Best New Zombie Tales: Vol. 1 Part 34

Joey looked wistfully off in the direction the housekeeper had taken the dog. "Can't I just go and see him? Just for a minute?"

"Inside, Joey," said David. The boy trudged back across the gra.s.s and into the house.

"I feel so guilty because he can't have a pet," Karyn said.

"It won't hurt him to do without one. Now let me help you inside. You're still shaking."

"Really, David, I'm quite all right," Karyn said, but she allowed herself to be led into the house.

"Sit down there in the big chair," David said when they reached the living room. "Put your feet up."

Karyn did as she was told.

"Now wait right there and I'll get something to calm your nerves." He went off to the kitchen, and returned a minute later carrying a tall gla.s.s.

"Here's a nice gla.s.s of milk," he said.

A nice shot of Scotch would do her nerves a whole lot more good, Karyn thought, but she smiled her thanks and took the gla.s.s from David's hand.

He stood with his arms folded, studying her gravely as she sipped at the milk. "You gave me quite a scare."

"I'm sorry."

"What a shame that this should happen just when you seemed to be getting better."

Karyn set the gla.s.s down carefully on the end table next to the chair. "I hate that expression," she said. "Getting better. It's a constant reminder that I'm a convalescent mental case."

"I didn't mean it that way. It's just that I'm a little disappointed that, after a year, Dr. Goetz hasn't done more for you. Do you think we should try someone else?"

"Dr. Goetz is as good as any of them," Karyn said. "Really, David, you're making too much out of this. The dog came up behind me and took me by surprise. I overreacted, that's all."

"The dog," David said, watching her. "It reminded you of that Drago business, didn't it?"

Sure. That Drago business. The unpleasantness in the mountains. Nothing remarkable, reallyjust fighting off a pack of werewolves and seeing your husband change into... Karyn broke off the thought and shuddered.

David moved quickly to her side. "I'm sorry dear, I shouldn't have brought that up."

Karyn squeezed his hand. "No, darling, it should never become a taboo subject, or I will be in trouble. And you're right about the dog. Seeing its face suddenly so close to mine took me back for a moment to Drago. It's been only three years, you know, and we've got to expect incidents like that from time to time."

"And you're still having the dreams, aren't you?"

"Yes," Karyn admitted. "But not so often, anymore."

David frowned. "When is your next appointment with Goetz?"

"Tomorrow."

"And you really think he's helping you?"

"As much as anyone could."

David patted her hand awkwardly. "All right, then, we'll go on with him. I just hope he can make you see that this Drago business is all... behind you."

As she lay that night in bed beside her sleeping husband, Karyn recalled his words. She knew that what he had started to say was, "All in your mind." She would be happier than anyone to be convinced of that, but it was not so. Drago was as real as the moon outside their bedroom window, and much closer. The werewolves were real too. And somewhere, Karyn knew, one or more of them survived.

Nine hundred miles away, in the grape country of California, another woman lay awake beside her man. Her long, supple body gleamed like old ivory in the moonlight. Across the pillow, her hair spread in gentle waves of glossy black, shot through with a startling streak of silver.

The man stirred in his sleep. The woman quieted him with a hand on his broad, bare shoulder.

"Rest easy, my lover," she whispered. "Soon we will have much work to do."

2.

From the window of Dr. Arnold Goetz's office in the new Farrell Building, Karyn could see the sailboats skimming across Lake Was.h.i.+ngton under a stiff westerly breeze. It was one of those brightly washed summer days when the dreary months of rain are forgotten and the people of Seattle go outdoors to celebrate the sun.

Karyn stood at the window talking in a flat, emotionless voice. Finally she said, "So that's all there was to it. Just a silly incident with a dog, and it was all over in a minute."

Dr. Goetz waited a full fifteen seconds. It was a technique of his that Karyn recognized. The purpose was to encourage the patient to elaborate on, or perhaps contradict, the last thought. When Karyn did not offer to continue, the doctor spoke.

"There is no doubt in your mind, then, that it was only a dog yesterday."

Karyn spun around to face him. "Of course it was only a dog." She walked over and sat down in the chair facing the doctor's desk. "I was frightened for a moment because it brought back bad memories. That's all."

Dr. Goetz nodded sagely. "Yes, I see. And tell me about the dreams. You say you still have them?"

Karyn bit her lip and frowned. "Yes. And they worry me more than the business with the dog. Will I ever stop hearing it at night, Doctor? The howling?"

"You do understand that it is only in dreams that you hear this... howling?"

Karyn leaned back in the chair. Sunlight from the window caught her pale blond hair and made it a glowing frame for her face. She was twenty-eight now, and there were little lines at the corners of her eyes, but the touch of maturity only emphasized her beauty.

"Yes, Doctor," she said wearily, "I know it only happens in dreams. Now. But three years ago in Drago, the howling was real. As real as death."

Dr. Goetz touched his gla.s.ses. Karyn had determined that it was his unconscious gesture of disbelief. He put on an understanding smile.

"Yes, I see," he said.

"Bulls.h.i.+t."

The doctor brightened. Gut reactions always encouraged him.

"You don't see at all," Karyn told him. "You don't believe Drago actually happened any more than my husband does. Any more than all the other people I've told about it."

After his customary wait the doctor said. "Karyn, whether I believe or not isn't important. What happened in the past or didn't happen really doesn't concern us. Our bag is the here and now. All that matters to us is how you feel about it."

Karyn met the doctor's sincere gaze. He was having a difficult time making the transition from the traditional Freudian to the trendy transactional school of a.n.a.lysis. Everybody's got problems, she thought.

"What it makes me feel is scared s.h.i.+tless," she said.

Pause.

"Why?"

"Because I know they aren't all dead."

"When you say 'they' you mean"

"I mean the wolves," Karyn supplied. "The werewolves."

She watched closely for a reactionthe narrowing of the eyes, or the little quirk, which she had seen so often at the corner of his mouth. Dr. Goetz held his expression of friendly concern. He was good.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" he said.

"Doctor, I have told you about it."

"Tell me again, if you think it would help."

h.e.l.l, why not, Karyn thought. There was no pain in the telling any more, and that, at least, was an improvement. Maybe if she heard the story often enough herself it would become meaningless, the way a familiar word repeated over and over eventually becomes a nonsense sound.

She stood up again and walked back to the window. There, watching the peaceful scene down on the lake, she repeated the story of the d.a.m.ned village of Drago, and the six months she spent there with Roy Beatty.

She described the way it began, with the howling in the night. Then there had been the cruel killing of her little dog. She told of the strange people who had lived in the village, and the huge, unnatural wolves that had roamed the woods at night. In a quiet, controlled voice she spoke of the black-haired Marcia Lura, who had bewitched Karyn's husband and finally taken him forever with the virulent bite of the werewolf. Finally she told of the escape from Drago as she and Chris Halloran had fled the burning village.

Dr. Goetz waited, then spoke. "You said they aren't all dead. The wolves."

"As we drove out of the valley with everything behind us in flames, I heard it again from off in the forest. The howling."

Abruptly Karyn stopped talking and went back to her chair across from the doctor. "Telling the story doesn't make it any better or any worse," she said. "All it does is keep the memory fresh. What I want to do is put Drago out of my mind, now and forever."

"I can understand that," Dr. Goetz said reasonably. "And that's what we're working toward, isn't it? But, Karyn, before we can finally put this idea out of your mind, we have to find out what put it in.

Karyn stared at him. She s.p.a.ced out her words carefully. "What put this idea into my mind, G.o.d-dammit, is that it happened."

"Yes, of course," the doctor went on. "Maybe when you were a little girl there was some experience, something ugly, with wolves or large dogs."

Karyn shook her head wearily. "No, Doctor, not when I was a little girl. My only traumatic experience with wolves came when I was a full-grown woman. Three years ago. In Drago. You're telling me the same old thing, aren't you, that it's a delusion?"

"Delusion is a term we don't use much any more. We understand now that things that happen in the mind are every bit as vivid, and often more damaging than what we call reality. I'm sure your experience in Drago is as real to you today as this room we are sitting in. The important thing, as I said"

Karyn only half-listened as Dr. Goetz droned on in his silky, rea.s.suring voice. He was saying the thing everyone else did. Namely, that she had imagined the whole Drago episode. Maybe in time he could convince her of that. If he could, he would be well worth whatever David was paying him. In the meantime, it did help a little to be able to talk.

There was a subtle change in the doctor's tone, and Karyn saw his eyes flick over at the discreet little clock on his desk. Her hour was up.

3.

Karyn drove slowly north over the Aurora Bridge toward Mountlake Terrace, where she and David had their home. Her thoughts, as usual when she left Dr. Goetz, were on Drago and what happened afterward.

There had been one moment of triumph at the very end when she had fired the deadly silver bullet into the head of the black she-wolf. But that small victory, like the escape with Chris Halloran, had lacked a ring of finality. Even as she and Chris had paused to look back on the valley in flames, neither of them had really believed it was over.

For six tempestuous months they had tried to pretend it was, and that they were just another ordinary couple. After sharing the horror of Drago, it had seemed a natural thing to stay together. How wrong they were.

For a time they had traveled aimlessly from place to place, living on pills and nervous energy. Before long their pent-up emotions were turned against each other. At the end of six months these two people, who had shared more in a day than many couples do in a lifetime, were living on the edge of violence. The most insignificant squabble could erupt in an ugly word battle. They were staying in a Las Vegas hotel when the final blowup came.

Karyn had spent the morning in their room. She had the air conditioner turned up full and wore a sweater b.u.t.toned to the throat as protection against the dry cold. Chris had gone down to the swimming pool early, after making only a half-hearted attempt at persuading her to come with him.

At noon Chris returned. He glanced briefly at Karyn and went into the bathroom. Not until he had showered, shaved, and dressed, did he speak to her.

"Do you want to go down and get some lunch?"

"Can't we have something sent up?"

"Why?"

"I'd rather not leave the room, that's all."

"For G.o.d's sake, Karyn, you can't just sit up here and hide from the world like a frightened child."

His words cut into her like a dull knife. She fired back, "I can do anything I want. Who are you to tell me what I can't do? n.o.body asked you to run my life."

Chris's eyes had turned dark and dangerous for a moment, then he whirled and stormed out the door. Karyn fought down the angry impulse to throw something after him.

The rush of blood through the veins made a roaring in her ears. She walked over to the window, parted the draperies, and blinked at the bright white Las Vegas sunlight. Twelve stories down, she could see people in the pool and on the deck around it. Everyone seemed to be laughing and having a fine time. Was she the only one in the world, Karyn wondered, who was miserable?

She let the draperies fall back across the window, and returned to the chair where she had sat all morning. She was still there, s.h.i.+vering with the cold, an hour later when Chris returned.

He closed the door firmly behind him and stood looking at her. "Why the h.e.l.l don't you turn the air conditioning down?"

"I like it this way."

She could see him start to get angry, then, with an effort, relax.

"Karyn, we have to talk."

"Why?"