Chapter 18: Surge

The third moon was the worst one.

I knew it by noon, when he stopped eating.

By dusk he had pulled the sleeves off two shirts, because his arms would not stay human long enough to wear them.

"Calvin goes to the motel in town tonight," I told Marla. "You drive him. Stay there."

"Doc..."

"The old woman and I have the house."

Marla looked at me for a long moment.

Then she hugged me hard, and went to find the car keys.

At moonrise I buckled the cuff around Eamon's wrist again, and the chain went through the iron ring.

He looked at the ring, then at the padded hose, then at the new second chain I had run from his ankle to the drain.

"It won't hold tonight," he said.

"It will."

"Hazel. It won't."

"Then I'll be at the door."

I shot the bolt behind me and sat down on the chair with the stethoscope in my lap.

The old woman sat beside me with a shotgun full of tranquilizer darts she had loaded herself.

"I don't want to use it," she said.

"Then don't."

The first change came faster than the other nights.

It came as a crack, and a scream, and the sound of heavy claws on concrete.

The chain sang, and the wall around the ring rang.

Something threw itself at the door, and I felt the whole frame bow inward against my spine.

"Eamon," I said. "It's Hazel."

The beast roared.

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