Free Re-Animator by Jeff Rovin Page A

out?”
    Cain stiffened. “Are you threatening me?”
    “A rather facetious charge, wouldn’t you say, from someone who entered my room uninvited and went through my private belongings?”
    Cain looked at Megan. West had him checkmated, and there was no point continuing the discussion. He took the young woman’s hand.
    “Touché,” he muttered. “C’mon, Meg, let’s take Rufus and get out of here.”
    West stepped in front of Cain. “Truce?” he pressed quietly. Cain nodded glumly. “Then I’ll take care of the animal. It’s the least I can do.”
    “I think we should do it,” Megan countered.
    “I believe Daniel has been through enough tonight. Why force him to endure this as well?”
    Megan turned to her fiancé. “Dan?”
    He sighed. “Herbert’s right. I’d rather be alone with you right now than with poor Rufus.”
    Thanking him, Cain left, tugging Megan behind him. She lingered a moment, her eyes locking briefly with West’s; she felt a chill, something that had nothing to do with Rufus but with West himself. Despite his neat appearance, he seemed dirty; virulent was the word that came to mind.
    Slipping her arm around Cain’s waist, she walked with him out into the cool October night. As they strolled beneath the old streetlamps and past even older buildings, Megan thought about what West had said—that Dan’s career might be ruined if her father learned what they were doing. She wondered if marriage might not be the answer to that, as well as to the problem of what to do with Herbert West. In the distance, a cat wailed; and though she knew it wasn’t possible, Megan could have sworn it came from the house.
    The cry ripped through Dan’s sleep. He woke instantly and sat up, heart racing and eyes wide.
    “Rufus?”
    The shrill wail came again, and Cain swung from the bed. Pulling on trousers, he grabbed an old wooden Louisville Slugger and edged down the hall.
    There’d been bats when he first moved in, but they hadn’t returned since he poisoned the few he’d found in the attic and nailed their carcasses to the outside wall. Bats might be blind, but they weren’t stupid.
    Still, that hadn’t sounded like a bat. The cry was too loud, too deep, too ferocious. He checked the bathroom, poked the baseball bat against the metal grate of the ceiling ventilator. Nothing moved, and he continued edging down the hall.
    “Herbert! Herbert, you hear that sound?”
    When his roommate didn’t answer, Cain rapped on the door.
    “West? West!”
    The shriek came again, this time from downstairs. It was followed by West’s muted snarls.
    “Vile . . . vile . . . thing!”
    Cain put his cheek against the closed door. “West? What is that? What’s going on?”
    West screamed then, and Cain hurried down, stumbling in the darkness. Rising quickly, he bumped into the hooded light, which swung wildly. In the bursts of light, he saw West squirming against a wall in the corner, something dark and ugly clinging to his back. Cain walked tentatively toward him, past a bridge table covered with chemicals and beakers. He saw West’s eyes go wide.
    “Cain, get out of here!”
    “Herbert, what the hell is it?”
    Just then a black object, vaguely round, rose behind West’s neck; there was a flash of white, and West yelped. Whatever it was had bitten him—and also, apparently, punctured his pride.
    “Cain—quick, get it off of me!”
    Cain lunged forward, West turning and presenting his back. Cain still couldn’t make out what the object was, but it squealed horribly when he clubbed it. The head craned back and bared its fangs. West seized the opportunity to fill his fists with the creature and tug it off. He hurled it, stiff-armed, across the room; the mass landed hard against an old highboy, behind which it quickly disappeared.
    West scrambled to his feet and grabbed an old croquet mallet.
    “Shit, Cain, get it!”
    “West, what the hell is it?”
    “Later! Later!”
    West jabbed the mallet’s rounded