He rode the elevator to the second floor, passing an encouraging word to a small boy in a wheelchair. The boy stared at him dully. He watched as the nurse wheeled the boy toward the orthopaedic ward, then turned and walked briskly toward the glass doors to Administration. Once beyond them he felt a tangible relief. Those doors represented a barrier to Dr Qualen that kept the sordidness of disease and death separate from the nice clean business of running a hospital.
He barely noticed a neatly dressed young man with sandy hair who sat in one of the chairs across from the reception desk. A salesman, the doctor surmised. Some new wonder drug, or a piece of expensive equipment that no modern hospital should be without. La Reina was not in a buying cycle at present, but Qualen tolerated salesmen for the gossip they carried of the outside medical community.
The doctor smiled cooly at Mrs Thayer as he went by. For his own taste he would have preferred a receptionist with a bit more style and better tits. However, he knew that the matronly Mrs Thayer gave his office a solid, businesslike appearance. And she was excellent at guarding his door from patients and other unwanted visitors.
As soon as he settled himself in the burgundy leather chair behind the mahogany desk, the intercom buzzed. With a sigh he reached over and flipped the switch.
'Yes,Mrs Thayer.'
'A gentleman out here to see you, Doctor.'
'Who is he with?'
'Apparently he is not representing any firm.'
'Then what does he want with me?'
'He says it's about the boy they brought in from the woods. The boy in 108.'
Qualen frowned. He glanced over at the transfer papers for Malcolm, riffled through them and saw that Dr Pastory's name had been correctly entered making him the responsible party.
He said, 'Did you tell him I am not concerned with patient's affairs?'
'The gentleman was quite adamant about wanting to see the man in charge. He's been here since I came in at eight o'clock.'
Damn. Qualen hated to start the day with some petty annoyance. 'Does he have a name?'
'Yes, doctor. Mr Derak.'
It meant nothing to Dr Qualen. Had an unpleasant foreign sound. He sighed. Might as well get it over.
'Ask Mr Derak to come in.'
The doctor assumed a businesslike pose and watched as his visitor entered. He was not so young as he had appeared at first glance. It was difficult to guess his age. Something about the eyes, a deep shade of green, seemed very, very odd. Nevertheless, he was presentable enough. His sandy hair was cut short and neatly brushed. The jacket and slacks were not top quality, but good. He had a nice smile. Strong.
'Good morning, Mr Derak,' said Qualen with just the right mixture of cordiality and restraint. 'What can I do for you?'
'You have a boy here. I understand he was found wandering in the forest and was brought in by deputy sheriffs.'
'Ah, yes,' Qualen said, after a pause to indicate he was trying to remember the case.
'I'd like to see him.'
'Mr Derak, visits with patients are handled through the desk in the main lobby. You must have passed it when you came in.'
'I talked to the woman there, and I talked to her supervisor. I could not get satisfactory answers from them. They suggested I see you.' A rather unpleasant note crept into Derak's voice.
Qualen resolved to have a talk with that woman and her supervisor at the first opportunity. He said, 'You are a relative of… ' making a show of looking through the papers on his desk'… Malcolm.'
'In a way.'
The doctor looked up, expecting a further explanation. Derak offered none. His green-eyed gaze was uncomfortably direct.
'As it happens,' Qualen said, 'that patient has been transferred.'
'Transferred?' Derak took a step closer to the desk. 'He was here last night.'
'That's true. The transfer was effected early this morning.'
The sandy-haired man became agitated. One hand pulled loose the knot of his necktie. 'Where was he taken?' His voice sounded different. Coarser.
'I'm really not at liberty to say. If you will leave your name and address with my — '
'You will tell me now,' said Derak. The voice had roughened into a growl.
Dr Qualen stared at the man in astonishment. He had thrown off his jacket and was actually tearing at his shirt. And his face, my God, it was twisting itself into something quite inhuman.
The doctor reached for the intercom box. Derak's hand clamped on to his wrist with a grip that crackled the bones. Qualen stared at the hand. Before his bulging eyes it changed. Grew into a terrible mutant paw. Thick wiry hair sprouted from the back. The nails thickened and pushed out into claws. Qualen looked up at the face.
Even as he began to scream, the doctor knew the acoustic walls would let no more than a murmur escape to Mrs Thayer outside.
With a strength born of terror, Qualen wrenched his wrist free of the terrible grip. He ran around his desk and tried to make it to the door. Derak, or whatever this thing was that Derak had become, was faster. He threw himself past the doctor and used that misshapen hairy paw to roll the dead bolt home, locking them in.
The only other way out was the window of reinforced glass, and that gave on a sheer drop of twenty feet to the concrete parking lot. Qualen backed away, watching in horrified fascination the transformation taking place before him.
The man's body twisted and swelled and grew to a height that towered over the six-foot doctor. There was a terrible cracking as the skeleton reshaped itself inside the creature. The face… the face was all muzzle and teeth and burning eyes of green hellfire.
In a movement too swift for him to follow, Qualen felt himself seized under the arms and lifted clear of the floor. His shrieks echoed dully off the soundproofed walls. He felt the hot breath of the creature as the great jaws opened, smelled the stench of it. There was a moment of searing agony as the teeth sank into his throat. A hot gush of his life's blood. A last roar in his ears. Then blackness and oblivion.
It was the faint but unmistakeable crash of glass from inside Dr Qualen's office that roused Mrs Thayer. The only thing in there that could make a crash like that was the window. She buzzed the intercom, but got no answer. With mounting unease, Mrs Thayer rose from her chair, walked to the door of Dr Qualen's office, and tried the knob. Locked. She rapped lightly; then again, louder. There was no response. Something was wrong. Dreadfully wrong.
Mrs Thayer snatched the telephone from her desk and punched out the internal emergency code. In less than a minute two burly orderlies came running in from the corridor outside.
'There's trouble in Dr Qualen's office,' she cried. 'The door's locked and he won't answer me.'
The orderlies hesitated only a moment, then attacked the door while Mrs Thayer stood back out of the way. The door soon splintered under their combined assault. The men rushed inside, stopping as though they had hit a wall when they saw the bloody thing sprawled over the desk of the administrative chief. Behind them Mrs Thayer started into the room, then gave a little cry and backed away, her hand covering her mouth.
At the same moment the men turned toward the broken window. They crossed the room together and looked out, scanning the parking lot below. Nothing.
One of them pointed up at the hillside. 'Look!'
The other followed his pointing finger. 'What is it? I don't see anything.'
'I thought… for a minute it looked like something up there. Running.'
'A man? What?'
'I don't know. I can't see it now. It was more like a big dog. Or… Christ, I don't know. Let's get help.'
Later, of all the ghastly events of that morning, the two men would remember the sound they heard from somewhere up on the wooded hill. They would remember the howling.
