CHAPTER 30

Clark Corcoran gazed at the documents on his desk, barely able to believe what he was seeing. Yet there was no question of the validity of the test results performed on tissue taken from various parts of Shane Slater's body. Two labs had run the tests, not only on samples of Slater's blood, but of his sperm, as well.

Corcoran had run his own tests, too, over the last two days, tests it had never occurred to him to perform in all the years that Joey Wilkenson had been in his care. With every test result he'd studied, the evidence became clearer.

No matter how his mind might resist the facts, the facts simply could not be denied. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, scanning the faces of the people gathered around his desk, then taking off his glasses to polish them, knowing that the gesture was merely a way of giving himself a few extra moments to organize his thoughts.

MaryAnne Carpenter was sitting between Charley Hawkins and Rick Martin, her face pale, her fingers twisting at a handkerchief that had already been crumpled in her hand when she'd come in with Hawkins ten minutes ago.

Hawkins himself, his face drawn, was doing his best to maintain a certain judicial impassivity, but Corcoran wondered exactly what thoughts must be going through the attorney's mind this morning. It was obvious that Hawkins hadn't slept much the night before. Not, he suspected, that anyone in Sugarloaf had slept well last night.

'The Sugarloaf werewolf.'

Corcoran had first heard the term when he'd switched on the radio this morning and listened to Sam Gilman talking about the events at El Monte Ranch. Though the disk jockey's facts were sketchy at best, it had been no trick at all for "Sugarloaf Sam -that had always vaguely annoyed Clark Corcoran-to inflate the story into one of proportions large enough to make everyone in town feel he had been lucky to survive at all. To hear Gilman tell it, Shane Slater had been prowling the village every night for years, searching out victims to satisfy his "blood lust." The fact that until a week ago there had apparently been no victims at all seemed to have occurred to nobody.

Finally Corcoran, fed up, had called in himself, suggesting that Gilman switch his nickname to the "Sugarloaf Ghoul." Gilman, uninterested in talking to anyone who wouldn't feed the flames of his rumor-mongering, had promptly cut Corcoran off, and the doctor had retaliated by shutting off his radio-a victory at best, since whether he listened to them or not, the rumors were going to go on. And once the reports on his own desk were made public, which he knew they would be, it was only going to get worse.

A lot worse.

Rick Martin, his eyes rimmed with red from lack of sleep, finally stirred in his chair. "Well?" he asked. "What's the verdict?"

Corcoran cleared his throat, then leaned forward, choosing his words carefully. "I'm not sum- what to say," he began, though he knew all too well that there was no way of avoiding the truth. "I wish I could tell you differently, but there's no question that Slater was Joey Wilkenson's biological father."

MaryAnne nodded grimly. "I got the impression from Olivia that Audrey felt really stupid about the whole thingApparently she had no idea about 'Randy Durrell' at all.

She didn't even know his real name, but she was crazy about him, according to Olivia."

"Except it turns out Slater was the one who was crazy," Rick Martin said. No one in the room even chuckled.

"I suppose that's why she fell in love with Ted so fast," MaryAnne went on. "She was on the rebound, and at least she knew exactly who Ted was.

I thought she'd made a mistake, a terrible mistake, but@'

"She did," Clark Corcoran interjected. "She'd already gotten pregnant by Shane Slater."

MaryAnne's gaze slowly lifted from the faded photograph of Audrey and the man who had called himself Randy Durrell. "But you said Joey is all right," she whispered. "You said@'

"I was wrong," Corcoran told her, his eyes dropping to the open file on his desk. "From what I've seen, there is no possible way Joey can be all right. When they experimented on Shane Slater, they actually succeeded in altering his genetic structure. His genes aren't those of a normal human being, MaryAnne,. A great deal of them are, but there are differences, too. There are strings in his DNA that simply don't match anything human at all." He flipped to another page of the file, then another. "The same DNA is in his sperm. The reports are all here, and they don't leave any room for doubt. Almost certainly, he passed some of his@' Corcoran hesitated, searching for the right word, unwilling to use the one that came instantly to mind.

A man of his education simply didn't use the word werewolf.

"He would have passed some of his mutations on to Joey," he finished.

MaryAnne's lips tightened, but she said nothing.

"Which ones?" Charley Hawkins asked. "Are you saying we have to consider him to be as dangerous as Shane Slater was?"

"For Christ's sake, Charley, we already know he killed Olivia Sherborne!" Rick Martin shouted.

"But Clark said-" the lawyer began, his voice taking on an edge of desperation.

"I know what I'm going to do," Rick stated, standing up.

His eyes went to the window, narrowing as he saw the thick layer of snow that was not yet showing any signs of melting. "As soon as this thaws out, I'm putting together a team. We're going to search those mountains until we find him, and when we do-" He cut his own words short just in time, knowing that if he'd uttered them, they not only would have sounded like a line from a grade-B movie, but they would have incriminated him as well.

Officers of the law, he knew, simply did not set out to gun down a ten-year-old boy on sight.

But that was exactly what he intended to do.

And it might happen a lot sooner than anyone thought, if the hunch that had been growing in him all morning long was right.

As the meeting in Corcoran's office broke up, Rick Martin got into his Jeep and headed up to El Monte Ranch.

Joey would come back there, he was almost certain of it.

He might be Shane Slater's son, but he wasn't like his father yet.

He didn't know how to live in the woods, didn't know how to take care of himself in the wilderness.

So he'd come back to the ranch.

He'd come back, if for no other reason than hunger.

By now, he must be very hungry, indeed.

Michael Stiffle gazed at the deep snow burying the trail that began at the edge of his family's pasture and wound through the woods to come out at the driveway of El Monte Ranch.

He'd been using the path all his life and knew every one of its turns so well that even on the night when he and Andrea had gone out to scare Joey Wilkenson, he'd never felt even slightly lost.

It wasn't the snow that kept him from using the trail today. In fact, all morning long he'd been thinking about how much fun it would be to get out his snowmobile and race through the woods, then streak across the big pasture at El Monte, making figure eights in the fresh white blanket that would still be almost unmarred even by grazing deer. But every time he thought about it, he also remembered what had happened up at the ranch two nights ago, and remembered, too, the shadowy figure he and Andrea had seen up at the ranch the night before that.

Had it been Shane Slater?

Michael shivered with excitement every time he thought about it. He could hardly wait until school started again to tell everyone what he'd seen.

And he had been the only one to see the werewolf, despite what Andrea might say. He could remember it perfectly, and she'd stayed close to the house, too scared even to go out and throw some rocks at Joey's window!

She might have seen something-maybe a shadow, or something like-that-but only he had seen the monster that killed Logan-and maybe even Dr. Sherborne, too--with his own eyes!

Of course, he'd heard that it was Joey that killed Dr. Sherborne, but he didn't believe that. Joey was nuts, but he just wasn't strong enough to kill someone with his bare hands. So the fact that Shane Slater was dead should have made the trail through the woods less scary.

Yet when he was finally ready to go up to El Monte Ranch and feed the horses-and check out for himself the place behind the barn where they'd found Shane Slater and Dr. Sherborne-he felt no temptation at all to take the trail, with or without his snowmobile. In fact, he wasn't supposed to be going at all, since his folks had made him promise to wait until they got back from town, when his father would drive him up there and wait while he did his job.

Wait, just like he was still some ten-year-old kid who couldn't take care of himself.

And his father, he knew, wouldn't let him go anywhere near where they'd found the bodies. But his folks wouldn't be back from town for at least an hour, and he had plenty of time to get up there, take a good look, feed the horses, and get back.

He set out walking, moving quickly down his driveway to the main road, then turning right to head up toward El Monte. The road was plowed, and there had been enough traffic going back and forth that the pavement was clear. In less than ten minutes he had come to the driveway.

It wasn't until Michael was halfway up the drive, and the forest had begun to creep in on him from both sides, that he began to feel nervous.

The thick snow covering the trees and ground seemed to cast an unnatural silence over the forest, and suddenly he felt as if he was being watched. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he felt gooseflesh forming even under the heavy sweater and jacket he was wearing. Glancing around, half expecting to spot Andrea hiding behind a tree ready to jump out at him, he scanned the woods on both sides, but saw nothing. Finally, when he was certain there was no one there to see him lose his nerve, he broke into a trot, and ran the rest of the way up to the ranch, not stopping until he burst out of the mouth of the driveway into the yard.

He stopped to catch his breath, then gazed around. Over by the shed behind the barn he could see the bright yellow strips of plastic that marked the area where they'd found the two bodies. Michael immediately headed over to take a look, feeling vaguely disappointed when he found that there was nothing much to see. The snow around the shed was completely

packed down, and he wasn't even sure where the bodies had been lying, except that some of the snow was stained with what he figured must be blood. He shivered as he stared at the reddish stains, but finally turned away and started toward the barn.

But as he approached the enormous, looming structure, he began to wonder if maybe, after all, he should have waited for his parents to come back from town. Though the sun was shining brightly, and the sky was clear overhead, the barn seemed somehow forbidding.

Then he remembered.

it was inside the barn that they had found Logan Carpenter's body, his throat torn open, blood soaking his clothes.

His heart pounding, Michael slowly moved around the barn until he came to the two huge doors.

Maybe he shouldn't go in at all. Maybe he should just go home and come back later with his father.

Chicken! he told himself. You're just being a chicken!

There's nothing in there except some horses, and maybe a few rats!

Putting down the fear that was threatening to make him turn and flee, Michael resolutely lifted the latch and pulled the barn door open.

As the hinges creaked, the horses, inside began to snort and paw restlessly at the floors of their stalls. "It's okay," Michael called loudly, more to steady his own nerves than anything else. "It's only me.

I'm going to feed you!" But he made no move to go into the barn yet. He stood at the door, poised now to take off if he heard anything from inside that didn't sound quite right.

But except for the horses, he heard nothing, and finally he slipped-into the barn, leaving the door standing open.

Ten minutes.

Just ten minutes and he would be done and he could go back home. Then, at school tomorrow, he could tell everyone what he'd done and what he'd seen.

And he'd tell them he hadn't been scared at all.

Joey moved silently through the woods, slipping from tree to tree, darning across the open places only when he was certain there were no human eyes to see him. He'd been circling slowly around the ranch for more than an hour, starting at the head of the trail that opened into the pasture directly across from the kitchen door. Even when he'd descended the trail, he'd been careful to avoid the small clearing adjoining the pasture itself, staying a few yards into the shelter of the forest, crouching low in the snow as he watched the house, unaware of the cold wetness seeping through his clothes. Finally he'd changed his position, moving to the west, finding a vantage point from which he could survey the back of the house as well as the side facing west. When he'd still seen no signs that anyone was there, he'd moved on, working his way through the forest, keeping himself concealed, patiently examining the house from every angle, satisfying himself that it was, indeed, deserted.

Now he retraced his steps until he was once more at the back of the house, screened by the large log building itself from the mouth of the driveway and the barn. He crouched at the base of a low white-barked pine, nearly invisible in the shelter of its twisting branches.

He sniffed at the air, searching for any trace of a scent that would betray the presence of someone hiding inside the house, listened for any sound that might be made by someone waiting within.

Nothing.

His muscles tensed, and at last he made his move, darting from the shelter of the tree to sprint across the snowcovered yard, ducking into the sanctuary of the house itself.

Pausing for only a moment, he slipped around to the west side and scuttled to the broken window through which his father had entered the house two days ago.

Two days.

And more than a full day since he'd left the cabin, climbing high into the mountains until at last he'd found a cave that had offered him shelter. He'd crouched inside it, watching unseen as the helicopter had flown above, searching for him, then nestled down into the bearskin he'd brought with him from the cabin, sleeping fitfully through the night.

But this morning he had woken up hungry, his stomach growling, a cold knot of pain lying sullenly in his belly.

He'd eaten some snow, but while his thirst had been satisfied, his hunger had not, and as the morning wore on, he thought more and more about the food in the house.

More food than anyone needed.

And surely no one would be there.

Not after what had happened.

Leaving the still crippled wolf in the cave, he'd started down the mountain, his hunger growing with every step, but never driving him past the limits of caution.

Now, though, he was there, and, as he'd thought, the house was deserted!

Except that someone had nailed a sheet of plywood over the broken window. He reached up, working his fingers under the edge of the plywood, and tugged at it. It held fast for a moment, but then he felt one of the nails give way, and a second later the gap was wide enough for him to slip the fingers of both hands into it. He pulled again, and the corner came loose, then all four of the nails along the bottom of the plywood sheet gave way and he was able to pull the wood far enough from the window frame to slither over the sill and drop to the floor inside.

Once again, like a wary animal, he crouched where he was, listening.

The house was silent.

He rose to his feet and moved quickly into the kitchen, pulling open the refrigerator door.

On the bottom shelf, still on the plate where MaryAnne had left them, were the five steaks, wrapped in plastic. Ripping the plastic off one of them, Joey began tearing the raw meat into small chunks, shoving them into his mouth, swallowing them almost without chewing them.

The knot of pain in his stomach eased, then disappeared entirely as he finished the first steak and started on a second.

His hunger sated, he turned away from the refrigerator, leaving it open, and moved into the dining room, then to the bottom of the stairs. He started slowly upward, his nose filling with familiar odors, scents that stirred emotions within him.

He came to the door of his own room but passed it by, moving on to another door.

The door stood ajar.

Inside the room, the odor of its occupant was still strong, and he breathed deeply of it, an odd warmth spreading through him as he inhaled the scent.

Alison.

Alison, who had always been kind to him, even after he'd attacked her.

He went to the closet door and pulled it open.

The closet was empty-all her clothes were gone. His eyes darted around the room, finally coming to rest on a scarf that hung over the footboard of the bed.

The scarf that he'd chosen for her himself.

He snatched it up, holding it to his nose, breathing in the smell that clung to it. Finally he wrapped the plaid cashmere around his neck, comforted by the scent of the girl who had been the one friend he'd ever had.

A minute later he was back downstairs, throwing as much food as he could into a large plastic bag. When he'd filled the bag, he slipped out through the back door, and was about to head back toward the creek and the safety of the mountains when he saw the barn door standing partway open.

He hesitated, almost turned away again, then sniffed at the air.

A breeze was wafting up from the direction of the barn, and Joey could smell the scent of the horses, their familiar odor triggering memories of days that now seemed a lifetime ago, when he'd spent endless hours with them, feeding them and grooming them, training them and riding them.

Days that were gone forever.

He breathed deeply of the comforting smell, wanting to capture it in his memory, but then his muscles tensed.

There was another odor coming from the barn as well, An odor he'd never truly been aware of before, but which now filled him with sudden rage.

Michael Stiffle.

Michael Stiffle was in the barn, and his scent, unfamiliar as it was, still triggered memories in Joey.

Memories of Michael taunting him, telling him he was crazy, whispering about him when he didn't think he was listening.

More memories welled up out of his subconscious, and suddenly Michael Stiffle seemed to personify every slight and insult he'd suffered at the hands of his classmates for as long as he could remember. His fury building, Joey dropped the bag of food to the ground and started toward the open barn door.

Michael Stiffle was pouring feed into the trough in Sheika's stall when the big mare snorted, tossed her head, and began backing away from the door, her hooves drumming on the wooden floor, her eyes wide.

"What is it?" Michael asked, looking up from the trough to gaze quizzically at the horse. Only a moment ago the mare had been nuzzling at his neck, trying to nose him aside in her efforts to get to the fresh food in her trough.

Now, though, the horse looked terrified, and when Michael reached up to pat her neck, she shied away with a loud whinny. She backed farther, her rump finally coming to a stop as it hit the stall's far corner. She started, then reared up, her forehooves striking out, forcing Michael to duck out of the way.

"Jesus Christ!" the boy burst out, scrambling toward the door. "What the hell's wrong with you?" Keeping his eyes on the shying-rearing horse, Michael groped behind him for the latch to the stall door, finally found it and twisted it. As the door swung open, he slipped out into the wide aisle that ran in front of the stall and slammed the lower half of the door shut, even though Sheika-still in the far corner of her stall-made no move to try to bolt.

Now Michael realized that it wasn't only Sheika who had spooked, for Buck and Fritz were also pawing nervously, and suddenly Fritz reared up, his hooves striking out to crash against the planks that walled his stall. A moment later Buck followed suit, and then Sheika, too, joined in the melee. "What the hell's going on?" Michael asked out loud.

Then he knew, for suddenly he had the same feeling of being watched that he'd felt in the woods a few minutes before.

Except this time it was stronger.

Much stronger.

His whole body broke out in goose bumps, and a terrible chill seized him as he felt the presence in the barn.

A presence that wasn't human, but wasn't an animal, either.

Then he heard a sound-a single step-but instead of making him jump, the sound paralyzed him.

His eyes darted quickly around, searching for something he could use as a weapon.

A pitchfork.

It was only two steps away, just across the aisle.

Gathering what little courage he could muster, Michael Stiffle forced himself to overcome the paralytic fear that had seized him, then leaped across the aisle and grabbed the pitchfork.

Just as his hands closed on the fork, he heard another sound, much closer this time, directly behind him. Whirling around, the needle-sharp tines of the fork pointing straight out, Michael Stiffle found himself gazing at Joey Wilkenson.

Joey was staring back at him through narrowed eyes that glittered with menace, and an image suddenly came into Michael Stiffle's mind.

An image of a wolf.

For a moment that seemed to go on forever, neither boy said a word.

It was finally Michael Stiffle who broke the silence: "Wh-What do you want?" he asked, his voice quavering.

Joey glared at the boy who had taunted him all his life' "I'm crazy," he whispered. "It's finally true, Michael. All the things you ever said about me are finally true."

"L-Leave me alone," Michael stammered. "I never hurt you. I never did anything to you!"

"Yes you did," Joey replied. "And it wasn't just you, Michael. It was your sister, too. And all your friends." Joey's eyes locked on to the other boy's, and Michael felt himself powerless to turn away. "Do you know what's going to happen to you, Michael?" Joey finally asked.

As he felt his knees begin to give way beneath him, Michael tried to speak, but found that his voice had failed him. Mutely, he stared at Joey.

"I'm going to kill you, Michael," Joey whispered. "Some night when you think you're safe in your room, I'm going to come and kill you."

Michael Stiffle stared at Joey, the other boy's words echoing in his mind.

I'm going to come and kill you, Michael I'm going to come and kill you.

"N-Nooo," Michael wailed, finding his voice at last. He rushed at Joey, the tines of the pitchfork pointed directly at Joey's chest, but at the last second Joey stepped aside, his own hands closing on the fork's handle as it lunged past him.

A fraction of an instant later, Joey had jerked the fork from Mike Stiffle's hands, and as the other boy realized what had happened, he turned to flee.

He was almost to the tack room when Joey hurled the fork with a force that drove the tines deep into the wood of the door through which Michael had been trying to flee.

Michael's head was pinned to the door, two tines of the wide fork straddling his neck.

A third tine, though, had pierced Michael Stiffle's neck, missing his spinal cord by a fraction of an inch but puncturing his carotid artery.

A scream burst from Michael's throat but it almost instantly died away to a bubbling moan as his throat filled with blood that poured out of his mouth and nose.

As he died, the last words he heard were Joey Wilkenson's: "It's only the beginning, Michael. This is only the beginning."

Then, as Michael Stiffle died, dark laughter welled up from the depths of Joey Wilkenson's soul and he walked out of the barn, back into the bright sunlight outside. As his ears detected the sound of a car coming up the road toward the driveway, he loped to the house, picked up the bag of food that would get him through the next several days, and started across the pasture toward the shelter of the woods.

Rick Martin arrived less than a minute later. As he pulled into the yard in front of the house, he saw Joey across the field, only a few yards from the forest. His heart racing, he slammed the car to a halt. "Joey!"

he yelled as he scrambled out of the front seat and jerked his gun from its holster. "Joey Wilkenson!"

Joey stopped short and turned as Rick took aim.

Too quickly, Martin pulled the trigger, and the shot went wild.

By the time he was ready to fire again, Joey was gone.

His laughter still echoing among the rocky ramparts above, Joey Wilkenson disappeared back into the mountains.