brothers. She was powerfully energized by the perfectly outrageous story.
The two had driven a stolen car to the property and, wearing wigs, ski masks, and gloves, had cut off the power to the house, but not before bludgeoning an old housekeeper to death in her bed in the rear servants’ quarters. Obviously wanting the attack to look like the work of random junkies, they’d bashed in the dining room window though the back doors of the house were unlocked.
They’d caught Marchent in the kitchen, just outside her office. There was a small gun found near her, with only her fingerprints on the handle. Not a single shot had been fired.
The animal that had killed the brothers was a mystery. No real tracks were found at the scene. The bites had been savage and immediately fatal to the brothers. But what the animal was, the authorities could not at this point say.
As for the locals, some were insisting it was a female mountain lion, long infamous in those parts.
Reuben said nothing. He heard those sounds again, he felt that paw against his back. A violent shock passed through him, a flash of helplessness and acceptance.
I am going to die
.
“These people are driving me insane on this,” Grace declared. “One minute it’s the saliva of a dog, the next it’s the saliva of a wolf, and now they’re telling me maybe the bites were made by a human. Something’s happened to their lab results. They don’t want to admit it. The fact is,they didn’t test those wounds properly. Now it was no human being that made these bites on Reuben’s head and neck. And it was no mountain lion either. The idea is patently absurd!”
“But why did it stop?” Reuben asked. “Why didn’t it kill me the way it killed them?”
“If it was rabid, it was behaving erratically,” Grace explained. “And even a bear can be rabid. Mountain lions, no. Maybe something distracted it. We don’t know. We only know you’re alive.”
She went on mumbling about the total lack of hair or fur samples. “Now you know there had to have been fibers at that scene, animal fibers.”
Reuben heard that panting breath again. Then the silence. There had been no smell of an animal, but there had been the feel of one, of hair, the long thick coat of a dog or a wolf against him. Maybe a mountain lion. But no scent of a mountain lion. Don’t mountain lions have a scent? How would they ever know?
Grace was thankful the paramedics had thoroughly cleaned up Reuben’s wounds. That was only proper. But certainly they could get a decent sampling from the bites on the dead men that would tell them whether the animal had been rabid or not.
“Well, they had a massacre on their hands, Grace,” said Celeste. “They weren’t thinking about rabies.”
“Well, we have to think about rabies, and we’re beginning the rabies protocol now.” It wasn’t nearly as painful as it had been in the old days, she assured Reuben. He’d have to take a series of injections for twenty-eight days.
Rabies was almost uniformly fatal once the symptoms presented. There was no choice but to treat for rabies at once.
Reuben didn’t care. He didn’t care about the deep pain in his gut, his aching head, or the ice pick of pain that kept stabbing his face. He didn’t care about the nausea he felt from the antibiotics. All he cared about was that Marchent was dead.
He closed his eyes and he saw Marchent. He heard Marchent’s voice.
He couldn’t quite grasp that all life had gone out of Marchent Nideck just that quickly, and that he himself was somehow improbably still alive.
They wouldn’t let him watch television news till the next day. People in Mendocino County talked about wolf attacks that happened everyfew years. And then there were bears up there, no one could deny. But folks in the vicinity of the old house put their money on a mountain lion they’d been tracking for the last year.
The fact was, no one could find the animal, whatever it was. They were combing the
The two had driven a stolen car to the property and, wearing wigs, ski masks, and gloves, had cut off the power to the house, but not before bludgeoning an old housekeeper to death in her bed in the rear servants’ quarters. Obviously wanting the attack to look like the work of random junkies, they’d bashed in the dining room window though the back doors of the house were unlocked.
They’d caught Marchent in the kitchen, just outside her office. There was a small gun found near her, with only her fingerprints on the handle. Not a single shot had been fired.
The animal that had killed the brothers was a mystery. No real tracks were found at the scene. The bites had been savage and immediately fatal to the brothers. But what the animal was, the authorities could not at this point say.
As for the locals, some were insisting it was a female mountain lion, long infamous in those parts.
Reuben said nothing. He heard those sounds again, he felt that paw against his back. A violent shock passed through him, a flash of helplessness and acceptance.
I am going to die
.
“These people are driving me insane on this,” Grace declared. “One minute it’s the saliva of a dog, the next it’s the saliva of a wolf, and now they’re telling me maybe the bites were made by a human. Something’s happened to their lab results. They don’t want to admit it. The fact is,they didn’t test those wounds properly. Now it was no human being that made these bites on Reuben’s head and neck. And it was no mountain lion either. The idea is patently absurd!”
“But why did it stop?” Reuben asked. “Why didn’t it kill me the way it killed them?”
“If it was rabid, it was behaving erratically,” Grace explained. “And even a bear can be rabid. Mountain lions, no. Maybe something distracted it. We don’t know. We only know you’re alive.”
She went on mumbling about the total lack of hair or fur samples. “Now you know there had to have been fibers at that scene, animal fibers.”
Reuben heard that panting breath again. Then the silence. There had been no smell of an animal, but there had been the feel of one, of hair, the long thick coat of a dog or a wolf against him. Maybe a mountain lion. But no scent of a mountain lion. Don’t mountain lions have a scent? How would they ever know?
Grace was thankful the paramedics had thoroughly cleaned up Reuben’s wounds. That was only proper. But certainly they could get a decent sampling from the bites on the dead men that would tell them whether the animal had been rabid or not.
“Well, they had a massacre on their hands, Grace,” said Celeste. “They weren’t thinking about rabies.”
“Well, we have to think about rabies, and we’re beginning the rabies protocol now.” It wasn’t nearly as painful as it had been in the old days, she assured Reuben. He’d have to take a series of injections for twenty-eight days.
Rabies was almost uniformly fatal once the symptoms presented. There was no choice but to treat for rabies at once.
Reuben didn’t care. He didn’t care about the deep pain in his gut, his aching head, or the ice pick of pain that kept stabbing his face. He didn’t care about the nausea he felt from the antibiotics. All he cared about was that Marchent was dead.
He closed his eyes and he saw Marchent. He heard Marchent’s voice.
He couldn’t quite grasp that all life had gone out of Marchent Nideck just that quickly, and that he himself was somehow improbably still alive.
They wouldn’t let him watch television news till the next day. People in Mendocino County talked about wolf attacks that happened everyfew years. And then there were bears up there, no one could deny. But folks in the vicinity of the old house put their money on a mountain lion they’d been tracking for the last year.
The fact was, no one could find the animal, whatever it was. They were combing the
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