The Howling

'Was it in my head, then?'

'No, you heard something, all right.'

Karyn studied the other woman for a moment. 'You never did tell me why my ordering books about wolves brought you out here tonight. You have some idea what this is all about, don't you?'

'Yes,' Inez said slowly. 'I have an idea.'

'Well, come on, let's hear it.'

'Let me tell you a little about myself first. I am thirty-nine years old, never been married, and live alone with my potted plants, which I do not talk to, no matter how great the temptation. Every summer I take a trip somewhere alone, meet nobody worth knowing, and come back alone. I read a lot and I have a good collection of classical records.'

'Inez, I — ' Karyn began.

'No, I am not making a bid for sympathy. I like my life the way it is. Aside from a certain lack of intellectual stimulation, I like living in Pinyon. However, people there think I'm a little odd. Not dangerous odd, but kind of amusing odd.'

'What makes you think so?' Karyn said.

'You haven't heard it all yet,' Inez interrupted. 'For one thing, I used to be a nun.'

'A nun?' Karyn repeated.

'Yes, I was a Carmelite. There are quite a few of us failed nuns around today. Unlike most of the others, I didn't leave because of any argument with the Church. In my case it was a personal matter.'

Karyn studied the angular woman and tried to visualize her in the traditional nun's habit. Inez simply did not have the round, soft face that one associated with the cloister.

'You're not going to tell me I don't look like a nun?' Inez said, smiling.

Karyn laughed. 'As a matter of fact, that's just what I was thinking. Anyway, you were telling me about why you are interested in wolves.'

'That's the point I'm leading up to. My interest is not exactly in wolves. You see, I've lived in Pinyon for eleven years, and with a lot of spare time I made a kind of hobby out of local history. Before long I noticed a strange pattern of occurrences in and around Drago. I was intrigued because the pattern seemed to tie in with my other hobby.'

'Which is?' Karyn prompted.

Inez drew a deep breath before she answered. 'Diabolus.'

'The devil?'

'You think it's an unusual study for a former nun? Let me tell you, Karyn, that a belief in God requires a counterbelief in Satan. You must know your enemy before you can defeat him.'

Karyn stared in amazement. 'All right, Inez,' she said, hesitantly, making an effort at reason, 'but what has… Diabolus to do with me and Drago? Are you saying it's the Devil who is howling in the woods?'

'No, not the Devil himself.' Inez Polk's eyes fell away for a moment, then returned, bright behind their lenses, to meet Karyn's gaze. 'I think,' she said, 'that Drago has a werewolf.'

Chapter Eight

Karyn stared at Inez for a full ten seconds after her shocking suggestion, waiting for some indication that she was joking.

'You're serious, aren't you?' Karyn said finally.

'Deadly serious. Karyn, before you close your mind, please hear me out. Do you know anything about werewolves?'

'Do you mean lycanthropy?'

'No, that's just what I don't mean. Lycanthropy is a disease, a form of mental illness in which the victim imagines himself to be a wolf. He acts like a wolf, losing the power of speech, running around on all fours, growling, and eating raw meat.'

'But isn't that what a werewolf is, really?'

'No. A werewolf is a human being who actually, physically, changes into a wolf.'

Karyn shook her head. 'Inez, I just can't relate to this. We're two grown, reasonably intelligent women. And here we sit discussing werewolves as calmly as though we were talking about fruit flies.' Karyn continued very slowly, reasonably. 'Inez, you were a nun. As far as I know you're still a Catholic. How can you say these things?'

'Nothing I have said is contrary to the precepts of the Church. If I accept the existence of God as Good, I must also accept the existence of Evil. That's capital-E Evil. Call it whatever you want to — Satan, the Devil, the Anti-christ.'

'Do you mean that werewolves and the Devil are one and the same?'

'No. The werewolf is a servant of the Devil. No one becomes a werewolf by chance. It's like witchcraft. In return you pledge your everlasting soul.'

'People willingly become werewolves?'

'Once it was not at all uncommon. In the Middle Ages life could be an ugly, painful existence if you were very poor, and the price of your soul did not seem too much to pay for the powers of the werewolf.'

'But today surely there can't be people still making deals with the Devil.'

'Not many, I imagine. Not in the old way.'

'Then where would a modern werewolf come from?'

'The curse is passed on to succeeding generations. Unless the line is wiped out, there is no end.'

'So to be a werewolf, you either have to make a pact with the Devil, or have a werewolf for a parent.' Karyn was trying to be sarcastic, but it did not come out that way.

'There is another way,' Inez said.

'What is that?' This is going too far, Karyn thought. I must stop humoring her.

'The bite of a werewolf, if it does not kill, can infect the victim with the taint. These cases are rare, because when a werewolf attacks, he usually kills. A blessing, in a way.'

'I need a drink,' Karyn said. 'Do you want some more wine?'

'No, thank you.'

Karyn went into the kitchen and made herself a strong Scotch and water. The way Inez was talking worried her, but she did not know how to ease away from the subject. She took a deep swallow of the drink before going back out.

'I can see I'm upsetting you,' Inez said when Karyn came into the room.

'I'm sorry, Inez. I'm trying to listen seriously to what you're saying. But werewolves.'

'Why is it so hard to accept? Don't we travel to the moon? Destroy cities with the force of the atom? Transplant organs from one human being to another?'

'But those are achievements of science. What you're talking about is superstition.'

Inez's expression of utter conviction did not change.

Karyn took another approach. 'All right, just for now let's say that these things do exist. Why here? Why in the Tehachapi Mountains of California? Why Drago?'

'The history of the town, for one thing,' said Inez. 'In the sixty-plus years that Drago has been in existence there have been an unreasonable number of strange deaths and unexplained disappearances in and around the village. I have books at home. Documents, records, newspaper clippings. I would have brought them with me tonight, but I didn't know you. I didn't know if I should bring up the subject.'

'You still don't know me, Inez. I don't believe in your werewolves or your Devil or your God, and I don't want to hear any more about them.' Karyn stopped abruptly as she heard herself turning shrill.

Inez looked as though she had been slapped. 'I'm sorry, Karyn. Please believe that I'm sorry. I had given up talking to people about this because I knew they would think I was crazy. As I told you, they already think I'm odd.