John Saul (36 page)

“Get a pan to catch the drip, Alison,” MaryAnne told her daughter. “I’ll go see if I can find out where it’s coming from.” Trying to picture which room was above the den, MaryAnne ran up the stairs, then instantly knew.

The children’s bathroom!

Though its door was closed, she could see a dark water stain spreading across the carpet. She dashed down the hall, calling out her godson’s name. “Joey? Joey!”

There was no answer. She knocked loudly on the door. “Joey? What’s going on in there!” She tried to turn the doorknob, found it was locked, and banged on the door once again.

“Joey! Answer me!”

She could hear water running now, the sound of a steady stream pouring into the bathtub, which obviously had begun overflowing.

Why didn’t Joey answer her?

Suddenly she had a vision of him, lying in the bathtub, his head under the water, his skin the horrible gray of death.

Could he have slipped? Lost his footing, his head banging against the hard edge of the porcelain tub as he fell?

But he would have yelled, wouldn’t he? Surely they would have heard him, even with the storm raging outside!

Then she saw another vision of him, this time as she’d found him early this morning, wrapped in the bearskin, huddled on the edge of the cliff from which Audrey had fallen.

His arms wrapped around his legs, staring mournfully over the abyss almost as if he wished—

Oh, God! No!

“Alison!” she screamed. “Logan! Come and help me!”

She tried to twist the knob again, willing it to turn in her hand, but it held fast. As she heard her children pounding up the stairs in response to her cry, she slammed her weight against the door. The wood of the frame creaked, but held.

“Mom? What’s wrong?” Alison asked as she raced down the hall.

“The door’s locked,” MaryAnne cried, her voice rising toward hysteria. “Joey’s locked himself inside, and the tub’s running, and he won’t answer me, and—”

“I’ll get the axe!” Logan yelled. He raced down the stairs, coming back a moment later with the small hatchet that stood on the hearth, ready to be used for splitting extra kindling. Her fear for Joey far outweighing her reluctance to ruin the door, MaryAnne snatched the tool out of Logan’s hands and swung it at the door. The blade sunk deep into one of the panels, sticking tight, but MaryAnne twisted it free, then lashed out again. On the third blow the panel finally split, then shattered. MaryAnne reached through the smashed plank, fumbled for a moment, then found the inside knob, giving it a quick twist. The lock clicked and the door swung open, releasing a blast of icy air into the hall.

With Alison and Logan pushing in behind her, MaryAnne stared at the overflowing tub.

Joey wasn’t in it. He wasn’t in it!

Relief energizing her, she bent down and spun the water valves, cutting off the flow into the tub, then reached down into the cold water and pulled the plug out of the drain.

Cold water?

Why would he have—

The thought unfinished, she looked up at the open window, shivering as more wind-driven snow blew in. “His room, Alison,” she commanded. “See if he’s there! Now!”

As Alison turned to dash down the hall to Joey’s room, MaryAnne leaned forward over the tub, struggling to pull the window closed, but her awkward position made it impossible, and the window held fast. Then Alison was back.

“He’s not there, Mom! His clothes are all piled up on the floor, but he’s gone.”

MaryAnne felt a wave of panic rising in her once again, and as she glanced frantically around the little room, her
eyes fell on Joey’s bathrobe, still hanging on a hook on the back of the bathroom door.

No!

It was impossible! He couldn’t have climbed out of the window stark naked, with a blizzard howling outside! Was he crazy? As the water continued to swirl down the drain, she leaned toward the window once again, though even as she tried to peer out into the blinding snowstorm, she knew it was useless. If he’d been gone long enough for the bathtub to overflow, then wherever he was, he wouldn’t be close enough to the house for her still to see him.

Racing down the stairs, MaryAnne ran to the front door, pulled it open and stepped out onto the porch.

“Joey!” she called, straining her voice to make herself heard over the howling wind. “Joey, where are you? Come back!” She was about to leave the porch, instinctively wanting to go out into the storm to find Joey, when she heard Alison shouting at her from the hall.

“Mom! What are you doing?”

Distraught, MaryAnne turned to stare at her daughter. Though she was only a few yards from the porch, she could barely see Alison. “Mom, come back!” Alison wailed. “You’ll get lost out there! You’ll freeze to death!”

MaryAnne hesitated, torn between her need to go after Joey and her certainty that Alison was right. Only a few more yards and the house would disappear into the snow, and she could wander around for hours, never finding it again.

A feeling of hopelessness washed over her. Choking back a sob of despair, she lurched back to the porch.

“What’s wrong with Joey, Mom?” Alison asked as MaryAnne came back into the house, closing the door behind her. When she spoke again, her voice trembled with fear. “Are the kids at school right? Is he crazy?”

MaryAnne leaned against the door, trying to gather her wits, to think what to do next. The police—she had to call the police.

Ignoring Alison’s question, she ran to the den and picked up the phone, stabbing the three emergency digits into the keypad.

It wasn’t until she’d finished dialing that she realized that no sound at all was coming out of the telephone’s receiver.

Now Joey was gone, and the phone was dead.

The man moved through the blizzard with the instincts of an animal, so familiar with the woods, so used to moving in darkness, that even the storm barely hindered his progress. He’d left the injured wolf in the protection of the cleft, certain that even if he didn’t return for her, she would survive. Her wound was clean, and within a day she would be back on her feet, limping badly, but still able to feed herself. Satisfied that she was safe, he moved steadily downward, angling across the flank of the mountain to Coyote Creek. It had been even easier after he’d come to the stream. All he had to do was follow its course, a route he’d taken often in his years of patrolling the territory he’d subconsciously staked out as his own.

The route he’d been on the night the camper had died, when the irresistible urge to attack had come upon him under the moon. He’d tried to resist it, tried to pull away from the campground, but instead he’d lurked in the shadows, staying as far as he could from the light of the campfire, watching the two people as they cuddled by their fire.

Cuddled and snuggled together in a way that was only a dim memory for the man, and a memory that he had long known was never to be relived. He was alone, and would be alone the rest of his life.

Alone.

Alone, with nothing but a wolf for company.

How had the animal known him? How had she recognized him so many years ago, when he himself had not yet understood what was happening to him?

Was the smell already on him?

Had the smell of the wild—the feral odor of the beast that was even then growing inside him—already begun seeping through the pores of his skin?

Was that how she had known she had nothing to fear from him?

She’d crouched beside him that night in the campground, silently watching with him, silently sharing his struggle as
he tried to pull himself away into the woods, to leave the man and woman alone in one another’s company.

He’d failed, for the urge to hunt had been strong within him.

So strong as to be irresistible.

And at last, giving in to the urge, he’d struck.

The tent had torn apart like tissue paper in his hands, and the man himself …

He shut the thought out, wishing he could blot what he’d done from his memory, but knowing he couldn’t.

It would haunt him, torture him, until finally he died.

Not long.

But not yet.

Not until he’d talked to Joey one more time.

He passed swiftly through the campground and moved on down the stream until it spilled out of the mountains into the valley floor, its water slowing as it drifted gently along its winding course.

It was beautiful in the gray light of the afternoon, a silver cut through the mounding snow driven by the wind, every branch of the trees along its banks laden with sparkling crystals.

No tracks showed in the freshly fallen snow, for even the forest animals had hidden themselves away from the force of the storm. When it passed on, and the air was still again, they would creep out of their holes, scampering across the fluffy white surface, leaving deep tracks, trails so clear that any predator could stalk them easily.

He turned away from the stream at last, slipping through the trees toward the house. Only forty yards away, it was totally masked by the swirling snow.

He was still twenty yards from the building when he heard the cry from the house.

“
Joey! Joey, where are you? Come back!
”

He broke into a trot, moving toward the sound, and finally the outline of the house took shape, lights glowing in the windows, the front door open.

He paused, still concealed by blowing flakes, unwilling to move close enough to risk being seen.

He watched as MaryAnne Carpenter lurched back to the
shelter of the house, helpless against the force of the storm. As the front door closed, he understood what had happened.

Somewhere in the gloom of the afternoon, Joey was searching for him.

The man crouched low, his senses alert, his body tense as he searched for some hint of where the boy might be. At last he began moving again, circling the house slowly, staying just far enough away to conceal himself from anyone who might be watching from within. Finally he came around to the yard between the house and the field, and the barn loomed ahead of him.

The barn, with one door ajar, held open by the drifting snow.

Knowing now where Joey was, the man silently loped across the yard with animal grace and slipped through the space provided by the open door.

His eyes adjusted instantly to the dim light. In their stalls, the three horses backed away from the half doors that separated them from the wide aisle down the center of the barn, instinctively wanting to distance themselves from the being that had just invaded their domain. As Buck and Fritz whinnied nervously, Sheika reared up, snorting, her forehooves striking out at the danger she sensed.

The man ignored the horses as his nose picked up a scent drifting down from the hayloft.

Joey.

He moved forward silently, mounted the ladder, and a moment later was in the loft. Crouched by the doors at the end of the loft, Joey was nestled deep in the hay, his knees pulled up to his chest, his arms wrapped around his legs. As the man approached, the boy looked up, his head cocked, his eyes frightened.

The man dropped down next to him, reaching out with his gnarled hand, touching Joey’s cheek, just as he had this morning when Joey had come to him in the woods near the cabin.

“Don’t be frightened, Joey,” he said, his voice low. “I won’t hurt you. I’ll never hurt you.”

Joey looked up at the man, his eyes wide as he stared into the distorted face. Joey’s whole body was trembling,
though he was neither frightened of the man who crouched in front of him nor shivering from the cold in the barn. The trembling was caused by something else—his fear of the feelings inside himself, feelings boiled into turbulence by the presence of this man. “Wh-What’s wrong with me?” he asked. “Why am I like this?”

The man said nothing, fighting his urge to end Joey’s misery right now.

But he couldn’t do it, even if he was certain it would be for the best.

“It’s my fault,” the man finally whispered, the words choking in his throat. “All my fault, Joey. But I didn’t know—I swear to you I didn’t know.”

“Know what?” Joey asked. What was he talking about?

“I tried to tell them,” the man said. “I came down to talk to them, so they could help you. It should have been safe that day, Joey. The moon wasn’t up, and I was feeling good. Really good. But when I came into the barn, the horse shied—”

Suddenly Joey understood. “My dad,” he whispered. “You killed my dad!” He started to stand up, but the man’s strong fingers closed on the boy’s naked shoulder, holding him down.

“I wanted to talk to him, Joey—I wanted to tell him what was going to happen to you. I wanted him to stop hurting you, to stop the things he was doing to you.” His voice trembled, then broke. “I thought if he knew, maybe he could have helped you.”

“He hated me,” Joey whispered. “He always hated me.” His breath caught in his throat, and then, for the first time, he uttered the words he had been unable to speak to anyone else. “I was
glad
when he died!”

The man held onto Joey, forcing the boy to look directly into his eyes. “I killed that man in the campground, Joey. And I killed Bill Sikes. That’s why I’m here. I have to tell you what’s going to happen to you, Joey. It’s starting. It’s starting already. You can feel it, can’t you, Joey? The emptiness in your gut, and the tingling on your skin? Can’t you feel it, Joey? Aren’t you feeling it right now?”

Joey’s eyes widened with wonder as he heard this
strange man reciting all the things that happened to him. Almost involuntarily he nodded his head.

“It will get worse, Joey,” the man whispered. His voice was barely audible, but it carried an intensity that burned each of his words into Joey’s mind. “Soon you’ll be like me. You’ll have to hide in the woods, Joey. If anyone sees you, they’ll want to kill you. It’ll only get worse as you get older. You’ll hunt, Joey. But you won’t hunt for animals. You’ll hunt for people.”

“N-No—” Joey stammered, but the man kept talking, whispering Joey’s future relentlessly into his ear.

“You’ll start hating them, Joey. All of them. You’ll creep through the night, peering into their houses, watching them. And then you’ll start killing them.” Joey gasped, but the man went on, murmuring more to himself than to the terrified boy. “You won’t want to. You’ll try not to, but you won’t be able to stop yourself. It’s in your blood, Joey, just like it’s in mine. You’ll start changing soon. Your fingernails will turn into claws, and hair will grow all over your body. You’ll look like me, Joey. Me! Look!” Releasing Joey, he stood and ripped off his shirt, dropping it on the floor of the hayloft.