Bestial (36 page)

Mom stopped talking and flinched as Rochelle clawed at the bandage with her fingernails and quickly peeled it off.

“Rochelle, what are you
doing
?”

She removed the bandage, quickly sniffed Mom’s thumb, then stuck it in her mouth and closed her lips around it. As she sucked noisily, clutching Mom’s hand, her eyes closed with satisfaction, her body relaxed, and she slowly began to grind her hips.

Grandma gasped and Mom tried to pull her hand away, shouting, “Oh, for crying out—what are you
doing
, Rochelle?”

Rochelle clung to her hand and moaned as she sucked on the cut thumb.

Grandma shot to her feet and shouted, “Stop that
right now
, young lady! It’s
obscene
!”

Mom finally jerked her hand away. Rochelle’s eyes widened as she reached out for the hand with a childlike sound of distress.

“But i-it was s-so
good
,” she said.

Horrified, Mom said, “Rochelle, what is
wrong
with you?”

Rochelle smiled slightly beneath her wide eyes. “I’m just... hungry.”

The moment he was finished with the cane, Bob said, “Okay, let’s get—” He looked around frantically. “Where’s the broom-handle?”

“Oh, shit,” Royce said. “I left it in the hallway, leaning against the wall.”

“Damn,” Bob whispered. “Here.” He handed the cane to Royce and said, “Come on, let’s go. I’ll get it.”

As they headed for the door, a scream sounded beyond it.

“Oh, God,” Bob whispered as he opened the door. They passed through the laundry room and crossed the hall.

Royce stopped just inside the kitchen, but Bob continued on toward the doorway to the back hall. Mom rushed toward him with a look of horror, her hands up, and stepped in his path.

“Something’s wrong with Rochelle!” she shouted.

“Out of the way, Mom,” Bob muttered as he stepped around her and went into the hall.

She spun around and went after him, snapping, “I suppose you and your friend are more important than your
sister
? She’s
sick
, Robert!” She disappeared through the doorway after him.

Rochelle was lying on the floor on her back, knees drawn up, arms flailing as she screamed.

Grandma stood beside the table gawking down at her, saying, “Oh, Jesus help us! Jesus help us!”

A moment later, Bob returned carrying the silver-tipped broom-handle.

“You’ve got to take her to the hospital, Bob!” Mom shouted, following him into the kitchen.

Bob glanced at Royce, who looked very uncomfortable and worried. Turning to Mom, Bob said, “There’s nothing I can do for her, Mom. I have to go.”

“Who do you think you are?” Mom shouted at him, her eyes wide. “We’re your
family
! She’s your
sister
!”

Grandma pointed at Royce and cried, “He’s being led astray by that blasphemous deceiver!”

Meanwhile, strange sounds began to come from Rochelle’s convulsing body on the floor.

“Holy shit!” Royce said, watching Rochelle with growing horror.

On the way out of the kitchen, Bob stopped at Royce’s side. He turned to Mom and Grandma, and as he looked at the anger and accusation in their faces, he felt a hot, churning sensation in his stomach. It moved up into his chest, then in his throat. He was only vaguely aware of grinding his teeth together.

Rochelle’s screams deepened as wet popping sounds continued to come from her convulsing body. Her clothes ripped loudly as her skin became hairy.

“Jesus Christ!” Royce shouted.

Bob smiled at his mother. He clutched the broom-handle so tightly that his knuckles became milky. His smile was cold, and its chill was reflected in his eyes. He pointed the broom-handle at his sister on the floor and said, “Why don’t
you
help her, Mom? Huh?
You
help her! She needs you! Look at her!”

Mom looked down at her daughter and moved toward her, but stopped and jerked backward as Rochelle sprang to her feet. She looked different, now—very, very different.

“What the
fuck
!” Royce shouted as he gawked at her silver eyes and the fanged snout that now made up the lower half of her face.

Grandma screamed as Rochelle pounced on Mom. The fangs closed hard on Mom’s throat. As Mom released an awful gurgling cry, Grandma began to gibber for God’s help while she staggered backward and pressed herself against the stove.

Royce shouted in horror as blood sprayed from Mom’s throat.

Walking backward, unable to take his eyes from his mother’s death, Bob grabbed Royce’s elbow and pulled him toward the doorway. Bob’s cold smile had not faded.

A moist crunching sound ended Mom’s gurgling and her head snapped back. As the creature that had been Rochelle chewed its way through her neck, Mom’s head flopped backward until it smacked against her back, coming to rest between her shoulder blades. The creature knocked her to the floor, straddled her, and began to eat with loud, sloppy sounds. All the while, Grandma’s ragged screams kept coming, stopping only so she could take a breath. She stood backed against the stove, arms bent at the elbows, hands waggling on each side of her head as her mouth hung open. As Bob and Royce backed out of the kitchen, Grandma’s upper dentures flopped crookedly in her mouth.

“You better pray harder, Grandma,” Bob said through that cold smile. Then he shouted, “
You better pray a lot harder
!” He turned and pulled the terrified, babbling Royce out of the kitchen, out the front door, and across the yard to the car.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Preparations

Standing beside the bed, Ella gently nudged Cynthia’s shoulder. The girl stirred but did not wake up. She lay on her right side, her back to Ella, who shook her more firmly.

“Cynthia? Cynthia? You have to wake up now.”

Cynthia rolled toward Ella slowly and opened her eyes a little, squinting and blinking. “What? Whassamatter?”

“You have to get up, Cynthia. Quickly.”

The girl sat up and quickly came around, swiping a hand roughly over her face. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s time. Remember how I’ve been telling you that when the time came, we would hurt them together, but that you would have to do as I told you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that time has come. Get up and put your clothes on. We have to go get a friend of mine out of jail.”

Bob and Royce sat in the cool darkness of the Bottletop, a small bar just a few blocks from Bob’s house. They’d been there for what seemed a long time, but Bob knew his sense of time had been distorted since Royce had driven him away from the house with Grandma’s screams still sounding in his ears. He was still trembling—he couldn’t make his hands or feet stop moving, and he still felt each heartbeat in his throat.

Royce, on the other hand, had calmed down quite a bit with the help of a couple of martinis.

“Want a sip of my martooni?” Royce asked with a smile.

“It smells like paint thinner from here,” Bob said. “Besides, one of us has to be able to drive. What time is it?”

“Time for another martooni.” Royce grinned happily.

“You know, you can get falling-down drunk if you want, but that doesn’t change anything. Those things out there aren’t going away.”

The grin melted from Royce’s face like frost in the sun and he became very serious. “I’m sorry I doubted you,” he said quietly. “This has been... well, seeing what happened back at your house...” He took a deep breath, lifted his glass in a toast, and said, “Nostrovya,” then took a sip.

“Maybe we should just get out of town,” Bob said. “Right away. We can go back to your place and you can pack some stuff.”

“What about you? Don’t you have stuff?”

“Nothing I need.” He thought about it a moment and a heavy feeling of sadness fell over him. “Nothing. I have nothing.”

“You want me to pack up and just... go? Where?” He finished his drink.

“Away from
here
. You want to end up like my mother?”

Royce frowned, then shuddered. With a sigh, he said, “All right. After one more drink.”

“Being drunk is not going to help.”

“I’m not drunk. I can hold my liquor pretty well.”

“It’s
still
not going to help.”

Royce waved at the cocktail waitress. “It sure as hell won’t hurt.”

Karen had been standing at the bars of the cell talking to Dr. Dinescu since he’d been brought in. He’d been unresponsive at first, but once he began to come out of his stupor, he cleared up fast. He remembered Karen and Gavin and George from the night before. He’d told them what had happened to his wife and grandmother.

“Now they’re going to kill me,” he’d said, his voice heavy with quiet defeat.

“Not so fast,” Karen had said. “We’ve got a plan.”

She and Gavin had brought Dr. Dinescu up to date. George sat on the bench in his cell looking unwell. He’d said he didn’t feel good and suspected it was part of his change.

“So you’re... like them?” Dr. Dinescu said to George in the next cell over. He sounded suspicious, a little afraid.

“I will be,” George said.

“But don’t worry, Dr. Dinescu,” Karen said. “He’s on our side.”

“Please, call me Abe.”

As Gavin and Abe continued to talk, Karen heard the first sounds. They came from elsewhere in the station, muffled by walls and doors—first a crash, then an alarmed shout. The others did not seem to notice the sounds, but Karen listened for more. And more came.

“Hey,” she said. “Something’s happening.”

The three men looked at her, then listened.

Shouting voices were buried by an animal like growl that grew into something more like a roar. A great deal of crashing mixed with the growls and the shouting. The shouts quickly became more roars, which then became agonizing wails and yelps.

Still looking unwell, George smiled slightly. “Sounds like Ella’s here.”

All four of them moved to the doors of their cells and waited as the sounds continued, crescendoed, then began to die out. A door opened and soft, slapping footsteps sounded. Karen, Gavin, George, and Abe looked to their left, down the corridor outside their cells.

Karen saw a woman come around the corner followed by a second, younger woman. She assumed the dark-haired woman in the lead was Ella Hurley. Both of them were naked, their bodies covered with a fine layer of fur—Ella’s was a dark, reddish color, the girl’s was blond. They had blood on them, but it did not seem to be their own. A cloth bag hung from Ella’s right shoulder on a strap, and with her every move, the bag made a soft jangling sound. In her right hand, she held a ring of keys. She walked with determination and resolve while the girl behind her tried to keep up and looked a little stunned.

The appearance of the two women—the hair on their bodies, the slight distortion of their facial features, the silver glint in their eyes—reminded Karen that she and Gavin once again were dealing with something far stranger and more dangerous than their usual cases of infidelity, theft, or missing persons. Her immediate reaction to the women was one of fear, but she quickly got that under control and reminded herself that they were all on the same side.

“Boy, it’s sure good to see you,” George said as Ella went to the door of his cell and unlocked it. “I’m not feeling so good, Ella. Is that... to be expected?”

She opened the cell door and stepped aside so he could come out. “Yes,” she said, her voice oddly thick. “It’s a good sign. It means the change is in progress. We’ll need you this evening. Let’s go.”

“Wait, wait,” George said. “Ella, this is Karen Moffett and Gavin Keoph. They’re private investigators who’ve come to look into the disappearance of Daniel Fargo. The man in the next cell over is Dr. Abe Dinescu.”

Ella stepped over to the door of the cell and looked at Karen and Gavin with interest. “Daniel Fargo?” she said.

“They want to help us,” George said. “You have to let them out. Abe, too.”

“We have weapons,” Gavin said. “Two handguns.”

Ella said, “Guns won’t do you any good because—”

”We have silver bullets,” Karen added.

Ella’s thick eyebrows rose. “Silver bullets?” When she spoke, she smiled slightly and the tips of fangs flashed behind her lips.

Karen tried to smile despite her discomfort and said, “We’re loaded for werewolf.”

Ella let them out of the cell. She went to Abe’s cell and looked him over. “Looks like they worked you over. Can you get around well enough?”

“I’m just bruised up,” Abe said. “I’m fine, really. Please. Let me out. I want to help you.”

Ella opened his cell and he stepped out.

“This is Cynthia,” she said, nodding at the young blond woman, but offered no further information. Standing before the four of them, Ella reached into the bag that hung from her right shoulder. Something inside it jangled again. She handed each of them a silver knife and fork.