Ravenous (23 page)

“That's right. It stood right there in front of me in the living room. It was a wolf, but at the same time ... it wasn't any kind of wolf I've ever seen before. It was ...
huge
. Bigger than any person I'd ever seen. I don't know how tall, maybe—”

“How
tall
?” Hurley said. “You mean it was standing? Upright?”

“Yes. That's what I mean, it wasn't any kind of wolf I've ever seen before. And then it came right for me, straight through the front window. Just swiped the glass with its claws and it shattered.”

“The wolf did this.”

“Yes. It came at me, and I—hey, you don't think I know this sounds crazy?”

Hurley shrugged. “I didn't say anything.”

“Yes you did. With your tone, your eyes. You're thinking I'm crazy, or something. But I'm not going to make something up just because it might sound better. I don't know what
else
to tell you, other than what really happened.”

Hurley dropped his head, stared at his cap—tiny beads of moisture clung to the plastic that covered it. He felt a little sick to his stomach. He closed his eyes a moment and took a deep breath.

I've got one witness so far,
Hurley thought,
but what do you want to bet there will be more. They'll start pouring in anytime now, won't they? People will be calling in werewolf reports. Sightings, attacks, sightings
of
attacks. And it all lands in my lap.

It was ridiculous, of course, the whole thing—
werewolves
, for God's sake. But what worried Hurley was that the idea was starting to make a kind of sense.

“You don't believe me, do you?” Jason said. “What do you think did this to my face? What do you think bit my arm? In the Emergency Room, the doctor knew right away that I'd been bitten by some kind of dog, or something. I told him a wolf, and he said, ‘It must've been a
big
wolf,' because the bite mark was so big.
He
believed me—why can't you?”

Hurley lifted his head, stood again. “What makes you think I don't believe you? I haven't said a word. Tell me, Jason, what did it look like? In detail.”

Jason shrugged, then winced in pain, groaned quietly. “It was covered with hair. With
fur
. Brown fur. All over its body and face, on its hands, or paws ... I'm not sure what to call them, but they're long, longer than hands, and they've got curved black claws coming out of each finger. That's what cut up my face.”

“It wasn't the glass that cut you?”

Jason shook his head. “No, not at all. I jumped out of the way when the window broke. That thing, it dove for me. It came through the glass, then just kept coming through the air, as if it had jumped—like a kangaroo, or something. And it was on me, clawing me. I really don't remember much more than that.”

The rail was up on the side of Jason's bed, and Hurley put his left hand on it as he said, “Jason, please don't be insulted by this next question, because I have to ask it. Give it a moment's thought, just
think
about it a little before you answer. Okay?”

“All right.”

“Is there any chance at all—and I want you to give this some serious thought—is there any chance you hallucinated after being knocked unconscious?”

Jason slowly turned his head from side to side. “No—this was
before
I lost consciousness. I was wide awake when I saw that thing on the other side of that window. And when it came through at me.”

Jason began to tremble in his bed.

“You okay, Jason?” Hurley asked. “You want me to call a nurse?”

“No, no. Just ... the shivers. It'll pass. It happens when I think about it.”

“About what?”

“The werewolf,” Jason said, a little frustrated.

“It's a werewolf, now.”

“No, it was
always
a werewolf.”

“Then why did you keep saying ‘wolf'?”

“Because that's what it is, dammit, a wolf. But it's a
werewolf
, whether you believe it or not, whether you think I'm—”

“Calm down, Jason.” Hurley looked at the foot of the bed and saw another white blanket folded up there, unused. He reached down and pulled the extra blanket up over Jason, who continued to shiver. “Just calm down and try not to upset yourself. Take a few deep breaths.” Hurley spoke to him slowly and softly.

Jason closed his eyes and gradually stopped shivering as he breathed deeply.

“Is your hair normally white in places?” Hurley asked.

Jason opened his eyes. “No. The doctor told me about that. I guess some of my hair turned white. I'm not surprised. I've never been so scared in my life. I didn't know it was possible to be that scared and live.” He began to shiver again.

“You just calm down, now, Jason,” Hurley said. “You feeling okay? I mean, that bite, something like that can be—”

“I'm okay,” Jason said. His voice quavered, hands clutched the edge of the blanket.

“Are your parents here?”

“They left earlier. They would've stayed if they hadn't needed a drink so bad.” The trembling worsened.

“You're
sure
you're okay?”

“I ... I'm scared, Sheriff.” Jason's trembling voice dropped to a whisper as he spoke. Still whispering, he said, “Scared shitless. Because of what's going to happen to me now.”

“Happen? What's going to happen?”

Jason's eye was wide and desperate with fear as he stared at Hurley. “I've been bitten. I know what happens when they bite you.”

“When who bites you?”

“
Werewolves
! Haven't you been
listening
?”

That again,
Hurley thought. “Look, Jason, listen to me. About this, um, werewolf. I'm sure you
thought
 you saw—”

“Don't patronize me!” Jason shouted, sitting up in his bed.

“Calm down, now, Jason.”

Jason's eyes closed and he groaned in pain. He slowly sank back down on the bed. He lay there a moment, and slowly, his trembling calmed. When his eyes opened again and turned to Hurley, a tear fell from one and trickled down his cheek.

“I'm going to turn into one now,” Jason whispered.

What had Fargo said? Something about the myth being false—that victims bitten by werewolves don't become werewolves?

That's right,
Hurley thought.
He said it's sexually transmitted.
A mild shudder passed through him at the thought. When he spoke, Hurley realized his own words sounded weak, false.

“Jason, that's not possible. People don't turn
into
things. They just don't. They never have, and they never will. We're all human, Jason, you, me, all of us. We don't turn into things. And werewolves, Jason—”

... you have an infestation of werewolves ...
 

“Look, Jason, I'm not doubting what you saw, okay? But let's face it—they don't exist. Even you admitted the idea sounded crazy. You're upset right now—you've been badly hurt and frightened. But you know—if not now, you will realize it later—you know as well as I do that they don't exist, Jason.”

... infestation of werewolves ...

Hurley gave the boy a big smile. “Well, you get better, Jason. If you need anything, I want you to feel free to call me, okay?”

“Yeah.” He looked pale, with a little too much white showing in his eyes.

“You sure you're okay, Jason?” Hurley said. “You want me to call someone?”

He did not respond for some time. Then he simply said, “No.”

Hurley said, “You take care.”

He left the room, then the hospital. He got into his vehicle and just sat there awhile, hands on the wheel. His breath clouded in the air in front of his face. It was coming too fast. He took a couple of deep breaths.

Sheriff Hurley, you have an infestation of werewolves,
Fargo had said with disarming confidence.
An infestation of werewolves
.

Hurley slowly turned his head back and forth, refusing to believe it—but unable to reject the theory, unable to let go of it. After seeing that thing on the Cranes' lawn ... after hearing what Jason had said ... he wasn't sure what he knew, or what to believe.

He still had to go see Emily Crane's friend Terri March before going home. He decided to drive back to the station first and see if anything else had come in. When he got there, he found that everything was quiet. It was a slow night so far.

Hurley went to the desk sergeant, Tony Naccarato, and said, “Tony, anything unusual happens tonight, anything at all, I want you to call me, understand?”

“You got it, Sheriff.”

Hurley felt a pang of sadness when he thought of Emily Crane's children.

“And Tony,” he said, “get Child Protective Services on the line for me. They've gotta have someone on call tonight. I've got a situation I need to hand off to them.”

 

* * * *

 

Jason found himself enjoying the painkiller he'd been given as he waited on the bed in the Emergency Room for his parents to come back and take him home. The doctor had come to see him right after the sheriff left and said he wanted to see him again in a couple of days.

As good as the painkiller made him feel, he could not shake his fear.
 

A werewolf,
he thought groggily.

And if
that
were true, then it also had to be true that the bite he had received would turn him into the very thing that had bitten him on the next full moon. Jason had seen all the old movies, he knew the story.

As bad as his fear was, it was not enough to make him forget Andrea Norton. He wondered how she was, if Jimmy were beating her up tonight. He wanted to call her, but he would have to wait until tomorrow when Jimmy was at work. Just to see her, to hold her hand—it was like an addiction, the kind of urge that comes from needing an addictive substance, the feeling of being hooked. At least, that was how he'd always imagined it to be—he'd never been hooked on anything before. He wanted to smell her, to feel her lips on his. He wondered if she knew yet that he was in the hospital, that he'd been hurt. She must have known something was going on when she saw all those Sheriff's cars and the ambulance. But what could she do? With Jimmy around, she couldn't call Jason, or even go to his house and ask about him. Like him, she had to wait until tomorrow.

Then he wondered if he should call her at all, if seeing her, if simply being
around
her might be putting her in danger. In the movies, the werewolf always tried to kill the person he loved the most. If the worst happened, if it did change him, he did not want to hurt Andrea. He would not be able to live with himself if he did anything to hurt Andrea.

The painkiller gave him a floating sensation. The television on the articulating arm over his bed played cartoons.

Jason closed his eyes and drifted in and out of sleep, and when he slept, he dreamed shadowy black-and-white nightmares of wolfmen stalking through misty graveyards.

 

 

 

28

 

Making Out at the Jags

 

 

Bobby killed the engine and left the radio playing.

Suzie sighed, then turned to him and smiled a little.

It had begun to rain again on their way up the hill, and now the rain made a steady roar on the roof of the car—a Toyota from somewhere back in the eighties. Water poured down the windshield, distorting the bushes that stood in the beams of the headlights, which Bobby had left on. They were alone there, the only car parked in the clearing beside Seaview Avenue.

“I figured it was fun last time,” Bobby said, “so why not again?”

He reached over and stroked her hair—it was brown with recently-added blonde highlights, and Suzie had to admit, it looked pretty damned good and touchable. But ...

She laughed a little as Bobby's fingertips ran along the edge of her ear. Typically, she did not like anyone touching her ear—it sent unpleasant chills down her back and gave her the creeps. But even though she winced and laughingly pressed his hand between her shoulder and head to keep the fingers from moving over her ear, she decided to say nothing. She knew what she
wanted
to say, but was unsure of what she
should
say.

Suzie Camber was on her second date with Bobby Stanley. And it was the second time he'd brought her up to the Jags. That was what the locals called the place, anyway. It was a popular make-out spot for young people, a clearing at the edge of a rocky decline so sharp it was almost a cliff that overlooked a rocky section of the coast where waves crashed dramatically against large jagged rocks below. Suzie had not been there since high school. She was pretty sure that the high school students were the
only
ones who came to the Jags ... besides Bobby.

They had gone to high school together, Suzie and Bobby, but that seemed so long ago. It had been only seven years, but it
felt
like a long time ago. Sometimes it felt like something that had happened to someone else. After high school, Suzie had gone to Humboldt with no idea what she wanted to study. She stayed for a semester, long enough to learn that college was not for her. Not then, anyway. She had been tired of school—exhausted, to be honest. Maybe she'd try college again a little later, but she wanted some time to herself for awhile. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they'd had no great, burning desire for her to go. She'd had a few boring jobs over the space of a year and a half, but then she'd gotten a job at the Hot Topic store in the Northgate Mall—it gave her a chance to wear some of her leather clothes, which was encouraged among Hot Topic employees, in keeping with the chain's bad boy/girl image. Best of all, it was a job she liked. All her friends came by Hot Topic at least once a day, friends she'd made since high school, new friends. She'd been at Hot Topic ever since. She loved the job and had been made assistant manager a couple of years ago.