Or it would have, had it not invited the wild in.
In an enormous front parlor filled with antiques and leather, the Alpha sat in a high-backed chair in front of a dead fireplace. The sounds and scents of the forest swept in on the breeze, and he shivered with pleasure almost unconsciously. For this was no time for pleasure.
His world was falling apart.
Wearing a human face and human clothes, he glanced around at the members of his Pack, who had gathered in the room. Young and old, they sat on sofas and leaned against walls and stood in doorways, waiting for him to speak, waiting for his guidance. That was what it meant to be Alpha.
And yet, now, somehow, he felt as though he were letting them down. He should have been with them at the library; because he had not been, things had gotten complicated. There were other ways to deal with them, neater ways, but they were still too complicated. Simple was always best.
Still, the journal was the priority. If he had never written that history . . . but there was no use wishing. It had come to blood and death now, and perhaps that was for the best.
The Alpha wondered for the first time if he might not be too old, if someone else should not challenge him for the mantle of the lord of the pack. Curious, he cast his gaze upon each of them in turn, eyes catching theirs.
One by one, they all looked away.
The Alpha felt tired. Yet not one of them seemed able to do what must be done. Only he.
The world was falling apart, and only he could put it all back together again. He resolved himself, in that moment, with only the light of the moon and stars seeping through the windows to illuminate them. The Alpha vowed to himself to save the Pack, no matter the cost, no matter the bloodshed. Buckton had been a sanctuary to all of their kind for a century. But if the sanctuary itself had to be destroyed, even that was not too high a price to pay for the sanctity of his Pack.
A new sanctuary could be created in another location, but only if the Pack survived to create it.
Sadness revealed itself on his false human face as he leaned forward in the antique chair. On the carpet lay their dead, five members of the Pack who would not hunt again. Jellison had died only twenty minutes ago, after a long struggle to survive the shotgun blast to his head. It was not to be.
He wanted to weep for each of them, but did not. What he owed to them was vengeance.
"How to explain this," he sighed to himself.
The Pack let out a collective sigh, perhaps of sympathy, or perhaps merely of relief that he had finally spoken. Some of them transformed, as if unable to control themselves, revealing their true forms - the wild, the beast within.
Though Jellison and two others among the dead would not be missed, or even recognized, by the people of Buckton, the other two would not go unnoticed.
One was Juliette Bleier, who had taught mathematics at the high school.
The other was Bernard Mackeson himself.
It might be days before anyone noticed the absence of Mackeson - whose large, red-furred corpse was matted with dried blood - but when Juliette did not show up to teach her summer school students, questions would be asked. Her disappearance could be explained, perhaps. Covered up.
But the Pack could not afford any more losses.
"Who are they, these children?" he snarled. "I know their names, but what are they doing here? How can they be so unafraid?"
They all stood a bit straighter then, but none dared to answer. None of them had an answer.
"The journal is still missing," the Alpha growled. "Now these children arrive, and they appear to know far more about us than we do about them. It makes me wonder . . . maybe they have the book. We will find out more about them. Find out if they do, indeed, have the book. Then we'll make them tell us, one way or another."
The Alpha rose from the chair, flesh tearing away to reveal the monster beneath. He growled, the anger and pain coming from deep within him.
"If we have to tear apart every human in this place, we will have that journal. We will protect the Pack and the purpose of this sanctuary, even if it means the destruction of the sanctuary itself."
What the hell are you doing, Alan?
It was about the twentieth time he had asked himself that question. He had tried desperately to go to sleep. The sheriff had been gone over an hour. When he came back, he told Alan to go home and get some rest, that he'd sleep in the jail overnight, a job they always split up when they had prisoners. Which wasn't very often. Alan had been relieved not to get that duty.
But he had been unable to sleep.
Where's the blood? The girl, Molly, had spun around like it was prom night. But she had been right. No blood on either one of them. No way could they have killed the Meredith girl. She and her father had been torn apart, just like Foster and Garraty. Just like Kenny Oberst. Chunks torn out of them, organs ripped out, bones snapped and scraped as if by teeth.
Animals. All along a little voice in his head told him that these were murders, perpetrated by a person or persons more savage than anything he could ever have imagined. Because animals wouldn't have attacked Phil Garraty's van
