The Howling III

Chapter Four

Memories of the forest came back to him in fragments. The cushiony feel of pine needles under his feet. A whisper of rain in the high branches of the trees. Dappled sunlight filtering down on a summer afternoon. Fresh smells of evergreen and of flowers. Nightsounds: monotonous song of a tree frog, the hoot of an owl, the cry of some small creature caught in its talons.

A childhood in the forest village of Drago, with carefree days, deep dark nights, surrounded by people whose faces were blurred now in memory, but who loved him and cared for him.

Then, without any warning, childhood ended. The years that followed were a jumble of strange schools, narrow beds, cold faces of people who were paid to teach him and feed him and give him a place to sleep. The memories were jagged, like pieces of a broken mirror. A face, a schoolbook, a forbidding house in a strange town. Nothing fitted together. It was a lost time.

Then the lost time was over and he was back. Back in the forest. Back in Drago. But it was not the same. The days were troubled, and the nights full of danger. Malcolm was apart from the others of the village. They possessed some secret knowledge that had been withheld from him. Knowledge wondrous and terrible; knowledge he must have. This much he learned when he was brought before Derak, the leader of the village.

Malcolm could not even guess at the age of Derak. Not old, certainly. Not in years. Yet it seemed he had always been there. Derak was strong and vigorous, but there was in his eyes something older than time.

The house where Derak lived was small. It was his alone. The other people of Drago lived in groups — four, or six, or eight of them to a house. Derak lived alone because he was the leader.

Sometimes a woman stayed there with him. Malcolm seemed to remember a woman from before. When he was little. The woman was dark and lithe, and smelled of warm wild flowers. Her eyes were the same deep shade of green as Malcolm's. She was gone now. He wondered about her, but he was too timid to ask.

Malcolm felt ill at ease sitting alone with Derak on a sofa in the small house. He perspired, and he did not know what to do with his hands. Derak smiled. When he spoke his voice was soft, but Malcolm could sense the strength within the man. A strength that could have broken Malcolm like a dry twig had he wanted to do so.

"Relax, boy," said Derak, as though he had read Malcolm's thoughts. "I'm not going to hurt you. No one here will hurt you. This is your home. Do you understand that?"

"Y-yes."

"Good. I suppose you want to know why you have been brought back."

"I don't even know why I was sent away."

"It is the way of our life. You have seen, I suppose, that there are no children in Drago, except the very young."

"Yes."

"You too were here when you were very young."

"I remember. A little bit."

"A child reaches an age where he asks questions.

Questions with answers he is not ready for. When that time comes we have to send him away. To the outside, where he can learn about the world out there. When he is ready to know about us and about Drago, we bring him back."

"Am I ready now to know those things?"

Derak smiled at him. A strange, sad smile. "You are more than ready, Malcolm."

"I don't understand."

"Have things been happening to you? To your body? Things you can't explain?"

"Y-yes. Sometimes… in the night."

"It is usually in the night at first. Or when you are afraid. Or hurt. Or very angry. We always try to bring the child back and explain these things to him before the changes occur. Because of troubles here, we could not bring you back at your proper time. So you are late, Malcolm, through no fault of your own. You have already experienced some of the things that will happen to you, things which you cannot understand."

"Will there be more?"

"Oh, yes. Much, much more."

The boy's throat constricted with the rush of emotions. Finally he got out, "Why?"

"It will all be explained to you, Malcolm. Who you are, what you are. What we all are, and what our lives must be."

"When?"

"Tomorrow. There is a ceremony. Nothing big, just our people — your people — gathering around you to show you our secrets, and teach you our ways. You will spend tonight alone. After tomorrow, you will know who you are, and you will never be alone again."

"Why do I have to wait? Why can't we do it now?"

Derak looked out the window at the deepening shadows. "Tonight there is something else we have to do. After tomorrow all of our lives will be changed. You will join us then."

There was a finality in Derak's tone that would permit no further discussion. Malcolm was taken to a small cabin at the edge of the village. There was a low cot of wood and canvas with a woollen blanket, a single candle for illumination, and nothing more. The door closed behind Malcolm, and he was alone.

He could hear them outside, the people of Drago, as they walked toward the big building at the centre of the village. The big building was sometimes a barn, and sometimes a meeting hall. And there were times of celebration when the people danced and the music was something to hear. Tonight there was no music. The voices of the people as they walked were sombre and subdued. Malcolm lay awake, shivering, on the stretched canvas of the cot and waited.

Inside the building Derak stood in the centre of the wooden floor. The others entered and took their places in a circle around the leader. The quiet talk among them faded and finally died as they waited for Derak to speak.

"My friends… my family. We have lived in Drago without trouble for many years. Longer than our people might have hoped when first they settled here. Our history is not one of places, it is one of movement. From the Carpathians to the Urals to the Andes. From the icy lands of the far north to the steaming jungles of the equator. Always there comes a time when we are forced to move on. Here in Drago we have lived well, but it is over. Now we must move again. There are people, outsiders, who suspect what we are. They fear us, and in their fear they will try to destroy us. As always before, that means we must go." Derak turned slowly and looked at the people ranged around him in a circle. Shadows from the flickering lanterns danced and skittered over their faces.

"But before we go," Derak said, "we will give them something to remember."

And he began to change.

Derak tore the shirt from his back and flexed the powerful muscles of his shoulders. His chest swelled and cracked as the bony structure within reshaped itself. His lips drew back to show the strong yellow teeth. The killing teeth.

Around him the others followed the lead of Derak. They threw off their clothes while their bodies twisted and stretched in a jerking dance of metamorphosis. The faces, human a moment before, thinned and lengthened. The ears grew, the noses pushed forward into muzzles. Short, coarse hair sprouted on their bodies. The hair spread, thickened into fur. The human voices became low, muttering growls. And there was the howling.

Malcolm sat suddenly upright on his cot in the small cabin. The candle flame guttered and died in a whisper of the night wind that seeped through cracks in the walls. The voices howling in the night were strange and frightening, yet they touched something deep within the boy. They spoke to him in a language he did not know. They called him. He longed to go to them.

Then there were other sounds. The scrape of heavy-booted feet, a crunch of brush, muttered curses. Malcolm began to sweat. He stared into the darkness, fearful of something he could hot define.

Inside the barn of a building, they heard the other sounds too late. There was a heavy scrape and a thud as the door was barred from the outside. Those within froze for a moment in wild attitudes of change… half-human, half-beast. They sniffed the air and caught the scent of men outside, then the biting odour of raw gasoline. An instant later, in a blast of heat and light, the barn was afire.

Panic.

Three ways a werewolf can die. By a weapon of silver. By fire. And a third way that was never spoken of. The fire was all around them, and the fire was death.

Inside the barn was hell. Humans, wolves, creatures in all stages between stumbled into the beams and crashed against the blistering walls searching for an escape. Their voices mingled in an outcry of agony and rage. Twisted muzzles pushed through the boards of the walls for air, but were seared and sizzled by the flames outside. Claws scratched frantically at the wood. The men with the torches had done their work well. The building was surrounded by a wall of flame.

Some of the creatures in the barn broke through to the outside, their misshapen bodies ablaze, and ran till they dropped in a blazing, screaming heap. The men with the torches watched grimly as they died.

Most stayed inside the building. They huddled together as the flames leapt up the walls and across the roof. Their terrible jaws gaped in helpless rage. The blazing roof fell, and the screaming stopped.

But not all of them died. A few got away. A few always get away.

At the sound of the agonized howling and the furnace blast of the burning barn, Malcolm bolted from his cot and stumbled out into the inferno that had been his village. Men ran from house to house with cans of gasoline and blazing torches. One after another they were set on fire.

For some time Malcolm stood in frozen horror. The shrieks of the dying were all around him. The smell of the dead made him retch. His body twitched and jumped of its own volition. The smells around him were keener, his night vision sharper than ever in his life. The message was clear in his mind.

Run!

And Malcolm ran. Away from the carnage of Drago. He was faster and stronger than ever he dreamed he could be. The forest was his as he loped through the brush, darting among the trees, leaping easily over any obstruction. Faster and faster he ran, putting the night and the forest between him and the blazing ruin of Drago. He ran in a deep crouch, his hands sometimes clutching at the ground, helping to pull him along. In the midst of his grief at the loss of his village and his people, Malcolm felt something else. Freedom. Freedom and power.

On the other side of the burned-out village, on the crest of a hill, a huge, wolflike figure looked down on the dying flames. Its fur was singed, and a ragged gash from a splintered board ran the length of the animal's side. The wound would soon heal; the anger would remain.

If he had escaped, there would be others, too. To help them survive he must find them and bring them together. He was the leader.

Derak pointed his muzzle to the sky. The cruel teeth gleamed in the moonlight. He tested the air. There was the acrid smell of burning flesh and fur. The bite of gasoline. The sweaty stink of the men. And there was the familiar scent of the others, those who had escaped… and somewhere in the night forest… his son.

Miles away, moving swiftly in the other direction, Malcolm paused and raised his head to listen to the howling.