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ever had."
She smiled. "Hey& I think I just had the best time I ever had."
The idea of king-sized beds in the French Quarter sounded slightly decadent to Paul, and he felt warm,
liquid thoughts flowing their way downward. He gently pushed her back down again.
Even as engrossed as they were in making love, the sound of the metal bam door screeching open made
Paul roll off Yvette in surprise. Yvette sat up and tried to cover herself before she even looked up.
When she did look, she felt sick.
In the door, illuminated by the weak light in the bam and the clear light of the full moon behind him, was
Papa Landry.
Yvette wanted to die right there. Better that than have to face her mother when Papa Landry told her
what he had caught Yvette doing with his son.
Papa was an old-fashioned man with old-fashioned ideas that definitely did not include the scene he was
witnessing. Old and arthritic he may have been, but he crossed the distance between the barn door and
his son like a young sprinter.
As Yvette scrambled out of the way, grabbing up whatever clothes were closest, Papa grabbed Paul by
his hair with one hand. The other arm swung behind him, ready to deliver the first blow.
It never came. Paul felt the old man pulled away from him like a small child snatched by strong sea tides.
Confused, he looked around.
Papa was in the grip of an enormous& thing ... almost eight feet tall. If it had been an ape or a wolf or
some animal that Paul could recognize, he could have dealt with it. But this! He had never seen anything
like this! The shock paralyzed him.
Yvette's screams and his father's roars of pain reconnected his thinking.
Yvette was halfway up the ladder to the loft, climbing in pure panic.
"Pull the ladder up after you! Fast!" Paul shouted.
The monster had its back to Paul, wrestling with the old man. Papa had been toughened by a lifetime of
hard work and was putting up a hell of a fight. Paul threw himself on the monster's back, trying to lock his
arms around its massive throat. Shit! It didn't even have a neck! It was all solid muscle.
The monster shook Paul off by the simple expediency of slicing open his arm. Paul fell off the thing, rolling
onto the barn floor on his good arm.
He ran into the house and grabbed his hunting rifle, always kept ready by the back door. The 300
Winchester Magnum would take down the biggest raging swamp gator; it would deal with this thing.
Papa, stunned, was lying on the barn floor, the monster just starting to bend over him. Paul had a clear
shot from a distance of no more than thirty feet.
The beast flinched as the shot connected. Paul knew he had hit it; he was an expert at longer distances
than this.
It slowly straightened up and turned to Paul. Oh, God& it smiled& not a real smile but a horrible, mad
grin drawn back over incredible teeth. It moved slowly, almost casually, as if it had all the time in the
world.
He couldn't believe the damned thing was still moving, not with a shot like that in it. Paul's second shot, to
the head, should have been the coup de grace. But that grin! That grotesque smile! Paul was so unnerved
that the shot went over the beast's shoulder. He wanted to scream and run, but knew that if he lost
control, he'd be a dead man.
Paul started to back off, slowly. He felt himself connect with the hayloft ladder. Yvette hadn't pulled it up
all the way! He was closer to the ladder than the beast was to him; he might make it, even with one arm.
With a sudden ferocity, he threw the gun at the monster, distracting it for a few seconds. Paul jumped on
the ladder, skipping the first two rungs and climbing as fast as he could.
He knew he'd never make it. All that thing had to do was cross the barn, get to the ladder, and pull him
off. Still, Paul kept climbing.
Yvette was screaming, holding out her hands to him, trying to pull the ladder with him on it.
The beast, however, looked unconcerned, even amused. It moved with a casual slowness, stepping over
Papa's body.
But Papa wasn't through yet. As the monster stepped over him, he wrapped his arms around one of its
legs and hung on.
Annoyed, the monster stared down at the old man. It smashed him a blinding blow against the side of the
head, but Papa, dying, held tight. The beast couldn't reach the old man easily because of the odd angle,
and twisted for several minutes, trying to get a grip on him.
Paul used those minutes to climb higher, his arm making the ladder slippery with blood. He could hear
Yvette above him, screaming and crying.
Papa lost his grip on the monster and, with an impatient howl, the beast picked him off as if he were a
clinging burr and slammed him against the side of the barn.
Paul heard the sounds of his father's bones breaking. He shut out the sound and the pain, concentrating
only on the next rung. Papa had given him the precious time he needed and he wasn't going to waste it.
He reached the loft, and he and Yvette frantically began pulling up the rest of the ladder.
Seeing his prey escape, the monster lost no more time with games. He rushed to the ladder a split second
too late as it disappeared into the loft.
Enraged, he bayed furiously at Paul and Yvette. They huddled together against the far loft wall, terrified
that any moment they'd see that horrible face roaring and snarling at them.
Yvette was suddenly, inexplicably, calm, her mind acquiring some sort of contrary efficiency as she
ripped the sleeves of her shirt to make a tourniquet for Paul's arm. The simple act of concentrating on an
immediate need helped both of them keep their wits.
"Yvette," Paul whispered, "do you remember when we were little kids, remember the old stories of the
loup-garou?"
She kept wrapping his arm. "No, I don't remember anything like that."
"The old Cajun stories of the werewolf of the bayous. My mama said that if I was bad, the loup-garou
would come and get me. And it has. That's what that thing is: the loup-garou."
Almost as soon as he said it, the howls stopped. They could hear a rustling in the straw below, and
heavy, quick steps along the barn floor. Much as he dreaded doing it, Paul crept to the edge of the loft
and looked down. The loup-garou was not there.
Then where was it? In his terror, he looked wildly around the barn but nothing was there. He pulled
himself painfully to the loft window overlooking the farm and the road. The loup-garou was out there,
running swiftly toward the bayou as the sky got lighter.
Paul remembered part of the old legends: a loup-garou never kills in the same place twice. Still& he
decided to take Yvette to the marriage license bureau the next morning, then to the Justice of the Peace,
then as far away from Louisiana as possible. One of his cousins could handle the sale of the farm for him.
Paul wasn't going to be anywhere near the bayous at the next full moon.
Chapter Thirteen
The Marley house was full of ghosts.
Angela found that she was unconsciously roaming the halls, standing and staring into each room, her
thoughts wandering. She could almost see Walter and Johanna still here, could see how happy they had
been, and how tragically unhappy they were at the end of their lives. She wondered if happiness was
worth the pain. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]