“What do we do?” Savannah asked.
“Depends,” Barb answered.
Duane and Savannah exchanged a look. “On what?” he said.
Barb nodded, the shotgun pointed in the general direction of the blond werewolf on the Devil’s Lair roof. “Do we want to be heroes, or do we want to live?”
“Option B,” Duane said immediately.
“B,” Savannah agreed.
“Thank God,” Barb said. “I figured you two would be too dumb to choose B.” Barb turned and moved back the way they’d come. “I don’t want anything to do with that blond bitch. We’ll take our chances with one of the others.”
It took Joyce very little time to adjust to her new body. She’d been awkward at first, but the sense of manipulating limbs, of operating some new machine to which she wasn’t accustomed had faded swiftly and was replaced by a breath-stealing exuberance, a sense of invulnerability. She knew she could still be killed. Superhuman regenerative powers aside, she understood how mortal she was. After all, she had felt pain every day over the past week in one form or another. She even felt pain now, the aftereffects of the gruesome transformation still reverberating through her body.
Yet she was beginning to grasp how incredible her abilities were, how vast her capacity for extraordinary feats. As she rushed through the warm, moonlit air, her footpads moving lightly over the western shore of Beach Land, back where only the technicians and mechanics ventured when a ride needed maintenance, she listened for gunshots, for screams, but very few drifted to her. She could hear very little at all, save for the faraway sound of the merry-go-round, the one ride apparently left running when the werewolves had begun their attack.
Though Joyce had craved this new state of being and was awed by it, there were unforeseen elements at work in her that dampened her excitement considerably. For one, she was gripped by bloodlust. Not just hunger, but an ungovernable need to wash her muzzle with blood, to chew with her new mandibles, to rend with her tapered talons.
To kill.
But she mustn’t do that, mustn’t give in. It was hard to resist. She hadn’t counted on this, hadn’t counted on the imperious demands of her new body.
Nor had she foreseen the fear.
True, she was no longer self-conscious. This new frame was too magnificent for such mundane concerns. Beauty was hers. Measureless strength was hers.
But control?
Back at the Roof, Joyce had come very close to killing Savannah. And in those terrible moments when she was stalking toward her best friend, there had been another, deeper layer of desire in her, a nascent yet very real urge that made every vestige of her humanity quail.
She had wanted to murder Savannah.
Worse, she had wanted to hear Savannah’s screams, to revel in her anguish. Images of Savannah’s nude body, her skin splashed with blood, her eyes wild with terror, her supple belly split open to reveal the treasures within…these images had flashed through Joyce’s mind as she’d approached her friend.
Shivering, Joyce dashed along the shore in the direction of the suspension bridge. She must not give in to that sinister urge. She must not kill an innocent person.
Least of all her best friend.
Joyce neared the Devil’s Lair, veered behind it. She needed to keep to the shadows, avoid the blond werewolf.
Joyce was upon the man before she realized it.
Bedecked in a thick brown Carhartt coat despite the sultriness of the night, the man had apparently taken refuge behind the towering haunted house, had been concealed in the bunched shadows, which was why Joyce hadn’t noticed him. But now he was bellowing in terror and swinging a hammer at her. So unexpected was the attack that the hammer caught her in the side of the face, and though the blow hurt, what took Joyce unawares was the fireball of rage that bloomed in her mind. Unthinkingly, she lashed out, and then the man was slumping against the cinderblock wall, his head crooked and the gash in his neck spurting arterial blood all over the ground. The sight of the blood enflamed Joyce’s desire, and she took a step toward the dying worker, thinking to guzzle the glorious red liquid.
Then she froze, horrified, and shambled away.
God, it had been so easy! She hadn’t meant to kill the man, but he’d struck first, and—
And there was no rationalizing it. Not even in her transformed state. She wasn’t herself now, but she wasn’t so removed from her humanity that she could justify what she’d done.
Joyce was shocked to find a sob welling in her throat. It sounded like a growl.
She had to put this behind her, had to focus her energy on saving as many people as she could. It wouldn’t make up for the worker, but it would demonstrate that she wasn’t entirely evil.
Ahead, the shore curved inward, the misshapen peninsula on which Beach Land was constructed thinning to a flat spur of land people traversed when completing the long walk along the sprawling suspension bridge. Joyce moved behind a taco stand, a strip of shops and restrooms, and as she crept out from between a pair of outbuildings, she heard a chorus of sounds from within. Everywhere, she felt the stir of breath, heard the sibilant rasp of frightened whispers. There were hundreds of people hidden inside these buildings.
Then Joyce became aware of another presence.
Yes, she decided as she stole closer to the dark suspension bridge exit. It was as she’d suspected—one of the werewolves had taken a post here. If they barred both exits, the other two would have free rein to hunt and kill. How long would it be before a force large enough and brave enough to oppose them appeared at Beach Land? The first wave of policemen who’d ventured into the park had been unceremoniously slaughtered. Why should the second wave or the third be any different? Who would believe the nature of what they were fighting until they actually beheld it? And who, beholding it, would be courageous and cunning enough to battle the creatures and survive?
Joyce was thinking these thoughts as she hurried into the darkness of the overhang, the sheltered ramp that spanned perhaps twenty yards before the open-air suspension bridge began.
Directly in front of her, no more than ten feet away, a shape rose from the ramp and opened its yellow eyes.
Joyce cursed her clumsiness. She wasn’t ready for this, had no clue how to fight such a creature. In contrast, her opponent—she saw it was the auburn-haired werewolf—looked eager, maniacally eager to do battle. The auburn werewolf was taller than Joyce was, was broader through the shoulders. She could see the strands of ruddy hair stir on its magnificent arms, could hear the deep, gravelly chortle of its laughter as it prepared to strike. The leer on its face gave it the look of a towering, misshapen clown.
Without thinking, Joyce flew at it.
Her teeth sank into its belly. Driven back, it squalled, began digging at Joyce’s back, her shoulders, but Joyce’s teeth sank deeper into its hairy flesh, and when she reared back, a hole the size of a grapefruit opened in the auburn werewolf’s stomach. Immediately, the opening was filled with a bulge of purple entrails, but rather than marveling at the wound she’d inflicted, Joyce darted in again, this time going for the beast’s throat.
Mistake, she realized as the werewolf jerked aside. Not only did she miss the beast’s throat, but she’d exposed her own torso to the auburn werewolf’s claws, which raked down and tore through one of her breasts.
Joyce bellowed in pain, but it came out a ferocious roar, and the sound of it galvanized her, caused her to hammer down at the werewolf’s ankle. The Achilles tendon snapped with a juicy twang, and the beast went down. Joyce scrambled closer to finish the werewolf, sank a claw into one of its eyes. She tore down, ruining the eye, but again she underestimated the creature’s slyness. Its claws flashed, this time tearing off a patch of skin near her hip, and unthinkingly, Joyce turned her back in an effort to escape.
Another mistake, she immediately realized. The flesh between her shoul
der blades erupted with searing pain.
Joyce spun, snarling.
But it lashed out at her again. Joyce went stumbling back. The creature struck her in the stomach, its movements too fast to resist. Even in its diminished state, even with its entrails dangling from its belly and one eye sluicing some pinkish-yellow fluid, it was eager for battle.
Joyce swayed on her feet. Blood dripped from her wounds. She shook her head, screwed up her eyes in an effort to remember all she’d read about lycanthropy. She recalled her session with Glenn in the library. The memory was painful, so painful it stole her breath and filled her with a desolation that was worse than her wounds. She should have kissed Glenn, should have made love to him. If she’d only known…
A snatch of reading flickered across her mind. Decapitation, she remembered. Decapitation was the only way to kill a werewolf. That or burning, and burning accomplished the same thing—the separation of the head from the body, the dividing of mind and heart. The end of the terror.
There was a renewed vitality in the auburn werewolf’s expression, a heightened awareness in the yellow eyes. If Joyce allowed the creature, mutilated as it was, to escape without further injury, would it regenerate to its former glory? She believed it would.
As Joyce watched, the auburn werewolf’s pupils dilated, then contracted. The werewolf tensed, preparing for a spring.
Teeth bared, Joyce feinted low, hoping the werewolf would react defensively.
It did.
Joyce swung with all her might, plunged three claws into the soft shelf of flesh under the beast’s chin. Joyce jerked down, opened a giant red smile in its throat. It tumbled back, choking on its own blood.
Joyce followed. She reached down, grasped the long, matted mane and, using her wicked talons to scythe through cartilage and tissue, removed the head from the body. Panting, Joyce stepped over to the bridge railing and heaved the head over the side. There was a muted splash.
She became aware of eyes watching her.
Joyce turned, beheld the small group of onlookers clustered about sixty feet away, their wide-eyed faces half-shadowed by the sheltering roof.
Joyce opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out was a rumbling growl.
The onlookers retreated.
Dammit. Joyce cleared her throat, concentrated on forming the words.
“Safe,” she managed to rumble.
Most of the onlookers continued to backpedal, but a short woman in her late forties paused and squinted at her. The woman glanced around, took a couple steps forward. “Did you say ‘safe’?”
Joyce nodded.
A man crept up next to the short woman. He had a black crew cut and wore a red-and-white Western Indiana T-shirt. “Why should we trust you? It’s a massacre back there.” He nodded toward the park.
Joyce stood irresolutely for a moment, doubting her ability to articulate her message. Instead, she turned and gestured toward the headless werewolf.
More of the onlookers crept forward.
Joyce brought up her hands—and they were hands now, she realized. Or at least partially. The change seemed to be reversing.
“Don’t go near her!” someone from the rear of the group called. “Just look at her, for chrissakes!”
Joyce suppressed a surge of irritation. Not only did she not have time to reassure these people, she was also in an enormous amount of pain. While the transformation into a werewolf had been unspeakably painful, the reversal to her normal body wasn’t much better. Joyce doubled over, her long, tapered teeth cutting their way back into her gums, her human jaws reforming.
“I don’t trust it,” someone muttered, and there were numerous murmurs of assent.
From the park a bellowing howl rent the night air, raising the hackles on the back of her neck, making the onlookers whimper in terror. She thought of the other ones, the still-living werewolves. Weezer. The black-haired beast. The blond werewolf.
The one who’d killed Glenn.
The memory of his broken body lying amid the dregs of beer and shattered glass did it to her, reversed the reversal.
Sorrow, she realized. It’s my sorrow that brings the change.
The onlookers had begun to whisper and mutter again, and she knew in moments they’d flee. And then they’d be right back in harm’s way—perhaps even in danger of being killed by Joyce—and the battle she’d fought against the auburn-haired werewolf would be for naught.
Mustering all her concentration, Joyce moved to the suspension bridge railing, pointed down the bridge’s length toward the exit and roared, “Go!”
A couple people broke loose in terror and disappeared back into the park. The rest simply froze, gaping at her with a look of mute horror.
“NOW!” she thundered.
As one, the onlookers rushed forward, the entire mass of eighty or ninety people crowding the opposite railing from where she stood, the transformation seizing hold of her, bending her double, dropping her to her knees, which were popping, cracking, the vertebrae reforming. She felt the bridge beneath her yaw slightly and had a moment to wonder if the concentrated weight of the fleeing crowd might cause the whole bridge to snap free of its moorings. But as the change neared completion, and a new, even larger group of park patrons scurried past her, she realized the bridge would hold. She glanced at the departing mass and estimated she’d saved maybe two hundred lives.
But there were more of them, she knew, all over the park. Hidden in the many indoor rides. Taking refuge in the shops and arcades. Even cowering inside the Devil’s Lair.
She had to save them.
Had to save Savannah most of all.
Her face a mask of grim determination, Joyce began to run toward the tunnel. By the time she reached the boardwalk, she was moving faster than she ever had.
Part Five
The Devil’s Lair
Chapter Thirty
“I’ve never heard you so quiet,” Savannah said over her shoulder.
That’s because I’ve never been scratched by a werewolf before, Duane thought.
He knew he’d been sliced by broken glass during the melee, knew he’d been contused by his bone-rattling collision with the table.
But the gouge in his shoulder…that wasn’t from any broken bottle. It was deep and it was burning and it was…he couldn’t escape the word.
Alive.
As they hurried through the maze of cottages and two-story dormitories, the ones in which the summer employees lived, the flesh and tissue around the wound seemed to writhe and squirm and throb with life.
And what was more, Barb, who’d been limping badly when she’d first arrived at the Roof, now seemed to move with little trouble at all. He remembered the rapid way the others had healed after the bonfire attack and couldn’t help drawing a parallel.
“Stop,” Barb hissed.
Duane stopped, but not quickly enough to avoid plowing into Savannah, who went sprawling forward. Duane had a moment of sheer terror when he realized she’d landed on her gun—what if it fired straight into her belly?—but the look she gave him when he went to help her up was more than enough to assure him she was perfectly fine, if a little pissed off at his clumsiness.
“Sorry,” he muttered, helping her to her feet.
“What were you thinking about?” she asked him under her breath.
Lon Chaney in The Wolfman? he wanted to answer. David Naughton in An American Werewolf in London?
“One of them is nearby,” Barb whispered. She’d taken a knee at the corner of a cottage and was gazing in the direction of the main entrance.
Savannah hunkered down next to her. “How do you know?”
Barb nodded. “Because nobody’s guarding the way out.”
Savannah exchanged a bemused glance with him, but there was no need to verbalize what he was thinking. Wouldn’t the absence of a
werewolf suggest they might actually escape rather than the contrary?
Savannah whispered, “Let’s make a run for it.”
Barb glared back at her. “I think all that peroxide has pickled your brain.”
Duane crowded closer, and as he and Savannah peered through the darkness at the gaudy blue-and-yellow archway, the five turnstiles that admitted people into the park, and the quartet of ticket booths, he saw only barren space and the glittering sea of cars beyond. The way looked clear.
Savannah must have come to the same conclusion because she started to rise and move forward. Then Barb was seizing her by the back of the shirt and hauling her down.
“Jesus, Barb,” Savannah said. “What’s your—”
“The ground,” Barb said through clenched teeth. “Look at the ground.”
Duane did.
And nearly tossed his cookies.
The grassy areas around the sidewalk were landscaped with body parts.
Duane uttered a choked whimper. He looked away, his eyes wet, but he couldn’t expunge the images stamped on his brain:
A small arm, severed at the shoulder, the orange plastic pay-one-price band still adorning its wrist. Some woman’s entire lower body decorating the rim of a flowerbed. Five heads, most of them belonging to men, tilted against a trashcan, almost as if they’d been charged with encouraging people not to litter in Beach Land. Most horrible of all, a spill of mangled carcasses to their immediate left, a ghastly sight they hadn’t taken in at first because the edge of the cottage had screened their view. Duane closed his eyes to ward off the images, but they remained in his head.
“Let’s run for it,” Savannah said.
“That’s what it does.” Barb’s voice was low and tight. “It leaves the entrance clear so you’ll think you can make it. Then it pounces.”
Which one is it though? Duane wondered. The blond beast had been on the Devil’s Lair roof a short while ago, and Weezer was monitoring the boardwalk and the water. Which left the black one or the red one.
Wolf Land Page 33