Return of the Wolf Man

by Jeff Rovin

  He’s afraid of the fire . . .

  Caroline stepped away from the blaze. Still clutching the book, she held it over the candles, set it on fire, and thrust it toward the man. He slashed at it with the machete but the book was out of reach. Caroline threw it at him to drive him back, then circled back toward the foyer. The man followed her, lowering his arms now that he was moving away from the burning shelves. Silhouetted against the wall of flame he raised the machetes and clanged them again.

  Let him, she thought.

  Reaching the edge of the Persian rug, Caroline bent and touched one of the candles to the slender red tassels. The man suddenly stopped and lowered his arms; he stood transfixed as the carpet was consumed with a low, creeping flame. Still holding the candelabrum, Caroline backed away as flame raced around the fringe of the rug and began rolling across it. The man shifted from foot to foot, silent and expressionless. He was turning in a tight circle; there was fire on the wall behind him and fire on the rug in front of him. He couldn’t seem to decide which way to move. As the fires raged taller and wider, Caroline ran from the room.

  Though all but the leftmost candle blew out, the light from the fire helped Caroline see as she hurried along the foyer. She could not believe that she’d left a man to die in a fire.

  Not just left, she thought. She’d caused him to die in the fire!

  But he’d probably killed Tom Stevenson and he had tried to kill her. She’d acted in self-defense. And what in God’s name was she thinking, anyway? That man had been dead before she’d started the fire. He had no heartbeat, no pulse, no breath. He was dead.

  Or maybe she was. Maybe this was hell. As she ran she wondered if Talbot had broken out of his jail cell and killed her, just like he’d killed Pratt and Porterhouse. Or maybe she was on an operating table somewhere and this was a drug-induced reverie. People had been known to have some pretty insane ones.

  There were sounds coming from outside the house. As Caroline passed the credenza she slowed down and used the one lit candle to relight the others.

  The center candle refused to light.

  “Come on!” she yelled.

  The candle finally caught fire and she moved on to the one on the right. She started walking ahead. The last candle finally ignited. She replaced the first candle in its cup and looked up as she headed toward the door.

  She stopped suddenly as a giant of a man stepped heavily into the doorway. He was an albino who stood about seven feet tall and had the same wide-eyed, vacant expression as the man in the library. He wore a tattered floor-length cloak of dried skin—human, she suspected, based on the faded tattoo of a nineteenth-century sailing ship on what looked like had once been an arm. He also wore dirty green trousers and a necklace made of small bones—human metacarpal and metatarsal bones. Tucked in the waistband of his trousers was what looked like a pearl-handled flintlock pistol. There was a matching pistol in his right hand and it was pointed at Caroline. It occurred to the woman just then that the clanging of the machetes had been a call to arms, though she hadn’t a clue as to who was being summoned, how many others there might be, and why they were being called. Just to kill her?

  Caroline was about a yard from the man’s gun. In the instant she had to think about it she decided not to run; she couldn’t outrace a bullet. She was holding the candelabrum chest high. Stepping to the left she thrust the candles forward, hoping this man would back away like the other one and she could slip around him—

  The man staggered back at the same instant as the vintage gun discharged. The loud report filled the foyer and merged with Caroline’s scream. The bullet struck the outside arm of the candelabrum; the impact stung her hand and she dropped the candle holder. As it hit the ground the two outer candles broke off and died. The center candle remained in the cup, still burning.

  Still holding the smoking gun, the man regained his balance and withdrew the second pistol. Caroline glanced quickly behind her. The library was filled with fire and there was nowhere to run. She looked back at the man. His ghostly face showed no expression as he pulled back the hammer and held the weapon waist high.

  “Why are you doing this?” Caroline cried. “Who are you? What have I done to hurt any of you?”

  The man said nothing. He fired the second shot.

  The bullet flew wide as something long and dark literally came through the man. It ripped through his abdomen violently, sending dry pieces of flesh and viscera in all directions. The man lurched as the clawed hand that had come through him unfurled and turned upward. Then the splayed fingers tore backward and up, ripping through the chest, grabbing the chin, and snapping the head backward.

  Despite the stuffiness in her ears caused by the gunshots, Caroline heard the man’s neck snap. She watched as the hand withdrew, pulling the albino into the darkness. Save for the roar of the fire in the library, all was silent.

  Caroline stood with her heart speeding, her jaw trembling, her mind spinning. That was a very distinctive claw she’d seen. The only one she’d ever seen like it had belonged to Lawrence Talbot. If this were him, she wondered if he had saved her intentionally or whether he’d killed the man in order to eat him. She also wondered if she were going to be his next victim.

  The young woman bent slowly, never taking her eyes off the front door. She picked up the candelabrum, retrieved the two broken candles, relit them, and carefully fitted the pieces into the cups. She looked toward the door. She had to get away from the house before the fire spread to the foyer, and there was only one way out. Taking a long, calming breath, Caroline kept her eyes on the doorway and took a tentative step forward. Then she took another step, then a third.

  Suddenly, she heard a bellowing behind her. It was like the howl of wind through a graveyard. She turned and saw the tall man with the machetes walking from the library. He was afire from forehead to feet, stomping toward her, his machetes still flashing. He seemed oblivious to the fact that he was burning.

  Whimpering, Caroline fought to overcome the sudden weakness in her legs. She shielded the candles and stumbled outside. As soon as she stepped onto the portico, a low roar turned her to the left. The glow of the three flames revealed a dark, manlike figure squatting beside the albino. Wiry brown fur covered the figure’s face and hands and poked through the holes in its shirt and trousers. It was Talbot. The Wolf Man was bent over the albino, the dead man’s white flesh coating his claws and mouth—if indeed it was flesh. It looked to Caroline like flecks of white ash, bloodless and tissue-thin.

  The werewolf looked up at Caroline. Still crouching low, he stepped over the body and roared again. He didn’t appear happy with his kill and Talbot’s words of the other day came back to her:

  The curse that transforms me into a wolf when the moon is full—a curse that drives me to eat human flesh.

  But what if the flesh weren’t human? What if these people in this house were all like Dracula—undead?

  Her mind swimming, Caroline backed toward the doorway. She stopped as she remembered the burning man; she turned and looked down the foyer. He was just a few feet away, still swinging his machetes blindly as he came toward her. Seeing him, Caroline screamed long and loud, as much from frustration as from fear.

  She stopped as one of the machetes came slicing up toward her chin. She hopped backward, toward the Wolf Man.

  “No more!” she screamed.

  Driven by desperation, Caroline faced the burning man, wrapped both hands around the base of the candelabrum, and swung it at his head. The left and center arms connected with his jawline and knocked him against the mural. He hit it hard and leaned against it for a moment. Then he pushed off. As he did, his burning hands set the canvas on fire. The impaled bodies vanished into the blackening canvas, their tortures ending forever. As soon as the man was standing Caroline cried out in rage and hit him again. This time the candelabrum struck the side of his head. He fell against the painting once again and slipped to the ground. The machetes dropped from his hands and landed
beside him. This time he did not get up.

  Caroline looked down. Whatever had been inside this man’s head—she was reluctant to think of it as a brain—fell from the long break she’d made in his skull. The gray clumps and smaller gray-white crumbs burned cobalt blue as they tumbled through the flames.

  Panting with fear and disbelief but still gripping the candelabrum, Caroline looked back at the Wolf Man. She turned just in time to see him enter the front door. Still bent low, he seemed oblivious to the flames. His claws were open and working, his lower teeth shifting back and forth. Thick saliva ran from the sides of his mouth. His red eyes, fierce and inhuman, were fastened on hers.

  There were only a few feet between Caroline and the inferno behind her. Her back was thick with sweat and her scalp was hot. Squeezing the base of the candle holder, she faced the werewolf.

  “Lawrence, listen!” she said. “It’s me—Caroline Cooke! Do you remember? I helped you at the castle!”

  The werewolf hesitated. He tilted his forehead forward, creating blackness in which only his white eyes shone. It seemed to Caroline as though he were struggling to think or to comprehend. A growl gurgled in his throat.

  “I promised I’d help you again,” she said, “and I will. That’s why I don’t want to hurt you. Do you understand?”

  The Wolf Man hestitated for a moment. Then, snarling and sinking low on his coiled legs, he jumped at her.

  With an agonized cry, Caroline swung the silver candelabrum at him. It struck the left side of the Wolf Man’s head and knocked him against the credenza. He got right up but Caroline had moved in and hit him again, this time in the forehead. The monster rolled along the top of the sideboard, squirming with pain and smashing the glass cases. Blood leaked from his shattered temple; his eyes were squeezed shut and his mouth was opened wide.

  Caroline stayed with him; she wasn’t going to let him get up again. She pulled the candles from their cups, dropped them to the floor, and turned the candelabrum over so that the heavy base was on top. She held it in both hands and raised it above her head.

  Suddenly, the werewolf stopped writhing. He opened his bloodshot eyes and looked up at her. There was no longer ferocity in his expression and his breath came in shallow gasps.

  Caroline hesitated. Perspiration stung her eyes and she was breathing heavily. As she looked at the now-placid creature beneath her, the young woman found herself wondering who was the animal and who was the creature with a soul.

  Then, with obvious effort, the Wolf Man stretched a shaking paw toward her. “Ag . . . againnn!” he begged. “Pl . . . please.”

  Sobbing, Caroline shut her eyes and brought the candelabrum down hard on his forehead. She felt the warm blood splatter her hands. She heard the body fall to the floor in front of her. She choked as a claw touched her ankle and then went still. She opened her eyes and looked toward the library.

  The fire was crawling closer now. The paintings crashed to the floor and she could hear shelves crumbling in the library. Clouds of fiery ash were drifting closer. Dropping the candelabrum, the young woman looked down at the face of her victim. Not at the face of the Wolf Man, but at the face of Lawrence Talbot. Though blood was still spilling from the wound in his head, his features seemed relaxed. The mouth, once perpetually bent with sorrow, seemed almost to be smiling.

  He seemed at peace.

  She couldn’t leave him here—not in this place of evil. Slipping her hands under Talbot’s arms, she pulled him from the foyer onto the portico and then down the steps. The fire had broken through the rear wall of the house and threw an orange glow against the low clouds. She heard hoofbeats in the distance.

  Caroline still had no idea where she was. For the moment, it didn’t matter. She dragged Talbot toward the dirt road and then sat on the cool earth, his head in her lap. She used her sleeve to wipe the blood from his closed eyes.

  The night breeze brushed around them and stirred the sugar cane in the fields beyond. And then Caroline heard what sounded like whispering. She listened carefully; it was the voice of a woman speaking softly, comfortingly:

  “The way you walked was thorny, through no fault of your own. But as the rain enters the soil, the river enters the sea, so tears surround your predestined end. ”

  Caroline looked up. There was no one there. But she felt a spirit soothing and encouraging her. As men galloped up in odd-looking clothes, the young woman felt something else. For the first time in her life she felt a sense of purpose, felt it right down to her heels. And as she thought of Talbot and her aunt Joan, of the amazing events that had brought her to this point, Caroline knew that she had finally found her own predestined place in the world.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Stephen Banning, Jr., finished patching the opening in the basement wall of the castle. He looked over the bricks then set his trowel on the tarp. Slowly he unbent his old knees and rose.

  “She’s all finished, Dr. Cooke,” he said.

  Dressed in jeans, a loose-fitting white blouse, and red sneakers, Caroline Cooke turned from the open front door. She crossed the sunlit foyer of the Tombs to where the basement door used to be. She was followed by Trooper Matt Willis, who had been standing beside scaffolding that was being erected by Banning’s assistant “Pig” Jenson and his helpers. They were getting ready to replace sections of ceiling beams that had been damaged by the fire.

  “You’ve done excellent work, Mr. Banning,” Caroline said. “Wouldn’t you agree, Trooper Willis?”

  The officer took off his hat, removed his sunglasses, and dropped them into his shirt pocket. “No one ever accused Stephen Banning of not being the best stonemason in the Southeast,” he said.

  “Thank you both very much,” Banning said. After admiring his handiwork for a moment more he took a long, slow look around the foyer. He shook his head. “I’ve gotta tell you. Even on a bright, sunny morning with a bunch o’ people around, this place still gives me the willies.”

  Caroline smiled. “There’s no longer any reason to be afraid of the Tombs,” she said. “No reason at all.”

  “I believe that you believe that,” Banning replied. “But for me this will always be a place I’d rather not be.” His eyes came to rest on the woman. “Nothing personal, you understand.”

  “I do understand,” she said, still smiling.

  “Anyway,” Banning went on, “I’m gonna go over an’ help Pig an’ his fellas. I want ya to be happy with the way we fixed up yer place.”

  “I’m sure I will be,” Caroline said.

  Banning excused himself to join Jenson and his crew.

  Caroline watched him go then turned to Willis. “I assume the place has a cleaner bill of health from you?”

  He nodded. “The team from Naples dragged the water down there, checked the secret room, and looked over every square foot of the place before Tom Stevenson’s funeral. If there are any monsters left, they’re invisible.”

  Caroline studied him for a moment. “You still don’t believe there were any monsters to begin with, do you, Trooper Willis?”

  “I believe that some pretty unusual things happened here,” he said. “And there’s still a lot I can’t explain.”

  “Like?”

  “Talbot having been here fifty years ago, for one,” he said. “Dr. Mornay’s reappearance. Though the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that there was some kind of conspiracy going on. Something to play off LaMirada’s past.”

  “A scam of some kind?” Caroline said as she watched Stephen Banning pick up a router.

  “That’s right.”

  “To what end?”

  “Oh,” said Willis, “to get you to sell the Tombs so it could be turned into a hotel or a nightclub. To create rumors of monsters to make LaMirada a tourist attraction again. Or maybe to get other LaMiradans to sell their homes and move out. Tear the whole damn city down and rebuild it as a Gulf Coast Las Vegas. There’s been talk about all of those things before.”

  “I’ve heard some
of that talk,” she admitted. “But that still doesn’t explain Lawrence Talbot.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” He seemed uneasy about something and gestured toward the front door with his hat. “Say, Dr. Cooke. It’s a little noisy in here. Would you mind stepping outside?”

  “Not at all,” Caroline said.

  Willis extended his arm and Caroline preceded him out. They walked through the great door, which was dark and discolored from the smoke. It was propped open with a can of wood stain. Stacks of lumber were piled on the left, along with bags of nails, toolboxes, and cleaning fluid. Further along the wall, a man was working over fire-ravaged telephone lines, which ran under the bay to the castle. To the west, past the drab-green hanging sheets of Spanish moss, the weeping willows and tall grasses of La Viuda glowed healthy and rich in the bright sunlight. Beyond them, the gulf waters glittered, the sky was a cloudless blue, and for the first time in a week Caroline felt rested.

  She stopped beside a large rock. She leaned against it and folded her arms. “So. What’s on your mind?” she asked.

  Willis was looking down at his wide-brimmed hat as he turned it over and over in his large hands. “Dr. Cooke—”

  “I’m going to be living here,” she interrupted. “Please call me Caroline.”

  “All right, Caroline,” he said. “Last night I read the findings of the inquest of the Marya Island authorities.”

  “And?”

  “Well, I just wanted to know if there was anything you wanted to add to it. Off the record.”

  Caroline cocked her head to one side and squinted at Trooper Willis. “You mean, you don’t believe what the inquest on Marya Island determined.”

  “I am having some trouble with the findings,” Willis admitted. “The judge empaneled a jury in a half hour. They heard testimony from you and the fire crew for exactly one hour. No one was cross-examined. And they handed down their decision by lunchtime. By the time I got down there to collect you and Stevenson’s body, it was all over. That’s awfully quick.”