The Howling II by Gary Brandner Read Free Book Online

haircut, probably from Fort Lewis. An old man in a black mohair suit, reading a Hebrew newspaper. A woman with dark hair streaked with silver, studying the menu through oversized sunglasses. A fat woman cheating on her diet with a double caramel sundae. A young woman in a beautician’s smock, with the name of the hotel stitched over the pocket.
    That was all. An ordinary lot. And none of them watching her. At least, no one was watching when she turned to look.
    Karyn returned to her food, but found she was no longer hungry. She knew she had to stop these imaginings. Be logical about it, she told herself. Why would anyone watch her? What reason could they have?
    She snapped upright in the chair. Why would anyone wear dark sunglasses on a cloudy day?
    Karyn turned again, quickly this time. Everything was as before - all the same customers sitting where they had been. All, except the dark-haired woman in the sunglasses. She was gone.
    What had the woman looked like? Karyn bit her lip and tried to remember. The woman’s eyes had been invisible behind the dark lenses, and the lower part of her face was hidden behind the menu. Deliberately? The only feature Karyn could recall was the startling slash of white through the blue-black hair. And yet the woman seemed familiar.
    Karyn shook her head, impatient with herself. This was getting her nowhere. There was no earthly reason for anyone to be watching her. She had to stop these fancies. She resolved to tell Dr. Goetz about it. In his gentle, professional way he could settle her down, explain these irrational feelings.
    She’ paid for her uneaten lunch and left the coffee shop. Outside the day had darkened as the heavy clouds pressed down on the city. There was nothing for Karyn to do at homeland she did not want to spend the day alone in the big house with only Mrs. Jensen for company.
    She stood indecisively in front of the hotel and looked up and down the street. The marquee of a theater down the block advertised a movie she had been wanting to see. On an impulse she turned and walked to the theater, bought a ticket, and went in.
    The audience was small for the early show, and Karyn found a seat by herself halfway down and on the aisle. She settled down to watch the movie, but soon began to shift uncomfortably in her seat. The feeling of being watched came back. It was stronger here in the darkened theater than it had been in the coffee shop.
    Making no attempt this time to be casual, Karyn turned to scan the faces in the reflected light from the screen. No one was looking at her. She did not see the woman with the streak in her hair.
    After that she found she could not concentrate on the movie, and soon left the theater. Outside, a light, dismal rain had begun. Karyn hurried the two blocks to the parking lot where she had left her car. Once she stopped and turned suddenly. She caught a fleeting impression of a woman half a block behind her, on the same side of the street. Just as Karyn turned the woman slipped into the entrance of a building. In the brief glimpse, all that Karyn could be sure of was that the woman was tall and dark. She walked slowly the rest of the way, turning several times to look behind her, but the woman did not reappear.
    *****
    The Evergreen Motel was a neglected, U-shaped stucco complex at the northern city limits of Seattle. The Evergreen had no swimming pool, no television in the rooms, no automobile club recommendations, but it was private and cheap and did good Friday-night business among romantic couples from nearby offices. The couple in Room 9, however, had their minds on other things.
    “Are you sure she didn’t recognize you?” Roy Beatty asked.
    “She never got a good look at my face,” Marcia said. She smiled, the green eyes glowing with some deep emotion: “But I touched something in her memory. I let her see me twice, and I know she felt the beginnings of fear.”
    “Do you think that’s a good idea?” Roy said. “Dragging it out