The Howling III

Chapter Two

The room on the second floor of La Reina County Hospital was pleasant and bright. Outside the window of the small private room a night bird sang. The boy sat propped in the bed in a half-sitting position. His pale green eyes skipped around the room as though searching for an escape.

Holly Lang stood at the foot of the bed and smiled down at him. She was tall and supple, with short dark hair and hazel eyes. Her smile was good, and it usually made other people smile in response. But the boy's expression did not change.

"Well, you look a little better now that you're all cleaned up," she said.

The boy's eyes flicked over her and away.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

No answer.

"A little scared, I guess." Holly kept her tone soft and conversational. "I don't blame you. Hospitals can be scary. My name's Holly. Do you want to tell me yours? It's all right if you don't. There's no hurry."

The boy's fingers moved restlessly on the edge of the sheet.

"I'm a kind of doctor."

The green eyes met hers for an instant.

"Not the kind that sticks people with needles," she said quickly. "Mostly, I just talk. And I listen too, if you want to talk to me."

The boy turned away and stared through the window at the dark trees. His expression told Holly nothing.

Holly waited, watching his face. The expression still told her nothing. "What happened to you out there?" she said, more to herself than to the boy. "What's haunting you now?"

La Reina County Hospital had more the look of an expensive mountain resort than an institution. It was tucked into the picturesque wooded hillside overlooking the town of Pinyon. Behind it the Tehachapi Mountains rose from gently sloping foothills. The facilities and the equipment at La Reina were excellent, courtesy of the California taxpayers. The same could not be said of the staff.

Somehow La Reina County Hospital had become caught in the backwash of bureaucracy and was known as a haven for medical misfits. Med. school graduates from the lower third of their class found a home there. Doctors with a questionable past, nurses with borderline records… these made up the staff at La Reina County.

There were always more beds than patients in residence. The administration lived in fear that during one of the periodic budget battles in Sacramento, someone would ask why the hell they needed a hospital down there at all. The funds would be cut off and a lot of people would be out of work. Somehow, the budget checkers in Sacramento kept missing it.

Dr Hollanda Lang, known to everyone as Holly, did not belong with the staff misfits. She had passed up a lucrative private practice as a clinical psychologist to work for the state Social Services Department. When people asked her why, she told them she was absolving her liberal guilt. Holly found it embarrassing to admit how deeply she cared about helping people.

And La Reina appealed to her precisely because of its quirky reputation. Her opinion of the medical establishment was not high, and here among the outcasts she found some original thinkers she could relate to. Her one disappointment had been in the lack of challenge in her cases. Until they brought in the boy from the woods.

Holly looked down at the pale boy now, wondering what it would take to communicate with him. In the two hours since he'd been brought in, the boy had not spoken. She had finally got the curious onlookers cleared out of the room and felt the boy was at least beginning to relax with her.

There was a sound at the door behind her. She turned, annoyed at the interruption.

Sheriff Gavin Ramsay stuck his head into the room.

"All right if I come in?"

"Could I stop you?"

"Sure. Just say go away."

Holly felt the muscles tighten at the back of her neck. She knew her aversion to police was an unreasonable throwback to her campus protest days, but she couldn't help it. "Come on in," she said.

Ramsay nodded to her. "Thanks, Miss Lang. I'll make this as short as I can."

"It's Doctor."

"Oh, right. Doctor Lang. Sorry."

She made herself relax. "That sounded pompous, didn't it. Shall we try first names? I'm Holly."

"Gavin," he said.

Not a bad-looking man, Holly decided, if you liked the macho type. Sort of a younger Marlboro Man. She had seen him around Pinyon and thought it was a pity that he had to be a policeman.

"How's the kid?" he asked.

" Doing well enough."

"Has he said anything yet?"

Holly looked quickly at the young patient. The green eyes regarded the sheriff warily.

"We're just getting acquainted," she said. "So far I've done all the talking."

"I'd like to ask him a few questions."

The boy seemed to shrink a little in the bed.

"Suppose we step out into the hall," Holly said.

"Sure."

She followed Ramsay out through the door and looked up at him when he turned. Holly was five-eight in her stocking feet, and well-built. Not many men could make her feel small. Gavin Ramsay could, and she resented it.

"I wish you'd given me some warning before you barged into the room."

"Sorry. The door was ajar."

"Well… no harm done, I suppose."

"I'm relieved to hear that."

"You must understand it's part of my job to keep my patient from being disturbed."

"Fair enough," Ramsay said, "but you've got your job and I've got mine."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"I've got a couple of hunters missing and a dead man downstairs in the pathology lab."

"What has that to do with this boy?"

"I don't know that there's any connection, but I want to find out. From the looks of the kid when they brought him in, he was out in the woods for at least three days. That's about how long our man downstairs has been a corpse."

"You're not suggesting that this boy has anything to do with it?"

Ramsay's eyes flashed blue fire. "Why not? Because he's a minor? Last week a twelve-year-old in East Los Angeles set his mother on fire because she found his heroin stash. A seven-year-old girl in Beverly Hills drowned her baby brother in the swimming pool because he got too much attention. Two boys in Glendale hung a baby girl from a swing set. The boys were six. Want to hear more?"

"No thank you. I'll concede that there is no age limit on criminal behaviour, but I won't jump to the conclusion that this boy is guilty of anything."

"Holly… Dr Lang… all I want to do is talk to him." Gavin raised his arms. "See, I didn't even bring any handcuffs."

"Well, he isn't talking yet. He's had a frightening experience, and it may take a while. Shouldn't you be trying to find out who he is?"

"I should and I am. I've put his description out on the wire. So far he doesn't fit any missing-boy report." Gavin looked back over her shoulder into the room. "You will let me know if he says anything?"

"Certainly, Sheriff."

He started to go, then turned back. "Is there any chance we can get back to using first names?"

She held a stern expression for a moment longer, then relaxed. "What the hell… See you, Gavin."

"See you, Holly."

The boy's eyes followed her as she came back and sat in the chair next to the bed. She smiled at him, studying his face. The two deputies who brought him in had said there was something "weird" in the way he looked. Probably a trick of the twilight and their imaginations. Holly saw only a frightened boy of perhaps fourteen. High forehead, straight nose and firm mouth. The eyes were a deep lustrous green. Certainly nothing there that could be considered "weird'. "Getting sleepy?" she said.

The boy's head rolled from side to side on the pillow.

A response. The first sign he had given that he understood. Holly kept her voice gentle. "I'll just sit here for a while then. If you feel like talking, fine. If not, that's fine too."

The boy's eyes never left her. Holly thought she could see his body relax, just a little, under hospital sheet and blanket. She picked up a magazine from the bedside table and pretended to read. She did not leave until she was sure the boy was asleep.