THE HOWLING II

by Gary Brandner

  "If it's going to rain, I wish to Christ it would really rain," he said irritably. "This everlasting drizzle is driving me up the wall."

  "We won't have to be here much longer," Marcia said. "Your Karyn is frightened and worried now. The way we want her."

  "Why do you keep calling her my Karyn?"

  "I'm sorry. It was just an expression. I won't do it any more if it annoys you."

  "Well, it does. Anyway, what's the need for all this?" Roy continued to stare out the window. "Why don't we do what we came to do and get it over with?"

  Marcia slipped out of bed. and came over to stand beside him. She took his broad hand in hers and held it against her smooth, naked hip. "Indulge me in this, my Roy, and I will make it up to you."

  He held himself tensely, not looking at her. She moved his hand across the flat of her stomach and down to the crisp bush of pubic hair. He resisted for a moment more, then surrendered and turned to face her. He whispered her name. His fingers probed between her legs and found the dampness there.

  Marcia grasped his wrist and held it, keeping his hand pressed against her. "When this business is over I will make you very happy. I know I have not been a complete woman to you these past months, but I will make it right in a hundred ways. You will never regret being with me, darling." She drew back and her eyes searched his face. "You are with me, aren't you, my Roy?"

  "You know I am."

  "Good." She kissed him lightly on the mouth, then slipped away and began to put on her clothes. Once again she was businesslike.

  "Are you sure you were seen at the shopping center?"

  "Karyn saw me, all right," he said. "Once when she rode the escalator below where I was standing, and again as I was going out. She followed me to the parking lot, but I lost her there."

  "Good. She will have much to think about, many things to remember when we take the next step."

  "And that is—"

  "We kill the boy."

  Roy drew in his breath and let it out slowly. "Is that the only way?"

  "It is the best way. It is the way that will hurt her the most before we finally finish with her." Marcia fixed him with her eyes. "Do you have some objection?"

  "It's just—killing the boy—"

  Marcia's laugh clattered off the walls in the small room. "Come now, Roy. After the things you have done these past three years? The blood you have spilled? Would one more killing bother you?"

  He could not meet her eye. "Remember, Marcia, I wasn't born to this life the way you were. What I am, you made me. I am not all wolf. I still have human emotions sometimes."

  Marcia stepped close to him and touched his face. "I understand, my darling. The time will come when you will no longer be held back by remorse.

  Until then you will take strength from me. I know that when the time comes to act, you will not fail."

  "When—will it be time?"

  "From now on we will watch the house every night. The first time they leave the boy alone, you will kill him."

  11

  MR. BJORKLUND SHRUGGED and spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "I'm sorry," he said.

  Karyn waited for a moment for him to say something more. When he didn't she looked down at the long wooden counter between them. There, each in its familiar pot, were her three plants. They were barely recognizable. The fern and the spider plant were yellow-brown, shriveled, and ugly, dead, ropy things that had nothing to do with the vibrant living greenery they had been. Only the tough philodendron had not given up. With the tenacity of the dying it clung to the mossy post, but its leaves were pale and sickly, splotched with brown like the hands of old people with liver spots.

  "I'm afraid they're goners," Mr. Bjorklund said. "There was nothing I could do."

  "Thanks, anyway," Karyn said dully.

  "What have you been feeding them?"

  Karyn looked up at him curiously. "I didn't feed them anything, except what you gave me. I kept them in the soil you blended for me, and I was very careful about watering them."

  "Somebody fed them," the nurseryman said. "They've been poisoned."

  Karyn stared at him.

  "I ran a test on the soil in all three pots. Each one is saturated with enough herbicide to kill a Douglas fir."

  "That isn't possible."

  Bjorklund shrugged again. "All I can tell you is what the tests showed."

  "Is there some way the herbicide could have got into the soil accidentally?"

  "Nope. It was added to the soil deliberately and carefully. The concentration was heaviest right down around the roots. Then way I figure it, somebody jammed the nozzle of a plastic squeeze bottle down in there and pumped the stuff in."

  "Why would anybody want to do that?"

  "You tell me."

  Karyn looked down again at the sorry shriveled things that had been her plants. "Then they're all—dead?"

  "As last winter's corsage," he said. "The philodendron might hang on for a while if we transplant it into some rich new soil and feed it special nutrients, but if you want my opinion, it's a goner too. I'll try to save it if you want me to."

  "No," Karyn said abruptly. "No, never mind." She turned and started for the door.

  "How about replacements?" Bjorkland called after her. "I can fix you up with three nice healthy plants."

  "No, thank you."

  "What about these pots? They're yours."

  "You keep them," Karyn said without looking back. "I have no more use for them."

  The house in Mountlake Terrace seemed painfully empty. Karyn wandered around restlessly, then stopped short as she realized she was avoiding the family room. That was where her plants had been.

  For God's sake, they were only vegetables! she reminded herself. And yet she had to admit now that they had come to mean much more to her. Far too much.

  She saw the absurdity of her feelings, but seeing it did nothing to lessen her sense of loss. The plants had been hers, and hers alone, and now they were dead. Murdered, if it was accurate to say a plant had been murdered. Who would do a thing like that? And why? It had to be someone who was trying to get at. her. The someone who was in her house the other night?

  She put aside the suspicions forming in her mind when David came home. She told him briefly that her plants had died, without going into details. There was no way to tell him without sounding more paranoid than ever.

  David was very kind. Sensing her mood, he put an arm around her and patted her gently. "You know something, we haven't been out together for a long time," he said. "What do you say we have dinner tonight at Teagle's?"

  "But you have to work tomorrow."

  "So I'll go in a little late. The business will hold together. How about it?"

  "I'd like it," Karyn said. "Very much."

  David gave her hand a squeeze. "It will be good for you to get out of the house."

  Mrs. Jensen came in and cleared her throat to get their attention. "Will you be wanting an early dinner tonight?" she said.

  "We're going out," David told her. "Just make something for Joey."

  The housekeeper nodded and turned to leave.

  "Oh, Mrs. Jensen," David called her back.

  "Yes?"

  "There was a ladder left leaning up against the back of the house the other day. I had to put it away."

  Karyn looked up quickly. "A ladder?"

  Mrs. Jensen made a clucking sound with her tongue. "Ah, that would have been one of Joey's little friends. The Kelly boy."

  "I wish Joey would tell his friends to leave things in the garage alone. Or at least put them back when they're finished."

  "I'll speak to him about it," said Mrs. Jensen.

  It was warm in the house, but Karyn caught herself shivering as though she were caught in a cold draft.

  12

  AT FIRST THE IDEA of getting dressed and going out had seemed hardly worth the trouble to Karyn. It could not change anything. Still, it was sweet of David to make the effort to please her, so she we
nt along with it. However, as she sat before her dressing table applying a touch of pale pink lipstick, she found she was truly looking forward to a night out. As David said, it had been a long time.

  She stood up and looked herself over in the full-length mirror on the closet door. The long dress clung nicely, flattering her trim figure. Not bad, she decided, for a neurotic lady closing in on thirty. She added a final dab of perfume and went downstairs to where David was waiting.

  Mrs. Jensen went to the front door with them as they left.

  "We may be home late," David said. He turned to smile at Karyn. "We might decide to go out dancing somewhere after dinner."

  Karyn returned his smile.

  "I won't wait up, then," Mrs. Jensen said.

  "You'll see that Joey gets to bed on time?" Karyn said.

  Mrs. Jensen gave her a brief smile that said she had been taking care of Joey before Karyn got there, and could handle it very well now, thank you.

  David gave Karyn his arm, and they followed the flagstone walk around to the garage. Halfway there, Karyn pulled up. Had she seen something move in that white Ford parked up the block? Whose car was that, anyway. She was sure it did not belong to any of the neighbors.

  "Is something wrong?" David said.

  "Nooo," she said slowly. Then more emphatically. "No. I just caught my heel on the edge of the stone. Let's go."

  There was nothing moving in the white car now. Probably she had imagined it. The Ford most likely belonged to someone visiting the neighbors. No point in mentioning it to David and getting their evening off to an uncomfortable start.

  Mrs. Jensen watched from the doorway as the Richters drove off. It was high time they had an evening out together, she thought. Much of the time she felt Mr. Richter worked too hard. And Mrs. Richter, well, she had her own problems. She closed the door and went inside.

  She let Joey stay up to watch "Charlie's Angels," which he said he enjoyed because of the pretty girls. Mrs. Jensen left him to enjoy the girls alone while she went to her own room to watch an old Bette Davis movie on another channel. At ten o'clock she sent Joey up to bed, ignoring his pleas to watch "Baretta." When the boy was tucked in, Mrs. Jensen resumed watching her movie on the larger set in the Richters' family room.

  The movie ended and the eleven o'clock news came on. Mrs. Jensen got up and switched off the set. They never had anything but riots and killings and plane crashes on the news. Mrs. Jensen figured there was enough violence and unhappiness in a person's everyday life without watching film of it every night on the news before you went to bed. She went back to the little bathroom off her room and began brushing out her hair.

  At eleven-thirty, wearing a clean flannel nightgown and with her hair in rollers, she climbed into bed. Sometimes she watched Johnny Carson for an hour or so until she got sleepy, but tonight she was too tired.

  Mrs. Jensen closed her eyes and lay warm and cozy under the down comforter she'd brought with her when she came to work for Mr. Richter. Finding this job after her husband died had been a blessing. She had no other family, and really needed someone to take care of. The house here and Joey were enough to keep her busy, but not more than she could comfortably handle.

  She had assumed a sort of housemother position for the man and the boy, which worked out well for all three. When Mr. Richter married his new wife he hastened to assure Mrs. Jensen that her place in the household was secure. Nevertheless, Mrs. Jensen at first had misgivings about the new Mrs. Richter. The slim, pretty blonde from California had seemed too young and unsettled for Mr. Richter. Also, having no children of her own, how was she going to get along with Joey?

  As it happened, everything worked out fine. The new Mrs. Richter had turned out to be a lot more mature and sensible than she looked, and she and the boy had taken to each other instantly. And if Mrs. Richter was a tiny touch nervous sometimes, well, that only made Mrs. Jensen feel more useful.

  She rolled over onto her back and cleared her mind of all daytime thoughts in' preparation for going to sleep.

  A shadow passed her window.

  Mrs. Jensen sat up in bed and stared at the drawn blind.

  Nothing.

  And yet there had been something. Just outside. She held her breath and listened.

  Nothing.

  But something had been there, all right. Olivia Jensen was not the kind of woman who imagined shadows in the night. She got up and pulled on her robe, tying the belt securely beneath her bosom. She went to the window and pulled aside the blind. An expanse of lawn, revealing rose bushes and the back of the garage, brightened occasionally as the clouds broke up and the moon came through. But nothing moved.

  Leaving her room, Mrs. Jensen went out and began testing the door and windows of the house, even though she was sure she had locked them all before going to bed. When she reached the living room she heard something.

  A rustling sound in the shrubbery outside the front door. She looked through the peep-viewer, but could see nothing. She started to back away, then stopped as she heard a kind of snuffling outside. Then a soft scraping sound as of some animal pawing at the door.

  Animal? A dog, she thought. Could her sister's German shepherd have gotten lost and somehow found its way here? It was a long way to where her sister lived, but you read about those things all the time. Maybe it was hurt. Mrs. Jensen opened the door.

  The wolf sprang into the air and hit her full in the chest, knocking her to the floor as it tumbled past her into the hallway.

  There was no time for Mrs. Jensen to think about what was happening. She could only react by instinct.

  The wolf, larger and stronger than any she had seen in the zoo, stood in the hallway, its powerful legs braced. The broad tan head swung to and fro, as, though it were looking for something.

  Mrs. Jensen stumbled to her feet. The front door was still open, letting the cold air in. Outside, the night was peaceful and clear; inside was terror.

  "Get out of here!" she said to the animal. Her voice sounded small and ineffectual.

  The wolf swung its head to look at her. The lips slid back to uncover long killer teeth in a devil's grin. It growled deep in its chest, a menacing growl that warned her away.

  "Is somebody down there?" Joey's excited treble came clearly from the top of the stairs.

  The wolf turned from Mrs. Jensen and looked toward the stairs. With a soft growl it started to move that way.

  Acting on the unreasoning instinct to protect the boy, Mrs. Jensen seized the nearest thing at hand that could be used as a weapon—an umbrella from the wooden stand near the door. Brandishing the umbrella like a club, she thrust herself between the wolf and the stairway.

  "Joey, get back!" she shouted. "Get in your room and lock the door."

  Upstairs the door to the boy's room slammed.

  The wolf threw her a look of pure animal hatred and lunged to one side of her, trying to get to the stairs. As the animal went past, Mrs. Jensen struck at it with the umbrella, hitting it across the back. The wolf hesitated. Mrs. Jensen threw herself upon it, clubbing at its head.

  The impact of her body knocked the wolf off-balance, and they crashed against the end post of the banister. The wolf was back on its feet immediately, teeth bared, snarling.

  Mrs. Jensen scrambled away on the floor, holding the umbrella out toward the wolf like a sword. She heard her own voice screaming incoherent things.

  The last thing she saw was the open-mouthed leap of the wolf. She went down helplessly under its weight as the beast brushed aside the puny umbrella. The head turned sideways and the cruel teeth clamped onto her throat. One flex of the powerful jaws crushed the thyroid cartilage and destroyed the larynx and esophagus. The teeth ripped through the platysma muscle and severed the carotid artery. Mrs. Jensen's life ended in a burbling gasp.

  The wolf raised its bloody muzzle from the ruined throat and backed away from the body. It turned and started toward the stairs.

  13

  ONE POWERFUL BOUND carried th
e wolf a quarter of the way up the stairs. There he stopped suddenly and listened. Outside there was a growing clamor of voices, as the neighbors, roused by Mrs. Jensen's screams, ran toward the Richter house to investigate.

  Torn by conflicting emotions, part human, mostly animal, the wolf hesitated. The still-bloody muzzle pointed down toward the open front door, then up the stairs. On the landing, the door to the boy's room was closed. Behind it, the child was crying. The thin wood panel would not keep the huge wolf out for long, but out in front of the house, running feet were already pounding across the lawn.

  The wolf chose survival. Leaping gracefully from the stairs, the beast landed on the floor of the hallway just as the first of the neighbors reached the front door. Without pausing, the wolf raced through the living room and sprang into the air, crashing out through a large window at the side of the house. As a babble of voices came from the house, the wolf loped across the lawn, through a border of trimmed shrubbery, and into the trees beyond.

  Down the block, unnoticed by the people swarming toward the Richter house, a white Ford started its engine and moved slowly away from the curb without lights.

  Inside, the house all was blood and confusion. The first people to come through the door stopped short at the sight of Mrs. Jensen's torn body. They were jostled forward by those who rushed in after them, and sent skidding off balance on the slippery floor.

  A man turned away to vomit.

  A woman screamed.

  "He went out the window!" someone shouted.

  "Let's go after him!"

  "No, wait, maybe he's got a gun."

  "Somebody call the police."

  A woman standing on the fringe of the milling group turned to the man next to her. "It didn't look like a man to me," she said. "It looked like a big dog."