"Don't worry, Doctor. I'll watch him good. And I won't let him out." Kruger's thick lips twitched. His tongue slid out over them.
Pastory stood for a moment looking from one of them to the other, then nodded to himself and left the room, closing the single door behind him. A minute later the sound of an automobile engine could be heard starting outside. Tyres crunched on the dried pine needles that carpeted the roadway. The sound faded as Pastory rolled down the overgrown logging trail toward the county road.
Kruger hitched one of the chairs close to the front of the wire cage and sat down facing Malcolm. He smiled. The fatty tissues around his eyes squeezed them into slits.
"It's just you and me now, freak-boy. All alone. How do you like that?"
Malcolm sat on the cot and did not answer.
"You don't care if I call you freak-boy, do you? "Cause that's what you are, you know. A freak. A goddamn freak."
When Malcolm still did not respond, the big man's smile faded. He wiped a calloused hand across his lips. "The doctor treats you like some kind of a prince, but all you are's a goddamn freak. Oh, I seen what you do when the doctor has you out there on the table. Your face gets all funny and long, kinda. Your fingernails grow. Like a woman's or something. And you get hair on you where hair don't belong. What do you say about that, freak-boy?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh, you don't, don't you? I know how to make you do it, too. I watched the doctor. You want me to make you do it, freak-boy? Want me to turn you into a goddamn freak?"
"Just leave me alone."
"Just leeeave me alone," Kruger whined in a mocking falsetto. "You know, I was Number One around here until you showed up, freak-boy. The doctor used to treat me real nice before you came. He took me out of the bad place and he said I'd never have to worry about anything again. He'd take care of me. And he did, too. But then he found you, and we had to bring you here, and now he don't have time for me any more except to tell me to go fetch this or go empty that. You're the hotshot now, freak-boy. But you know something? It ain't gonna last. One way or another I'm gonna see that it don't last."
Malcolm felt the anger start way down deep somewhere. "Why don't you shut your ugly mouth."
Kruger hitched his chair closer, pleased that he had gotten a reaction. "Oh-oh, is he going to get mad? Is freak-boy going to get mad? Go ahead, let's see you do those things with your face. Then we'll see who's ugly, freak-boy."
Malcolm felt the heat rising within him. His hands began to twitch. He forced himself to breathe slowly and deeply. He closed his eyes and thought of the words Holly Lang had used when they put him into hypnosis. So relaxed. So comfortable. Drifting, drifting. Farther and farther away. Gradually the fire within him cooled. His hands lay quiet in his lap. He felt the waves of relaxation wash over him. Mind and body were once again under control.
"Almost had you goin" there, didn't I freak-boy?" Kruger said. "Oh, yes, I did all right."
Malcolm opened his eyes. He looked through and beyond the thick, ugly man. He smiled softly to himself.
"You're not makin" fun of me, are you?" Kruger said. "They used to make fun of me in the bad place. Laughed behind my back when they thought I couldn't see. I knew, though. I knew what they were doing. I took care of them too. That was before the doctor came and brought me here."
Malcolm breathed in and out slowly. So relaxed. So comfortable.
"I know how I can get that silly smile off your face," said Kruger. "I know. You just wait here." Then, as though realizing he had said something funny, he laughed. "That's right. You just wait here." He laughed again and left the room.
Malcolm tried to maintain his state of calm relaxation, but the mood was fading. Dr Pastory was a dangerous man, and he did some unpleasant things to Malcolm, but he was always solicitous about the boy's welfare afterwards. At least that was the way he acted. And there was always the hope that when Pastory had finished with his study, whatever it was, he would return Malcolm to the hospital in Pinyon. Holly was there. He could put up with Pastory, as long as there was the hope of a reunion with his friend.
But Kruger was another matter. The brute had a damaged brain, and was barely kept in check by Pastory's greater strength of will. If he ever went over the edge Kruger could be dangerous. Malcolm began to worry about what the ugly big man might do.
Before he could reorder his thoughts, Kruger returned. He carried with him a wand shaped like a stubby pool cue. The thicker end was wrapped with leather at the grip. The greater length of the wand was metal. Two wires protruded from the butt end and ran into a flat leather packet that Kruger had attached to his belt.
"Do you know what this is, freak-boy? It's a cattle prod, that's what. The cops use "em sometimes. Dr Pastory used it on me when I first come here from the bad place. Then I wised up and he didn't have to use it no more. I found out where he kept it, but I never told him."
Malcolm stared at the metal prod as Kruger waved it back and forth in front of his face.
"Want to see how it works? Watch."
Kruger thrust the metal tip of the prod to within half an inch of the wire mesh of the cage. He touched a switch on the belt pack. A blue-white spark jumped with a loud crack.
Malcolm flinched away from the spark.
"What's the matter, you afraid of it?" Kruger said. "The doctor's been using something like it on you in the laboratory when you're strapped down. Only difference is, the one in there is a lot smaller and it don't hurt as much as this one. Want to see?"
In a movement surprisingly swift for so big a man, Kruger thrust the prod through the cage, jabbing the tip against Malcolm's face.
The pain was like hitting the nerve of a tooth. Malcolm cried out and put a hand to his cheek. He backed against the rear of the cage, but there was no way he could get out of the reach of Kruger with the cruel cattle prod.
The big man laughed, a high-pitched, mindless giggle. "Aha, gotcha now, haven't I. Can't get away, can't get away."
He stabbed Malcolm's wrist with the tip of the wand. The pain of the shock jolted up his arm. Malcolm felt the fires grow inside him.
"See? See? There you go. I knew I could make you do it. Look at your hands, freak-boy."
Malcolm looked down at his hands. Surely, they had grown larger, the palms broadening and the fingers stretching out. Even as he watched, the nails pushed out through the skin, thick and horny, bringing a trickle of blood from the tips of his fingers. The boy clamped the horrid hands out of sight under his arms.
Kruger caught him under the chin with the prod. His facial muscles twisted and jumped in the sudden agony.
"I'll show you what you really are, freak-boy. I'll show you who's ugly." Kruger capered grotesquely around the three exposed walls of the cage stabbing here, there, anywhere he could find a bit of exposed flesh.
Malcolm's legs bent on him in a strange way and he fell to the floor. The sound that came from his throat was half whine, half growl. Like nothing human. His mind was a jumble of images — the forest at night, flames, burning flesh; a kind bearded giant; a beautiful woman who was his friend; a doctor who drugged him and took him away; a thick-necked witless lump of a man who tortured him.
The hands before Malcolm's face no longer bore any resemblance to his own. They had darkened and stretched, and grown patches of fine black hair.
The pain continued, the anger grew, and the fire within him burned hotter.
Chapter Sixteen
Even watching closely, Holly missed the logging trail the first time past, and she had to drive back at ten miles an hour with her head craning out the window to find it. The old trail was no more than two faint paths through the weeds leading up the hill. Years ago logging trucks had hauled the huge Douglas fir logs down from the mountain to sawmills that had long since disappeared.