The Howling h-1

by Gary Brandner

  "Run, Karyn!"

  The voice that shouted at her from somewhere back in the trees was like Roy's, and yet it was not like his. The sharp command freed her to move again. With the wolf between her and the house, Karyn turned to run in the other direction. Even as she broke away she felt the futility of trying to outrun the beast.

  Abruptly the car was in front of her. Roy's Ford, only a few yards away. Karyn lunged the last few steps, jerked the door open, and fell inside. As she pulled the door closed behind her, the heavy body of the wolf thumped against the outside panel.

  Karyn grasped the steering wheel and pulled herself upright. Through the window she saw the wolf up on its hind feet, paws braced against the car, biting at the door handle. Karyn punched the lock button down with her fist, then made sure the other doors were locked too. She slid to the far side of the seat and cowered there. The wolf, with its forepaws against the roof, glared in at her with a deeper hatred than Karyn would have believed possible on the face of a living creature.

  A fogged patch grew and contracted on the window as the wolf breathed against the glass. Karyn could not pull her eyes away from its face. She pressed herself back against the far door.

  Abruptly the wolf's head dropped out of sight. Karyn heard the rhythmic pad of its feet trotting away. Was it leaving? Karyn held her breath, not daring to hope.

  There was silence for a moment, then a soft galloping sound and a jarring thud as the animal hit the side of the car. The Ford rocked with the impact. Karyn pulled herself up in the seat and saw the wolf gather itself and walk back to charge again. It turned ten yards away, crouched and sprang forward like a greyhound after a rabbit. Six feet from the car the wolf leaped into the air and hit the door again with stunning force.

  A spiderweb of cracks appeared on the window next to the driver's seat, and flecks of glass sprinkled the seat. In the fragmented view through the cracked window Karyn saw the wolf pick itself up and move away for another run. She knew there was no way to keep it out, and wondered if this was how Inez Polk had met her death.

  A third time the wolf smashed into the side of the Ford. The damaged window shuddered and big chunks of glass fell away from the plastic core. It could not withstand many more blows.

  Karyn jabbed a hand into her pocket, and her fingers closed around the leather case that held the car keys. She brushed the glass fragments from the seat and moved over behind the wheel, stabbing the key at the ignition lock on the side of the steering post.

  Thump!

  More glass sprayed across the inside of the car, and the plastic window core bulged inward. Karyn saw that her arm was bleeding, but paid no attention.

  She found the ignition lock and twisted the key. The starter ground, the engine coughed and finally came to life. While she deliberately did not look at the wolf, Karyn struggled to remember the motions Roy went through in driving the car. She pressed down on the accelerator pedal and yanked the shift lever from P to R. The car lurched backward across the roadway and rammed into the brush on the far side. She knocked the shift lever back to P and fought to control her shaking hands.

  She groped for the headlight switch, but could not find it. Outside in the moonlight she could see the wolf moving toward her. Forgetting the headlights, she cranked the steering wheel around to head toward town, stamped down on the accelerator, and forced the shift lever through the detents until the car jolted forward. The wolf sprang out of the way and vanished in the shadows as Karyn fought the wheel, fish-tailing the car from one side of the narrow road to the other.

  With only the moonlight to guide her, Karyn could barely make out the road. Tree branches slashed against the windshield as she veered from left to right and back again. She kept her foot heavy on the accelerator and battled to keep from plowing into the trees.

  Without warning she hit the blacktop road that led into Drago. Traveling too fast to make the corner, Karyn stamped on the brake, but too late. With tires screaming, the Ford slid across the road and dived crazily into a drainage ditch on the far side.

  The engine died. Karyn started to reach for the ignition key, but she saw by the steep angle of the car that it would be futile to try to drive out. She clawed open the door. The rest of the window fell out.

  The cold wind whipped her hair into a tangle as she struggled up the side of the ditch into the road. She looked up the lane toward the house, but saw nothing coming after her. Yet.

  She started off at a run toward the village. She did not look back.

  No light showed in the dreary buildings of Drago. The streets were deserted. Karyn crossed the short street where Dr. Volkmann lived. His house was dark, like the others. The Buick was not in the driveway. No sanctuary there.

  On down the street she ran. The only sounds were the wind and the slap of her shoes on the pavement. Panic controlled her. She had no destination, she only knew that somewhere behind her it was coming.

  Then there was a light. A blessed light up ahead in the store building. Safety. When she reached the door Karyn was sobbing with relief. She beat against the panel with the flat of her hand.

  Oriole Jolivet opened up and peered through the doorway, her face a round caricature of surprise. "Karyn, what in the world are you doing here?"

  "Let me in," Karyn gasped. The breath tore at her lungs. Her side hurt like a knife wound from running.

  Oriole put an arm around Karyn and supported her as they walked back to the rear of the store. There was the light Karyn had seen from the street.

  "Don't try to talk now, honey," Oriole said. "Just sit yourself down here until you get your wind back."

  Karyn sank gratefully into the wooden chair and let her head sink forward. Oriole stood by stroking her hair and making little clucking sounds of sympathy.

  After many minutes Karyn's breathing slowed, though the pulse still pounded in her ears. "Thank God you were here, Oriole," she said.

  "Sure, I'm here, honey." Oriole patted her shoulder awkwardly. "What happened to you?"

  "Give me a little time, okay? I'm not quite ready to talk about it."

  "Hey, I understand. How about a nice cup of hot coffee to perk you up?"

  "I'd like that."

  As Oriole went in back, slowly Karyn's nerves began to unknot. Her mind was still not ready to think about what had happened, but her body was beginning to relax.

  Oriole returned with a mug of steaming coffee. "There you go. Don't drink it too fast, it's real hot."

  As Karyn reached for the cup, Oriole saw the cut on her arm.

  "Oh, look at that, you hurt yourself."

  "It was glass. From the car window."

  "You smashed up your car?"

  Karyn nodded.

  "You poor kid, no wonder you're shook up. Let me get something to put on that arm."

  Oriole walked around behind Karyn's chair and rummaged in a cupboard. "There should be iodine in here, and I'll get bandages out of the stock up front."

  The muffled sound of Oriole's last words made Karyn turn around in her chair. To her surprise, Oriole was pulling her sweater off over her head. She wore nothing underneath.

  "What are you doing?" Karyn said.

  Then Oriole pulled the sweater free, and Karyn saw what was happening to the woman's face. Oriole smiled, and the blackened lips pulled back over a double row of sharp yellow teeth.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Karyn sat stunned as Oriole Jolivet, or the thing that had been Oriole, continued to peel off clothing. Oriole's mouth and nose had pushed forward into a muzzle, and her skin was now covered with a coarse reddish hair. Acting by instinct rather than will, Karyn leaped to her feet and threw the cup of steaming coffee into the creature's face. Hearing a howl of pain, she ran out through the store to the front door.

  Once she was outside Karyn stopped. She turned one way, then the other. Where could she go? Was there safety anywhere in this terrible night? With tears dimming her vision, Karyn began to run up the street. The darkened buildings of Dra
go seemed to crowd in on her from both sides.

  Something was coming.

  Karyn stopped and wiped her eyes. Moving silently toward her down the middle of the street, eyes glittering in the moonlight, came a wolf.

  "Oh, God, another one," Karyn cried. She turned back in the direction she had come from and was almost run down as a car slammed to a stop inches away from her.

  Karyn dropped to her knees sobbing. The door of the old Buick opened and Dr. Volkmann jumped out. He ran around to the front of the car.

  "Mrs. Beatty, what is it? What's wrong?"

  She clutched at the doctor's coat and pulled herself erect. "Dr. Volkmann… help me… the wolves…"

  Volkmann put an arm around Karyn and helped her into the car. He got in himself and sat behind the wheel with the engine idling. He watched Karyn carefully as she fought for composure.

  "Oriole," she got out at last. "While I was with her just now she… changed."

  "Are you saying Oriole Jolivet is a werewolf?" Volkmann's voice was calm and reassuring

  "Yes. And she's not the only one."

  Something banged against the car, and for an instant the savage face of a wolf appeared at the window behind Volkmann. Karyn jerked away, but on her own side there was another, and more coming now from the dark buildings. One of them hit her window with its paws. Karyn ducked away and the side of her head cracked into the steering wheel. There was a flash of pain, and everything slipped out of focus.

  Karyn's next sensation was one of floating. She was riding along on a gently flowing river. But there was danger. She had to swim to shore. She tried to move, but something held her fast. Suddenly awake, she thrashed wildly to free her arms and legs.

  "It's all right." The voice of Dr. Volkmann was deep and commanding. "You're home now."

  She was being carried, Karyn now saw, in Volkmann's arms. He was walking toward the little house, where the lights still blazed as she had left them.

  "No!" she cried. "They're here too. The wolves."

  Volkmann stopped and swung her feet down to the ground. He steadied her as she tried to stand. Her head hurt and she staggered against him.

  "You say they're here?" Volkmann said.

  "Yes. One came at me, but I got away in the car. I went into a ditch, then ran into town looking for some place to be safe. I found Oriole, and she…" Karyn could not complete the sentence. "We've got to get away."

  The two of them turned back and started toward the Buick. Before they could get close, a lean black wolf slipped out of the forest and moved between them and the car. The wolf was joined by a second. Then a third.

  "We'll never make it," Volkmann said. He spun Karyn back toward the house and they ran across the clearing to the door. Volkmann pushed it open and they stumbled inside. He slammed the door behind them and Karyn shot the bolt into place.

  They stood for a moment watching the door as though expecting it to burst open.

  "What about the back door and the windows?" Volkmann said.

  "I locked everything before."

  "Where is your husband?"

  There it was, the thing Karyn had refused to think about. Part of her must have known when she found Roy's shoe near the place where Inez had died, but she would not let herself admit it. When he called her out of the house, she had gone, and they were waiting for her. She had lost him.

  She said, "I think Roy is one of them."

  Volkmann frowned and shook his head.

  "I don't know how it could have happened," Karyn said.

  "It must have been the night he did not come home," said Volkmann. "If he was attacked by a werewolf and lived…"

  "But he had no wounds."

  "None that showed, but remember the blood on his shirt."

  Karyn turned away. She was not ready to talk about Roy. She went into the kitchen and ran a glass of cold water. Through the small window over the sink she saw more wolves coming out of the shadows.

  "They're all around us," she said.

  "We'll be safe inside the house."

  "They broke the window of the car. They can get in."

  Volkmann looked over to where the shotgun was propped against the wall.

  Following his eyes, Karyn said, "That can't stop them."

  "Perhaps it will slow them down."

  "Can we make a run for the car?"

  Volkmann peered out the front window, then turned back, his face grim. "Take a look."

  Karyn moved closer to the window. What she saw froze her blood. The grassy clearing in front of the house was alive with wolves. Different shapes and shades, but all of them large and deadly-looking. Occasionally one of them or another would make a menacing move toward the house, but mostly they just shifted restlessly about, watching the house. Waiting.

  Karyn backed away from the window, hugging herself for warmth. She spoke in a toneless voice, barely above a whisper. "Oh, the time we wasted wondering who in Drago was the werewolf. It isn't just one of them, it's the whole town. Inez must have realized that somehow. She was coming to warn me when they got her."

  Volkmann continued to stare at the animals outside.

  "It's the legend of Dradja," Karen said. "The people would not give up their werewolf even under torture because the werewolf was all of them. When the village was destroyed some of them escaped. These things outside are their children."

  "Incredible," Dr. Volkmann muttered.

  "You've lived in Drago for years," Karyn said. "Did you never suspect?"

  The doctor spoke without turning from the window. "I'm afraid I kept apart from the people of the town. Who could imagine a thing like this?"

  Outside, the night sounds changed. Under the sighing of the wind there was a growing rustle of movement. A series of heavy blows thudded against the door, rattling dishes in the kitchen cupboards. A wolf crashed against one of the window screens and rebounded. Another hit a window on the opposite side.

  Karyn and Dr. Volkmann looked at each other.

  She said quietly, "They're coming for us."

  * * *

  The red Camaro hit the crest of the hill to the west of Drago and plunged down the winding road into the dark valley. At the wheel a grim Chris Halloran fought to keep the car on the road without slackening his speed. The gun loaded with silver bullets hung heavy but reassuring in his jacket pocket.

  At last he reached the valley floor and the road straightened for the short drive to the village. As he entered Drago, Chris wondered why there were no lights. He slowed the car passing the dark buildings, looking for signs of life. He saw no one. Then what appeared to be a large dog showed up in the headlights. Chris hit the brake pedal and the car slewed to a stop. The animal never flinched, just stood there looking at him.

  Now he saw it was not a dog. It was too big, and the eyes were not right. A wolf.

  He started to ease the car around the animal, and a movement at the side of the street caught his eye. Another wolf was coming toward him. No, there were two of them. With a growing sense of alarm Chris looked along the street and saw half a dozen more of the shadowy forms. These were no common wolves.

  He gunned the engine and wheeled the Camaro straight at the wolf that stood ahead of him. He tensed for the coming impact, but at the last instant the wolf sprang aside and the car roared past.

  When he reached the turnoff to Karyn's house, Chris saw the rear end of a car jutting up from a drainage ditch across the road. He steered in that direction to let his headlights fall on the ditched car. A Ford, Roy Beatty's Ford.

  Chris pulled the Camaro off on the shoulder and started to get out. He had one foot on the ground when a snarling beast charged him from the ditch. He pushed himself back inside and slammed the door just as the wolf hit the car.

  His first thought was the gun. He drew the pistol from his pocket, then hesitated. He still had to reach Karyn. He could see there was no one in the Ford, so she must be at the house. He had only the twelve bullets, and from what he had seen so far he might ne
ed all of them.

  * * *

  Inside the house Karyn stood with her back to the inner wall next to the fireplace. She held the shotgun leveled at the door, in which two vertical cracks had opened under the constant battering from outside. She knew the gun was no defense, but it was better than waiting passively for… whatever.

  On the other side of the fireplace, Dr. Volkmann stood watching intently as the cracks in the door widened with each blow. He had not spoken for several minutes. Nor had Karyn. There was nothing to be said.

  Then, over the banging at the door and the rush of the wind, Karyn heard a new sound. The high-pitched whine of a straining engine. A car was coming. Coming fast. With a cry she dropped the gun and ran to the window. Bright white headlights washed across the clearing and the wolves.

  "It's Chris!" she cried. "Dr. Volkmann, it's my friend. He'll help us."

  Outside the Camaro plowed into the wolves, scattering them for a moment, and jolted to a stop behind the Buick.

  "Dr. Volkmann, did you hear me? We're going to be all right."

  Karyn turned to where the doctor was standing, but he was no longer there. His clothes lay on the floor. She started for the fallen shotgun, but a lean gray wolf sprang from the side of the room and stood between her and the weapon.

  "Oh my God," Karyn gasped. "You too."

  The wolf came at her.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The pack of ravening wolves around Karyn's house was like a preview of hell. Chris Halloran aimed the Camaro at two of the animals nearest the roadway and drove into them. He felt the sick-soft thump as the wolves went down under the wheels. They should have been crushed. Looking back, Chris saw the two animals lie still for a moment, then get back to their feet in jerky movements. Their eyes blazed with wild hatred.

  Now he knew for certain what they were. His rational twentieth-century mind had rejected the word, but it had been on the edge of his consciousness from the time he had played the tape and heard Karyn ask for silver bullets. Werewolves.

  He pulled up behind an old Buick that blocked his path to the house. Someone appeared for a moment at one of the windows. It might have been Karyn. Chris calculated his chances of reaching the house on foot. Between him and the door were more wolves than he could count. Right now they seemed indecisive, their attention divided between him and the house.