Night Howl Read online

  He had a healthy respect for these creatures. There was so much to learn from them, even though he had succeeded in outsmarting some of them. How simple his own kind appeared to be. When he had first come upon the dog chained by the house, he had sat there listening to it bark that same, monotonous, empty sound, a mixture of fear and warning. After he grew tired of hearing it, he growled with an authority that it had never heard from anything other than a human. It astounded and confused the dog and then frightened it. It crawled back into its doghouse, whimpering. He had all he could do to get it to come out again and to trust him. But it did.

  It was dark. All the lights were out in the house. Nothing else moved. The dog came out to sniff in disbelief. It was easy to get to it, easy to make it understand and obey. All of its life, it had been a creature of commands. That was what it understood best. He got into its mind quickly, and because he understood the dog and its mind—and how that mind worked—better than any man could understand it, he could undo anything the men had taught it. The dog was to him what a child was to a grown man, and with the same ease that a grown man could exercise to influence a child, so he could influence this dog. It took him a while to train and retrain it to his satisfaction, but he was good at it. After all, he had been taught by the experts.

  All the while he remained cautious. He sensed that those who pursued him were always out there. So he kept hidden during the daytime, venturing out carefully to observe and study the surroundings and the inhabitants. He moved through shadows, sometimes crawling on his stomach when he heard voices or saw movement.

  After a short while, he got to know how many people lived in each of the half dozen houses on Lake Street. Plotting strategy, he recognized the need to center in on one at a time. All of this had the excitement and flavor of a hunt, only it was greater than any hunt he had ever undertaken. Chasing a rabbit was fool’s play; he felt he could stalk a deer with his eyes closed. He was impatient with these traditional hunts and pursued them only when hunger demanded them. He wouldn’t, as some stray dogs would, feed out of garbage cans.

  He had come upon a stray dog here. The animal had come up the road from the east. It was a cross between a collie and a shepherd and even though it had been forced to live as a scavenger, it still had firm musculature and good size. As soon as he confronted it, he recognized its hunger and its antagonism. It had become a creature of violence, driven by fear and desperation, suspicious of everything.

  It was angered by its own needs; it despised a body that called for food and water incessantly, a body that demanded warmth and comfort. There was no pride in its gait. It was always stalking, clinging to the side of the road, prepared at any moment to flee in any direction. Its eyes were filled with terror; they were wide, maddening. Its coat was mangy and dull and its ears were turned down, flopping loosely about to signal its sense of dejection.

  The dog was instantly aggressive, expecting a challenge and an attack. It snarled and braced itself in readiness. He studied it carefully and silently and the dog sensed his extraordinary perception. This confused and frightened it. It was as though it had come upon a man with a club, a superior antagonist. It realized it was in some greater danger and moved aside. Then it began to whimper and plead. He could have killed it, cut it up in seconds, but instead he chased it off. He was quick to make it understand that this was his territory. The stray had no claim to it; it had no claim to anything but its own constant thirst and hunger; it had no stomach to fight for causes; the concept of loyalty to master and land was long gone from its consciousness. It ran as though it had seen some ghost of itself, and it didn’t pause to hunt from any garbage cans along the street.

  The day King had attacked Bobby, he was across the street in the shadows of the forest observing. He saw how helpless the boy was, and he saw how frustrated the man had become. He enjoyed every moment of it because he had designed it and it had happened just as he had foreseen it. The pleasure of accomplishment was extraordinary; it was greater than anything he had known before.

  He hadn’t even minded what resulted when the men with the guns arrived. He didn’t care about the dog; he had used it, just as the men had tried to use him, just as they used other animals. Most often, from what he had seen, these animals would die too. The men weren’t terribly saddened by that; they expected the death. This foresight was part of their intelligence. And so was all this part of his intelligence. He had winced when the shot was fired and the dog fell to the side. He had watched it jerk about spasmodically and then die, but he had watched with a scientific curiosity and not with a sense of compassion.

  Afterward, when they had taken the dog away and night had fallen, he went down to the house and sat by that section where he knew the little boy to be. He called to him as the dog had called, and the boy appeared in the window. He wanted the boy to come out; he wanted to take them out of the house, one at a time, and the boy would be the easiest to get. He wanted to begin with him. The boy didn’t come, but he sensed that he was close to coming. He decided he would go back and try again.

  There was no moonlight, but the overcast couldn’t prevent him from feeling the warmth of its glow, as it could prevent men. It was as though he could see through the clouds. It wasn’t cool for him and it wasn’t dreary. He wore the darkness like a second coat. For him the night was filled with excitement; his body tingled from his extrasensory perception. His ego made him defiant and he stepped out onto the road, unafraid.

  He wasn’t discovered.

  He went back to the barn behind the old man’s farmhouse and he crawled into a warm corner where he slept, dreaming of success. Before morning, the moon broke free of the clouds, just where he knew it to be.

  At forty years of age, Sid Kaufman considered himself in the prime of his life. He told himself that he was in better physical shape than when he was eighteen. In high school and even in college, he had eschewed any sort of physical activity. At least now he jogged twice a week—three times a week when it was possible. He had even gone to health clubs from time to time and worked out on weight-training machines. They had a rowing machine, a stationary bike, and a trampoline in the basement, and Clara was into aerobics.

  Sid had always been an enthusiastic student and an avid reader. In fact, he would read anything in sight, especially if he had to wait in airports or in waiting rooms. At the breakfast table he would read the backs of all the cereal boxes, if there wasn’t anything else available. His studious demeanor, his air of seriousness, his intensity of thought made him appear quite introverted and withdrawn, when actually he was very curious and outgoing. It was never difficult for him to strike up conversations with new people.

  He was just a shade under six feet tall and when he took his thick-rimmed reading glasses off, he had a Henry Fonda fatherly look, even when he was only in his early twenties. Perhaps his strong appearance of maturity was the best thing he had going for him.

  Women and other men recognized it immediately. Sid Kaufman was not someone who would waste time or do meaningless things. He was purposeful, goal-oriented, ambitious, and confident.

  For Clara Weintraub, he was the ideal man. Both of them were only children, but she had leaned strongly on her father and looked for that image in any man she dated. She wanted someone who was secure enough about himself to be able to devote a great deal of energy and time to taking care of her. She didn’t like making decisions; she didn’t like having major responsibilties. She wanted a world for herself in which everything was clearly delineated. There was no confusion about who would do what and when. She had thought about pursuing a career in child psychology, but she had put off getting her master’s degree until after she had raised the children, and now she questioned whether or not she would ever do it. It didn’t seem to matter as much as she thought it would.

  Sid was working. They were doing well. She enjoyed taking care of the house and the children. She enjoyed her leisure time. She liked caring for her body, reading her books, spending time with
her friends, and visiting with her parents. Life seemed enough as it was. She had no regrets and no anxieties about her self-image. In fact, she found other women, women who were constantly moaning and groaning about their failure to do more, curious. Some of them had so much and yet seemed so unhappy.

  She regretted the fact that Sid’s job took him away from the house and family for days at a time and occasionally for weeks, but she accepted it. She had complete faith in him. It wasn’t as though she were married to some traveling salesman who had to seek out erotic adventures to compensate for an otherwise drab existence. Sid had his feet solidly planted in their life together. He knew what he wanted and he communicated that organization and strength so well that she was unafraid.

  Her friends thought she was naive. She knew that in their eyes, every man was deceitful. These friends measured their lives against the fictional lives of prime-time soap opera characters. Some even behaved as though they were moving in front of cameras and audiences. But she could tolerate them because they amused her.

  All in all, she felt that she and Sid had created a good life for themselves and she was about as happy and as satisfied with what they had as she possibly could be. She loved living in the Catskills, the place where she had grown up, and she thought they had bought a house in one of the most ideal locations in the area. They had privacy and yet they had neighbors within a reasonable distance. It was just a short ride to town to shop, yet they were out of the traffic and the hustle and bustle of the summer resort season when it came.

  As she looked out at the woods and fields around her house, she couldn’t imagine how it could turn sour. The incident with King was the most jarring and disturbing thing that had happened during ten years of her marriage to Sid. He was right about its being illogical and incomprehensible, but she didn’t have his need for answers. She wanted to put the incident behind them as quickly as she could. She would work on the children and in time she would get them to accept and maybe even forget it enough so they could live around pets again.

  But Sid’s intense need to understand and explain what had happened was beginning to frighten her. He was making phone calls and looking for books with more ferocity than he would apply to one of his jobs. She could see that it was going to absorb him completely. It frightened her because she didn’t think he would find satisfactory explanations, and she thought he was capable of monomania—devoting himself to a single purpose at the expense of some very important others.

  They had their first fight about it one morning at breakfast when she tried to suggest that he ease off.

  “What difference will it make to us now?” she asked.

  “What difference? For one thing, the kid’s got me looking out the window at night for a ghost dog.”

  “That’s just part of the trauma he suffered. In time it will pass, but if he realizes you’re still thinking about it and working on it, it won’t pass. You’re keeping it on his mind, on both the children’s minds.”

  “Well I’m glad you can just accept what happened as though it was an ordinary, everyday event, but I can’t.”

  “I’m not saying that, Sid.”

  “Look. It’s not the kind of thing you just forget about.”

  “What else can you do? The laboratory checked him out. The police have no answers....”

  “I told you. I’ll get the answers. Look, why don’t you continue to live as though the whole thing was a fantasy and leave me alone about it, okay?”

  “That’s not fair. At night you’re in the den reading those books about animals.”

  “It’s only been two nights, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I just thought it would be better for all concerned if we forgot about it. Besides, everyone I talk to has an animal story of one kind or another. Maybe it wasn’t so unusual.”

  “I’ve got to go to Boston tomorrow and then you’ll have a break from me.”

  “Oh, Sid!” She slammed her coffee cup down and got up from the table.

  He didn’t call her back, but after he considered what she had said, he went to look for her. She was making the bed almost viciously, snapping the sheets and blankets.

  “Look,” he said, “maybe you’re right.”

  “You didn’t have to say I’d be glad to have a break from you.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. This thing has gotten me crazy. I’ll tone it down.”

  “Don’t think the children don’t sense it.”

  “I know. I’ll be more subtle.”

  He kissed her on the forehead. She was satisfied, even though she wasn’t convinced he would be any less intense. She knew him too well to believe that.

  Later that day Sid went to see their veterinarian who had an office in Monticello, a nearby community. As usual the office was packed—people clutching sick-looking cats and unhappy dogs. There was even a German shepherd that looked remarkably like King. The dog had a mouth lined with porcupine quills.

  The vet’s name was Dr. Michael Fox. Sid had called him before coming, but now that he was here and saw all these people with real medical problems with their pets, he felt guilty about taking up any of the veterinarian’s time. When Dr. Fox appeared at the reception desk, Sid told him that maybe he would come back at another time.

  “Don’t be silly. You had a very bad thing happen. I can give you a few minutes.”

  Sid followed him to the office adjacent to one of the examination rooms, where Fox closed the door and took his seat behind the desk.

  “Sit down, relax. How’s your boy doin’?”

  “It’s more psychological than physical now, even though he had a bad tear in his shoulder.”

  “And you’re limpin’ pretty well. That’s why they call them “police dogs.” They can be effective.”

  “Especially when you don’t want them to be.”

  “Yeah. Well, my records show that King had all the shots. With the old vaccine, there was a small percentage of animals who were actually infected with rabies, but the newer vaccines are foolproof. Anyway, it was too long a period after the shot for the shot to have anything to do with it,” Fox said. He stood a stocky five feet ten inches, with a college wrestler’s neck and shoulders. Sid hadn’t thought about it before, but it suddenly struck him as ironic that a man with the name of Fox would become a veterinarian.

  “I didn’t think it could have. Anyway, as I told you on the phone, the laboratory reports were negative.”

  “Yes.”

  “What else could turn him that way?”

  “Hard to say. It wasn’t an uncomfortable day. The dog wasn’t in any kind of pain?”

  “No, he seemed perfect, healthy, and happy.”

  “You didn’t notice any change in behavior coming on . . . irritability, loss of appetite, lethargy?”

  “No, not that I can recall. I was away from home up until the day before it happened, but Clara didn’t notice anything and my boy didn’t say anything.”

  “They might not have noticed. Is it possible your son did something different to the dog, something he’s afraid to tell you about?”

  “No ... at least I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Well maybe you remember the case of that St. Bernard that turned on this baby and killed it. It was a few years back. Same situation—unusual behavior that no one expected. Later, It was discovered that the baby had shoved a ballpoint pen deep into the dog’s ear.”

  “Good God!”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, the dog wasn’t only after Bobby. When I came out to help, he turned on me, too.”

  “Had to feel threatened at this point.”

  “I’ve been thinking about something else.” Sid hesitated and then leaned forward in his chair. “Do you think it’s possible for a dog to suffer some mental illness?” He was happy that Fox didn’t smile.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Schizophrenia, paranoia .. .”

  “You mean just like that? Get it like someone gets a common cold? No, I
don’t think that’s possible. However, there are all sorts of new studies out on the psychology of animals. Dogs, especially, have personalities. It’s what makes them so popular as pets, and I suppose it’s within the realm of possibility that whatever has a personality can have personality problems. As you know, there are dogs that are far more aggressive than other dogs and dogs that are far more docile. You can have sharp differences within the same litter. A friend of mine who raises St. Bernards had to put one down recently. He had it for nearly three years and it was just becoming more and more vicious. It got to the point where he was afraid of it himself, afraid to feed it, afraid to go near it. What was more interesting, from your viewpoint, however,” Fox added leaning over his desk, “is that this dog was beginning to influence the others.”

  “Like what we might call peer pressure?”

  “Exactly. But, as I was saying before, you, your wife, or your children would have had to notice something unusual in King, some deviant behavior. It can’t just happen.”

  “Why not? It often happens that way with people, doesn’t it? How many times have we heard about someone nobody expected to become violent doing violent and crazy things? There was that boy who shot people from a tower in Dallas and ...”