Bestial (24 page)

“Exactly. We do
not
want to deal with local law enforcement. Not until we know who and what we’re dealing
with
.”

“Which means we’d better haul ass.”

They turned around in time to see Dr. Dinescu disappear behind a curtain. Dr. Rodriguez stood several feet away talking urgently on his cell phone in hushed tones. They hurried over to the curtain.

“Dr. Dinescu,” Karen said, “we need to talk.”

The doctor reappeared in a moment.

“We have to go,” Gavin said.

“Go?” the doctor said, surprised and dismayed. “You’re
going
?
Now
?”

“We have to,” Gavin said. “Something’s come up and we have no choice.”

Dr. Dinescu said, “B-but what do
I
do?”

“Tell the police exactly what happened,” Karen said, “and call whoever you need to call to get this hospital locked down as soon as possible. That’s the most important thing. It may already be too late.”

Gavin took a business card from his coat pocket and handed it to the doctor. “My cell phone number. Call me in a couple of hours and let me know what’s going on. Don’t worry about waking me. Call. We need to talk some more.”

“Talk?” the doctor said, taking the card. “But if you leave, that, that
thing
is going to—”

”There’s nothing we can do here, Doctor,” Karen said. “You’re the one who works in the hospital, you know the ins and outs, who to talk to about this.
You
need to get this done.”

Dr. Dinescu said nothing, just stared at Gavin with a frown, a slack jaw, and a hint of dread in his eyes, as if he were being told to do something he did not want to do.

“Call me,” Gavin said again.

They turned and hurried out, going through the waiting room. On their way out, they passed a tall, disheveled, bearded man on his way in. As they went out the door, taking long, rapid steps, a voice said, “What’s it like in there?”

Karen and Gavin stopped and turned to the right, toward the voice.

Bob sat on a concrete bench just outside the door. His hands were pressed to the bench at his sides, elbows locked and arms stiff. He was bent forward slightly and looked drained of energy.

“You don’t look well, Bob,” Karen said.

“I’ve felt better, I guess.” He reached up, scrubbed a hand down over his face, then looked at his palm. “I’m still a little clammy.”

“You gonna be okay?” Gavin said.

“I think so.”

“What did you see in there?” Karen said. “We were behind the curtain with Hannah during some of it.”

He looked a little woozy for a moment. “That girl... her baby came before they could move her. It came out. And it looked like a baby. At first. But then it... something happened to its... it changed. Then all of a sudden, it was on Ted and he was screaming.”

“Look,” Gavin said, “we’re in a hurry, we’ve gotta go. But I want to hear everything you saw. The police are coming. You should go inside and wait for them, and tell them everything you saw, too. And then will you do me a favor?”

“What’s that?”

Gavin stepped closer, produced another business card, and handed it to Bob. “Call me. That’s my cell phone. As soon as you’re done here, no matter what time it is, call me. We need to talk. Will you do that for me, Bob?”

He frowned slightly as he took the card. “Sure. Yeah, okay.”

“Good. Thanks. Talk to you later tonight.” Gavin took Karen’s elbow and said, “We’ve gotta go.”

They hurried to the SUV.

George stopped in the waiting room a moment to stare down at the smear of blood on the floor, then went through the door to the left of the reception window. He walked into the back without hesitation, as if he still worked in the hospital. He was tense as he walked through the short hall, not knowing what he would find.

First, he saw a dark-haired doctor he did not recognize standing in one of the booths, the curtain pulled back. On the table before the doctor was a woman lying on her back, her shirt and abdomen torn open, her intestines exposed and hanging out on the table. The doctor, whose left wrist was bandaged, looked down at her with an expression of great distress. After a moment, he turned to George, who quickly turned the right and moved on past the booth.

George looked at the blood on the floor and thought,
Jesus, this was bad.
Then he saw Hugo standing in the room, just finishing a conversation on his cell phone. He pocketed the phone, glanced at George, then did a double-take. He frowned as he turned slowly to face George, looking at him as if he weren’t sure who he was.

“George?” Hugo said.

George went to him and said, “Hugo, what the hell happened here?”

Hugo moved toward him hesitantly. “George, where... where have you been? You disappeared, you just vanished from your job and your house.”

George nodded. “Yes, that’s right, I vanished. Because there’s something going on in this—” He stopped to look around, then moved closer to Hugo and lowered his voice. “There’s something going on in this town, Hugo, something bad. That’s why I left.” He laughed once. “Actually, I didn’t leave—I
fled
.”

Hugo continued to frown, but it took on a darker look as he tilted his head to one side. “What are you talking about? You fled from what?”

George looked around again, his eyes stopping on the blood that was all over the floor. “What
happened
here, Hugo?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I’m going to find out. Now tell me, George, I’m very interested—what were you running from?”

George wet his lips, took in a steadying breath, and let it out slowly. “Look, Hugo, I know this is going to sound... well, it’s going to sound crazy. But just hear me out. Do you remember Arlin Hurley? The sheriff?”

Hugo shrugged. “I remember him. I didn’t know him.”

“I did. Arlin was a good guy—honest, honorable, and a very sane man. I mean that. He wasn’t the type to believe in crazy things or to act on unreliable information. In fact, he was just the opposite. While I was still Deputy Coroner, before Arlin was killed, a body came into the morgue. It was a man who’d been killed by the woman he was raping. She’d stabbed him in the left eye. Took his eyeball right out of his socket, it was gone. That guy was dead, Hugo. You know me, you know I’m a pro. He was
dead
.” He lowered his voice even more. “Well, he got up and walked out.” He waited for that to sink in.

Hugo slowly lifted his arms and folded them across his chest. His facial expression remained the same, although his eyes narrowed slightly.

“That man—the corpse on the slab, the guy with one eye—is now—” George dropped his voice to a mere breath. “—he’s the new sheriff. Irving Taggart.
That’s
the guy who was stretched out dead in the morgue.”

Still no reaction. Hugo’s eyes narrowed only a fraction more.

George realized his body was rigid with tension. He laughed, hoping it didn’t sound too forced, and tried to relax.

“Look, Hugo, like I said, this sounds crazy, I know, but I’m not done yet. That dead guy who walked out of the morgue brought something to this town. Arlin knew about it. A man named Fargo knew it, too, Daniel Fargo. In fact, he came here
looking
for it.. He knew about it already.”

Hugo’s right eyebrow rose. “Knew about what?”

George closed his eyes a moment and thought,
Should I say this? Knowing how it’s going to sound?

Hugo said, “George?”

George opened his eyes, thought,
I can’t believe I’m about to say this,
and whispered, “Werewolves.” He braced himself for Hugo’s reaction, expecting utter disbelief, a loud guffaw, something to suggest that he was crazy.
 

Hugo did not move and his facial expression did not change. He continued to stare into George’s eyes. Finally, he reached out and put a hand on George’s right shoulder.

“You haven’t been taking very good care of yourself, have you, George?” he said quietly. “You look... pale. Tired. You’ve gained some weight. How long has it been since you’ve had a decent haircut?”

“I know, Hugo, I know. You think I’m crazy. But please, just listen. You know me, you know I’m not a nut, that I don’t buy into just any old crazy thing that—”

Behind George came the sound of footsteps, people entering the room. He stopped talking for a moment and glanced over his shoulder. When he saw the uniforms, he looked again, and his blood chilled.

Three deputies walked into the room and looked around.

George turned to Hugo, who looked beyond him and smiled at the deputies. He glanced at George again, and suddenly George saw something in Hugo’s eyes he had not noticed a moment earlier—an icy coldness.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Preparing for the Worst

Later that night, Bob drove home, still confused about what had happened back at the hospital—not only the horrifying creature that had wreaked havoc in the Emergency Room, but the behavior of Dr. Rodriguez and the deputies who had shown up. Bob was amazed that their reactions to everything had not been stronger. The doctor and the deputies hadn’t seemed all that surprised to hear that a newborn infant had sprouted fangs and attacked people in the room, killing one by ripping her open and gnawing on her intestines. They hadn’t seemed all that concerned that the creature in question was running loose somewhere in the hospital. Once they were done questioning him, the deputies had assured him that everything would be handled, and they’d told him to go on home.

On his way out of the ER, Bob had passed Sheriff Taggart on his way in. The sheriff had nodded at him and said, “Hello, Bob,” as they passed.

Thinking of the sheriff on his way home brought Vanessa to mind. He remembered his encounter with her in the church kitchen, went over it all again in his mind, ever wonderful detail.

As he had so many times before, Bob wished he were more at ease in social situations, more comfortable interacting with people. It seemed he’d spent nearly his entire life interacting mostly with his family and other Seventh-day Adventists. He was uncomfortable enough in
those
situations. When he found himself in a situation that involved something other than his family or their religion, it was as if his brain seized up and his entire body became rigid and clumsy, as if his tongue doubled in size. His self-image had never been a good one—being told all your life that you were worthless by your family and an unrepentant sinner by your church did not exactly foster a lot of self-confidence or self-esteem. But being told those things was the norm for him, and when he stepped out of that arena into a casual social situation, he seemed unable to do anything other than prove all those things to be correct.

He remembered Vanessa’s perfume, the touch of her hand, the electricity that had shot through him when she’d run her thumb up the zipper of his pants over his erection. In spite of his exhaustion, in spite of the horrible experience he’d been through that night, the very thought of Vanessa and what she had done made him hard as he drove.

He turned onto Belmont Avenue, slowed as he approached his house. He pulled into the driveway. The house was dark except for the light glowing over the porch. It was one of those anti-bug lights and gave off a sickly yellow glow, turning the entire porch the color of urine. He looked at his watch—it was just after midnight. He was surprised Mom and Grandma weren’t still up. They tended to stay up late at night on the weekends. He never understood why they bothered to go to bed early during the week—neither had anywhere they needed to be in the mornings.

The garage was closed, as usual. It was so full of junk, there was no room for the car. Bob parked, killed the engine, got out, and went slowly along the walk to the porch. His legs still felt weak and his stomach remained queasy. He wondered why he hadn’t gone insane. After what he’d seen, why wasn’t he gibbering like a lunatic? Apparently, the mind had a great capacity to adapt.

At the door, he found the house key and slipped it into the lock.

“I’ve been waiting a long time,” a woman said behind him.

Still on edge, Bob gasped as he spun around. The keys dropped to his feet with a jangle and he swayed with his sudden movement, nearly losing his footing. He craned his head forward and squinted out at the dark front yard.

A figure stood in the dark just beyond the reach of the yellow glow.

“Who’s there?” Bob said.

The figure stepped into the light. Vanessa smiled up at Bob as she stood there in a short, low-cut dress in summery earth tones, a dress that showed off her smooth bare legs and exposed plenty of deep cleavage.

“Hello, Bob.”

“Oh, uh... huh-hi. Vanessa.”

“Where’ve you been? I’ve been waiting around for you to get back.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Hours. I knocked on the door earlier tonight, looking for you. Your mother said you were out. Where have you been?” She tipped her head forward and gave him a look that was sultry and suggestive as she came slowly toward him. “Did you have a hot date, Bob? Do I have some competition?”