Gary Brandner - The Howling III

It was past midnight when Gavin set his coffee cup gently down on the table. He cleared his throat and rubbed his hands together.

"I'd better be pushing off," he said. "Work day tomorrow."

"Right," she said. "Me too."

He stood up.

She stood up.

"Dinner was terrific"

"Glad you liked it."

"Next time my treat."

"You got it."

They stood facing each other for a long moment, their weight shifting from foot to foot as though they were mirror images.

"I'd better tell you this," he said. "I would really like to go to bed with you. I mean it's been on my mind from the minute I walked in. No, from the minute I put on my best sports shirt to impress you."

She watched him, her head tilted slightly to one side.

"And if we don't mess up somehow, I'm almost sure you and I are going to do it."

She opened her mouth to speak, and he went on quickly, "But I have the feeling neither of us is ready for it right now."

Holly let out a long-held breath. "You know, Sheriff, you're a more perceptive man than you let on sometimes."

"I just didn't want you to think I was gay."

"I detected that," she said. "Those pants of yours fit quite well."

"Why, you saucy little minx."

"That's me."

Their goodnight kiss was long and warm and deep, and filled with promise.

Gavin drove back toward the Pinyon Inn grinning foolishly in the dim glow of the instrument lights. He had to remind himself that there was still a whole lot he did not know about Dr Holly Lang. Her preoccupation with the occult was one thing that disturbed him. His grin faded as he thought about the boy who lay in Room 108. Gavin thought about him, and about the tales of Drago, and he wondered…

Malcolm's eyes snapped open and he sat suddenly upright in bed. He sniffed the air and turned toward the window to stare at the darkness outside.

Someone was there. Someone or something. Calling to him. The boy's thin body tensed. His nerves tightened with a crazy desire to run out there and join whatever waited for him in the night. Beads of perspiration broke out along his hairline.

It was as though he belonged out there, in the night, not here in a comfortable bed. That was his place. And yet… and yet things were different now. He had a friend. He was no longer alone, running, always running. He thought of Holly. Made a picture of her face in his mind. The picture held him where he was. Still, the silent voice called to him from outside.

Another sound intruded. The barely audible pad of the night nurse's rubber-soled shoes out in the corridor. Malcolm lay back quickly and closed his eyes, feigning sleep. The door opened. The night nurse looked in, listened to his regular breathing, and backed out again.

Malcolm did not rise. The call from the night was still there, but weaker now. He could block it out if he tried. By and by he fell into a shallow sleep that was troubled by strange urges and wild dreams.

Out on the hillside, yellow-green eyes glared across at the many windows of the hospital building. The beast growled from deep in its massive chest. The one it sought was inside, that much the beast knew, but there were too many conflicting scents to tell which of the windows was the right one.

The beast made a complete circuit of the building, staying in the deepest shadows, going to a low, loping run when it had to cross the paved parking area. Instinct cried out for it to smash through the glass doors at the entrance and savage any human that crossed its path until the boy was found. Reason told the beast that this was not the way. It was a time for cunning. The killing would come later.

Effortlessly the beast climbed the hill behind the building and slipped down into the shallow valley beyond. There beneath a bush it found a neatly folded pile of clothing. The beast sniffed the air, judged it safe, then lay down next to the clothing and curled its powerful body in on itself as the painful transformation began.

Malcolm awoke sweating.

The grey rectangle of the window told him it was early morning. The sensations of last night jolted back into his consciousness. He remembered the terrible certainty that something out there in the woods had called to him. His own wild urge to answer that call. Then the quieting mind picture of Dr Holly Lang, and the troubled dreams that followed.

He strained his senses now, and he could still feel the presence of something out there. It was much fainter now, but not completely gone. Malcolm was frightened, yet his blood surged with a strange exhilaration. He resolved to tell Holly all about it. She would understand. She would know how to help him.

A few minutes later the door opened and a nurse entered. She had orange hair and a lumpy potato nose. She was not one of the nurses Malcolm had seen before. She carried a small tray that was covered with a white cloth. When she set the tray down on the table across the room from his bed it made a little clinking sound.

"Well, already awake, are we?" the nurse said in that fake-cheerful voice they use. "And my, how chipper we look. Did we have a good sleep?"

Malcolm did not bother to answer. He knew the nurse wouldn't pay any attention to what he said anyway.

"Are we ready for a surprise this morning?"

Malcolm turned his head away.

"Malcolm's going on a little trip."

He turned back to look at the nurse. She had a mole on the side of her neck with a single orange hair growing out of it.

"I thought that might interest you," she said brightly.

"A trip where?"

"That's going to be the surprise. I don't want to spoil it for you."

A oily-haired man in a white doctor's coat came through the door. Malcolm remembered him. He was the nasty one who gave Holly a hard time when Malcolm was first brought in.

"This is Dr Pastory," the nurse said like she was giving him a great big present. "He's going to beyour doctor now."

"I don't want a new doctor."

"You don't know how lucky you are," Potato Nose told him. "A lot of people in your position don't have any doctor at all."

"Where's Holly?" Malcolm said.

Pastory spoke for the first time. "Dr Lang has other patients to attend to." His voice was as oily as his hair.

"I'd rather have her."

"You will find, Malcolm, that in this life we don't always get what we want." He turned to the orange-haired nurse and said in a low voice, as though Malcolm could not hear, "Give him fifty ccs."

The nurse lifted one edge of the white cloth and took something from the tray she had brought in with her. She held it down low, shielded by her body, so Malcolm wouldn't see it. He knew what it was though.

"How about rolling over for me, big fella," she said, all palsy again.

"What for?"

"We've got to poke a little medicine into you, that's all. A tiny pinprick in your bottom. You've had them before."

"But what is it?"

"It will make you feel better."

"I feel fine."

Dr Pastory moved over closer to the bed and frowned down at Malcolm. His eyes were small and bright, and there was something in them Malcolm didn't like.

"Do as the nurse says, Malcolm. We have some strong young fellows working here who can come in and flip you over if you won't co-operate. Do you want me to call them?"

Malcolm looked at the nurse and saw he would get no help from her. Feeling trapped, he rolled over on his side, facing away from them. The nurse yanked the blanket and sheet down and pulled the short hospital gown up to expose his buttock. He felt the sharp sting of the needle and a tightening of the flesh down there as something was pumped into him.

He felt the needle slide out and smelled the tang of alcohol as the nurse swabbed him off. She gave him a familiar little pat and pulled the gown back into place. Malcolm rolled on to his back and looked up at the two of them.