Minutes after she headed up the grade, the little orange car appeared. It stopped for a moment while the driver peered up the hill, then followed Holly up the trail.
Holly drove carefully up the grade. The second-growth timber had almost reached the density of the virgin stand that attracted the lumber companies in a previous generation. On both sides the thick brush made it difficult to see. Rocks and stumps jutted unexpectedly from the centre where the weeds grew unmashed. The Volkswagen Rabbit was not designed for off-road adventure, and Holly winced with every scrape and bump against the underside of the little car.
As she emerged from one especially thick clump of trees, Holly came suddenly and unexpectedly upon the clinic of Dr Pastory. It was a dark, two-storey house of redwood shingle and heavy oak beams with an overhanging roof. The house was built in the 1920s by the owner of a Hollywood studio as a playhouse for his favourite starlet. Sadly, before she could occupy it, the starlet died from drinking bootleg gin and laudanum at a party hosted by a popular slapstick comedian. The house had remained empty since that time until the studio magnate died several years ago. It was put up for auction, and because of the remote location Wayne Pastory was able to buy it cheaply.
There was no other vehicle in sight, and Holly felt a rush of disappointment at the thought that she might have made the trip for nothing. However, fresh tyre tracks told her that someone was using the place.
She snugged the Rabbit in under a tree and walked across the cushion of pine needles to the heavy front door. There was no bell, so she reached for the heavy cast-iron knocker.
Before she could lift the knocker Holly froze at a sound from somewhere inside the house. It was a cry of mingled fear, rage, and pain. The voice was distorted, yet something in the tone made her sure it was Malcolm. Reacting to a sudden blaze of anger, she tried the latch of the heavy door, found it open, and walked in.
The interior of the old house had been redone and modernized, if not improved, with metals and plastics. Wallboard had been added to section the large old rooms into many smaller ones. Holly kept moving, following the sound of the voice that continued to cry out every few seconds.
She passed along a hallway with doors on both sides. Some of the doors stood open, revealing cell-like rooms with narrow beds and a minimum of simple furnishings. Most looked unoccupied. In one of them, however, the bed was rumpled and recently slept in. Holly paused to look at a crumpled bit of white fabric stuffed into a wire waste basket. She recognized the stitched blue lettering that would spell out La Reina County Hospital. A patient's gown.
She hurried on through what appeared to be a laboratory, dominated by an examination table with heavy straps riveted to the corners. Although she did not pause to look around, Holly was impressed by the quantity and variety of equipment in the lab. No wonder Olan Schaeffer at Landrud & Co. had been so eager to do business.
There was a large, well-equipped kitchen, then a short flight of steps leading down to a wing of the house that was on a lower level. It was from a room down there she heard the agonized cries.
The door to the large room on the lower level was ajar. Holly could see it was brightly lit within. She was close enough now to hear a crackling sound along with the cries of pain. She stepped through the door and stood for a frozen moment, stunned by what she saw.
A thick-shouldered brute of a man with scrubby black hair on a bullet head turned when she entered. He held what appeared to be an electrified metal rod in one hand. He was standing in front of a steel mesh cage. Inside the cage a pitiful figure writhed on the floor.A boy, Holly thought, though she could not be sure. He lay curled on the floor, muscles twitching, his limbs bent into strange, unnatural positions. On the visible areas of skin grew uneven patches of hair.
"Malcolm!" she cried. "My good God, what have they done to you?"
The face that looked up at her from the floor of the cruel cage wrenched Holly's heart. She recognized in it the boy Malcolm, yet it was not Malcolm. The bones seemed to have shifted subtly, elongating the face. The eyes were a strange luminescent green. He said something that might have been her name, then quickly covered his mouth with a darkened, long-nailed hand.
"Who are you, girlie?"
It took a moment for Holly to realize the brutish man was talking to her. She turned toward him and fought down the rage inside her. Her impulse was to strike out blindly at him, but she knew this was a time for control.
"I am Dr Hollanda Lang. I demand to know what you are doing to this boy."
The Doctor seemed to confuse the man; to draw from him a touch of respect. At least temporarily.
"How did you get in?" he asked.
"I walked in. The door was open."
"You shouldn't of done that." A sly look crept into his dark little eyes.
"I want you to release this boy at once."
"I can't do that. Dr Pastory said I was supposed to keep him in there."
"Did Dr Pastory also give you orders to torture the boy?"
"What are you talkin" about?"
"Answer my question."
"Are you a friend of the doctor?"
The figure in the cage had pulled itself half erect on the steel mesh. The hands were more human now, the boy more recognizable as Malcolm. He looked so terribly young and vulnerable in the oversized pyjamas.
"Holly," he said, his voice hoarse but clearing.
"Malcolm, thank God I've found you. Are you badly hurt?"
The boy looked down at his hands, which still bore patches of dark hair. He let go the screen and tried to hide the hands behind him.
"I… I… "
Holly moved quickly to the cage. She lay one hand flat against the diamond mesh. He backed away.
"Don't be afraid, Malcolm. And don't worry. I'm going to get you out of here, and I'm going to help you."
She turned at the sound of a movement behind her. The big man had taken a step toward her. He was clenching and unclenching his hands. The metal rod hung forgotten at his side.
"What's your name?" she demanded.
The authority in Holly's voice held him for a moment. "K-Kruger," he stammered. "Dr Pastory left me in charge while he's gone."
"Well, Kruger, you just get the key to this lock and open the cage right now." She spoke with an assurance she did not feel. This Kruger was obviously unbalanced mentally. God only knew what sadistic tortures he had been subjecting Malcolm to, but Holly knew she was treading a thin line with him.
Kruger shook his bullet head slowly from side to side. "No, I don't think I'm gonna do that."
She tried softening her tone.
"It's all right, Kruger. I'll explain to Dr Pastory that I told you to let the boy out."
A crafty smile slid over the man's thick features. "Oh, no you don't. I know who you are. You're that Holly woman. The one he," Kruger nodded toward Malcolm, "keeps calling for. You ain't no friend of the doctor."
"You just let him out of there. Right now, Kruger, or you're going to be in a whole lot of trouble."
"Not me, girlie. It ain't me who's going to be in trouble." Moving with surprising speed, Kruger crossed the room and placed himself between her and the door.
"Run, Holly," Malcolm said in a strangled voice. "He'll hurt you."
Sensing the menace in the big man's tensed body, Holly tried to step around him to the door. He seized her by the arm above one elbow and squeezed it painfully.
"Let go of me!" she demanded, but her voice betrayed the fear that was building within her.
Kruger felt it too. "Your little freak friend is right," he said. "I can hurt you if I want to. So you better be nice to me. You understand?"