Night Howl

by Andrew Neiderman

  They were quiet for a while, both lost in their own thoughts. Maggie had curled up on the back seat, where she was now asleep. The sun had dropped below the mountains in the west; darkness crawled over the landscape, dropping first like a thin veil of shadows and then thickening into a heavy blanket that made houses and trees and portions of highway disappear with an eerie magic.

  “Shit,” Michaels said when a New York State Thruway road sign announced a roadside restaurant, “I can’t even remember when I ate last. What about you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s have a quick bite. You’ll probably wanna get somethin’ for the dog, too.”

  “She likes cheeseburgers,” Qwen said.

  After they’d gotten their food and taken a table, Michaels went to make a phone call. He thought it was best to check in and tell the dispatcher to call Jenny to let her know where he was and when he’d be home. Qwen looked up as Michaels returned to the table. He knew immediately from the look on the police chief’s face that something was wrong.

  “What is it?”

  “Sometime during the late afternoon they claimed they got the dog.”

  “What?”

  “They killed a German shepherd, a big one. Pictures and all.”

  “It wasn’t ours,” Qwen said. Michaels nodded, but Qwen saw that there was doubt in his face. “You saw what this dog did. It wasn’t ours,” he repeated. Michaels nodded and finished his coffee.

  “No chance of them havin’ more than one?”

  “Not from what I learned. This was part of an experiment. The dog was special. What they claimed up here is bullshit just to throw off any connection with what went on in New York. It calms everyone down and it’s all forgotten.” Michaels nodded again, but Qwen felt uneasiness. “Look,” he said, “they sacrificed some dog, that’s all. I know what,” he said, an idea coming to him, “let’s not go right back to your police station.”

  “Whaddya mean? Where the hell else should we go?”

  “To the institute. Let’s confront them directly. You call in when we get within radio range and let your people know where we’re going—just in case.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I got to get my truck back, anyway,” Qwen said. “Listen,” he added, “you’re into it this far, you might as well finish it with me. People in your town were hurt and killed. You got a right to know whatever there is to know.”

  Michaels thought for a moment. “My wife’s going to kill me,” he said.

  “There are worse ways to go,” Qwen said. Michaels laughed. “You don’t know Jenny.”

  After Maggie had feasted on her cheeseburger, they continued up the thruway. Qwen described the institute compound and told Michaels as much as he could remember of what Kevin Longfellow and his assistant Ann had explained about the experiments and the conclusions they had made about the dog. Michaels listened, but the darkness and the day’s events had left him tired. It was a deep fatigue, one that went through more than just his muscles and bones. It was as though a very heavy weight had shifted within him; he had all he could do to keep it from toppling. It would take a younger, stronger man to set it all right again. He was eager for that to happen. He was eager to walk away.

  He couldn’t help thinking that he was a holdover from an older world, a very different world. The villains in this new world were hard to recognize. If Qwen was right about it all, they were articulate, intelligent people in highly respected positions, doing work subsidized by a blind financial machine that responded to computer punch-outs. The differences between what was right and what was wrong had become muddled. Somehow, the priorities had changed, and Harry Michaels thought there was no way he’d be able to adjust. Surely, it was time to go, to retreat to some back porch and, among old friends, relive the past. Perhaps that was one of the benefits of age—a man could take such pleasure in a simple memory.

  It was close to eight-thirty by the time they turned off the main road to take the side road that led to the institute. To Michaels, the uninhabited route with its surrounding dark forest looked ominous. Qwen added to that atmosphere when he pointed out where he had left the car after he had done battle with Gerson Fishman and the driver.

  The moonless, partly cloudy night sky offered little illumination, but the institute complex loomed before them in an inky silhouette. No lights were on in the building. The only light came from the security booth at the gate. Michaels turned on his revolving roof light as they approached.

  “Might as well make this look official,” he said. He leaned on the horn at the entrance. “Where’s all that security you described?”

  “They were here before.”

  “Looks like everyone’s asleep.” He pressed his horn again. A figure appeared in the window of the security booth. After a moment the man emerged. When he stepped into the illumination of the patrol car’s headlights, Michaels and Qwen saw that the man looked elderly. “What’s he, part of another experiment?” Harry rolled down his window as the man came through the gate.

  “What’s the problem?” he asked.

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Who you lookin’ for?”

  “We want to speak to Kevin Longfellow,” Qwen said.

  “I don’t know who that is, but they’re all gone.”

  “Whaddya mean, they’re all gone?” Michaels asked. “Isn’t there anyone in that place?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “What do you make of this?”

  “I don’t know,” Qwen said. “There’s my pickup truck, though. They put it back where I left it.”

  “That yours?” the old man asked. “They said someone might be comin’ for it. I was supposed to have it towed off if you didn’t come in a day or so.”

  “They’re all gone?” Qwen asked again.

  “Yep.”

  “When are they comin’ back?” Michaels asked.

  “Don’t know as they are.”

  “What about the animals that were in there?” Qwen asked.

  “Animals? I didn’t see any animals.”

  “This is bullshit.”

  “We want to go in there,” Michaels said.

  The old man shrugged. “They turned off the electricity in the building. You’re better off comin’ back in the daytime.”

  “I got a flashlight.”

  “I guess it’s all right. They told me only to watch out for vandalism and you ain’t about to vandalize.”

  “Thanks,” Michaels said and drove on into the compound. The old man followed them. He wore a ring of keys, one of which opened the front door.

  Harry directed the beam of his flashlight around the small lobby of what had once been a rest home for the elderly. The furniture was covered and looked as though it had been that way for years.

  “Is this what it looked like when you were first here?”

  “I never came inside. There wasn’t any reason to.”

  “So you never saw what was going on?”

  “No.”

  They walked farther in. The security guard remained outside. They came to a small landing and followed it up into the corridor that went to the right. As they walked down it, they opened doors and Michaels shone the light within each room. Maggie sniffed at each doorway, but she did not enter any. In every case they found small rooms with beds of naked mattresses, small dressers, and night tables. When they reached the end of the corridor, they took the stairway up to the next floor. Some of the rooms were similar to those below, but they found two large rooms, rooms that Michaels surmised had once been used as recreational areas. Now they were completely empty. Maggie sniffed about the floor, but she didn’t grow excited over any scents.

  “Smells like a room full of mothballs. You sure this guy was telling you the truth?”

  “What they obviously have done is stripped the place clean.”

  “It’s spic-and-span, all right. Where are these mazes? The other animals? Maybe most of it was bullshit.”

  “Bul
lshit? How can you say that after what we’ve been through?” Michaels started out of the building. “How can you even think it? You’re not buyin’ this, are ya? Why would they have that fence put up? To keep in the ghosts of old people?”

  “Naw, it’s not that,” Michaels said. They started down the stairs. “Somethin’ else occurred to me, though.”

  “What?”

  “Maybe they were afraid to tell you the truth . . . that they had simply developed a better killer-dog. For the military, like they said.”

  “No way, my friend. I tracked that animal—or whatever it really was. I faced it, just as I told you. You faced it!”

  “I don’t know what the hell I faced. I faced a vicious, big German shepherd, I know that.”

  “But what about Fishman?”

  “What about him? I push to find out about him and they block it under the excuse of confidential information. What’s the difference anyway?” Michaels said. They walked out of the building and the elderly security guard approached them. “Hey, what kind of stuff did they take out of here?”

  “Can’t tell ya. If anything was taken out, it was done before I got here.”

  “This is bullshit,” Qwen said again.

  “Well, what do we do now, put out an APB for a missing secret laboratory? Come on, let’s see if your truck starts.”

  Qwen looked back at the building and then went to his truck. Maggie leapt right into the front seat. Qwen put the key into the ignition and started the engine.

  Michaels closed the door and leaned against it. “Sounds better than my car, even though it looks like shit.”

  “I like it that way,” Qwen said. “My mother used to say it’s what’s on the inside that counts.”

  “She was right. Why is it mothers are always right?”

  Qwen laughed. They watched the security guard go back to his booth. “What are you goin’ to do now?”

  “Check in at the station and then go home. I’m tired. Tomorrow’s another day. I’ll make some phone calls and see what I can find out.”

  “It’ll probably be like you said—doors shut everywhere.”

  “All we can do is try,” Michaels said. Qwen stared ahead. Harry reached in to pat him on the shoulder. “Go back to the forest, my friend. Life’s simpler. One of these days I might come out there and join you, so keep the fire burning.”

  Qwen waited until Harry walked to his car; then he backed up his truck and started out of the compound. The elderly security guard peered out the window of the booth. Michaels followed Qwen out to the main road and then turned right when Qwen turned left. He beeped his horn and was gone, his lights, reflected in Qwen’s rearview mirror, diminishing until the darkness swallowed them completely.

  EPILOGUE

  THE MID-AUGUST sun hung accusingly in the sky. It looked like the inflamed fingertip of an angry God. For the past two weeks, there had been a terrible drought in the Catskills. The reservoirs serving the New York City area were just above forty percent of their capacity. The fields across from Wilson’s Secondhand Shop had turned a pale brown. Color came only from the resilient weeds that flourished on whatever disastrous conditions affected the rest of nature. Even the birds were lethargic. They fluttered their wings nervously and waited in a subdued manner. When they sang, their songs had half the volume. Only the bees were vigorous. They seemed to be in a panic as they searched the dried flowers for pollen.

  In the forest, animals retreated to the coolest and darkest part to seek relief. It was as if the world had tightened into a protective fist. The air was so still that the smallest sounds carried for what appeared to be infinite distances.

  A young boy’s voice rose to a pitch of excitement; the high volume was shattering. It put a sudden surge of energy into the birds and they rose out of the trees like multicolored rocks flung at the reddish sun.

  “Grandpa!” Tony shouted. He was standing by the large old refrigerator left on its back. It was doorless. It had been the boy’s idea to put a blanket in it and let it serve as a place for Candy. “Grandpa, come quickly.”

  The screen door slapped the doorjamb as its springs pulled it back behind Tony’s emerging grandfather and grandmother. They hurried across the driveway to the lot of old appliances. Mrs. Wilson wiped her hands on her apron as she walked quickly.

  “What is it? What is it, Tony?” she called.

  The boy was gleaming. “Look,” he said.

  The three of them stood around the old refrigerator and looked down into the cabinet. Candy had given birth to six pups. Four of them were suckling, but two of them were climbing over her body, working their way toward the rim of the cabinet.

  “Well I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch. Ain’t this a pretty litter,” Stanley Wilson said. “Look at how vigorous those two are.”

  “They look like they know where they’re goin’, Grandpa.”

  “Smart little buggers,” he said as the puppies reached the sides and put their paws up on the ledge.

  “Don’t they look so much older than just born?” Mrs. Wilson asked.

  “Yeah,” he said and scratched his unshaven chin. The puppies pulled themselves up and out of the refrigerator with amazing grace. Both landed solidly on the ground. Almost as soon as they did so, two more stopped suckling and began the same journey. The ones that had gotten out were moving quickly away from the refrigerator. They sniffed and approached everything and anything in their way.

  “What kind do you think they are, Grandpa?” Tony asked. He reached down and picked up one that was trying to get out of the refrigerator.

  The old man studied it for a moment. “They look like they got a lotta German shepherd in ‘em,” he said. “Goin’ to be pretty dogs. We won’t have any trouble givin’ ‘em away. Might even be able to sell ’em.”

  “Oh, Stanley, who’s gonna pay money for a mutt?”

  “They’re mutts all right, but they’re pretty smart ones,” he said. “Look at those two go at it. They’re almost as eager to learn as could be.”

  “Let me see that one,” Mrs. Wilson said. Her husband handed it to her and she held it up so she could look into its face. The puppy stared back at her with almost as much interest. “My God,” she said, “it looks like it has human eyes.”

  In the forest, the birds had returned to the branches of the trees, positioning themselves under the shade of the leaves. They stared out at the world and waited as though they expected to see the earth catch on fire.

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