally finding the vial Greg had requested, but the man was unconscious. Unsure what else to do, Peter uncorked the vial, tilted the big man’s head back and opened his mouth, then poured the vial’s contents down the hatch. Nothing horrible happened immediately, so Peter thought he’d done the right thing. Not wanting to hang around and wait for witnesses, Peter, Renea, and the unmoving Greg high-tailed it out of the late Kinsey Fox’s quiet neighborhood in Renea’s battered, blood-covered sedan.