Ravenous

by Ray Garton

  She took another puff on the cigarette. If Jimmy knew she smoked, he would dole out some serious punishment. But he did not know. It was one of the few things Andrea had that was all her own, her little secret.

  But as enjoyable as it was, she would give it up in an instant if only she could spend some time alone with Jason.

  * * * *

  While Andrea thought of Jason, he was driving home from the Sheriff’s station and thinking of her, just as intensely, just as hungrily. He glanced at the dashboard clock—it was twelve forty-three in the morning, long before he’d have any chance of seeing Andrea. He had planned to see her that day, but when he’d gotten home from work, Jimmy had already come home, for some reason. So he had not been able to see Andrea at all that day.

  He’d already decided to call in sick the following morning. His injuries were reason enough to miss a day. Besides, he was having Andrea withdrawals. He knew that Jimmy worked on Saturdays, so Andrea would be alone with her little girls that day. Thoughts of her chewed on his mind with tiny razor-like teeth.

  He turned onto his street and looked ahead at his house. He pulled his gaze back just a bit when he thought he’d seen a shadowy figure on the porch in front of Andrea’s house. He slowed down, and as he passed, he saw that Andrea was sitting on the top step. The burning red eye of a cigarette flared, then died down again.

  Jason’s heart suddenly pounded in his throat. He pulled over and parked at the curb in front of his house, got out of the car, and ran to her.

  She was up off the porch and hurrying across the lawn, the cigarette between two fingers trailing strings of smoke.

  Andrea gasped as she got closer. “Your face! My God what happened to—not here, not here,” she whispered as they closed the space between them. She tossed the cigarette away.

  Jason smiled even though it hurt his injured face to do so. He grabbed her hand and quickly led her over to his house and into the garage.

  “Let’s go up to my apartment,” Jason said.

  He led the way up the stairs, pushed the rug away, and entered his apartment. She was right behind him. The second she was in, he threw an arm around her waist and pulled her to him hard. Andrea made a small sound in her throat as their mouths met and Jason sucked her tongue into his. As they kissed, he moved his hands all over her, at the same time leading her clumsily toward the bed.

  She finally pulled away. “I can’t be gone long, I don’t know when he’ll wake up.”

  Jason pulled back a little. “Really? Is there a chance he’ll wake up and find you gone?”

  She thought about it a moment, then smiled. “To be honest, he’s pretty much down for the night. He’s a very heavy sleeper, and he drank a lot of beer tonight.”

  “Just playing hard to get, huh?”

  “What happened to your face?”

  “Long story. I’ll tell you later.”

  “All those bandages and—oh my God, your hair!”

  “Yeah, that’s funny, isn’t it?”

  “Funny? Jason, you have a streak of white through your hair.”

  “It got scared white. That’s what happened.”

  “Scared?” She looked at him with wide eyes. “Jason, what happened?”

  He put his hands to the sides of her face and said, “Later, I promise.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Still holding her face, Jason kissed her.

  Andrea undid the knot her belt was tied in, and it dropped to her sides.

  “I’m pretty sure I’ve got time for this,” she whispered. “If he wakes up, I’ll just tell him I went for a walk.”

  Andrea pulled the sides of the robe back, revealing her pale breasts and the pink nipples that were already hard and standing erect. She let the robe slide down into a heap around her sneakers.

  Jason sucked in a little gasp, unable to contain his reaction. He moved forward and kissed her again, softer this time, as he slowly ran his hands over her smooth, silky skin, pressing his erection against her.

  “Do it now,” she whispered against his lips. “Now. I don’t want to wait anymore.”

  As Jason quickly removed his clothes, Andrea sat on the edge of the bed and took off her sneakers. Then she fell back on the bed and slid a hand between her legs, squeezing her pubis hard as she waited for Jason.

  Once he was naked, he practically dove onto the bed.

  “Now, now,” Andrea whispered as Jason lay between her legs and entered her. She cried out once, a sharp, abrupt sound, but she smiled as she did it.

  They did not hold back. She bucked beneath him as he pounded into her and every now and laughed with delight. Andrea rolled them over so she was on top, and she rode him wildly. Jason was lost in the sensations, drowning in Andrea.

  Her panting became loud grunting. The grunting became a low, guttural growl.

  With a sharp cry, Andrea rolled off of Jason.

  It took him a moment to fully realize that she was no longer on top of him—he had to rise from the depths of sensation that had overcome him. He opened his eyes, and she was gone.

  “Andrea?”

  He sat up and looked around. She was no longer in the dark bedroom.

  Jason swung his legs off the bed and staggered out of the bedroom. He got little more than a glimpse of Andrea’s head as it disappeared down the stairs, leaving the rug tossed aside.

  He quickly put on his pants, then hurried after her, down the stairs, out of the garage.

  Andrea was gone.

  Jason went back inside and paced in his small living room. He ran a hand back through his hair several times. What had happened? What had gone wrong? Had he done something wrong? Had she become suddenly overwhelmed with guilt?

  He realized she’d taken her robe and sneakers with her.

  He stayed up for awhile longer, deeply disturbed by Andrea’s sudden exit. Finally, he surrendered to the fact that he would be unable to find out what had gone wrong until in the morning, and undressed and went to bed.

  It took a little while, but he finally drifted off to sleep.

  And in his sleep, he saw crystal-clear images of a big, dark house. ...

  * * * *

  Andrea had run naked from Jason’s apartment and out into the bone-deep chill of the foggy night. She was running, but she was aware of that movement only dimly, as if her consciousness was being sucked into some deep, remote recess of her mind—her environment faded and became distant, as if she were looking through the wrong end of a telescope. She did not feel the cold, though she had left her robe in a heap on her front porch and ran through the night. She was kept warm by something else, something like clothes but not clothes, because she was naked—and yet something covered her body.

  The hunger had become a keening wail inside her. She’d crossed the street and gone between two houses to the wooded area beyond. When she pushed bushes out of the way, she saw her hands and what they had become, but oddly it did not bother her. Everything felt ... right. Good. Except for the hunger. It chewed on her guts.

  Then, the pain began, pain that was in her but somehow removed from her. She fell to the ground as her bones began to break and cartilage bent and twisted. She heard the crunching of the bones in her face, tasted blood when she felt something cut through her gums in her mouth. It tasted good. It seemed to take forever, but at the same time, it seemed to be over in a moment, and it was all from a murky distance, almost as if it was happening to someone else.

  And then she felt ... free.

  She thought in pictures and feelings, not words.

  She pushed on through the fog-shrouded woods, burning with hunger, until she came to the side of a dark road. To her right, the road disappeared around a corner. The fog glowed with oncoming lights that grew brighter and brighter as the car approached the corner.

  She stepped out into the road, headed for the other side.

  The car came around the corner.

  She stopped for just a moment, turned toward the lights, lifted an arm to shield h
er eyes for a moment, then rushed forward across the road.

  The car’s brakes screamed as it swerved to a long, squealing stop. The car had a bar of lights across the roof that suddenly lit up in blue and red as the driver’s side door opened and a uniformed man got out.

  She watched from the darkness at the side of the road. She did not think policeman—she simply watched and took in images, sounds, sensations.

  The man walked away from the car and moved toward the side of the road toward her. He held something in his hand that lit up. The car’s headlights behind him were haloed by the fog.

  She smelled his warmth, his flesh, and her hunger swelled.

  She did not wait. She bounded forward, the hunger throbbing inside her, and moved into the deputy’s light.

  He screamed as he staggered backward, a high shriek that fell flat as it was absorbed by the thick fog.

  She was on him so fast, it surprised even her. She had to tear through his clothes to get to what she now knew would satisfy her burning hunger.

  It was so good ... so hot and wet ... as good as the sex she’d been having with Jason when she’d run out. This was why she’d run away from Jason, to keep from doing this to him. But she did not think that ... she simply understood it.

  She made thick wet sounds as she finally satisfied her hunger. ...

  She moved through the woods again, going in a very specific direction, with a definite destination. She ran across deserted, foggy roads, ran along a creek that took her beneath a bridge, passed through a field of cows that erupted in panicked groans and grunts as they hurried away from her.

  When she reached her destination, she was overwhelmed by a feeling of triumph.

  The house stood before her. She moved toward it, up on the broken porch. She dove through a paneless window into the smelly, musty dark.

  Once inside, her silver eyes scanned the darkness, and they saw that she was not alone. There was an other ... an important other ... and there were others like her with that important other. Many others.

  She was no longer alone.

  She felt safe at last, as if she were home, as if nothing could hurt her now.

  She was precisely where she was supposed to be.

  35

  Preparations

  Before joining the assembly of deputies in the briefing room shortly after nine on Saturday morning, Hurley led Fargo into his office.

  “Sit down,” Hurley said as he closed the door. He went to his desk and propped his hips against the front edge.

  Holding his hat in one hand and his cane in the other, Fargo sat on the padded chair before the desk and looked up at the sheriff. When Hurley said nothing for awhile and simply stared down at Fargo with a hard look on his face, Fargo said, “What is it, Sheriff?”

  “A girl was murdered last night,” Hurley said. He spoke very quietly, making Fargo lean slightly forward to hear him.

  “Well ... I’m sorry to—”

  “The girl who was raped at the Jags last night. The girl I pointed out to you.”

  A silence fell between them and stretched on just long enough to make Fargo shift his position uncomfortably in the chair.

  “Did you kill Suzie Camber because she was raped by one of your werewolves?” Hurley finally said.

  Fargo sniffed and leaned back in the chair, made himself comfortable. “Sheriff, these are not my werewolves. These werewolves belong to your town, and I predict that, starting tonight, you’re going to be so overrun by them that a single dead girl—who was about to become one of those werewolves—will be the least of your worries. As for last night—I was in my motel room.”

  “Okay. Let me tell you something,” Hurley said, speaking very quietly again, his voice steady and sharp. “I don’t care how many werewolves come out of the woodwork, a murder is a murder, and as long as I’m kicking, I’m going to find out who committed this one. If it was you, you’re going away for a long time. The rest of your life, most likely.”

  “But Sheriff, there’s—”

  “Do you understand me, Fargo?”

  Fargo held Hurley’s stare, but said nothing.

  “Just don’t plan on leaving town for awhile. If you do, I’ll have my deputies hunt you down and bring you back.”

  Hurley pushed away from the desk and went to the door, opened it.

  “Come on,” he said. “They’re waiting.”

  * * * *

  The deputies gathered in the briefing room stared blankly at Daniel Fargo as he stood behind the narrow, pale, pinewood pulpit at the front of the room. A heavy silence had fallen over the group, interrupted only by an occasional sniff or throat-clearing cough. Some of the deputies exchanged glances in the silence.

  “Don’t worry, you heard me right,” Fargo said. “I said werewolves.”

  The briefing room was not very large, and it was a big crowd, with every folding metal chair occupied and deputies standing two or three deep along the walls all around the room. Deputies had been pulled in from other stations. Those not wearing uniforms worked later shifts but were called in to hear what Fargo had to say, because they would be dealing with the werewolves that night.

  Hurley sat in a metal folding chair behind Fargo, one ankle resting a knee, trying to look neutral, trying to keep his anxiety off his face. His deputies could not be allowed to see that. This was going to mess some of them up. Some might even refuse to believe. He needed to be firm and resolute, to keep his fears to himself.

  Fargo discussed the only two ways one could kill a werewolf. “Silver and fire. You will be provided with the weapons necessary to combat these creatures, and tonight, we will go out on a massive hunt. We will rush to the first call that comes in that sounds like it might be one of these creatures at work. The nights to come are going to be especially dangerous, and for you, especially strange and nightmarish. Tonight will be bad enough—tomorrow night, as the virus continues to spread, there will be more of them. By the third night, you should have acclimated yourself to hunting and killing werewolves. Of course, if we haven’t done away with them by then, it will most likely be too late. It takes a little getting used to, this business of slaying a monster you’ve always believed to be a fantasy. But I guarantee that if you can hold yourself together, you will be sufficiently armed against these lycanthropes. Once you start killing them, you’ll regain your footing and feel a rush of self-confidence. Trust me ... killing these things is very satisfying, and you will enjoy it.”

  As Fargo went on, explaining everything about the werewolves, his voice grew distant to Hurley, who was wading waist-deep in his thoughts. He thought of Ella. He had grown so comfortable in his marriage that he had never entertained the possibility that Ella had been unfaithful to him, or perhaps was being unfaithful to him then, without his knowledge. After all, she was still an attractive woman and could easily become involved with another man if she were so inclined. But was she?

  I bet she wouldn’t even tell me if she were raped, Hurley thought, and chips of ice slid down his spinal cord, spreading a chill through every nerve in his body.

  She wouldn’t—she’d be afraid of shaming him, of making trouble, of causing a fuss, afraid of a thousand things that had to do with him, never thinking of herself. She was made of iron, his Margie, and she would stand up even to rape, and she would do it alone if she possibly could. It sounded crazy, but then, Ella was a little crazy. He was, too—that was why he’d become a cop. But Ella was a little crazy when it came to him—she would do anything, make any sacrifice, to make his life better, smoother, easier. Sometimes when he thought about it, he felt like crying, like he would never be able to repay her for that, never deserve everything she did for him and was to him. But she didn’t expect repayment—his happiness was her repayment, she’d told him that herself. Sometimes, he wondered what he’d done to deserve her.

  At the moment, though, he felt a slowly growing fear. It gradually tightened like a noose around his neck, squeezing off his air, crushing his windpipe. He
frantically thought back over the last week, wondering if Ella had behaved differently, if there were any signs, no matter how small, that something was wrong. He could think of none.

  C’mon, he thought, the likelihood that Ella has been raped in the last couple days or is having an affair ...

  It was absurd when he thought about it. And yet that absurdity did not calm his fears, which knew no absurdities, only frightening possibilities. His fear knew that if Ella were ever to be raped and not tell him about it, or if she ever were unfaithful to him, it would be now, when the danger was the greatest. That was the kind of luck he had. But as hard as he tried, he could think of nothing that might be a tell-tale sign that something bad had happened to her, that there was someone else, and even Ella wasn’t good enough to keep something like a rape from seeping out of her at the seams, he was sure. Hurley was certain he would see something, would know something was wrong.

  He closed his eyes and rubbed them hard with thumb and forefinger. These killings, these things—he still had a hard time using the word “werewolf”, even in the privacy of his own mind.

  Hurley stood as Fargo went on speaking. He went to the small office in the rear of the room, closed the door, and took his cell phone from his pocket. Ella answered on the second ring.

  “Hey, honey,” he said. “How are you?”

  “I’m good. How about you?”

  “Well, it’s been a hell of a day. I’m going to be home late again. Probably very late. Look, do me a favor, okay?”

  “Are you going to tell me to stay inside after dark again?” she said with a smile in her voice. “Sweety, you only have to tell me once, really.”

  “Sorry. I worry. That maybe you’ll forget, or you won’t really take me seriously.”

  “Will you finally explain when you get home tonight?”

  “Yes, I will. I promise. You’re not going to believe it, but I’ll tell you everything. Why should I be the only one having nightmares?”