The Wolfman (27 page)

“Good God . . .”

Then something else came hurtling up from the shadows. Something larger. Something alive.

The Wolfman crashed to the ground right in front of MacQueen. It landed hard on all fours facing away from him, and then rose slowly to its full, towering height. The hunter’s eyes followed it as it rose, his mouth sagging
open with horror. But then he snapped his jaws shut, flipped his rifle in his hands, and with a fierce two-hand grip on the barrel swung it with all of his might, turning shoulders and hips into the movement, slamming the heavy stock into the monster’s back. The blow was so powerful that the stock shattered and flew apart and the impact staggered the creature. It should have killed it, snapped its spine, but all it did was make the werewolf take a single forward step.

The Wolfman whirled around just as MacQueen flung the broken rifle aside and clawed for the heavy pistol shoved into his belt. MacQueen was fast. But he wasn’t near fast enough. The Wolfman slashed at him with both hands, the long claws cutting back and forth, razoring through clothing and flesh, sinew and bone. MacQueen seemed to disintegrate, to fly apart like a house of cards in a strong breeze. The fury of the Wolfman’s attack seeded the air with blood and for a moment all that remained of MacQueen was a bloody mist and a scattering of red debris.

One of the other hunters buried his pistol against the creature’s side and pulled the trigger. The blast was muffled by the monster’s thick fur, but the Wolfman howled in anger and turned. The hunter backpedaled away but the monster leapt atop him with such force that bones snapped like firecrackers and blood gushed from the man’s mouth. The Wolfman’s head darted down and closed around the hunter’s neck. Vertebrae crackled and the man’s scream was cut off with abrupt finality.

“Kill it!” bellowed Montford, and he swung his rifle up and fired.

The Wolfman made a grab for Montford, but the colonel was backing away, firing as fast as he could work the action. One of the other men swung around to bring
his gun to bear and Montford’s next shot took his hand off at the wrist. The Wolfman grabbed the wounded man’s arm and tore it out of its socket.

The other hunters scattered like sheep.

Dr. Lloyd and Colonel Montford among them.

M
ONTFORD SPLIT OFF
from the pack. Let them draw the creature, he thought. Let them die.

He ran toward Talbot Hall. If he could make the house then he could barricade himself in. It was a tactical re treat, he told himself. He wasn’t running away, he was regrouping.

He ran as fast as he could, trying to outpace the thunder of his own beating heart.

In the darkness and the mist he never saw the bog until his leading foot splashed down in it and he pitched forward onto his face. His rifle went spinning off out of sight; he didn’t even hear it splash.

Screaming in fear and frustration, Montford scrambled to find footing in the wet mud, but the harder he thrashed the more the bog pulled at him.

And then he heard the thing. A growl and a splash and he knew that the werewolf had fallen into the bog as well. Montford righted himself and looked around and there it was! Not ten feet away, splashed with dark blood, its eyes as bright as the furnaces of Hell. Montford screeched in a high, shrill voice and sloshed backward away from it. The creature took a step toward him and sank to its knee, but with a huge wrench it pulled its leg free and took another step forward. And another.

“God . . .” Montford whispered and he felt heat spread down his thigh as his bladder failed.

The creature took another step, growling low in its throat as if it was enjoying the anticipation of what was to come.

Montford knew that he had no chance. He drew his pistol, but it would not stop this thing. The rifle had been loaded with silver bullets. The pistol was not.

“God save my soul,” he prayed, then he shoved the barrel of his pistol under his jaw and closed his eyes as the Wolfman took a final step.

He pulled the trigger.

And nothing happened.

He pulled again, and again. A splinter of his mind remembered that he had not reloaded after the initial attack.

The Wolfman loomed above him, its face almost calm in its moment of triumph.

The screams of Colonel Montford frightened the night birds from the trees.

D
R. LLOYD WAS
alone in the woods. He could not run as fast as the remaining hunters and he had no sense of woodcraft. He staggered from tree to tree, seeking cover, wheezing, weeping, coughing, all but blind despite the moonlight. In his mind the image of the creature leaping out of the pit played again and again. Roots caught his feet and tripped him, branches whipped his face.

Dr. Lloyd finally collapsed with his back to an ancient elm. He clutched his rifle to his chest and rocked back and forth as he wept.

Then he heard a sound. Something moving through the woods.

He held his breath.

God . . . let it be Montford
.

The sound came again, closer now. Stealthy, like a man sneaking through the brush.

Unless it wasn’t a man.

Lloyd raised the rifle and turned to point it into the darkness behind him. Leaves rustled as something moved through the mist.

Please, let it be Montford.

Then he heard the growl.

It was so close.

Lloyd fired his rifle and in the split second of muzzle flash he saw the face of the beast. Not behind him; not in the line of fire.

It was right beside him.

I
NSPECTOR ABERLINE HEARD
the howls and the gunfire and the screams and he spurred his horse into a full gallop. The horse’s hooves kicked up ground mist so that the road appeared to catch fire and smoke behind him.

As he entered the woods he saw a shape rushing toward him out of the shadows and Aberline drew his pistol, but the animal that flashed past was only a stag. But it had a tether around its neck and its body was streaked with blood.

The sight of the animal and the smell of blood threw his horse into a panic and it suddenly reared up and Aberline was pitched out of the saddle. He fell hard onto the muddy ground, the air punched from his lungs and fireworks exploding in his eyes.

He lay there for several minutes, barely able to gasp in a full breath of air.

The forest around him grew still and quiet by slow
degrees, and by the time Aberline could stand everything was silent. A few shreds of cloud had drifted across the moon and the inspector stood in total darkness for a moment. He fished for matches but just as he found them the winds blew the clouds away and moonlight flooded the entire clearing. He saw that he was in what had once been the courtyard of an ancient abbey. Nearby was the black mouth of what had once been the cellar, behind him were the jagged teeth of broken walls hung with creeper vines. The last wisps of cloud trailed away so that the moonlight shone full and bright, illuminating everything.

What that cold white light revealed took his breath away more sharply and profoundly than the fall had done.

There were bodies everywhere. The hunters, the men from town. A dozen of them lay scattered around him, their limbs torn and broken. Aberline stood in a lake of blood with death all around him.

In the distance the howl of a wolf rose into the night sky and madness ruled the forests of Blackmoor.

“G
ood morning, Lawrence.”

Lawrence Talbot heard the voice but his brain was too numb to process either meaning or identity. It took every bit of energy he had to open his eyes. The morning sunlight was like a fist in the face, and each glistening dewdrop on leaves and grass was as sharp as a splinter in his eyes. He could see someone standing over him but everything was a smear of shadows and light. Lawrence could feel dirt and tree roots under his buttocks and the gnarled bole of a big tree against his back, and as sense and focus came to him in slow degrees he realized that he was crammed into the hollow of a tree on a grassy slope.

“Can you hear me?” asked the voice. “Do you recognize me, Lawrence?”

There were other voices in the near distance, and the sound of horses blowing in the cold dawn air.

Lawrence blinked his eyes clear and what he saw tore an inarticulate cry from his throat. His hands . . . God almighty . . . his hands.

He held up his hands and for a desperate moment he thought he was wearing dark red gloves. But he was not. He looked down at his clothes. His shirt was torn to ribbons; the legs of his trousers slashed and ripped along the seams, his shoes gone. And everywhere he
looked—his body, his clothes—there was blood. So much blood, caked on and ground into the cracks of his skin and under each nail. He touched his face and felt dried gore around his mouth, on his chin and throat.

He crawled to his knees and looked up at the figure standing just above him on the slope.

“What . . . ,” he began, but how does one phrase the kind of question that was nailed to the walls of his heart? “What have I . . . I . . . ?”

Sir John Talbot stepped toward him and Lawrence stared up in horror at his father’s blue eyes and white beard. Sir John’s mouth wore the tiniest of smiles but his eyes were as cold as death.

“You have done terrible things, my boy,” Sir John whispered. “Terrible things.”

With a cry Lawrence staggered to his feet and recoiled from his father. He understood that smile and that coldness. The truth had hammered a fracture line in his soul. Lawrence turned to flee but there was Inspector Aberline not ten feet away. He wheeled and saw an entire posse of armed men, all of them big, all of them staring at him with equal measures of hostility and horror.

“No!” Lawrence shouted and bolted for a gap in the line of men, but the men shifted to block his way. He spun and tried to make a dash for the tree line but men on horses trotted toward him. Lawrence saw villagers from Blackmoor scattered among them, their faces taut with grief and devoid of all pity. Every man was armed with a gun or club.

In desperation Lawrence turned back to Sir John, who had not moved from where he stood on the slope.

“How does it feel?” asked his father in a voice too quiet for anyone but Lawrence to hear.