Ravenous (33 page)

The two bright lamps on each side of the courtyard threw flaring bars of light through the mist, casting long shadows over the concrete.

A young man with long blonde hair, wearing jeans and a pale, baggy sweater left his ground-level apartment on the northern side of the complex and came around the corner of the fenced-in pool to the side where the creature was eating. He lifted something small in his right hand and held it out before his face. The red light blinking on the digital camera he held stopped, then it flashed a bright, electric white as he took a picture of the ravenous werewolf.

With the flash, the creature lifted its head from the bloody woman it was eating and roared furiously, blood dripping from its wet, matted snout. It dove over the woman's corpse and was directly in front of the photographer in a heartbeat.

The young man flashed another picture, then dropped his camera as he frantically stumbled backward, screaming, “No! Help! Jesus God somebody help me help—”

The young man fell over backward and the creature was on him.

In the distance, plaintively wailing sirens could be heard, first one, then another, and still more joining the chorus. The sirens grew louder as they drew closer and mixed with the screams that continued to sound all around the apartment complex.

The creature that had once been Vanessa Peterman paid the sirens no attention. It was too busy tearing into and eating the long-haired photographer.

 

* * * *

 

Hurley's SUV had barely stopped moving when he shot out of the door and ran toward the complex, his .38 in his right hand, loaded with silver bullets. Fargo exited the passenger side and hurried along with the Sheriff. He carried a shotgun.

A squadron of patrol cars converged behind him, their sirens dropping off in a staggered diminishment of sound. Some of the cars stopped so suddenly, their tires yelped against the wet pavement. Car doors pounded shut. Footsteps clattered over the pavement as deputies drew their sidearms, all loaded with silver bullets. Some carried .12 gauge shotguns holding shells loaded with silver buckshot.

The fog glowed around porch lights in the complex and curled ominously around the two lamps that cast pools of light in the courtyard.

The deputies spread out in the courtyard, some going to the remains of the dead bodies on the concrete.

People began to come out of their apartments on both levels, and some of them shouted at the deputies all at once, making their words indistinguishable.

“Whoa, whoa,” Hurley shouted, holding up a hand. “You!” He pointed at a man standing just outside his apartment on the ground level. “Where is it? Where
is
it?”

“It went out back, behind this side,” the man said, gesturing with one hand.

Hurley called to his deputies, “You guys—go around that side. The rest of you, come with me around this side.”

Hurley led half his deputies around behind the southern side of the complex. They passed the row of carports and went beyond to the gravelly area that stretched from the parking area to the fence, their feet kicking through the weeds. Flashlight beams swept in all directions. They said nothing, just looked, hunted, all of them tense, anticipating the first sight of what they'd been told was a werewolf.

But it was not there.

They went around to the eastern end of the complex, the bottom of the U, and met up with the deputies who'd gone around the northern side of the building. The flashlight beams passed through the low mist, crossing like insubstantial swords.

They found nothing.

Hurley called all the deputies, who gathered around him.

“I want you all to go to the other side of this perimeter wall on both sides,” he said, “and meet in the back. Ross, you and Jessup come with me back to the apartments and let's talk to the residents, find out what they saw. Lewis, call a couple of buses out here right away to tend to the wounded. Any of you see this thing, I want you to fill the fucker full of silver. Okay, get going.”

The deputies dispersed as Ross and Jessup headed with Hurley back toward the courtyard. They were approaching some of the frightened looking residents when they heard the screams of several men, closely followed by a keening roar.

Hurley turned and ran in the direction of the sound.

The screams continued as they neared, then quickly, one by one, they stopped.

The deputies followed Hurley to the gate and around the edge of the perimeter wall. They jogged along the wall, their flashlight beams bouncing ahead of them.

Other deputies came running from the other direction.

“Son of a bitch,” Hurley said as he neared the bodies on the ground.

He stopped and looked down at them as the deputies turned their flashlights on the corpses. The bodies of five deputies were on the ground, pieces of them scattered around a few feet away. A couple deputies groaned. One turned away and vomited.

Hurley and all the deputies turned and looked in all directions.

They saw nothing. But they heard something ... in the near distance across the road in a wooded area.

A high, chilling howl.

 

 

 

39

 

Domestic Squabble

 

 

Jimmy Norton felt restless. And hungry. His hands trembled, and he could not hold still. A darkening grey pressed at the windows, the day dying outside. Jimmy would go out soon. He shivered in anticipation of it. He could not wait to go out again, to rape, to feed, to cut loose in ways he'd never before been able to do. Jimmy liked what he had become, enjoyed the power he felt, the strength, the ... invincibility.

But he could not stop shaking as he paced the living room, back and forth in front of the television that gibbered on and on, ignored.

“Make me a drink,” he said as Andrea came through the living room on her way to the kitchen. “Scotch and ice.”

“Make it yourself,” she said hoarsely. When she'd gotten back from the 7-Eleven, she'd taken the kids over to her sisters because she said she didn't feel well. When she'd returned, she'd her clothes off again and put the robe back on. She wore it still.

“What did you say?” Jimmy said, no longer pacing. He glared at Andrea.

She stopped and turned to him, frowning, her hair mussed, her arms folded tightly across her chest. “I
said
... make it your
self
. I don't feel well.”

“Goddammit, I told you to get me a drink. So why don't you just—”

But she ignored him and walked on into the kitchen.

Anger burned red behind Jimmy's eyes. Andrea simply did not talk to him that way. He heard the crunch in his head of his teeth grinding together. Fists clenched, he stalked into the kitchen after her, moved up behind her fast, and grabbed her elbow, spun her around roughly. “You're gonna get me a drink or I'm gonna—”

“Get your fucking hands off me!” she shouted, jerking her elbow out of his grasp. She bent forward slightly at the waist and her hands curled into fists. “You want a drink you can just get it yourself.
Okay
?” She turned her back to him then and went to the refrigerator. She opened the door and bent forward, examining the shelves.

Jimmy froze in place for a moment. Anger flowed like acid through his veins. He felt the change coming on, felt it moving through him. He stumbled backward, out of the kitchen, as his body began to alter itself, as bones snapped and cartilage popped and hair grew and his shoulders and arms ripped through the plaid shirt he wore. A heavy coat of black hair grew over his entire face and body. His jeans became too short, the denim tore as his legs expanded, arms growing longer—

And he roared, the sound thick with his anger. He stood just outside the kitchen door, his breathing heavy and rumbling with a growl, saliva dribbling from his fanged snout, as unsettling sounds came from the kitchen.

More snapping and crunching ...

He moved forward, ducked his head as he went through the doorway, back into the kitchen. He turned to face Andrea.

But she was not Andrea anymore. Her robe hung from her new, larger body in tatters. The overhead light shimmered in the dark, gold-streaked blonde hair that now covered her. When she saw him, her thin black lips peeled back over long fangs.

He tensed, ready to lunge forward at her.

She moved first and pounced on him with a wet, slavering growl.

He released a long, surprised roar as her fangs sank into his neck, as her claws pierced the skin of his upper arms.

They flew backward together into the dining room and slammed into the table, knocking it on its side and sending chairs scattering.

Her fangs tore a chunk of flesh out of his neck and he shrieked in pain as he tore his claws across her front, ripping through her left breast, and down across her abdomen. She opened her snout wide and wailed in pain.

 

* * * *

 

Doris Whitacker frowned and cocked her head, listening. She picked up the remote, muted the television, and continued to listen.

She heard it again—a horrible sound, like nothing she'd heard before. Her mouth opened as she heard it again and again. She was not even sure how she would describe it when she called the Sheriff's Department, which she planned to do.

It was nothing human, no—this was an animal sound, something savage and dangerous.

Doris listened more closely, eyes narrowed. She realized there were
two
sounds—they were very much alike, but there were definitely two.

She put a hand on each armrest and lifted herself out of her chair. She turned, walked through the living room, and went to the front door. She opened it and stepped up to the closed and locked screen door.

It was icy-cold, and a grey fog moved in as darkness fell.

From across the street, glass shattered and something else was crushed noisily, followed by more crashing. The racket continued, accompanied by frightening growls and shrieks that made gooseflesh crawl across her shoulders and back. Doris touched four fingertips to her bottom lip as she frowned at the Norton house across the street. The sounds were coming from there, but they were unlike any of the other sounds she'd ever heard from that house. She'd heard shouting, she'd heard glass break—but nothing like this.

What's happening over there?
she wondered. Earlier, she'd seen Andrea take the children somewhere and come back a little later without them. But had they come back? She feared for them if they were over there now.

Doris returned to her chair, sat down, and picked up the phone. She'd promised not to call 911 anymore, but this seemed urgent enough to justify it. She punched the three buttons, put the phone to her ear, and waited.

 

* * * *

 

Jason wondered if he were dying.

He was curled up in bed, shivering—no, it was more of a shudder than a shiver, almost a
convulsion
. It wracked his bones, made his teeth clack together. And yet he was perspiring, making the sheets cling to his skin. Then there was the hunger. It gnawed at his insides like a horde of rats, but nothing satisfied it. And that house—

The Laramie house, the Laramie house ...
 

—would not leave his mind. It tugged at him, confused his thoughts.

His mother had come up to check on him and he'd snapped at her to go away and leave him alone. That bothered him—he'd never spoken to either of his parents that way before—but it was not foremost in his mind at the moment. The thing that weighed most heavily on his mind was the question of what was happening to him.

Lying in bed, Jason's heart throbbed in his ears, and he could hear the thick rushing of blood through his veins. He'd turned on none of the lights in his apartment, and as the day died, shadows lengthened until it was completely dark.

No longer able to tolerate the clammy feeling of the wet sheets, Jason got out of bed. The apartment was cold, so he put on a sweatshirt, sweatpants, and slippers. He stumbled around turning on lights. In the bathroom, he looked at himself in the mirror over the sink.

His face looked narrower than usual, eyes sunken deep in their sockets, with dark half-circles beneath them, skin shiny with perspiration and the color of bone.

In the periphery of his consciousness, Jason heard something outside his bathroom window, something coming from Andrea's house—an animalistic growling, glass shattering, things crashing. But his attention was focused on his face in the mirror, on the hunger growling in his belly.

A metallic, silvery flash sparkled in his eyes. It startled him and he jerked back away from the mirror with a slight gasp.

Then he heard them again, those sounds from next door—growling, crashing, loud thumping. And something else—a growl that became a high shriek. In that shriek he recognized the voice.

“Andrea,” he said, his voice dry and hoarse.

Jason hurried out of the bathroom. He rushed through the darkness, only vaguely noticing that he moved smoothly, easily, rounding the edge of the bar, avoiding a chair, sweeping down the stairs to the garage. The shivering was gone suddenly. He felt strong and confident. But that was relegated the back of his thoughts—he was focused on Andrea's safety.

 

* * * *

 

As Jimmy and Andrea fought and struggled in the house, shreds of their tattered clothes dangled and flapped from their bodies. Their growls blended into a roar, the impact of their bodies against the walls and floor made the house tremble. Each bled from wounds inflicted by the other—blood spattered the floor and the broken pieces of furniture in the living room—but the wounds closed up rapidly. As they fought, more cuts and gashes were inflicted, more blood shed, but they did not last long.

They stumbled to a stop when something slammed heavily against the front door. Jimmy's ears twitched forward, Andrea's upper lip peeled back over glistening, blood-streaked fangs, and each turned to the door with a low, chest-deep growl.