Night Howl

by Andrew Neiderman

  Escape from the house didn’t enter the minds of either of the children as they stood staring down from the stairway. Instead, they looked for some sign of hope in the yet still body of their mother. When Lisa finally heard the sounds of the dog behind them, she moved slowly down the remaining steps and stepped over the body of the dead policeman. Bobby followed cautiously, afraid even to permit his feet to graze the corpse of the I.D. man.

  Lisa knelt beside her mother and shook her body by pushing on her left shoulder.

  “Mommy?” she said.

  “Mommy, wake up,” Bobby said.

  Lisa lifted her mother’s upper body toward her. Clara Kaufman’s eyelids fluttered.

  “Mommy,” Lisa said again. Both she and Bobby turned and looked up the stairs as the knob on the basement door clicked open.

  Clara Kaufman groaned.

  “Mommy!” Bobby screamed. The upstairs door began to open. Bobby sat down beside Clara and pressed his body to hers. Lisa embraced her even more tightly. Clara focused on the two of them.

  “Oh . . . Lisa, Bobby.” The pain returned, but she fought it and got herself into a firmer sitting position.

  “The dog!” Lisa screamed. “He’s coming down!”

  “Oh, God.”

  Phantom appeared on the top two steps and gazed down at them. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. They hadn’t gone for the other maze exit after all. It would be easy for him to cut them off from it now.

  To the three below, he looked even larger. Because of the angle from which they looked up at him, his size was exaggerated; he took on monstrous proportions.

  Clara looked behind her into the utility room.

  “We’ve got to get back in there,” she said. She thought about sliding herself along as Lisa pulled her, but Bobby was clinging to her so tightly, she could barely move. He was close to a state of shock because of what had happened with King. She knew he was reliving that terror. His sobbing became more and more hysterical. In a matter of moments, it would be impossible to control him. He wouldn’t hear anything she said and he wouldn’t feel her hand on his neck.

  Even Lisa had begun to cry harder now. The children were entrapping her within the walls of their fear. She looked at the dead policeman and fought back the wave of nausea stimulated by the bloody sight. If only he could be resurrected for a few minutes to protect them, she thought, and then she looked at the gun still in his hand.

  A moment after she did so, she looked up at the slowly descending large dog. He stopped as though he realized what she was considering. She was sure that he, too, had looked at that gun. She knew her move would have to be fast and decisive, despite the pain it would bring throughout her body.

  She turned and seized the dead man’s hand at the wrist and pulled it up to her. The action froze her children for a moment. Their sobbing stopped as they looked on at her effort to free the pistol from the fingers of the corpse. But it seemed glued to the hand.

  The dog started a quicker descent and then hesitated when Clara folded her own hand neatly over the dead man’s, forcing her right forefinger over the hard, dead one.

  Phantom saw the weapon being turned toward him and he crouched down, remembering what the other dog had looked like, how it had jerked about spasmodically after the policeman had shot it in the head.

  Clara didn’t see his retreat. She thought of all the television shows and movies she had seen where guns had been used, and she vaguely recalled the pulling back of the hammer. She did so quickly and then, with her face turned away from the scene before her, she pressed as hard as she could on the dead man’s trigger finger.

  Within the closed-in basement, the gun’s report was more like an explosion of dynamite. It was deafening. The pistol seemed to jump out of her hand and, with an eerie semblance of life, the dead policeman’s arm shot upward and then down. The children screamed. When Clara opened her eyes, the dog was gone from the stairs.

  “Quickly,” she said when her perusal of the basement showed no signs of the animal, “let’s get back into the utility room.”

  Both of her children gasped for air. Their upper bodies heaved about as though they were both in fits of epilepsy. She could see that they could offer her little assistance. She pressed down on the floor and pushed herself toward the door behind her, but Bobby, clinging to her leg, was like a dead weight.

  “Hurry, Bobby, please. Let Mommy go and help get us back in there. Hurry. Lisa . . .” She turned to her daughter. Lisa looked up at the stairs fearfully and then stood up. She went around and tried to get Bobby to release his grip, but the little boy screamed and clung even more tightly.

  “I can’t ... he won’t.”

  “All right, baby ... all right. Just help me go back. We’ll pull him along. Take this arm,” she said, holding up her right arm, “and pull firmly but gently.” Lisa took her mother’s wrist and did so. They moved by inches, Bobby too hysterical to give them any real assistance. When they reached the doorway, Lisa looked up at the stairs again. The dog had reappeared. Clara saw him, too. “Don’t scream, just pull, pull.”

  The three of them got into the utility room far enough to start to close the door behind them, just as the dog came charging down the stairs. They slammed it shut only moments before he reached it, all of them screaming at the same time. Clara pressed her body against the door so that her weight would keep the dog from shoving it open. They heard him press his body against it on the other side. Then there was silence.

  Clara started to relax until she looked up and saw the handle being turned. It was like a knife through her heart. She stared in disbelief. What kind of a dog was this? Who had trained it to do such things? What more would it be able to do? She looked about quickly and saw the cartons of old things, the dresser they had put down here a year ago, meaning to give it away someday. She knew what had to be done. Some of those things had to be brought to the door to help keep it secure. She was too weak and in too much pain to hold back the large animal for long.

  “Honey . . .” She was gasping for breath, herself. What if she blacked out now? Oh God, the children. “You’ve got to drag some of those cartons over here and we’ve got to move that dresser against this door. Do you understand?” Lisa nodded. She looked as though she had pulled herself together some. Clara was hopeful. Bobby, almost unconscious now, his body heaving in small, convulsive jerks, still clung to her leg.

  Lisa went to the cartons and began pulling on one, sliding it slowly across the cement floor. Clara thought how fortunate it was that they had never carpeted this area. Everything would slide along more easily. Once Lisa got the carton started, she got behind it on her knees and pushed.

  “Good, honey. Good. Bobby, help Lisa. Bobby. . .”

  Clara felt the door moving inward and pressed her back against it. She moved to the left when Lisa brought the first carton over and pushed it against the door.

  “The dresser, Lisa. Try to move the dresser.” Clara knew if she lifted her body away from the door to help, the dog would have little to oppose it. One carton was not enough to block the dog from getting the door open enough for him to slip in. In fact, the door opened slightly and she saw the dog’s snoot appear.

  “Lisa!” she screamed, “Back here, hurry!” Together they pressed the door shut again. There was some respite as the dog had to turn the handle once more. “The dresser,” she whispered. It was more of a gasp. Lisa started for it again.

  It barely budged. Lisa began to cry. Clara heard the handle turn open again; she heard the click and felt the dog’s power as it pressed its heavy, muscular body against the door. Hope began to sink quickly. Clara felt the blood struggling through her veins. It was as though some great magnet were pulling her down into the floor.

  “Back, Lisa, back,” she said, and once again the two of them forced the door closed. Clara lowered her head to her chest. She had gone beyond pain. Her adrenaline had taken her beyond normal capabilities, but now, because she felt depressed and defeated, the fatig
ue and the agony began a slow, definite return. Her body was beginning to turn into dead weight.

  Her daughter went back to the dresser. Miraculously, she moved it an inch, then another, and another.

  “Good, honey. Good,” Clara said. The dresser came closer and closer until Clara had to move away from the door completely to make room for it. Just before she did so, she told Lisa to push as hard as she could so there would be only a short moment without resistance to the dog. The dresser slammed against the door and there was a long moment of silence as they waited to see what effect it would have. The door barely budged. They were safe for the moment.

  “Thank God,” Clara said. “Good, Lisa, good.” She looked down at Bobby. His face was pressed against her thigh; his eyes were closed. The hysteria had driven him into shock and he had fallen asleep. She wiped his face and gently pried his arm loose from her leg.

  “I’ll put some more stuff against the door,” Lisa said. Clara nodded and closed her eyes. She couldn’t fight it now. The darkness was coming in, wave after wave. She lowered herself beside her son and tried to embrace him. Seconds later, she was unconscious.

  11

  AT FOUR FORTY-FIVE, Sid Kaufman made his way back to George Friedman’s office. Friedman’s secretary was getting things together, preparing to leave for the day. When she saw him, there was an expression of guilt on her face. Perhaps she had started this wind-down a lot earlier than need be, Sid thought. At the moment he didn’t relish the role of inspector. He smiled and she appeared to relax some.

  “Having a productive first day?” she asked.

  “Yes, yes I am. Is Mr. Friedman in?”

  “No, but he’s due back within the hour.”

  “I was just going to use the phone again.”

  “Oh, go right in. I’m sure it’s all right.”

  “Thank you,” he said. He got behind George’s desk, reached the operater quickly, and made the call. Once again, the phone rang and rang. After the third ring, his heart began to sink. By the end of the tenth ring, he was convinced that something terrible had happened. He hung up; then he lifted the receiver and dialed the operator again to place a person-to-person call to Chief Michaels of the Fallsburg Police Department. He was lucky. He caught Harry Michaels minutes before the chief was going to leave the office. Sid explained his inability to reach his wife.

  “She wasn’t even home around the time the children come back from school,” Sid went on, “and she’s always there for that.”

  “All right, Mr. Kaufman. All right. Don’t worry. I’ll take a ride up to your house myself and check things out, but I’m sure she’s probably gone to a relative or a friend. Maybe she’s taking the kids to Burger King.”

  “I don’t think so,” Sid said. “Listen, are you going to go right up there? I mean, right up there now?”

  “I said I would.”

  “If you get into the house, will you call me? I’ll give you the number where I am,” he said and recited George Friedman’s office phone number. “If you don’t get in, call me anyway. Call me collect. I’ll wait right by this phone. Please.”

  “Mr. Kaufman,” Harry said, putting on his best fatherly tone of voice, “I know what you’ve been through. I know what you feel like. I promise, I’m going right up there and I’ll call you within fifteen minutes or I’ll have my dispatcher call you. Okay?”

  “Thank you.”

  “No problem. Try to relax in the meantime.”

  Sid hung up and sat back in the chair. He closed his eyes and then opened them quickly to look at the exact time. It was five to five. The police station was only two or three minutes from his house. If he kept to his word, Michaels would call by ten after five, give or take a few minutes. Sid knew it would seem like hours.

  As soon as Michaels hung up, he went out to his dispatcher and gave him the phone number.

  “I might call you from the car,” he said. “You’ll call Mr. Kaufman at this number and give him the message I tell you. Got it?”

  “Right.”

  “Where’s Sidewater?”

  “Hurleyville. There’s a cow loose on Brophy Road.”

  “Great. Why couldn’t MacBurn handle that?”

  “You told me to send him to Woodbourne today because Philips is out sick.”

  “I haven’t got a patrolman in the South Fallsburg area?”

  “Not right now, Chief. You want me to call Mac-Burn in?”

  “No, not yet. All right, I’m heading up to Kaufman’s house,” he said and went out to his car. His back tires spun on the macadam as he turned around and headed away. He never gave much credence to what some fellow law enforcement officers called the police instinct, but he couldn’t help feeling an unusual sense of danger. Maybe it was imposed on him by the note of hysteria in Kaufman’s voice, or maybe it was just some delayed reaction to the whole Ken Strasser affair, but whatever it was, it made him tremble. For some reason, an image of Jenny came to mind. He saw her as he’d left her that morning: in the kitchen, gathering the ingredients of the pie she was going to make and bring up to Charley Strasser’s house. He smiled at the memory, but his expression changed as soon as the Kaufmans’ house came into view and he saw Carlson’s car in the driveway.

  If Sid Kaufman had called his home only minutes ago, why hadn’t someone answered, especially if Carlson was there? he wondered. He pulled in behind the car and studied the front of the house. The front door was slightly open. What could this mean? He opened his door slowly and stepped out. There wasn’t a sign of anyone around. The house looked deadly quiet.

  He adjusted his gun belt and unclipped the strap holding the pistol securely in his holster. For him that was a considerable action. He had to dig back through his memories to recall the time he had last drawn his gun. In all the time he had been a policeman, he had never once fired at a man, and no one had ever fired at him. He had been in his share of fights; actually, in more than his share.

  He started for the house. Sid Kaufman’s wife and children had probably just pulled up, he thought, with Carlson right behind them. They’d just forgotten to close the door—probably engrossed with Carlson’s methodical questions.

  He stopped less than a foot from the house when he heard the phone ringing. Sid Kaufman was most likely trying again. The ringing continued. Why didn’t any-one answer it? He looked back at his patrol car, wishing he had brought one of his patrolmen along. Even the dispatcher would have been some comfort. The emptiness of the car, the quiet of the deserted road, and the persistent ringing of the phone filled him with a sense of dread. He was tempted to retreat, but he chastized himself for his uncharacteristic lack of courage.

  I’m getting too old for this, he thought again; but he drew his pistol from his holster and went on into the house. Almost as soon as he stepped through the doorway, the phone stopped ringing. The silence that followed was more threatening. He listened for the sounds of people, but there were none. When he continued into the house, he discovered the mess in the kitchen.

  “What the hell—” He spun around, his pistol up, anticipating something, but there was nothing there, nothing but the sound of his own heavy breathing. “Carlson!” he called and waited. “Carlson!” He shouted louder.

  Then he heard the sound of a little girl screaming. He realized it was muffled and quickly understood that it was coming from the basement. When he reached the opened doorway, he paused and looked behind him because he thought he heard something. The screaming continued, so he started down the stairs.

  The moment he saw Carlson’s body, he froze. He then brought the hammer back on his revolver and looked about. The girl had stopped her screaming, but he now heard her sobbing behind the closed door. He hesitated to speak, fearing to give away his position without first discovering who or what had done this to Carlson. He moved farther down the stairs and when he reached the bottom, he looked about the basement. He saw nothing.

  “Mrs. Kaufman!” he called. There was silence, and then the little girl s
creamed for her daddy. Harry knelt beside Carlson’s body, felt his wrist, and then went for the door. But before he reached it, the dog came out from behind the bar and leapt through the air. To Harry Michaels it looked as if the animal could fly. His jump easily took him across half the basement floor.

  Harry had time to raise his left arm protectively and get off one shot. The bullet went wide and the animal seized him at the forearm, snapping the bone almost instantly. Michaels fell over Carlson’s body, but he had enough strength and momentum to throw the dog toward the stairway. The dog did not come back at him. It went into a crouch and moved so quickly up the stairway that by the time Harry brought his arm around for another shot, the animal had reached the top.

  Harry squeezed off another round. The bullet tore into the doorjamb and sent splinters flying, but the dog whipped itself out of the door before Michaels could shoot again. Just at that moment, the pain in his left arm registered and he fell farther backward. He moaned and took a few deep breaths. There were no sounds coming from behind the door; he imagined the little girl had been driven into a terrified silence.

  He struggled to his feet, keeping his eye on the basement doorway. He wanted to put his gun in his holster and hold his left forearm, but he was afraid that the animal would reappear. So he pressed his arm against his body and tried the door to the utility room. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Hey,” he said. “It’s the police. It’s all right. Mrs. Kaufman?”

  “Mommy,” he heard the little girl say, “wake up. Mommy.”

  “Listen, Lisa, it’s Harry Michaels. Let me in and I’ll help you.”

  “The dresser is against the door,” she said. Her voice was small and pathetic.