A New World: Untold Stories (26 page)

By Sara Jones

Sam was hungry. That, in itself, was not unusual. Sam was almost always hungry, or so he thought. In reality, he just liked to eat. Steak, popcorn, peanut butter goodies, and pizza crust (his personal favorite). What was unusual about his hunger this time was that he had eaten all the dry, crunchy food his people had left in his bowl, the stuff he ate only as a last resort. When that was gone, the people would always replace it.

Now his bowl was empty and had been since yesterday afternoon. Sam knew his People would be unhappy and call him “Bad Dog” if he searched for food in the tall plastic box where they put their tasty scraps. He didn’t like being called “Bad Dog” since it was always said in a mad voice. But, he was hungry and his People weren’t coming out of the room where they kept their bed. Earlier that morning, Sam used his sense of smell to investigate outside their closed door. He detected sick smells. He didn’t know what kind, but he knew it might be a while before they came out.

“If my Boy were here, he would make sure I had food,” Sam lamented.

Andrew, the “Boy”, was Sam’s favorite person. Sure, he loved the others, but Andrew was the one Sam followed around the house and yard. Andrew was the one Sam chose to keep warm at night by sleeping next to him. The Boy learned how to play ‘Throw’ quickly and was usually able to toss the ball every time Sam brought it to him. He was smart. He may not be covered in fur, but Andrew was a dog-person.

The Boy wasn’t really a boy anymore, but that didn’t matter. Sam had adopted his People when he was a puppy. Now, six years and several white furs on his muzzle later, Sam still considered Andrew to be his Boy.

A couple of years ago, his Boy had packed a bunch of his belongings in his little red car and hugged the Mom and Dad people. He even gave the Girl a quick squeeze. Sam knew the good-byes on that day were different than the good-byes on other days. He could smell the sadness, excitement, and fear on his Boy as he scratched Sam behind his ears and under his chin. Sam’s heart was heavy as he watched his Boy climb into his car and pull away. He only managed to give a half-hearted wag as his Boy waved good-bye.

At first, Andrew came back every few weeks, and always when the seasons changed from cool to cold, from cold to warm, and from warm to hot. Sam never failed to greet his Boy on each of his returns with the unbridled enthusiasm of a puppy, tail wagging excitedly; it seemed to make his whole body wag with it. Now that his Boy was older and was busy doing whatever it is fully grown Boys do, he only came home sometimes. Sam missed him and often wondered when Andrew would come home to stay.

Sam sighed, his Boy was gone now. The Mom and Dad people were behind the closed door and wouldn’t come out. He figured it might be a few hours before he would get to eat.

With that thought, Sam made a decision. He would go through the scrap box. Being called “Bad Dog” for a couple of minutes would be worth it if he could find something to appease his growling belly. Sam was glad the town they called “Spokane” was staying relatively cool and the scraps didn’t have that rotten smell yet.

Although Sam was a large dog, bigger than Golden Retrievers usually are, he had to stretch his neck as much as possible to reach the bread crust still filled with bits of ham slices. It was delicious! Sam could not understand why the Girl, the one called Ashley, never finished this part of her sandwiches. He watched her put the pieces in the box yesterday, even though he made it clear he would gladly take them off her hands. That was just before she left to go where she went almost every afternoon, to see the boy who smelled of cheese burgers and Dr. Pepper. Sam liked him.

He returned his attention to the scrap box and sniffed deeply. He could detect the smell of pancakes and butter somewhere farther down. Just as he was working his snout through the pieces of orange peels, paper towels, and coffee grinds, Sam heard a thump that sounded like it came from one of the upstairs rooms.

Fearing he was about to be caught by the Mom and Dad people, he pulled his face from the scrap box and scampered to his favorite napping place in the house. His blue rug was nice and warm, just as he knew it would be. The sun shining through the glass of the French doors hit the spot every afternoon this time of year.

He flopped casually on to his side and tried to look as innocent as his conscience would allow. His People didn’t come down. Instead, he heard more thumps that quickly escalated into an erratic pounding. Sam was getting up to check the cause of the noise when he heard something that nearly made his skull crack and caused the fur along his entire spine to raise. A piercing shriek echoed down the stairs and across the family room.

The sound wasn’t human, nor was it animal. Whatever it was, Sam knew it was bad.
Very
bad. Maybe even worse than the person his People call Michael Vick. Sam was well aware of what people say about his breed. Yes, golden retrievers
are
the friendliest dogs around, but he also had a fierce protective side when it came to his People.

He brought forth a deep, threatening growl as he bared his teeth. Ears back, body low, Sam sped up the stairs and down the hall. A strong feeling of aggression had taken hold of him and, like all good dogs, his instinct compelled him to protect his People. He expected to find the shriek-maker near the room belonging to the Mom and Dad people. As he reached the closed door, however, he realized the shriek had come from
behind
it.

The stench that leaked out from under the door of the room was one of sickness, death, and rage. They weren’t separate scents. They were triune—an unholy combination like nothing Sam had ever smelled before. Unaware that he had tucked his tail down behind his hind quarters, Sam backed away. Somehow, he knew it was too late to help his People behind the door. One was alive, but changed. The other dead.

In the few seconds it took for Sam to process this information, another rage-filled shriek erupted. Sam had never been so terrified of anything. He tore off to the other end of the hallway, away from the door, to the Boy’s bedroom. As always, the Boy’s door was open. It was where he liked to sleep when his People left for the day and wouldn’t be around to “shoo” him off the bed. The room smelled of Andrew. Any other day, the familiar scent would make him happy. But now, there was little comfort to be found as he cowered under the Boy’s purple and gold banner with the face of a husky in the center. Sam, the food-loving dog, forgot all about his hunger and the promise of butter-smeared pancakes. His only thoughts were of what was waiting behind the closed door.

As the late afternoon turned into early evening, Sam noticed a change in the outside sounds. It started with the complete cessation of the occasional car passing by. There were no voices, no music, and no dogs barking in the neighboring yards. It was eerily quiet, as if the earth was holding its breath, waiting for an unconquerable evil to be unleashed upon its occupants.

When darkness finally cast its ominous blanket over Spokane, Sam noticed more sounds. They were far from usual. First, the shrieks started. One here, two there, until eventually the shrieks joined together. It reminded Sam of the coyotes that often ventured into the neighborhood. As the outside shrieks grew, so did the ones coming from behind the closed door.

Sometimes loud
pops
joined the chorus of shrieks. Sam recognized those from the times his Boy and the Dad took him along on duck hunts. Those combined noises were bad enough, but the screams were the worst. Screams of pain and terror could be heard coming from the houses near his. These brought unspeakable sadness and fear to his heart. Some of the screams belonged to people; some from animals. Sam quickly realized they were the final, agonizing screams coming from victims being ripped apart while still alive.

Sam didn’t sleep at all during the night. He stayed as sheltered as he could in his Boy’s room, barely breathing for fear of becoming one of the hunted. As the sun came up, the grisly sounds of the night became less frequent and then disappeared entirely.

Sam was tired, but more than that, he was
thirsty.
Sam thought longingly of the big bowl of water that was never empty in the little room next to the Boy’s. Quietly and slowly, he padded the few steps it took to get to the little water room. He quenched his thirst from the big white bowl. Never before had water tasted so good! His People didn’t like him drinking this water. It disgusted them for some reason, but Sam was sure they would like it if they tried it.

As Sam pondered the strange ways of his People, he realized sadly they may never have the chance to enjoy this water. His thoughts turned to Andrew. Was he out there somewhere, needing Sam’s help? And what about the Girl? She rarely stayed gone overnight. Did one of those screams he heard in the night belong to her? No, he would have recognized her. These thoughts depressed him. He was alone, hungry, scared, and confused.

And he needed to pee. But in order to get to his doggie door downstairs, he would have to risk placing himself mere inches from the bad thing behind the door. His gut told him the door wouldn’t stay closed if he tempted it for too long. He made his way into the room almost directly across from Andrew’s, the Girl’s room. He knew it was even worse than digging through his People’s scraps, but he didn’t know what else to do. So, with the guilty expression he had perfected years before, he relieved himself on a tee shirt with the words “Abercrombie and Fetch” written across the front. It was sitting on top of a pile of clothes that smelled dirty, so Sam was hoping the Girl wouldn’t notice what he had done. Assuming she came home.

Now that some of his basic needs had been met, all Sam wanted to do was sleep. He wasn’t a puppy anymore and was feeling the effects of staying awake all night, watchful and afraid. He jumped on the bed in the Boy’s room, thinking that getting caught on the bed would be the least of his worries. It wasn’t long before Sam’s eyes closed heavily and he fell asleep.

His sleep was fitful and filled with frequent bursts of paw twitching as he dreamed. At first, the dreams were a jumbled mix of squirrels, pancakes, squeaky toys, and the warmth of his sunny patch. Then they wound their way into more sinister kinds of dreams. In these, he was chased by something, someone. But it wasn’t really a ‘someone’, it was a monster. He ran as fast as he could, but the monster caught up with him every time. In all the dreams, except his final one, Sam would jerk awake before he found out what happened next. It was the dream in which he did find out what happened next that kept him from falling back asleep. In that dream, when the monster caught up with him, the last thing he saw before the creature ripped him apart was his Boy’s face. Andrew had turned into a
Shrieker
.

The second night was a repeat of the night before. First, there was the horrible shrieking that haunted his nightmares. Then came the loud pops and heart-wrenching screams that played out in a macabre encore of the previous night’s performance. It didn’t escape Sam’s notice that the
Shriekers
seemed to hunt at night and stayed away in the day. He tucked the information away in his head and became as small as possible as he tried to shut out the horrors taking place outside.

Again, the rising sun came hand-in-hand with a small amount of relief. It was short-lived however, as Sam made a surprising discovery, the perpetually-filled bowl in the little room was almost out of water. His hunger had increased past the point where he could ignore it. Sam knew he needed to leave the semi-security of his Boy’s room or he would die of thirst and hunger. Should he sneak by the closed door as quietly as possible and hope the
Shrieker
wouldn’t hear him? Or would it be better to fly down the hall like a bat out of hell, dash down the stairs, and make a bee-line for his doggie door? The latter option seemed to be the best.

So, with ears back, tail down, and hackles raised, Sam took flight down the hall as quickly as his four legs could take him. As he passed the room, the thing behind the closed door shrieked and flung itself against it. This made Sam pick up the pace, almost causing him to tumble down the stairs as he made his way to his doggie door. Upon reaching it, he squeezed his frame through the flap and found himself shielded by the morning sun. The stillness of the morning was like stepping into another dimension. If Sam hadn’t known better, he would think the last two days had been one long, terrifying dream.

The first thing he needed to do was find a way out of the backyard. Sam knew that it wouldn’t be too difficult. Like many of the houses in his older neighborhood, the ground along the fence-line was pocked with rain-eroded pits. He had every weakness along the backyard fence memorized and knew of one such spot near where the gate latched.

Ten minutes later, Sam was covered in dirt and making his way to freedom. His nose stopped him before he got to the narrow sidewalk in front of his house. There was a familiar aroma in the air, the same coppery smell he picked up periodically while trotting through the woods. It was the smell he associated with hunting, fresh road kill, and mortally wounded animals. It was always associated death. The thickness of the odor that morning spoke volumes of the horrors that came with the setting sun.

With his nose lifted slightly, Sam tried to filter out the death scent as he sought the air for signs of life. His concentration was suddenly broken by a loud, stuttering hiss that popped up a few feet behind him. Whatever it was, it caught him off-guard, causing him to nearly jump out of his fur with a yelp. Exhibiting the speed of a much younger, more aggressive dog, Sam shifted his body into ‘fight’ stance as he spun around, ready to spring at the threat.