thought; once a month since last spring, and now it was five or six dead. And the worst part was, nobody even knew what he looked like. He could be an old man, or a woman who hates kids, or ... or even a kid.
'Well, if he comes here,' Lichter said, glaring menacingly at the shadows, his hair wind-fanned over his eyes, 'I'll kick his balls right up to his teeth. Or get Tracey's old man to arrest him for unlawful mutilation.'
Don laughed. 'What? You mean there's such a thing as lawful mutilation?'
'Sure. Ain't you never seen the dumb clothes Chris wears? Like she was a nun sometimes? That's mutilation, brother, and she ought to be arrested for it.'
They laughed quietly, shaking their heads, sharing the common belief that Chris Snowden's figure was more explosive than dynamite, more powerful than a speeding bullet, more likely to cause heart attacks in every senior class male than failing to make graduation.
Lichter took off his glasses and polished them on his jacket. 'I'll tell you, she's enough to make me wish I was a virgin again.'
This time Don's laugh was strained, but he nodded just the same. He wasn't a prude; he didn't mind talk about sex and women, but he wished the other guys would quit their damned bragging, or their lying. If they kept it up, one of these days he was going to slip and get found out.
'So, you start studying for the bio test next week?' Lichter asked, his sly tone indicating he already knew the answer.
'Yeah, a little,' he admitted with an embarrassed grin. 'Should be a snap.'
'Right. A snap. And if it isn't, you and I will be standing outside when graduation comes around,' He sighed loudly and looked up at the stars.
'Oh, god, only eight more months and the torture is over.'
The wind kicked up dust and made them turn their heads away.
'School,' Jeff said then, with a slap to his arm.
'Yeah. School.'
Lichter nodded, left waving at a slow trot, veering sharply right and vanishing. Don knelt to work the combination of the lock he had placed on the tire chain, then straddled the seat and gripped the arched handlebars. They were upright, cranked out of their racing position less than ten minutes after he had brought it home from the store. He didn't like hunching over, feeling somehow out of control and forever toppling unless he could straighten his back. He pushed off, then stopped as soon as he was on the sidewalk. To the right, far down the street, were the hazed neon lights of Ashford's long shopping district; directly opposite was the narrow island of trees and grass that separated the wide boulevard into its east and west lanes; to the left the street poked into a large residential area whose houses began as clean brick and tidy clapboard and eventually deteriorated into rundown brownstone and aluminum siding that had long since faded past its guarantee.
He glanced behind him and smiled suddenly.
On the path, just this side of the last lamppost, was a feather. A crow's feather twice as long as a grown man's hand. It shimmered almost blue, was caught by the wind, and tumbled toward him.
He waited until it fluttered to a stop against the bike's rear tire, then shook his head slowly. Boy, he thought, where were you when that kid opened his big mouth?
But as Jeff would say-the story of his life. Honest to god giant crows were not in his stars.
Tanker Falwick swore impotently under his breath. Thorns in the red-leafed bush had snagged his coat sleeve and held it fast, and he couldn't move quickly without making a hell of a racket. He slapped at them angrily while he rose and peered over the wall. And groaned with a punch to his leg when he saw his last chance for decent prey getting away. The boy was turning, bumping his ten-speed down off the curb and across the street. Away from the park, in spite-of the moon.
It was too late. Goddamn, it was too late.
'Shit!' he said aloud, and yanked his arm until the thorns came loose.
'Fucking shit!'
A glance up at the moon riding over the trees, and he swore again, silently, hoping that the squirrel he'd killed earlier wouldn't be the only meal he'd have tonight. There hadn't been much meat and its heart had been too small, and twisting off its head didn't give him near the same satisfaction as tearing out a kid's throat.
Several automobiles sped past, a half-empty bus, a pickup with three punks huddled and singing in the bed, a dozen more cars. None of them stopped, and when he headed back into the trees, he couldn't hear a thing, except his paperstuffed shoes scuffling wearily through the leaves. He hushed himself a couple of times before finally giving up. He wasn't listening, and there was, most likely, no one else around to hear.
The whole place had just been filled with damned kids, just filled to the rafters with them, and every opportunity he'd had to introduce himself to one had been thwarted in one way or another.
A large dirt-smeared hand wiped harshly over his mouth, not feeling the stiff greying bristles on his chin, on his sallow cheeks, on the slope of his wattled neck. He sniffed, and coughed, and spat into the dark.
Then he drew his worn tweed jacket over his broad chest, hunched powerful shoulders against the wind, and moved toward the center path.
He waited in the shadows for a full five minutes, then stepped out and took a deep breath.
He didn't like it back in there. He didn't like it at all despite his affinity with the best parts of the dark. There were too many noises he didn't understand, and too many shadows that trailed after him as he trailed the children who were scurrying after their parents.
A lousy night, all in all-except for the music.
He stopped at the oval pond, checked the path, and knelt on the apron, then leaned over and scooped some of the cold water into his mouth.
The music was nice. Not bad for a bunch of fucking dumbass high school kids, and he had even recognized some of the tunes. He had been hiding behind a patch of dense laurel just to the left of the bandstand, nodding, humming silently, and applauding without sound at the end of each number. He had also been hoping that one of the punks would have to take a leak during the program and wouldn't be prissy about heading into the bushes. Tonight he wasn't fussy about the sex; one of the boys would have done just as nicely as one of them young whores.
When that didn't work and he couldn't move anyone over to him through the sheer force of his will, he had moved down toward the south entrance since that's where the fewest of the audience had headed when it was over. He was hoping for a stray, but the little ones were too good, too well-behaved, like those who were at the pond while that other kid, the older one, the punk bastard in black denim, told them a preposterous story about a stupid giant crow.
And the big ones, the punks, the snot-nosed creeps who made up most of his fun, they stuck together like glue right to the street. Especially the whores.
He rocked back on his heels and dried his face with a sleeve.
That had been a close one, that one had, the moment with the black denims. Suddenly the punk had pointed right to the tree where he had been concealed, and he thought for sure he'd been caught, the cops would be on his ass, and he'd be fried without a trial. Then the kid had jabbered on about this dumb creature of his, and there was an argument, and Tanker was able to slip away without detection.
That, he thought smugly, was the easy part-because he was a werewolf.
The realization of his condition had been a long time coming, starting shortly after he had been handed his separation pay and papers. They said he had lost his touch with the new recruits; they said he wasn't living up to the image of the 'new army'; they said he drank too much; they said it was against the new rules to hit the little snots when they didn't obey his commands. They said. They, who weren't hardly born when he had first signed his name in that pissant office in Hartford. And they said he ought to be able to find a pretty good job somewhere, that his pension and the job would take care of him for the rest of his life. After thirty years, though, the rest of his life wasn't all that far away.
He left Fort Gordon, Georgia, as he had arrived-on foot, his belongings slung over his shoulder. Refusing several offers of a ride, he walked into Augusta, put his things into a locker at the bus station, then went out and beat the shit out of the first kid under twenty he could find.
There had been a full moon that night, and though a number of people saw and chased him, he had escaped. He noticed the connection right away because he had been running ahead and behind his shadows the whole time, and he decided then and there that the moon would be his charm. It would help him in civilian life make a fortune
