Bestial (18 page)

Bob waited a long moment, his body stiff with anger, then he pulled yet another U-turn and drove in the same direction they’d gone. A short distance beyond the motel, the road curved blindly to the right around a dark stand of trees. Still angry, both hands still clenched on the steering wheel, Bob did not decrease his pressure on the gas pedal as he rounded the curve.

The figure appeared as a blur in the headlight beams: Arms flailing, open mouth a black hole in the face, long hair flying around her head, her back apparently hunched like Quasimodo’s. Bob only vaguely heard the woman’s screams through his open window as the lights washed her skin a chalky white.

The thud of the car hitting her body went through Bob’s bones, into his bowels. He cried out as he hit the brakes and threw the station wagon into a swerving skid. When the car finally stopped, he sat there, jaw slack, and listened to the engine idle. It was the only sound in the night.

A woman’s voice cried, “Help me! I have to get away! It’s coming! Jesus Christ, it’s gonna find me!”

She’s not dead,
Bob thought with enormous relief. His throat was dry when he gulped. He shifted the car into park, opened the door, and got out, feeling heavy with fear and dread.

Penny Anderson did not feel well. She hadn’t been feeling herself for awhile, and she knew why—she was pregnant. But she had not yet told Gretchen, who would go through the roof when she found out. She figured she still had some time. It had been only three months. As overweight as she was, the condition was not at all apparent. But as she lay on her bed with a near-empty package of Oreos beside her, she began to wonder if she had as much time as she’d thought. Tendrils of pain had been cutting through her abdomen for the last half hour, and it was only getting worse.

Gretchen was in the living room with one of their tricks. Penny could hear the phony moans and cries of a porn movie playing loudly on the television while Gretchen and her trick—a pudgy, homely guy in his thirties with a mullet and several tattoos—fooled around on the couch.

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, turned on the clock-radio on her nightstand. Tinny rap music thumped from the cheap speaker, but it helped cover the sounds of the porn movie in the living room. More pain erupted inside her and she bent forward, hugged herself, and groaned. She wore a baggy yellow T-shirt with a faded picture of Heath Ledger’s Joker on the front, and a pair of black shorts. Quite unexpectedly, she vomited on the floor between her bare feet.

“Oh, no,” she said as she reached for a tissue on the nightstand. She wiped her mouth and stood, avoiding the mess on the floor. Gretchen would be pissed—not only was she pregnant, but she’d puked on the floor. She cautiously opened her bedroom door a crack and cocked her ear to listen. Down the hall, Gretchen was laughing girlishly while the man moaned. Penny hurried the few steps down the hall to the bathroom, being as quiet as possible, and got a washcloth from the shelf. She wet it at the faucet, then turned to go back to her room and clean up the mess she’d made.

Pain hit her like a fist plunging into her abdomen. She doubled over and cried out, staggered, lost her footing, and fell against the wall before sliding to the floor.

Gretchen’s laughter stopped.

“Penny?” she called, her voice sharp, irritated.

Penny quickly tried to get up, but the pain came again, worse this time, and her cry was louder, jagged and agonized. She fell to the floor again.

“Goddammit, Penny, what the fuck’re you
doing
?” Gretchen’s footsteps thumped rapidly through the living room, coming closer.

On hands and knees, Penny looked over her shoulder and saw Gretchen standing at the other end of the hall, naked, hands on her hips, eyes glaring.

“It’s nothin’,” Penny said. “Nevermind.” She tried again to get up, clutching the wet washcloth, but was knocked back to the floor by the pain, the breath shoved from her lungs.

“Penny? What the hell’s the
matter
with you?”

Penny sat up to respond, but more pain made her curl up, and she vomited again.

“Oh, Jesus, are you sick, honey?” Gretchen said as she approached her daughter, bending forward, reaching out a hand. Her tone changed suddenly, became softer, more concerned.

“I-I-I’m, I’m... I’m... “ Penny finally climbed to her feet, panting. She leaned back against the wall, hands on her stomach. Before she could continue speaking, the pain hit again. She felt something wet dribbling down her legs. It spattered to the floor.

Gretchen looked down at the clear fluid. “Oh, God, what’s wrong?”

Teeth clenched, Penny said, “I’m pregnant.”

Gretchen’s head jerked backward as she gasped. “Preg... how
long
?”

Before Penny could answer, pain made her scream and collapse to her knees.

“What the hell’s goin’ on?” the man in the living room shouted.

“Come help me!” Gretchen cried.

“Help you
what
, goddammit?”

“Help me get my little girl to the hospital!”

Somewhere beneath all the pain, Penny was touched by her mother’s sudden and extremely rare concern. She wished she felt better so she could enjoy it, but she was buried beneath another wave of pain.

Abe leaned against the counter next to the coffee maker in the small lounge, a cup of coffee in one hand and his cell phone to his ear in the other.

“I’m worried about Illy,” Claire said.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. She says she’s fine, but she’s distracted and seems unhappy about something. She’s been talking to herself more than usual. All day today, she’s been talking to herself, and when she does, she sounds... well, almost
afraid
. Then a couple of hours ago, we were watching the local news on TV and she—oh, by the way, they said something about Seth. Anyway, for some reason, that really upset Illy. I mentioned that he was your coworker, and she became agitated and started talking to herself frantically. She kept using that one word—
moroi
? Over and over. She even started
shaking
. She went out back to the cottage. I got all the ingredients for smoothies today, and I just took one out to her. But she didn’t want it. One of those strawberry smoothies she loves so much? She didn’t
want
it. And she was still talking to herself. When I went out there, she was getting out all of those things, um—what do you call them? Those things she has on the wall in the cottage?”

“Talismans?”

“Yes, that’s it. She was putting them in her front window.”

Frowning, Abe shook his head slowly. “Something’s upset her.”

“Well, hearing about Seth seemed to do it.”

“What did they say about Seth, anyway?”

She sighed. “They said the police had determined that he’d been murdered and they’re searching for his killer. They said it was—this was how they put it—‘a break-in gone wrong.’”

Abe’s eyes widened as he turned and put his coffee down on the counter hard. “A break-in gone wrong?” he said loudly. “That was no goddamned
break-in
!”

“It didn’t sound like it, not the way you described it.”

“A burglar would’ve just shot him or stabbed him or knocked him over the head with something and then run.” A frown darkened Abe’s eyes and he lowered his voice. “Seth was... he was torn apart. It looked like—last night I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep, and I realized parts of him looked—well, it looked like he’d been
eaten
.”

“Eaten? By
what
?”

Abe merely shook his head. He picked up his coffee again and took a sip, then chewed on his lower lip for a long moment.

“Why would they say it was a break-in?” Claire asked.

He shrugged. “Doesn’t make any sense.”

“And what would
eat
him? Could an animal have gotten into the house and eaten at his body before you got there?”

An animal,
Abe thought. It had been bothering him all day—that Seth’s remains had looked as if he’d been partially eaten. He kept thinking about the animal attacks, wondering if there were some connection between them and the state of Seth’s remains.

“I don’t know,” Abe said. “But that was
not
a break-in gone wrong.”

Winona came into the lounge a little timidly, as usual. Her timidity was deceptive—Abe had seen her shout down a burly, menacing drunk in the waiting room once.

“Excuse me, Dr. Dinescu,” she said.

“Just a second,” Abe said into the phone. He pulled the phone a few inches away from his head and said, “What is it, Winona?”

“There are two people to see you.” She frowned as she said it, as if the situation puzzled her.

“Patients?”

“No, they say they’re, uh—” She cleared her throat, then lowered her voice a little. “Private investigators.”

He frowned. “Private
investigators
?”

“That’s what they say,” Winona said.

On the phone, Claire’s tinny voice said, “What’s going on?”

He put the phone to his ear and said, “I have to go, honey. Somebody wants to see me.”

“Private investigators want to see you?” she said.

“I’ll tell you all about it later. Hugo should be here any minute. He’s late already. I’ll be home soon.” He said goodbye, then closed the phone and dropped it into his pocket. As he started out of the lounge, he said, “Did they say what they want, Winona?”

“Only that they want to talk to you about animal attacks.”

Abe stopped in the doorway and turned to her, his eyebrows rising. “Animal attacks?” he whispered.

“That’s what they told me.”

As he headed for the waiting room, Abe thought,
This should be interesting.

Karen and Gavin stood at the reception window and waited. They looked around once again at the empty waiting room. Mounted high on one wall, a television played a cooking show for no one.

“Maybe it’s too early for the drunken brawls,” Karen said.

“Maybe they don’t
have
drunken brawls here in Big Rock,” Gavin said.

“Yeah, right. What
else
is there to do in this burg?”

The receptionist appeared at the window again. “He’s coming out right now,” she said with a smile.

To the left of the window, one of the double doors opened and a doctor in a white coat and dark pants walked out. He was in his late thirties, tall and fit, short dark hair, a handsome face with strong features. His smile was weak, overpowered by the slight frown that conveyed his puzzlement.

“Hello,” he said. He offered his hand and shook with Gavin. “I’m Dr. Dinescu. Winona says you wanted to, uh, talk to me about... animal attacks?”

“That’s right,” Gavin said. He introduced himself and Karen.

“You’re private investigators?” the doctor asked.

“That’s right,” Karen said. “We’ve been hired to look into the rash of animal attacks around here. We thought maybe you’d be able to tell us something about them.”

Dr. Dinescu’s frown deepened a little. “Why me?”

“Only because you’re a doctor in the ER,” Gavin said. “We thought maybe you’ve seen some of the victims first-hand.”

“Ah, I see. Well, as a matter of fact, I had one in here just last night. A little boy.”

“What kind of animal attacked him?” Gavin said.

“I don’t know. Neither did the boy. He didn’t get a good look at it.” He told them the details of the attack—how the smelly, upright animal had tried to pull the boy through the opening in the fence.

“It was
upright
?” Karen said.

“Yes.”

“Are there any zoos or animal parks around here?” Gavin asked.

“There’s a small zoo—if it can be called that—in the park in Eureka, but the animals are pretty harmless. Nothing predatory or dangerous. It’s pretty tiny.”

Karen and Gavin exchanged a look. “Have you treated others for similar attacks?”

The doctor nodded. “A couple. And there have been others I haven’t treated.”

“Any idea how many?”

He shook his head. “I suppose I could find out, but not right now.”

“What do
you
think it is?” Karen asked. “Any theories?”

Dr. Dinescu took a moment to think about his response. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. I don’t have any theories, but... it bothers me.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s been going on for awhile. I’m new to the area. My wife and I moved here from southern California only three months ago, and as soon as I started working here, I began hearing about these animal attacks. I didn’t think much of it at first, but after treating one myself hearing about more from other doctors, I began to wonder what kind of animal was doing it. No one has been able to describe the—” He stopped talking for a moment and his eyes wandered off as he became thoughtful, moving his jaw back and forth slowly.

“Something wrong?” Gavin asked.

“Well... I just remembered something. When I first started here, I heard there was a woman who
did
describe the animal that attacked her.” He turned to them again, his eyes moving back and forth between them. He said nothing more.