Anything Can Be Dangerous (24 page)

“
Not human, people
said.”

“
Crap.”

“
There was howling, they
say. In the woods. At night.”

“
So what? There’s lots of
funny noises in the woods at night.”

“
People still heard things
out here after the fire. After everybody in Drago was burned
up.”

“
Look, amigo, some other
time we’ll sit around a campfire and scare the shit out of each
other with ghost stories. I’m not in the mood now,
okay?”

“
Sure, Roy. I’m just
curious.”

Something rustled the bushes up ahead.
The two deputies raised their heads, listening. They looked at each
other, then back toward the sound.

“
Who’s there?” Roy Nevins
called.

Silence.

Another rustle of brush.

“
Craddock
…
?
Vane
…
?”

No answer. A flash of movement. A head
rose above a clump of brush twenty feet ahead of the two deputies.
A face looked at them. A pale face streaked with mud. Dark, matted
hair. Eyes wild, with lots of white showing.

“
Hey!”

The face ducked out of sight. Squishy
sound of running feet on the wet ground.

“
Son of a bitch.” Roy
mashed the Winston out under his shoe and took off. Milo was
already ahead of him, chasing the fleeing figure, who ducked and
weaved among the trees.

The runner left the trail and fought
through the undergrowth. The two deputies followed. Roy Nevins
swore as the thorns clutched at him and mud seeped over the tops of
his shoes.

“
Halt!” Milo Fernandez
called out. “Sheriff’s officers!”

Roy pounded on, the breath wheezing
through his open mouth. He fumbled at the leather strap that
snapped to the holster over the butt of his .38 police positive.
Regulation.

Never could free the damn thing in a
hurry. The hell with it. Firing your piece only meant trouble these
days. You had to account for every fucking bullet. Nothing in sight
to shoot at anyway. He could only catch glimpses of Milo’s back as
the young deputy charged after the fleeing figure.

There was a thump of colliding bodies
up ahead and a damp thud as they hit the ground. Roy floundered
through the brush and almost fell over Milo. The young deputy was
applying an armlock to the fugitive, who lay prone on the damp pine
needles.

“
I got him,
Roy.”

“
So I see. Suppose you flip
him over so we can see what we got.”

Milo warily eased his hold. When the
figure on the ground did not move, he grasped a shoulder and turned
him over.

“
A kid,” Roy said
disgustedly.

The face that looked up at the
deputies was pale and frightened. Oddly, he seemed not to be
breathing hard.

“
What’d you take off for?”
Deputy Nevins said. The large, frightened eyes flicked from one of
the deputies to the other. The boy made no attempt to
answer.

“
Get up.”

The boy rose to a crouch.

“
And don’t think about
running anymore. We’re taking a ride into town.”

Nevins took the boy’s arm and raised
him to a standing position. The muscles were firm under the smooth
flesh. He gestured with his head for Milo to get going. The younger
deputy was staring at the boy’s face.

“
Let’s go,” Nevins said. “I
want to get him back to the car before it gets dark. What’s the
matter?”

Milo Fernandez hesitated. “Take a
look. There’s something funny about his teeth.”

2

The room on the second floor of La
Reina County Hospital was pleasant and bright. Outside the window
of the small private room a night bird sang. The boy sat propped in
the bed in a half-sitting position. His green eyes skipped around
the room as though searching for an escape.

Holly Lang stood at the foot of the
bed and smiled down at him. She was tall and supple, with short
dark hair and hazel eyes. Her smile was good, and it usually made
other people smile in response. But the boy’s expression did not
change.

“
Well, you look a little
better now that you’re all cleaned up,” she said.

The boy’s eyes flicked over her and
away.

“
How are you feeling?” she
asked.

No answer.

“
A little scared, I guess.”
Holly kept her tone soft and conversational. “I don’t blame you.
Hospitals can be scary. My name’s Holly. Do you want to tell me
yours? It’s all right if you don’t. There’s no hurry.”

The boy’s fingers moved restlessly on
the edge of the sheet.

“
I’m a kind of a
doctor.”

The green eyes met hers for an
instant.

“
Not the kind that sticks
people with needles,” she said quickly. “Mostly, I just talk. And I
listen, too, if you want to talk to me.”

The boy turned away and stared through
the window at the dark trees. His expression told Holly
nothing.

Holly waited, watching his face. “What
happened to you out there?” she said, more to herself than to the
boy. “What’s haunting you now?”

La Reina County Hospital had more the
look of an expensive mountain resort than an institution. It was
tucked into the picturesque wooded hillside overlooking the town of
Pinyon. Behind it the Tehachapi Mountains rose from gently sloping
foothills. The facilities and the equipment at La Reina were
excellent, courtesy of the California taxpayers. The same could not
be said of the staff.

Somehow La Reina County Hospital had
become caught in the backwash of bureaucracy and was known as a
haven for medical misfits. Med school graduates from the lower
third of their class found a home there. Doctors with a
questionable past, nurses with borderline
records
…
these made up the staff at La
Reina County.

There were always more beds than
patients in residence. The administration lived in fear that during
one of the periodic budget battles in Sacramento someone would ask
why the hell they needed a hospital down there at all. The funds
would be cut off and a lot of people would be out of work. Somehow,
the budget checkers in Sacramento kept missing it.

Dr. Hollanda Lang, known to everyone
as Holly, did not belong with the staff of misfits. She had passed
up a lucrative private practice as a clinical psychologist to work
for the state Social Services Department. When people asked her
why, she told them she was absolving her liberal guilt. Holly found
it embarrassing to admit how deeply she cared about helping
people.

And La Reina appealed to her precisely
because of its quirky reputation. Her opinion of the medical
establishment was not high, and here among the outcasts she found
some original thinkers she could relate to. Her one disappointment
had been in the lack of challenge in her cases. Until they brought
in the boy from the woods.

Holly looked down at the pale boy now,
wondering what it would take to communicate with him. In the two
hours since he’d been brought in, the boy had not spoken. She had
finally gotten the curious onlookers cleared out of the room and
felt the boy was at least beginning to relax with her.

There was a sound at the door behind
her. She turned, annoyed at the interruption.

Sheriff Gavin Ramsay stuck his head
into the room.

“
All right if I come
in?”

“
Could I stop
you?”

“
Sure. Just say go
away.”

Holly felt the muscles tighten at the
back of her neck. She knew her aversion to police was an
unreasonable throwback to her campus protest days, but she couldn’t
help it. “Come on in,” she said.

Ramsay nodded to her. “Thanks, Miss
Lang. I’ll make this as short as I can.”

“
It’s Doctor.”

“
Oh, right. Dr. Lang.
Sorry.”

She made herself relax. “That sounded
pompous, didn’t it? Shall we try first names? I’m
Holly.”

“
Gavin,” he
said.

Not a bad looking man, Holly decided,
if you liked the macho type. Sort of a younger Marlboro Man. She
had seen him around Pinyon and thought it was a pity that he had to
be a policeman.

“
How’s the kid?” he
asked.

“
Doing well
enough.”

“
Has he said anything
yet?”

Holly looked quickly at the young
patient. The green eyes regarded the sheriff warily.

“
We’re just getting
acquainted,” she said. “So far I’ve done all the
talking.”

“
I’d like to ask him a few
questions.”

The boy seemed to shrink a little in
the bed.

“
Suppose we step out into
the hall,” Holly said.

“
Sure.”

She followed Ramsay out through the
door and looked up at him when he turned. Holly was five-eight in
her stocking feet, and well built. Not many men could make her feel
small. Gavin Ramsay could, and she resented it.

“
I wish you’d give me some
warning before you barge into the room.”

“
Sorry. The door was
ajar.”

“
Well
…
no harm done, I
suppose.”

“
I’m relieved to hear
that.”

“
You must understand it’s
part of my job to keep my patient from being disturbed.”

“
Fair enough,” Ramsay said,
“but you’ve got your job and I’ve got mine.”

“
I’m not sure I
understand.”

“
I’ve got a couple of
hunters missing and a dead man downstairs in the pathology
lab.”

“
What has that to do with
this boy?”

“
I don’t know that there’s
any connection, but I want to find out. From the looks of the kid
when they brought him in, he was out in the woods for at least
three days. That’s about how long our man downstairs has been a
corpse.”

“
You’re not suggesting that
this boy has anything to do with it?”

Ramsay’s eyes flashed blue fire. “Why
not, because he’s a minor? Last week a twelve-year-old in East Los
Angeles set his mother on fire because she found his heroin stash.
A seven-year-old girl in Beverly Hills drowned her baby brother in
the swimming pool because he got too much attention. Two boys in
Glendale hung a baby girl from a swing set. The boys were six. Want
to hear more?”

“
No, thank you. I’ll
concede that there is no age limit on criminal behavior, but I
won’t jump to the conclusion that this boy is guilty of
anything.”

“
Holly
…
Dr.
Lang
…
all I want to do is talk to him.”
Gavin raised his arms. “See, I didn’t even bring any
handcuffs.”

“
Well, he isn’t talking
yet. He’s had a frightening experience, and it may take a while.
Shouldn’t you be trying to find out who he is?”

“
I should and I am. I’ve
put his description out on the wire. So far he doesn’t fit any
missing-boy report.” Gavin looked back over her shoulder into the
room. “You will let me know if he says anything?”

“
Certainly,
Sheriff.”

He started to go, then turned back.
“Is there any chance we can get back to using first
names?”

She held a stern expression for a
moment longer, then relaxed. “What the hell
…
See you, Gavin.”

“
See you,
Holly.”

The boy’s eyes followed her as she
came back and sat in the chair next to the bed. She smiled at him,
studying his face. The two deputies who brought him in had said
there was something ‘weird’ in the way he looked. Probably a trick
of twilight and their imaginations. Holly saw only a frightened boy
of perhaps fourteen. High forehead, straight nose, firm mouth. The
eyes were a deep, lustrous green. Certainly nothing there that
could be considered ‘weird.’

“
Getting sleepy?” she
said.

The boy’s head rolled from side to
side on the pillow.

A response. The first sign he had
given that he understood. Holly kept her voice gentle. “I’ll just
sit here for a while, then. If you feel like talking, fine. If not,
that’s fine too.”

The boy’s eyes never left her. Holly
thought she could see his body relax, just a little, under the
hospital sheet and blanket. She picked up a magazine from the
bedside table and pretended to read. She did not leave until she
was sure the boy was asleep.

Want to keep reading?

Check out the rest of the story
here:

GARY
BRANDNER - THE HOWLING III

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JAMES ROY DALEY’S - TERROR TOWN