Ravenous (17 page)

There's that damned sound,
she thought,
raking and raking, when will he
stop
?

Emily opened her eyes and continued eating the pancakes as she mentally drove along the route she took every Tuesday night, and then the name dropped into her head with a mental
plunk
, like a stone dropped in a still pond—

The Laramie house
, she thought.

That old eyesore remained standing only because it was on property owned by the Laramie family, and they weren't selling. People in Big Rock complained often. Years ago, when Emily was a girl, it had been a popular hangout for drug addicts looking for a place to get high undisturbed—until the Sheriff's Department disturbed them all the way to jail. The deputies monitored the place until they felt they'd chased off the undesirables, who then moved to the woods behind the park, where they'd always been in the first place.

Why am I thinking about the Laramie house?
she wondered as she ate. She could not get the crystal-clear image of the house out of her mind. Broken windows with shards of glass like fangs, the porch with a sagging cover, the jungle-like yard with wild vines and unpruned fruit trees, the crippled fence that leaned far inward toward the house, the wide-open gate, all those broken chunks of grey concrete walkway, the wooden porch steps, a couple of them broken—

I've never seen the house this close up,
she thought. She stopped chewing, closed her eyes beneath her lined brow.

She'd never done anything more than drive by the house, which stood back off Perryman Road. She'd never been close enough to see the broken concrete path—

Maybe there were pictures in the paper and I—no, no, that's not it.

—or the broken wooden steps, so how could she remember them?

You're not remembering,
a voice whispered.

Emily jerked in her chair, gasping as she dropped her fork. The sound of the fork clattering loudly against her plate made her jerk again. Jeannie squealed, and Emily, who had nearly forgotten she was there, jerked and gasped again.

“Oh, God, baby,” Emily said.

Jeannie babbled something.

“Yes, honey, you go ahead and drink your juice,” Emily said, forcing a smile onto her face. She returned her attention to the remains of the pancakes.

The house would not go away. It remained glowing in her mind. Almost as if—

As if—

—it were being—

—projected into my mind—

—by some other source.

Emily threw her fork down and it made a racket when it hit the plate.

“That's just ...
bullshit
,” she whispered to herself with teeth clenched tightly.

And yet, the pristine, clearer-than-life image of the Laramie house off Perryman Road remained ... and remained ...

When the pancakes were gone, Emily belched. But she was not satisfied. That undying hunger was still there, chewing on the inside walls of her stomach like a chittering red-eyed rodent. She closed her eyes—

That house, that damned house, there's that house again.

—and focused her attention on what she was feeling. There was something she needed, something that would end this feeling in her gut and finally satisfy her.

Emily left the table and went to the refrigerator. On the way there, she was overcome with dizziness and nearly fell over. She propped an arm against the lip of the counter. The room tilted and spun drunkenly and she turned to face the sink, so put both hands on the edge of the counter. It passed about twenty seconds after it had started. Growling sounds gurgled in her stomach. She was more hungry now than she had been just a few minutes before—just before the dizzy spell.

Gordo, their grey short-hair tabby cat wandered into the kitchen, stopped, and stared up at her. The cat meowed once, then slowly backed away. Gordo turned around suddenly and hurried out.

Emily took a step back, testing herself. The dizziness was gone, but she moved cautiously, just in case. She went to the refrigerator, opened it, scanned its shelves.

She found half a submarine sandwich wrapped in plastic. She clawed the wrapper off and took a bite of the sandwich. Not only was it not what she needed, it was soggy and not very good. She tossed the sandwich across the room and into the garbage can at the end of the counter.

Back to the refrigerator, searching the shelves.

Leftover scalloped potatoes, chicken-and-mushroom casserole, cherry pie, pudding cups, some apples, a head of lettuce, a package of sliced dry salami—and hamburger. Her eyes kept going back to the package of raw hamburger. She'd bought it to make some chilimac. But now it just sat in its package, looking red on its little Styrofoam tray, blood puddled around it. Her eyes returned to it again and again. Each time she looked at it, she felt a sudden relief inside her, a sense of satisfaction, but just a sense—not enough to satisfy that burning hunger.

It was almost as if she were hungry for—

No,
she thought,
that's silly.

She closed the refrigerator and opened the cupboards. Breakfast cereal, peanut butter, spices and seasonings, a package of Chips Ahoy cookies, Doritos. Nothing there.

Emily started to go back into the dining room to clear the table, but stopped in the center of the kitchen as her stomach made more sounds. She turned and went back to the refrigerator—

The Laramie house stood in the center of her forehead, broken and decayed like an old rotting corpse.

—thinking that maybe a chocolate pudding would help.

But it wasn't the chocolate pudding she looked for when she opened the refrigerator—her eyes went straight to the raw, red, bloody hamburger. Her eyebrows bunched together as she stared at it there on the top shelf, ready to cook up. Except she did not think about cooking it—she was quite taken by its color, the lovely red speckles with flecks of white fat.

She tucked her lower lip between her teeth and chewed on it as she reached slowly into the refrigerator and closed her hand on the edge of the package. She took it from the shelf, stepped back, let the refrigerator door swing closed on its own, took the hamburger to the sink.

Emily could smell it. She had never smelled raw hamburger before, but she could smell it now. It was tightly wrapped in plastic wrap, but she smelled it as if it were out of the package and right under her nose. A nice salty, slightly coppery smell. Meat. Raw meat. And blood.

The next thing she knew, her nails were clawing at the wrap on the bottom of the package until it peeled away.

Jeannie began to cry, but it was a strangely distant sound.

Then, as if something had been edited from her life, she went from tearing at the package to shoving clumps of the raw hamburger into her mouth, slurping the blood up from the bottom of the Styrofoam tray. Suddenly she knew that
this
was
it
, the thing she so desperately wanted, this was what she'd craved, what she'd
needed
.

Well ... almost. Not quite, but
almost
.

Emily shoved more into her mouth, and more, and her cheeks bulged, and she smelled and tasted the blood, and suddenly, as if waking up from a faint, she realized she was eating raw hamburger, that she had blood in her throat, and she bent at the waist and spat it into the sink, gagged, and a moment later, she vomited. She turned on the water and used her hand to scoop some from the faucet to her face. She grabbed a glass from the cupboard, filled it with water, and took some into her mouth. She swirled it around then spat it into the sink.

But that was it,
a new voice said inside her.
You know it was—it was what you wanted, what you needed.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Uh-uh.”

What's happening to me?
Emily thought.

The image of the old house flared up brilliantly in her mind, so big and clear that she winced. The image dimmed, became a little hazy, and slowly, Emily's face relaxed.

Jeannie continued to cry, letting out long, piercing wails.

Dizziness washed over Emily and she swayed, quickly grabbed the edge of the counter to hold herself up. Hunger grumbled in her stomach, hunger that just a moment ago she had managed to satisfy. For the littlest while.

“I'm coming, Jeannie.” She went through the kitchen, walking slowly, in fear of another dizzy spell, and into the dining room. At Jeannie's low plastic table, Emily bent down and picked her up.

Emily talked reassuringly to Jeannie as she walked her back into the kitchen, cooing to her, singing a little. Then after awhile, Emily fell silent and stopped walking around.

Jeannie's crying had stopped.

She was so warm against Emily ... warmth that flowed through her, that gave her life ... so plump with ... with ...
 

babyfat-babyfat-babyfat

... so warm ... so small and easy to—

No! No, God, no!

—eat.

Emily quickly put her little girl down on the floor and as she did that, she got a glimpse of her own hands, so dark, as if wearing gloves, fingers longer than usual. She stood up straight and held her hands out to look at them—

Oh, God, is that
hair
?

—and she screamed.

Her scream made Jeannie scream, then the little girl began to cry again, lifting her little arms up to Emily, asking without words to be held.

Another wave of dizziness overcame Emily and she fell to the floor. She quickly sat up and held out her hands again.

They were fine now. Chubby fingers, well-tended nails.

Just a moment ago, she could've sworn they'd been covered with brown hair.

What's wrong with me
, Emily wondered.
Something
is, that's for sure.

She got up and went to the phone, picked it up and punched in Glory Hanrahan's number. She lived just a few houses down. She took care of infants and toddlers all day, it was what she did. Emily planned to call her and ask if she would take Jeannie for awhile. Then she would call her old friend Terri March, who had two kids the same age as Donald and Annie. She would ask Terri to please pick the kids up at school along with her own and take them home with her for awhile.

She wanted to be alone while she decided what to do.

She did not want her children near her until after Hugh was home.

Emily was confused and sick and uncertain, but mostly, she was afraid. For them.

 

 

 

23

 

Lab Work

 

 

Hurley walked into the Blind Dog Bar & Grill and went into the “grill” part of the establishment. He liked it because it was a dimly-lighted place with a lot of polished dark wood, and the head of a moose mounted on the wall in the back. The moose, named Monty, wore big red sunglasses and an “I (heart) Big Rock” cap. The clock over the order window read 3:47. This was the first time since breakfast at home that he'd had a chance to stop and eat.

George sat in one of the booths in the back, beneath Monty, with a cup of coffee. His black leather briefcase stood beside the booth. George smiled and nodded.

“Hey,” Hurley said.

“Hello, Sheriff.”

“You wanted to see me?” Hurley said.

George nodded. “I recently received a call from the lab in Eureka. Paperwork's on its way to your office.”

“And?”

“
Canis lupus
.”

“Whatzis whozit?”

“
Canis lupus
, Ferrell—that's what the lab came up with. That little tuft of downy fur came from a wolf.”

“A
wolf
?”

“Hi, Sheriff.”

Hurley looked up at the middle-aged waitress, Jessie. She was thin and looked worn and tired, but she had a big smile.

“Hello, Jessie,” he said. “What kind of soup you got?”

“Potato. And it's delicious. The cook tops it off with just a pinch of red pepper.”

“I'll have a bowl of that. And coffee.”

“You got it.” And she was off.

“A
wolf
?” Hurley said again, leaning forward.

“Yeah, I found it hard to believe, too. For one thing, in order for a wolf to do the kind of damage that was done to those two bodies, it would have to be—” He leaned toward Hurley and lowered his voice. “—a
big
fuckin' wolf. For another thing, they couldn't classify it. It's not any species of wolf they could find listed anywhere.”

“What does that mean?”

“I'm not sure. But I'm wondering—I know I said for certain that it
wasn't
an animal, but I looked up wolves on the Internet. None of them get big enough to do what was done to those bodies. The claws marks on the victims were spread apart like the fingers on a big human hand. The fangs had to be pretty damned large to do what they did. I can't think of
anything
that gets big enough to do what was done to those bodies. Aside from a bear. A bear could do that.”

“But the fur didn't come from a bear,” Hurley said.

“That's right. It came from a wolf.”

Jessie came with Hurley's coffee mug in one hand and the pot in the other. She put the mug on the table and filled it, then refilled George's mug. “Be right back with your soup,” she said as she left.

“Wait, I don't see how they can say it's a wolf if the species doesn't exist,” Hurley said, shaking his head. “That means it must be something
else
, right?”

“Let me finish. I'm wondering if maybe the fur could come from something the killer was wearing.”

“What, you think it was a person now?”

“I'm not sure. That's the thing. A wolf makes no sense, but neither does a person.
Nothing
makes sense.”

Jessie returned with Hurley's soup, a slice of garlic toast, and a basket of crackers. “You'll like this, Sheriff,” she said.

“Thanks, Jessie.”