The Wolfen (21 page)

“Don’t know.”

“Come on—gotta get out of here!” Fields ran to the car, causing traffic along Central Park West to screech and skid as he hurried across the street. Weakly Sam Garner followed him. He was sick with fear. Something unspeakable had been going on in that park, and he had been paced by some kind of hellhound as he had left.

He jumped into the car, slammed and locked the door and leaned his badly scratched face against the steering wheel. “What was it?” he whispered. Then he looked up at Fields, blinking tears out of his eyes. “What was it!”

Fields was embarrassed and looked away. “Dunno. Lots bigger’n a dog.” Now he mumbled. “Had a sort of… face. Good Christ…”

“Describe it! I’ve got to know.”

“Can’t… only saw it for a second.” He shook his head slowly. “No wonder those two cops are trigger-happy. That thing came straight from hell, whatever it was.”

“Bullshit,” Garner replied. His chin was jutting out now, he was regaining himself. He took deep breaths. “Bullshit, whatever it was it was real. A flesh and blood something-or-other. Tasmanian devil, I dunno. But one thing is sure, it’s on the loose in New York City and it’s damn well gonna be big news.”

“So a wild animal escapes. Page two.”

“Ha! Think about it. Mutilation killing in the park. Cops scared to bejesus of something that looks like a dog. Then we get a closer look, and it ain’t no dog that’s spookin’ ’em.” He stopped, a powerful and withering image of that thing in the bushes near him overcoming his pugnacity. He hadn’t seen it clearly but he could imagine— “Rich, there was a fuckin’ bloodbath in there. I mean, I found a place where there was so damn much blood it looked like a slaughterhouse. Something got it bad there, man, not so long ago, and the smell, Holy Christ!”

“Smell?”

“It was obscene. All the bushes were covered with it, like something had been sprayed on them. You couldn’t see it but you could smell it. It was like—”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Never mind.” Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a fierce, inhuman face peering over the wall so he put the car in gear and moved out. He got away from there, going downtown into the heart of the city. Their press credentials made it easy to park, so they stopped at the Biltmore for a drink.

“The place is quiet,” Sam muttered, “and there ain’t any other newshounds hangin’ around. I just want to get myself together again.”

Fields didn’t protest, just followed “So whaddaya think?” he asked as soon as they had slipped onto a couple of stools at the luxurious mahogany bar.

Sam didn’t answer. “Perfect Manhattan, up,” he said to the bartender. “They know how to make a Manhattan here,” he growled. “That’s my definition of a good bar.”

“What’s going on, Sam?” Fields was insistent now. He wanted to know. This was a good story and there were going to be great pictures. He certainly wasn’t going to tell Sam Garner, but he had gotten a good look at the thing that had been following the reporter. It had come out of the brush just as Sam reached the wall and had sat and watched him go. Then its ears had snapped toward Rich Fields and it had simply disappeared. There it was one second, then a flash of gray and it was gone.

There had been a perfect picture there for a second before the thing had taken off. But Rich Fields hadn’t taken a picture. For that second he had been frozen, staring at the most horrible living thing that he had ever seen. But it had all happened so fast. You couldn’t be sure about moments like that, maybe it was a trick of light on a dog’s face. He eyed Garner. “What was it?” he asked.

“How the hell do I know! Quit ridin’ me, you ain’t an editor. It was somethin’ weird. Out of the ordinary.”

“Well, that’s obvious. Did it kill Evans?”

Garner raised his eyebrows, looked at the photographer. “Sure. And it was responsible for the bloody bench the cops found this
a.m. too. It’s a monster livin’ in the park.” He stared a moment at the drink before him. “Monster Stalks Park. It’s more a National Herald story, ain’t it? There’s no proof, except what we might have seen. That won’t work in the Post.”

Fields nodded his head slowly. He sipped his Martini. Garner was right about this place; you spent half your life around fifth-rate bars, you forgot how great a skillfully made Beefeater Martini could be. Right now it really hit the spot. “We gonna file?”

“Not yet. There’s too many loose ends. I think we might get lucky, wrap it up nice and pretty. Those two detectives, they’re scared shitless about this. You know what they did, they shot one of those things on the museum lawn. They were scared of being attacked. I’ll tell you what’s goin’ on. We got some kind of a holy terror loose in this town and the police are scared to make that fact public.”

Fields smiled. “That’s gonna be a very beautiful story, Sam. If we can get it together, that is. It’s gonna be very hard to get together. We sure ain’t gonna trap one of the beasts. And I can’t see us workin’ it out of those two cops. I think we got a toughie on our hands.”

“Brilliant insight, Dr. Freud. It’s a very tough story, but we’ll break it—if we live through it.”

Fields laughed but not very hard.

The human had come snooping along, following the blood trail of the dead child. As soon as he dropped down from the wall the old father was aware of the human interloper. He was a small man with quick, light movements. His face was tense with curiosity. His movements were halting and confused though, as if the trail was hard to follow. And evidently it was; the human was tracking by eye from blood droplet to blood droplet. Three times the old father thought that the man would lose the trail but each time he had regained it once again. And he kept hurrying along between the branches, oblivious of the fact that the old father was never more than six feet away.

The rest of the pack had moved off, getting away from the scene of this afternoon’s disaster. Only the old father had lingered behind, drawn by his sorrow to stay near the place where his son had died. He himself had been about to go, to fall into his new place at the bottom of the pack, when he had heard the scrape and thud of the human dropping over the wall. He had scented the man almost immediately; it was a fresh smell, mostly of the cloth in which the man was wrapped. But even so the flesh beneath the wrapping had a definite odor—a healthy man, one who smoked heavily but did not breathe poorly. He came along, crunching and clattering, his lungs loudly passing air in and out. As he got closer to the spot where the boy had died the old father stifled an intense urge to kill him. Here was another human meddling in the affairs of the pack, further evidence that knowledge of the clan was spreading.

The man clambered up the slope that led to the very spot that was still covered by the young male’s blood. And he entered the bush under which the death had taken place. A stifled sound came from the man. The old father rushed up to the bush, then stood very still as the man came out.

The human did not see him but seemed to sense his presence anyway. Fear had come into the man; here was something unknown, and it made the man want to return to his own kind. The man ran along with the old father just behind. He was in a fever to kill this human, so much so that his mouth hung open. It took every ounce of strength for him to let the creature escape. All his instincts screamed at him, kill it, kill it now! But he knew in his mind that this would be a mistake. They could not risk so much killing and after all the man had seen only blood. The snowmelt would wash most of it away before more humans could be brought to this place. Also, the pack was not here to help him dispose of a body. It would have to be left here until he could get them back. They were not likely to respond to his signal although his voice carried for miles. He was no longer pack leader, he would have to run and get them if he wanted them. And while he was gone, other humans might discover the carcass of this one, making the problem faced by the pack that much worse.

Nevertheless his mind was not his whole being. Underneath it were the powerful emotional currents of his race, currents that now tore at him and demanded that he kill the intruder, tear the creature apart, end the threat.

Then the man was at the wall, screaming for help. A pale face appeared above the wall. For an instant the old father met the eyes of this human; looking into human eyes was a little like looking into the eyes of an old enemy, or even a beloved sister.

He should not be here—run! And he ran, moving back into the brush in the wink of an eye. Then he sniffed the air, located the pack and started off after them. His mind was spinning with the terrible knowledge that another intruder had come, and he was alternately relieved and guilty that he had not killed the thing. This conflict made him feel angry, and his anger fed his desperation. Wild, mad thoughts began to roll in his brain. He wanted the danger to be over. The pack had to prosper. Soon they must win this battle against humanity. With the appearance of this new factor—the stranger who sought the lair of the pack—came proof that the forbidden knowledge was spreading. It had to be stifled at the source, and soon. “Tonight,” he thought as he trotted, “or it will be too late.”

With the coming of night the wind rose. It swept down out of the north, freezing and wild, transforming the afternoon melt into a cutting mantle of ice. The warmer air that had lingered over the city became clouds and blew away to the south, and remaining in the sky were the few stars that defied the electric flood below, and a crescent moon rising over the towers. The bitter wind flooded along the avenues of Manhattan, carrying with it an ancient wildness that seldom reached the inner sanctum of the city; it was as if the very soul of the frowning north had swept from its moorings and now ran free in the streets.

Buses crunched along the ice-slick pavements, their tire-chains clattering and their engines wheezing. From steaming grates came the rumble of subways. Here and there a taxicab prowled in search of the few people willing to venture into the cold. Doormen huddled close to the glittering entryways of luxurious apartment buildings or stood in lobbies staring out at the wind. Inside these buildings normally docile radiators hissed and popped as overstrained heating systems fought to maintain comfort against the freeze.

The last light had disappeared from the sky when Becky opened her eyes. Beyond the bedroom door she heard the drone of the evening news. Dick, Wilson, and Ferguson were there watching. She rolled over onto her back and stared out the window at the sky. In her field of vision there were no stars, only the bottom point of the moon slicing the darkness, cut off by the top of the window. She sighed and went into the bathroom. Seven-thirty
p.m. She had slept for two hours. Disconnected images from her dreams seemed to rush at her from the air; she splashed water on her face, ran a brush through her hair. She shook her head. Had they been nightmares, or mere dreams? She couldn’t quite remember. Her face looked waxy in the mirror; she took out her lipstick and applied a little. She washed her hands. Then she returned to the bedroom and pulled on her thermal underwear, then threw on jeans, a flannel shirt, and added a heavy sweater. The wind moaned around the corner of the building, making the window bulge and strain. Long fingers of frost were appearing on the glass, twinkling softly as they grew.

Becky walked into the living room. “Welcome to the real world,” her husband said. “You missed the show.”

“Show?”

“The Commissioner announced that Evans was killed by a gang of nuts. Cult murder.”

Wordlessly Wilson waved a copy of the News.

Becky shook her head, didn’t bother to comment, “Werewolf Killers Stalk Park—Two Dead.” So ridiculously confused, so mindless. The Commissioner just couldn’t grasp the truth, none of them could. She found her cigarettes and lit one, then flopped down on the couch between her husband and Wilson. Ferguson, slumped in their reclining chair, had not spoken. His face was drawn, the skin seeming to have stretched back over the bones, giving him a cadaverous appearance. His mouth was set, his eyes staring blindly in the general direction of the television set. The only movement he made was to rub his hands slowly along the arms of the chair.

Becky wanted to draw him out of it. “Doctor Ferguson,” she said, “what’s your opinion of all this?”

He smiled a little and shook his head. “I think we’d better get our proof.” He felt his pocket for the rustle of paper. His notes on Beauvoy’s hand signals were there, ready for reference in case his memory slipped.

“He means we’ve run out of time,” Wilson said.

“So what else is new. Any of you guys hungry?”

Everybody was very hungry. They wound up ordering two pizzas from a place down the street Beer and Cokes they had in the refrigerator. Becky was just as glad, she didn’t particularly care to cook for four people. She leaned back on the couch crossing her legs, feeling the weight of the two men beside her. “We got everything?” she asked.

“Two radios and the camera. What else is there to get?”

“Nothing I guess. Anybody been upstairs?”

Their plan was to stake out the roof and man it in relays. One would stay there with the camera while the other three waited below. The reason that they didn’t go up in pairs was that they hoped it would help to keep the chance of being scented to a minimum. The three in the apartment would keep in touch with the one on the roof via the handheld radios they had bought. Dick had purchased them at an electronics store, two CB walkie-talkies. They could have checked out a couple of police-issue models but they didn’t want their traffic overheard on the police band. No sense in attracting attention. By tomorrow morning it wouldn’t matter; they would have the pictures they needed. Becky’s eyes went to the camera, its black bulk resting on the dining room table. It looked more like a flat-ended football than a camera. Only the shielded lens, reposing like a great animal eye deep in its hood, revealed the thing’s function. They had all handled it earlier, getting used to the awkward shape and the overly sensitive controls. You could take pictures almost without realizing you had started the camera, and the focusing mechanism could be very frustrating to work if your depth of field was changing rapidly. How soldiers had ever used it in battle was beyond understanding. And it was terribly delicate, threatening to break at the least jostle or to lose its onboard computer if the batteries weakened too much.

But it worked miraculously well when it worked. “Anybody tried it out yet?” Becky asked. “You’re going to be the first.” She nodded. By mutual agreement she would stand the first watch on the roof, eight to ten-thirty. They had divided the hours of darkness into four two-and-a-half-hour segments and allocated the watches. Becky took the first, Ferguson the second. He had argued that he wanted to take his watch in the alley where he could confront the Wolfen, as he called them, personally. But he had been overruled. The third watch, from one until three-thirty, was to be Dick’s. This was the most likely time for the night’s attempt. Always when they had come before, it had been during this period. Dick had insisted on this watch, saying that he was the best choice, the strongest and the most fit. Becky couldn’t deny it. She and Wilson were exhausted, God knew, and Ferguson was showing signs of cracking. Dick was the strongest, it was right that he go at the most dangerous time.

Still, she did not want him to go. She found herself drawn to him in a strange, dispassionate way that she did not associate with their married love. There was something about his vulnerability that made her want to protect him. Physically there was no real attraction, but there was a quality of spirit that attracted her strongly—he had been willing, after all, to put his whole career on the line to keep his father out of a welfare nursing home. He had always been good and kind to her—but there was something inside him that was growing, a kind of wall that shut her out of his heart, kept her away from his secret thoughts. She wanted to be there but he refused her entry, and maybe not only her but himself as well. He brought tenderness and physical intimacy to the relationship but he did not bring himself. The real Dick Neff was as alien to her now as he had been when they first met. And her spirit, after hungering and trying for his love these many years, had simply given up. She knew now what was missing in their relationship and she had begun to try to do what she could to repair the damage. Mostly, it was going to be up to Dick. She longed for him to open himself to her, to give her more than a thin veneer of himself to go with his urgent sexuality, but she felt that in the end he would fail. Exactly why she felt this way she could not say, but she did feel it. Perhaps it came from the coldness she saw in his eyes, and the lust that filled them when she so desperately wanted to see love. Dick had been scarred in a way that many cops are scarred. He had seen too much of life’s miseries to open himself to any other human being, even his wife. When they were first married Dick would come home hollow-eyed with sorrow, unable to articulate his feelings about the horrors he had seen. He would describe them woodenly, all emotion absent from his voice.

There had been a child suicide, a little girl of twelve who had died in his arms of self-inflicted burns. She had pressed herself against a gas stove, then lurched, in flames, through a window into the street.

There had been a mother, pregnant, beheaded by a gang of teenage junkies. He had been first on the scene, witness to the spontaneous abortion and miscarriage delivery of the seven-month fetus.

There had been many others in his years on the street, most of them connected one way or another with drugs. These experiences plus his time in Narcotics had made of him an obsessive, consumed man with only one goal, to destroy the dealers who destroyed the people.

The obsession had to be compromised in so many ways that his hatred of crime had turned into self-loathing, a mockery of his personal worth. Problems, to a man like Dick, caused a slow closing of his heart, a shutting out of life, until there was nothing left but anger and animal lust and a vague, overshadowing sorrow that he could not voice.

Becky knew these things about her husband, and longed to tell him about them. But it was hopeless, and this hopelessness was now driving her away from him. She was rapidly reaching the point where if she could not help him, she would have to leave him.

And there was Wilson. George Wilson, a grumpy, unappealing creature with an open soul. He might grumble and threaten, but you could open Wilson up and get inside. And he loved her with boyish desperation. When his overtures were accepted he was amazed and gratified. He wanted her in a raw, urgent manner that possessed him right down to his core. She knew that he dreamed about her at night, that he held an image of her in his mind’s eye during his waking hours. And they fit one another in strange and satisfying ways.

Such thoughts were dangerous. How could anyone in her right mind want to trade the young, vital Dick Neff for a busted-up old man like Wilson? Well, she was thinking about it more and more lately.

The doorbell rang, and in a few moments they were eating pizza. “You still sulky, Doc?” Becky asked Ferguson. He was brooding more than he should; she was trying to draw him out.

“I’m not sulky. Just contemplative.”

“Like a soldier before a big battle,” Wilson said. “Like me this afternoon.”

“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been in a battle. But let’s just say that sitting up there on that roof half the night isn’t my idea of my proper role.”

“Your idea is to go down to the alley and get yourself killed.”

“We don’t know their capacities, but I think I have the means to communicate with them. On the roof, you’ll be in danger as soon as they become aware you’re there. You’ll be hidden, they’ll see it as a threat.”

“And climb all thirty stories after us, I suppose.”

Ferguson stared at her. “Obviously.”

“Carl, we’ll have the Ingram up there. Have you ever seen what an Ingram M-11 can do?”

“No, and I don’t want to. I’m sure it’s very lethal. Naturally all you can think of is kill or be killed. And what about all the other buildings? A sea of windows. Will you really start spraying high velocity bullets around? I doubt it.” He settled glumly into his chair. He was right, too. Not one of them would feel free to use that gun on a rooftop in the middle of Manhattan. Hell, you wouldn’t want to use any gun in such circumstances, surrounded by so many innocent lives. But the gun was the only real protection they had. Its value lay in the fact that it would provide accurate coverage over a wide area and do it fast. A shotgun could do that too, but they were afraid that buckshot would lack stopping power. One slug from an Ingram would knock a heavy man ten feet. They wanted that kind of punch if they were going to come up against the werewolves.

“How likely are they to spot us?” Wilson asked suddenly. He had been gobbling pizza; it had not seemed as if he was following the conversation at all. Ferguson considered. “The more senses they can bring to bear, the more likely. If scent was all they had, we’d have a chance. Unfortunately they have hearing and sight too.”

“We can be quiet.”

“How? Stop breathing? That’s more than enough sound to give you away.”

“Then we’ve gotta hope we see them first, don’t we? You spot  
’em , you take a few pictures, you get the hell inside.”

Ferguson nodded. “Assuming we see them first— or at all.”

“Look, we’ve been through that. They aren’t going to come up through the building and they aren’t going to climb the balconies that overlook Eighty-sixth Street. That leaves these balconies, the ones that overlook the alley, as their only route of attack. So if each person just keeps that camera focused on that alley, we’re gonna see them if they come. That’s damn well where they’ll be.”

The disconsolate look on Ferguson’s face didn’t change. He wasn’t buying Wilson’s theory, at least not enough to improve his disposition. “Have you imagined what it’ll be like up there fooling around with that damn camera while they are swarming up the balconies? I have, and believe me it isn’t a very comforting thought.”

“You’d have a good thirty seconds before they reached the roof,” Becky said.

Ferguson leaned forward in the chair, stared at them with contemptuous eyes. “Assuming you even see them coming.”

“That’s the whole purpose of the camera, for Chrissakes! It makes it like daylight. We damn well will see them.”

“Human senses against Wolfen senses,” he replied bitterly. “Technology or no technology, there is absolutely no comparison. Let me tell you something. Whichever one of us is unlucky enough to be up there when they come is going to be in very great danger. Let me repeat, very great danger. Unless we all realize that all the time, every second, it is very likely that one or more of us will be killed.”

“Jesus Christ, we don’t need that!” Dick blurted. “I mean, what a fucking—”

“Dick, he doesn’t understand. He’s not a cop.” You don’t look at things that way when you’re on the force. Maybe it’s true, but brooding on it isn’t the kind of thing that increases a man’s effectiveness.

“He’s doing a cop’s job. Oh, no, wait a minute. No cop ever had an assignment like this before. But at least we’re prepared for it—this guy obviously isn’t”