Bestial (26 page)

As Gavin sat up and groped for the phone, Karen rolled over and muttered sleepily, “Is that supposed to be some kind of a joke?”

Gavin answered the phone and Bob identified himself. Sitting up on the edge of the bed, Gavin rubbed his eyes in the dark and tried to clear his head.

“Hi, Bob. I’m glad you called. Where are you now?”

“I’m home.”

“What happened at the hospital?”

“I talked to the deputies and tried to tell them everything I saw, but they didn’t seem that interested. They were more interested in shutting up Dr. Dinescu and talking to Dr. Rodriguez.”

“Who?”

“One of the doctors in the Emergency Room. Hispanic, a little pudgy.”

Gavin remembered the doctor who had gotten on his nerves so fast, the one he’d threatened to punch while still thrumming with adrenaline.

“But Dr. Rodriguez wasn’t there when it happened,” Gavin said.

“Yeah, I know. That’s what was so weird. I talked to them awhile, they took my name and number and said I could go. As I was leaving, the sheriff arrived.”

“The sheriff? You know him?”

“Not well, but yeah. He goes to my church.”

“Which church?”

“Seventh-day Adventist.”

“Did you talk to him at the hospital?”

“No. He said hi, but we didn’t talk. There was another guy there. I met him outside. He helped me up on his way in, after I passed out in the parking lot. He was a nice guy. George Purdy, that was his name. Said he used to be the Deputy Coroner there. Anyway, he wanted to know what had happened in the hospital. I didn’t want to tell him because I was afraid he’d think I was crazy, but I told him. He didn’t seem all that surprised, but he sure did look scared. I mean, for a second, I thought he was going to start crying, or something. After that, he went in ahead of me, just as you and your friend were coming out.”

Gavin remembered the tall, disheveled man they’d passed on their way out of the ER and assumed that was the man to whom Bob referred.

“Then, when I was in the waiting room talking to one of the deputies,” Bob continued, “George came running out from the back. He looked scared again, real upset. It looked like he was on his way out, but then a couple of the deputies stopped him at the door. They took him into the back again, but he didn’t seem too happy about it. I got the feeling that... well, I don’t know.” He seemed hesitant to say what was on his mind.

“You got the feeling that what?”

“That there was something going on there that I wasn’t seeing. Like there was something happening just below the surface. Does that make sense?”

“It makes perfect sense, Bob. And it’s very helpful. Thank you.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

After pausing for a moment, Bob said, “Are you and your friend some kind of cops?”

“We’re private investigators.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Long story. I can’t really discuss it because it’s privileged information.”

“Okay. What about... that thing? In the Emergency Room? What was that?”

“What do
you
think it was?”

Bob released a single cold laugh, like a cough. “Something really scary that’s messed me up. I mean, I keep wondering if I really
saw
it.”

“You really saw it. And we don’t know what it was, either. But we’re working on it.”

After finishing the conversation, Gavin stretched out in bed again. It was warm, and he pulled only a corner of the sheet up to partially cover him.

“Who was that?” Karen said, her words muffled as she spoke into the pillow.

“I’ll tell you in the morning. Go back to sleep.”

A moment later, she was snoring softly.

Gavin was just beginning to drift off when Warren Zevon startled him a second time. He sat up on the edge of the bed again and grabbed the phone. “Hello?”

It was Dr. Dinescu, and he sounded very agitated.

“Something very strange is going on here,” the doctor said, “and if you know what it is, I wish you’d tell me.”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Doctor.”

“I tried to do as you said. I tried to have the hospital locked down. I tried to
do
something about that creature running loose in the hospital. But they wouldn’t let me.”

“
Who
wouldn’t let you?”

Dr. Dinescu spoke rapidly and loudly. He was clearly upset. “The deputies! They acted like, like—I don’t know, like it was no big deal. Like it was nothing out of the ordinary. Like they knew exactly what was going on and they had it all under control. They wouldn’t answer any of my questions. Hell, they wouldn’t let me finish a
sentence
. And then when the sheriff arrived, he practically kicked me out. He told me to go home and go to bed. When I pressed it, when I tried to convey the
urgency
of the situation, he said if I didn’t calm down and leave, he’d arrest me for—I don’t remember what he said, unruly behavior or disturbing the peace, or some damned thing.”

Gavin listened as Dr. Dinescu paused and caught his breath. Finally, Gavin asked, “Doctor, do you know a man named George Purdy?”

“Yes, that’s
another
thing. George Purdy. No, I don’t know the man, but he showed up in the ER after you left. Do
you
know him?”

“I don’t, no.”

“Apparently, he came to see Hugo. Dr. Rodriguez, the doctor you almost punched.”

“Yes, I recall. What happened while he was there in the Emergency Room with you?”

Dr. Dinescu calmed down a little, and his voice took on a puzzled tone. “Hugo said he used to be the Deputy Coroner, before I got here. Anyway, he seemed very concerned about something when he showed up. I didn’t hear everything he said to Hugo, but I got the distinct impression that this George showed up at the hospital
expecting
something to be wrong. Maybe I misread him, but it certainly seemed that way. And he seemed... scared. Especially after the deputies arrived. Then he got
very
nervous. And the deputies seemed extremely interested in
him
. It almost seemed as if he were trying to get away from them. He rushed out while I was talking to a couple of the deputies about locking down the hospital, but then he came back with two other deputies. In fact... “ He fell silent, as if in thought. “Now that I think about it, it seemed as if those deputies were escorting him.”

“Escorting him? What do you mean?”

“Almost as if they were taking him into custody. But I was so preoccupied at the time—I was getting very frustrated with the deputies, and with Hugo, who seemed just as eager as the sheriff that I leave—that I really didn’t pay very close attention. I can only give you my impressions, and those are somewhat vague.”

“Tell me, Dr. Dinescu, what do you make of all this?”

“I don’t know
what
the hell is going on, but I’m not happy about it. I called the hospital administrator at home tonight, as late as it was. But he’s out of town. I called Mrs. Padaczeck, the nursing supervisor, but I’m new here, so she was more interested in talking to Hugo. I’m going to raise hell about this, believe me. God knows what that thing did after it got out of ER. I’ve called Hugo twice, but he didn’t answer and he hasn’t returned my messages.”

“Are you at home now?”

“Yes.”

“Do me a favor. Keep me up to date on all this, will you?”

“Yes, I’ll do that.”

“Call me if anything related to this comes up, or if you remember anything, or hear something—anything at all.”

“All right.”

“Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate your help.”

After wrapping up the conversation with Dr. Dinescu, Gavin sighed and rubbed a palm up and down his face rapidly. Then he called Dudley at home. When he answered, Dudley sounded only half-awake.

“Sorry to wake you,” Gavin said. “I need you to look into a name for me.”

“A name? Right now?”

“I’m sorry, Dud, but it’s important. At least, it might be, and right now we need all the help we can get. The name is George Purdy. I’m not sure of the exact spelling of the last name, but I know he was Deputy Coroner here in Pine County. Not sure when, but I suspect it was fairly recent. Get me anything you can find about him. Will you do that?”

Dudley yawned. “Yep. I’ll get on it.”

After hanging up, Gavin put down the phone and stretched out in bed again. He stared up at the ceiling in the dim light from the closet, half expecting Warren Zevon to start singing a third time.

Ten minutes later, he was asleep again.

Sitting at the dining room table, Abe put the phone down and lowered his face into his palms.

In the living room, music and voices came from the television. Claire was watching an old movie with Illy, who had been unable to sleep and had come back into the house just before Abe had gotten home. They were watching something old and in Technicolor with singing and dancing. The sounds seemed distant to Abe, who was lost in his disturbing thoughts.

Something was not right. Something bad was going on. First, Seth’s brutal, savage death. Then the unthinkable, the
impossible
—a baby he delivered suddenly had changed before his eyes into something that was not human, and it had created a bloodbath in the ER. His mind, as if under its own power and without his help, kept trying to connect the two events—Seth’s bloody remains in the upstairs hall of his house and that hideous little creature that had dug its fangs into Abe’s wrist.

He had not felt like himself since leaving the hospital. After nearly being chased out of the ER by Sheriff Taggart and Hugo, Abe had driven home in a numb state, as if he were filled with Novocain, unable to feel the steering wheel in his hands. Claire and Illy had noticed the dressing on his wrist as soon as he’d walked away and he’d dismissed their concerns with a distracted response about “just a little injury at work.” Fortunately, they did not notice the blood on his shirt or pants as he went through the dark living room. He went straight to the bedroom and undressed, stuffed his shirt and pants into the hamper, and put on jeans and a T-shirt.

He had shared none of it with Claire yet, and wasn’t sure he wanted to. Although he kept telling himself not to panic, he could not stop thinking that perhaps he should send Claire and Illy out of town, away from Big Rock, away from whatever it was that had happened and was still happening at the hospital. He could not imagine what was behind that thing in the ER that night or behind the bizarre behavior of the sheriff and Hugo, nor could he imagine what was behind Seth’s awful death or the sheriff’s bizarre behavior at the scene. But was it possible that they were
not
somehow connected? That seemed unlikely.

A hand came to rest on Abe’s shoulder, and he shouted out in fright as he nearly jolted to his feet.

Illy jerked back, startled by his reaction.

“Sorry,” he said tremulously as he tried to relax and settle back into the chair, tried to behave as if nothing were wrong.

It was too late. Illy’s heavy-lidded eyes, surrounded by scores of small creases, narrowed as she watched him.

“It is something bad, yes?” she said quietly.

“What, Illy?”

“That bandage. The fear in your eyes. They are for something bad, yes? Something bad that is happening. Something with your friend’s death? Something with the hospital?”

Abe took in a deep breath. Before he could let it out, Illy added something.

“Something with the animal attacks?”

He froze a moment before exhaling.

Illy nodded slowly as a frown grew over her narrowed eyes. “Yes. I thought so. It is the
moroi
. The evil spirits that come as animals. They rend the flesh. They drink the blood. They are here in this place by the sea. Yes?”

He wanted so very much to smile and chuckle and say that no, of course it wasn’t the
moroi
, of course it was not evil spirits in the form of ravenous animals. But an image of that monstrous infant flashed in his mind, and he saw its canine snout and fangs, its silver eyes. He could not reassure Illy... or himself.

George opened his eyes slowly. His head hurt, and when he slowly lifted his stiff arm and touched his fingertips to his forehead, he felt warm, sticky blood. He lay on a hard, cold floor. The memory of how he’d gotten there and the beating he’d received on the way came back to him in a rush. He slowly, painfully got up, seated himself on the uncushioned bench against the wall, and looked around.

He was in a small cell with two concrete walls and two walls made up of bars. Behind him and to the right were concrete. In front of him, the bars looked out on a corridor, and to his left was another cell, and beyond that another cell, both empty. His memory of being brought there was sketchy, blurry. He was sure he was in the Big Rock Sheriff’s Department.

As his head slowly cleared, his fear set in. It was a fear colder than the floor of his cell, harder than the bars that blocked his escape.

They were busy for now. They had that bloody mess in the Emergency Room to clean up, witnesses to deal with, a story to contain.