When Malcolm still did not respond, the big man’s smile faded. He wiped a callused hand across his lips. “The doctor treats you like some kind of a prince, but all you are’s a goddamn freak. Oh, I seen what you do when the doctor has you out there on the table. Your face gets all funny and long, kinda. Your fingernails grow. Like a woman’s or something. And you get hair on you where hair don’t belong. What do you say about that, freak-boy?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, you don’t, don’t you? I know how to make you do it, too. I watched the doctor. You want me to make you do it, freak-boy? Want me to turn you into a goddamn freak?”
“Just leave me alone.”
“Just leeeeave me alone,” Kruger whined in a mocking falsetto. “You know, I was number one around here until you showed up, freak-boy. The doctor used to treat me real nice before you came. He took me out of the bad place and he said I’d never have to worry about anything again. He’d take care of me. And he did, too, but then he found you, and we had to bring you here, and now he don’t have time for me anymore except to tell me to go fetch this or go empty that. You’re the hotshot now, freak-boy. But you know something? It ain’t gonna last. One way or another I’m gonna see that it don’t last.”
Malcolm felt the anger start way down deep somewhere. “Why don’t you shut your ugly mouth?”
Kruger hitched his chair closer, pleased that he had gotten a reaction. “Oh-oh, is he going to get mad? Is freak-boy I going to get mad? Go ahead. Let’s see you do those things with your face. Then we’ll see who’s ugly, freak-boy.”
Malcolm felt the heat rising within him. His hands began to twitch. He forced himself to breathe slowly and deeply. He closed his eyes and thought of the words Holly Lang had used when they put him into hypnosis. So relaxed. So comfortable. Drifting, drifting. Farther and farther away. Gradually the fire within him cooled. His hands lay quiet in his lap. He felt the waves of relaxation wash over him. Mind and body were once again under control.
“Almost had you goin’ there, didn’t I, freak-boy?” Kruger said. “Oh, yes, I did, all right.”
Malcolm opened his eyes. He looked through and beyond the thick, ugly man. He smiled softly to himself.
“You’re not makin’ fun of me, are you?” Kruger said. “They used to make fun of me in the bad place. Laughed behind my back when they thought I couldn’t see. I knew, though. I knew what they were doing. I took care of them, too. That was before the doctor came and brought me here.”
Malcolm breathed in and out slowly. So relaxed. So comfortable.
“I know how I can get that silly smile off your face,” said Kruger. “I know. You just wait here.” Then, as though realizing he had said something funny, he laughed. “That’s right. You just wait here.” He laughed again and left the room.
Malcolm tried to hold on to his state of calm relaxation, but the mood was fading. Dr. Pastory was a dangerous man, and he did some unpleasant things to Malcolm, but he was always solicitous about the boy’s welfare afterward. At least that was the way he acted. And there was always the hope that when Pastory had finished with his study, whatever it was, he would return Malcolm to the hospital in Pinyon. Holly was there. He could put up with Pastory as long as there was the hope of a reunion with his friend.
But Kruger was another matter. The brute had a damaged brain and was barely kept in check by Pastory’s greater strength of will. If he ever went over the edge Kruger could be dangerous. Malcolm began to worry about what the ugly big man might do.
Before he could reorder his thoughts, Kruger returned. He carried with him a wand, shaped like a stubby pool cue. The thicker end was wrapped with leather at the grip. The greater length of the wand was metal. Two wires protruded from the butt end and ran into a flat leather packet that Kruger had attached to his belt.
“Do you know what this is, freak-boy? It’s a cattle prod, that’s what. The cops use ’em sometimes. Dr. Pastory used it on me when I first come here from the bad place. Then I wised up and he didn’t have to use it no more. I found out where he kept it, but I never told him.”
Malcolm stared at the metal prod as Kruger waved it back and forth in front of his face.
“Want to see how it works? Watch.”
Kruger thrust the metal tip of the prod to within half an inch of the wire mesh of the cage. He touched a switch on the belt pack. A blue-white spark jumped with a loud crack.
Malcolm flinched away from the spark.
“What’s the matter, you afraid of it?” Kruger said. “The doctor’s been using something like it on you in the laboratory when you’re strapped down. Only difference is, the one in there is a lot smaller and it don’t hurt as much as this one. Want to see?”
In a movement surprisingly swift for so big a man, Kruger thrust the prod through the cage, jabbing the tip against Malcolm’s face.
The pain was like hitting the nerve of a tooth. Malcolm cried out and put a hand to his cheek. He backed against the rear of the cage, but there was no way he could get out of the reach of Kruger with the cruel cattle prod.
The big man laughed, a high-pitched, mindless giggle. “Aha, gotcha now, haven’t I? Can’t get away, can’t get away.”
He stabbed Malcolm’s wrist with the tip of the wand. The pain of the shock jolted up his arm. Malcolm felt the fires grow inside him.
“See? See? There you go. I knew I could make you do it. Look at your hands, freak-boy.”
Malcolm looked down at his hands. Surely, they had grown larger, the palms broadening and the fingers stretching out. Even as he watched, the nails pushed out through the skin, thick and horny, bringing a trickle of blood from the tips of his fingers. The boy clamped the horrid hands out of sight under his arms.
Kruger caught him under the chin with the prod. His facial muscles twisted and jumped in the sudden agony.
“I’ll show you what you really are, freak-boy. I’ll show you who’s ugly.” Kruger capered grotesquely around the three exposed walls of the cage, stabbing here, there, anywhere he could find a bit of exposed flesh.
Malcolm’s legs bent on him in a strange way and he fell to the floor. The sound that came from his throat was half whine, half growl. Like nothing human. His mind was a jumble of images––the forest at night; flames; burning flesh; a kind, bearded giant; a beautiful woman who was his friend; a doctor who drugged him and took him away; a thick-necked, witless lump of a man who tortured him.
The hands before Malcolm’s face no longer bore any resemblance to his own. They had darkened and stretched and grown patches of fine black hair.
The pain continued; the anger grew. And the fire within him burned hotter.
16
Even watching closely, Holly missed the logging trail the first time past, and she had to drive back at ten miles an hour with her head craning out the window to find it. The old trail was no more than two faint paths through the weeds leading up the hill. Years before, logging trucks had hauled the huge Douglas fir logs down from the mountain to sawmills that had long since disappeared.
Minutes after she headed up the grade, the little orange car appeared. It stopped for a moment while the driver peered up the hill, then followed Holly up the trail.
Holly drove carefully up the grade. The second-growth timber had almost reached the density of the virgin stand that attracted the lumber companies in a previous generation. On both sides the thick brush made it difficult to see. Rocks and stumps jutted unexpectedly from the center, where the weeds grew unmashed. The Volkswagen Rabbit was not designed for off-road adventure, and Holly winced with every scrape and bump against the underside of the little car.
As she emerged from one especially thick clump of trees, Holly came suddenly and unexpectedly upon the clinic of Dr. Pastory. It was a dark, two-story house of redwood shingle and heavy oak beams, with an overhanging roof.
The house was built in the 1920s by the owner of a Hollywood studio as a playhouse for his favorite starlet.
Sadly, before she could occupy it, the starlet died from drinking bootleg gin and laudanum at a party hosted by a popular slapstick comedian. The house had remained empty since that time until the studio magnate had died, several years before. It had been put up for auction, and because of its remote location, Wayne Pastory was able to buy it cheaply.
There was no other vehicle in sight, and Holly felt a rush of disappointment at the thought that she might have made the trip for nothing. However, fresh tire tracks told her that someone was using the place.
She snugged the Rabbit in under a tree and walked across the cushion of pine needles to the heavy front door. There was no bell, so she reached for the heavy cast-iron knocker.
Before she could lift the knocker, Holly froze at a sound from somewhere inside the house. It was a cry of mingled fear, rage, and pain. The voice was distorted, yet something in the tone made her sure it was Malcolm. Reacting to a sudden blaze of anger, she tried the latch of the heavy door, found it open, and walked in.
The interior of the old house had been redone and modernized, if not improved, with metals and plastics. Wallboard had been added to section the large old rooms into many smaller ones. Holly kept moving, following the sound of the voice, which continued to cry out every few seconds.
She passed along a hallway with doors on both sides. Some of the doors stood open, revealing cell-like rooms with narrow beds and a minimum of simple furnishings. Most looked unoccupied. In one of them, however, the bed was rumpled and recently slept in. Holly paused to look at a crumpled bit of white fabric stuffed into a wire wastebasket. She recognized the stitched blue lettering that would spell out LA REINA COUNTY HOSPITAL. A patient’s gown.
She hurried on through what appeared to be a laboratory dominated by an examination table with heavy straps riveted to the corners. Although she did not pause to look around, Holly was impressed by the quantity and variety of equipment in the lab. No wonder Olan Schaeffer at Landrud & Co. had been so eager to do business.
There was a large, well-equipped kitchen, then a short flight of steps leading down to a wing of the house that was on a lower level. It was from a room down there that she heard the agonized cries.
The door to the large room on the lower level was ajar. Holly could see it was brightly lit within. She was close enough now to hear a crackling sound along with the cries of pain. She stepped through the door and stood for a frozen moment, stunned by what she saw.
A thick-shouldered brute of a man with scrubby black hair on a bullet head turned when she entered. He held what appeared to be an electrified metal rod in one hand. He was standing in front of a steel mesh cage. Inside the cage a pitiful figure writhed on the floor. A boy, Holly thought, though she could not be sure. He lay curled on the floor, muscles twitching, his limbs bent into strange, unnatural positions. On the visible areas of skin grew uneven patches of hair.
“Malcolm!” she cried. “My good God, what have they done to you?”
The face that looked up at her from the floor of the cruel cage wrenched Holly’s heart. She recognized in it the boy Malcolm, yet it was not Malcolm. The bones seemed to have shifted subtly, elongating the face. The eyes were a strange luminescent green. He said something that might have been her name, then quickly covered his mouth with a darkened, long-nailed hand.
“Who are you, girlie?”
It took a moment for Holly to realize the brutish man was talking to her. She turned toward him and fought down the rage inside her. Her impulse was to strike out blindly at him, but she knew this was a time for control.
“I am Dr. Hollanda Lang. I demand to know what you are doing to this boy.”
The Doctor seemed to confuse the man, to draw from him a touch of respect. At least temporarily. “How did you get in?” he asked.
“I walked in. The door was open.”
“You shouldn’t of done that.” A sly look crept into his dark little eyes.
“I want you to release this boy at once.”
“I can’t do that. Dr. Pastory said I was supposed to keep him in there.”
“Did Dr. Pastory also give you orders to torture the boy?”
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“Answer my question.”
“Are you a friend of the doctor’s?”
The figure in the cage had pulled itself half erect on the steel mesh. The hands were more human now, the boy more recognizable as Malcolm. He looked so terribly young and vulnerable in the oversized pajamas.
“Holly,” he said, his voice hoarse but clearing.
“Malcolm, thank God I’ve found you. Are you badly hurt?”
The boy looked down at his hands, which still bore patches of dark hair. He let go of the screen and tried to hide the hands behind him.
“I… I…”
Holly moved quickly to the cage. She laid one hand flat against the diamond mesh. He backed away.
“Don’t be afraid, Malcolm. And don’t worry. I’m going to get you out of here, and I’m going to help you.”
She turned at the sound of a movement behind her. The big man had taken a step toward her. He was clenching and unclenching his hands. The metal rod hung forgotten at his side.
“What’s your name?” she demanded.
The authority in Holly’s voice held him for a moment. “K-Kruger,” he stammered. “Dr. Pastory left me in charge while he’s gone.”
“Well, Kruger, you just get the key to this lock and open the cage right now.” She spoke with an assurance she did not feel. This Kruger was obviously unbalanced mentally. God only knew what sadistic tortures he had been subjecting Malcolm to, but Holly knew she was treading a thin line with him.
Kruger shook his bullet head slowly from side to side. “No, I don’t think I’m gonna do that.”
She tried softening her tone.
“It’s all right, Kruger. I’ll explain to Dr. Pastory that I told you to let the boy out.”
A crafty smile slid over the man’s thick features. “Oh, no you don’t. I know who you are. You’re that Holly woman. The one he” ––Kruger nodded toward Malcolm–– “keeps calling for. You ain’t no friend of the doctor’s.”
“You just let him out of there. Right now, Kruger, or you’re going to be in a whole lot of trouble.”
“Not me, girlie. It ain’t me who’s going to be in trouble.” Moving with surprising speed, Kruger crossed the room and placed himself between her and the door.
“Run, Holly,” Malcolm said in a strangled voice. “He’ll hurt you.”
Sensing the menace in the big man’s tensed body, Holly tried to step around him to the door. He seized her by the arm above one elbow and squeezed it painfully.
“Let go of me!” she demanded, but her voice betrayed the fear that was building within her.
Kruger felt it, too. “Your little freak friend is right,” he said. “I can hurt you if I want to. So you better be nice to me. You understand?”
“Let go!” Holly said again.
Before she could move, she was pulled hard against Kruger’s body. His thick, moist lips covered her mouth. His tongue tried to force itself past her clenched teeth.
Acting on instinct, she pumped one knee up between the big man’s legs. Her knee slid off the hard muscles of his inner thigh, weakening the blow to his testicles.
Kruger grunted and pulled his head back. “Bitch!”
He balled one huge fist and hit Holly on the point of the jaw.
It seemed her head had been slammed up against the ceiling. The lights went out for Holly Lang and she fell heavily to the floor. Kruger laughed and knelt over her.
* * *
When Gavin Ramsay returned to his office, supporting a hysterical Louis Zeno, two men in neat business suits were waiting for him with Deputy Nevins. They introduced themselves as Hoyden and Placerman from the California Attorney General’s office.
“We got your request,” said Hoyden, the senior of the two, “to assist with the investigation you’re running down
here.”
“I can sure use you,” Ramsay said. He briefly described the scene he had found at the old Whitaker cabin. “I left my man Fernandez in charge there. He’ll keep the sightseers away until we can secure the area.”
“This a witness?” Hoyden said, nodding toward Zeno.
“He found the body.”
The writer took this as a cue to start talking. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m talking bad, man. Blood everywhere. Pieces of my man all over the cabin. My typewriter was ruined.”
“Did you get a look at the guy who did it?” Deputy Nevins asked.
“No man did that,” Zeno said.
“What do you mean?”
“No one man could make an unholy-mess like that in the little time I was gone.”
“Gang of some kind?” Placerman suggested.
“Shit if I know. That’s you guys’ job. You figure it out.”
“Try to relax, Mr. Zeno,” Ramsay said. “Deputy Nevins here will take your statement.”
“Stole my car, too,” said Zeno.
“What’s that? Who stole your car?”
“Whoever… whatever tore up Abe Craddock. Drove off in my car right when I came out of the cabin.”
“What kind of a car was it, Mr. Zeno?”
“Datsun. 1972. Orange.”
“License number?”
“I… I… oh, shit. I know it.”
“Hey, I think I saw that car, maybe an hour ago,” Nevins interrupted.
“Where, Roy?”
“I was watching Holly, Dr. Lang, drive away, and this orange Datsun pulled out right behind her and went off in the same direction.”
The Howling Trilogy Page 50