The Howling Trilogy

by Gary Brandner

  “I’d give you a ride,” Oriole said, “but Etienne took the pickup over to Palmdale for supplies.”

  Karyn walked to the back window and peered out into the gathering darkness. “I’ll make it all right, but I’d better get moving.”

  “There’s a shortcut that will save you ten minutes. It comes out on the road not far from your place, if you don’t mind walking through the woods.”

  “No, why should I? Where is this shortcut?”

  “It’s a nice wide path, easy to follow, starts right behind Marcia Lura’s place. You know where that is?”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “I can walk over there with you.”

  “Thanks, Oriole, I’ll find it.”

  Karyn left the store and walked up the street to Marcia Lura’s shop. As usual, the curtain was drawn over the front window, and there was no sign of life inside. A narrow passageway led back between the shop and the boarded-up building next door. Marcia’s living quarters were dark too. What did the woman do in there, Karyn wondered. Probably sat with the lights out burning incense and chanting spells. Now where had that thought come from? Enough.

  The path through the woods was, as Oriole had said, wide and easy to follow. However, the overhead branches blocked out much of the sky. The night seemed to follow just a few yards behind Karyn.

  Someone called her name. Karyn stopped abruptly. A whisper more than a call, but distinct over the other rustlings of the forest. Karyn peered through the heavy brush that grew along the side of the path. At first she saw nothing, then there was a movement. A person. Man or woman, Karyn could not tell, but somebody was there, just a few yards away.

  “Who’s there? Who is it?”

  No response.

  Could it be Roy playing some kind of trick on her? No, he would never do that. Oriole Jolivet come to tell her she had forgotten something? But why would Oriole slip through the brush instead of following on the path? Why would anyone?

  For an instant panic seized her, and Karyn’s impulse was to run blindly for home. She fought it down. The nonsense talked by Inez Polk the other night must have unsettled her more than she realized. If she started running from shadows now, she would really be in trouble.

  It was still not quite dark. Karyn parted the brush and took one cautious step off the trail. Then another. She would go just far enough to see what had attracted her eye. It would be some oddly shaped clump of brush, or a fallen branch that would look, when quickly seen, like somebody out there. The illusion, coupled with the call of an unfamiliar bird, would make it seem someone had called out to her.

  Beneath the tang of evergreen there was another smell here. Something unpleasant and vaguely familiar. Something on the ground, partly hidden by the undergrowth, caught her eye. Something red with a bit of metal attached. Karyn reached down and grasped the red thing. Her hand came away holding the red leather collar, still buckled. Still on the ground was the head of the dog.

  Karyn stiffened in shock. Her breath seemed suspended. A little way beyond where she stood, at the spot where she had thought she’d seen someone, there was no one now. Still, something was here. Something watching her. Something Evil.

  Karyn’s breath returned in a great ragged gasp. She staggered back onto the path and began to run. She ran blindly, her feet pounding the carpet of needles that covered the trail. Branches seemed to whip out and clutch at her. Behind her, moving silently through the trees, something followed.

  When she reached the house Karyn could not make her fingers work to get the door open. She balled her hands into fists and pounded frantically on the panel. When the door opened suddenly she half fell into the room.

  Roy moved quickly to catch her. “Karyn! My God, what’s the matter?”

  Words would not come right away. “L–let me get my breath.” Karyn allowed herself to be led to a chair. She sat down and fought for composure, knowing that in her breathless, disheveled state she must look like a mad woman.

  Roy held her hand, rubbing it absently as he looked into her eyes. “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head, then pulled in a deep, slow breath. “Roy, I found Lady. I mean I found all that was left of her.”

  “You found her?” Roy repeated, his eyes searching her face.

  Karyn raised her free hand, the one clutching the red leather collar with the buckle still fastened. “Out in the woods, alongside the path between here and Drago. I saw something in the brush and went over to look. Roy, it was her head. Just her head.” Karyn broke off as she heard her voice begin to rise, and tried to will herself to be calm.

  Roy took the collar from her and held it gingerly. “Poor Karyn, that must have been awful for you.”

  Karyn chewed her lip, wanting to tell him the rest, but wanting to sound in control.

  “It looks like Anton Gadak was right,” Roy said. “Some damned coyote got her. It’s a rotten shame.”

  Karyn shook her head from side to side. “No.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was something else. I… I think it followed me.”

  “Followed you home?”

  She nodded.

  Roy spun away from her and strode to the door. He pulled it open and stepped outside. After a minute he came back in. “There’s no sign of anything out there. What was it you thought you saw?”

  “I’m not sure. Somebody… an animal… something.” She saw his face change. The look of deep concern faded into one of doubt.

  “Why don’t you go in and lie down, Karyn? I’ll make you a hot toddy.”

  She leaped to her feet and faced him. “I don’t want to lie down. And I don’t want a goddamn hot toddy. Something is out there, Roy. It followed me home through the woods.”

  “We’ll go out and have a look in the morning,” he said in a voice meant to be soothing. “Things never seem so frightening in the daylight.”

  “Damn you, Roy, don’t patronize me.” Unable to stop herself, Karyn flailed at Roy’s chest with her fists. “I’m not a child! I’m not hysterical.” Even as the words came out Karyn realized how childish and hysterical they sounded. Her body shook uncontrollably and she began to cry.

  Roy wrapped his arms around her, and it felt good to be held.

  “I’ll put you to bed,” he said. “Then I’m going for a doctor.”

  Karyn tried to speak, but great wracking sobs made it impossible. Roy led her into the bedroom and helped remove her clothes. He laid her gently in the big bed and tucked the blankets in around her.

  “Will you be all right?” he said. “I’ll lock the door.”

  “Roy, I’m not sick.”

  “Hush. You stay here and rest.”

  Before Karyn could protest, he hurried out of the house, started the car, and drove off toward Drago.

  * * *

  Oriole Jolivet was sitting behind the counter working a jigsaw puzzle when Roy entered the store. Etienne was washing down the meat case.

  “Well, Roy,” Oriole began, “we haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays. Karyn was just––”

  Roy cut her off. “I need a doctor, Oriole. Is there one in town?”

  The stout woman’s face sobered. “What’s the matter? Did something happen to Karyn?”

  “She found the… the remains of our little dog in the woods. The shock hit her kind of hard.”

  “I bet it did, the poor kid. I was saying she just left here not an hour ago. Bill Volkmann’s probably home now. He’s the only doctor we got, but he’s a good one.”

  “Can you tell me where to find him?”

  “I can do better than that.” Oriole came around to the front of the counter, laying aside her apron. “I’ll ride along and show you.” She looked over at her husband, who was watching them silently. “I’ll be back directly.”

  Etienne Jolivet nodded gravely. Roy and Oriole hurried out to the car.

  The house Oriole directed him to was on one of the short side streets between the Jolivets’ store and the road that led
to Roy and Karyn’s house. It was an old two-story frame building painted an uninspired brown. The lawn was well kept and the shrubbery trimmed. There were no flowers.

  “Bill Volkmann has lived here alone ever since his wife died in ’71,” Oriole said. “A couple times a week he’ll go over to Pinyon to help out in the hospital there, but mostly he’s retired now.”

  They climbed the steps to the front porch and Oriole twisted the key of an old-fashioned doorbell set into the heavy oak door.

  The man who opened it was tall and lean, with a narrow, aristocratic face and steel-gray hair combed back from a high forehead. He wore a suit and vest that was of good quality though at least twenty years behind current styles.

  “Bill, this is Roy Beatty,” Oriole said. “The one that moved into the old Fenno place. His wife is down sick and he wanted a doctor.”

  “How do you do,” said Dr. Volkmann in a deep, resonant voice. “I’m sorry to hear Mrs. Beatty is ill. What seems to be the trouble?”

  “I think it’s her nerves mostly,” Roy said. “Karyn hasn’t been really well for a couple of months, and this evening she had a scare while she was walking in the woods. When she got home she was shaking and not making a lot of sense, so I put her to bed and came looking for a doctor.”

  “Sounds like you did the right thing, but I’ll be glad to come out and see her if you like.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  The doctor picked up his bag, an old-style black satchel, from a hall table and went out with Roy and Oriole to the car. They had little to say during the short drive to the house.

  * * *

  Karyn was sitting in the living room when they arrived. She was wearing a robe and had the quilt from the bed wrapped around her. She nodded a hello to Oriole.

  “Karyn, this is Dr. Volkmann,” Roy said.

  She smiled at him briefly. “I hope you didn’t leave anything important to come out here, Doctor. I’m really not sick.”

  “Well, you don’t look sick,” Volkmann said. “And you’re taking me away from nothing but a lonely house and a dull book.”

  The doctor’s deep voice and his dark, sensitive eyes were reassuring. Karyn relaxed a little.

  “As long as I’m here, I might as well have a look at you,” he said.

  “It couldn’t hurt, I guess,” Karyn said. She led the way into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed while Dr. Volkmann took her temperature and blood pressure, counted her pulse, and talked quietly about nothing in particular. Roy remained in the living room with Oriole.

  Volkmann smiled at her. “Well, young lady, there doesn’t seem to be anything seriously wrong.”

  “I didn’t think there would be,” she said, “but it’s always reassuring to hear it from a doctor. The whole thing was a case of nerves brought on by something that happened today.”

  “Your husband told me what happened.” Volkmann fished in his bag and brought out two small pill bottles.

  “One of these is a mild sedative and the other a tranquilizer. I want you to take one of the little white pills after meals and one of the pink capsules before going to bed at night. Will you do that?”

  Karyn repeated the instructions.

  “Good.” Volkmann went into the bathroom and came back with a glass of water. He shook one of the pink capsules from the bottle into her hand. “Take this now, and you should get a good night’s sleep.”

  Karyn swallowed the capsule with water.

  “If you run out of the medication, come and see me,” Volkmann said. “However, I think you’ll be feeling much better by that time. Much better, more relaxed, no problems.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Karyn said. She sighed deeply, then returned his smile.

  “My house is the brown one on the first road this side of the Jolivets’ store. Drop in any time.”

  “I may do that,” Karyn said.

  “Goodnight, Mrs. Beatty.” Dr. Volkmann snapped off the light and went back into the living room. He left the door slightly ajar.

  Roy broke off his conversation and turned to the doctor. “How is she?”

  “A slight nervous condition,” Volkmann said, “aggravated by her experience in the forest today. I left her some mild medication. The best thing now is rest and quiet and living a normal life.”

  “Would it help if I took her away from Drago?” Roy asked.

  Volkmann pursed his lips. “I don’t think so. It would only make your wife feel she’s being treated like an invalid. This is probably as good a place for her as any.”

  “Then there’s nothing… seriously wrong with Karyn?”

  “Not that I could determine from a very superficial examination, if there are problems, bring her in to see me. I don’t think there will be.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. It was good of you to come out.”

  “Not at all. I enjoy meeting any new people in the community. We get so few.”

  “So I understand.”

  Volkmann shook his head sadly. “Yes, like so many small towns, I fear Drago is dying.”

  Oriole spoke up. “Bill Volkmann, if you start talking all gloomy like that you’ll talk Roy and Karyn right out of Drago.”

  The doctor gave a soft laugh. “As long as we have people with your spirit, Oriole, the town will be all right.”

  “How much do I owe you, Doctor?” Roy said.

  “Let me see… twenty-five dollars will cover it, but there’s no hurry.”

  Roy went to the desk and pulled out a checkbook. “I come from a family of compulsive bill payers, so I’d just as soon keep us even from the start.” Volkmann smiled. “It would be foolish of me to argue with that.”

  After Roy had driven the doctor and Oriole back to town he hurried home to find Karyn sleeping peacefully. Her breathing was deep and regular, her color good. Roy leaned down and kissed her cheek softly, relieved.

  A few minutes later he was very glad that she was asleep. Because in sleep she could not hear what he heard off somewhere in the night. The howling.

  11

  The pills that Dr. Volkmann left did wonders for Karyn’s nerves over the next two days. The grisly discovery in the woods seemed little more than a bad dream now.

  Roy stayed close to her and was very attentive. Karyn kept telling him she was really all right, but she could see in his eyes that he was not convinced.

  On the second day Roy drove over to Pinyon and came back with a shotgun.

  “What’s that for?” Karyn asked.

  “It’s a confidence builder,” Roy said. “So you’ll know you have a weapon in the house when I’m not here.”

  “But I’ve never fired a gun in my life.”

  “This one’s very simple to operate. I can show you how in a few minutes.”

  They went out to a clearing in the woods and Roy set up a cardboard box for a target. He paced off twenty feet.

  “No point in worrying about hitting anything farther away than this,” he said.

  The gun was a lightweight, single-barrel, 12-gauge model. Roy showed Karyn how to hold it and load it and finally how to pull back the hammer and fire. The first time it jolted her shoulder and the shot spattered up into the trees. Roy had her change her stance, and after that it was not so bad.

  It took several more shots before she learned not to flinch when the gun went off, and even then she was still hitting the dirt a foot or so to the right of the box.

  “You’re jerking the barrel over when you pull the trigger,” Roy said. “Squeeze it gently.”

  To Karyn the whole business seemed foolish, but if Roy had gone to all the trouble of getting the gun for her the least she could do was go along with him. She followed his directions and soon was hitting the target.

  The next day Roy drove into Drago for the mail and came back muttering to himself.

  “Something the matter?” Karyn asked.

  “They’ve got trouble at the office. Somebody turned up a bunch of errors in a set of weapons system books we did, and th
ere’s a man from the Department of Defense coming in this afternoon for explanations.”

  “Will you have to be there?”

  “I’m afraid so. It will probably be a late session tonight, and I may have to go back in tomorrow.”

  “It would be silly for you to drive all the way back here,” Karyn said. “Why don’t you stay overnight in Los Angeles and come home tomorrow when you’ve finished?”

  “You’re sure you’ll be all right?”

  “I’m sure. Anyway, I have your blunderbuss to deal with anything that goes bump in the night.”

  After several more assurances from Karyn, Roy gathered his things quickly and drove off for the city.

  With Roy gone, Karyn suddenly felt the emptiness and the isolation of the house. Although she was already ahead of schedule, she went to the bathroom and took another of Dr. Volkmann’s tranquilizers.

  About noon there was a knock on the door. Karyn opened it and found a young couple standing outside. They were dressed in hiking clothes. The boy carried a backpack and had one arm around the girl, supporting her.

  “I wonder if we could use your phone?” the boy said. “My friend’s had a fall and hurt her ankle.”

  “We left our van parked down in the village,” the girl said.

  “I’m sorry,” Karyn said. “I don’t have a phone. My car isn’t here either, so I can’t offer you a ride in. How bad is the ankle?”