Ravenous (26 page)

“What's the story, Kopechne?”

“Two bodies, both found over there—” Kopechne pointed. “—one on each side of that car. We found a girl in each car.”

“How bad are they?” Hurley asked.

“The one who's crying wasn't hurt at all, she's just really upset. But the other one says she was raped, and she's pretty beaten up.”

“Who made the call?” Hurley said.

“The girl who's crying.”

“Okay. I'll talk to her first. What about the bodies?”

“Oh, jeez, they're a mess. Just like the guy over on Magnolia, only worse, if that's possible.”

“And the reporters?”

“I personally told them to back the hell off till you got here. They're all yours.”

Hurley sighed as he turned and saw both of them coming his way, the man from Channel 4 and the woman from Channel 2.

“Hold ‘em off,” Hurley said.

He turned away and walked over to the car that held the crying young woman, whose sobs were strong enough to shake the cruiser's frame just a little. The sheriff hunkered down in the V formed by the open car door, and smiled at the girl, a teenager.

“Excuse me, Miss, but I'm Sheriff Hurley,” he said quietly. “What's your name?”

“Brandi. Brandi Powell.”

“I know this is a bad time, Brandi, but I need you to answer some questions. Would that be all right?”

She took in a deep, shaky breath and fought to hold back her sobs. After a moment, she took a small package of tissues from her purse, removed one, and blew her nose. Then she turned to him, her eyes puffy, her pretty face red and glistening with tears.

“Why did you call the police, Brandi?” Hurley said.

She told him, and as he listened, he felt a sick kind of sensation in his gut—the way the old elevator in the courthouse used to make him feel when it dropped a little too suddenly.

“It was ... a monster,” she said, her whispered voice hoarse from crying so much. “It was on the other side of that car, then it stood up, and ... and ... it was horrible. I-I didn't know such a thing
existed
, I mean, it was huge, and then it came around the car and ... and it got him.”

“Got who?”

“Deke. My date. I go to school with him. Or ... I
went
to school with him.” She sniffled and seemed about to start crying again.

“Could you describe it for me? This monster?” Hurley said, hoping to get her mind off crying before she started.

The features of her face pulled tightly inward toward the center as she thought about it. Then: “It looked like some kind of giant ... deformed—”

Wolf,
Hurley thought.

“—dog, or wolf, or something. It ... it made this sound, that thing, that monster.”

“What sound?”

“It howled.”

A chill that was becoming very familiar moved through Hurley's bowels. He stood and said, “You sit tight, now, Brandi, and one of the EMTs will be with you soon.”

“But I'm not hurt. I'm waiting for my parents. I called them. I can't drive.”

“Oh. Okay. I'll probably have to talk to you some more later, but not right now.”

The coroner's van pulled up as Hurley walked away from the cruiser. George Purdy got out carrying a flashlight and went over to talk to Deputy Kopechne. When George saw the sheriff, he waved and immediately headed toward Hurley.

“Well,” George said. “Sounds like you've got a real hungry beast out there somewhere. Speaking of beasts ... were you serious about what you said earlier? About what's doing this?”

“Afraid so,” Hurley said with a nod. “I checked to see if anything escaped from an animal show in the area, or a zoo, or something.”

“And?”

“Nope.”

As they talked, they walked over to the nearest of the two bodies.

“Look, Farrell, this is going to get out. You've got two reporters here tonight, but next time, there will be more, I guarantee you. They're going to start coming in from out of town, because you know what this looks like, don't you? Until you admit publicly that this was done by a ... an animal, or ...
whatever
, people are going to think you've got a serial killer. Listen, Farrell, you've got to tell them the truth.”

“You mean tell them what I told you?” Hurley said. “They'd lock me up.”

“Don't be so sure. Coming from you, people might believe it.” George got down on one knee and, using the flashlight, looked over the body on the ground.

“Let's say they did,” Hurley said. “People would be afraid to leave their houses. Hunting parties would be organized and a bunch of drunks will probably end up shooting each
other
.”

“Then tell them it's an animal,” George said distractedly.

“How's it going to sound if I can't tell them what
kind
of animal?”

“It'll sound like you don't know yet, that's all.”

Hurley silently thought about it, weighed the pros against the cons.

George said, “It took its time with this guy.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it was in no hurry. It ate a lot more than it has in the past. This one was cleaned out.” He looked up at Hurley. “Of course, that's assuming it's the same one. Has it occurred to you there might be more?”

Hurley sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck. He chose to ignore the question for the moment. He turned around and saw Kopechne holding back the two reporters. Their cameras were right behind them, a bright light mounted on each. Hurley walked over to them.

Shana Myers and Mike Wills immediately turned their attention away from Kopechne and began firing questions at Hurley.

“Look, I'm kind of busy right now,” he said to them, “but I'll answer a couple of questions.”

They both spoke at once.

“Just one at a time, okay?” Hurley said. “Shana.”

“This has happened twice in one night,” she said. “Is there a serial killer in Big Rock, Sheriff Hurley?” Then she turned the microphone toward him.

“We believe that the recent killings have been done by a, uh—” He cleared his throat. “—a wild animal,” Hurley said. “All the forensic evidence points to that.”

“What kind of animal?” Mike asked.

“Uh ... we're not quite sure yet.”

“What are you doing about it?” Shana said.

“Everything we can.” Hurley thought fast as he tried to sound confident about a situation in which he had no confidence whatsoever. “We, uh, just came to the conclusion that it was a wild animal, and now we'll be organizing hunting parties and doing everything we possibly can to find it and stop it. Now, if you don't mind, I'm busy. Once we've got all the information we can gather about these killings, I'll hold a press conference and tell you everything I know. For now, though, I've got to go.”

He turned away from them and went back to George.

“You're sure this is just like the others?” Hurley asked.

George nodded. “I'd bet my next paycheck on it. What do you plan to do next?”

Hurley shrugged. “Like I told the reporters, we'll have to organize hunting parties, find this thing, and kill it.”

“Using silver bullets?”

“You know your werewolf mythology,” Hurley said flatly.

George frowned. “You're really serious, aren't you?”

Hurley gave him a heavy-lidded look. “Do I look like I'm kidding around to you?”

George shrugged. “Sucks to be you.”

Hurley sighed. “Right now it does, yep.”

Headlights flashed over them and Hurley turned around to see who was driving up. He recognized Daniel Fargo's Mercedes.

Fargo parked the car and got out. He looked around until he found Hurley, then started walking toward him.

“Who's this guy?” George asked.

“Somebody I need to see.” Hurley left George and met Fargo halfway.

“Took me awhile to find this place,” Fargo said with a smile.

“Thought I said I didn't want to see you around any investigations,” Hurley said, but also with a smile.

“That was before this happened. Twice in one night. You need me, Sheriff. I think by now, you know that.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “This is going to happen again and again. It will rapidly escalate as the number of werewolves in the area increases, to the point where you'll be dealing with more and more killings every night. Then? It will get
worse
. And there will be more and more people with the virus, people who will have to be killed.”

“You think I'm going to go around killing people because I think they have—”

“You won't have a choice.”

They said nothing for a moment. Fargo looked all around, then turned to Hurley again.

“Tell me something, Sheriff,” Fargo said. “Were either of those young women raped tonight?”

“The one over there at the ambulance,” Hurley said, pointing briefly.

“Then the way I see it, those two dead men I heard about on the police scanner are not your problems, Sheriff Hurley.
She
is. Because in the next twenty-four hours or so, she will be transformed into the very thing that killed those two men, and everyone before them. And she will kill and eat more people, and create more like herself, and it will go on and on, until this town is
overrun
by werewolves and they use it as a base camp, from where they expand their hunting grounds, outward from the town like a spider's web. Until another town falls. And another, and another.”

It took Hurley awhile before he opened his mouth to speak, then he shrugged as he whispered, “What do I do?”

Fargo nodded and smiled. “I'm glad you've finally asked that question. Now we can work together.”

 

 

 

31

 

Finding Fargo

 

 

Jason sat in the back seat of his parents' car, his parents in the front seat, Dad at the wheel.

While he was in the Emergency Room, Jason had managed to shove aside his fear of being transformed into a werewolf. Once he saw the looks he was getting from the nurses and doctor whenever he said he'd been attacked by a werewolf, he'd stopped talking about it. He'd decided to keep it to himself for the time being. But now, no matter how hard he tried to push those thoughts away, they festered inside him, throbbing with fear and tension and unbearable suspense. How long would it take? What if the moon doesn't really have to be full and it could happen at any time? He hadn't thought of
that
possibility before. But now, out under the black night sky, surrounded by darkness, those thoughts returned in force.

A werewolf,
he thought. He replayed the memory over and over again in his mind, and with his mind's eye he carefully inspected the tall, hairy, fanged creature his memory conjured. How could it be anything else? Wolves did not walk upright—not
normal
wolves. They were four-legged creatures, and they did
not
use their front legs as arms. But this was a wolf that
did
walk on two legs, and
did
use its front legs as arms, and at the ends of those front legs were long, narrow, hairy hands with sharp black claws that grew from the ends of the fingers.
A werewolf,
he thought again.

Jason remembered the man who had come along and killed the werewolf. It seemed he'd come from nowhere, appearing like a guardian angel—tall, in that long coat and that old-fashioned hat, with that horribly scarred face.

He knows,
Jason thought.
He knows what they are and how to kill them. I
have
to find that guy.

Jason realized his father was talking to him and snapped himself out of his thoughts.

“What was that?” Jason said.

“I
said
, what were you doing over at the Cranes' house earlier tonight?” Dad said.

“Well ... I told you,” Jason said, his voice weak. “I heard a man screaming over there. Screaming, ‘It's eating me! It's eating me!' I was worried about them.”

“Didn't I tell you not to get involved?” Dad said. “
Didn't
I?”

“The screams were horrible. I should've just called the police.” Jason frowned and whispered to himself, “Why didn't I just call the police?”

“You don't. Get. Involved, Jason,” Dad said. “How many times have I told you that? Just mind your own business, and your life will be much less complicated.”

Jason's mother turned around as much as her seatbelt would allow and tried to look at him. “Jason, honey, you still haven't told us exactly what happened. You said some kind of
wolf
attacked you? I must've misunderstood you, that
can't
be right.”

Staring at the back of his mother's seat, Jason thought of all those fangs and claws, and the gamey odor that had come off the creature as it had descended on him.

When Jason said nothing, his mother went on. “What was it, Jason? How did you get hurt?”

Still, he said nothing.

“Jason,
please
,” Mom said. “Tell us what happened.”

“I ... I don't want to talk about it anymore. Okay? Please? Can we just drop it for awhile.”

Mom frowned as she craned her neck around and looked at him. “Okay, sweetheart, if you'd rather not right now. That's fine.” She turned and faced front again.

Jason slumped down in the backseat, wishing he could sink into the seat and disappear and get away from everything, especially his new knowledge—the knowledge that there really were werewolves out there.

What else, then?
he wondered.
What
else
is out there?

He wanted only one thing at that moment, and had ever since he'd fully regained consciousness earlier. He wanted to see Andrea, to hold her and be held by her.

“I think you should sleep in the house tonight, Jason,” Mom said. “In your old room.”