The Howling III Read Online Free PDF Page A

like easing your legs into a tub of nice warm water. So comfortable… so relaxed… “
    Ramsay was leaning back, enjoying the relaxed, comfortable feeling in his legs when Milo Fernandez stuck his head through the door and hissed at him.
    “Sheriff… hey, Sheriff.”
    Holly looked over and put a finger to her lips. Ramsay got up and stepped out into the hall. In a moment he returned and spoke softly to Holly.
    “I’ve got to go.”
    “Trouble?”
    “It could be. I’ll talk to you later.”
    When he was gone Holly turned back to Malcolm who sat propped against the pillows, a dreamy expression on his face.
    “All right, Malcolm, let’s go back now into the forest. There are trees all around. Tall and cool. A soft wind is blowing, making the branches sway and rustle. Let’s go back there and remember, Malcolm. Listen to the sounds. Sniff the air. Remember the forest…

CHAPTER FOUR
    Memories of the forest came back to him in fragments. The cushiony feel of pine needles under his feet. A whisper of rain in the high branches of the trees. Dappled sunlight filtering down on a summer afternoon. Fresh smells of evergreen and of flowers. Nightsounds: monotonous song of a tree frog, the hoot of an owl, the cry of some small creature caught in its talons.
    A childhood in the forest village of Drago, with carefree days, deep dark nights, surrounded by people whose faces were blurred now in memory, but who loved him and cared for him.
    Then, without any warning, childhood ended. The years that followed were a jumble of strange schools, narrow beds, cold faces of people who were paid to teach him and feed him and give him a place to sleep. The memories were jagged, like pieces of a broken mirror. A face, a schoolbook, a forbidding house in a strange town. Nothing fitted together. It was a lost time.
    Then the lost time was over and he was back. Back in the forest. Back in Drago. But it was not the same. The days were troubled, and the nights full of danger. Malcolm was apart from the others of the village. They possessed some secret knowledge that had been withheld from him. Knowledge wondrous and terrible; knowledge he must have. This much he learned when he was brought before Derak, the leader of the village.
    Malcolm could not even guess at the age of Derak. Not old, certainly. Not in years. Yet it seemed he had always been there. Derak was strong and vigorous, but there was in his eyes something older than time.
    The house where Derak lived was small. It was his alone. The other people of Drago lived in groups - four, or six, or eight of them to a house. Derak lived alone because he was the leader.
    Sometimes a woman stayed there with him. Malcolm seemed to remember a woman from before. When he was little. The woman was dark and lithe, and smelled of warm wild flowers. Her eyes were the same deep shade of green as Malcolm’s. She was gone now. He wondered about her, but he was too timid to ask.
    Malcolm felt ill at ease sitting alone with Derak on a sofa in the small house. He perspired, and he did not know what to do with his hands. Derak smiled. When he spoke his voice was soft, but Malcolm could sense the strength within the man. A strength that could have broken Malcolm like a dry twig had he wanted to do so.
    “Relax, boy,” said Derak, as though he had read Malcolm’s thoughts. “I’m not going to hurt you. No one here will hurt you. This is your home. Do you understand that?”
    “Y-yes.”
    “Good. I suppose you want to know why you have been brought back.”
    “I don’t even know why I was sent away.”
    “It is the way of our life. You have seen, I suppose, that there are no children in Drago, except the very young.”
    “Yes.”
    “You too were here when you were very young.”
    “I remember. A little bit.”
    “A child reaches an age where he asks questions.
    Questions with answers he is not ready for. When that time comes we have to send him away. To the outside, where he can learn about the