Ravenous

by Ray Garton

  “It’s that bad?”

  He laughed a cold laugh bled dry of humor. “Oh, this is a whopper. Look, I’ve got to go, honey. I don’t know when I’ll be home.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll make a little something for dinner and keep it for you in case you make it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Farrell, tell me the truth. Is this really bad?”

  “Yes. It’s bad. I’ll explain it all when I come home. I ... you, um ... I just ... “

  “What is it?”

  He felt a rush of throat-clenching love for her, felt it swell in his chest until he could not breathe. He wanted to go home right then, to take her in his arms, and tell her again and again how much he loved her. He wanted to stay there and never leave, to protect her, to keep watch over her.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  “I love you, too, sweetie.” He could hear the smile in her voice.

  He put the phone back in his pocket. When Hurley opened the door and stepped out of the office, Fargo was talking about the werewolves’ reaction to silver.

  “Believe me, once you have an encounter with one of these things,” Fargo said as Hurley went back up to the front and took his chair again, “you’ll be happy to see it die a slow, painful death.”

  Hurley felt cramps in his guts as he thought about Fargo’s words. He imagined werewolves jumping out of every shadow in the night, pouncing on their victims, ripping out throats, going for all the soft spots first, biting and tearing with sharp fangs, slicing flesh with their claws. It was the closest he’d ever come to a waking nightmare, and it made him jerk suddenly in his chair.

  “Once a person catches the virus,” Fargo went on, “it takes twenty-four to seventy-two hours for the change to take place. That process can be slowed down by certain drugs, certain diseases, and depending on the person’s system, but it cannot be stopped. That person will change. And kill and eat others. There is no vaccine for the virus yet, although I have a team of scientists working on it in a small facility I have on the east coast.” He paused a moment, then looked back and forth over the crowd of deputies and said, “Any questions?”

  The deputies stared at him with varying looks of disbelief. Finally, one hand went up, a young male deputy with a crew cut.

  Fargo pointed at him and said, “Yes?”

  The deputy said, “If they don’t actually change in front of you, how can we tell if a person is a ... a, uh ... “

  “A werewolf?”

  The deputy nodded.

  “It’s not easy,” Fargo said, “unless you know the person well. There are definite changes in a person with the virus, but they’re subtle. They become more energetic. They talk a little faster, move a little faster, and seem more nervous than usual, almost manic. And they are extremely horny. The virus amps up the libido, because that is how it spreads. Let’s say you have a significant other who has had sex with someone carrying the virus. You would notice the subtle changes—the nervousness, the increased sexual activity—but it is doubtful that others would. If you don’t know the person, then it’s extremely difficult to tell if he or she is a lycanthrope. But it’s not totally impossible. Once you learn for certain that someone is a lycanthrope, you must kill that person in one of the ways I mentioned earlier. That person is no longer him- or herself, no longer human, and must be killed. I should ask now—has anyone noticed these changes in someone you know well?” When there was no response, Fargo smiled and said, “Well, that’s good. All right. Before sundown tonight, we’ll have silver bullets for all of you. There are plenty to go around. I’ve got 9mm and .40 caliber and .45 ACP. For you old-timers who just can’t give up your revolvers, I’ve even got .357 magnums.” He turned to Hurley and said, “Anything you want to add, Sheriff?”

  Hurley stood and went to Fargo’s side. He looked out over all the shocked faces that stared at him with eyes perhaps a little too wide.

  “Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Fargo?” Hurley said. “Now is the time to ask whatever’s on your mind—there won’t be any time for it tonight.” He waited, but no one raised a hand or spoke up. “Anything you want to ask is fine. Don’t worry about sounding stupid—when it comes to this subject, we’re all stupid, okay? We are, after all, talking about werewolves here.”

  A black female deputy sitting near the center of the room in her street clothes slowly lifted her right hand.

  “Deputy Mindy Cross,” Hurley said, and she stood. “What is your question?”

  “Okay, uh, my question is ... are you shittin’ me? Werewolves? While we’re at it, let’s check our cemeteries for zombies. Or, maybe they’s a vampire workin’ down at the blood bank.”

  Nervous laughter rose loud and long from the crowd of deputies. It was a release of tension more than a reaction to something funny, because the laughter was too big for Deputy Cross’s little joke.

  Hurley let them laugh. He smiled and nodded until it finally died down. He turned to Fargo and nodded slightly. Fargo went to a chair behind Hurley and sat down. Hurley clutched the edges of the pulpit and leaned forward slightly, passing his eyes over the group. “If you don’t believe Mr. Fargo, you can believe me. I’ve found victims of these things, I’ve seen what they can do. Some of you have, too. All of you are painfully aware that we’ve lost two deputies in the last few days.” He raised his voice a little as he said, “What you may not know is that both of these fine men were ripped apart and eaten. They were eviscerated. They were opened up and their internal organs were eaten.”

  Hurley paused a moment to let that sink in, watching as some of the deputies became slack-jawed and a little pale.

  “I am not interested in losing any more good men and women to these things,” he said. “That is why we’re having this frank discussion this morning. I’ve finally got enough evidence to share with you, enough details to give you, to provide you with the tools you need to do your job and save this community. And it’s not just this community. You heard what Mr. Fargo said—these things will increase in number and broaden their hunt to other towns, and eventually other states, until they’re everywhere. And you ... are our only hope.”

  He dropped his arms to his sides and stood up straighter, took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “Every eyewitness reports the same thing—a creature like a wolf, but one that stands upright like a man, only bigger than most men. The forensic evidence has been the same on every case—wolf DNA at the crime scenes. I wish this were a joke. But it’s not.”

  He stopped talking for a moment and passed his gaze back and forth over the deputies.

  “I’m seeing some pretty blank faces out there,” Hurley said with a firm, no-nonsense tone. “Wrap your brains around this fast, people, because you’re going to meet some of these things up close tonight, if we’re lucky, so you’d better be ready for it.” He looked over the deputies again, then said, “Okay, I’m seeing some fear in those eyes. That’s more like it. You’ve got plenty to be afraid of, believe me. That fear, combined with your training, will save you tonight, and in the nights to come. I know you’ve all got families and loved ones at home, and I want you to go home to them when it’s time, safe and sound.” He nodded once and said, “Okay. Some of you on duty right now will be working a partial shift tonight so we can cover this town in search of these things. Are there any other questions?”

  More hands went up, and Hurley pointed them out one at a time. Together, he and Fargo answered their questions. By nightfall, he hoped to have pumped the deputies up enough so that the fear he saw in their eyes was backed by a steely eagerness.

  But Hurley knew that, before any of them were ready, night would fall.

  36

  Saturday Blues

  Vanessa Peterman felt lonely. She had not left her apartment since getting back from the hospital early Friday morning. That had been an unpleasant ordeal, going to the hospital and saying she’d been raped. Now she knew why rape victims so often said that being put into the
system after being raped was like being raped again. She had not slept since then, either, aside from occasionally nodding off and then jerking awake a moment later. When she did manage to drift off for awhile, her sleep was filled with vivid images of a large old house, dark and foreboding, but important ... somehow urgently important. She needed very badly to go there, although she did not know why. She did not need to go there at this moment, not right now. But soon.

  Along with her feelings of loneliness, Vanessa felt a hunger that was steadily growing stronger, a hunger for something she could not quite identify. And she felt an odd tension, too—a dark, heavy feeling that something wasn’t right, that something bad was happening somewhere, or was about to happen. It was that strange sinking feeling that made her turn to a bottle of wine for comfort. She sat on her couch with a bottle of red wine and a glass on the end table beside her. There was a little wine left in the bottle, and the glass was only half-full. With her eyes clenched shut and her lips peeled back over grinding teeth, she pressed one hand to her head and dug the nails into the scalp beneath her auburn hair.

  What’s wrong with me? she thought.

  Vanessa just wanted to shut everything off—the loud and clashing thoughts in her head, the twisting and writhing feelings in her gut. She just wanted it all to stop so she could think straight, or maybe take a nap. She had been spending a lot of time on that couch watching television. The channels and the shows were a blur over the hours that had passed. When she wasn’t on the couch, she was in the bathtub or shower, bathing, scrubbing, making the water scalding hot, again and again.

  More than anything during the dead time that had passed, Vanessa wondered about Hugh Crane. He filled her thoughts, even when they were bleary ones. Why hadn’t she heard from him? He always called. Sometimes she got a little tired of his calls because they came so often, but she’d never uttered a word of complaint because she found them so cute and they made her feel so ... cared for. Although she was tired of being alone, she was not sure she’d want to see Hugh right now, but she would love to hear his voice on the phone, talk to him a little. It was eighteen minutes after noon on Saturday—she wondered if he was out working. She had resisted the urge to call him on his cell phone. She had done that only a couple of times in the past—it was just too risky for her to call him. Hugh had told her there was always a chance he’d set his cell phone down somewhere in the house, a call would come in, and Emily would get to it before he could. Also, Hugh was a bad liar and preferred not to have to lie to Emily about who’d just called on his cell phone, because she would know he was lying, and she would want to know why.

  “Fuck it,” Vanessa said, her voice thick, the two words vaguely sliding into each other.

  She got up slowly and moved lethargically away from the couch. She shuffled through the house, looking for the phone. She found it in the kitchen on the round breakfast table. She picked it up and took it back to the living room with her, flopped back into her spot on the end of the couch, and punched in Hugh’s cell phone number. As she waited for the low purrs of the phone ringing at the other end, she took the cigarettes from the table, shook one out, and lit it.

  Someone answered on the third ring. But it wasn’t Hugh. It was a strange male voice.

  “Hello?”

  Vanessa said nothing for a moment. Lines cut into her forehead.

  “Hello?” the man said again. “Uh, this is Hugh Crane’s phone.”

  Vanessa’s frown deepened. “Is ... is Hugh there?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Is Hugh there?” she said again, suddenly sounding more urgent. A bad feeling sank deep into her stomach. “Who’s this?”

  “This is Deputy Mark Russell.”

  “Deputy? What’s ... um ... where’s Hugh?”

  “I’m sorry, but Mr. Crane has, uh ... he’s passed away.”

  Vanessa shot to her feet without even realizing it. She dropped the phone and it thunked to the brown-and-tan-mottled carpet. The cigarette dropped from her lips and tapped onto the coffee table. She stood there with her mouth wide open and stared at nothing, eyes huge, her only movement for a long time the opening and closing of her hands into fists.

  She felt nothing for what seemed a long, silent, fist-clenching time—then it all moved in fast and hard. The fact that Hugh was dead crashed into her like fierce stormy waves crashing against a rocky cliff.

  Vanessa lost all control of herself. It was just too much, one thing too many, and suddenly her thoughts were bright and clear and she was no longer drunk.

  She moved through the apartment like the winds of a hurricane and managed to cause almost as much damage. She broke everything she could get her hands on, everything that would break. The apartment became filled with the sounds of breaking glass and silverware clanging to the kitchen floor. Back in the living room, she clutched the pot of one of her hanging philodendrons with both hands, jerked it hard and broke the hook that had held it, then lifted it high about her head and threw it downward hard onto the coffee table. The terracotta pot exploded, the glass top of the coffee table shattered.

  Knuckles rattled on the frame of the screen door outside the apartment’s front door. Someone pressed the annoying buzzer again and again. Then, more knocking.

  Vanessa stopped.

  Her breathing was accompanied by something she had no memory of ever doing before—each rapid exhalation was a growl. She wondered how long she’d been doing that. She looked around at all the destruction. At all the mess. But she was not thinking clearly, and the mess did not register in her mind as something she’d created.

  “Vanessa? Vanessa!” It was Shirley Kidderman, a widow in her fifties who lived next door to Vanessa there on the second level of Willow Park Apartments. “Vanessa, are you all right in there?”

  Vanessa realized she was not standing as she’d first thought—she squatted on the floor, knees up on each side, hands dangling between them.

  What am I doing down here? she wondered.

  From outside the door: “Vanessa! If you don’t answer, I’m calling the police!”

  Panting and growling ...

  Police? Vanessa thought. No, no, I don’t want the police ... do I? Definitely not. But ... why not? I ... I don’t know. I just don’t want them involved.

  She felt as if she were waking from a deep, muddy sleep. She stood up straight, stretched her arms above her head, then avoided the broken glass on the floor as best she could all the way to the door.

  “Shuh—Shirley?” Vanessa called, her voice hoarse from all her screaming.

  “Are you okay in there, honey?”

  Vanessa unlocked the door, pulled it open, then unlocked the screen door. Shirley pulled it open, and Vanessa stood back so she could come in.

  “Honey, you look like hell,” Shirley said. “Is everything—”

  Then she saw the living room, all the destruction.

  “Oh, my ... God,” Shirley said, her mouth dropping open helplessly for a moment. Slowly, she turned to Vanessa. “I think you should lie down, Nessa.” She closed the door, put an arm across Vanessa’s shoulder, and carefully steered her through the broken glass to the hall, and down the hall to the bedroom. Shirley took her to the bed, and they sat down on the edge. “I want you to get undressed, and put on your nightie, or whatever it is you sleep in—”

  “Naked.”

  “Fine, then take off your clothes and—why are you breathing like that, Nessa?”

  Vanessa stopped breathing as her head jerked around to look at Shirley, frowning, blinking. “Like what? Breathing like what?”

  “Well,” Shirley smiled, “it sounded like you were ... “ She laughed once. “Like you were growling, honey.”

  “Growling.”

  “Yes.”

  “I ... I ... I’m sorry.”

  “You’re not having trouble breathing, are you?” Shirley frowned and cocked her head. “Should I take you to the hospital?”

  “No, I ... I can breathe just fine. He
... he’s dead.”

  “Who’s dead?”

  “Hugh.” Vanessa had told Shirley all about Hugh—she told Shirley most everything.

  “Dead? How? What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I just called his cell phone, and someone ... told me ... that he’s dead.” Vanessa stood and clumsily undressed as Shirley pulled the bedcovers back.

  Shirley stepped back and said, “You just take a nap, now, okay? You’ve been drinking, haven’t you, hon?”

  “Oh, yeah. For quite awhile, now. I think ... my hair is numb.” She turned naked to Shirley and smiled and laughed hoarsely.

  But in spite of that smile, Shirley flinched a little, because suddenly, Vanessa just did not look herself, did not look quite right. Something—Shirley wasn’t sure what, but something—about her face was different. Her hair? No, no. Her ... her eyebrows. Yes. Had they always been that thick? Shirley did not think so. And was Vanessa developing a ... mustache?

  “You going for a new look, Nessa?” Shirley said.

  “Uh ... what?” she said as she got into bed.

  “Oh, nothing.” Once Vanessa was lying on her back in bed, Shirley swept the covers up and over her. “Now, you get some sleep, and I’ll see what I can do with that mess out there.”

  Vanessa’s hair was spread about her face on the pillow when she raised her head and said, “Oh, Shirley, you don’t have to—”

  “Don’t tell me what I don’t have to do. Now, sleep.” Shirley crossed the room and turned off the overhead light. The blinds were closed. The room became dark.

  Shirley frowned as she backed out of the bedroom door, deeply concerned for her friend.

  Vanessa turned onto her right side and watch Shirley leave the bedroom—and she was asleep by the time Shirley pulled the door closed.

  * * * *

  Jason was glad he’d decided to stay home from work that day.

  He’d slept in, way in. He’d finally risen at ... at—his eyes were so bleary when he sat up that he could not read the green numbers on the digital clock on his nightstand. It looked like something after noon. Was it that late? Why had he slept so long?