Ravenous

by Ray Garton

  “Most of the time, when I want to convince someone they are dealing with an infestation of werewolves, I’m lucky if I get them simply to consider the possibility. Most never believe me, even when it looks them in the face. You, on the other hand, Jason, have just come to me and said the very thing it is so hard to convince most people of when I’m trying my very best. I commend you. You have an open mind.”

  “Open mind nothing. I saw it. It knocked the crap out of me. If you hadn’t been there, that thing would’ve eaten me, wouldn’t it?”

  Fargo considered his answer a moment, then nodded once and said, “That was foremost on the creature’s mind, I’m afraid, yes.”

  “Where do they come from? What can we do to stop them, to kill them?”

  “I intend to talk to Sheriff Hurley about this very thing when he returns,” Fargo said. “Why don’t you sit in on that conversation. That way, I won’t have to repeat it all.”

  “Okay. But there’s one thing you have to tell me now. That thing bit me.” He lightly touched his hand to his upper arm. “Does that mean that I’m going to ... “ It sounded so ridiculous, so silly, that Jason could not bring himself to say it out loud.

  “Does that mean you will turn into a werewolf?” Fargo said, his head dipping forward as he smiled slightly.

  “Exactly,” Jason said with an enthusiastic nod.

  “No. You have nothing to worry about there. In fact, you might as well toss out everything you think you know about werewolves. Most of the myths are just that—myths. They have little to do with the facts. It is true that werewolves have a fatal allergy to silver, but that is where the similarity ends. However, I’ll save that for my conversation with the sheriff.”

  Jason’s right leg bounced up and down and he shifted his position on the bench several times. He was immensely relieved that he would not be turning into a werewolf anytime soon, but at the same time, he was jittery, nervous, and he could not wait to hear what Fargo had to say.

  32

  Fargo and Jason

  Saturday

  When Hurley arrived, Fargo urged the sheriff to include Jason in their meeting. Hurley agreed to this but reserved the right to jettison Jason from the office in the event confidential material was discussed. Hurley led them back down the corridor to his office. He directed them to sit in the two metal-framed chairs that faced his desk as he went around and took his seat. Once they were settled, Hurley leaned forward and nodded at Jason. “Well, Jason, the way it looks, Emily Crane was ... well, Fargo, how do you say it?”

  “She was a werewolf, that’s how you say it,” Fargo said.

  Hurley closed his eyes as he nodded. “I still can’t bring myself to say it out loud.”

  “I know what you mean, Sheriff,” Fargo said. “It takes some getting used to.”

  “Anyway,” Hurley said, “Emily killed and ate a great deal of her husband. She also ate her cat. You were right, Fargo. There was raw hamburger in the kitchen sink, too.”

  Jason’s eyes widened. “You mean, that ... that was Mrs. Crane?”

  Hurley watched the nervous young man as he shifted in his chair and plucked at his shirt under his open jacket, pulling it away from his belly so it wouldn’t cling to his round shape, trying so hard to hide the fact that he was overweight.

  “Yes, it was. A little while ago, her sister had to identify what was left of her. There was a birthmark ... which allowed her sister to make the ID. We covered up the parts of her that were, uh ... that weren’t ... human. I figured her sister didn’t need that on top of what had already happened. She can learn about that later.” Hurley leaned back in his chair. “Okay. Let’s hear everything you have to tell me, Fargo. This time, I’m listening.”

  “We might have waited too long, Sheriff,” Fargo said. “It may be too late.”

  “Wait. What do you mean, ‘too long’? This all just happened. You just came—”

  “It spreads fast, Sheriff. Between now and the last time I talked with you, they’ve had time to spread the virus some more.”

  “Virus?” Jason said.

  Fargo turned to Jason and filled him in on the fact that the lycanthropy was spread through a sexually-transmitted virus. “Have you had sex with someone who might be a werewolf?”

  Jason frowned, thought a moment, then said, “No. No, I haven’t.”

  “See that you don’t. A condom will prevent picking up the virus, but it won’t protect you when she turns and starts to eat you. Lycanthropy turns a person into an animal with only two things on its mind—sex and food.” He turned to Hurley. “The lycanthrope craves sex and can never get enough. It is a half-human creature, but without any human inhibitions. When it wants something, it takes it. It is a savage, ravenous animal that will stop at nothing to get what it wants. If you stand in its way, it will either severely injure you or kill you. You can shoot it, but its body will only spit those bullets right back out. It can regenerate with great speed. Stab it, and the wound closes itself and heals quickly. Kill it, and it will come back, given a little time to heal. That is why your John Doe disappeared, Sheriff Hurley. He got up and walked away, and he has been satisfying his hungers and spreading the virus ever since. It has no doubt found a comfortable and safe place to sleep during the day, and the others are drawn to that place, that den. The werewolf is, of course, nocturnal. The nights have not been safe in Big Rock since he arrived, and they will not be safe until he and everyone he has infected are dead.”

  “And you’re convinced that John Doe is this man you’ve been hunting?” Hurley said.

  “Irving Taggart,” Fargo said.

  “What about the werewolves themselves?” Jason said. “How much of the myth is true?”

  “As I said earlier, you can dismiss the myth, for the most part. For example, the full moon has nothing to do with the werewolf’s transformation. A lycanthrope can transform himself anytime he pleases, day or night, although they usually leave it up to their emotions to do it. A lycanthrope will turn if under stress, or angry—any intense emotional state—or if its hunger grows strong enough. So, in that sense, the lycanthrope is not entirely in control of its transformations. Especially the newer ones. Over time, they learn to control and manipulate their bodies’ abilities. The older they are, the more in-control they are. They can live forever, as long as they are not burned to death, and as long as silver is not introduced into their systems.”

  Jason absorbed the information, eyes wide, lips parted.

  “Have I answered all your questions, Jason?” Fargo said.

  He frowned, trying to come up with more questions. “I guess so,” he said with doubt.

  “Would you mind leaving us, then, please?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Jason stood. “Thanks for letting me sit in on this, Sheriff.”

  “Jason,” Hurley said, “I’m going to have to insist that you tell no one about what we’ve discussed here tonight. That includes members of your family. You need to keep this entirely to yourself, do you understand?”

  “Uh ... yeah, sure,” Jason said with a nod. “My family wouldn’t believe me, anyway.” Jason went to the door, opened it, turned to Fargo, and said, “Are you going to be around, Mr. Fargo?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m not leaving town until Irving Taggart is killed or he leaves town first.”

  Jason nodded, then pulled the door closed as he left the office.

  Hurley studied Fargo sitting across the desk. He questioned the wisdom of telling Jason Sutherland everything, of telling anyone everything, before they had a plan of attack.

  That seemed to register on Hurley’s face, because Fargo shrugged one shoulder and said, “He knew before he ever came to me. He knew right away it was a werewolf that attacked him. And he won’t be the only one. What about the two young women at the Jags tonight? Did either of them say anything about a wolf?”

  Hurley pursed his lips a moment, thinking. Then: “Yes, one of them did. The one who was talking. I’m going to the hospital later to see the gi
rl who was raped.”

  Fargo spoke just above a whisper: “She has to die, Sheriff.”

  Hurley chewed on his lower lip. “In my line of work, we only punish people after they’ve done something wrong, not because we think they will. The idea of killing her because she was raped by that thing ... it goes against everything I believe in.”

  Fargo stood and stepped up to Hurley’s desk, pressed his hands flat to the desktop and leaned forward on elbow-locked arms. “Sheriff Hurley, you need to inform your deputies and arm them with silver. I have scores of silver knives in my motor home. A simple knife could save their lives in a confrontation with one of the werewolves, and it would end the life of the werewolf.”

  Hurley knew he had no choice, he would have to explain things to his deputies, even pull more deputies in from outlying stations—as many as possible would be required to hunt the things down.

  “That’s how we kill it,” Hurley said. “How do we find it?”

  “You get a call about an attack, you take all your deputies to the scene, and get there as soon as possible. If the thing isn’t still there, we spread out and hunt for it. This is all I’ve been doing for years now. It’s all I know these days. I’ve never had a sheriff’s department at my disposal before, though, and that will make a great deal of difference. The problem will be the den, if we can find it. We won’t know how many of the creatures are in there till we get there, so we’ll need all the men you can get together. Newly infected werewolves will be drawn to the original werewolf—in this case, Irving Taggart. So there could be ... well, however many will fit into the den. The bigger the den, the bigger the risk.”

  “We need to be armed with silver bullets,” Hurley said. He sighed. “But how long will it take us to come up with that many silver bullets?”

  Fargo smiled. “Not to worry, Sheriff. I have all the silver bullets you’ll need.”

  33

  A Hospital Visit

  Suzie Camber’s thoughts were just beginning to take shape again. For the first time since she witnessed Bobby Sanders’s brutal murder at the hands of—of what? What was it? And how long ago? She wasn’t sure. Time seemed to have slipped away from her and no longer meant anything—she could have been lying in that Emergency Room bed for a few minutes or all night, she was unable to tell.

  She burned and throbbed between her legs. It felt like something had torn her up down there. It was the only place on her body where she could feel anything. She was numb everywhere else, it seemed.

  I was raped, she thought for the dozenth time.

  The word filled her with dread, because sooner or later, her father would find out. She knew how he would react. He would tell her she brought it on herself with the clothes she wore, the people she hung out with, the way she behaved in public—flirting with boys and joking around, not the way a young lady should behave. She dreaded having to sit and listen to him lecture her, quote the Bible to her, tell her about the hellfire that surely awaited her.

  Bobby was dead. She’d watched as that ... what was it? She’d never seen anything like it in her life, not even on the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet, where you saw just about every animal-thing there was on the globe. Whatever it was, it had done horrible things to Bobby ... things that would haunt her for the rest of her life.

  And then it had been gone, and that man ... that half-naked one-eyed man with torn clothes dangling from his body in strips ... that man had raped her.

  There were clothes on that monster, too, she thought. Dangling from it in strips, human clothes on that ... that animal thing. The same clothes that were on the man who raped me.

  It made her head hurt. It was impossible. Surely her imagination had intervened and she’d only thought she’d seen the same tattered clothes on both man and monster.

  “How are you feeling, sweetheart?” Mom asked. Daddy had not come to the hospital, leaving Mom to come alone. Suzie was grateful for that, even though it was only a delay of the inevitable.

  Suzie turned her eyes to Mom without moving her head. She wanted to respond ... but how? What would she say, do?

  Suzie closed her eyes. She was unsure of how long they remained closed. She opened them when an unfamiliar voice said, “Mrs. Camber?”

  A nurse was peering in through the part in the curtain.

  “Yes?” Mom said.

  “You have a phone call. You can take it on that phone on the wall over there.”

  “All right, thank you.” The nurse disappeared and Mom turned to Suzie again. “I’ll be right back, sweetheart. It’s probably your father. Be right back, now, okay?”

  Mom left the small enclosure, and Suzie was alone. She closed her eyes again.

  Suzie preferred the warm darkness of the backs of her eyelids. She felt safe there, alone, unworried. Just floating in the blackness.

  A sound. The rustling of the curtain. Had Mom returned already? Then the rustling of something else, some other material. Clothing?

  Suzie opened her eyes. Slowly, her eyes grew larger as she looked up at the horrible scars on the man’s face. They were darkened by the shadow of his broad-brimmed hat. He was all dark in a long black coat, dark clothes under it. The only thing that was not dark about him was the knife he held, with its long, slender, glinting-silver blade. He was ugly as the devil. Maybe he was the devil, come to punish her for her sins. He quickly pulled the blanket and sheet down to uncover her chest.

  Suzie could not move, and she found as she opened her mouth and tried to speak that she had no voice.

  The pointed tip of the blade pressed between two of her ribs just to the left of her sternum.

  Suzie’s last thought as he slid the silver blade into her was, Maybe Daddy’s right after all ...

  * * * *

  When Edith Camber put the receiver to her ear, she heard a dial tone. She frowned as she put the receiver back on its hook, then turned and looked around the crowded, bustling Emergency Room. Had someone hung up on the call? Edith was confused—who would call her here and then hang up before she got to the phone?

  She turned and made her way through the Emergency Room, moved the curtain aside so she could return to Suzie’s bedside. Edith said, “I don’t understand, the line was—”

  Suzie’s eyes were closed. She was asleep. She looked so peaceful with the blanket and sheet tucked up to her neck, her arms limp at her sides. Edith smiled gently as she sat down in a metal-framed chair beside the bed.

  Edith found herself thinking about what had been done to her little girl. Tears burned her eyes. She prayed the police would catch her rapist and he would go to jail for a long time.

  But for now, she was happy to see that Suzie had found a little peace in sleep.

  34

  Night Hunger

  Andrea Norton awoke suddenly and with a gasp. She lay there staring into the darkness for awhile, tense and tingling. She rolled and tossed, trying to find a comfortable spot, but she could not relax enough to go back to sleep. An image remained in her mind, an image from her sleep. A dream ... but then, not quite a dream. Something else. Something vivid and strange.

  She turned and watched Jimmy sleep. He snored loudly. He’d come home early from work that day saying he didn’t feel well. That was about all he’d said to her. He’d paced the house, drinking one beer after another—and yet he did not seem to get drunk. Instead, he’d become increasingly manic until he’d finally left the house. He’d come back late that night, just a she was on her way to bed. He’d looked as if he’d been in a barroom brawl. His clothes had been torn, and he’d had what looked like a smear of blood around his mouth. His eyes had been unusually wide, and yet he’d appeared clearly exhausted. Surprised, Andrea had taken in a breath to ask him what had happened, but those wide eyes had turned to her and narrowed. She’d kept quiet and gone to bed. Jimmy had stayed up awhile, finally coming to bed reeking of beer. She could still smell it now as he snored louder than usual.

  She got out of bed and put on her heavy blue-an
d-grey robe and a pair of sneakers. She went to the kitchen, opened a cupboard, reached back behind the coffee mugs on the bottom shelf, and retrieved her hidden pack of Winstons and a Bic lighter. She stuffed them into the right pocket of her robe, then made a cup of tea.

  All day long, she’d been unable to think of anything but Jason. But now, something else bothered her. In her sleep, she’d seen a house. But it was far more real than any dream. There was something very important about the house, but she was not sure what. It stirred in her a feeling of urgency and need, a pulling sensation, as if the house were drawing her in, dragging her mind toward its front door. The house was familiar, but she was unable to identify it. She had seen the house before, but couldn’t remember where or when. Upon waking from that dream, she felt a strange hunger. She went to the refrigerator and looked for something to appease that hunger, but nothing appealed to her, nothing was right. She was hungry for ... something.

  Andrea closed the refrigerator and paced the kitchen, chewing on a thumbnail. She thought of Jason. No one had ever made love to her the way he had. No one had ever treated her that way, touched her that way. Certainly not Jimmy, and there had been only one guy before Jimmy. Of course, she’d never told Jimmy that—as far as Jimmy was concerned, he was her one and only.

  Once her tea was ready, she took it with her to the front of the house and went out the front door. It was foggy and cold outside, but her robe was heavy. She sat down on the top step of the front porch, set her tea down beside her, and lit a cigarette. She so seldom smoked that when she did, the nicotine hit her hard and made her dizzy after that first puff. It felt good, that brief buzz, but it was gone almost before it started. Once again, she was feeling the strange anxiety that had dragged her from her sleep, thinking of that big dark house, trying to ignore the hunger clawing in her stomach, aching in her very bones.