The Howling II h-2

by Gary Brandner

  "You make me feel reborn," he said.

  "I'll give you some tea," she said, "and soon you will feel even better."

  He reached up and touched the undercurve of her breast. She leaned forward, letting the warm, round weight settle in his palm. Roy shifted his position on the bed as he felt his desire rise for the woman.

  "We don't need the tea," he said.

  Marcia placed her hand over his and pressed his fingers against her erect nipple. "The tea will be good for you, my darling. It will restore your body and make you strong."

  She leaned down and kissed him lightly on the mouth, then walked over to the compact butane stove where a kettle of water boiled. She poured the scalding water over a powdering of herbs in the bottom of a heavy cup. She added a few drops of a thick brown liquid, and a spicy-sweet aroma filled the trailer.

  Roy well remembered the first time he had drunk the wild, sweet brew. It was in the small house where Marcia had lived alone in the village of Drago. Afterward there had been sex more intense than anything he had known before. Throughout that afternoon and into the night he had made love to the green-eyed woman in ways he had never imagined. She had taken him with her to the extreme limits of his endurance, then with a final, crashing climax had left him utterly drained.

  It was on that same night, as he walked through the forest to the house where Karyn waited, that the black she-wolf with the strange green eyes had run him down. As he lay helpless beneath the beast, the cruel teeth had bitten deep into his shoulder. Roy had been sure then he was going to die. His head was forced back, and he had not the strength to protect his throat. But then, incredibly, the wolf had pulled back and left him. He had staggered home in a daze. Soon he realized why he had been spared, and what it meant to survive the bite of a werewolf.

  Marcia handed him the steaming cup. Roy inhaled deeply. The heady aroma made his eyes tear.

  "Drink it down," she said softly.

  Holding the cup in both hands, he drank the tea and felt the heat of it hit his stomach and radiate throughout his body. There was a soft singing in his ears.

  Marcia rested her hand on his bare leg, letting her fingers curl down across his inner thigh. "I have a surprise for you."

  "Really?" he said, smiling.

  Her lips curved. "In a little while, but first I have something to tell you."

  "Yes?"

  "We are leaving here."

  "I know. As soon as you are ready to travel."

  "I am ready now. We are leaving today."

  He frowned. "So soon?"

  "Soon? I have waited three years. I am as well now as I will ever be."

  "But there are arrangements to make — transportation — a place to stay- "

  "The arrangements are taken care of," Marcia said. "I have reservations for us on a flight to Seattle out of San Francisco this evening. There will be a room there waiting for us, not far from where your Karyn now lives."

  Roy propped himself up on an elbow. "You did all this without talking to me about it?"

  Her fingers moved again on his thigh, slid up between his legs. "I know you aren't interested in tiresome details."

  "Just the same, you could have told me."

  Marcia guided the cup of tea to his lips, and he drank. "You're not having doubts about what we have to do?"

  "No. Only — "

  The long supple fingers worked on him. "Don't feel sorry for your Karyn. Remember, she was no wife to you, yet she gave herself freely to your supposed friend. Now she shares the bed of this man Richter. She has crippled me and cuckolded you. Now it is our turn."

  Roy drank more of the powerful tea. Visions flashed through his mind of Karyn's slim, naked body convulsed with passion as some faceless man pounded into her.

  "Yes," he whispered. "Our turn."

  Marcia took the empty cup from his hand and placed it on the floor. She stood up and slipped the silky garment she was wearing off over her head. She let it fall to the floor and stood with her strong brown legs slightly apart, letting him eat her with his eyes. She came toward him slowly, her breasts swaying with each step.

  Roy started to rise from the bed to meet her. She laid a hand on his shoulder and eased him back down. He lay back obediently, watching her. She moved his legs apart and knelt between them. Her head dipped forward and her hair brushed his thighs as her lips closed around him.

  She made it last a full hour. Then, as they lay together and Roy dozed, voices outside the trailer roused them. Loud voices. Marcia pulled gently away from him and stood up, throwing a light robe over her shoulders. Roy, now fully awake, got up too. They went over and stood at the small window.

  Marcia eased the green curtain aside enough for them to look out.

  Outside, Ignacio, the leader of the gypsies, stood talking to a large, red-faced man. Sniffing nervously about their feet was a shaggy white dog.

  "None of the people here would do a thing like that," Ignacio was saying. "I know them."

  "Don't give me that crap," said the red-faced man. "There was a trail of blood from the spot where the calf was killed, leading right into your camp. People told me I was makin' a mistake letting gypsies stay on my property, but like a damn fool I didn't listen to 'em."

  Ignacio's eyes flicked over toward the trailer where Roy and Marcia watched from behind the curtain. They glanced at each other, then returned their attention to the two men outside.

  "I will ask among the people," Ignacio said. "If I find anyone here is responsible for this, he will be punished. Be sure of that."

  "That calf was worth plenty," the farmer said.

  "You can take the money the calf is worth out of the wages you pay us for working in your fields," Ignacio said.

  "Well — " The farmer glowered around the motley collection of campers and trailers, as though trying to spot the culprit. "I guess that will be okay. But if this ever happens again — "

  "I assure you it won't happen again."

  "It sure as hell better not," said the farmer, "or next time I bring the sheriff with me."

  He started to walk away, but turned back as though he were not yet satisfied. "It's bad enough to lose the calf, but the way it was done — Jesus. All ripped apart. What kind of a man would kill an animal that way?"

  Ignacio had no answer, and the farmer clumped off toward the trail that led through the woods. At the edge of the trees he turned and whistled sharply. The dog broke off its investigation of the trailers and followed the man.

  Ignacio remained standing where he was. He turned his head and stared long at the trailer where Marcia and Roy stood watching.

  "He knows," Roy whispered.

  "Of course he knows," said Marcia, "but he would never dare to act against us."

  "Maybe not, but we shouldn't push him too far. I'll go out and tell him we're leaving."

  "As you wish," Marcia said indifferently. "I'll gather the things we will want to take with us."

  When Roy dressed and went out, he found Ignacio sitting on the rear step of the camper where he lived with his wife and small daughter. The gypsy's face darkened as Roy approached.

  Roy spoke awkwardly. "Ignacio, I–I wanted to tell you we are leaving."

  "Leaving?" The gypsy could not keep the eagerness out of his voice. "For good?"

  "Yes. You've been very kind letting us stay with you while Marcia was — ill. I'm grateful."

  "You owe me nothing."

  "She is better now, so well be on our way."

  Ignacio nodded gravely. He offered no words of regret at their leaving. Roy knew well why they had been allowed to stay, and Ignacio was not a man to waste false words of farewell.

  "Goodbye," Roy said.

  The gypsy studied him, the black eyes nearly hidden beneath the tangled brows.

  "God help you," he said.

  8

  KARYN STEPPED OUT of the elevator in the Seattle Sheraton Hotel, feeling highly pleased with herself. She had a job. At least she would have, starting next mon
th — coordinating the new hotel's banquet facilities. It would be good to feel useful again.

  Over the past several weeks there had been several discussions with David, who did not fully approve of her going back to work. Finally, though, he said he would not object if that was what she really wanted. Dr. Goetz thought it was a good idea, and he had helped convince David. She had arranged to work only twenty hours a week, and would have afternoons and evenings free for her family.

  This morning she had been so excited about the job interview that she skipped breakfast. Now she was hungry. The hotel's coffee shop opened off the lobby, and Karyn went in. It was eleven o'clock, in between coffee-breakers and the lunch crowd, so the room was nearly empty. Karyn took a table near the window and ordered shrimp salad, boysen-berry pie, and coffee. As she waited for the waitress to come back with the order, Karyn began to feel uneasy. At first it was nothing she could define, just a prickling of the skin and a sort of chill down her back. Then she knew what it was. Someone was watching her.

  Karyn tried to shrug off the feeling. It was nerves, of course. The excitement of getting a job. Just sit still, she thought, and it will go away.

  But it did not go away. Instead, the feeling of being watched grew stronger and more oppressive. The waitress brought her food and gave her an odd look.

  Even though Karyn knew it was foolishness, the desire to turn around became too strong to resist. As casually as she could manage, Karyn turned in her chair and surveyed one by one the other customers. There was a haggard young mother trying to keep a pair of little boys in their chairs. A young man with an Army haircut, probably from Fort Lewis. An old man in a black mohair suit, reading a Hebrew newspaper. A woman with dark hair streaked with silver, studying the menu through oversized sunglasses. A fat woman cheating on her diet with a double caramel sundae. A young woman in a beautician's smock, with the name of the hotel stitched over the pocket.

  That was all. An ordinary lot. And none of them watching her. At least, no one was watching when she turned to look.

  Karyn returned to her food, but found she was no longer hungry. She knew she had to stop these imaginings. Be logical about it, she told herself. Why would anyone watch her? What reason could they have?

  She snapped upright in the chair. Why would anyone wear dark sunglasses on a cloudy day?

  Karyn turned again, quickly this time. Everything was as before — all the same customers sitting where they had been. All, except the dark-haired woman in the sunglasses. She was gone.

  What had the woman looked like? Karyn bit her lip and tried to remember. The woman's eyes had been invisible behind the dark lenses, and the lower part of her face was hidden behind the menu. Deliberately? The only feature Karyn could recall was the startling slash of white through the blue-black hair. And yet the woman seemed familiar.

  Karyn shook her head, impatient with herself. This was getting her nowhere. There was no earthly reason for anyone to be watching her. She had to stop these fancies. She resolved to tell Dr. Goetz about it. In his gentle, professional way he could settle her down, explain these irrational feelings.

  She' paid for her uneaten lunch and left the coffee shop. Outside the day had darkened as the heavy clouds pressed down on the city. There was nothing for Karyn to do at homeland she did not want to spend the day alone in the big house with only Mrs. Jensen for company.

  She stood indecisively in front of the hotel and looked up and down the street. The marquee of a theater down the block advertised a movie she had been wanting to see. On an impulse she turned and walked to the theater, bought a ticket, and went in.

  The audience was small for the early show, and Karyn found a seat by herself halfway down and on the aisle. She settled down to watch the movie, but soon began to shift uncomfortably in her seat. The feeling of being watched came back. It was stronger here in the darkened theater than it had been in the coffee shop.

  Making no attempt this time to be casual, Karyn turned to scan the faces in the reflected light from the screen. No one was looking at her. She did not see the woman with the streak in her hair.

  After that she found she could not concentrate on the movie, and soon left the theater. Outside, a light, dismal rain had begun. Karyn hurried the two blocks to the parking lot where she had left her car. Once she stopped and turned suddenly. She caught a fleeting impression of a woman half a block behind her, on the same side of the street. Just as Karyn turned the woman slipped into the entrance of a building. In the brief glimpse, all that Karyn could be sure of was that the woman was tall and dark. She walked slowly the rest of the way, turning several times to look behind her, but the woman did not reappear.

  * * *

  The Evergreen Motel was a neglected, U-shaped stucco complex at the northern city limits of Seattle. The Evergreen had no swimming pool, no television in the rooms, no automobile club recommendations, but it was private and cheap and did good Friday-night business among romantic couples from nearby offices. The couple in Room 9, however, had their minds on other things.

  "Are you sure she didn't recognize you?" Roy Beatty asked.

  "She never got a good look at my face," Marcia said. She smiled, the green eyes glowing with some deep emotion: "But I touched something in her memory. I let her see me twice, and I know she felt the beginnings of fear."

  "Do you think that's a good idea?" Roy said. "Dragging it out like this?"

  "My love, that is the idea. For what that woman did to me, and to you too, we want her to suffer. She must have time to worry about it."

  Marcia lay back across the bed, stretching her long body sensuously. Roy did not look at her. He paced the worn carpet nervously.

  "What do we do now?" he asked.

  "Don't worry, darling, I have it all planned. I will let her see me again — just a glimpse here and there. Maybe we'll give her a quick look at you. That would give her something to think about. I have watched her at home, and I have a little something in mind there too. The important thing is to have patience. I want your Karyn to finally understand what is happening to her, and why, just before — " She left the unfinished sentence hanging.

  "Before what?" Roy said.

  Marcia sat up suddenly and swung around to face him. "Don't be stupid, Roy. You know what we have to do."

  "Kill her, Marcia? Do we have to kill her? What good will that do?"

  Marcia swung her long legs from the bed and walked over to stand in front of him. She looked deep into his eyes, holding her body close to his. Her voice was soft and carressing.

  "It will give me peace, darling, after months of agony. It is something I must do. If you don't want to be a part of it, I will understand. Leave now if that's the way you feel, and I will go on alone."

  Roy held himself away from the green-eyed woman for a moment, then put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her tight against him. He stroked her hair, gently fingering the streak of silver as though it were a wound. The gentle scent of sandalwood brought to his mind the intoxicating days and nights when they had first been together.

  "I can't leave you," he said. "Whatever has to be done, we will do together."

  "My Roy," she breathed close to his ear. "My lover." Gently she pulled him toward the bed.

  * * *

  "What did Dr. Goetz say?"

  David Richter held his wife's hand and studied her worriedly.

  "He said it was all in my head."

  David frowned.

  "I'm only kidding. He didn't say that in so many words, but that was the gist of his message. What he said was something like, 'Many people go through periods of mild paranoia. Even people with no other neuroses. For someone with your history, it isn't at all unusual. Nothing to worry about.' "

  David squeezed Karyn's hand and nodded sagely. "I'm sure Dr. Goetz knows what he's talking about, dear."

  "Not in this case, he doesn't," Karyn said. "There is someone following me. A woman. Since the other day when I first saw her in the coffee shop, I've seen her
again on the street, once at the library, and again just this morning in a taxi driving by right in front of our house."

  "You're sure it was the same woman?"

  "I'm positive. She was dressed differently, and always had her face covered or turned away, but I couldn't miss that white streak in her black hair."

  David listened thoughtfully. When Karyn finished speaking he rubbed his jaw and gazed off at a corner of the ceiling. "Karyn, about your going to work — do you think we might be rushing things a bit?"

  "No, I don't! And what the hell does that have to do with anything?"

  "I just thought that, well, the added strain of taking on an outside job just now might — might — "

  "Might make me start imagining things?" Karyn finished for him. "Like people following me?"

  "I didn't mean that exactly."

  "Like hell you didn't." Karyn saw the hurt look come into his eyes, and she reached up to touch his cheek. "I'm sorry, David. I know you're trying to do what you think is best for me. So is Dr. Goetz. It's just that neither of you wants to consider the possibility that I am seeing exactly what I think I am seeing."

  David smiled at her, but the doubt was still in his eyes. "I'm trying, dear. I'm really trying." They talked no more about it that evening, and went up to bed early. David fell asleep almost immediately. It was another hour before Karyn began to get drowsy. Then she was jolted back to fullwakefulness. Something was moving around downstairs.

  It was not any distinct sound that she could identify. Just a sort of soft shuffling. Then nothing. For a long time Karyn lay tense, staring into the darkness. She fought to convince herself that she had heard no sound, and she prayed that it would not come again.

  Then she heard it again. Just the suggestion of movement. She wanted it to be Mrs. Jensen, but knew that it was not. The housekeeper moved with a firm, heavy tread, not the furtive shuffling Karyn heard now.

  Her mind groped for possible explanations. The wind. The house settling. Mice. The plumbing. But it was no good. She knew it was none of these. She lay utterly still and listened. For many minutes the only sound Was David's deep, regular breathing. Her ears ached with the effort of listening. Then it came again. Something sliding, like cloth on cloth. Then a muffled thump, barely audible, but unmistakably real.