The Wild

by Whitley Strieber

  When she was a kid, she had been able to scream marvelously well. She closed her eyes, tried to calm herself enough to organize some more effective noise. They were passing her rooming house. If only their room wasn't at the back, Kevin might hear. He'd be there—because she did not want to put him in one of the local backwater schools where he'd be taught nothing more challenging than Gum-Chewing 101 and probably beaten to a pulp as well, they had decided he would go into hiding for the duration of the search.

  He spent his time reading. He was on Remembrance of Things Past now, and he wanted to get the walls lined with cork like Proust had.

  Big Charlie's hand pushed against her left breast. The sensation was disgusting, a nauseating thrill that churned to pain when he squeezed. This time she screamed with fierce energy. In response the two men began moving faster down the freezing, silent street. "Somebody help me!" Was the whole town dead? No, more likely everybody around here except Kevin was off at work or at school, Kevin and that inert old man who inhabited the little house at the end of the block. He wouldn't come out. If the world ended, he would meet it staring out that window of his. "God help me! God help me!"

  Big Charlie moaned. "Come on, Cindy, we won't hurt you. Please, I just want you to treat me like a man. Honey, I could give you a good life."

  "Let me go, you filthy creep. You smell like a wet cigar butt."

  "I'll stop with the cigars if that's what it takes. You don't like 'em—done! Howya like that? Cindy, I got nobody, I'm getting older. You're young. I'll leave you everything in my will. I got money, Cindy! Marry me."

  "Help! Help!"

  The door of the old man's house flew open. Astonishingly, Kevin came rushing out. Behind him was the old man himself, carrying a tall, rusty halberd. In his hands Kevin brandished a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

  "Oh, Lordy, now look what you done, Cindy! Hold on, fellas, she don't need help. Lord, what is that, an ax?"

  "Unhand her," Kevin shrieked. "Mr. Forbes has been trained on his weapon!"

  The old man, who was tall and emaciated, wearing a tattered herringbone sports jacket and plaid pants, took a spread-legged stance and lowered the halberd. "Let her go, Charlie," he said. "I can cut off balls with this thing just as clean as heads."

  "That's gotta be an illegal weapon or something." The two Charlies complied, though, and Cindy felt a great relief. Kevin stepped forward and slammed the encyclopedia down on Little Charlie's head, whereupon he sank into the snow without so much as a sigh. "Aw," Big Charlie cried, "why'd you do that?"

  "That's my mother, scumbag!"

  "Oh Lord. All I wanted was to talk to her. I want her to consider me a suitor, that's all. I need a wife. Eileen died, damn her, and I need a wife, oh, God I do. I've got love in me. Yes, I've got love in me."

  The old man jabbed with the halberd, and Big Charlie became silent. "I'm tired of men like you, you brutal fool," the old man said. "I ought to hurt you." The halberd whistled and Big Charlie had to jump.

  Little Charlie raised himself up, squinting and rubbing his head. "Somebody oughta whip that kid, he's a damn sonembitch."

  Louie came running down the street, shouting and waving a large knife. "You let them alone, Gilford Forbes! It's just their way."

  "The hell, Louie, nobody drags women off like that, not in my sight. This is the civilized world, and if you don't like that, you can damn well move to South Africa or someplace."

  "Come on, Mother, it's time to go."

  The tension between Louie and Gilford Forbes seemed ready to erupt into a battle. Cindy was not sure what would happen if the spindly old man actually began to use the halberd, which was obviously as sharp as a razor. She wasted no time following Kevin, who was already on his way back to Forbes's house.

  Forbes backed up, marching like a spider, rather than turn away from the other men.

  The house was an old one, really no more than a cottage, with a wooden porch populated by an ancient swing and choked in the tendrils of what in spring and summer must be a laurel. Beyond the front door was a living room full of bulky furniture, overstuffed chairs, a large and complicated Wurlitzer organ, and on the walls prints of familiar Impressionists: Van Gogh's Starry Night, Renoir's Bathers, and four or five others. They added an altogether incongruous note of intense cheer to an otherwise drably comfortable scene.

  "Please make yourself at home, Kevin's mother," Forbes said. He bowed. "The altogether estimable mother of a most remarkable young boy." He smiled, his cadaverous face cracking into a grin so wide that it seemed about to cause his lower jaw to disengage itself and flop down along his neck. "I am Gilford Forbes, former don at Christ Church College, Oxford, former tutor at Harvard—alas, all very former. Presently Kevin and I are engaged in setting ponderous poetry to light music and light poetry to ponderous music. An interesting exercise, Pound's Cantos chanted to the tune of 'A Rock and Roll Waltz' and the works of Rod McKuen intoned to Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. Your screams did not fit, and I must apologize to you—"

  Kevin rushed forward and hugged her.

  Gilford Forbes smiled a little nervously. Kevin glanced just sharply enough at Cindy to communicate the message that he had kept his father a secret from this man. The boy must already have told the old man some story—some lie—that explained their presence here in Olana.

  "A broken life," Kevin murmured sadly. His face was grave. Cindy saw again the stoniness that more and more often appeared in his eyes.

  She nodded. "That ends at Parma Lunch."

  "You'll get back on your feet. You're young!" There was an extended silence after the old man's remark. "It's cold," he added. "Would anyone care for tea?"

  Wordlessly, Kevin went with him into his tiny kitchen. "Where did you get this Darjeeling?" she heard her son ask.

  "In Toronto. I've also some scones. Your mother might like one."

  "She hardly eats anything."

  The man did not answer. Cindy sat in an old Morris chair. This was an extraordinarily comfortable room. The wood stove crinkled softly, beads of snow tapped against the window. Beyond it, in the darkening afternoon, the sinister little town seemed about to settle into the woods that surrounded it. Nothing moved in the street, no car, no pedestrian, not even a wandering dog. Idly, Cindy picked up a magazine, a literary journal called Prometheus. Bob had bought it from time to time, and the look of it brought back memories. She glanced through it, impressed mainly by the beautiful printing and layout. Then she saw a poem by Gilford Forbes.

  The snow trumpets silently down,

  Hurrying the shadows in

  The terrible land,

  Enforcing the migration of bones,

  This snow, laboring with the force

  Of dangerous old laws.

  The fire shuffled again, and the snow pinged on the window. Cindy realized that in this moment she had come face-to-face with the mystery. It stood revealed before her, as if a door had at last opened—but only into endless night. Tears collected in her eyes. She could not look again at the magazine. Instead she pushed it to the floor with her knuckles and wiped her hands on her dress. A tiredness akin almost to death stole over her, dropping around her shoulders like a cloak of cold chain. She bowed her head, aware only as her glance passed over it of a tiny cross hanging on the wall, a priest's black cross.

  "So you see," Gilford Forbes said, "I'm broken, too." He put her cup of tea into her hands. On the saucer there was a scone cut in two and buttered, and it looked awfully tempting. "Before you, woman of the broken life, stands a ruined priest. I will tell you my story if you will tell me yours."

  How could she? His story would move, it would touch, it would enlighten in a fine and decent manner. Her story would sound lurid and absurd.

  Even so, Bob was out there in the snow, or he was dead, a pecked hulk on a roadside, or a pelt in some trapper's winter storehouse. "I was caught in flagrantibus delictis. I pluralize because I was with two of my students, a young woman and a young man. We were in the dressin
g room, in the bottom of a cupboard. The shaking of the cupboard attracted the attention of the choir, which was just coming down after singing High Mass. One of them opened the thing and there we were, wallowing naked in a pile of vestments."

  Another silence developed. Kevin looked steadily at his mother, his eyes intractable. She was not to tell.

  "You were thrown out?" she asked.

  "Difficult to do to a priest." He held up his hands. "They will still bear the Paraclete. I was hustled out of Cambridge and posted to an obscure boonie parish. No more Newman Club for me, no more students. The trouble was, that incident—which was my only transgression of celibacy—assumed such enormous proportions in my mind that I could no longer bear to abide by my vows. Night after night I thought of the wonders of that time in the cupboard, how good they had tasted, smelled, how warm and lovely it all was. Dear God, I still do. It was the central experience of my life. I've never tried sex again, for fear of disappointment."

  "They must have been marvelous people," Kevin said.

  "Marvelous looking. They were a team. I got their number out of a singles paper. They were undergrads doing a little whoring to make their lives more comfortable. God, they were wonderful." He sipped his tea. "Your story, please."

  "No," Kevin said. "You have to be careful of him, Mother. He never had that experience. He wasn't even a priest. He's trying to trick you."

  Gilford Forbes smiled, this time a little thinly. "Your point, Kevin. I suppose that you must remain a mystery to me, too."

  Cindy would have told him everything. Why not, what did it matter? Look at the Indian—he understood more about what had happened to Bob than she had imagined possible, but he had not the strength for the journey. And Monica: "Call me if you need me. I love you." In other words, good-bye.

  Only she and Kevin remained, in this difficult time. She bit into the scone, which was still cold in the middle. As she chewed she heard shouts outside, more than one shout in the muffling snow.

  Forbes frowned, looking toward the dark gray window. Kevin put his teacup down and stepped over to the door. He opened it, stepped onto the porch.

  Another shout, this time accompanied by the shape of a man running down the street.

  Kevin returned. His face was horribly twisted, his eyes were darting with fear. "Wolves," he whispered, "they've seen wolves at the north end of town."

  "Really! I had no idea there were wolves in New York State. In a way that's lovely, if they don't just shoot them."

  Without another word, forgetting how lightly dressed she was, forgetting her fearful experience with the Charlies, Cindy jumped up and dashed out into the snow.

  Up the dark streets she raced. She could hear Kevin beside her. Whether Forbes had come or not, she did not know.

  As she ran she heard it. She stopped and looked up. Kevin looked up. Ahead of them a man carrying a high-power rifled stopped also, and he looked up. A cat, which had been sitting in a window, darted away.

  The howl rose and rose, a plasma of dark pealing echoes, powerful and loud.

  Kevin's hand came into her own. That was Bob, she knew it in her freezing bones. Bob was here, and the town was turning out to meet him. Bob must stand against a town full of sharpshooting roughnecks.

  She ran, Kevin ran. Far behind them Forbes— who had been running—dropped to a walk with a gesture of annoyance.

  Bob was here. At last, at last she had found him. With a frantic little scream in her throat, she made her way through the snow, determined this time to find a way to share life with him as best she could, on whatever terms he would grant.

  Part Four

  Homecoming

  We left when we were too young

  to know.

  Now we are far away and going farther.

  Home, we say, home. . . .

  We watch the empty dark.

  —Robert Duke, "Home" (1985)

  Chapter Twenty-One

  BOB HAD GONE DASHING ACROSS THE FROZEN ST. LAWRENCE Seaway, his claws crackling on the ice. He had leaped over floes and cracks, slipped, got up, and slid forward, barking joyfully.

  The eyes of the other wolves had followed him. None barked back, no tail wagged. For his part, Bob had been so excited that he couldn't stop barking. Smelling the wolves this close made thrills sweep up and down his body. Their odor was sensuous, incredibly attractive. It was far richer to his nose than any human odor had ever been, more so even than Cindy's beloved scent. As he ran, his mind cast about for meaning in this odor, but there were no words that described the experience of smelling it.

  These wolves lived in this heaven of smell; they were used to it. Beyond their individual smells— the sharp, shocking aromas coming from the pack leaders, and the sweet smells of the lesser wolves, there was another odor, which was the combination of them all, the majestic smell of the pack as a whole, a fine old spirit of an aroma.

  When Bob was about ten yards from the pack, the wolf at the lead had barked once, a sound as sharp as a shot. It went deep into Bob, exploding in his heart. It was a warning and a command: it said stop.

  Bob had stood, his tail wagging, his tongue slopping out of his mouth. He gathered himself together: he was a man inside, after all, and he had his dignity.

  The dignity of a man, though, is nothing before the dignity of a king of the wolves. Human governments rise and fall across a few generations. This king was the inheritor of ten thousand generations. His pack was an ancient kingdom, and he ruled it by traditions that extended back into the mists. He had come forward, his legs stiff, his ears cocked, on his face a look at once curious and fierce. Bob could see his nose working.

  Bob's whole attention had gone to this wolf. By degrees he was realizing that he would not be welcome here. It hurt him. He had come an awfully long way to get a reception like this. He might be a man, and feel he was a man, but he was also a wolf, every inch of him. If he had any rights at all, it was among these creatures.

  In his rising anger he had made a mistake: he barked loudly. It was a challenge, it couldn't be interpreted any other way. The king of the wolves snarled horribly, lifting his lips to reveal startlingly effective-looking fangs. His pack seethed behind him. A strong musk came from them, as if they were spitting odor at the interloper, trying to cover his unwanted scent. Bob could feel his own glands working, could smell his own anger and excitement. His neck tickled: his hackles were rising.

  The king strutted, ears back, eyes fairly cracking with rage. Bob had to think, but he was getting too scared to think. He was acutely aware of the fact that he was out here alone in this wilderness, and the only creatures he could trust, the only companions that were even close to his own kind, were rejecting him out of hand.

  What to do? He couldn't explain himself, he didn't know the language of the wolves. And they had a language, he could see, hear, and smell that. It was a thousand, a million times more rich than anything he had ever read about. Tails flickered, expressions rushed through faces, complicated waves of odor and sound flashed through the pack like little storms. They were so incredibly integrated, they were like one person.

  How could anybody have ever thought that these were simple beasts? Bob was faced with the shocking realization that the wolves had evolved an intelligence and a sense so great that it was literally incomparable, and yet so different from man's intelligence that it was all but invisible to the human mind.

  There was no rational shape to it, no sense structure. It had words, though, sentences that were songs, and through it all there was creeping what he could only describe to himself as angry, rejecting prejudice.

  His heart ached. He knew that he was going to have to fight again. It was so damn sad. He lowered his eyes and tail.

  When he did, the whole pack erupted at him, barking with savage fury. Then their leader, their arrogant, strutting king, was at his throat, bellowing, his jaws flashing in the white, snowy light. There was more fury, more wildness in this assault than Bob had ever known before. It was li
terally fantastic in its energy, like a hurricane, like the explosion of a mountain, like some holocaust come down from heaven. The wolf snarled and snapped and slammed directly into Bob's chest. Bob was bowled completely over, his own growl sticking in his throat.

  In all of his previous battles, with the shepherds at the pound, the coydogs in Central Park, with the bear, this had been the moment when his wolf instincts took over and carried him to victory. But this wolf was so powerful that it shattered all instinct. As he rolled and tumbled beneath its attack he was swept by aromas that stunned the very center of his being. He was awed, humbled, titillated by the smell of this wolf. He could not fight back, he just could not.

  The wolf bit him hard in the throat and he found himself turning over on his back. He felt an awful, delicious stirring of what could only be described as ecstatic humility. He spread his legs and turned his head, baring throat and genitals to the powerful creature that dominated him. The wolf was not large, nor was he old, but he was so lordly, so proud, so certain of himself that Bob simply could not stand up to him.

  For a moment he held Bob's throat, then he released it. Still full of strut and anger, the wolf suddenly did a most intimate and embarrassing thing. He bent down and nuzzled Bob's penis with his cold, damp nose. The contact injected a fiery vibration of purest pleasure into Bob's body, a pleasure so great that for a moment he was incapable of thought, of motion. As the wolf continued its exploration wave after wave of sheer, delicious enjoyment rocked Bob's being.

  Then the pack leader tossed his head, snorted as if contemptuous of the gift he had given, and walked away from Bob. For a moment Bob lay there swooning, helpless. Then there came to him another aroma, this a scent he could identify from his old life: it was the smell of a woman.

  She moved forth over him, circling him. He had never seen such beauty as the king's mate. She was young and strong, her fur shining white and light gray in the sun. Bob's own chemical essence poured desire through him. He almost wept to see such female magnificence. Hers was a new esthetic, of rich odors, deeply satisfying, the kind of smell Bob could imagine living within forever, intimate and sweet, conjuring images of furious passion. He recognized her odor: this was the wolf who had licked him after the fight with the bear.