The daylight waned and the light crept in and Malcolm ran on. The sky was tinted gray with the coming dawn when he finally dropped to the ground, sobbing. He had used up his youthful body, and in seconds he fell exhausted into a dreamless sleep.
When he awoke, it was night again. He was hungry. And he was cold. He still wore only the oversized pajamas provided for him by Dr. Pastory. Both top and bottom had been ripped by thorns. The legs were soaked through by the dew. His feet were bare, though remarkably uninjured after his wild run through the forest. Malcolm sat hugging his knees and shivering. He pushed away the panic that nipped at him and willed himself to relax.
The smell of wood-smoke was in the air. Not the greasy smoke of the raging fire he remembered from the night of terror in Drago. This was small. Almost friendly. A campfire. There was the aroma of boiling coffee. Malcolm rose and tested the air. Where there was a campfire there were people. People meant food and clothing.
Malcolm followed the smell of the campfire, moving without sound through the trees. He heard the lapping of small waves as he approached a mountain lake. At a safe distance he stopped and hid himself among a cluster of fallen fir boughs. From there he silently watched the camp at the lake's edge.
There was a tent and two men. The men sat across the fire from each other and talked with the familiarity of old friends. Their backpacks leaned neatly against the trunk of a fir. The play of the flickering flames across their faces stirred in Malcolm memories of the drunken hunters who had killed his friend Jones. As the remembered rage returned, a growl built in his throat.
But watching these men, Malcolm sensed that they were not like those others. These were fishermen, not killers. They laughed easily together and talked with rough affection of the wives they had left behind for this weekend excursion. Malcolm's anger subsided. The growl never left his throat.
It grew late and the fire crumbled into glowing coals. The men banked the dying fire carefully and laid out their sleeping bags.
"Funny, isn't it?" said one. "Here we can stay up as late as we want, and I'm dead tired at nine o'clock."
"It's the mountain air," said the other. "Anyway, we can get an early start in the morning. Get at the fish before they've had their coffee."
"You going to sleep in the tent?"
"Nah, it's too pretty out here. Nothing in these woods to worry about."
"Except the Drago werewolves."
Both men laughed. They crawled into their sleeping bags and soon fell silent.
Malcolm waited patiently until the snoring of the men assured him they were asleep. Then he stole down to their camp, placing his feet with care so there would not be the smallest sound.
His vision at night had always been nearly as sharp as in full daylight, and he quickly found the men's supplies. Their backpacks still leaned against the fir. Malcolm opened the packs carefully and took only the clothing he needed - underwear, a woolen shirt, tough denim pants and warm jacket, heavy socks, a pair of boots. Then, selecting food he could carry easily, he slipped away.
He moved softly until he was far enough from the camp so the men would not be awakened, then broke into a loping run. After a mile he stopped and rested and examined the things he had taken.
He ate a portion of the food and dressed himself in the men's clothes, carefully burying the torn pajamas. The clothes were too large for him, but he cinched up the pants and rolled up the cuffs of the shirt and jacket and the pant-legs. He put on both pairs of thick socks under the boots. Then he moved on again. More slowly this time; he had to think, to plan.
The days passed. Malcolm knew he would have to leave the area. The town of Pinyon, the county of La Reina, would never be safe for him again. Yet he had to return one more time. There was something he had to know.
He waited for a cloudy night when the moon and stars were hidden, then crept down from the hill behind the hospital. There were still searchers in the hills, but they were amateur woodsmen and easy to elude. There were no helicopters or organized parties as there had been when the doctor was killed. Several times Malcolm passed within yards of the searchers without being seen.
He found a vantage point from which he could see everyone who entered and left the building. Then he waited. In the afternoon of the following day he saw the one he waited for. His friend. Holly Lang.
She walked up to the entrance of the building with the tall sheriff. They stopped to speak, then kissed briefly, and Holly went inside. Malcolm watched with a mixture of unfamiliar emotions as the door closed behind Holly and the tall sheriff walked away. There was the joy of seeing Holly and knowing she was safe. But there was also the pain of knowing he could never go to her again. Because of what he was. Holly's place was with people who were normal. People like the tall sheriff. Malcolm's place was... where?
When night came again Malcolm left La Reina County for the last time and made his way to the coast above Ventura. There he left the forest and took to the highway. Hitching rides, he headed north.
In San Francisco he stopped for a time. In that city he found acceptance among the street people. Many of them were outcasts like him. They asked no questions of him, and he offered no explanations.
There were times when powerful emotions and strange hungers took over his body, and he felt the changes coming upon him. At those times Malcolm would find a hidden spot in some alley or a field and there struggle against the strange transformation that he was just beginning to understand.
In that terrible sunken room of Dr. Pastory's clinic, when the beast had crashed through the window, Malcolm knew, really knew for the first time, what he was. The beast was Derak, and Derak was Malcolm. Or what Malcolm would become.
The knowledge filled him with horror. Malcolm wanted to live among people and not be a thing of loathing to them. He despised the thought that he might lose control and attack someone who meant him no harm. During the times of changing, he fought against what he was, and while his body cried out for release, he was able to slow and finally halt the transformation, and eventually he would come back. But the effort cost him dearly.
In the city he could not live off the land, so he learned stealing and all the tricks and skills of the street boys.
It was an ugly existence, but he survived. Moving on, always moving so he would not become well known in any one place. He moved from the cities to the smaller towns and through the countryside, taking a bus when he had money, hitching rides when he didn't. Surviving. Searching. He knew somewhere his destiny waited. He would find it, or it would find him. There was no escape.
In La Reina County the sensation faded slowly into yesterday's news. For a few weeks there were reports of 'werewolf' sightings, but they turned out to be somebody's dog or a tree or an unfortunate bearded hiker. The hunt continued for the sadistic killer, but official opinion was that he had left the area. The search spread beyond county and state boundaries. The hunt for the killer was based on the description of the mild-looking man who had been seen entering Dr. Qualen's office. It was the best lead they had. As for Malcolm, a runaway boy held a low priority.
For a time writer Louis Zeno was held as a possible suspect in the Pinyon killings, but he was never considered seriously. When he was released, Zeno hurried back to Los Angeles and went to bed for a week. When he emerged, Zeno avoided all discussion of Pinyon, Abe Craddock, and what he had found in the isolated cabin. He still planned one day to write that book, but for the present he was content to crank out articles about two-headed calves and movie stars' romantic problems.
Dr. Wayne Pastory was questioned at length when he returned to his isolated clinic to find a dead assistant, a missing patient, and a sheriff and lady doctor waiting for him outside. However, his transfer of Malcolm from the hospital in Pinyon to his clinic had been handled according to the rules, and there was no crime he could be charged with. Nevertheless, the new administrative chief at the hospital, replacing the late Dr. Qualen, made it clear that Pastory was no longer welcome there in any capacity.