Kruger would be there. The big man glowered at him constantly and made threats, but Malcolm had no energy to respond.
The worst part was when he was strapped to the table. Then Pastory would do things to him that he didn't like to think about. Things with little electric wires and such. Sometimes the doctor made it very cold in the laboratory, sometimes unbearably hot. He was always writing in his book, looking very excited. With the drug in him, Malcolm couldn't care.
Then Dr Pastory made a mistake with one of the shots he regularly gave Malcolm. The boy moved his arm just as the needle went in, and the drug squirted harmlessly on to his sleeve. So intent was Pastory on watching Malcolm's face that he did not see. When he went away Malcolm could feel himself growing steadily stronger and more alert.
Later that night — or maybe it was day, Malcolm could never be sure — Kruger came into his room. The boy saw him, but pretended to be asleep.
'You awake?' Kruger demanded. 'Yeah, I can see you are. Come on, it's time to get you up and get you dressed.' He started toward the boy.
'Don't touch me,' Malcolm said. 'Keep away.'
'Listen, you don't tell me what to do and what not to do. Maybe you need to be reminded of who's boss around here.' Kruger lumbered over to the bed, reached down and seized Malcolm's wrist.
A dull anger pushed its way into the boy's clearing mind, but he still did not have the strength to pull away.
Gripping Malcolm's wrist with one hand, Kruger pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket with the other. He snapped on the flame and brought it slowly up under the boy's palm.
The sensation of heat quickly grew into pain. It brought back terrible memories of a night of flames and screaming and the stench of burning flesh. The flesh of his people.
In a sudden convulsive movement, Malcolm snapped his head to one side and clamped his teeth on the hairy wrist of the man who held him. The skin broke easily, and he worked his jaws from side to side, biting through the tougher muscle meat. His tongue felt the slick ropey tendons though the taste of blood.
Kruger's scream shattered around his head like breaking glass. The cigarette lighter dropped to the floor. Malcolm bit down harder, finding a wild joy in the sensation of sinking his teeth into living flesh.
'Kruger!' The shout came from Dr Pastory, who had run into the room in response to the big man's cry.
'Get him off me!' Kruger shrieked, trying to pull his arm free.
Malcolm, eyes closed in a kind of ecstasy, bit down all the harder. He felt bones grind against his teeth.
There was a short, sharp stab in the back of his neck, and Malcolm recognized it as the jab of a needle. Instantly he lost feeling in his face. His jaw muscles slackened and Kruger pulled his lacerated arm free.
'Look what that little sonofabitch did to me! Look at my arm! I'll kill the little bastard!'
'Shut up, Kruger.'
Malcolm watched dully as Dr Pastory pulled his assistant away and looked at his arm.
'He took quite a chunk out of you,' Pastory said.
'Damn near bit through the bone. Will it get infected or anything?'
'I'll dress it for you in a minute. What I want to know is what did you do to provoke him?'
'Nothing. I didn't do nothing.'
Pastory stooped and picked something off the floor. 'What's this?'
'My lighter. I–I must have dropped it.'
'Don't lie to me, Kruger. Don't ever lie to me. You know all I have to do is say the word to have you put back in the bad place.'
'Please don't, Doctor. I was just fooling around. I didn't mean to do anything to him.'
'Get out of here. Go to the laboratory and I'll come in and take a look at that bite. It may even turn out to be helpful to me.'
Cradling his injured arm, Kruger left them alone.
Pastory came over and touched Malcolm's face. The anaesthetic had left him without any feeling there, but Malcolm could see the doctor poking at the flesh and muttering to himself.
'Incredible. Absolutely incredible. Malcolm, you are going to make me a very rich and famous man. We have a lot of work to do in the next few days, but then we'll start reaping the rewards. And don't you worry, my boy, I'll take very, very good care of you.'
Malcolm sank back on the narrow bed. All the anger was gone. All he felt now was an icy despair. He was ready to give up and die, except for one thing. He still held in his mouth the delicious taste of Kruger's blood.
Chapter Thirteen
Sheriff Gavin Ramsay of La Reina County had moments during the next few days when he seriously questioned his choice of career. The investigation of Dr Dennis Qualen's murder was not going well. It was, in fact, going very badly.
The search of the surrounding hills turned up nothing. The only flurry of excitement had come when one of the searchers shot another in the foot. After that the fun was out of the whole thing. The volunteers had gone back to their jobs. The helicopters had returned to their home counties or their TV station heliports. Only a few men from the State Forestry Service now combed the woods, doing mostly clean-up and repair to the damage to the environment done by the searchers.
The detailed pathology report had arrived from Dr Underwood and had done nothing to lift Ramsay's spirits. The wounds that killed Qualen were definitely identified as being made by teeth. Unfortunately, they were not the teeth of any animal known to exist on the face of the earth. The traces of saliva were no more helpful, falling somewhere on the spectrograph between human and canine.
While the sheriff suffered, the media had a field day. Every man, woman, and reasonably articulate child in Pinyon had been interviewed at least once. Deputies Nevins and Fernandez became media heroes; the first to his delight, the latter with some embarrassment. All the old horror stories of Drago were dug up and embellished until La Reina County was presented to the rest of the nation as a sort of southern California Transylvania where no one walked out of doors at night.
Most galling to Ramsay was the fact that Abe Craddock had been bailed out by one of the supermarket tabloids and was being kept in seclusion while his personal eyewitness story was being ghostwritten for the paper. Rumour had Craddock collecting a comfortable five-figure price for his lurid recollections of the thing that had eaten his buddy.
And, in fact, a pall of fear had descended over the tiny mountain town. Blinds were drawn, shutters reinforced, doors double-locked at night where before no one had bothered with so much as a hook and eye. Nightly patronage at the Pinyon Inn dwindled to a few hard-core regulars who drank little and talked in guarded tones. They came and left in pairs or groups. No one wanted to be alone.
The tiny library was immediately denuded of all books touching on werewolves, vampires, witches, or anything remotely occult. Then the librarian refused to stay there alone any longer, and the doors were locked.
The happiest man in the county was Ken Dowd whose Darnay occult shop, The Spirit World, emptied its shelves of all manner of charms and talismans that might protect the bearer from whatever evil lurked in the woods.
Nor was the occult dealer the only beneficiary of the werewolf boom. The Light of the World Christian Store, also in Darnay, had a run on crucifixes from customers who did not know Calvary from the Seventh Cavalry. The Light of the World people had to reorder crosses on a rush basis from a religious supply firm in Los Angeles, and still they could barely meet the demand.
Bibles were also a hot item, with King James topping the list, but even the updated versions were outselling the newest Garfield book in La Reina County. Enterprising roadside peddlers appeared with pictures and statuettes representing Jesus, Mary, and a variety of saints, and were doing fine business until local authorities clamped down. From outward appearances, La Reina County was the scene of the greatest Christian revival since Billy Graham filled the LA Coliseum.
