The Howling III

Chapter Fifteen

Deputy Roy Nevins was alone in the sheriffs office when Holly entered. She barely recognized the man. Deputy Nevins's uniform was spotless and pressed, complete to the military creases in the shirt. His boots, belt, and holster were shined. He was freshly shaved, and had obviously just had a haircut. He was even making an effort to hold his stomach in.

"Morning, ma'am," he said, getting to his feet. His speech seemed to have softened into more of a Western drawl.

Remarkable, Holly thought, what a touch of fame will do.

"Good morning, Roy. Is Gavin around?"

"The Sheriff and Deputy Fernandez are out on a call, ma'am. Left me in charge. Seems there's been some trouble down at the old Whitaker cabin."

"Will you cut out the ma'am stuff, Roy? You make me feel like Dale Evans."

The deputy grinned a little sheepishly. "I just thought we ought to be a little more businesslike around here, what with all the reporters and television people and whatnot."

"Well, I suppose it couldn't hurt. How soon do you expect Gavin back?"

"That's hard to say. Seems whoever it was made the phone call wasn't bein" very clear about what the trouble was at the cabin."

Holly chewed at her lower lip. Why was there never a cop around when you needed one?

"Anything I can help you with?"

"It was just a message I wanted to give the Sheriff."

"You're welcome to sit yourself down and wait for him." Roy wheeled one of the unused swivel chairs over for her.

"No thanks, Roy, I'm in kind of a hurry. I'll leave him a note."

She tore a page from Ramsay's calendar pad and wrote:

Gavin

I managed to find out where Dr Pastory's clinic is without getting in the way of any of your "duly authorized police officers'.

I'll let you know when I've found Malcolm.

Good luck with your big murder investigation.

She read it over, then crumpled the page and threw it into the waste basket. Cheap sarcasm was not her style. On another calendar sheet she wrote:

Gavin

Dr Pastory's clinic is located in Bear Paw. I'm on my way up

there. I'll check with you as soon as I find anything.

Take care, Holly

She placed the note in the centre of his desk blotter, anchoring it with a stapler.

"Thanks, Roy," she said. "I'll see you."

"Any time, ma'am," he said, reaching for the brim of the hat he was not wearing. Then, grinning, "Oops. I'm kinda getting into the habit, I guess."

Before leaving the office Holly checked the big map tacked to one wall. It covered all of La Reina County and included parts of Los Angeles, Ventura, and Kern Counties as well. She located the tiny community of Bear Paw just on the other side of the Tehachapi Pass, beyond Clarion. She figured it as a two- to three-hour drive, depending on road conditions. There certainly wouldn't be much traffic between here and there.

She filled the tank of her little Rabbit across the road at Art Moore's station, then headed north. Holly's mind was filled with thoughts of what she was going to say to Wayne Pastory when she found him, and she did not pay any attention to the little orange car that pulled on to the road behind her and followed her out of town.

The roads were good all the way, although narrowing to a cramped two lanes as she left the state highway. It took her slightly less that two hours to reach the community of Bear Paw. Had she not been actively looking for it, the entire town would have been easy to miss.

There was the Bear Paw Ski Lodge, a faintly alpine A-frame building with the windows shuttered and a chain across the driveway leading to the entrance. A hand-lettered sign hanging from the chain read: CLOSED FOR THE SEASON.

That was it, except for a paint-peeling frame building that was combination post office/grocery store/gas station /tavern. Out in front were parked a grimy Ford pick-up and an equally grimy Plymouth some twenty years old.

Holly pulled to a stop at the old-fashioned gas pumps. When no one appeared after a minute, she got out and went into the building. Three men, none of them younger that seventy, sat around — not a pot-bellied stove — but an electric heater. The temperature inside was a stifling 80. Behind a scarred wooden counter a grossly overweight woman with a moustache sat on a stool reading a paperback novel called Love's Raging Heart.

The three men looked up when Holly entered. The woman continued to read. No one spoke.

"Hi," Holly said finally. "This is Bear Paw, I hope?"

"Sure is, honey," said the woman. She marked her spot in the book with a forefinger and looked up. "What can we do you for?"

"I was wondering if you knew of a clinic around here. Owned by Dr Wayne Pastory."

One of the men around the heater worked his lips noisily over toothless gums. "You a friend of his?"

"Not exactly. We sometimes work together. The clinic is around here somewhere?"

Another of the men spoke up. His hands were gnarled and knobbed with arthritis. He kept them lying awkwardly in his lap as though they did not really belong to him. "What you want to go up there for, anyhow?"

Holly was about to tell the man it was none of his damn business, but brought herself under control. "I have to see Dr Pastory about something," she said, as courteously as she could manage.

"You sick?" said the woman.

"I'm a doctor."

"You don't look like a doctor," said the third man. He had one eye that appeared to be glass. Cheap glass.

"Well, I am." Holly began to feel more than a little irritated with these unpleasant rustics.

"If you're sick, you'd do a lot better to go to Doc Simms down in Clarion," said the man with arthritis. "Good man, Doc Simms. Been around long enough to know what he's doing. Your Doc, what's his name, Pastorini… "

"Pastory."

"Whatever. He don't look like he's dry behind the ears yet. Name sounds like a foreigner, besides."

"Look," Holly said, putting some authority into her voice, "I'm in something of a hurry. Could you please tell me where the clinic is?"

"No need to get snippy about it," said the toothless man. "You want to go to the doggone clinic, that's your business. We sure ain't stoppin" you."

"Where is it?" Holly was surprised at the whip-crack in her own voice. The four people stared as though really seeing her for the first time.

The woman finally spoke. "Go on up the way you're headed about a mile and a half. There's a logging trail turns off to your right. It ain't easy to see if you're not watchin'. Drive up that two, maybe three miles. And there you are."

They stared at her for another long moment, but no one spoke again.

"Thank you very much," Holly said. She hurried out of the store, into the car, and headed up the road.

At approximately the time Holly was pulling out of Pinyon on her way to find his clinic, Dr Wayne Pastory was leading Malcolm from his room to a part of the clinic where he had not been before. It was a high-ceilinged room that was bare of decoration. The furniture consisted of two plain wooden chairs. There was one door, and a high-up window that showed nothing but the dark trees outside.

Inside the room was a cage of heavy-gauge steel wire mesh that was backed against one wall. The cage measured about seven feet square, and contained a stretched-canvas cot and a bucket for waste.

Pastory unlocked the door to the cage and guided Malcolm inside. "I'm sorry to have to lock you up like this, Malcolm, but I have to drive into Clarion for supplies. I shouldn't be gone more than three hours, and I trust you won't be too uncomfortable in that time."

"Why do I have to be locked in here?" Malcolm said. His mind was still fuzzy from the sleeping drug he'd been given the night before.

"Security, my boy, security," said Pastory, giving him a little pat on the shoulder. "It's as much for your own safety as anything else."

The doctor backed out of the cage, closed the steel-framed door, and snapped a heavy padlock through the hasp. "If there is anything you absolutely need before I get back, Kruger will be here." He turned and called toward the open door of the room. "Kruger!"

The big man entered so quickly that he must have been standing outside listening.

"I want you to stay here with our young friend," Pastory told him. "Get him anything he wants within reason. That is, anything that will fit through the mesh. I do not want you to unlock the door except in the gravest emergency. Is that understood?"

"Don't worry, Doctor. I'll watch him good. And I won't let him out." Kruger's thick lips twitched. His tongue slid out over them.

Pastory stood for a moment looking from one of them to the other, then nodded to himself and left the room, closing the single door behind him. A minute later the sound of an automobile engine could be heard starting outside. Tyres crunched on the dried pine needles that carpeted the roadway. The sound faded as Pastory rolled down the overgrown logging trail toward the county road.

Kruger hitched one of the chairs close to the front of the wire cage and sat down facing Malcolm. He smiled. The fatty tissues around his eyes squeezed them into slits.

"It's just you and me now, freak-boy. All alone. How do you like that?"

Malcolm sat on the cot and did not answer.

"You don't care if I call you freak-boy, do you? "Cause that's what you are, you know. A freak. A goddamn freak."

When Malcolm still did not respond, the big man's smile faded. He wiped a calloused hand across his lips. "The doctor treats you like some kind of a prince, but all you are's a goddamn freak. Oh, I seen what you do when the doctor has you out there on the table. Your face gets all funny and long, kinda. Your fingernails grow. Like a woman's or something. And you get hair on you where hair don't belong. What do you say about that, freak-boy?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, you don't, don't you? I know how to make you do it, too. I watched the doctor. You want me to make you do it, freak-boy? Want me to turn you into a goddamn freak?"

"Just leave me alone."

"Just leeeave me alone," Kruger whined in a mocking falsetto. "You know, I was Number One around here until you showed up, freak-boy. The doctor used to treat me real nice before you came. He took me out of the bad place and he said I'd never have to worry about anything again. He'd take care of me. And he did, too. But then he found you, and we had to bring you here, and now he don't have time for me any more except to tell me to go fetch this or go empty that. You're the hotshot now, freak-boy. But you know something? It ain't gonna last. One way or another I'm gonna see that it don't last."

Malcolm felt the anger start way down deep somewhere. "Why don't you shut your ugly mouth."

Kruger hitched his chair closer, pleased that he had gotten a reaction. "Oh-oh, is he going to get mad? Is freak-boy going to get mad? Go ahead, let's see you do those things with your face. Then we'll see who's ugly, freak-boy."

Malcolm felt the heat rising within him. His hands began to twitch. He forced himself to breathe slowly and deeply. He closed his eyes and thought of the words Holly Lang had used when they put him into hypnosis. So relaxed. So comfortable. Drifting, drifting. Farther and farther away. Gradually the fire within him cooled. His hands lay quiet in his lap. He felt the waves of relaxation wash over him. Mind and body were once again under control.

"Almost had you goin" there, didn't I freak-boy?" Kruger said. "Oh, yes, I did all right."

Malcolm opened his eyes. He looked through and beyond the thick, ugly man. He smiled softly to himself.

"You're not makin" fun of me, are you?" Kruger said. "They used to make fun of me in the bad place. Laughed behind my back when they thought I couldn't see. I knew, though. I knew what they were doing. I took care of them too. That was before the doctor came and brought me here."

Malcolm breathed in and out slowly. So relaxed. So comfortable.

"I know how I can get that silly smile off your face," said Kruger. "I know. You just wait here." Then, as though realizing he had said something funny, he laughed. "That's right. You just wait here." He laughed again and left the room.

Malcolm tried to maintain his state of calm relaxation, but the mood was fading. Dr Pastory was a dangerous man, and he did some unpleasant things to Malcolm, but he was always solicitous about the boy's welfare afterwards. At least that was the way he acted. And there was always the hope that when Pastory had finished with his study, whatever it was, he would return Malcolm to the hospital in Pinyon. Holly was there. He could put up with Pastory, as long as there was the hope of a reunion with his friend.

But Kruger was another matter. The brute had a damaged brain, and was barely kept in check by Pastory's greater strength of will. If he ever went over the edge Kruger could be dangerous. Malcolm began to worry about what the ugly big man might do.

Before he could reorder his thoughts, Kruger returned. He carried with him a wand shaped like a stubby pool cue. The thicker end was wrapped with leather at the grip. The greater length of the wand was metal. Two wires protruded from the butt end and ran into a flat leather packet that Kruger had attached to his belt.

"Do you know what this is, freak-boy? It's a cattle prod, that's what. The cops use "em sometimes. Dr Pastory used it on me when I first come here from the bad place. Then I wised up and he didn't have to use it no more. I found out where he kept it, but I never told him."

Malcolm stared at the metal prod as Kruger waved it back and forth in front of his face.

"Want to see how it works? Watch."

Kruger thrust the metal tip of the prod to within half an inch of the wire mesh of the cage. He touched a switch on the belt pack. A blue-white spark jumped with a loud crack.

Malcolm flinched away from the spark.

"What's the matter, you afraid of it?" Kruger said. "The doctor's been using something like it on you in the laboratory when you're strapped down. Only difference is, the one in there is a lot smaller and it don't hurt as much as this one. Want to see?"

In a movement surprisingly swift for so big a man, Kruger thrust the prod through the cage, jabbing the tip against Malcolm's face.

The pain was like hitting the nerve of a tooth. Malcolm cried out and put a hand to his cheek. He backed against the rear of the cage, but there was no way he could get out of the reach of Kruger with the cruel cattle prod.

The big man laughed, a high-pitched, mindless giggle. "Aha, gotcha now, haven't I. Can't get away, can't get away."

He stabbed Malcolm's wrist with the tip of the wand. The pain of the shock jolted up his arm. Malcolm felt the fires grow inside him.

"See? See? There you go. I knew I could make you do it. Look at your hands, freak-boy."

Malcolm looked down at his hands. Surely, they had grown larger, the palms broadening and the fingers stretching out. Even as he watched, the nails pushed out through the skin, thick and horny, bringing a trickle of blood from the tips of his fingers. The boy clamped the horrid hands out of sight under his arms.

Kruger caught him under the chin with the prod. His facial muscles twisted and jumped in the sudden agony.

"I'll show you what you really are, freak-boy. I'll show you who's ugly." Kruger capered grotesquely around the three exposed walls of the cage stabbing here, there, anywhere he could find a bit of exposed flesh.

Malcolm's legs bent on him in a strange way and he fell to the floor. The sound that came from his throat was half whine, half growl. Like nothing human. His mind was a jumble of images — the forest at night, flames, burning flesh; a kind bearded giant; a beautiful woman who was his friend; a doctor who drugged him and took him away; a thick-necked witless lump of a man who tortured him.

The hands before Malcolm's face no longer bore any resemblance to his own. They had darkened and stretched, and grown patches of fine black hair.

The pain continued, the anger grew, and the fire within him burned hotter.