Return of the Wolf Man

by Jeff Rovin

  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 something 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

  At 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.”

  Caroline gave Talbot’s arm a little tug. “Come on, Lawrence,” she said. “Mr. Stevenson needs to become bearable.”

  Stevenson made a face. “That was cute. Look, I’m sorry things’ve worked out this way. It’s been a long and frustrating day—”

  “For all of us,” Caroline pointed out.

  “I know and I’m sorry. Let me have a word with Deputy Clyde and I’ll be right over—I promise.”

  Caroline and Talbot walked back to the bench and sat while Deputy Clyde brought Stevenson up-to-date on the day’s activities. Stevenson listened very attentively and then took a moment to read Trooper Willis’s report. When he was finished, he walked over to Talbot and Caroline with long-legged strides. His expression was more relaxed now.

  “Well, it sounds like it’s been a helluva day for you both,” he said. “Why don’t we try and start this part of it over again. I’m Tom Stevenson.”

  Talbot stood and offered his hand. “Lawrence Talbot,” he said.

  The men shook hands and then Stevenson turned to Caroline. She stood and extended her hand.

  “Caroline Cooke,” she said.

  “Dr. Cooke,” Stevenson said, “my condolences on your loss.”

  “Thanks,” she replied.

  “And again, I’m sorry about the wait,” Stevenson said. “This was a bench trial that should have been over before lunch. But there was the fire and then the plantiffs wanted to get all kinds of facts and figures on the record in case there are future hearings. That’s why it took so long.”

  “Mr. Stevenson,” Talbot said anxiously, “the two of you can chat later. Right now it’s terribly important that you lock me up.”

  The lawyer’s brown eyes darkened. “What?”

  “I want to be locked in the cell or at the clinic,” Talbot said. “Someplace that’s very secure.”

  Stevenson looked at Caroline. “Is something wrong here? Have you been mistreated during your stay here?”

  “No, it’s nothing like that,” Caroline said.

  “Then what is it?”

  “Mr. Stevenson,” Talbot said, “in just a few hours the moon will be full and I’ll experience another of my horrible—”

  “Seizures,” Caroline interrupted. “Mr. Stevenson, I’m a medical doctor. Mr. Talbot suffers a physiological condition that appears to be aggravated by the full moon.”

  “Not appears to be,” Talbot said. “It is.”

  “What kind of condition?” Stevenson asked.

  Caroline answered before Talbot could say anything else. “To put it simply, Mr. Stevenson, Lawrence is an auto-hypnose. Sometimes his spells can become rather violent. We can discuss the specifics of his malady in private. Right now, proper treatment cannot be administered because we lost his medication in the fire. So I suggest that we bring Mr. Talbot to the LaMirada Clinic for the time being, to keep him from harming himself or anyone else.”

  Stevenson looked from Caroline to Talbot. “You’re talking about the psychiatric ward?” Stevenson asked.

  “Yes,” Talbot replied.

  “You understand,” said Stevenson, “that your expressed need for incarceration will have to be divulged to and logged by Deputy Trooper Clyde. If, Mr. Talbot, you are in any way implicated in the activities the state will claim were committed at the Tombs—”

  “The murders were committed,” Talbot cried. “Damn it all, don’t you see? I committed them both!”

  Deputy Trooper Clyde froze behind his desk. Stevenson stared dumbfounded. Caroline’s shoulders sank along with her spirits.

  “Mr. Talbot,” Stevenson said, “please say nothing else at the present time. Do you understand? Mr. Clyde is obliged to report everything he hears.”

  “We understand,” Caroline said disgustedly. “Maybe you should have thought of that when you got here.”

  Stevenson rattled Willis’s report. “Excuse me,” he said irritably, “but this report doesn’t say anything about a murder charge against Mr. Talbot or anyone else! Only two missing persons and some unknown attacker you described to Trooper Willis.”

  Deputy Clyde rose behind the desk. “Tom, I think you and I better have a little chat—”

  “Can’t that wait?” Caroline asked. “It’s imperative that we get Mr. Talbot to the clinic.”

&n
bsp; Clyde shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t let you go now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of what Mr. Talbot just said. I’m going to have to take a statement.”

  Caroline turned to Stevenson. “Do something. Lawrence is distraught. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. That’s part of autohypnotic mania.”

  “I see,” Stevenson said.

  Clyde came around the desk. He walked toward them. “Is there some way you can get Mr. Talbot’s records faxed over?” Stevenson asked.

  “His records,” Caroline said.

  “Yes,” Stevenson said. “His medical history. So we can show that Mr. Talbot’s been under your care for his condition. That he’s not himself because he hasn’t had access to his medication. When we do that we can postpone any further action until he’s been treated.”

  “His records are not accessible,” Caroline said hopelessly.

  “What do you mean?” Stevenson asked.

  “I mean they’re—” she started, then stopped. What was she going to tell him? That they were in London and that the last entry was fifty years ago? “They’re in transit,” she said. “En route from my office to here.”

  Deputy Clyde arrived a moment later. “Attorney,” he said, “are you going to let me talk to your client?”

  Stevenson regarded Caroline. “Doctor, unless you give me something concrete, I can’t stop Deputy Clyde from taking a statement.”

  “You want a statement?” Talbot said angrily. “Here it is. Last night I killed two men at the castle. Now I want to be locked up so I don’t kill anyone else. Are you going to do it or not?”