Ravenous (27 page)

“Why?”

“So you'll be close by if you ... I don't know, if you start feeling pain, or something.”

“The doctor gave me some Vicodin. I'll be fine, Mom. I wouldn't be able to sleep in my old room. I'm too used to sleeping in the apartment now. Don't worry, Mom, I'll be fine, and if I'm not, I'll come down and wake you.”

“Will you?” she said. “You promise?”

“Promise.”

Normally, he would be annoyed and would remind his mother of his age, but not tonight. It felt good that she was concerned. He appreciated it deeply tonight, with the taste of his own blood still in his mouth.

Andrea
. Just thinking about her made him feel better. But it wasn't enough. He wanted to see her.

When they got to the house, Dad parked in the driveway and Mom quickly got out and came to Jason's door before he could open it. She pulled it open and said, “Can you get out of the car all right?”

“Yeah, I'm okay, Mom, I'm fine. I just want to go up and take some Vicodin.”

“Has the shot worn off already?”

He got out of the car and winced. “My arm hurts, is all.”

“I know—I'll make you some hot chocolate and bring it to you.”

Half of Jason's mouth curled up into a partial smile. She so desperately wanted to be needed by him, and he hated to disappoint her.

“That sounds good, Mom,” he said they came to the front door. “With marshmallows.”

“Oh, of course, honey.”

Dad stepped around them, keys in hand, and unlocked the door, then led them inside. Lights had been left on in the house.

Jason followed his mother to the left and into the kitchen. She went to the counter, while he went through the laundry room, and out the door, into the garage. He went upstairs to his apartment.

He would wait for his mother to come up to the apartment with his hot chocolate. Then she would go back down and into the house, and she and Dad would go to bed. It would not take them long to fall asleep. It never did. They were fast, deep sleepers, due mostly to their fondness for evening cocktails. Jason had been taking advantage of his parents' deep sleep since he was a little kid, and he planned to do it again that night. He was hungry, so he would make himself a chicken sandwich. He would eat slowly, giving his parents plenty of time to drift off to sleep. Then he would go quietly down the stairs and get into his car and drive to the Sheriff's office. He remembered the Sheriff and that man in the hat talking to each other. Maybe the Sheriff or someone in the building could tell him who the man was and where to find him.

He knew there was no point in going to bed, because he knew he would be unable to sleep.

Jason was not sure if he would ever sleep again.

 

* * * *

 

Half an hour later, Jason went out to his car, which was always parked at the curb directly in front of the house. Before getting in, he looked over at Andrea's house. There was a light in the living room glowing dimly beyond the closed drapes. He got in, drove away from his house, left his neighborhood, and went to the Sheriff's station in the middle of town.

Rain had been replaced by a thick, chilling fog that gave the lights in town heavy, shimmering halos. The red, green, and amber traffic lights were softened, as if seen through a thick, gauzy filter.

Big Rock closed up early. It was around ten-thirty when Jason drove into town, and everything was dark except the 7-Eleven, the Sheriff's station, the Winchell's Donuts, and the Chevron with its little mini-mart over by the freeway on-ramp.

Jason pulled into the empty parking lot and parked directly in front of the two-story building next to a cluster of handicap spaces. He got out and went up the narrow white walkway to the glass doors in front. He went inside.

The station was brightly lighted and smelled of strong coffee. There was a bench against the wall on each side of Jason as he walked in, then the room opened up and there was a counter straight ahead. Beyond the counter, through the bullet-proof window, was a room filled with desks and tables. The station was quiet, with a couple Sheriff's deputies sitting at desks, a couple more standing and talking, drinking from white Styrofoam cups. A telephone trilled somewhere, and Jason could hear fingers clattering over a keyboard. There were a couple more benches against the walls on this side of the counter, and sitting in one of them reading a paperback book was the man Jason had last seen in the Cranes' front yard, the man with the badly scarred face. He still wore his long black coat and old-fashioned hat as he read, apparently oblivious to his surroundings.

Jason walked over to the bench and stood facing the man, who remained unaware of his presence.

Jason cleared his throat and said, “Um, excuse me.”

A moment later, the man lifted his head and his eyebrows rose. “I beg your pardon, were you speaking to me?”

Jason froze for a moment. Seeing the man's face in such good light was startling—the scars were even worse than they'd appeared outside in the dark earlier that night. “Uh, y-yes. My name is Jason Sutherland. I met you earlier tonight in my neighbor's front yard.”

“Ah, yes, the young man with the injuries. How
are
you?”

“I'm okay. Not as bad as I'd thought, with all that blood.”

“Yes, you were a bloody mess. I am glad to see you up and about. Sit down, Jason,” the man said, patting the empty half of the bench.

Jason perched himself on the edge of the bench.

“My name is Daniel Fargo,” the man said. “I'm here waiting for Sheriff Hurley. What brings you to the Sheriff's office?”

“Well, to tell the truth, I came here hoping to find
you
.”

“Me? Whatever for?”

“Because you knew how to kill it. You knew what it was.” He leaned a little closer to Fargo and lowered his voice. “It was a werewolf, wasn't it? An honest-to-God werewolf. I saw it and I don't know what else it
could
be. So please, tell me ... what do you know about that thing?”

A red paperboard bookmark lay on the bench beside Fargo. He picked it up and gently placed it between pages of the dog-eared old copy of an Irwin Shaw novel he was reading, then closed the book and set it down on the bench. He crossed one knee over the other and folded his hands together as he looked closely at Jason.

“Most of the time, when I want to convince someone they are dealing with an infestation of werewolves, I'm lucky if I get them simply to consider the possibility. Most never believe me, even when it looks them in the face. You, on the other hand, Jason, have just come to me and said the very thing it is so hard to convince most people of when I'm trying my very best. I commend you. You have an open mind.”

“Open mind nothing. I
saw
it. It knocked the crap out of me. If you hadn't been there, that thing would've eaten me, wouldn't it?”

Fargo considered his answer a moment, then nodded once and said, “That was foremost on the creature's mind, I'm afraid, yes.”

“Where do they come from? What can we do to stop them, to kill them?”

“I intend to talk to Sheriff Hurley about this very thing when he returns,” Fargo said. “Why don't you sit in on that conversation. That way, I won't have to repeat it all.”

“Okay. But there's one thing you have to tell me now. That thing bit me.” He lightly touched his hand to his upper arm. “Does that mean that I'm going to ... “ It sounded so ridiculous, so silly, that Jason could not bring himself to say it out loud.

“Does that mean you will turn into a werewolf?” Fargo said, his head dipping forward as he smiled slightly.

“Exactly,” Jason said with an enthusiastic nod.

“No. You have nothing to worry about there. In fact, you might as well toss out everything you think you know about werewolves. Most of the myths are just that—myths. They have little to do with the facts. It is true that werewolves have a fatal allergy to silver, but that is where the similarity ends. However, I'll save that for my conversation with the sheriff.”

Jason's right leg bounced up and down and he shifted his position on the bench several times. He was immensely relieved that he would not be turning into a werewolf anytime soon, but at the same time, he was jittery, nervous, and he could not wait to hear what Fargo had to say.

 

 

 

32

 

Fargo and Jason

 

 

Saturday

 

When Hurley arrived, Fargo urged the sheriff to include Jason in their meeting. Hurley agreed to this but reserved the right to jettison Jason from the office in the event confidential material was discussed. Hurley led them back down the corridor to his office. He directed them to sit in the two metal-framed chairs that faced his desk as he went around and took his seat. Once they were settled, Hurley leaned forward and nodded at Jason. “Well, Jason, the way it looks, Emily Crane was ... well, Fargo, how do you say it?”

“She was a werewolf, that's how you say it,” Fargo said.

Hurley closed his eyes as he nodded. “I still can't bring myself to say it out loud.”

“I know what you mean, Sheriff,” Fargo said. “It takes some getting used to.”

“Anyway,” Hurley said, “Emily killed and ate a great deal of her husband. She also ate her cat. You were right, Fargo. There was raw hamburger in the kitchen sink, too.”

Jason's eyes widened. “You mean, that ... that was Mrs. Crane?”

Hurley watched the nervous young man as he shifted in his chair and plucked at his shirt under his open jacket, pulling it away from his belly so it wouldn't cling to his round shape, trying so hard to hide the fact that he was overweight.

“Yes, it was. A little while ago, her sister had to identify what was left of her. There was a birthmark ... which allowed her sister to make the ID. We covered up the parts of her that were, uh ... that weren't ... human. I figured her sister didn't need that on top of what had already happened. She can learn about that later.” Hurley leaned back in his chair. “Okay. Let's hear everything you have to tell me, Fargo. This time, I'm listening.”

“We might have waited too long, Sheriff,” Fargo said. “It may be too late.”

“Wait. What do you mean, ‘too
long
'? This all just happened. You just came—”

“It spreads fast, Sheriff. Between now and the last time I talked with you, they've had time to spread the virus some more.”

“Virus?” Jason said.

Fargo turned to Jason and filled him in on the fact that the lycanthropy was spread through a sexually-transmitted virus. “Have you had sex with someone who might be a werewolf?”

Jason frowned, thought a moment, then said, “No. No, I haven't.”

“See that you don't. A condom will prevent picking up the virus, but it won't protect you when she turns and starts to eat you. Lycanthropy turns a person into an animal with only two things on its mind—sex and food.” He turned to Hurley. “The lycanthrope craves sex and can never get enough. It is a half-human creature, but without any human inhibitions. When it wants something, it takes it. It is a savage, ravenous animal that will stop at nothing to get what it wants. If you stand in its way, it will either severely injure you or kill you. You can shoot it, but its body will only spit those bullets right back out. It can regenerate with great speed. Stab it, and the wound closes itself and heals quickly. Kill it, and it will come back, given a little time to heal. That is why your John Doe disappeared, Sheriff Hurley. He got up and walked away, and he has been satisfying his hungers and spreading the virus ever since. It has no doubt found a comfortable and safe place to sleep during the day, and the others are drawn to that place, that den. The werewolf is, of course, nocturnal. The nights have not been safe in Big Rock since he arrived, and they will not be safe until he and everyone he has infected are dead.”

“And you're convinced that John Doe is this man you've been hunting?” Hurley said.

“Irving Taggart,” Fargo said.

“What about the werewolves themselves?” Jason said. “How much of the myth is true?”

“As I said earlier, you can dismiss the myth, for the most part. For example, the full moon has nothing to do with the werewolf's transformation. A lycanthrope can transform himself anytime he pleases, day or night, although they usually leave it up to their emotions to do it. A lycanthrope will turn if under stress, or angry—any intense emotional state—or if its hunger grows strong enough. So, in that sense, the lycanthrope is not
entirely
in control of its transformations. Especially the newer ones. Over time, they learn to control and manipulate their bodies' abilities. The older they are, the more in-control they are. They can live forever, as long as they are not burned to death, and as long as silver is not introduced into their systems.”

Jason absorbed the information, eyes wide, lips parted.

“Have I answered all your questions, Jason?” Fargo said.

He frowned, trying to come up with more questions. “I guess so,” he said with doubt.

“Would you mind leaving us, then, please?”

“Oh, yeah.” Jason stood. “Thanks for letting me sit in on this, Sheriff.”

“Jason,” Hurley said, “I'm going to have to insist that you tell no one about what we've discussed here tonight. That includes members of your family. You need to keep this entirely to yourself, do you understand?”

“Uh ... yeah, sure,” Jason said with a nod. “My family wouldn't believe me, anyway.” Jason went to the door, opened it, turned to Fargo, and said, “Are you going to be around, Mr. Fargo?”

“Oh, yes. I'm not leaving town until Irving Taggart is killed or he leaves town first.”

Jason nodded, then pulled the door closed as he left the office.

Hurley studied Fargo sitting across the desk. He questioned the wisdom of telling Jason Sutherland everything, of telling
anyone
everything, before they had a plan of attack.