Bestial (21 page)

But she can say anything she wants,
he thought.
That doesn’t mean she’s telling the truth.

“They turned me,” she said finally, her voice breaking slightly, as if she were holding back strong emotions. “But I’m not like them, George. I’m not. I swear. I want to get them. I want to make them
pay
.” She said the last five words through clenched teeth. “They turned me, but I haven’t hurt anyone. I’ve already fed for tonight, George. A deer. Not a person. I won’t do that, I refuse. Because I’m not like them. You’re safe. I’m not even hungry.”

His eyes stung with tears as he struggled with his decision.

“I’m on the
inside
, George! I want to take them down from the
inside
. And I need your help.”

He reached out and unlocked the three deadbolts he’d installed on the door, then removed the thick plank of wood that stretched across it. He tossed the piece of wood aside and opened the door.

Ella rushed in through the doorway and for a moment—a brief, terrifying moment—George thought she was pouncing on him. During that instant, his lungs emptied of air as he expected her to close her mouth on his throat.

Instead, she fell against him, threw her arms around him, and began to cry against his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her and closed the door with the other, quickly throwing the locks. He put both arms around her and held her close, so happy to see her—someone familiar, someone from his past, from a time when he had friends and life was safe and orderly. A lump rose in his throat and his chest suddenly burned with emotion.

“What’s happened, Ella?” he whispered. “What the hell is going
on
out there? Hardly a day goes by that I don’t wonder if I’ve gone insane, if I’ve locked myself in this cabin up here in the woods because of some paranoid delusion that’s filled my head, some kind of mental illness.”

“You’re not crazy, George,” she said. “But I understand how you feel, believe me.” She pulled away and looked up into his face, her hands still holding his shoulders tightly. “I’ve been living with
them
since January.”

“So you’re, uh... you’re... you’re a... “ He couldn’t bring himself to say it and finally shut his mouth and quit trying.

“A werewolf,” she said, dropping her arms to her sides. A smile flitted across her mouth. “I know. It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Saying it seems... I don’t know. Insane. But yes, that’s what I am. It’s sexually transmitted, and I was raped in our house. The night Arlin was killed. Ever since then, I’ve been in a big house where a bunch of them are staying. It’s out on Edgerly Drive, a narrow little road that branches off of Perryman and goes down by the beach. I’ve been... I’m... with Taggart now.”

“The new sheriff?”

“Yes.”

George slowly nodded. “Yeah, I remember him from the slab in the morgue, back when he was a corpse. Or when I
thought
he was a corpse.”

“They’re not corpses, George. They’re working hard. They’ve put down roots in Big Rock and they plan to spread. I want to stop them, but I need help.”

George took her hand and led her into the cabin. “Come in, sit down. Can I get you anything? I’ve got some real good coffee, here. It’s hot.”

“That would be nice. Just black, is fine.”

He got her the coffee, then they sat down on the couch.

“Roots?” he said. “What kind of roots?”

She sipped from the thick ceramic mug. “Well, obviously, they have the Sheriff’s station. They have road workers guarding the town, monitoring who comes in and out. Linemen to cut communications if necessary. They’ve taken over several businesses in town, but they’ve got their eyes on two particular things they want that will allow them to spread out of Big Rock and into the surrounding area—Sisters of Mercy Hospital and the Seventh-day Adventist church.”

“The Adventist church?” he said, frowning.

“Taggart was raised an Adventist and he knows them, knows their beliefs. He wants to use the church as a base, take over the businesses owned by its members, and use the church’s outreach programs to get into surrounding communities.”

“You know, they don’t eat meat, the Adventists,” George said. Then he chuckled nervously. “They’re not gonna be too crazy about your diet.”

She smiled wearily at the joke, sipped the coffee, then said, “Taggart wants to do the same with the hospital—it serves more than just Big Rock. It would be valuable to them if they could take it over. They’ve already got people in there, but they’re moving slowly and cautiously to avoid being discovered by the wrong people—people who might be able to stop them. The hospital made me think of you.”

George nodded. “Okay. What do you want me to do?”

“I’m not sure. I assumed you would know people who work there.”

“Sure. Several people. A few I know very well.”

She took a few more swallows of water. “Somehow, George—I don’t know how, but
somehow
—you’ve got to tell them.”

His eyebrows rose. “That werewolves are trying to take over the hospital?” He chuckled humorlessly. “A story like that is liable to
land
me in the hospital—in a locked room in Ward 18.”

“They have to know. They have to be told that they’re in danger, that some of the people they’re working with are not what they seem to be.”

“The whole
town
is in danger!”

“Now, yes. That danger will spread a lot farther if we don’t do something to stop them.”

George thought about that and slowly nodded. “Yes. The hospital would be strategic target. It would give them access to people from all over the area. From there, they could spread to other towns.”

“There must be someone you know there, someone you trust, who will listen to you and believe you. Can’t you think of
anyone
?”

George rubbed the back of his neck as he thought, then finally nodded. “There is one person who might listen. Hugo. He’s very intelligent, a free-thinker, a man with an open mind. And we’ve known each other for half a dozen years.”

“Who is he?”

“A doctor. He works in the Emergency Room. Dr. Hugo Rodriguez.”

“Can you call him?”

“Right
now
?”

“We can’t afford to wait around, George. They’ve had months to plan and work and get organized.”

“Why have you waited this long to come to me?”

She sighed heavily and set her glass of water on an end table. “I’ve tried to find you before. It wasn’t easy to get away tonight. I’m supposed to be feeding. I did that as quickly as I could and came straight here. They have me under close scrutiny most of the time. I’m supposed to be taking care of this young woman. She’s... a mother. The mother of the First Born.”

“First Born?”

“They’re reproducing, George. This woman, her name is Cynthia. She was raped by one of them. Not only did that turn her, but she became pregnant.”

“With... one of
them
?” George’s horror was evident on his face.

“Yes. A three-month gestation, and the thing that was born... it’s partially human, and partially... not.” She frowned and her entire face darkened, became fearful. “It’s not like someone who has been turned. It’s different, much stronger. I saw it only once. A girl. A beautiful girl, really. She has a... I don’t know... an air about her that’s... frightening. It’s almost as if she knows what I’m thinking. Her eyes are... incredibly sharp and perceptive. The rest of us... our eyes only turn silver when we transform. Hers are silver all the time. So far, there’s been only one. But if there’s one, there are bound to be others.”

“Why is this happening?”

“None of them know. They don’t understand it. Taggart’s explanation is that we are evolving, that this is a sign we are destined to be dominant.”

Deeply disturbed by everything she’d said, George stood and went to his desk, picked up his cell phone. He turned to Ella. “What should I say to Hugo?”

“Just arrange a time to talk to him. Right away. I’d join you, but I just can’t, I couldn’t possibly explain such a long absence. Tell him everything I’ve told you. Do your best to convince him.”

George opened the cell phone, thought for a moment about what he would say, took a moment to remember Hugo’s number, and then punched it in. Hugo’s wife answered.

“Hello, Stella,” George said. He identified himself. “Is Hugo in?”

“No, George, Hugo’s gone to work.”

“Oh, okay. So he’ll be at the hospital?”

“He should be, yes. Unless there’s something he’s not telling me.” She laughed. “He turns his cell phone off at work, so you might want to call the hospital.”

“Thanks. That’s what I’ll do.” After ending the conversation, he punched in the hospital’s number. He asked the switchboard operator if he could speak to Dr. Hugo Rodriguez in the Emergency Room. As he waited to be connected, he paced in front of the couch. Ella sat there watching him pensively. She nervously jittered one foot, making her knee bob. The aroma of the stew cooking on the stove grew richer, warming the cabin.

“Emergency Room,” a woman’s voice said. She sounded shaky, frightened. There was some kind of racket in the background.

“Could I speak to Dr. Rodriguez, please?” George said.

“Dr. Rodriguez isn’t—Dr. Rod—” Horrible screams rose in the background and the woman on the line gasped, then said, “Oh, my God.”

George stopped pacing and frowned. “What’s wrong?” he said, alarm in his voice.

“I don’t know, we’ve—there’s something—”

More screams, a chorus of them, came piercingly over the line. Chaos was exploding in the ER like a bomb.

Away from the phone, the woman on the other end of the line cried, “Oh, God, what’s happening?
What’s happening
?”

Someone a good distance away screamed, “Jesus, help him!
Help him
!”

The sounds stopped abruptly and were followed by a long, dead silence. The connection had been severed.

George turned to Ella to find a look of dread on her face.

“What happened?” she said.

“I don’t know. That was the ER. There was a lot of noise and screaming, and the woman on the phone screamed, and then I was cut off.”

Ella slumped back on the couch, as if weak with fear. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “What have they done?”

George closed the phone and put it in his pocket. “What should I do?”

Ella stood. “You need to go there. See what’s happening. Try to find your friend. Maybe there’s something you can do.”

“And maybe I’ll end up dead.”

She gently placed a hand on his arm. “George, someone needs to do something... and you’re all I’ve got. I don’t know who else to turn to. You can either lock yourself up in this cabin and live in fear, or you can try to do something about this. Yes, it’s dangerous. But so is staying here. They’ll find you eventually. When they do... well, you’ll wish you hadn’t been here when they arrived. I promise you that.”

He nodded slowly and muttered, “Might as well go out fighting.”

“Don’t talk that way. You may be able to do more than you think.” She moved forward and hugged him again. “I have to go, George. I can’t stay away any longer, or they’ll want to know why.”

“Will you check in with me again?”

They quickly exchanged cell phone numbers.

“I’ll do my best,” she said. “If I can’t call you... well, do your best to call me. Okay?”

He led her to the door and unlocked it. “Take care of yourself.”

“You, too. And get down to the hospital right away.”

“I will.”

After she was gone, George took the stew off the stove, then paced rapidly for awhile.
I’m wasting time,
he thought. He grabbed his keys off the desk and headed out of the cabin.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Loose

The wet sound of blood spattering over the tile floor was, for a brief moment, the only sound in the brightly-lit Emergency Room. That brief moment seemed to stretch into an ugly eternity.

Karen and Gavin froze and stared, and a few feet away from them, Bob did the same. They took in the nightmarish tableau while the silent moment extended as if time had been frozen.

Ted lay on the floor, his legs spread wide. Something small had attached itself to his crotch and the blood was coming from there. It was a baby, its body smeared with blood and fluids. But it did not look... quite right. Aside from the surreal fact that its mouth was latched onto Ted’s crotch, something was very wrong with it physically. Its face was distorted, elongated into what appeared to be long, narrow snout. It had clamped that snout firmly onto Ted’s crotch and was turning its head back and forth viciously, clenching its jaws, its body thrashing and jerking as it tried to bite harder and harder. Ted’s dark brown pants were rapidly darkening with blood. His mouth was a yawning hole and his wide eyes stared down at the thing as he lay stiff and motionless for that brief moment, which stretched on and on. All eyes in the room were on him, mouths gaping, bodies frozen. Everyone stood and stared in shocked disbelief at what they were seeing.