Ravenous (2 page)

Fargo did not hesitate, because he had no time to hesitate. He lifted the gun and aimed at the man's chest and squeezed the trigger.

The gun's explosion of sound slammed against the walls of the corridor.

There was a blossom of red on his chest, and a much bigger splash of it behind him, caused by the bullet's gory exit.

The man was knocked over. He fell on his back on the floor and lay there for a moment. Then he laughed as he sat up. He was smiling, but it was barely recognizable as a smile because of the crackling, popping changes in his face.

The smile disappeared.

A hairy hand went to the man's chest. Then he made a horrible retching sound as his eyes widened with horrified realization. Red blisters began to rise all over his face. He screamed in pain as he fell over on his side and curled into the fetal position. His scream was something other than a scream, though, because of the changes in his voice. The blisters popped and fluid ran from them as more blisters rose in their place. He opened his mouth and vomited blood.

He was dying a horrible death.

With one of them out of commission, Fargo hurried into the room to find the other two, especially Arnold Lutz. It was a dark, dingy room with a bed against the wall to the left, a lamp shining beside it, a sink straight ahead, and an open door to the right. Fargo assumed that would lead to a bathroom, but instead, it led into the next hotel room, 206.

He was tackled from the right and taken down, but he held tightly to the gun. As he scrambled to get up, all he saw were claws and fangs. He was clawed badly in the face and on the throat again and again, then head-butted in the solar plexus, which knocked the wind from him and sent him falling over onto his back.

There was a moment of utter silence and calm, like being in the eye of a hurricane. Fargo was half-blinded by the blood that ran into his eyes. Two things happened at once—first, the creature dove into the air, up and over Fargo, about to land on him, and second, Fargo remembered he was holding the gun.

The dark figure seemed suspended in midair for just an instant, and Fargo took advantage of it. He lifted the gun, elbow locked, and fired.

The bullet went into the creature's flat belly.

Then the creature landed on top of Fargo.

During the time it took for the creature to begin to die, it tore and bit at Fargo. Its claws slashed across his face and he lost the sight in his right eye as searing pain exploded in his eye socket. He did not know it, but his right eye dangled out of its socket on his scarred cheek.

Sharp claws sunk into the right side of his neck, into his ribcage, then, worst of all, it closed its jaws high up on Fargo's right thigh, in the area of the hip. The teeth ground into him mercilessly and Fargo cried out in pain. The creature tore a large chunk of flesh and muscle from Fargo's hip and he felt it rip away, and the pain was overwhelming.

Fargo passed out.

While he was unconscious, the creature used its last moments to further maul him. But it did not have long ... not long at all ...
 

 

 

 

1

 

Attack

 

 

Tuesday

 

Emily Crane had lost another four pounds, bringing her total weight loss to sixteen pounds, and she felt good about it. Of course, she still had a long way to go—her goal was to lose eighty-five pounds—but she tried not to think that way. It was a day-to-day process, a one-day-at-a-time endeavor. As soon as she started thinking about how much she had left to lose, it became overwhelming and she became discouraged, and when she became discouraged, she wanted to eat.

She was returning home from her T.O.P.S. meeting. T.O.P.S.—Take Off Pounds Sensibly—was a weight loss support group she met with every Tuesday night. On that particular Tuesday night, she had left the meeting early, right after the weigh-in, because she had a splitting headache. All she wanted to do was go home, take some aspirin, and sink into a hot bubble bath.

That was not entirely true, that was not really
all
she wanted to do. What Emily
really
wanted to do was stop at the Carl's Jr. on the way home and get a Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger.

T.O.P.S. met in the neighboring town of Seaside, and Emily lived sixteen miles south in Big Rock. It was an inconvenience to drive over to Seaside every Tuesday, but it was worth it to her. She needed desperately to lose weight, and she could not do it on her own. She needed the kind of support she couldn't get from anyone but other women struggling with their weight. Hugh tried to help, but she knew his heart was not in it. Hugh's heart was not in much of anything lately—that was why she wanted so badly to lose a total of eighty-five pounds.

They had not made love in over a year—close to a year and a half now. It made Emily sad to think about it, made a knot form in her chest, a soggy, thick knot, and her throat burned with gathering tears. They used to have so much fun together in bed. They'd been married for twelve years, and for most of those years, everything had been perfect, especially in the bedroom. But three kids and a lot of afternoon snacking later, Emily had packed on the pounds, and the incidents of lovemaking had grown farther and farther apart. She gave Hugh credit for one thing—not once had he ever mentioned her weight gain. He did not criticize her for it, or make snide remarks about it, not even when they fought. Emily knew other women at T.O.P.S. whose husbands were cruel about their weight, husbands who publicly ridiculed their wives, humiliating them and hurting them so badly that they only wanted to eat more—a vicious circle. But not Hugh. Instead, he'd simply become less and less affectionate. Hugs and kisses became more scarce, and it had been a long time since he'd affectionately grabbed her ass or tickled her or playfully squeezed her breasts. She missed those little things, and she was determined to get them back.

Overall, it had been a good marriage, even though much of the life had gone out of it in recent years, mostly due to her laziness and her weight gain. She spent her days at home with Jeannie, their youngest at three. Donald, six, and Annie, eight, got home from school in the afternoon. Emily spent most of that time on the couch, eating while she watched old movies on television, and while Jeannie puttered and played around the room with her. There were days when she did not lift a finger to do any housework, and as a result, her once immaculate home looked dusty, cluttered, and a little
too
lived-in. Sometimes, Emily missed the early years of their marriage, when it had been just the two of them, herself and Hugh. Back when she was still a slender one hundred and nine pounds. She'd had a great body back then: Petite and compact; full chestnut hair that cascaded past her shoulders; clear, large brown eyes. Now her eyes seemed to have shrunk—her round fleshy cheeks had given them a piggy look that she hated. She had no illusions, she knew she would never be that svelte one hundred and nine again. But she planned to slim down to some semblance of her former self, for Hugh if for no other reason. Of course, she sometimes wondered what she would do if she met her weight-loss goal, and Hugh still had no interest in her. Had he fallen out of love with her? He was still considerate and treated her well—he left little notes for her on the fridge, and every once in awhile, he brought her flowers for no reason at all. Emily took comfort in that, and clung to the hope that, once she'd slimmed down, things would go back to normal and they would have a sex life again.

Clouds obscured the moon, and the night was dark and misty. It had been raining since Christmas—about three weeks straight—with no end in sight. Emily drove along Seaside Trail, a two-lane road flanked by lush woods on both sides. Fat-trunked redwoods towered overhead, and to her right, it was possible to catch glimpses of the ocean in the occasional gaps in the strip of woods during the day. Mixed in with the occasional patches of towering redwoods were scattered Douglas-firs, bay laurels, and a few spruce trees along the edge of the road. Below them, thick green ferns and other foliage carpeted the mossy woods. But none of that was visible in the dark of the misty night—it was, instead, sensed. She could feel the thick woods around her.

Emily reached up and rubbed her right temple with two stiff fingers, traced small circles over it, pushing hard. The headache was only on the right side of her head, behind her eye.

She was in the middle of a yawn when a
ding
from the dashboard made her look down at the lights. The “check engine” light was blinking.

The engine died.

Her power steering died with it, and she had to struggle with the wheel to pull her metallic green Volkswagen Jetta onto the shoulder to the right. Gravel crunched under her tires as she brought the car to a stop.

“Shit,” she said.

She turned the key in the ignition to start the car again, but nothing happened—the engine did not make a sound.

“Oh,
shit
,” she said, her voice higher, more shrill. On the verge of tears, she took in a deep breath to steady herself, let it out slowly. She pounded a fist on the steering wheel once, then reached over to the passenger seat for her purse. She reached up and turned on the light above the rearview mirror, then unzipped her purse and plunged her hand in, groped around for a moment, then found her cell phone. She flipped it open, pushed the button with her thumb to turn it on, then put it to her ear. The phone beeped three times, and she heard no dial tone.

“Oh, no!” she shouted.

The cell phone's battery was dead.

“I
knew
that, dammit!” she said. She'd been meaning to recharge the phone, but she used it so seldom that it had slipped her mind. With a lugubrious sigh, she threw the phone into her purse, then sat there for a long moment, staring out the windshield at the beams of her headlights, which melted into the misty, murky darkness up ahead. She killed the lights.

A car drove by going the same direction she'd been going, and a couple of minutes later, another came the opposite way. She turned on her emergency blinkers.

Tears stung Emily's eyes. She sniffled, but tried to hold back the crying. She took in a deep breath and said, “I'm screwed.”

She was getting out of the car when she heard it, and it made her freeze where she stood, in the open door of the car, made gooseflesh crawl over her shoulders. It had come from the woods to her right and had been very distinct—a howl. She frowned. It had to be a dog, that was the only explanation—but it had not sounded like the howl of a dog. Not really. Not at
all
. It was a full sound, but piercing, a resonant cry. A chill trickled down her back like ice water.

Emily got the long, heavy Mag-Lite from the backseat. She leaned in, popped the hood, then closed the door. She went to the front of the car and shone the light onto the engine. Gravel on the shoulder crunched beneath her feet, and the Jetta's emergency lights blinked on and off with a soft clicking sound.

She laughed coldly and muttered, “What am I doing?” She knew nothing about cars and had absolutely no idea what might be wrong with the Jetta. Even Hugh's knowledge of cars was limited. They relied on Phil at the Volkswagen dealership in Eureka when something went wrong with the Jetta.

Facing the front of the car, Emily pulled her denim jacket together in front—it was shudderingly cold.

Something moved in the bushes to her left, the same side from which the frightening howl had come, and she took a step back from the car and turned the flashlight on the woods. The bright beam pierced the darkness and passed over some heavy ferns and thick tree trunks. The night smelled of the sea, and in the overwhelming silence, she could hear the whisper of the surf beyond the strip of woods.

As she lowered the light, he rushed out of the woods, tattered clothes dangling all around him, a shadow that quickly took on features—wide silver eyes that weren't right, somehow, they were
wrong
—

No, that can't be,
she thought.

—and then he was on her.

Emily shifted into a murky, dream-like state as he grabbed her arms and his fingernails dug deeply into her flesh, piercing her denim jacket and her blouse and her skin. He reeked of filth and the stench of him clogged Emily's nostrils.

He spun around, dragging her with him, and threw her into the ditch. She landed on her side and rolled halfway up the ditch's other side. Pain exploded in her ribs as she landed on a large rock. She fell still in a puddle and cold water shocked her through her clothes. She dropped the flashlight, which sent its beam this-way-and-that as it rolled back and forth in the ditch's water. For a moment, he was gone—

—then he was on her again, and she heard him growl as he tore at her clothing, ripping it loudly. She managed to scream as cold air touched the bare, wet parts of her body exposed by her attacker. Emily kicked her legs and flailed her arms, but when she tried to scream again, it caught in her suddenly dry throat like ground glass and remained lodged there.

He continued to make low growling sounds in his throat, and something warm and wet spattered her face. It was spittle—he was slobbering on her as he growled, a sound punctuated by the
clack-clack-clack
of his jaws snapping shut repeatedly.

The flashlight, in its final rolls back and forth just above her head in the ditch, passed its beam over his face, giving her a glimpse, just a glimpse, but it was more than she needed—his face would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life. The face simply was not ... right. It was wrong in some way she could not yet define, in some way that her brain refused to process.

Long stringy dark hair, with silver eyes—they were eyes that did not look human, like the rest of his long face.

That was it—his face was too long, too narrow, somehow misshapen.

More ripping as her clothes were torn from her body. Then she felt his fingers under her panties, and he tore through the panties with his sharp black claws, ripped them off of her and touched her most private place.