Return of the Wolf Man (21 page)

B
y the middle of the afternoon, the fire at the Tombs was little more than patches of smoke clinging to blackened stones and charred timbers. Water that had been part of the Gulf of Mexico earlier in the day ran down the walls and sat in puddles on the tiles and hardwood floors. In one day, the rooms that had been so carefully and lovingly preserved by Joan Raymond suddenly looked their age.

While most of the exhausted fire fighters rested, three men donned self-contained breathing apparatuses, entered the castle, and began looking for the remains Trooper Willis had said would be there. A LifeSaver helicopter had been flown to LaMirada Hospital from Naples and was ready to evacuate any survivors. If the fire fighters found anyone alive they would be evacuated at once. If not, they would be left where they were until the police arrived.

To short, chunky rookie Emmett Vogan, who worked as a high school science teacher when he wasn’t fighting fires, the interior of the castle looked like his uncle Cedric’s barbecue pit after a pork roast. The stone walls were scorched different shades of gray, from pale to nearly charcoal. Drapery and rubber-backed rugs had been burned onto the walls and floor in a few areas and burned up everywhere else. Furniture had been reduced to stacks of charred sticks—just like the dry twigs Vogan’s dad used to move the coals in the pit with and then drop in. There was a thin tester of smoke overhead in the foyer. Except for that, the twilight coming through the shattered windows was clear and crisp. If he didn’t hear only his own breathing, Vogan knew—absolutely
knew
—that the silence of the gutted castle would be absolute.

Along with veteran William Harrigan, the high school phys. ed. teacher, Vogan drew basement duty. That was where Trooper Willis had told Fire Chief Jerry Frank that the bodies of Henry Pratt and William Porterhouse were supposed to be, along with someone or some
thing
else that they were supposed to watch out for. Willis hadn’t been very specific about that, which meant he didn’t know himself. He’d said to be careful, though, which Vogan always was after a blaze.

Vogan and the lanky Harrigan found the basement easily enough. Before going in, they used a laser-based audioscope to measure movement in the walls and ceiling. After determining that there were no vibrations that would indicate serious structural instability, the men checked their oxygen tanks, put in their rubber mouthpieces, and unrolled an aluminum ladder Vogan carried. Then they climbed down to the dock, which was littered with shattered pieces of staircase and a fireplace poker. Spotter Perry Ivins stood by the opening with a battery-powered spotlight and a field radio. He watched carefully, ready to summon help if needed.

The wood was slippery and each man moved slowly, following the beam of the powerful hand lamp he carried. Almost at once they saw the rotating door, half-open, with two bodies lying inside.

“Hoo-boy,” Harrigan said after removing his mouthpiece. “We’ve got some nasty ones here.”

Vogan looked away while Harrigan checked to make sure—as if there were any doubt—that the people inside were dead.

“Goners?” asked Ivins.

“Totally. Two of them, just like the trooper said, deader’n Lewis and Clark. And it wasn’t the fire that killed them. These guys look like they were killed with a weed whacker.”

Listening to the conversation, Vogan had to suck hard on the mouthpiece to keep from vomiting. Unlike Harrigan, who had a macho streak the size of the Tower of London, Vogan had joined the department because he wanted to hang out with adults now and then instead of with kids, and maybe put a little excitement in his life. Tagging and bagging the dead had seemed like a remote possibility.

In an effort not to have to look, but without appearing to do so, Vogan walked wide around the two dead men. He turned his lantern deeper into the chamber. And jumped.

“Holy Mother of God!”
he cried after spitting out his mouthpiece. “Bill—
Bill!”

“Christ!” Harrigan yelled, “would you turn down the volume? I’m in the same goddamn room!”

“I’m sorry!” Vogan said. “But there’s another body here.”

“It must be the Frankenstein dude,” Harrigan said.

“This is no ‘dude,’ ” Vogan said. “This is a freakin’ giant!”

Harrigan turned his light ahead. The two beams crossed the body of a giant. Sections of the big man’s black jacket had been burned away, revealing patches of charred, pastel-green flesh. There were also raw, blackened scars on the back of its neck, and only knotty patches of black hair grew on its squarish head. The scalp itself was gray-green and tightly wrinkled where it hadn’t been burned.

Harrigan whistled. “Man, he couldn’t have been much of a looker even before he was burned. And the size of him! He’s got to be, what—almost eight feet tall.”

“If he’s alive,” Ivins called from above, “see if he’s a free agent.”

“Ivins, the only place this guy’s playing is on Team Hell,” Harrigan said. “Vog, check to see if he’s alive.”

Vogan breathed deeply. “He sure doesn’t look it,” he said. He wished he were breathing bottled air instead of the stuff in the basement. Just inhaling the same oxygen this body was in made his mouth taste foul. Kneeling beside the enormous form, Vogan put down his lamp and removed his yellow glove. He stretched out his hand and rubbed the bare flesh of the giant’s left arm. It was rough, like shark skin. He held two fingers under the figure’s nose. Even the size of the nostrils was huge.

“Well?” Harrigan asked.

“He’s got third-degree burns on his back and there’s no air coming from his lungs,” Vogan said.

Harrigan came over. “Let’s turn him over and check for a heartbeat. I don’t want to get legal papers from the Frankenstein family saying we didn’t do everything we could to help the patient.”

“Patient,” Vogan said. “I wonder whose patient he was before
we
found him. He’s got bolts in his neck, for Chris-sakes. What the hell’s
that
about?”

“I don’t know,” said Harrigan. “You’re the science teacher.”

“Yeah, but this is science fiction, Bill. I mean, look at that.” He turned his lantern on the neck. “There are signs of healing around those bolts. They aren’t puttied on. They’re actually
piercing
the neck.”

“Lucky for us it’s not our job to worry about it,” Harrigan said. “Let’s just get the guy onto his back.”

“Yeah, sure,” Vogan said. He stepped over the body. “You take this shoulder and yank it toward you. I’ll push. On three.”

“Okay,” Harrigan said. “One . . . two . . .
three.”

Both men grunted as they pulled. The monstrous body felt incredibly solid as it turned over. It landed on its back with a heavy thud.

Vogan recoiled as he looked at its face. Even Harrigan backed away.

“Whew!” said Harrigan. “That is
nasty!”

Vogan’s lantern was shining right on the giant’s face. The thin, green-gray tissue was partly burned away, exposing the front and sides of the zygomatic bone from just under the eyes to both cheeks. The eyelids themselves had been burned black, and the thick brow of the wide, tall forehead was badly charred. The nose was intact but the mouth was badly damaged: the upper lip had been singed off, revealing blackened gum, and the lower lip was scorched. A long scar under the left side of the jaw was intact, as were a pair of silver neck-bolts. The hands were gravely burned, with muscle and bone exposed on the backs. Their condition suggested to Vogan that the giant had held them in front of his face in an effort to protect his eyes.

There was very little blood. The man looked like he could have been dead for years. And yet—

Vogan made a face as he slipped his hand on the tattered lapel of the giant’s jacket. He put his hand on the bare, wrinkled chest. It was like touching papier-mâchê instead of flesh.

“So?” Harrigan said. “How is he?”

Vogan sat back on his heels. “Expired. As previously announced.”

Harrigan nodded. “Hey, Ivins?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell the chief we’ve got three—”

“Oh, shit.”
Vogan tugged on Harrigan’s sleeve. “Bill, he just moved.”

“Horse apples. It was just a shadow from the hand lantern.”

Vogan shook his head vigorously. “I’m telling you, William, Junior just tried to make a fist.”

“Rigor mortis,” Harrigan said. “The guy is zero-point-zero on the Olympic life chart.”

“No!” Vogan replied confidently. “That wasn’t a muscular stiffening. That was
movement!”

“Right,” said Harrigan. “You been sucking on the nitrous oxide tank by mistake?”

“Goddammit, I saw what I saw! His hand twitched and it wasn’t the—”

Vogan’s mouth clapped shut as the giant’s right arm rose slowly. The wrist was bent, the fingers hanging down and wriggling slowly.

Harrigan fell back. “Oh . . . my . . . God,” he said. “Vog, I’m sorry!
Ivins!”

“What?”

“Junior here is alive,” he said. “It’s
alive!”

“Gotcha!” the spotter said. “I’m calling in the chopper crew.”

“Send the other guys too,” Harrigan said. “This fellah’s made of concrete. We’ll need help getting him out.” He shook his head. “But Jesus, I could have sworn he was dead. We both thought it.”

Vogan and Harrigan continued to watch as the arm stopped perpendicular to the floor. The hand reached up and the fingers straightened.

“I don’t believe it,” Harrigan said. “He’s been burned and asphyxiated. How can he be
alive?”

“Maybe he isn’t human,” Vogan said. “You know all the strange things that happened here over the years? Maybe he’s a space alien and this is some kind of hidden laboratory. Like a Roswell East.”

“You’ve been renting too many ninety-nine-cent videocassettes,” Harrigan said. “More likely Junior’s been kept down here for years. That’s why he’s so pale and wrinkled.”

Less than five minutes after that, under two hand lamps and a high-intensity spotlight, an emergency medical team of two men and one woman was using a catheter to deliver a defibrillation shock of ten amps to the bottom of the heart. The attending paramedics were stunned by the condition of the victim’s torso. It wasn’t so much the present wounds that alarmed them as it was the older ones. They’d been stitched in an archaic manner with thin hemp sutures. The medical team couldn’t imagine where on earth he’d received treatment like that.

“Junior,” as the victim had been nicknamed, seemed to respond to the electric jolt. His eyes fluttered open, his lips moved, and he took a breath. A heartbeat was weak but present.

A half hour later, after a great deal of grunting and struggling, the giant had been removed from the basement. Ten minutes later, under a nearly black sky, Junior was being loaded into the LifeSaver helicopter for the short trip to the mainland.

He was not the only longtime La Viudan onboard.

THIRTEEN

A
t three-forty, Trooper Willis received another call from the fire chief. This one was shorter than the last and Willis seemed a little agitated after he received it. Leaving his cubicle, Willis told Deputy Trooper Clyde that he was going to meet the LifeSaver at the hospital. He did not say anything about what the fire fighters had found. The bodies of Pratt and Porterhouse, Caroline suspected. She wondered if they’d also found the Monster as well.

Stevenson had not yet arrived, but Willis’s departure changed things. Caroline felt that it would be much less difficult to persuade the easygoing deputy trooper to let Talbot sit in the cell. If Stevenson didn’t show up by five o’clock, she would ask. That would still give them a comfortable cushion before Talbot’s transformation—assuming he did transform.

Though Talbot did not speak since their last exchange, he was clearly growing very impatient. His pacing was brisk and his looks were now toward the front door. If it got too late and he wasn’t behind bars, Caroline assumed that Talbot would try to get away.

Tom Stevenson arrived nearly an hour after Willis left. He stood six-foot-two with long brown hair pulled into a ponytail. He had a straight nose, a strong jaw, and thin lips. His penetrating brown eyes were intense but tired. He was lean and wore a backpack as well as an earth-brown blazer, old jeans, a forest-green shirt with no tie, and black hiking shoes. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry, despite the fact that he was over five hours late. To the contrary. He moved slowly as he entered the door to their left. He was speaking to his secretary, Doris, on his cellular phone, trying to catch up on office matters he’d ignored during the day.

Talbot walked toward him as he entered. Caroline went with him, hooking her arm in his. Talbot seemed oblivious to it.

“Are you Mr. Stevenson?” Talbot asked.

Stevenson nodded, then held up a finger as he finished his call. He gave quick, concise instructions to his secretary. When he was through, he put his cellular phone in his jacket pocket and looked at Talbot and Caroline.

“Yes, I’m Tom Stevenson,” he said. “If you’ll have a seat I’ll be with you in just a minute.”

“But we’ve been sitting all day,” Talbot said.

“And I’ve been standing all day,” Stevenson replied. “If you’ll just sit down and let me get my bearings I’ll be right with you.”