The Howling h-1

by Gary Brandner

  "It's a strange time to be out hunting."

  Roy lowered the flashlight beam from Marcia's face down over the lithe body. Its lines were clearly visible beneath the thin material of the gown. Suddenly uncomfortable, he snapped off the light.

  "I was following a wounded animal. My wife shot at a wolf, she thinks, and it came this way."

  "I saw no wolf," said Marcia, "or anything else."

  "What are you doing out here, anyway?"

  "I often walk in the forest at night. It's so very private."

  "I suppose it would be."

  "Have you ever tried it?"

  "Not alone."

  Roy found himself standing quite close to the tall supple woman. He was not sure whether he had walked across the clearing or she had come to him. It didn't matter. The scent of sandalwood clung to her. Sandalwood and something else… something wild.

  "Would you like to walk with me?" she said.

  The pale-green eyes caught the reflected moonlight and seemed to draw Roy down into them.

  "Or would you rather do something else with me?"

  With a swift, graceful movement Marcia unfastened the gown at her breast and let it slide down her body to make a dark pool at her feet. Beneath it she was naked. She stepped free of the fallen garment and moved back so he could see her.

  Her body was lean and smooth, her breasts high. Her stomach was flat. Below the navel a wedge of silky black hair pointed to the joining of her legs.

  "Do you like me?" she asked.

  Roy could only answer honestly. "Yes." He realized he was still holding the flashlight and the gun. He let them drop.

  "Come to me," Marcia said. She stood with her legs apart and held out her bare white arms to him.

  Roy peeled off his clothes and tossed them aside. He felt the chill night air on his skin, and stepped forward quickly to take Marcia in his arms. The touch of her bare flesh was like a caress all up and down his body. She pressed herself against him. They kissed. Her mouth had the taste of wild berries. Desire for the woman overpowered his every civilized thought.

  With Marcia Lura, Roy discovered a savage, abandoned kind of sex, a kind he had never known. His body writhed and twisted in concert with hers. No inch of flesh, no orifice of the body went unexplored. Her long strong fingers were on him, in him. Her mouth swallowed him, her tongue darted and probed. He tasted her, he inhaled her, he groped for the essence of her.

  The moon came and went as clouds pushed across the night sky. Time stopped. The climax, when it came, was sweet and wild and more complete than Roy had thought possible. They lay together afterward, their bodies cleaved into one. It was Marcia who made the first move. Gently she disengaged herself and sat up. She looked down at him, the curtain of black hair shading her face. The green eyes shone with a light of their own.

  "God, you're beautiful," he said.

  She reached down and placed her fingertips on his lips. He touched his tongue to her fingers and tasted the mingled juices of their bodies.

  Marcia rose and moved silently to where her gown lay on the forest floor. She raised it over her head and let it slide down over her body. With her eyes on Roy, she fastened the garment over her breast.

  "When will I see you?" he said.

  "When you want me."

  Before he could speak again Marcia stepped lightly out of the clearing and vanished among the dark trees. Roy pulled himself upright and found he was sore and exhausted and utterly drained. He moved awkwardly about, retrieving his scattered clothing.

  When he was fully dressed again he let himself think about Karyn. She would be wondering why he was so long. Guilt gnawed like a parasite in his stomach.

  Enough, he told himself. Feeling guilty would do no one any good. He had never claimed to be a saint. Marcia Lura had been there when he badly needed someone, and he had taken her. Or had she been the taker? It did not matter. The thing had happened, and he knew it would happen again. He picked up the gun and the flashlight and walked back along the path to the house.

  Karyn was waiting for him at the door.

  "I was getting worried." She stepped back and looked him over more carefully. "What happened to you?"

  Roy looked down at his clothes, rumpled and speckled with dirt and pine needles.

  "I thought I saw something and stumbled going after it. Turned out to be just a shadow."

  "Oh?" One small syllable containing a world of female doubt.

  "I didn't find a thing. As I said, whatever it was you shot at is long gone by now."

  "Did you hurt yourself when you fell?"

  "No, I'm just tired. Why don't we go to bed?"

  "Do you want something to eat?"

  "No, just a shower and bed."

  Roy stepped around her and went into the bathroom. He undressed and got into the shower, where he lathered his body over and over to wash away the smell of the other woman. As he massaged his soapy skin the memory of Marcia's hands on him began to arouse him again. He turned the water on full cold and stood under it until his erection went down. He dried himself off, fell into bed, and was asleep in seconds. When Karyn got in beside him he did not stir. He was deep in a dream of the dark woods and the savage love of a green-eyed woman.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Karyn stood gazing down at Roy as he slept. He had been so exhausted when he came in last night that she decided not to wake him. His sleep was restless. He wore a troubled frown, and his body twitched in rhythm to some vivid dream.

  Karen only left him when Inez Polk arrived. Her arms were laden with books and folders that contained old newspaper clippings. Karyn met her at the door and helped carry the books inside and set them on the table. She turned then and took Inez' hands in her own.

  "I'm glad you're here," she said. "So many things have happened."

  Inez' long homely face broke into a smile. "I'm glad I'm here too. Now, let's sit down and you can tell me what's been going on."

  Karyn poured out what remained of the coffee, and they sat down at the table. Inez listened attentively as Karyn related the events of the past few days. She told of finding Lady's remains in the woods, and about the young backpackers who had spent the day with her, then walked away to an unknown fate. She described Anton Gadak's evasiveness when she asked about the van. Finally she told of the huge wolf that had sat outside the house last night, how she had fired at it and wounded it, and how Roy had gone looking for it afterward but found no trace.

  "What's your feeling now?" Inez asked when Karyn had finished her story. "Are you ready to talk about a werewolf?"

  Karyn took a moment before she replied. "I'm ready to accept the possibility, yes. Every logical bone in my body rejects the idea, but I can't forget the look of that… that thing in front of my house last night. It was much too big and too, well, malevolent to be a natural wolf. Altogether too many unexplained things have been happening. If you tell me there is a werewolf, I'll listen."

  Inez arranged the books and papers neatly in front of her and adjusted her glasses. "The first thing we must be sure of is that we understand what we're dealing with. How much do you know about werewolves, Karyn?"

  "Not an awful lot. They're something like vampires, aren't they?"

  "Not at all," Inez said briskly. "The vampire is a dead creature that sustains a form of life by subsisting on human blood. A vampire may continue in this undead state for hundreds of years. The werewolf, on the other hand, is as much alive as you or me. Its lifespan is no greater than normal, and when once they die, they are dead forever. There are, of course, certain similarities. When he assumes the wolf form, the werewolf, like the vampire, has a strength far beyond normal, and ordinary weapons cannot destroy him."

  "Is there no defense against them?" Karyn asked. "Garlic at the windows? A cross?"

  "No, those are weapons against the vampire. Only two things can destroy the werewolf — one is fire, the other silver."

  "Oh, yes, the silver bullet."

  Inez permitted he
rself a thin smile. "I guess that's the one everybody knows."

  "One thing here doesn't fit with what I've heard of werewolves. During the past weeks I've either heard or seen something almost every night. Aren't they supposed to come out only during the full moon?"

  "Oh, no, they can change any night once the sun has gone down. But let me start at the beginning."

  Speaking with quiet intensity, Inez related the history and the nature of werewolves. Frequently she referred to the stack of books she had brought. Among them were The Book of Were-Wolves by Sabine Baring-Gould, Lycanthropy in London by Dudley Costello, The Cult of the Werewolf in Europe by Lewis Spence, and The Werewolf by Montague Summers. There were books in French — Le Loup-Garou de Provence; German — Volkssagen aus Pommern und Rugen; and Latin — Malleus Maleficarum. And other books in languages Karyn did not recognize.

  Inez showed Karyn passages dealing with cases of werewolfism over the years, some documented, some legendary. There was the notorious Peter Stubbe, tried and executed in 1590 for a series of bloody killings near Cologne while in the form of a wolf. There was the doomed crew of the Spanish vessel Louisa that met a ghastly fate on the Aegean island of Skiathos, said to be infested with werewolves. There was the lost Bulgarian village of Dradja where the crudest torture by an avenging mob could not force the villagers to give up the killer beast that dwelt among them.

  Most of the stories dated from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but there were reports of werewolves as early as the writings of Herodotus in 450 B.C., and as recently as the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 1959.

  "The local newspaper clippings you can go over yourself," Inez said. "The earliest I could find was in 1919. Altogether, there have been sixteen reported deaths or disappearances in this valley with no logical explanation. Your two young friends with the van would make eighteen."

  "Still," Karyn said, "that's more than fifty years, and this is a wilderness area where a lot of things can happen to people."

  "Those are only the reported cases. I know of at least two that never made the papers."

  "Oh?"

  "Has anyone told you what happened to the people who lived in this house before you?"

  "The Fennos? No."

  "It was just over four years ago. The old people hadn't been seen in town for a week or so, and there were inquiries. Your friend Anton Gadak came out to investigate. He found the two of them dead. Supposedly, natural causes."

  "That's not so strange. The Fennos were quite old, weren't they?"

  "There's more. About a week later one of my pupils, a little boy whom I've never known to lie, told me that he and a friend had sneaked into the house to look around. They found it all torn up, with dried blood everywhere, and bits of flesh and bone scattered about. The boys hadn't said anything at first for fear of getting into trouble."

  "Did you report it?"

  "I told the boy to tell his parents. He did, and they reported it to the county sheriff. The sheriff sent a couple of men out to look the house over, but they found nothing unusual. They put it down to the child's active imagination."

  "But you don't think so," Karyn put in.

  "No. I think somebody came in here after the boys saw it and cleaned up."

  The women sat without speaking for several minutes. Finally Karyn said, "All right, what do we do now? Try to convince someone in authority that there's a werewolf loose in Drago?"

  Inez smiled wryly. "What do you think our chances would be?"

  "Pretty slim," Karyn admitted. "But there must be something we can do."

  "Wait a minute, maybe there is." Inez was suddenly sitting on the edge of her chair. "You wounded the wolf last night?"

  "That's right. I hit him — it — in the face with the shotgun. It tore off an ear, I think."

  "Good. You see, when a werewolf is wounded, it can change back to human form, but it will have an identical injury. Their wounds heal unnaturally fast, but if you can find them soon enough it's a giveaway."

  When Karyn looked doubtful, Inez referred again to her books. She quoted the story of a traveler through Wales who was attacked by a wolf, but managed to hack off one of the beast's paws and escape. The next morning he was horrified to see his landlady at the inn with fresh bandages covering the stump of her right hand. And the notorious Parenette Gandillon, after villagers with clubs had driven off a wolf, was found moaning in her bed covered with bruises.

  "Assuming these old reports are accurate," Inez concluded, "what we must do is look for someone in Drago with a missing ear."

  "And suppose we find him," Karyn said. "What then?"

  Inez started to answer, but hesitated at the sound of someone moving around in the bedroom.

  "It's Roy," Karyn said. "Do you think we should tell him?"

  Inez shrugged noncommittally as Roy came into the room pulling a sweater on over his head. "Hullo, Inez," he said. Then, to Karyn, "Is there any coffee?"

  "I can make a new pot."

  "Never mind. Fresh air is what I really need."

  "Roy, can we talk to you about something?"

  "Will it keep? I'm still groggy from last night. If I jog down the road and back it might wake me up."

  Karyn hesitated a moment. "Go ahead. It's not important."

  "I'll see you later." He went out the door, and they heard him trot off across the clearing and down the road.

  "I just couldn't tell him," Karyn said. "Not yet."

  "All right," said Inez.

  Karyn clapped her hands together and stood up. "I guess it's you and me, pal. Let's head for town and find the guy with only one ear."

  Chapter Sixteen

  The two women left the house and walked across the grass to Inez' little Plymouth Valiant. They got in and Inez fastened her seat belt.

  "You'll have to buckle up too," she told Karyn. "This is a '74, the model that doesn't start unless everybody is properly strapped in."

  "I feel silly," Karyn said as they drove to Drago. "This whole idea is beginning to seem silly."

  "It can't hurt to look. We might get lucky. We could ask around too, if there's somebody you know well enough to talk to."

  "The only one I can think of is Oriole Jolivet. She and her husband run the general store."

  "Can we trust her?"

  "I wouldn't want to come right out and tell her we're looking for a werewolf," Karyn said. "But then I wouldn't want to admit that to anybody."

  The store was empty when Karyn and Inez walked in. After a minute Karyn walked to the back and called Oriole's name.

  "Be with you in a minute," came Oriole's answer from the back room.

  Inez strolled around the cluttered store looking at the merchandise while they waited. In a little while Oriole Jolivet came out and joined them. She wore a cotton dress with a big flower print that made her look even wider than she was. Her hair was pinned back, and Karyn was secretly relieved to see no sign of a head wound.

  "Hey, how's Roy doing?" Oriole asked after the introductions had been completed. "I'll tell you, Karyn, if I was twenty years younger I'd give you a little competition for that handsome sonofagun." She laughed heartily to show she was only kidding.

  "That's really why I'm here, Oriole," Karyn said, improvising quickly. "Roy cut his hand yesterday chopping firewood, and I need some bandages if you carry them." She was surprised how easily the lie came to her lips.

  Oriole's smile switched instantly to a concerned frown. "Gee, I'm sorry to hear that. I hope it's not too serious."

  "I don't think so," Karyn said, a little ashamed now of her deceit. "It's a clean cut. No infection. I did want to get some bandages to wrap it, though."

  "Sure, we got bandages," Oriole said, moving to the far side of the store. She stooped to one of the lower shelves. "What-all do you need — cotton, gauze, adhesive?"

  "You'd better give me the works."

  Oriole removed the selected items from the shelf and put them in a paper bag. "A person has to be darned careful using an
ax."

  "I guess it's lucky you have this stuff." Karyn kept her tone as casual as she could. "I don't suppose there's anyplace else in town I could get it."

  "Nope. Not in Drago."

  "You must sell quite a few medical supplies."

  "Not so much. People around here are pretty healthy."

  Karyn did not know how to go any further without blurting out an obvious question. Oriole saved her the trouble by volunteering the information. "The last time I sold any bandages was last spring when the Eccles boy stuck his arm through a window without opening it first." She tapped her forehead. "The boy's fifteen years old now, but up here he's still about three."

  Karyn and Inez laughed uneasily and looked at each other. Their best source for town gossip had come up dry.

  Karyn paid for the purchases and started out of the store. Passing the glassed meat case she suddenly realized she had not seen Oriole's silent husband today.

  "Where's Etienne?" she said, turning back to Oriole.

  "He didn't come in today. Woke up this morning with a headache."

  "A headache?" Karyn repeated, carefully keeping the excitement out of her voice.

  "It's no big deal. He gets 'em two, three times a year. They last a day or two, then go away."

  "I hope he gets better soon."

  "He will."

  "Tell him hello for me."

  "I'll do that. Come again when you can stay awhile. You too, Inez."

  "What do you think?" Karyn said, when they were outside and out of earshot.

  "It's a possibility. At least we have a suspect now. Before we had nothing." Inez grew thoughtful. "I have a feeling the two of us shouldn't try to take this any further without help. Is there no one else in town we could go to?"

  "No… Wait a minute. We forgot the most logical person — the town doctor."

  "The one who treated you?"

  "Yes. Dr. Volkmann. If someone was seriously injured he wouldn't go to the store for treatment."

  "Makes sense. Can we talk to him frankly?"

  "As you said, we've got to talk to somebody sometime."

  "Then let's go and see him. If we get good vibrations we'll tell him the story. If not, well, we'll try something else."