by Rick Hautala
“No! ... This isn’t right!” she said. It shocked her that her own voice had a husky, sensual growl to it, as though what he was doing was making her revert into some kind of animal.
“Oh, yes, it is!” Graydon said. “This is perfectly right!”
The animal sounds he was making got louder. Suddenly, Elizabeth felt a sharp pain in her groin. She knew he was using his teeth, nibbling on her, trying to arouse her further. Now, in earnest, she tried to push his head away; but with a deep, angry growl, he snuggled tightly against her. More darting pain followed, and the hot rush Elizabeth felt got stronger, as if blood was running — streaming down her inner thighs.
“Stop it!” she shouted. The words echoed in her ears with a weird, cartoonish effect, like a sheet of metal being roughly shaken. When she looked down, she saw that Graydon’s shoulders had sprouted thick clumps Of black hair that rapidly spread down his back in a tangled mat.
“Stop it ... right now!”
But Graydon held her fast, his hands clawing into the flesh of her butt. Sharp points of pressure, not at ail like fingers, dug into her flesh ... No! They didn’t feel like fingers! They felt like claws!
Elizabeth wanted to scream. She wanted to lift her knee and drive it, full force, into the underside of Graydon’s jaw. She wanted to splinter his teeth, to tear him apart with her bare hands if she could, but all she managed to do was stand there, struggling uselessly as his tongue and teeth and claws ripped into her flesh.
Finally, after terror-filled seconds, the scream that was inside her found its way out. Her mind and ears filled with a warbling, rising note of terror as she felt her abdomen tom to ribbons. Hot blood gushed from her stomach and crotch. Looking down, she saw the pink, rippled texture of her entrails as they uncoiled and draped like bloody ropes over Graydon’s hairy shoulders.
Finally, as lances of pain, burning and bright, exploded through her, Graydon released the pressure. Her vision was swimming from panic and pain as she looked down and saw looking up at her — not Graydon, but a grinning wolf’s face on a man’s body. A thick coat of dark fur masked the knots of his arm muscles. The creature smiled up at her, its gory grin streaked with blood as its wicked tongue lapped its lipless mouth. Spiked teeth gleamed beneath the gouts of fresh blood.]
The creature’s mouth twisted, as if it was trying to form words, but blood was gushing so freely from between its teeth, any sound it tried to make turned into a thick, bubbly gurgle.
The weightless sensation Elizabeth had experienced before returned, but this time it felt ... different, somehow. A steady roaring sound filled her ears. It sounded like the surge of water at the beach rolling inward, hissing like white noise on a radio, and then falling away from the beach with an irresistible pull ...
— like Graydon’s bloody grip on her.
— like the dizzy, black, floating feeling that threatened to carry her away.
She couldn’t help but stare down at the grinning wolf’s face and watch in silent fascination as the steaming, red blood flowed from its mouth, drenching its furry chest in tangled streaks. Distantly, she knew it was her own lifeblood she was watching flow freely down the monster’s chin; those were her intestines, making wet slapping sounds as they uncoiled into the creature’s mouth and onto the floor.
Again, the wolf’s mouth moved, struggling as though it either was chewing her innards or trying to speak.
“What ... ?” Elizabeth whispered, wondering why or how she could try to carry on a conversation even as she was dying.
“ ... Button ... “ the wolf said, its face splitting into a wide, leering grin. Stained crimson by the hot flow of blood, its needle-sharp teeth made wicked clicking sounds as it spoke.
Elizabeth shook her head in denial even as a strong, dark pull yanked back on her shoulders. Her legs went rubbery, then lost all strength as the flood of blood drained from her groin.
“ ... Button!” the wolf repeated, its voice a deep growl. It smacked its mouth, savoring the taste of warm, living flesh. “First her ... and now you!”
4.
Elizabeth woke up screaming and discovered that her inner thighs were covered with blood. She had started her period.
FIFTEEN
Dark Meeting
1.
Frank and Norton were standing by the coffee pot in the squad room. Each of them had poured coffee, added milk and sugar, and were blowing over the tops of their cups to cool the coffee before chancing a sip. With his eyes narrowed, Frank was studying his partner.
“So,” Frank said at last, “are you going to tell me where the fuck you’ve been?” His question sounded almost offhanded, but there was an undercurrent of intensity in his voice that Norton couldn’t miss or ignore.
Norton’s eyebrows shot up, and Frank was sure he was considering trying to run — just a little bit longer — with the lie that he had been sick at home. Finally, he shrugged and said simply, “I, uh — I had some things I had to attend to.”
“Anything I should know about?” Frank asked, pressing the point. His concern was at least partly because Norton was his partner, but also, no matter what, he didn’t want to see Suzie get hurt.
Norton considered Frank’s question for a moment in silence, biting down lightly on his lower lip and sawing his teeth back and forth. His lip looked white, bloodless. At last, he shook his head stiffly.
“I don’t think so,” he said. His voice was much lower than usual. “It ain’t anything important.”
Frank nodded and looked away as if he had accepted the dismissal and that was the end of it; but, after taking a sip of coffee, he turned back to Norton and, jabbing his finger at him threateningly, snarled, “I’m gonna tell you this, and I’m only going to say it once!”
Genuinely taken aback, Norton looked at Frank with a crooked smile twisting the comers of his mouth. Frank could tell he wanted to laugh aloud but was afraid to.
“You’re my fuckin’ partner,” Frank went on, “and I have to be able to count on you to back me up — all the fuckin’ way! Now, for the past few weeks, I don’t know why, there have been a few — let’s just call them indiscretions. Anyone else on the force would’ve —”
“Oh, yeah?” Norton snapped, sounding like a juvenile wise guy. “Like what?” He twisted around so he could place his cup of coffee on the counter and tensed up, as though getting ready to throw a punch at Frank.
“Well, other than this bullshit of you not showing up for work and handing me the lame excuse that you’ve been sick, the most recent one I can think of was that night out at the cemetery when I told you to call for some backup and you didn’t do it! You said you thought I was overreacting, remember?”
Tightening his flickering smile into a smirk, Norton nodded. “Yeah — I remember.”
“It wasn’t up to you to decide what to do, all right?” Frank shouted. His face flushed with anger, and just then all he wanted to do was deck his partner.
Norton shrugged and, shaking his shoulders, seemed to relax, but there was still a coiled-up tension in his stance that warned Frank to keep his guard up. Frank couldn’t help but wonder what buttons he was pushing that would make Norton react so defensively. Could it be something as simple as that he was seeing another woman, and he was afraid Frank would find out and tell Suzie?
Or was there more?
“And over the past few weeks or months,” Frank continued, “I don’t think you’ve been acting like yourself. My bottom line is, I don’t give a fiddley-fuck what you’re up to! If you’re screwing around or whatever, I don’t give a shit! Not until it starts affecting me and my job! Then I start getting pissed. Can I make it any clearer?”
“For Christ’s sake, man,” Norton said. “Chill out, will yah?” He held his hands up, palms forward, and waved them as if he were surrendering.
“I’ll chill out once you level with me and tell me where the Christ you’ve been for the past few days,” Frank snapped.
Instantly, Norton tensed up again; then
he shook his head tightly. “I just don’t ,see where that’s any of your business, all right? I mean, what I do on my own time is —”
“It wasn’t your own time,” Frank shouted, taking a menacing step closer to Norton. “I still had to go out there on patrol. I still had to hang my ass on the line.”
“Christ, Frank. You’re talking like this is fucking New York City or something,” Norton said. “It’s just a fucking hayseed jerkwater town. It’s not like we’ve got the fucking Mafia running the town or something.”
He was smiling, obviously trying to lighten the talk with a joke, but Frank read it as all superficial; just beneath the surface, he could feel Norton’s nervousness twitching like raw, exposed nerves. And Norton’s reaction definitely seemed more than was necessary if it was something like him seeing another woman. Was Norton stupid enough or greedy enough to get involved with something a little more serious — maybe a drug deal or something else a crooked cop thought might turn a quick profit? Maybe he was already in way over his head, and in trying to dig himself out was only digging his own grave deeper.
“You wanna know the situation?” Frank said, deciding that a more sympathetic approach might work. “I’m worried about you, and so’s your wife. And I would think whatever the hell it is you’re involved with-you could at least tell me and her so we could stop worrying.”
“There’s n-nothing to tell,” Norton said with a shrug. He was trying his damnedest to sound innocent, but the nervous sputter gave him away. “Honest to Christ. I just wanted a few days off to myself. I was saving up my vacation time for this summer, and I just needed a break.”
Frank sighed and shook his head as though disgusted. “Fine — fine,” he muttered. “Have it your way. But I’ll tell you one thing! If you start fucking up — especially if you don’t do what I tell you and especially if you get us into a situation where something you do or don’t do puts my ass on the line — I won’t hesitate to write you up or put you down! You hear me?”
Gnawing at his lower lip. Norton nodded wordlessly.
Frank looked at his nearly full coffee cup, wrinkled his nose, and then tossed it, cup and all, into the sink. “Worse than that,” he added, scowling deeply, “I’ll skin you and nail your fucking hide to the station door. Remember that!”
Norton regarded him with a frail, wise guy smirk. He looked like he was about to say something pithy — like Ohh ... can’t you hear my knees knocking? — but all he could bring himself to do was nod quickly and grunt. Frank turned and walked out of the squad room, leaving Norton standing there by the sink, looking and feeling stupid.
2.
Elizabeth was fifteen minutes late for her meeting with Graydon when she pulled into the parking lot beside the Ground Round. All day at work and then during the drive out to South Portland, she had considered simply not showing up. It wasn’t as though she was afraid of Graydon or anything like that; she was plain sick and tired of feeling as though she had to explain herself to anyone and everyone.
The parking lot was crowded, which was surprising on a Tuesday afternoon, and she had to drive around back to find a vacant place. Glancing at her watch, she wondered if Graydon was the type who would wait around or if, even after only fifteen minutes, he would leave in a huff. Truthfully, Elizabeth didn’t care whether she saw him or not. After all, he had been the one who sounded so desperate on the phone. The only thing that drove her on was her curiosity to find out how in the hell he had learned about “Button. “ She was positive she had never mentioned it during a session, so how the hell would he know the significance of that name?
Realizing she was just sitting there, her car idling as she stared blankly out at the traffic passing by on the Maine Turnpike, Elizabeth cut the engine, slipped the keys into her purse, and got out of the car. Walking around to the front, she entered the dimly lit restaurant.
For the number of cars in the parking lot, the place seemed remarkably uncrowded. Through the doorway to the right, she saw the bar and heard ripples of conversation and laughter, masked by the buzzing sounds of pinball machines and video games. Peeking up over the edge of the bar’s double doors, she scanned the smoky room. She saw Graydon right away. He was sitting in the far comer booth, positioned so he could watch the doorway and would see her as soon as she arrived. He caught her eye and waved her over. Sucking in a deep breath, Elizabeth pushed through the doors and wended her way to him through the maze of tables.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, as she slung her purse onto the padded seat and plopped herself down. “I hope you haven’.t been waiting long. 1 didn’t get out of work right on time.” The lie felt transparent, but she told herself — again — that she didn’t have to apologize to anyone for anything!
“Not long at all,” Graydon said, although his nearly empty glass told her otherwise. Raising his hand up to signal the waitress, he asked, “Would you care for a drink?”
Elizabeth shrugged. “I dunno — white wine, I guess.” She considered having something stronger, but she was determined to make this meeting short and sweet; she certainly didn’t want to fuzz up her thinking with booze.
The waitress came over to the table, and Graydon said curtly, “A white wine for the lady, and I’ll have another Manhattan, straight up.”
After the waitress went off to get the drinks, Elizabeth smiled at Graydon and settled back into the padded seat. She told herself to relax, but she couldn’t push aside the feeling that she shouldn’t have shown up today; the feeling had grown all the stronger, now that she was with him. She noticed something about Graydon that she had noticed that night in the bookstore, as well; maybe it was as simple as seeing him outside of his office, in an element that wasn’t his own, but she detected a darkness, a furtive sneakiness about him — especially in his eyes — that bothered her, putting her instantly on her guard.
“Well, then,” Graydon said. He let his words hang in the air as he picked up his glass and drained what remained. After carefully placing the empty glass on the table, he folded his hands in front of him and leaned toward her. “As I told you over the phone, we have a lot to talk about. There are some things I ... I can do to help you, and ways you can help me.”
Elizabeth was a bit taken aback by the directness of his approach, and she decided to respond in kind. Clenching her hands into fists under the table, so that Graydon couldn’t see, she said, “The first thing I want you to tell me is, how did you know about that name?”
Graydon blinked his eyes rapidly a few times, then smiled benignly. It wasn’t a warm or gentle smile by any means; it had the same stealthiness she saw in his eyes. In a sudden rush of fear, the dream she’d had about him, where his face had slowly’ transformed into that of a wolf as he ate her intestines, rose unbidden in her mind. She looked at him now, fearing that in the shadowed comer of the barroom, his face was going to start shifting and he would transform all the way into a wolf that would lunge across the table and rip out her throat before she could scream.
“All in due time,” Graydon said mildly. ‘‘I’ll tell you every thing — every thing — you want to know, in its proper time. As I said over the phone, if we are to proceed, we will do it my way. Do you understand?”
Elizabeth nodded, but her reply was cut short when the waitress appeared with their drinks. She put down two fresh napkins and placed the drinks on them, then took Graydon’s empty.
“Would you care to order anything to eat?” she asked pleasantly. Graydon looked questioningly at Elizabeth who, in spite of the rumbling emptiness in her stomach, shook her head. “I’m fine for now,” she said, and Graydon dismissed the waitress with a casual flick of his hand.
The waitress walked away, scowling and no doubt thinking she wasn’t going to get much of a tip from this table.
Elizabeth wanted to press Graydon further on how he had known “Button” would get to her, but Graydon beat her to it by taking control of the conversation.
“Because you skipped our session yesterday,” h
e said, “my most immediate concern is that you’re having second thoughts about seeing me as a therapist. Of course, I understand that this is entirely normal — necessary, even.” He paused to take a sip of his fresh drink. Elizabeth also raised her glass and drank. “A relationship with a therapist is as intense, I’d say sometimes it’s even more intense, than a marital relationship. And it certainly requires care and consideration before you make a total commitment.”
“Of course,” Elizabeth said, just to say something. The wine felt warm and cloying as it trickled down her throat.
“And one thing I wish to make clear here is that, whether you continue with me or choose to find someone else, I think it’s absolutely imperative that you continue to do therapy.”
Elizabeth couldn’t help but snicker softly and say, “Why? Are you convinced that I’m crazy? That I need help?”
Graydon shook his head in the negative. “On, no — no, I don’t think you’re crazy, not by any strict definition of the term.”
Elizabeth let out a heavy sigh in mock relief and said, “Gee — thanks, doc.”
“But I do see you as a woman who is nearly buried under an immense load of grief and guilt. Someone who is —”
“Well, Jesus Christ! Wouldn’t you be?” Elizabeth said, fighting hard to control her outburst of anger. Professional or not, she didn’t think it was at all appropriate for Graydon to sit in such pompous judgment of her mental state — especially out in public. It irritated her and only made her think all the more that — no matter what else — she was going to start looking for a new therapist.
A comer of Graydon’s mouth twitched into a half-smile, and he replied, “Yes ... yes, I suppose I would —” His eyes flickered for a moment as he glanced upward. “But I would be more inclined to do something about it, certainly not wallow in it!”