Night of the Howling Dogs

by Graham Salisbury

  Thunk!

  I got the feeling Mr. Bellows wanted to say something. But he was silent.

  Thunk!

  I looked away when Zach said, “Reverend, tell us a story.” Billy, Sam, and Tad turned back to the fire.

  Reverend Paia stretched and yawned. He’d been keeping an eye on Louie, too. But Mr. Bellows was the leader, and if anyone was going to say anything, it had to be him.

  “What do you have in mind, Zach?” Reverend Paia said.

  “Something spooky?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Billy said. “Spooky.”

  Thunk!

  “Well…let me think.”

  Because he was a minister, Reverend Paia was full of stories, and he could really tell the scary ones. Mike could, too, and he used to tell them all the time before Louie showed up. I guessed he thought it wasn’t cool now.

  Thunk!

  “Tell them about the two brothers and the night marchers, Pop. They’ve been seen around here, right?” Mike glanced at Sam, Billy, and Tad, adding in a whisper, “They come out at night, you know. And if you look directly at them…you die.”

  Thunk!

  “Yah!” Billy said, grinning.

  Reverend Paia chuckled. “Don’t scare them, Mike.”

  “No,” Billy said. “Scare us!”

  “Well,” Reverend Paia said, leaning forward, pinching his jaw with his fingers as if he were about to reveal a long-held secret.

  Thunk!

  “Louie,” Mr. Bellows said, “why don’t you come sit by the fire now? I think that tree has enough holes in it.”

  Louie pulled the blade out and wiped the tip on his shorts. He looked at me one last time, then shrugged and put the knife back into its leather sheath and stuck it in his back pocket.

  “I think you’ll like the Reverend’s stories,” Mr. Bellows added. “Come on, sit.”

  Louie found a spot on the sand behind Sam, Billy, and Tad. He sat with his knees up and his arms crossed over them, the blank why-am-I-here look plastered on his face.

  Likes it here, huh, Mike?

  “Well,” Reverend Paia said, glancing around at us. “I’ve actually never seen any night marchers, you understand. Sightings are rare. But I’ve spoken to people who have…out of the corners of their eyes, of course, because Mike is right. If you look directly at them, they won’t let you live to tell about it. That’s the first thing you need to know about night marchers—if you see them, don’t look directly at them. Never, never, never.”

  Reverend Paia let a moment of silence swell.

  “You sure you want to hear this? Might give you nightmares.”

  “We can take it, Reverend,” Zach said.

  Tad got up. “Wait. Be right back.” He hurried over to his tent.

  Louie lay back on the sand and clasped his hands behind his head, gazing up at the stars. He rolled to the side, pulled the knife out of his pocket, and set it on his chest.

  I poked the fire with a stick. Sparks flew, fading into the night. How did this day get so messed up?

  Tad returned with his backpack. He set it down on the sand and used it as a backrest. Hoping no one would notice, he slowly pulled out his blue blanket.

  “Okay,” Reverend Paia said, holding up one finger. “First, this area was once a sacred place. Maybe it still is. There’s an old Hawaiian heiau just down the coast. You boys know what that is? A place where the old Hawaiians held their sacred ceremonies. Spirits wander all over this area.”

  “Even now?” Tad said.

  “Even now. They never really leave, you see. This is their home.”

  “Are they the night marchers?” Billy asked.

  Reverend Paia opened his hands. “I don’t know…but listen, I heard of two brothers who came down here to Halape one time a while back. They came to fish, planned to stay three nights. But they only stayed one. Actually, only one brother did. The other one…well…”

  “The other one vanished…never seen again,” Mike said, almost in a whisper.

  Reverend Paia shook his head sadly. “They’d just gotten into their sleeping bags on that first night. It was late, about midnight. They’d fished into the darkness and were tired. Their fire was just a dim glow when the younger brother popped up on his elbow and nodded toward the slope—the same one we came down today. ‘Look!’ was all he said.”

  Billy and Tad turned and looked up at Pu’u Kapukapu, now a massive black silhouette against the starry sky.

  Reverend Paia went on. “The older boy sat up to see what his brother was pointing at. In the distance he saw a snake of flashlights winding down the trail from the pali above. He watched the lights, at first thinking it was more fishermen, or maybe some campers coming in late. But then he realized they weren’t lights at all…they were torches. ‘Get down!’ he gasped, pushing his brother into the sand. ‘Those are night marchers!’ And the younger brother says, ‘Get outta here, there’s no such thing.’

  “But he got down low anyway, because he wasn’t sure about that, and his brother really did seem scared.

  “‘If they come close,’ the older one said, ‘you got to lie flat with your face in the sand, and whatever you do, don’t look at them, promise me…. Do not look at them…. If we’re lucky, they won’t see us.’

  “So…they wait…and wait…crouching down behind the rocks with their faces in the sand.”

  Reverend Paia pointed to a spot just past Louie. “Maybe they were right over there behind those rocks.”

  Tad rocked back and forth, hugging his blue blanket. Billy had his T-shirt up over his head, laughing.

  Louie snickered, his eyes covered in the crook of his arm.

  “What’s so funny?” Casey said.

  Louie lifted his arm and peeked up. “I just thinking about tonight when I going hear you crying from your tents—‘Mommy!’”

  “Shuddup!” Zach said.

  Mr. Bellows smiled and tossed another piece of driftwood onto the fire. Louie put his arm back over his eyes, chuckling.

  “So what happened, Reverend?” Zach said.

  Reverend Paia waited a moment to get everyone’s complete attention. Silence had a way of doing that. “So, as the line of torches came closer, the older brother dug deeper into the sand and covered his head with his arms. But the younger one just had to see if they were real. Maybe night marchers weren’t ghosts at all, but real people trying to scare other people away. So he peeked up to look and…boom!”

  Everyone jumped. Billy yelped.

  “Right there in front of him were the night marchers, their torches shining on his face! The guy’s mouth was hanging open, because they had sunken holes where their eyes should have been. And they were floating because they had no feet. The guy tried to scream, but all that would come out was this choking sound, like he couldn’t breathe!”

  Reverend Paia put his hands around his neck and made gagging sounds. “Aggh, aggh!”

  Sam’s eyes bugged out. “Ho!”

  Reverend Paia jumped back into he story. “The older brother with his face in the dirt was shaking, because he could hear his brother choking, but he knew that if he looked up, he would die. He hoped his brother’s noises were only the sounds of fear and nothing was happening to him.

  “Suddenly, everything…went…silent.”

  Louie raised his arm off his eyes and peeked up again.

  “The older brother waited for fifteen minutes,” Reverend Paia whispered. “He was afraid to move, even an inch. Then…slowly, slowly, slowly…he looked up.”

  Reverend Paia shook his head, as if recalling a painful memory.

  “What!” Billy said.

  “Gone…his brother was gone. And so were the night marchers and their torches. All over Halape there was only the land, the ocean, and the stars, as peaceful as it is right now.”

  We all gazed up.

  “He never saw his younger brother again. He no longer existed.”

  “Wow,” Billy whispered.

  “That older brothe
r is an old man now. But he never went fishing again. Anywhere.”

  “Ho, man,” Sam said.

  Tad was hidden under his blue blanket.

  “Is that true, Reverend?” Billy said. “I mean, really?”

  Reverend Paia stared into the fire, flame light wobbling on his face. He shook his head once, thinking deeply. “Who’s to say, Billy? That’s what I heard.”

  I wondered if he believed…Naah. Not a reverend.

  Louie looked as if he’d fallen asleep, the knife resting on his chest.

  “So if you see torches tonight,” Mike added, “stay inside your tents. You come out…nobody ever going see you again.”

  Louie snorted.

  I stood and brushed the sand from the back of my shorts. “Good story, Reverend.”

  “Yeah,” the others said, all getting up to head to their tents. “Good story.”

  Louie eased up on one elbow. “Watch out tonight when you go out for make shi-shi, ah?”

  Mike laughed.

  “Come on, Louie,” Billy pleaded.

  Louie tapped Billy’s leg with his foot. “No worry, brah. I protec’ you.” He pushed himself up and headed over to his tent with Mike.

  Mr. Bellows kicked sand over the last of the fire.

  Casey, Zach, and I said goodnight and walked over to our shelter. “Man, that was creepy,” Zach said.

  Casey flicked on his flashlight. “He just made it up.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well…think about it. How could the older brother know that the night marchers had sunken eyes and no feet if the only one who actually saw them disappeared? The older brother never looked up, right? That’s why he lived. He couldn’t know.”

  “Hey, you’re right.”

  “Of course I am, and anyway, there’s no such thing as night marchers.”

  I wasn’t so sure. Who knew what went on around us that we couldn’t see? This place could be crawling with spirits. I looked up at Pu’u Kapukapu and shivered. “Let’s talk about something else, all right? I don’t want to go to sleep with creepy things on my mind.”

  “Me either,” Casey said.

  “I thought you said there were no such things as night marchers,” Zach said.

  Casey grinned, shining the flashlight up under his chin. “You never know.”

  Late that night I bolted up.

  Something was crawling on my face.

  I scrambled out of my sleeping bag and grabbed my glasses and flashlight.

  Roaches!

  All over the dirt floor of the shelter, scattering in the light.

  Casey propped himself up on one elbow, blinking into the light.

  “Look!” I said.

  Roaches the size of my big toe were running for cover, ugly brown, with slick, shiny wings. Casey flew out of his sleeping bag and stood in his boxers. “I hate those things!”

  We slapped the roaches out with anything we could grab, sprayed new moats of bug repellent around us, and tried to go back to sleep.

  This place. Jeese.

  Later still, I woke again.

  I didn’t know why; just a feeling.

  I sat up, my sleeping bag twisted around me. Casey was a dark lump snoring on the other side of the shelter. Nothing moved outside by Zach’s tent.

  So, so quiet.

  There was only the sea, breathing in, breathing out. Hushed rolling waves out in the blackness.

  But something had awakened me.

  I got up and slipped out into the night.

  Pu’u Kapukapu loomed above, solid black. Brilliant stars winked in the moonless sky beyond it. The soft ocean. The shadow of the coconut grove. Zach’s tent. All was as it should have been. I was about to go back into the shelter when I saw the silhouettes on the crest of the cliff.

  Two dogs.

  Early the next morning Mr. Bellows and Reverend Paia took Sam, Billy, Tad, and Zach on a hike up the coast, where they would stop to see the old Hawaiian heiau Reverend Paia had mentioned. Casey said there had been human sacrifices there in the olden days, but I didn’t believe it. After that, they’d hike on to identify plants and sea life and work on some of their advancement requirements.

  Mr. Bellows wanted to get started early so they could work before the sun became more of an enemy than a friend. After ten, they would fry. Where they were going, shade didn’t exist.

  “Mr. Bellows,” I said, “while you’re gone, can me and Casey swim out to the island?”

  Mr. Bellows thought as he boiled catchment water for his canteen over the small propane stove. “I’d really rather you waited until we get back.”

  I glanced out toward the island, called Keaoi, which was little more than a mound of rocks rising out of the sea. An easy swim, about fifty yards.

  “We’ll be careful, Dad,” Casey said.

  Mr. Bellows turned off the propane and looked up. “All right, fine…but listen, you can only do it if Mike and Louie go with you. In fact…” He looked back over his shoulder. “Mike, Louie, come here a minute.”

  “Sir?” Mike said.

  “Dylan and Casey want to swim out to the island today. I said they could, but only if you and Louie went with them. That okay with you?”

  “No problem, Mr. Bellows.”

  “Good. Since you four will be here alone while we’re gone, I’d like you to stick together. That’d make me feel better.”

  “Sure, we can do that.”

  There goes the day, I thought. But I really wanted to swim to the island, even if Louie had to be there.

  Mr. Bellows poured boiled water into his canteen, then into Reverend Paia’s. The younger Scouts were doing the same at their own fire. I still had a little fresh water left, and was drinking it as slowly as possible. Not a great idea, considering how badly you needed to stay hydrated down here. But just the smell of catchment water made me gag.

  Mr. Bellows stuck his canteen into his small day pack, then slapped on his Dodgers cap. “You remember the heat equation, Casey?”

  “High temperature plus high humidity plus physical work equals heat illness or death.”

  “Exactly. Remember that, and stay hydrated.”

  “Can we use the propane to boil catchment water?”

  “Sure, just be sure you turn it off afterwards.”

  I looked up, feeling someone’s eyes on me. Louie smiled. Did he know I was trying to make my fresh water last? I frowned and looked away.

  Louie smirked.

  By seven-thirty the younger guys were ready for their hike. I wondered, if Louie was going to be a Scout, why wasn’t Mr. Bellows taking him, too? Mr. Bellows hadn’t let the rest of us slide like that.

  “Men,” Mr. Bellows said, giving us a snappy marine salute. Except for when we had a formal meeting, he preferred that salute to the three-fingered Scout one.

  We gave him full-on semper fidelis salutes back. Except for Louie, who stood leaning against a coconut tree with his arms crossed.

  They left, a slow line snaking out over the rocks.

  “Time to swim!” I said.

  Casey and I went back to the shelter.

  I took another sip of fresh water. I could have guzzled two gallons. Already it was hot and my throat was dry. Was the heat equation starting to work on me? Maybe death was just around the corner. I drained my canteen. Now I had to drink catchment water. But not just yet.

  We yanked on our swim shorts and ran down to the small beach. The ocean was calling me…. Dylan, come swim.

  Louie and Mike were still at the main campsite. Mike was putting snacks the young guys had left out into plastic bags so the bugs wouldn’t get to them. Louie was throwing his knife into another tree. Mike got him to stop and the two of them picked trash up around the coconut grove, taking their time.

  “Mike!” I shouted. “Let’s go!”

  “Stop yelling,” Casey said. “It’ll only make them take longer.”

  We sat looking at the sea glittering like a field of jewels in the sun. “So,” I said
, glancing back at the grove. Mike and Louie weren’t in a hurry to go swimming. “You were telling me about how your dad found Louie in a warehouse.”

  “I don’t know if I should be telling anybody about that.”

  “Too late. You already did. Come on, Case, why did he run away from home?”

  Casey grumbled, then said, “In a way, he didn’t.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “His parents didn’t even know he was gone.”

  I gaped. “Get out of here.”

  “True…. See…according to Dad, Louie’s family is kind of…well…as Dad said it, the family had completely disintegrated.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The mother and father were like zombies. Dad said they were so depressed they had no idea Louie had left the house to live somewhere else. Anyway, his older brother did it all the time.”

  “Why were they depressed?”

  Casey shrugged. “Out of work. Drinking. Drugs. No money, no hope…who knows?”

  I whistled, low. “What about his brother?”

  Casey glanced back to make sure Louie and Mike weren’t coming up on us. “Kind of a nasty guy. One day he got in a fight with the dad, beat him up, and took all his money. Put the dad in the hospital. The cops arrested Louie’s brother, and he ended up in youth correction for a while.”

  “Hoo,” I said, shaking my head.

  “No kidding.”

  “What about the dad? He all right?”

  “I guess, but after that, he started sliding. Him and the mother both, straight downhill. Eventually they got so out of it that Louie couldn’t take it anymore, so he left and found that warehouse and moved in.”

  “And he still went to school?”

  “Yeah, and he got that job at Jimmy’s Place. He gave almost all his cash to his parents to pay the bills, because neither of them had a job.”

  Ho, I thought, the schoolkid taking care of the parents. Paying the bills.

  “When payday came, he cashed his check, bought some food for his hideaway, then took the rest and left it on the kitchen table at home. His parents just picked it up and spent it…didn’t even wonder where it came from.”