Bestial (19 page)

“And?” Karen said.

“Well, she, uh... “ His face relaxed and he chuckled quietly. “She wasn’t my patient. Maybe it’s irrelevant, because apparently she had some... problems. I was told she was committed to Ward 18 after she showed up here in the ER.”

“Ward 18?” Gavin said.

“The psychiatric ward. She was... I guess she was experiencing some kind of breakdown that happened to coincide with the attack.”

“You said she described the animal,” Gavin said. “What did she say? Do you know?”

The doctor’s smile faded, his frown returned, and his eyes wandered away once again. “I can’t believe I forgot about this,” he muttered, as if to himself. Turning to them, he said, “It was the week I got here. I was preoccupied with settling in and I just... I guess I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time.”

“To what?” Karen said. “What did she say attacked her?”

“It was a, um... she said she was attacked by a tall, hairy, fanged... uh, man.”

“A
man
?” Gavin said.

“Yes. But very hairy. With fangs. And silver eyes.”

“But she was committed?” Karen said.

“She was... yes, she was admitted to the psychiatric ward.”

“Is she still there?” Karen said.

His face grew darker. “Look, this is all confidential information, and I can’t—”

”We’re not asking you to
identify
her,” Gavin said.

“I have no idea if she’s still in the hospital. I seriously doubt it. That was months ago.”

“Let me get this straight,” Karen said. “The boy you treated last night said the animal that attacked him stood
upright
. Correct?”

Dr. Dinescu nodded. “That’s right.”

“And this woman who was admitted to the psychiatric ward months ago—she said she was attacked by a tall, hairy, fanged
man
? With silver eyes?”

The doctor thought about that a moment, seemed disturbed by it. “Yes, that’s what I was told. I made no effort to confirm it, so I have no idea how accurate it is.”

“And several others have come in here to be treated for animal attacks?” Karen said.

“Yes.”

Gavin smiled. “You may be new to the area, Dr. Dinescu, but you’ve been here longer than we have. Do you know if anything is being
done
about this?”

Dr. Dinescu slowly turned his head back and forth, lost in thought again for a moment. “That’s what’s so strange. It doesn’t show up in the papers or on the news. But it’s going on. Pretty regularly. It’s almost as if it’s being...
ignored
.”

Another look between Karen and Gavin, then Gavin removed a business card and pen from his back pocket, a pen from his shirt pocket, and wrote on the back of the card.

“This is my cell phone number, Dr. Dinescu,” he said as he handed the card over. “I’d like you to call if anything comes to mind, or if anyone else comes in here after being attacked by an animal. Will you do that?”

The doctor took the card hesitantly. “Confidentiality is a very touchy—”

”I don’t want you to tell me anything the law prohibits you from telling me, Doctor, but Karen and I were hired to look into this, and it would be very helpful to talk to someone who’s actually been attacked. You say no one is doing anything about it.
We
would like to do something about it.”

“All right. You’ll be staying in the area?”

“For awhile, yes. Is there a number where we can reach you if—”

The entrance door opened and a tall, fleshy middle-aged man stumbled in. He was out of breath and looked pale and frightened. What appeared to be blood spattered his pale blue shirt. His wide eyes went directly to Dr. Dinescu, and he took a moment to catch his breath before speaking.

“I need help!” he said breathlessly. “There’s a woman in my car! She’s been—I-I-I—she’s been hit. By a car.
My
car.
I hit her in my car
!” he shouted, near tears. “She just ran out—I didn’t see—she wasn’t there and then all of a sudden—please, you’ve gotta get her in here!”

Dr. Dinescu seemed to forget Karen and Gavin in an instant as he went to work.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Delivery

Bob had to keep telling himself, “Slow down, slow down,” as he sped up the hill to the hospital. He was in a hurry to get there but did not want to have a wreck on the way, or worse, to hit another pedestrian.

The woman he’d hit was slumped in the seat beside him. She was older than he’d originally thought, and the hunch on her back was actually a backpack. Her clothes were filthy, her hair stringy and matted, and she didn’t smell too clean. He guessed she was a homeless person. Since getting in the car, she’d been babbling on and on about something she thought was pursuing her, some kind of monster. Along with being homeless, Bob suspected she was also crazy.

“You saved me,” she said, her voice hoarse. She held her left leg with both hands and rocked back and forth in pain, but she looked at him with a forced smile, eyes wide. “You saved me from it. It was comin’ after me. I could hear it behind me, breathin’ and growlin’. I only got a little glimpse at it and I saw its eyes. They were silver.
Silver
! And it had real big fangs. And it was gonna eat me, I just
know
it. It was real tall and hairy and it smelled
bad
, and it came after me, and I ran so hard and so far, and then—” That forced, wide-eyed smile again. “—you came along and saved me!”

“I didn’t do a very good job of saving you,” Bob said tremulously. “Is your leg hurt?”

“Oh, yeah, it hurts real bad, but that’s okay, ‘cause you saved me from bein’ eaten by that thing!”

Bob pulled into the ER parking lot and stopped the car as close to the entrance as he could get. His heart thundered in his chest, he was short of breath, and his palms were wet with perspiration. “You stay here,” he said. “I’ll get help. Don’t move. Don’t get out and walk. Okay?”

“Sure, sure, whatever.”

Bob groaned as he got out of the car, worried about what was to come. Would he have to deal with the police? Could he be arrested for this? Then it hit him—Mom and Grandma would find out about it and they would
never
let up. He rolled his eyes, dreading their criticism and accusations as he hurried to the ER entrance. He pushed through the glass door and stumbled over the threshold, almost falling. A white-coated doctor with a man and woman in the waiting room turned to him suddenly, and Bob cried, “I need help!”

Penny released a long, gurgling groan as she bent forward, arms hugging her abdomen.

“Hang on, honey, we’ll be there soon,” Gretchen said.

Her trick, the mullet with the tattoos, had thrown his pants on and rushed out of the trailer as soon as he’d seen Penny in pain on the floor. “Whatever’s wrong with her,” he’d said, “you’re on your own. I’m outta here.” For a second, Gretchen had started to shout at him because he hadn’t paid her, but then she’d given up and returned her attention to Penny.

The pain subsided somewhat and Penny stopped groaning. Her breaths were heavy and loud.

“How you doing, hon?” Gretchen said. She sounded afraid.

“I... don’t know,” Penny said between breaths.

“We’re starting up the hill now. We’ll be there real soon, so just hang on.”

Penny moved her arms away from her abdomen, placed her hands on the seat, and locked her elbows. She clutched at the seat, rigid arms trembling, as another wave of pain tore through her.

As Karen and Gavin left the ER and headed for their SUV, the pedestrian who’d been struck by a car was being wheeled toward the ER on a gurney by Dr. Dinescu and a skinny, baby-faced male nurse the doctor had called Ted. The patient wore a neck stabilizer and was moving her arms agitatedly on the gurney. The driver of the car followed a few feet behind, nervous and fidgety, uncertain and cautious.

“Silver eyes!” the patient croaked. “It really had
silver eyes
and it was gonna
eat
me!”

Karen and Gavin came to an abrupt halt and turned to face each other a moment before looking behind them at the gurney on its way inside.

“It was a monster!” the woman cried. “Jesus help me, it was a monster! He saved me! That man who hit me with his car, he
saved
me!”

Gavin hurried over to the driver and touched his arm, saying, “Excuse me.”

The man jerked as he spun around, startled. The gurney was taken inside the ER through a set of double doors that bypassed the waiting room.

Gavin smiled. “Hi. Are you okay?”

“Okay? Uh... well, I’m a little, um... upset.”

“Sure, I can imagine. Must’ve scared the hell out of you. What happened?”

As they talked, Karen walked over and joined them.

“Well, I was driving home after... well, I’d just kind of gone out for a ride, you know? To get out of the house.”

“Sure.”

“I rounded this corner and the next thing I knew, she was just...
there
. And then my car hit her.” He clenched his eyes shut for a moment. “That sound. It was awful.”

“I’m no doctor, but it looks like she’s probably going to be okay,” Gavin said.

“Gosh, I hope so,” the man muttered, staring anxiously in the direction the gurney had been taken. He turned to Gavin suddenly. “Do you think the police will show up?”

“The ER will report it to the police. That’s routine, nothing to worry about. An officer will show up and ask you for a statement, and all you have to do is tell him exactly what happened.”

The man’s face grew even more pale as his eyes became wider.

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” Gavin said. He offered his hands and shook with the man, whose palm was moist. “By the way, I’m Gavin Keoph. This is Karen Moffett.”

“Bob Berens. I
hope
I don’t have anything to worry about. I mean, it was an
accident
, she just
appeared
.”

“I understand,” Gavin said, trying to sound reassuring. The man seemed almost on the verge of tears. “You did the right thing in bringing her here so quickly. Don’t worry, Bob, everything will be fine.”

Karen stepped forward. “She was saying something just now, something about a monster. Do you know what she was talking about?”

“Oh, yeah. Well, she’s homeless, I think, and she might be a little... um, you know, not in her right mind. She said some kind of monster was chasing her just before she ran in front of my car. Something hairy with fangs and silver eyes.”

“She said silver eyes?” Gavin said.

“Yeah, several times. It was all she could talk about all the way here.”

“Did she say anything else about this monster?” Karen said.

“Uh, well... she said she could smell it. That it smelled bad. And, um—” He cleared his throat. “—she said this thing was going to eat her. I don’t know if she’s on drugs, or what. But I figured she’d been hallucinating.”

Gavin turned to Karen and said quietly, “I think we should try to talk to her.”

Karen nodded. “Let’s go back in.”

Turning to Bob with a smile, Gavin said, “Why don’t you go park your car and then come inside where—”

Headlights swept over them as a car rushed into the lot. The three of them turned as a small, battered red pickup truck sped toward them. The driver slammed on the brakes at the last moment and the tires squealed on the pavement, but the car did not stop in time. Its bumper slammed into a back corner of Bob’s station wagon with a crunch of metal.

“Oh, no!” Bob shouted, putting a hand on each side of his head, elbows sticking out. He groaned and said, “My mom’s gonna kill me.”

The driver’s-side door opened and a woman scrambled out of the cab. She was in her early thirties with mussed blonde hair that looked like she’d just gotten out of bed. She wore a grey T-shirt with the logo of a local bowling alley on the front, a pair of white shorts, and flip-flops on her feet. As she ran around the rear of the pickup to the passenger side, she said, “Help me! My little girl’s havin’ a baby and she needs help right away! She’s in labor!”

Bob’s hands remained on his head, elbows in the air, eyes wide beneath a frowning brow, the corners of his mouth pulled back in a look of shock. As if he hadn’t heard the woman, he said again, “My mother’s gonna
kill
me!”

“Somebody get a wheelchair, or something!” the woman shouted.

As she spoke, Karen rushed into the ER while Gavin hurried to the woman’s side. Bob did not move.

A moment later, Karen came out with Ted, who pushed a wheelchair to the open door on the passenger side of the pickup. Gavin helped the morbidly obese pregnant girl out of the cab and into the wheelchair. She screamed in pain as the male nurse wheeled her into the ER with the mother hurrying alongside the chair.

“How am I gonna move my car
now
?” Bob said, his arms dropping to his sides as he stared at the pickup truck with its nose planted firmly in the rear of his station wagon.