Ravenous

by Ray Garton

  “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.”

  “Why?”

  “So you’ll be close by if you ... I don’t know, if you start feeling pain, or something.”

  “The doctor gave me some Vicodin. I’ll be fine, Mom. I wouldn’t be able to sleep in my old room. I’m too used to sleeping in the apartment now. Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll be fine, and if I’m not, I’ll come down and wake you.”

  “Will you?” she said. “You promise?”

  “Promise.”

  Normally, he would be annoyed and would remind his mother of his age, but not tonight. It felt good that she was concerned. He appreciated it deeply tonight, with the taste of his own blood still in his mouth.

  Andrea. Just thinking about her made him feel better. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted to see her.

  When they got to the house, Dad parked in the driveway and Mom quickly got out and came to Jason’s door before he could open it. She pulled it open and said, “Can you get out of the car all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay, Mom, I’m fine. I just want to go up and take some Vicodin.”

  “Has the shot worn off already?”

  He got out of the car and winced. “My arm hurts, is all.”

  “I know—I’ll make you some hot chocolate and bring it to you.”

  Half of Jason’s mouth curled up into a partial smile. She so desperately wanted to be needed by him, and he hated to disappoint her.

  “That sounds good, Mom,” he said they came to the front door. “With marshmallows.”

  “Oh, of course, honey.”

  Dad stepped around them, keys in hand, and unlocked the door, then led them inside. Lights had been left on in the house.

  Jason followed his mother to the left and into the kitchen. She went to the counter, while he went through the laundry room, and out the door, into the garage. He went upstairs to his apartment.

  He would wait for his mother to come up to the apartment with his hot chocolate. Then she would go back down and into the house, and she and Dad would go to bed. It would not take them long to fall asleep. It never did. They were fast, deep sleepers, due mostly to their fondness for evening cocktails. Jason had been taking advantage of his parents’ deep sleep since he was a little kid, and he planned to do it again that night. He was hungry, so he would make himself a chicken sandwich. He would eat slowly, giving his parents plenty of time to drift off to sleep. Then he would go quietly down the stairs and get into his car and drive to the Sheriff’s office. He remembered the Sheriff and that man in the hat talking to each other. Maybe the Sheriff or someone in the building could tell him who the man was and where to find him.

  He knew there was no point in going to bed, because he knew he would be unable to sleep.

  Jason was not sure if he would ever sleep again.

  * * * *

  Half an hour later, Jason went out to his car, which was always parked at the curb directly in front of the house. Before getting in, he looked over at Andrea’s house. There was a light in the living room glowing dimly beyond the closed drapes. He got in, drove away from his house, left his neighborhood, and went to the Sheriff’s station in the middle of town.

  Rain had been replaced by a thick, chilling fog that gave the lights in town heavy, shimmering halos. The red, green, and amber traffic lights were softened, as if seen through a thick, gauzy filter.

  Big Rock closed up early. It was around ten-thirty when Jason drove into town, and everything was dark except the 7-Eleven, the Sheriff’s station, the Winchell’s Donuts, and the Chevron with its little mini-mart over by the freeway on-ramp.

  Jason pulled into the empty parking lot and parked directly in front of the two-story building next to a cluster of handicap spaces. He got out and went up the narrow white walkway to the glass doors in front. He went inside.

  The station was brightly lighted and smelled of strong coffee. There was a bench against the wall on each side of Jason as he walked in, then the room opened up and there was a counter straight ahead. Beyond the counter, through the bullet-proof window, was a room filled with desks and tables. The station was quiet, with a couple Sheriff’s deputies sitting at desks, a couple more standing and talking, drinking from white Styrofoam cups. A tel
ephone trilled somewhere, and Jason could hear fingers clattering over a keyboard. There were a couple more benches against the walls on this side of the counter, and sitting in one of them reading a paperback book was the man Jason had last seen in the Cranes’ front yard, the man with the badly scarred face. He still wore his long black coat and old-fashioned hat as he read, apparently oblivious to his surroundings.

  Jason walked over to the bench and stood facing the man, who remained unaware of his presence.

  Jason cleared his throat and said, “Um, excuse me.”

  A moment later, the man lifted his head and his eyebrows rose. “I beg your pardon, were you speaking to me?”

  Jason froze for a moment. Seeing the man’s face in such good light was startling—the scars were even worse than they’d appeared outside in the dark earlier that night. “Uh, y-yes. My name is Jason Sutherland. I met you earlier tonight in my neighbor’s front yard.”

  “Ah, yes, the young man with the injuries. How are you?”

  “I’m okay. Not as bad as I’d thought, with all that blood.”

  “Yes, you were a bloody mess. I am glad to see you up and about. Sit down, Jason,” the man said, patting the empty half of the bench.

  Jason perched himself on the edge of the bench.

  “My name is Daniel Fargo,” the man said. “I’m here waiting for Sheriff Hurley. What brings you to the Sheriff’s office?”

  “Well, to tell the truth, I came here hoping to find you.”

  “Me? Whatever for?”

  “Because you knew how to kill it. You knew what it was.” He leaned a little closer to Fargo and lowered his voice. “It was a werewolf, wasn’t it? An honest-to-God werewolf. I saw it and I don’t know what else it could be. So please, tell me ... what do you know about that thing?”

  A red paperboard bookmark lay on the bench beside Fargo. He picked it up and gently placed it between pages of the dog-eared old copy of an Irwin Shaw novel he was reading, then closed the book and set it down on the bench. He crossed one knee over the other and folded his hands together as he looked closely at Jason.