The Howling II

20

THAT EVENING CHRIS insisted that Karyn share a table with him and Audrey for dinner. Karyn was reluctant, but decided that any company, even Audrey's, was better than being alone. Her nerves had been ragged since she heard about Marcia coming to the hotel earlier in the day.

She dressed in her cabana, watching nervously through the window as the sun dropped toward the horizon. The day was still warm, but Karyn shivered as she hurried down the walk toward the main building.

Chris and Audrey were waiting for her in the dining room. Chris was unconvincingly jovial. Audrey was plainly unhappy with the situation. She wore a tight-fitting jumpsuit of simulated suede. Her hair was brushed to a coppery glow. Her eyes were continually on Karyn.

"It's so nice that you could eat with us," she said, showing her teeth.

"It's my pleasure," Karyn answered.

"No doubt," said the younger woman.

Chris cleared his throat and made a show of studying the menu. "I'm going to try the crabmeat enchiladas. How about you two?"

There was a short, uncomfortable silence. Finally Audrey said, "I want a steak. Medium well. I don't like the way they fix Mexican food down here. It's better in L.A."

"I'll just have a salad," Karyn said. She kept glancing through the archway that opened into the lobby. She could see the main entrance, and through the glass in the doors, the darkening sky outside.

"You shouldn't worry about dieting when you're on vacation," Audrey said. "So what if you do put on a few more pounds? Relax. Live a little."

Another time Karyn might have taken up the girl's challenge, but there were other things to think about. She said, "I just don't have the appetite."

"Mexico does that to some people," Audrey said. "You shouldn't have drunk the water."

Chris signaled to the waiter and ordered dinner. He tried half-heartedly to keep the conversation going, but had little success. Audrey fell into a sulk, returning her steak twice because it was not done properly. Karyn tried to follow Chris's inconsequential remarks, but her thoughts were outside where the night had once again claimed the world.

When they were finished, the waiter came and took away the empty dishes. Chris ordered sweet little Mexican cakes for dessert. Audrey found something else to complain about when she was told the kitchen was out of tea.

They dawdled over dessert until they were the last ones left in the dining room. It became plain that Chris was stalling. Audrey looked pointedly at her watch every two or three minutes.

Karyn badly wanted to leave, but she was terrified at the thought of walking alone through the dark to her cabana. She wondered how she could suggest that Chris walk with her without causing a scene with Audrey.

Before she could think of anything, Audrey spoke up. "If we're going to sit here half the night drinking this crappy coffee, I'm going to the little girl's room and at least get rid of some of it. You two will excuse me, I hope?"

She left the table and walked off toward the lobby, her heels ringing angrily on the tile floor.

"You'd better take me back to my room," Karyn said.

"I can't let you stay there alone," Chris said. "If Marcia was here today asking for you, it's a good bet that they'll be back tonight."

Karyn shuddered. "What can I do? I asked the manager, and there are still no rooms available in the main building. I can't sit in the lobby all night."

Chris rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "You can come to our room."

"All night?"

"At least until we can think of something better."

"Audrey will love that."

"Audrey will have to learn that things don't always go her way."

"Have you considered telling her?"

"You mean about Drago and the werewolves?"

"Yes."

"No way. She'd laugh in my face. It's better to let her think I've got the hots for you. That's something she can understand."

"It kind of messes up your relationship, though, doesn't it?"

"That relationship is on the downslope anyway," Chris said.

Audrey came back to the table and sat down, her spirits unimproved. Karyn felt oddly guilty, as though she and Chris really did have a secret love affair going.

Audrey lifted the coffee cup to her lips, then set it down in the saucer with a thump. "I've had all this crap I can take," she announced.

Chris spoke up in a tone of artificial gaiety. "I've got an idea. Audrey, we still have that bottle of tequila that we bought at the airport. Why don't the three of us stop by for a nightcap or two?"

"Karyn's probably tired," Audrey said quickly. "Remember, she was up early this morning."

It was time, Karyn decided, to score a few points for the visiting team. "As a matter of fact, I'm not tired at all," she said, turning on a brilliant smile. "It sounds like great fun. Chris and I can talk over old times. And you and I, Audrey, can get to know each other better."

"Terrific," said Audrey.

"Fine," Chris said. "Then it's all settled."

He called for the check and signed it. They got up from the table and walked out through the archway. Passing the desk, Chris stopped.

"I just happened to think, how many glasses do we have in the room?"

"I'm sure I don't know," Audrey said.

"If I remember right, there were only two. Big water glasses." He stepped over to the desk and spoke to the manager. "Could we have some small glasses sent out to Number 7?"

Senor Davila carefully avoided looking at the two women. "Of course, Senor Halloran," he said with a professional smile. "The girl will bring them out to you."

"And send along some limes and salt," Chris added. To the women he said, "I'll show you how to drink tequila Tijuana style."

"Whoopee," said Audrey flatly.

They left the building together and walked the short distance down the path to the first cabana, the one where Chris and Audrey stayed. Chris unlocked the door and they went in. The room looked the same as Karyn's, and had been neatly tidied up by the maid. Karyn tried not to make a point of looking at the bed, though it dominated the room. Audrey walked by it deliberately and ran her hand across the spread.

Chris waved the two women to the wicker settee and pulled up the chair for himself. He carried a small table over and set it between them. From a drawer he produced a bottle of tequila. He opened the bottle and sniffed at it.

"This will be good for what ails us," he said lamely.

Audrey and Karyn looked at him without expression.

A knock on the door saved him from having to make further small talk. Blanca, the pretty young maid, came in carrying a glass bowl of fresh lime wedges and three double shot glasses along with a salt shaker.

"Now maybe the party will pick up," Chris said, forcing a laugh. He handed a bill to Blanca, who slipped it prettily down the front of her blouse.

"Gracias, senor," she said, with a coquettish lowering of the eyelids. With a bare flicker of a glance at Audrey and Karyn, she went out and closed the door.

Once outside, Blanca stopped and pulled the bill from its warm valley between her breasts. Five dollars, American. This was a night of good omen. And with the blond American lady busy with her friends in Number 7, it could be a beautiful night.

She hurried to a utility shed at the rear of the hotel where Roberto was busy repairing a broken chair. He looked up from his work and smiled at her.

"Can you do that later?" she said, her eyes flashing with mischief.

"Why? Now that I have started, I may as well finish the job."

"Maybe you would change your mind if I told you a secret," she said, moving close to him.

"A secret about me?"

"About us." She sat beside him on the wooden bench and ran a hand along the flank of his tight black trousers.

"Ay, girl, when you do that I have no secrets," he said.

Blanca looked down at the bulge in his pants and smiled. She brushed it with her fingertips. "Are you saving that for someone?"

"What a question, shameless girl. Take care that I do not lay you down right here where Senor Davila would surely find us."

"Would you like to make love to me now?" the girl said.

"Very much. But we have no bed. To go to your room or mine is too dangerous, and on the beach one gets sand in unmentionable places."

"We do not have to go to the beach tonight. One of the cabanas is waiting for us."

"How is that possible? No one checked out of the hotel today."

"The senora from California who arrived yesterday spends the evening with her friends in Number 7. Her cabana is at the far end, and there is no one there."

"She might return."

"Not for at least an hour. Maybe more. They have a bottle of good tequila and a bowl of limes, and the Lord knows what games in mind to keep them busy."

"Even so, she will know we have been there."

Blanca clucked her tongue impatiently. "She will know nothing. I will put fresh linen on the bed and leave the room spotless. All these objections! I think you do not really want to make love to me."

Roberto's eyes flashed. He jumped to his feet and seized Blanca's wrist, pulling her up after him. "Come along. I'll show you if I want to make love or not."

Pulling the girl behind him, he ran out of the shed, up along the side of the main building, and down the path until they came, laughing and breathing hard, to Cabana Number 12.

Blanca used her pass key to let them in. She peeled the spread, blanket, and top sheet back from the bed and folded them neatly in the chair, bending low as she did so to let the skirt ride up in back over her plump brown thighs.

She turned to face Roberto, but he had her in his arms before she could speak. His mouth found hers, and his hands raced over her body, rubbing, caressing, squeezing. After a minute they pulled apart just long enough to fumble out of their clothes and let them drop to the floor. Together they fell across the bed. Blanca opened her legs to him. With the exuberance and impatience of youth, he entered her.

At the edge of the clearing, behind the Palacio del Mar, a huge tan wolf arose from the ground where a moment before a man had writhed silently. The wolf stretched and shook, feeling the exhilarating play of its muscles. Then, leaving the pile of clothes where Roy Beatty had dropped them, the wolf moved silently through the heavy tropical growth behind the row of cabanas.

The last one in this row was the one he wanted. The windows showed no light. She would be inside asleep. Or maybe not asleep. Awake, perhaps, and staring into the darkness, fearing what she must know was somewhere outside. Soon there would be no more fear for Karyn. No more anything. The faint spark of humanity still alive in the wolf brain rebelled at the thought of the coming kill, but the dominant animal part burned with excitement.

A few yards from the cabana the wolf stopped. He raised his muzzle and tested the scent that had brought him up short. The scent of sex. Humans in rut. The wolf cocked his great head and heard the rhythmic slap-slap of naked bodies, one against the other. Belly pounding against belly as the man drove his organ into the woman.

Animal rage blazed behind the eyes of the wolf, rage fired by the memory of human jealousy. The long, sinewy legs stretched out into a loping run as the wolf closed on the cabana.

From inside came the muffled squeals and grunts of humans engaged in sex. The wolfs heart pounded in his broad chest. He would catch them together. The one-time wife and one-time friend.

With a full-throated growl, the wolf sprang from the ground and hit the window with outstretched forepaws. He took screen, frame, and glass in with him and hit the floor in a shower of splinters.

Before the two in the bed had time to react, the wolf was upon them.

Not Karyn! Nor Chris either! Strangers. A dreadful mistake, but too late, too late. The taste of blood was in the wolf's throat, and no power on earth could stop him now. In less than a minute the bed was a sopping crimson mess. Bits of flesh and hair and bone littered the floor. The wolf ripped, chewed, and swallowed, gulping the hot raw meat.

The beast growled softly as it fed, looking warily toward the window. Soon there were shouts from the main hotel building and the sound of doors opening in the other cabanas down the line. It was time to be gone.

The wolf thumped from the sodden bed to the floor. In a single graceful bound, he was back out the window and running in long fluid strides toward the forest. He was safely into the thick undergrowth by the time the first people reached the cabana.