Gary Brandner - The Howling III

The search of the surrounding hills turned up nothing. The only flurry of excitement had come when one of the searchers shot another in the foot. After that the fun was out of the whole thing. The volunteers had gone back to their jobs. The helicopters had returned to their home counties or their TV station heliports. Only a few men from the State Forestry Service now combed the woods, doing mostly clean-up and repair to the damage to the environment done by the searchers.

The detailed pathology report had arrived from Dr Underwood and had done nothing to lift Ramsay's spirits. The wounds that killed Qualen were definitely identified as being made by teeth. Unfortunately, they were not the teeth of any animal known to exist on the face of the earth. The traces of saliva were no more helpful, falling somewhere on the spectrograph between human and canine.

While the sheriff suffered, the media had a field day. Every man, woman, and reasonably articulate child in Pinyon had been interviewed at least once. Deputies Nevins and Fernandez became media heroes; the first to his delight, the latter with some embarrassment. All the old horror stories of Drago were dug up and embellished until La Reina County was presented to the rest of the nation as a sort of southern California Transylvania where no one walked out of doors at night.

Most galling to Ramsay was the fact that Abe Craddock had been bailed out by one of the supermarket tabloids and was being kept in seclusion while his personal eyewitness story was being ghostwritten for the paper. Rumour had Craddock collecting a comfortable five-figure price for his lurid recollections of the thing that had eaten his buddy.

And, in fact, a pall of fear had descended over the tiny mountain town. Blinds were drawn, shutters reinforced, doors double-locked at night where before no one had bothered with so much as a hook and eye. Nightly patronage at the Pinyon Inn dwindled to a few hard-core regulars who drank little and talked in guarded tones. They came and left in pairs or groups. No one wanted to be alone.

The tiny library was immediately denuded of all books touching on werewolves, vampires, witches, or anything remotely occult. Then the librarian refused to stay there alone any longer, and the doors were locked.

The happiest man in the county was Ken Dowd whose Darnay occult shop, The Spirit World, emptied its shelves of all manner of charms and talismans that might protect the bearer from whatever evil lurked in the woods.

Nor was the occult dealer the only beneficiary of the werewolf boom. The Light of the World Christian Store, also in Darnay, had a run on crucifixes from customers who did not know Calvary from the Seventh Cavalry. The Light of the World people had to reorder crosses on a rush basis from a religious supply firm in Los Angeles, and still they could barely meet the demand.

Bibles were also a hot item, with King James topping the list, but even the updated versions were outselling the newest Garfield book in La Reina County. Enterprising roadside peddlers appeared with pictures and statuettes representing Jesus, Mary, and a variety of saints, and were doing fine business until local authorities clamped down. From outward appearances, La Reina County was the scene of the greatest Christian revival since Billy Graham filled the LA Coliseum.

As if all this were not enough to add grey hairs to the head of Sheriff Ramsay, Holly Lang was after him continually to devote more of his efforts to locating the missing boy, Malcolm. The sheriff was trying to maintain an expression of gentle concern on an early morning several days after the killing as Holly stood across the desk from him gesticulating angrily.

"Damn it, Gavin, that weasel Pastory is keeping him somewhere," she insisted. For a moment Ramsay thought she was going to pound on the desk, but she brought herself under control. "Why aren't you doing something? Why aren't you looking for him? You're supposed to be the sheriff."

"Comments from the public are always welcome," Ramsay said. "Maybe you will be kind enough to suggest where I might look."

"That's just it. I've talked to everybody at the hospital, and nobody knows where this mysterious clinic of Pastory's it, or if it even exists."

"Ah, then you see part of my problem."

"Problem, hell. I want to hear solutions from you." "I am doing the best I can, Holly," Gavin said with all the patience he could muster. "I have a warrant out on Pastory as a material witness. His relatives, of which there seem to be very few, deny all knowledge of his whereabouts." He pulled a sheet of paper from an overflowing basket on his desk. "To quote his brother Kyle in Boise, Idaho: "I don't know where the s.o.b. is and I don't give a damn." His clinic is not listed with the California Medical Association or any other group that I've been able to turn up."

"So what are you doing now?"

"Right now I am doing what I can to find the killer of Dr Dennis Qualen."

"So, are you making any progress?"

"I have before me reports of all killings in the western United States during the past five years that were in any way similar to that of Dr Qualen."

"And?"

"And you'd be surprised how many people are ripped to pieces. When I eliminate the chainsaws and the axes and the certified mad dogs and the circus maulings and one farmer in Oregon who seems to have been eaten by his pigs, do you know what's left?"

"Please tell me," Holly said.

"Drago."

"Oh, Jesus!" she said in exasperation.

"Amen," he added piously.

"I trust, Sheriff, that you won't mind if I do what I can on my own to locate Dr Pastory and Malcolm."

"Holly, I hope you are not going to get a gun and go rushing off like a crazed vigilante."

"I do not believe in guns," she said.

"I am relieved to hear that. As long as you stay within the law, I can do nothing to stop you. I have to insist, however, that you will in no way interfere with the actions of legitimate police officers."

"That sounds like something you memorized," she said.

"It is," he admitted, "but I mean it."

"Good enough, Sheriff. You go your way and I'll go mine."

She turned smartly and marched out of the office, giving him no chance for a reply.

What reply could be make, anyway? Everything she said was essentially correct. He was the sheriff, and he was doing a lousy job. Moreover, this business had split him and Holly apart just when he was thinking something good might develop there. It was with an honest feeling of loss that Ramsay watched her climb into the little Volkswagen Rabbit with the Greenpeace emblem and drive off scattering as much gravel as she could manage with the underpowered car.

Holly was so angry when she left Gavin Ramsay that she had to exert a force of will to pull her foot up off the accelerator. She felt like the fabled knight who leaped on his horse and rode madly off in all directions. This was not like her. She was a calm, reasonable woman, always in control of her emotions. What right did that Gavin Ramsay have, anyway, keeping her awake nights thinking about the way they had kissed at her door.

All right. She would handle it. She got the Rabbit down to an acceptable speed and headed west on Highway 126 that ran along the Santa Clara River. She kept the window on her side rolled down to let the moist morning air flow in and cool her feverish face.

She drove through Fillmore and on toward Santa Paula, taking deep breaths, feeling the muscles at the back of her neck and along her shoulders gradually relax as she ordered her mind, putting everything into its proper compartment.

Number One. She was worried about Malcolm. The boy had special qualities that she had only begun to discover. In time she would have found out who he was and what he was, and helped him to live with it. That time had been stolen from her.