Night Howl

by Andrew Neiderman

  One corner of the room contained the family’s older possessions. There were some cartons of clothing, some pieces of furniture, boxes of pictures and books, and a variety of knickknacks, including small lamps and a small desk. He moved around the items slowly, inspecting, sniffing, searching for anything that would have value to him. There was nothing of any particular interest as far as he was concerned, and he would have gone out of the utility room and gone directly for the stairway if he hadn’t heard Sid descending.

  He went to the doorway and looked out into the playroom, debating whether or not he should attack the man now. He heard the footsteps of the woman above and he wondered whether there would be any more men coming. He had a healthy respect for packs. It was one thing to take down a single man; that was relatively easy, but groups of them presented other dangers. For one thing, he didn’t like the possibility of battling them in a confined area. It was still their environment. They knew it best. Successful predators chose the time and place best suited for them.

  These conclusions didn’t come to him quickly. The alternatives presented themselves in a logical fashion, and he made his choice just the way a well-programmed computer might—moving ahead only when the correct set of variables existed. His decision was to wait.

  When Sid made the turn at the bottom of the stairway, he saw the shredded bacon bits box immediately and went right to it. It was curious that the box had been so torn up and left in the middle of the floor. He knelt down and inspected it, noting how cleanly it had been emptied. He smirked and shook his head. He was about to stand up again when he saw the dog hairs just below the box. There were only a few, but he thought they were King’s.

  “Dammit,” he muttered. He stood up and looked about, remembering that he had to find that calculator and get a move on. He went to the table and moved some books and papers around, but the calculator wasn’t there. He thought about the bar and the shelves behind it. When he went there, he saw the smashed glass on the floor. “Shit. What the hell went on here?”

  His first thought was to yell for Clara. Then he realized that the mood wasn’t right for him to raise his voice. It would just frighten her unnecessarily. But he didn’t have time to stay down here and clean up the mess. He’d have to tell her about it and leave it for her. He found his calculator at the corner of the bar and turned to go back upstairs. That was when he saw it.

  The basement door to the outside was slightly opened.

  “For Christ’s sake,” he muttered and went to it. “Jesus,” he said, closing the door. “Talk about making it easy for burglars. You might as well put up an invitation.” He slid the latch-lock to the right, securing the door, and then he turned around and considered the rest of the basement playroom. Nothing else looked disturbed and it was already six-thirty. He couldn’t tolerate any further delays, so he ascended the stairway and turned off the lights.

  Clara was just rousing Bobby and Lisa when he came to her.

  “You found it?”

  “Yeah, but I found something else too,” he said.

  “What?” She held Bobby’s shirt to her bosom.

  “Seems Junior there was down in the basement with King. There’s a torn-up box of bacon bits and a glass smashed behind the bar.”

  “Oh, Bobby.” She looked at the little boy, who was just stirring. He sat up and rubbed his eyes in confusion.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you broke a glass downstairs, honey?”

  “I didn’t break a glass,” he said.

  “The dog probably did it,” Sid said. “And he covered for him.”

  “I’ll go down and clean it up later, after they’re off.”

  “That’s not all,” he said. “He left the basement door open. Anyone could have just walked into the house.”

  “Oh no! You know, I always mean to check that at night before I go to sleep. Bobby, you’re getting to be impossible, do you know that?”

  The little boy stared up with growing confusion. He was no longer sure himself when he had last been down there. He had gone down there with King, at times, but he couldn’t remember doing it recently. At the moment, he had a poor perspective of time, anyway. And his father was talking as if King were still alive. For a moment he wondered if everything hadn’t really been a dream.

  “I gotta get going,” Sid said. He went into the bedroom, put the calculator into his suitcase, shut it, and started out. He paused at Lisa’s doorway and gave her another kiss good-bye, kissed Bobby and shook his head gently, and then went to the garage door. Clara followed him to the car and watched him throw the suitcase into the trunk.

  “Have a good trip,” she said.

  “Thanks. I’ll call you tonight. You’ve got the name of the motel and the numbers where I can be reached if you need me for anything.”

  “Right.” She smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m going to be all right.”

  “Sure.” He kissed her and got into the car. She watched him back the car out of the garage and then waved one more time as he turned and headed down Lake Street.

  As soon as he was gone, her sense of dread became terribly heavy. She closed the garage door and busied herself with the children to keep herself from crying. But when the school bus came and they got on it, she couldn’t hold back the tears. It was irrational; it was weak, but she couldn’t help it. She stopped when she remembered the mess in the basement. She was almost grateful for it. She was grateful for anything that would keep her mind off her seemingly inexplicable sense of doom.

  6

  FOR THE FIRST few hours of the morning, they traveled in relative silence. To Qwen there was something monastic about the forest in the early morning hours, anyway. The crack of a branch, the heavy shuffle of feet, a cough, a grunt, even the sound of his own breathing were all amplified tenfold. In the weaker, early morning sun, the shadows of the taller, wider trees loomed around them like cold stone walls. He had a religious respect for the stillness. Ever since he was a little boy, since his grandfather began teaching him lessons of nature and making it seem like a living, intelligent being in and of itself, Qwen imagined the forest housed some great, wild, night creature, a beast unseen by men, feeding off the darkness and retreating into the trees and dark earth with the coming of the morning light. It was an irrational thought, a ghost of childhood past, the product of a young boy’s imagination, but a product that lingered in the closets of the adult’s mind, peering out whenever an unusual sound was heard or a shadow moved quickly and mysteriously across the surface of his peripheral vision. Like a descendant of some indigenous Indian tribe, he clung to a belief in the spiritual life of the forest.

  Qwen kept Maggie close to him until they reached the spot from which he had turned back the day before. She was eager to be turned loose, to follow the commands of instinct and do what she was genetically programmed to do—search and discover. He could see the anxiousness in her walk, the way the muscles in her legs and flank tightened, and the manner in which she kept her head high so she could sift through the breeze and hone in on the scents. But Qwen didn’t see any point in having her confirm the zigzag pattern the dog had taken. It was a particularly arduous path, designed, it still seemed to him, to make things more difficult for pursuers.

  Qwen was surprised about the direction in which they had to travel. This part of the Catskills was vast and undeveloped. He was puzzled as to why a so-called domesticated dog would head into the wildest areas. In his experience strays and lost animals usually sought out familiar ground: houses where they might beg food, populated areas where they might find scraps. Unless, of course, they became attached to a pack that had been running for some time.

  He had heard about packs of strays, lost and discarded dogs, that would make long journeys through the forest, taking down deer and, although he never really came upon it himself, a bear here and there. Some of the old-timers talked about strays attacking men. The strays had been wild so long, they had lost all their domesticity. But this animal was alone and not that long aw
ay from civilized conditions.

  As they walked on, the rising sun began to warm the air considerably, but they felt the warmth only when they traveled through opened or cleared areas. The forest was so thick, the trees growing so closely to one another, that at times it seemed as though they were traveling through a long green tunnel. In this part of the woods, there was a great deal of white and yellow birch, knotty and twisted softwood trees that were distorted and weakened by their proximity to one another. How clearly was illustrated the law of survival of the fittest. The roots of the thicker, healthier trees invaded the territory of the thinner, smaller ones. There were many trees broken and split by the force of the wind and the weight of the ice and snow in winter. There was so much of it in some sections it looked as if a battle between opposing spirits had been fought, the only casualties evident in the fallen birch.

  Occasionally, they moved through long and wide sections of pine, the fallen needles making a natural carpet of green and brown. Qwen loved the pungent scent of fresh pine. He always thought them to be regal and aloof. They remained green in the winter and seemed undaunted by the change in seasons. Sometimes a birch started its growth very close to a pine, but the pine continued its development as though it had turned its back on the audacious intruder. If the pine could speak, Qwen imagined they would tell him that the birch were ignorant, the peasants of the forest.

  For a man like Qwen, the forest never ceased to be a wonder and an entertainment. He was never bored with it because to him it was different everywhere. The others walking behind him didn’t catch the quick, nervous movement of squirrels, the gazing, curious but cautious rabbits, and the variety of birds that flittered from branch to branch, peering down at them, whistling and singing warnings and announcements to unseen brothers and sisters somewhere in their general direction. He was amused by the animals and he wondered what they thought of this strange entourage moving somewhat boldly through their woods.

  As soon as Maggie was released, she shot out about fifty feet or so in front of them and began barking and whining, serving them like a sonar device. To the others her sounds were monotonous, even idiotic. This was especially true for Gerson Fishman. Finally he stepped forward and reached out to seize Qwen’s upper right arm.

  “How the hell are we gonna find him if that dog keeps barkin’ all the while?” he asked when Qwen stopped and turned. “He’ll only keep runnin’ from us. Shit, he could hear that a mile away.” Qwen didn’t respond. He continued walking, moving as though nothing had been said. “Hey, I asked you somethin’!”

  Qwen stopped again and turned slowly. “Well, I’ll tell you, Mr. . . . Fisher, is it?”

  “Fishman. Gerson Fishman.”

  “Fishman. First off, any dog worth his Ken L Ration would hear us comin’ a mile off. You’ve been smackin’ the branches and kickin’ your feet like you want to be announced. Second, when Maggie there gets within a mile of your pup, she’ll let us know and we’ll decide our strategy then. Feelin’ better about it?”

  “Pup? Did you say pup?”

  Qwen looked at Kevin and shook his head. Then he started on again, but this time Ann moved up beside him quickly. He looked at her, but neither of them spoke for a while. He decided that she was a great deal tougher than she had first appeared. Most women unused to this kind of difficult travel would have shown some signs of discomfort by now, but she looked as cool as she had when she came out of the institute. In fact, she had a look of determination in her eyes that frightened him a bit. Her pale complexion had reddened and blotched on her cheeks and over her forehead, but her lips were moist and her breathing was still quite regular.

  “Where do you suppose he could be heading?” she asked. She didn’t stop or look directly at him; she spoke as though she were talking to herself. He actually turned to her first to be sure she was speaking to him.

  “Well miss, pretty soon we’re gonna know if he’s headed for population, although it’s a mystery to me why he’d go so far into the undeveloped woods first. I’m expecting him to head southeast eventually.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “I’d say he has it in his mind to be a wild thing. Could he have that in his mind, miss?” Qwen asked. He had that gleeful glint in his eyes again, but Ann didn’t notice it. She was thinking too deeply about his question.

  “He might,” she finally replied. “He might not like what he’s seen of civilization.”

  “And just what might that be, miss? What has he seen?”

  “The world of science, Mr. Qwen. In all its majestic promise.”

  “But would he know what he’s seen, miss? He’s just a dog.”

  “What’s all the gab about?” Gerson said, coming up behind them. “Your dog seems to be gettin’ farther and farther away.”

  “Oh,” Qwen said, pretending some surprise. “I hope she’s not after jackrabbits.”

  “What? You mean ...”

  “Relax, Mr. Fishman.” Qwen paused and knelt to show them a very clear paw print.

  “How do you know that’s not a fox?”

  “Fox? Look at the size of the print and the distance between each. You can measure the dog’s size from this. He’s big, about as big as a German shepherd gets,” Qwen said, looking up at Kevin. “Maybe even a little bigger than a German shepherd gets. Is that possible, Kevin?”

  “He’s been given some growth hormones that have had a positive effect on his maturation.”

  “I’d say about a hundred, a hundred and five would be a good-size dog.” Qwen looked at the depth of the impression in the earth. “How much, Kevin?”

  “About a hundred and . . .” Gerson spun around, but Kevin shrugged, as if to ask what difference does it make. “A hundred and a half.”

  “More like a St. Bernard.” Qwen stood up. “There’s a creek a little ways ahead. Maggie’ll be waitin’ there. We’ll take a breather when we get to it,” he said and started on.

  Gerson seized Kevin’s arm before he could continue. Ann kept moving.

  “A bit mouthy about him, arent’ ya?”

  “What’s the difference? If we’re successful, he’ll see him anyway, won’t he?”

  “He doesn’t have to know about growth hormones and the other things.”

  “He’s been around animals, Gerson. He’s gonna know things. He already senses it. Let’s quit kidding ourselves about it and just do the job we’re out here to do.”

  “Amen to that,” Gerson said and released his grip. Kevin started, but Gerson remained behind a few steps. He looked back as though he expected company, lit a cigarette, and walked after them, glaring from side to side with the suspicious and aggressive eyes of a man in combat. He had been in woods like this before and he was never comfortable about it. He didn’t like the shadows and the silence. Birds fell through the trees like heavy stones. He resented their confidence. Mostly, he resented the confidence of the trapper. The man radiated an inner strength that came from an inner peace. It was almost oriental—inscrutible, controlled, and deadly to a man like Gerson. He felt himself shudder like a drug addict who, for one split second, had imagined himself without supply. He shook the uneasiness from his mind and plodded on with heavy steps, moving as though dragged by some unseen chain.

  Qwen was constantly aware of the three people beside and behind him. Each of them gave off different vibes. The woman was intense and alert. She moved with definite, strong steps, full of purpose, but even though she was the closest to him now, he sensed her aloofness. It was as if she were transmitting her thoughts on a frequency far above him. She was an alien creature; he imagined that if he were in a room with her, he’d feel alone.

  Kevin was the warmest and, it seemed to him, the most reluctant. His steps were uncertain, cautious. When Qwen looked back at him from time to time, Kevin seemed distracted by his own troubled thoughts. He walked with his head down, like a truant schoolboy being escorted back to the classroom. Much of this Qwen attributed to his uneasiness in the forest. Kevin was a c
ity boy who rarely, if ever, went deeply enough into the woods to lose sight of all civilization.

  The big man who haunted the rear was also uneasy, but his irritability came from other sources. His steps were ponderous, angry. He was impatient with the pace of the search and the prospects of difficulty. When Qwen gazed back at him, he thought he caught a hateful gaze. Why this man should resent him so, he did not know; but he understood that the so-called security chief felt threatened by him.

  Qwen wasn’t very comfortable with any of them. Because he had been self-reliant all of his mature life and because he lived in a world in which all the important laws were natural and obvious, he disliked police and military types. He respected the conservation laws and appreciated their need and purpose, but he adhered to a higher code—the law of survival. He spent so much of his time in the forest and among wild creatures that he considered himself a citizen of a different country. If he was out in the forest for days, he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot a deer or a rabbit to eat, even though the season for such hunting might not be in effect. And yet he thought himself more moral because he saw those who hunted during the correct season to be invaders. Their kills were wanton; they did it for the sport or the fun of it; his life in nature had taught him that animals take the lives of other animals only for a necessary end, usually, only for food. Only man killed for the trophy.

  Fishman, the police type, struck him to be a man who could kill for any reason, or maybe even for no reason. He had seen that, too—hunters who shot animals they didn’t want. They were the servants of a callous and impish Death, the Death of no purpose.

  Kevin and the woman were academic types. They made him uneasy because he felt as though they spoke another language. No one felt safe in the company of people who could speak in a tongue he did not understand. It brought out the paranoid in him. They were talking about him, laughing about him, manipulating him somehow.