The Howling III Read Online Free PDF Page B

on their bodies. The hair spread, thickened into fur. The human voices became low, muttering growls. And there was the howling.
    Malcolm sat suddenly upright on his cot in the small cabin. The candle flame guttered and died in a whisper of the night wind that seeped through cracks in the walls. The voices howling in the night were strange and frightening, yet they touched something deep within the boy. They spoke to him in a language he did not know. They called him. He longed to go to them.
    Then there were other sounds. The scrape of heavy-booted feet, a crunch of brush, muttered curses. Malcolm began to sweat. He stared into the darkness, fearful of something he could hot define.
    Inside the barn of a building, they heard the other sounds too late. There was a heavy scrape and a thud as the door was barred from the outside. Those within froze for a moment in wild attitudes of change… half-human, half-beast. They sniffed the air and caught the scent of men outside, then the biting odour of raw gasoline. An instant later, in a blast of heat and light, the barn was afire.
    Panic.
    Three ways a werewolf can die. By a weapon of silver. By fire. And a third way that was never spoken of. The fire was all around them, and the fire was death.
    Inside the barn was hell. Humans, wolves, creatures in all stages between stumbled into the beams and crashed against the blistering walls searching for an escape. Their voices mingled in an outcry of agony and rage. Twisted muzzles pushed through the boards of the walls for air, but were seared and sizzled by the flames outside. Claws scratched frantically at the wood. The men with the torches had done their work well. The building was surrounded by a wall of flame.
    Some of the creatures in the barn broke through to the outside, their misshapen bodies ablaze, and ran till they dropped in a blazing, screaming heap. The men with the torches watched grimly as they died.
    Most stayed inside the building. They huddled together as the flames leapt up the walls and across the roof. Their terrible jaws gaped in helpless rage. The blazing roof fell, and the screaming stopped.
    But not all of them died. A few got away. A few always get away.
    *****
    At the sound of the agonized howling and the furnace blast of the burning barn, Malcolm bolted from his cot and stumbled out into the inferno that had been his village. Men ran from house to house with cans of gasoline and blazing torches. One after another they were set on fire.
    For some time Malcolm stood in frozen horror. The shrieks of the dying were all around him. The smell of the dead made him retch. His body twitched and jumped of its own volition. The smells around him were keener, his night vision sharper than ever in his life. The message was clear in his mind.
    Run!
    And Malcolm ran. Away from the carnage of Drago. He was faster and stronger than ever he dreamed he could be. The forest was his as he loped through the brush, darting among the trees, leaping easily over any obstruction. Faster and faster he ran, putting the night and the forest between him and the blazing ruin of Drago. He ran in a deep crouch, his hands sometimes clutching at the ground, helping to pull him along. In the midst of his grief at the loss of his village and his people, Malcolm felt something else. Freedom. Freedom and power.
    *****
    On the other side of the burned-out village, on the crest of a hill, a huge, wolflike figure looked down on the dying flames. Its fur was singed, and a ragged gash from a splintered board ran the length of the animal’s side. The wound would soon heal; the anger would remain.
    If he had escaped, there would be others, too. To help them survive he must find them and bring them together. He was the leader.
    Derak pointed his muzzle to the sky. The cruel teeth gleamed in the moonlight. He tested the air. There was the acrid smell of burning flesh and fur. The bite of gasoline. The sweaty stink of the men. And there was the familiar