Night Howl (2 page)

He had a thirst for many new things. It was like being born again and again, each time growing into a different sort of creature, but each time becoming one with a wider scope, a greater list of needs and wants. He was far from being fully aware of just how far his capabilities had expanded. Every moment he seemed to learn something new about himself or about the world around him.

All of it stimulated him and made him feel taller and larger than he really was. The more distance he put between himself and his pursuers, the more confident he became. They had been the ones in control, doling out the food and the water and the small moments of freedom; he had defeated them, outsmarted them. The most important thing of all was that it had been easy, almost without challenge. All the while he had expected them to recapture him, but they didn’t have his speed or his vision or his strength.

He sensed that those down by the houses wouldn’t be any different. Despite his new confidence, he still relied on his instincts, especially when it came to things to fear. There were no warnings going off within him; there was nothing telling him to turn back or to turn away. All was quiet. The flight was over. He had nothing else to do now but feed his new hungers.

Before this, all his hungers had been simple. The new hungers were more demanding. They were all-encompassing. He should have been afraid of them, for they seemed to take complete control of him; but
he was not afraid. He wasn’t even sure what he had to do to satisfy them, but that didn’t discourage him.

He knew it had something to do with the houses and the people around and in them. And so he stepped forward and began to descend the ridge, his eyes fixed on the lake and the homes beyond. Soon they would be his, not in the sense they were to the people who lived within, but his, nevertheless. He could go and come at will and he could feed off their fear.

In his mind’s eye, he envisioned them all on leashes, tied to the walls of their houses. They strained and clawed at the air, screaming as he went past them, his head high, his chest up, his eyes gleaming. This was truly the greatest hunger he had ever known, and he longed to be satisfied.

E
IGHT-YEAR-OLD
Bobby Kaufman threw his blanket from his body as though he was breaking out of sleep instead of merely waking up. For the last two years, he had been the first to rise in the morning and, for the last two years, he had taken it upon himself to feed King his breakfast. Even during the cold Catskill winter months, he didn’t mind bundling himself up, struggling with his heavy socks and boots, just so he could get King his food.

The Kaufmans had gotten their German shepherd when it was only six months old. Now, five years later, it was a husky, well-fed, well-exercised and cared for animal with firm musculature and keen eyes. Ever since the Levins were burglarized, Clara Kaufman had been after Sid to get them a good watchdog. King was everything they could have hoped for; he barked madly at a passing shadow. No one could approach the Kaufmans’ four-bedroom ranch-style house on Lake Street without first being announced by King.

They had taken the dog to obedience school and given it the best possible training. Since the town of Fallsburg had a leash law in effect, they kept King on a one hundred-foot run just to the left of the garage. Sid had built him a nice size external plywood doghouse
and he and Lisa, who was now ten, had painted it white, with the word
KING,
in black, on the front. The kids got more paint on themselves than they did on the house, but it was a fun day that they all remembered. Ken Strasser, a dairy farmer who lived a half mile down the road on an aging yet beautiful estate, told Sid to put hay inside the doghouse to serve as an insulator. It worked; the dog never seemed to be unhappy or cold, no matter how brutal the winter weather was.

After King was housebroken, they permitted him in the house for large portions of the day. Most of the time he could be found in Bobby’s room, spread out beside the boy’s pinewood bunk bed, watching him play. If anyone drove into their driveway or came to their front door, the dog would perk up, raise his head, listen hard, and then raise himself from the light blue shag carpet. Then he’d make his way down the hall to the living room and the entrance of the house, while a low, mechanical growl began in the base of his stomach and traveled up his body. Usually Sid or Clara would say “Stay,” and King would sit and inspect the visitor or visitors suspiciously.

This morning, as usual, King’s biological clock awakened him at almost the same time Bobby Kaufman threw his blanket from his body. King came out of his house and sat patiently, looking up and down the back country road. It was a sparsely populated street with each of the houses, up to this point, surrounded by sizable acreage. The unusually wet spring weather had filled the trees with rich green leaves, making the forest between and around the houses thick and dark, even on mornings as bright as this one.

The dog stared fixedly at the front door of the house, waiting for Bobby to emerge. Bobby slipped on his pants and pulled his Kermit the Frog sweatshirt over his head and down. Then he put on his thin white socks and his sneakers.
Without taking time to tie the laces, he shot out of his room and went directly to the kitchen.

Clara Kaufman heard her son open the cabinet below the sink to take out the bag of dry dog food. She turned on her back and smiled to herself when she heard him shake the pellets into the dog’s dish and wet them down. She envisioned him moving carefully and studiously, as he balanced what she was sure was a too-full dish, making his way across the kitchen, through the living room, and to the front door where he performed a minor juggling act to turn the lock on the door handle and zip off the chain latch. She heard him do it all successfully and then she looked over at Sid, who had slept through the whole event.

She pulled the blanket around her neck and pressed herself against him. The nudge elicited a groan from him, but he pretended not to realize what she was suggesting. She knew he was pretending, so she nudged him again and he began a slow turn, exaggerating the difficulty. Her laugh brought a smile to his face.

Outside, Bobby stopped at the front stoop and looked eagerly at his dog. King seemed to smile at the sight of him. The dog’s tongue moved from the left side of his mouth to the right and then settled at the front expectantly. He nodded his head, as always, and Bobby, as always, thought this was his dog’s way of saying good morning. Still moving carefully so as not to spill any of the precious breakfast, Bobby continued over the flagstone walkway toward the doghouse.

Before Bobby reached him, the dog snapped its head to the left and peered into the shadows of the forest across the street. There were no unusual sounds and nothing moved. It was just that in one spot, near an old, soft maple tree, the darkness seemed to grow deeper and darker. Perhaps it was caused by the movement of some leaves in the breeze or by a cloud that interfered with the sun for a few moments. What ever
it was, it wasn’t enough to hold the dog’s attention long, and it was certainly not enough to attract Bobby’s attention. He was still very intent on performing his chore successfully.

There was no growl in the dog’s voice. There was no tightening of its muscles as Bobby drew closer. It was as though King knew how important it was to remain calm and to remain in character. Only an experienced animal trainer might have noticed some nervousness in its eyes, and even he could have missed it.

Bobby set the bowl before King in almost the exact spot he had placed it time and time again. Then, as was his wont, he reached out to pet his dog and pressed his face against King’s strong, firm neck. The dog waited with an apparently calculated patience and then lunged forward, seizing Bobby just below the neck, digging his bottom teeth in and under the small deltoid muscle on the boy’s shoulder and clamping down with a ferocity the likes of which the boy had never seen.

His first reaction was surprise and shock, so much that he couldn’t utter a sound. The powerful animal shook him from side to side in what seemed to be an almost playful grip, but the stinging pain from where the dog’s teeth had pierced the skin shot up and into his neck and head. Unable to raise his left arm against the dog’s body, Bobby tried pushing him off with his right arm and fell to the ground. At this point he screamed the loudest scream of his life. The dog began to drag him back toward the house, like a predator eager to secure its catch.

Clara and Sid heard the scream just after Sid had turned to embrace her. The ungodliness of the sound threw them both into a panic. Sid turned and spun off the bed. Just in his briefs, he rushed from the bedroom. Clara grabbed her robe and followed quickly behind. They both stepped outside in time to see King pulling Bobby’s body back against the doghouse.

Shocked almost to the point of numbness, Sid Kaufman hesitated and then ran forward. The dog appeared to anticipate it.

He released his grip on Bobby, but he stepped over the wailing child, straddling the boy and growling. Sid stopped a few feet away from him. Lisa had come out behind Clara and was screaming almost as loudly as Bobby and Clara. Blood stained the little boy’s sweatshirt and he pulled his legs up into a protective fetal position as he lay helplessly under the dog.

“Don’t move, Bobby, don’t move,” Sid said. “Easy, easy. Hey, King, hey! What’s wrong, boy? Why’d you do this?” he asked the dog as if he expected the pet of five years to respond and justify his action. Sid backed up to the garage and turned to Clara.

“Go around and open the garage door,” he commanded.
“Hurry!”
She did so, Lisa following behind her. For a long moment, the seconds it actually took for Clara to go into the house and around to the garage-to-house entrance, Sid and King faced each other. He found the dog’s look bone-chilling. It was as though the animal were gloating over its achievement and the man’s helplessness. Confused and frightened himself, Sid realized that the dog could reach down and seize his son again at will.

The garage door went up.

“Get me Bobby’s baseball bat,” he said. Clara got it to him quickly. Grasping it firmly in his hands, Sid started toward the dog. “When I tell you to run out, Bobby, run.” The little boy’s whimper had become a dry, guttural sound. He was moving into total shock. “I’ll move him off you, son. Then go,” Sid said. When he got within striking distance of the animal, King braced himself for the conflict. Sid was surprised at the dog’s look of calm challenge.

Sid feinted once and then swung as hard as he could
at the dog’s head. King anticipated the move and brought his head back with perfect timing. Sid’s swing carried him forward with the follow-through and the dog lunged out and clamped its jaws around Sid’s naked right calf. The blood streamed out around the dog’s teeth. Sid screamed for Bobby to move off and the eight-year-old had enough awareness left to do so. As soon as he did, Clara grabbed him and pulled him toward the house.

King’s hold on Sid seemed unbreakable. He brought the bat down against the dog’s side as hard as he could, but the animal was impervious to the blows. When Sid lost his balance, the dog released his leg in order to go for Sid’s throat. His snap was so close that Sid actually caught the scent of the animal’s breath. He moved just in time to avoid being seized at the throat. Then, turning over on his stomach, he spun away and got to his feet. The dog came at him, but Sid ran fast enough to get back to the garage.

There he fell against the back of his car and watched the animal lunge into the air. Its chain snapped and held him back. Sid moved farther into the garage and pushed the button to close the door. Then he stumbled into the house where his wife and his daughter and his eight-year-old son were all crying hysterically. Dazed, he looked down at his blood-covered lower right leg and went for some towels. After he wrapped his leg and got some towels to Clara, who was simply holding Bobby to her in the living room, he went to the telephone and called the Fallsburg police department. The dispatcher said he would call for an ambulance.

By the time the first patrol car arrived, the dog was sitting casually in front of the doghouse and eating his food. He didn’t bark at the police; he simply stared at them with what was now a puppy’s curiosity. The patrolmen were quite confused. They saw the bad gash
on Bobby Kaufman’s shoulder and the bad bite in Sid Kaufman’s leg.

“Shoot him,” Sid demanded.
“Shoot him!”
he shouted at the hesitant young cop, who looked to his older partner.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“
Shoot him,”
Sid repeated. The older officer looked at Sid and then shrugged.

“Shoot the bastard,” he said.

The younger patrolman took out his thirty-eight, walked a few steps toward King, and fired directly into the animal’s head. All the while the dog sat there peacefully. To the young policeman, it felt like a murder.

Afterward, it was clearly determined that the dog did not have rabies.

From the time he was a boy, Sid Kaufman demanded logic in everything. Contradictions, paradoxes, mysteries annoyed him to no end. He was downright intolerant when it came to confusion. When he analyzed it, he concluded that his attitude had found it’s genesis on the day his mother gave birth to a stillborn baby girl. When his father brought his mother home and they all sat together in the gloomy living room after the comforting relatives had gone, Sid demonstrated a four-year-old’s inquisitiveness, as precocious as it was.

“Why did God make a baby if the baby was going to be dead?” he asked. His parents looked at him, their faces filled with sympathy because they didn’t have the answer and they knew he needed a satisfactory one very badly.

“It happens,” his father offered.

“Why?”

“It just does. It’s part of life, part of this world.”

“That’s silly,” he said. He looked to his mother, but she offered nothing else.

But the frustration didn’t defeat him. Questions continued to be a major part of his dialogue. He challenged everything and anything he could. In school his teachers saw him as a genuine pain in the ass, always wanting to know why things were due on a certain date or why they had to be done a certain way.