Ravenous (39 page)

The odor, the blood on the porch, now this,
Hurley thought.
Jason was right—this is the den.

Hurley moved deeper into the house, sweeping his light back and forth until it fell on the old rotted couch. He came to a stop and stared silently at it. It had collapsed in the middle. It was hidden beneath a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. There at the left end of the couch sat what remained of the figure that had haunted so many of his nightmares, that had stirred such terror in him as a boy. It hardly appeared to have been human now—a crumbling pile of old clothes and bones, its head having fallen into what once had been its lap.

“What the hell is
that
?” Lucas said.

Hurley stared at it silently for awhile, then sighed. “It's been here a long time. I've seen it before. Once, when I was a little boy and came in here on a dare. Probably a transient. Some bum who came in here for shelter a long time ago and died, maybe. I don't know.” Seeing it now was somehow calming. The boogeyman was not so menacing after all—little more than a pile of sticks and the remains of rotten fabric. He turned away from it and faced his deputies. “Let's move through the house,” he said quietly. “Kopechne, come upstairs with me. You guys look around down here. Be careful, and keep your eyes and ears open. Anything happens, don't hesitate to shout. Or shoot.”

The stairs were rickety, and Hurley and Kopechne kept their flashlight beams on the steps ahead of them to avoid any that were broken. At the top were two hallways—one straight ahead, and a shorter one to the right. Hurley nodded his head to direct Kopechne to the right, while he went on ahead.

Other than the rainfall, the dripping, and the creaking floors, the house was silent.

The upstairs rooms held only a few dusty, rotten pieces of furniture. In one room there was a filthy mattress on the floor, some blood-stained bones that looked human, and fresh. Was this where Irving Taggart had been staying? Had he brought back some food from the hunt? Something to snack on? If so, Taggart was not in the house now. As Fargo had said, he was out hunting with the others, feeding.

That means people are dying,
Hurley thought.
And I'm here doing nothing about it.

He left the room and headed back toward the stairs. Kopechne appeared ahead of him and said, “This place is empty.”

Hurley nodded. “Yeah, that's what I expected. They've—”

An agonized scream cut through the rainfall outside, followed by a gunshot. Then more screams, more gunfire.

For a moment, Hurley and Kopechne were paralyzed where they stood.

A deep, animal roar sounded out there, followed by another.

Then a howl.

The night outside erupted in a cacophony of screams and cries and gunfire.

Hurley threw himself forward and skipped steps on the way down the stairs. On the ground floor, Sanford and Lucas were already headed for the front door.

Outside, the sounds of pain and fear—and the menacing growls of the werewolves—came from every direction, all around the house. Hurley did not know where to go first.

No one had transmitted a warning on the radio—whatever had happened had happened suddenly, unexpectedly.

Hurley stumbled to a halt at the foot of the front porch steps.

Just beyond the cruisers parked at the edge of the road, touched by the glow of a streetlight a short distance to the right down the road, tall figures moved forward steadily—
very
tall, hulking, casting long shadows over the glimmering wet pavement. They came from the woods across the street.

Hurley raised his gun and fired once, twice, a third time—but the figures that had been there were gone in a heartbeat. They were no longer straight ahead of him, but coming in from the right and left.

The shrieks and cries of his deputies surrounded the house.

Hurley darted to the right, rushed around the corner of the house, and nearly ran into a deputy kneeling on the ground. Hurley could not tell who it was at first—in the beam of his flashlight, the face was dark with blood, and a flap of skin dangled from the right cheek. Then the sheriff recognized Deputy Alan Stark.

“They're everywhere!” the deputy screamed. “We're surrounded! They came outta nowhere, they were—”

A shaggy arm swiped suddenly out of the darkness and curved claws struck the Deputy Stark's neck. His head tumbled through the air, thumped to the ground, and the body dropped limply.

Hurley turned his flashlight on the creature and fired without hesitation. The werewolf flinched, then lunged toward him with a growl. Hurley fired again.

It staggered to a halt. Its silver eyes widened with shock and confusion. It made an ugly sound of pain, then staggered to one side and dropped to its knees, Hurley forgotten.

The sheriff moved on, but without destination or purpose.

Deputies fell and staggered all around him. Some fought and struggled in the grip of the large creatures, but were quickly silenced and killed with the snap of fanged jaws or the slice of a hairy, clawed hand.

Another werewolf stepped in front of him and Hurley fired once—followed by an empty click. The werewolf staggered backward with a whining cry and disappeared into the darkness.

Hurley tried to reload, but his hands shook and he dropped the gun.

There was movement everywhere, the sounds of running, of bodies lunging through bushes and tall weeds. They were accompanied by sounds of pain and death, and the savage cries of wild, ravenous animals.

He thought of the shotgun in his SUV. He quickly turned and ran toward the front of the house.

Hurley slammed so hard into something large and hairy that the impact knocked him backward, and he fell to the ground. His flashlight slipped from his hand, spun through the air, and disappeared in a patch of ferns.

Cold rain fell on him where he lay. But the cold he'd been feeling suddenly grew worse, and cut through him to his marrow.

Something above him engulfed his field of vision.

The screams of the wounded and dying cut through the darkness all around.

A chilling howl rose up, then another, and another.

Something large descended on Hurley. It closed its hands on the front of his jacket and lifted him from the ground without effort. It pulled him close, his feet off the ground, until there was little more than an inch between the creature's face and Hurley's.

It had only one eye. The left eye socket was empty and shallow.

Its face hovered somewhere between that of a man and that of a wolf. The right eye studied him.

“This ... is ...
Fargo's
work,” it said, its voice a rumbling threat. “
He
brought you here. Yes?” Its hot breath smelled of blood and rotting meat.

Hurley stared in silent horror and panic.

“
Yes
?” it prodded, shaking him slightly.

Slowly, Hurley nodded.

The sounds of death and chaos went on all around them, but Hurley's attention was focused with laser-precision on the face before him.

“Where is he?” the creature asked.

Hurley's mouth was as dry as a desert rock. Thoughts swirled in his mind.

Several long seconds passed before the creature said, “Tell me.”

Hurley could not muster a voice.

The creature's grip tightened on Hurley's jacket as it growled, “
Tell
me ... and you'll live.”

The three words worked their way up from Hurley's fear-strangled throat and croaked out of his dry mouth before he knew he was saying them: “Buh-Beachcomber Motor Luh-Lodge!”

A slow smile stretched over the hideous face, revealing lengthening fangs.

Oh, Ella,
Hurley thought, the name sounding in his mind with a note of terrified, hopeless surrender.

As the creature spoke, its mouth and nose extended into a long, triangular muzzle that drained what little humanity remained in its features. It said, “I lied.”

 

* * * *

 

Fargo was pacing his motel room, leaning heavily on his cane, when the knock at the door came. More than two hours had passed, and Fargo's nerves had grown raw as he waited for the phone to ring.

The knock came again, harder this time.

“Fargo?” a muffled voice said.

Standing in the middle of the room, frowning at the door, Fargo said, “Who is it?”

The voice said something garbled and indistinguishable, but the word “sheriff” stood out from it all.

“Sheriff Hurley?” Fargo said urgently, hurrying to the door.

He pulled the chain, turned the deadbolt, and swept the door open.

Daniel Fargo had time before dying to do only one thing—to recognize Irving Taggart's face.

 

 

 

 

 

Days later ...

 

The sleeping baby curled up in the bassinet in the empty, bare-walled living room began to cry.

The cry had a hollow sound in the unfurnished room. Cardboard boxes of all sizes were stacked everywhere over the hardwood floor.

Lucy hurried from the kitchen, bent down over the bassinet, and picked up her baby girl.

“Oh, is Mommy's baby all woke up now?” she said through a smile as she pulled little Carla Jean Ives to her chest. Lucy's strawberry blonde hair was pulled back from her fair, freckled face and tied in a ponytail with a string of green yarn. She wore a paint-stained grey sweatshirt, jeans, and an old pair of blue deck shoes. She bobbed Carla gently in her arms until the cries became gurgling murmurs.

Lucy carried the baby back into the kitchen, where she'd left her cell phone on the counter. She picked up the phone and put it to her ear again. “Carla's awake now, Mom, so I should probably go.”

“Does Leonard have anyone to help him?” Lucy's mother said.

“Nobody but Eddie and me.”

“Well, I hate to think of you doing all that work alone, honey. Can't you call someone for help?”

“We just got here, Mom. We don't know anyone.”

“Why didn't you hire movers?”

“We can't afford that right now.”

“You should've
said
something! I would've been happy to pay for movers.”

“Don't worry, Mom, we'll be fine, really.”

“Is Leonard going to be able to start the new job next week? I mean, if you don't have any help moving in—”

“Look, Mom, I need to feed Carla now, then I should go out and help Lenny finish unloading the truck. We're going to be fine, I promise.”

“Well ... okay. You'll call me this evening?”

“Yes, as soon as Carla and Eddie are down for the night, I'll call you.”

“All right. Give Leonard my love.”

After ending the conversation, Lucy turned the phone off and put it down on the counter again. She talked baby talk to Carla as she carried her over to the highchair and settled her in. Then she searched the grocery bags on the card table they'd set up in the kitchen and found a jar of baby food.

Pounding footsteps stomped into the house accompanied by the voices of two little boys making race-car noises. Nine-year-old Eddie came into the kitchen with a chubby blond boy and said, “Hey, Mom, this is our neighbor, Clay!”

Lucy smiled down at the boy and said, “Hello, Clay.”

“He lives next door,” Eddie said. “He's got a Nintendo Wii! Can I go over and play it with him?”

“Not right now, honey,” Lucy said. “Daddy and I need you to help us as much as you can, okay? We need to unload that truck and get the stuff in the house in case it rains. We've got furniture all over the front yard.”

“Can I help?” Clay said.

“Sure, if you'd like,” Lucy said.

“But Dad doesn't need any help right now,” Eddie said. “He's talking to the cop.”

Lucy's smile fell away. “Cop?”

“Yeah, out on the front lawn.”

Frowning, Lucy went to the window that looked out on the front yard. A Sheriff's Department SUV was parked at the curb in front of the house, and Lenny stood beside a uniformed officer on the lawn, their backs to her. The officer held a cell phone to his left ear.

Lucy picked up the baby again and left the kitchen. She went through the living room and out the front door to the porch.

Fat grey clouds crowded the sky, but beams of sunlight broke through the narrow spaces in between. The air was cool and damp and carried a hint of the ocean's scent.

“Lenny?” Lucy said.

He turned to her, smiled, then walked over to the porch. “Hey,” he said, “our big girl's awake, huh?”

The officer continued to talk on the phone.

Quietly, Lucy said, “Is everything all right?”

“Oh, yeah, sure. He's the sheriff. He just happened to be driving by and he saw the truck and all the stuff on the lawn, so he stopped to welcome us to the neighborhood.”

“Oh,” she said, her eyebrows bobbing up. “Well, that was nice.” She looked past Lenny at the sheriff as he took the phone away from his ear, folded it closed, and dropped it into his pocket. He turned around and smiled up at her as he approached.

“You must be Lucy,” he said amiably. “Nice to meet you. Welcome to Big Rock.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” she said, noticing the black patch over his left eye.

“I'm the sheriff of Pine County,” he said. “Sheriff Irving Taggart.”