Bitten

by K. L. Nappier

  On the sixth night, he was back on the Adirondack, leaned forward, fingers tangled together, waiting on the moon.

  * * *

  On the seventh night, Max told himself he was going for a drive. Just a drive. Clear his head. Get himself ready for going back to Tohatchi, where he'd start packing in earnest. Patch things up with David and start making some real plans. Maybe California wasn't for him after all. Maybe he should go back to his roots instead, to St. Louis. He pulled out of the motel's gravel lot and popped the bottle cap off the beer nestled in his crotch, tossing the cap and opener onto the passenger seat before shifting to second.

  Just a drive, that ended with him sitting in the rental, two doors down on the opposite side of the street from Doris's house. What was left of the six pack had lost its chill, but he opened another anyway. When he saw her come out and sit on the glider, it caught him off guard and he slumped down. His face went hot with embarrassment even though she didn't seem to notice him, and a surprisingly sober thought slipped through the beer barrier:

  What the hell am I doing, crouched down like some sicko in front of her house?

  But he didn't leave. Instead he watched her until she rose, stretched and went back in, then stayed and watched the moon on its course. The sun couldn't wake him, but some neighborhood kids did as they shouted to each other and sped past on their Schwinns.

  He went back to the bungalow and slept most of the day. After nightfall, he drove back to Doris's place; this time, he told himself, he'd walk up and knock on her door. He'd 'fess up to what he'd been doing for the past week and ask her, point blank, for advice. Instead, he parked a couple of doors in the other direction and split his attention between her house and the moon. She didn't come out this time. But at least he didn't fall asleep, and drove back to the motel before sun-up.

  The next night, he almost screwed up the nerve to leave the car. The night after that, he actually had his hand on the car handle when he saw her come out, shrugging on a light sweater as she walked east. A little neighborhood stroll. It pissed him off to see her behaving so goddamned normal, so he turned the engine over and drove off, spent the rest of the night in that Adirondack with his beer, facing off with the moon, now more than three quarters full.

  * * *

  Finally, a decision. Kind of one, anyway, as he sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing at his beard stubble. He couldn't keep doing this. His head hurt. His stomach was sour and complaining that he'd slept through breakfast and lunch. The bungalow's wall clock told him it was time for supper. He wasn't cut out to be a drunk. It was time to go back.

  But no way in hell was he going to Tohatchi during a full moon. No way. He'd have to ride it out a few more nights. And he was not going back to Doris's place, damn it. Not to talk to her, not to sit in his goddamned car and pretend he was going to talk to her and he was not going to sit in that goddamned Adirondack on this goddamned First Night waiting for the goddamned full moon.

  He took a hot shower, dressed, then went to a diner up the road that had become a favorite and asked where the town bijou was. He sat through the newsreel, a couple of shorts, and the latest Abbott and Costello.

  Then he drove slowly past Doris's place. The house was dark and her car was gone. Friday night. She was out, living her life. Maybe with friends. Maybe with a man.

  Back in Tohatchi, Max knew, David would be glued to the Ham. He would have begun well before nightfall had come to New Mexico, listening as First Night made its long, tortuous course across the continent. Listening for anything. Listening to everything.

  By the time Max was sitting in the Adirondack, having resisted cracking open his six pack until then, First Night's moon was almost set. He watched as the ocean swallowed it and counted up his near successes: he hadn't spent the entire night watching the moon. He hadn't spent it dozing outside Doris's door. And he was only now getting started on his evening drunk.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  The Sandman Motel

  Twenty Miles North of San Buenaventura, California

  Spring/Early Summer, 1950

  Early Afternoon, Day after First Night. Full Moon.

  He saw it as he was leaving the diner, where you could get breakfast even in the middle of the afternoon. A guy having coffee and pie at the counter had set the newspaper face down on the empty stool beside him. The article was small and below the fold, but still front page stuff:

  BIZARRE ATTACKS BEGINNING AGAIN?

  OFFICIALS NEVER FOUND KILLER CANINE

  Max wanted to keep walking, but his feet were rooted, his stare stuck in place. After a moment, he sensed the pie guy watching him. Max motioned to the paper.

  "Are you done with this?"

  The pie guy shook his head. With a get-your-own expression, he said, "There's a machine outside the door."

  Max dropped a dime in the slot. All the papers except the one braced in the display window were gone. He pulled it, went to his car and read:

  The remains of one Howard Kipfer, a known drug pusher, were found before dawn this morning. They were discovered by migrant workers returning to an avocado farm owned by Mr. & Mrs. Ellis Ebbers of Seeley, located in Imperial County, bordering Mexico. According to police, Mr. Kipfer may have encountered the same or similar animals responsible for two deaths during the months of September and October three years ago in northeast San Bernardino County.

  Says Imperial County Animal Control Officer Bill S. Limon, "It's not conclusive, but it may be the work of an individual animal, likely canine or lupine. Very, very big. It is too early to tell if it is rabid. By no means should people panic, but we urge caution in the rural areas in and around Seeley."

  Max leaned his head back on the car seat. His first thought was to pack his things and make his way to this county on the California-Mexico border, where the attack occurred. No. He should ignore this. No. He should get a telegram to David. He'd make it very clear that he was not going to pursue this lead. But it would be irresponsible to not send word. He wondered if Mina or David had heard anything about it on the Ham. Then he told himself to think this through a little. He started the car and drove to Doris's house.

  Her car was gone again or, maybe, she hadn't come back yet. Hey, she was a grown woman. Her business. Don't think about it. But, just in case, he grabbed the newspaper, got out of the rental and walked up to her door. No answer to his knock. Okay. He could wait. He made himself comfortable on the porch's glider.

  The neighborhood was Saturday busy. Boys on their bikes, girls with jump ropes. The moms and dads in their yards keeping watch. One couple sauntered by and stopped on the sidewalk. They waved and said, "Afternoon," pretending they were just being neighborly rather than looking out for Doris's house while she was gone. Max put them at ease: friend of hers, visited about a week ago or so. The neighbors said yes, they recalled now. Max explained that he just got back in town. Did they happen to know when she'd return? They didn't, but her job sometimes kept her away for a day or two, have a nice afternoon.

  After they left, Max tried her front door, but it was locked. The back door leading into the kitchen was easy to jimmy, though, so he went in, grabbed his first beer and returned to the porch. The afternoon turned to dusk. Kids and parents abandoned the street for supper. Max took a stroll around the block, left to grab a bite at a drive-in burger joint and replace the beers that he'd taken out of the fridge while he'd waited. When he came back, the kids were out playing hide and seek in the dark, using the street light as base.

  * * *

  He awoke with a start, his neck stiff, his chin on his chest. He felt chilled and a little damp, as if he'd been out for so long dew had begun to settle on him. He uncrossed his arms and ankles and stood to stretch out the stiffness. Not a single light was on at any house. Second Night's full moon outshone the street lamp, and the neighborhood's dark was deepened by the chirp of crickets. What time was it?

  Doris still wasn't home.

  Max felt like an idiot. What was he doing there,
anyway? To "think things through" about the Imperial County attack? To get Doris's take on how he should handle this? What bullshit. Suddenly, he couldn't leave quickly enough. He snatched up the damp newspaper and headed to his car as a fast as his stiffened legs would take him.

  At the end of the next block, his headlights caught a white car parked among the blue wagons and black sedans on the north side of the street. He stopped, killed his lights and eased into reverse for a few feet. A snazzy little Rambler convertible. He scanned the houses and saw a dim glow coming from the one just north of the Rambler. Max kept his car dark and in reverse, finding a long, empty stretch of curb a couple houses down.

  He parked and sat staring ahead, thinking, feeling jealous and ashamed, but not moving ... except to get out of the car. He closed the door as quietly as he could, then began walking toward the Rambler, all the while telling himself he should go, he should leave.

  It was a moment before Max recognized the familiar approach of nausea, the way his stomach was beginning to twist. It slowed him; confused him until he decided it had to do with catching Doris at her lover's house. As he walked up to the Rambler, the twist in his gut gripped harder and it didn't feel like a case of nerves anymore. It felt worse, it felt like ...

  That didn't make sense. Couldn't be. Couldn't be. He looked up at the house, where the electric yellow glow was leaking through the drawn curtains, and his heart started hammering hard. He looked at his palm and saw the pentagram.

  He didn't want to chance the porch's floorboards betraying him. Keeping low, he circled around the house, away from the dimly lit window, crept up the cement steps and tried the back door. Locked. He could give it a jimmy, but worried about the noise that might make.

  The window to the right of the door was high and small, like it might be over a kitchen sink. But the one to the left was larger, the lower edge almost even with his shoulders. He looked around the back yard for something to stand on, but there was nothing there except two metal T poles with clotheslines strung between them. On the other hand, the only thing separating Max from the neighbor's lawn table and metal chairs was a three-foot picket fence.

  The chair bowed slightly on its U-shaped legs when Max stood on it, but it held and boosted his chest and shoulders above the sill. Like the door, the window was locked. Max slipped the blade of his pocket knife between the latch and upper frame, a quieter alternative to a jimmied door. Once inside, he crouched against the wall below the window, blotted his sleeve against the sweat of his forehead and listened.

  He was in the south end of the kitchen. He heard a radio turned low, someone breathing hard over the music and a sound like water dripping. He waited for his eyes to adjust from the moon-struck outdoors to the filtered light within. Then he stood and moved cautiously through the kitchen into the hall.

  The house was small like Doris's and built on the same plan: living room at the end, two doors on the right of the hallway, one on the left. The light was coming from the left, the door about a quarter closed, as if it had eked into that position on its own; one of those doors that had to be braced open with a rubber stop. The radio and heavy breathing seemed louder, now that Max was in the hall, but the dripping sound had ended.

  The first door on the right was wide open; the bathroom, as Max expected. The second was a few feet closer to him than the one on the left and Max listened near its frame to make sure there would be no surprises. It wasn't quite pulled shut, and Max considered pressing his fingers against it; give it a little shove so he could poke his head in and get a better idea of who or what might lay behind. But all light and sounds were coming from the other room, so he decided not to risk squeaking the hinges. Measuring every step, he moved to the left side of the hall, keeping to the wall.

  By now he could hear the rhythmic whir of a fan oscillating on its pedestal. He peeled his right shoulder from the wall, pivoted on his left, and the room came partially into view. He saw the footboard of a bed, the bare feet and hard, wiry calves of a man, twitching from time to time. He saw a large basin sitting on a stool and a woman's legs in stockings and low heels, crossed, as if she was sitting in a chair next to the bed. Then her legs uncrossed, and Doris's profile and arms came into view. She bent toward the basin and dipped in a washcloth, swirling it a few times before lifting it to wring out the excess.

  Max knew exactly what she was doing. He had done it himself, when he and David were lucky enough to find a host early in the hunt. Holding vigil, waiting out the seizures of the second and third nights of the full moon. Watching over the host, caught in the beast's struggle to cheat time, to take more for itself than First Night. Max reached up and pressed the door open.

  Doris's eyes came up. Her face went white. "Oh, God. Oh, God, oh, God." She dropped the cloth and stood, her back to the man on the bed, her arms spread as if to keep Max away from him. She looked terrified.

  His heart hammered in his ears and he backed away from the threshold, turning to leave the house. But his legs went rubbery and he bumped against the other side of the hallway. He braced against the door frame there, trying to steady himself with a hand against the door. He'd forgotten it wasn't latched. It eased open.

  Across from him moonlight was flooding through the room's window, painting everything in silvers, grays and whites; from the Ham radio, its speaker silent, its dials dark and gaping against the metal facing; to the shelving on the wall filled with bones, crowded with bones. Massive, blanched leg bones. Racks of giant rib bones. Large, teethed jawbones.

  Jawbones .

  Blackness speckled the edges of his sight. The Ham ... all those bones ... they were above his head before he realized his legs had given 'way. Behind him, he heard Doris sob out, "Max ..."

  He managed to swivel around, saw her standing in the other doorway. He groped his way up and stumbled through the hall, into the kitchen and out the door.

  "Max!"

  He made it down the steps before he fell again. Doris followed him, plunging to her knees beside him and grabbing his arm.

  "Max, please! Please!"

  He rammed the heel of his hand square against her chest, knocking her back, and gained his feet again. She rolled forward, clutching his pant leg in one hand, his ankle with the other.

  She was wailing, she was sobbing, she was begging, "Please! Max! Please!"

  He reached down, clamped her arms hard and jerked her up. She was limp in his grip, her head lolling toward his chest, but he snapped her backward.

  "He's the one, isn't he?"

  Doris' face was streaked and smeared, ghostly in the moonlight. "Max, listen, please listen."

  He slapped her. " Isn't he!"

  Her head lolled again for a second, then she nodded. He reared back, ready to slap her again, harder this time, he wanted to hit her harder! He sunk his fingers into his scalp to stop himself and pushed his face skyward. Then he grabbed her by both arms once more and gave her another fierce shake.

  "Who is he, Doris? Your lover? Hm? Your little loverboy? God damn it , who is he!"

  She wheezed as if she couldn't find air. She lifted her face to him, her head bobbing unsteadily. "My son. He's my son."

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Three Blocks East of Doris' House on Mission Avenue

  San Buenaventura, California

  Spring/Early Summer, 1950

  Second Night. Full Moon.

  "He's an Asian," Max said, looking at him in the bed.

  A young man, not much older than Mezz. Late twenties, tops. He was unconscious, his lips cracked and bulging outward, his cheeks swollen as if his mouth was crowded with marbles. But Max knew what lay inside.

  Doris was back in the chair. She wiped the washcloth across her own forehead and looked at Max. "You don't recognize him."

  Max turned his eyes to the kid again. Better than looking at her right now. "I never saw him, Doris. I only saw the thing he was, ripping into the Lesser Beast."

  She didn't say anything else for a minute, then: "Th
at's not what I meant."

  He could feel her eyes on him, but he kept staring at the young man in the bed, naked except for a sheet draped over his groin and thighs. The kid was beginning to sweat. Finally, she said, "He's Nisei."

  Nisei. Japanese American. And Doris's son.

  Max asked, "Is he ... is he Arthur's?"

  From the corner of his eye, he could see Doris go motionless. Then she swirled the washcloth in the water again and wrung it out. She leaned in closer, said, "Excuse me," and reached toward the kid's forehead.

  Max backed off a step. Without looking up, Doris replied, "Do the math, Max. If he were Arthur's, he wouldn't even be nine. He's my adopted son."

  She looked up at him for a moment, but she seemed to have as much trouble keeping eye contact as he did. She gave her attention back to gently bathing the young man's face. "You really don't recognize him, do you?"

  Max studied him and memory began to stir. He looked vaguely familiar; the squarish forehead, the sweep of the high hairline and abundant blue-black hair. He tried to imagine what the kid might look like without the distortion at his mouth and cheek line, how consciousness would affect his appearance. The young man made a gurgling sound deep in his throat and rolled his head, exposing a swath of silver that cupped the base of his hairline.

  Tulenar. That's what Doris meant. He'd been one of the Tulenar internees.

  With his eyes still fixed on him, Max said, "I could use a drink."

  She freshened the washcloth in the basin again, and then pressed it to the kid's chest. "There's no booze in the house. Andrew doesn't drink."

  Andrew . He looked at Doris. She straightened in the chair, resting her hand on the young man's shoulder, and looked back at Max. Her face was blotchy from their struggle, her hair torn. But her eyes had their spark back, their defiance, in spite of the reddened lids.