Ghouls

gothic shock value from the biological standpoint, you’ll find nothing all that unusual. There are multitudes of life forms, from every phylum and sub-phylum, that extract their nutritional needs entirely from dead animal material, that exist as scavengers. So look at it in that light. In my own order of observation, the ghala eat nothing that hasn’t been dead for at least twenty-four hours, unless critically famished. I’m not sure as to the actual biological reason for this; perhaps their food source must first undergo a certain amount of putrefaction before it can be properly broken down by their digestive systems. They also seem to exhibit an accelerated olfactory function, which might account for the legendary aptitude of locating unmarked graves. Maybe you have noticed the recent decline in dead roadside animals along Route 154.”

Kurt skeptically pursed his lips. That much he did realize. He remembered his talk with the county workman from Animal Control.

Still coy, Willard went on. “And I should think that the recent exhumation at Beall Cemetery might make my claims more convincing to you.”

“Cody Drucker’s corpse was mauled. It wasn’t eaten.”

“Of course not. The body was embalmed.”

Kurt thought back to the day of Glen’s appalling discovery. Drucker’s arm had been ripped from its socket. There’d been but a single bitemark in the flesh. Though of course he did not believe Willard’s story, he felt a growing nervous twitch in his stomach. “You still haven’t explained how these ghala got here.”

“I would think you’d have figured that much out by now.” Willard lit another cigarette, relishing the first smooth inhalation. “In their natural habitat, the ghala live in packs of about twenty. A few months before my separation from military service, I was able to locate one of their dens just outside Riyadh, in the hill country. According to legend, the ghala are nocturnal and feed at night. Generally, during these feeding excursions, they leave their lair unguarded, since there is nothing of value inside. But every sixth or seventh winter the ghala spawn, and it is during this brief incubation period that several ghala will remain in the den to guard their larvae. I hired two Marines and an Army E-7 to go into the den one night, and they retrieved for me eight healthy larvae, which I then brought back to the States. Unfortunately, two of the larvae were damaged during transport and died.”

“What about the other six?”

Willard upturned his hand, a gesture of the obvious. “They hatched.”

Kurt prayed Vicky would come. He needed more time. He had to keep Willard talking. “So you just let these things wander off into the great outdoors?”

“Oh, for God’s sake no,” Willard said, as though the suggestion were insulting. “I constructed pens and divided the ghala into three groups of two. One control group, to be maintained under ideal conditions; the second group to serve as research subjects; and the third group to be dissected, each at a different stage of physical development. I’ve been conducting my research for years, quite successfully…” But then Willard stalled. Suddenly he looked awash in pallor, his features thinned by dread. “Last week the control group escaped.”

Kurt knew there was too much space between them to make a go for the gun. He was trapped, pinned into the chair. Vicky was his only hope, but where the hell was she?

“I had grates installed to cover the ends of the air shafts, but apparently the welds didn’t hold. They crawled out through the ventilator.”

Another nervous coincidence. Kurt remembered the pair of odd aluminum cones in Willard’s side yard. Like ventilator lids.

No, no, it can’t be true. He’s pure-ass crazy.

“But anyway,” Willard said, “there’s your explanation, which you’re free to accept or reject. It doesn’t matter. I’ve no choice but to kill you.” He grinned smoke. “A convenient situation for a murderer, you must admit. At least I don’t have to get rid of the bodies—the ghala are all too eager to see to that.”

Willard aimed the pistol at Kurt’s head.

“Before you introduce me to my maker, answer me one more question,” Kurt requested. Sweat broke on his forehead, cold trickling beads. He wasn’t going to go down this easy. But he needed more time.

“No more questions,” Willard said. “As I’ve already said, it doesn’t matter. What was that old movie called? A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die? Terrible script, but I’ve always been fond of the saying. And you’ve already had your minute.”

“What does the TTX have to do with all of this?”

Willard lowered the pistol. He turned limp with astonishment. “How on earth —”

“Loose lips sink ships, Doc. I overheard you and your wife talking about it a few days ago; too bad you didn’t have your motion detectors on then. I listened in for quite a while. And don’t bother explaining what TTX is. I already found out.”

“My compliments. You’re a very industrious young man… When it became clear to us that we wouldn’t be able to recapture the two escaped ghala, we realized we had to kill them. Poison seemed the safest method, and TTX seemed the easiest to obtain. We decided to lay out portions of meat contaminated with the TTX. It was my wife’s idea, in fact, and delightfully ironic, since she turned out to be the meat. I killed her and injected massive amounts of it into her, and then left her body where the ghala were sure to find it.”

“Did they?”

“Oh, yes. The body vanished overnight. Regrettably, though, the TTX didn’t work. But that came as no tremendous surprise, since my research had already identified the ghala’s extraordinary resistance to a variety of toxic substances.”

“What now?”

“Try another poison, I suppose; I was thinking about guanethidine or prussic acid. A heavy chelator might also work; the ghala have a very odd iron-to-copper ratio in the blood. There are several good possibilities. But in a moment, of course, it will be the very least of your worries.” He raised the pistol again, lining his right eye up behind the sights.

Kurt squirmed in the chair. Got to try something. Jesus Christ, Vicky, are you gonna sit in the car all goddamned night? “Look, instead of punching my ticket out, why not let me help you get rid of the things?”

“Oh, but you will,” Willard said through a spreading, impudent grin. “I’ll be using your body to deliver the next toxin. We’ve bantered long enough, I’m afraid. I hate to spoil your day like this, but surely you understand.”

Willard’s eye narrowed behind the tiny black sights.

Kurt felt his heart skip beats. He leapt sideways out of the chair, offering Willard the least amount of target area. He tried to flip the chair over on him as he went, but the chair only landed on its side. Dead meat, he thought. Quack, quack, I’m a sitting duck.

At this point, Kurt expected to die.

A sharp white flare blossomed to his left, like a flashbulb, not quite synchronized with the rifle shot which then ripped a seam through the room’s graven silence. Kurt hit the floor and rolled, shoved by a violent explosion of adrenaline. Chaotically, he scampered to the corner, not knowing what had happened, but when he peered around the desk, he saw Willard on the floor cringing in pain. The pistol lay in the opposite corner; it had been shot out of Willard’s hand.

Kurt drew in a parched breath, and he reached over and reclaimed his revolver from Willard’s pocket. “Good shooting, Vicky,” he said, but then realized it couldn’t have been Vicky who’d fired the shot; he’d heard a rifle, not a shotgun.

Kurt and Willard looked up at the same time. In the study entrance, a figure stood just out of the light, warped through a shift of smoke and settling dust.

“Who the hell are you?” Kurt blurted.

Willard squinted ahead myopically. Blood eddied from his hand, but he seemed not to notice.

The figure then stepped dreamily into the light, a long, black rifle propped on one hip. “Good evening, Colonel Willard,” the figure said.

“My God,” Willard croaked.

Amazedly Kurt remembered the figure as the man he’d met at the Anvil. John, he thought his name was. The man with the scarred face.