Bestial (25 page)

“A hot, a-a-a hot
date
?” He laughed, but it came out as weak, broken sound. “No, I wasn’t, I didn’t, uh, no, I didn’t have a date. I just, um, I went for a ride. That’s all. And I ended up, uh... well, it’s a long story, and you probably wouldn’t believe it, anyway, so nevermind.”

She kept coming forward, stepping off the lawn onto the concrete walkway. “It’s late... but it’s not
too
late, you know.” She stepped up onto the first step of the porch. “No need to turn in yet.” The second step. “Unless you’d rather go inside and go to bed... all by yourself.”

Bob stepped back as Vanessa joined him on the porch. She stood directly in front of him, so close their bodies nearly touched.

“What do you say you and I go someplace where we can... get to know each other better,” she said in a throaty whisper.

Bob’s heart felt as if it were going to shatter through his ribcage at any second. His mouth became dry and his penis became hard. “Go... go someplace? Where?”

She slipped a finger into his shirt between two of the buttons and ticked his bare chest with her fingernail. “Oh, we can find someplace. That won’t be a problem.”

“Well, I-I guess we could—”

A sudden rattling sound behind him made Bob jump and spin around as the front door was pulled open. His mother stood there in her robe and squinted out at him.

“What’re you doing out here?” she said, her voice harsh, as if she were angry about something. When she saw Vanessa, she blinked several times before saying, “Are
you
still here?”

Bob felt the heat of a raging blush rise in his face as he quickly stepped away from Vanessa before his mother could see how close they’d been standing. “Uh, Mom, just go back, uh, look, I’ll—”

”I was just visiting with your son, Mrs. Berens,” Vanessa said pleasantly, flashing a bright smile.

“In the middle of the night?” Mom said.

Vanessa shrugged, still smiling. “I was out late tonight, and I happened to be in the area, so I drove by just as Bob was getting home.”

Mom turned to Bob and frowned. “Why are you getting home so late? Where have you
been
?”

Bob rolled his eyes as he said, “Mom, I wish you’d just—” He stopped abruptly when he heard a plaintive whine in his voice. It was not a whine he wanted Vanessa to hear.

“Why don’t we get together some other time, Bob?” Vanessa said.

“Uh, sure, sure.” He turned to his mother. “Mom, go inside and I’ll be with you in just a second.”

“I can’t believe it,” Mom said as she backed away from the door. “Standing on the porch with friends at all hours of the night... “

Bob pulled the door closed, then turned to Vanessa. “Really? I mean, you want to get together?”

“That’s what I said, didn’t I?”

“Well... when?”

“What are you doing tomorrow night?”

“Uh... nothing.”

“Good. I’ll come by around sunset and pick you up. We’ll go do something fun. Or maybe we’ll just go someplace and get to know each other, like I said.”

She smiled, then placed a hand to his cheek, leaned forward, and kissed him on the mouth, briefly but tenderly. With a slight, secretive smile and a suggestive, heavy-lidded look in her eyes, she turned and went down the porch steps, then disappeared into the dark.

Inside the house, Bob tried to avoid his mother, but failed.

“Where have you
been
?” she demanded again, stepping in front of him on his way to his bedroom. She frowned as she looked him up and down in the glow of the hallway light. “You look awful. Are you sick?”

“I’m fine, Mom, just let me go to bed.”

“Do you have a fever?” she said as she lifted a hand and pressed it to his forehead.

“No, I don’t have a fever, I’m just—”

”You’re pants are torn,” she said, looking down at his pant leg. “What did you do to your pants?”

He took a deep breath and blew it out, puffing his cheeks. “Look, Mom, I’m tired. I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.” He stepped around her and continued on to his room.

“Fine, then,
be
that way!” she shouted after him. “All I’m doing is showing a little motherly concern. You don’t have to bite my head off!”

On his way to his room, Bob came face to face with Sister White. This particular dusty-grey picture showed the Seventh-day Adventist prophet in her declining years. Taken in 1899 while Sister White, then in her seventies, was in Australia, it showed her seated, body turned to her left, head turned to look into the camera, silvered hair pulled back severely, as always. She seemed to be looking
into
Bob instead of simply
at
him, her knowing eyes disapproving of his unclean thoughts about Vanessa. He tore his eyes away from the disturbingly mesmerizing picture and went down the hall.

Once in his room, Bob closed the door, locked it, and leaned back against it heavily. When he closed his eyes, he saw that thing... it’s snout shooting out of its round face... its fangs sinking into that man’s crotch... the horrible little sounds it made as it darted around at impossible speeds...

As he was wondering if he would be able to sleep that night, Bob remembered Gavin Keoph and his beautiful friend Karen. Gavin had made him promise to call, no matter what the hour. He took the business card out of his pocket and put it on the desk.

Bob took off his clothes, put on a T-shirt, and sat down at his desk in his boxers. He picked up the phone, looked at the number on the card, and punched it in.

After leaving the hospital that night, Karen and Gavin ate a late dinner in a seaside restaurant, a meal over which they said very little, as if both were afraid to speak. Without saying so, each one knew they both were thinking the same thing—that this assignment for Burgess was not as harmless as the last two, which had turned out to be nothing. This assignment was turning out to be more like the first.

They smoked on the way back to the bed and breakfast.

“We should look for another place in the morning,” Karen said. “I think it’s a good idea not to stay in one place too long.”

Gavin nodded. “True.”

When Karen spoke again, her face was turned slightly to the right, toward the window, and her voice was just loud enough to be audible. “I... don’t know... if I can stay here... much longer.”

Gavin waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, he said, “You want to leave, Karen? Seriously, if you do, just say so. It’s only money. Neither one of us will be broken without Burgess’s fee for this job.”

After awhile, she said, “Our first job for Burgess wasn’t that long ago, but it seems... ages. Looking back on the person I was before that job... it’s like looking back on my childhood. Distant memories. Back then, I was a person who had solid ideas of what was real and what wasn’t. I knew things like ghosts and goblins and... vampires... didn’t exist. Since that job, I’ve spent my life walking on eggshells, wondering what else was going to pop around the corner and say ‘boo’... wondering just how deeply in the dark I’ve been all my life. Now this. Tonight. That...
thing
in the Emergency Room.” She turned her head and looked at him.

Gavin felt a pang in his chest when he saw her face in the glow of the dash lights. She looked at him with a blend of sadness and fear, and somewhere in the mix was a slight look of accusation. It was almost like the look in the eyes of a loving pet after being unexpectedly struck by its trusted master.

“You said it was just a fluke,” she said, nearly whispering.

Gavin’s shoulders slumped heavily as he watched the road. “Yes, I did. And at the time, I meant it. I honestly thought what happened in Los Angeles... that it was... just some kind of freak occurrence.”

“Then what was that thing in the Emergency Room?”

He slowly turned his head back and forth. “I don’t know, Karen. I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

As she went on, she became more confident. Her voice grew a little louder and she hit her words with a bit more emphasis. “It had a snout. You saw that, didn’t you? A snout. Like dog, or a
wolf
. Bob said it looked perfectly normal at first, that it was a newborn baby, just like any other. And then it
changed
, he said.”

He nodded. “I know. I know.” He knew she was just letting off steam, that she had to vent somehow. They’d both witnessed a horrible thing that night, something impossible and nightmarish and deeply upsetting—but he knew that Karen had good reason to be more sensitive to this situation than he. So he let her go on.

Now she almost sounded angry. “And why are we here, Gavin? To look for
werewolves
. Gee, do you think a newborn baby that suddenly has a snout with fangs and likes to eat the intestines out of people might somehow be
related
?”

When she didn’t continue, Gavin said, “I’m not arguing with you, Karen. Like I said, if you want to go, we can. Just say so.”

Once again, she turned to the right and stared out the window silently.

Gavin kept driving, waiting for her to continue. As he turned onto the road that led to their bed and breakfast, Karen finally spoke.

“I don’t want this to be called off just because of
me
, for one thing,” she said. “If you can take it... I guess I can, too.”

He knew more was coming. He pulled into the driveway, killed the engine, and turned to Karen. “But? I know there’s a ‘but’ coming.”

“Well, for another thing... “ She turned to him. “We’re among the few people who know about this. If we don’t do something about it, who will? And if something isn’t done... how much worse is this going to get? How fast and how far will it spread if nobody tries to stop it.”

Gavin nodded in agreement, then said, “Let’s go inside and call Burgess.”

They let themselves in with the key Tilly had given them. Tilly and Gus were in bed. On the way to their room, they could hear Gus’s snores behind the closed door. He sounded like an old, untended boiler that was about to blow.

Gavin called Burgess, put him on speaker, and they told him everything that had happened. When they were done, Burgess waited awhile before speaking, and when he did, he did not joke, and his usual smartass tone was gone.

“Wow,” he said. “This is some serious shit, isn’t it?”

“
Very
serious,” Karen said. “One person is dead, another has been severely injured. He’s probably in surgery by now, and he may never be the same again. Yes, Martin, this is
very
serious, and from this point on, I’d appreciate it if you’d stop treating this as if it’s some kind of romp. You seem to take a great deal of pleasure from all this weird stuff. I know it’s your livelihood, and all, but in our case, it’s our
lives
. Right now, I am a fraction of an inch from walking away from this. Whether or not I do will depend on how seriously you proceed from here.”

Gavin spoke up and said, “We don’t know exactly what this is yet, Martin, but it’s
something
. And it looks an awful lot like it might be the, um... werewolves you sent us here to find. Somebody knows we’re here and they don’t seem to like it. I think there may be a connection between them and Pine County’s mysterious sheriff. When we left the hospital, deputies were on their way. Even if what cover we had wasn’t blown before, it is by now. I suspect they are very anxious to find us right about now.”

No one said anything for a long moment.

“The troops are on their way, I promise,” Burgess said finally. “They’ll be there tomorrow.”

“When tomorrow?” Karen said.

“I’m not sure exactly. I’m doing my best. I’m not the Pentagon. But they
will
be there. I promise.”

“Who are they?” Gavin said.

“Oh... some friends of mine.”

“Some friends?” Karen said in disbelief. “You’re sending some
friends
? Who? Stephen King? Dean Koontz? What’re they gonna do, come tell the werewolves a
scary story
?”

“Trust me,” Burgess said.

After talking to Burgess, they agreed they needed to get some sleep. It had been a long, draining day. They prepared for bed. Karen pulled the covers back and got in first. Gavin sat on the edge of the bed for a moment and fiddled with his cell phone.

“What are you doing?” Karen said.

“I’m resetting my ringtone. Dr. Dinescu and Bob will be calling sometime tonight, I hope. If the ringtone is new and unfamiliar, it’ll jar me out of my sleep faster.” He finished and put the phone beside the lamp on the nightstand, then turned out the light. He noticed that the light in the partially-open closet was on.

“I left the closet light on for you,” Karen said quietly, turning on her side with her back to him.

Gavin got under the covers and said, “Thank you.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Calls in the Night

“Aah-
oooooo
, werewolves of London,” Warren Zevon sang on Gavin’s cell phone, “aah-
oooooo
!” The song rang out in the darkness of their room and they stirred in bed.