The Howling II by Gary Brandner Page B

chrome and leather chairs. He wore a professional, concerned expression.
    “I feel a little silly,” Karyn said, “calling you from the shopping center as though it were some kind of life-or-death emergency. All the same, I’m glad you could see me.”
    The doctor smiled gently. “I hate to say, “That’s what I’m here for,’ because it sounds so Marcus Welby. But that’s what I’m here for, Karyn.”
    “Now that I’m here, I don’t know where to start.”
    “Tell me about the man you saw at the shopping mall. Did you get a good look at him?”
    “Yes. It was just for a second or two, but I saw him very clearly. Then the escalator took me down under the ledge where he was standing.”
    “Did he say anything to you?”
    “No.”
    “Make any gesture? Any sign that he knew you?”
    “He just looked at me.”
    “And you say he resembled your former husband.”
    “Dr. Goetz, he was my former husband. That man was Roy Beatty.”
    Dr. Goetz squeezed his lower lip thoughtfully between thumb and forefinger. After several seconds he spoke. “As I recall, you told me Roy Beatty died three years ago.”
    Karyn felt the beginnings of a headache. She said, “I don’t know that he died in the Drago fire. I assumed that he did. Obviously, I was wrong. If I saw him in the Kenmore Mall this morning, then he’s alive.”
    Dr. Goetz got out of his chair and came over to sit beside her on the sofa. His pale blue eyes searched her face, then became unreadable. “Karyn, I think maybe we were hasty in cutting you down to one visit a week. If it’s possible, I’d like to see you more often. Twice. Three times, if you could manage it.”
    Karyn wanted to cry. Ever since the crack-up in Las Vegas, she had made steady progress in her therapy. Until now. What was happening to her? She knew how it must sound - someone following her, noises in the night, and now seeing her supposedly dead husband. The classic symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia.
    For the first time in many months Karyn wondered if she might be losing her grip on reality. Maybe she did need more time with the analyst.
    “I’ll talk to my husband about it,” she said. “Goodbye, Doctor.”
    *****
    The front door of the Richter house flew open and banged shut with an unnecessary slam. Joey Richter raced in, dumped his schoolbooks on the hall table without slowing down, and made a speedy circuit of the downstairs rooms. He came to a stop at the foot of the stairs.
    “Mom!” he called.
    Mrs. Jensen came down the stairs carrying a basket of laundry. “Your mother isn’t home. And if she was, she’d tell you not to slam the door.”
    “Where is she?”
    “She had an appointment downtown.”
    “With the doctor?”
    “I wouldn’t know.”
    “Why did she have to see the doctor today? This isn’t her day.”
    “I’m sure I couldn’t say.”
    “She’s probably having those dreams again. The ones that scare her.”
    “I don’t know anything about any dreams,” Mrs. Jensen said. “Now come in and eat your lunch. It’s good vegetable soup.”
    “Campbell’s?”
    “No, it’s homemade.”
    “I like Campbell’s.”
    “You’re going to like this even better. Come on and I’ll dish it up for you.”
    Joey clumped into the kitchen and ate two bowls of the soup, which he admitted was almost as good as Campbell’s. He finished up with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a glass of milk while Mrs. Jensen loaded clothes into the washer in the adjoining laundry room.
    “I wish Mom would get home,” Joey said. “I want to tell her about the face last night.”
    Mrs. Jensen came back into the kitchen. “Did you say a face?”
    “Yeah. Last night it looked right in my window. Wow, was it ugly!”
    “You had a dream, you mean.”
    “Nah, it wasn’t any dream, it was a face. All kind of scrunched up and hairy and with great big teeth. Really ugly.”
    The housekeeper studied the boy for a moment. “Did it scare you?”
    Joey met her eye