“What are you saying? That Griswold was a vampire, too?”
“No…I don’t think that was it.” Crow licked his lips. “I think Griswold was a werewolf.”
Weinstock sat back and studied him. “Okay. Right. Fine. A werewolf. Peachy. Our conversation now includes vampires and werewolves. Why don’t we throw in ghosts and the Jersey Devil, too, then I can go and blow my brains out and no one will blame me.”
“You want to hear this or not?”
Weinstock signed. “Not really,” he said, but he made a twirling motion with his index finger to indicate that Crow should continue.
“For whatever reason Griswold moved here, if we at least for the sake of argument accept that he was a…werewolf…” Even Crow had a hard time saying the word. It felt clunky in his mouth and its edges caught in his throat. “Then he must have come here to lay low. Raising and killing the cattle kept him off the radar until the blight killed the cattle and all of the other local livestock. When the urge to hunt came on him where else did he have to turn but people? Even then he tried to keep it on the QT by preying on tramps and hobos, but I think the lust for human blood got the better of him and he just started hunting anyone he could find. Val’s uncle was killed, my brother Billy. Terry’s little sister, Mandy…and remember, Griswold almost killed Terry, too. He was in a coma for weeks.”
“God…”
“I would have been killed, too, ’cause he came after me, but Oren Morse—the guy we used to call the Bone Man—he saved my life. Griswold hadn’t completely transformed yet and the Bone Man was able to stop him. He tried to tell people about it, but nobody listened to him. Far as the rednecks in the town were concerned—my own father among them—Morse was just a black draft-dodging tramp. This was thirty years ago, Saul, and no one paid any attention. When I told my father he kicked the shit out of me. You got to remember, he was one of those young jackasses who hung out at Griswold’s all the time. Griswold was their hero.”
“I seem to remember not shedding a tear when your dad died, hope that doesn’t offend.”
“Nah, Dad was a complete tool. Point is, he either didn’t believe me or didn’t want to believe me, and he put such a fear of God into me that I didn’t tell anyone else about it.”
“What about Morse? Wasn’t he supposed to be tight with Val’s dad? Did he talk to Henry about this?”
“Probably, but Henry and I never talked about it, and Morse was murdered not long after.”
Weinstock chewed his lip. “How sure are you that Griswold was a werewolf? I mean, serial killers are well known for following the moon, for cannibalizing their victims, yada yada…it’s a known pathology.”
“I saw his face, Saul. I’m not talking about a man’s…I saw his face as it was changing.”
“Crap…I was afraid you’d say something like that.” Weinstock got up and walked over to the window and stared out into the new morning, which was bright and clear, with puffy clouds coasting across the vast blue. Without turning he said, “Even if you saw what you say you saw and all your guesswork is right…what does that have to do with what’s been happening in town?” He turned around and sat on the edge of the air conditioner. “It doesn’t fit with the stuff I’ve been seeing—not at all. Not even with the killings at the Guthrie farm. None of this says ‘werewolf’ to me, even if I was ready to believe in that sort of thing. Full moon was last Friday…the two cops were killed on the first. We’re not following the lunar cycle.”
“I know, but like I said, I don’t think we’re dealing with a werewolf right now. From what I’ve been able to put together, we seem to be in vampire territory.”
“Did that statement sound as stupid to you as it did to me?”
“Probably,” Crow admitted. “There’s more. When Ruger attacked Val and me here in the hospital that night he said something before he died. Something Val didn’t hear, but I did, and it’s been like a needle stuck in my brain ever since.” Crow closed his eyes for a second, took a breath, and then looked hard at Weinstock as he spoke, “He said, ‘Ubel Griswold sends his regards.’”
“Ruger said that? He actually said Griswold’s name?”
“Uh-huh, and when we were fighting…he was way too strong. I mean stronger than anyone I’ve ever met, and I’ve been in the martial arts since I was a kid. I know what muscle strong is like, and I know what wiry strong is like, and this was something completely different. Off the scale…strong in a way nothing rational can describe.”
“Man, I think we left rational behind by a couple of miles.”
“No joke. Ruger’s eyes were weird, too. They seemed to change color while we were fighting. Don’t laugh, but I swear they turned yellow and then red.”
“I’m not laughing,” Weinstock said. “I may never laugh again. Ever.”
Crow told Weinstock about how he met Newton, and about the long interview he’d given him. He told him how they had cooked up a plan to scale down the pitch at Dark Hollow and head through the woods to try and find Griswold’s house. He spoke about the strangeness of the swampy area around Dark Hollow, and how they had been forced to cut their way through foul-smelling vines and sticker bushes before they found the house. “I really wanted to find an old, abandoned pile of sticks, but that’s not what we found. The place was in good shape, like it had been maintained. All the doors and windows were covered up with plywood that was still green, and the front and back doors were chained shut with the locks on the inside of the house. Only someone inside could lock or unlock those chains.”
“Oh my God…”
“Then, while we were on the porch examining those locks, the whole porch roof just suddenly collapses down.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that. Damn near killed us. Don’t you think that’s a little strange?”
“A ‘little strange’?” Weinstock echoed hoarsely. His color was horrible.
“Well, buckle up ’cause it gets stranger.” Crow told him about the swarm of roaches that attacked them. “Now here’s the last part of it. When I was standing there on the porch, before the roof fell and the roaches attacked us, I thought I heard a voice in my head. Very faint, but definitely there—and before you start making jokes about me hearing voices, here’s what it said, ‘She is going to die and there is nothing you can do to save her.’”
Weinstock stared at him in horror. “This was last night? You had that in your head while—”
“While Val was walking into the trap with Boyd. I was being teased with it, as if he knew I’d never get back to Val’s farm in time to save her from Boyd.”
“‘He’? Are you saying that this was Griswold’s voice?”
“I don’t know. I mean…I think the bastard’s dead. Thirty years dead, probably buried by the Bone Man in an unmarked grave, and there haven’t been any attacks around that you could point to as being like Griswold’s.”
“Unless he isn’t dead and maybe moved away for a while,” Weinstock ventured. “He could have moved over to Jersey or up to the Poconos, started another farm, kept himself in check all these years, and maybe now he’s come back.”
“I thought about that, and it’s certainly a possibility—but I feel like he’s dead, that he’s been dead since 1976. Just a gut thing, but it’s what I believe.”
“So whose voice was it?”
Crow shook his head. “That’s just it. I suppose it might have been Boyd doing kind of vampire mind-fuck on me, but my gut still tells me it was Griswold.”
“Which makes sense only if, somehow, Griswold is still here. As…what, though? A ghost? Are we finally adding them to the mix?”