Thor continued his approach, inches at a time, as the Bad Thing struggled in place. If the Bad Thing broke and ran, Thor would give chase, but as long as it stayed put, there was no reason for Thor to announce his presence by charging in.
He was about fifty feet from his quarry when the underbrush gave way to a small clearing, and he got his first real look at the Bad Thing.
Every hair on Thor"s body stood on end. The Bad Thing, whatever it was, was hideously unnatural. It smelled like a dog, but it was not a dog. It was taller, longer, bigger than a dog, and its body was not a dog"s body. Covered with fur, it stood upright on its hind legs, with its front legs wrapped around a tree trunk, held together by Uncle Ted"s handcuffs. It wore Uncle Ted"s sweatpants and the ragged remains of his sweatshirt, and a small metal object dangled from a shiny chain around its neck. It had torn away as much of the sweatshirt as it could reach with its sharp teeth and the two grotesquely long fangs that protruded from its mouth. What remained of the sweatshirt lay limp and tattered around its waist. Its face, though covered with fur, was human-shaped - its mouth and nose were separate structures, not a snout.
Its fangs were sharp and long and dangerous-looking. It had been trying to cut through the tree trunk with them, and had gnawed a big hunk out of the tree before giving up on the idea.
The Bad Thing hadn"t seen Thor yet, though Thor had a feeling it knew he was near. Thor backed away slowly, silently, into the surrounding bushes, and circled around it from behind the cover of low-lying foliage. He carefully worked his way through the forest until he was behind the Bad Thing, then edged in for a closer look.
Fortunately, the Bad Thing was chained to the lone tree in the clearing, and the full moon, now high in the sky, beamed down on it like a spotlight. The Bad Thing"s attention seemed torn between the moon and the handcuffs that bound it. It struggled for a while, got tired, and gazed upward. Thor kept expecting it to bay at the moon, but it didn"t. Instead it glowered at the moon, its face a picture of hate. The only sound that came from it was the same constant low growl Thor had heard in the distance.
Thor was almost directly behind the Bad Thing, but not quite. He"d chosen an approach that kept the handcuffs in his line of sight. He wasn"t at all sure he could kill the Bad Thing if it got free. He smelled something in the undergrowth as he advanced, and stopped to check it out. Uncle Ted"s sneakers lay on the ground. They smelled of Uncle Ted and the Bad Thing.
Had Uncle Ted tried to put them on the Bad Thing, as he had his sweatshirt and pants? Why? And where was Uncle Ted? The questions pa.s.sed through his mind and were forgotten, and he turned his attention back to he beast on the tree.
He crept within a few yards of the Bad Thing when it heard him and snapped its head around to see the interloper.
At the sight of Thor, the Bad Thing flew into a rage. Thor tensed and bared his teeth, ready to fight, but the handcuffs held - the Bad Thing couldn"t attack. Instead, it twisted itself around the tree to face him, snarling, growling, pulling at the handcuffs and snapping at the air the whole time. The Bad Thing"s fury made it foam slightly at the mouth, and despite its helpless state, it showed no fear, only rage. It was acting like a small dog on a leash, but with a big difference: It wasn"t faking anger or hiding fear. Its rage, its hate, were completely genuine. It wasn"t afraid; it gave off no scent of fear. Even helpless, locked to the tree, it wanted Thor to come closer, wanted any opportunity to try to kill him.
It was utterly mad.
Their eyes met, and Thor froze. The Thing"s eyes were neither canine nor human, but resembled both. It looked straight into Thor"s eyes, and Thor looked back as he would never look at a human. Its eyes seemed to beckon to Thor. They bore an invitation to join the Bad Thing in it wildness, in its freedom, in its madness. To enjoy the taste of blood and the smell of death, to revel in the power each of them possessed in such abundance - the power to kill.
Thor had never killed. He"d never experienced the G.o.d-like rush of triumph as a victim"s struggles ceased between his jaws, the smell of the prey"s blood filling his nostrils. But the Bad Thing"s eyes seemed to tell him just how good it felt, to mock him for his unfulfilled destiny, to draw him into its circle of madness and bloodl.u.s.t.
Something deep inside Thor told him this seduction was wrong. Wild or domestic, wolves do not kill for pleasure. They kill for food, and they fight to defend their packs, but even when a pack"s existence is at stake, they fight until the enemy is vanquished and almost always allow the defeated enemy to escape with its life. The Bad Thing"s l.u.s.t to kill was without purpose, without design or reason. It wanted to kill only for the love of killing.
And yet its gaze, its bloodl.u.s.t, its fury were so appealing. It offered freedom from all hierarchy, freedom from all rules and laws, freedom to run wild, even wilder than wolves.
Thor and the Bad Thing stood motionless, eyes locked. Thor"s mind swam with intoxicating images of blood and strength and triumph and death.
Until a far-off sound distracted him.
From hundreds of yards away, the shrill voice of Thor"s dog whistle called to him in the forest, and the strange sensations vanished, washed away in a flood of reality.
The Bad Thing"s bloodl.u.s.t was without focus or purpose or meaning; given the chance, the Bad Thing would gleefully kill the entire Pack. And if Thor were to surrender to its bloodl.u.s.t and join it, he would, too. A wave of guilt and revulsion washed over him, and the curiosity and fear Thor had felt toward the Bad Thing were replaced by white-hot hate.
Thor barked savagely, furiously at the Bad Thing.
And heard an unexpected response in the distance.
"Thor! Here, Thor!"
It was Dad, and he was coming closer, homing in on Thor"s barks. The Bad Thing heard Dad and turned to look in the direction of the house. Its eyes gleamed with an insane l.u.s.t that sent a ripple of unnatural terror through Thor. But he stood his ground and barked, and didn"t attack.
As dangerous as the Bad Thing might be, it was clearly helpless, and a helpless animal is not a threat. All Thor"s defensive instincts were geared toward attacking an active threat, not a potential one. There was nothing in this bound creature that invited attack.
Besides, Dad was coming. Dad would know what to do.
Thor barked steadily, as he had in the kitchen, announcing the presence of danger and telling Dad which way to come.
"Thor! Get over here!" Dad was too far away to see the Bad Thing, and he wasn"t coming any closer. Thor turned around to bark at him.
You come here!
"Thor! Dammit, get over here! Now!"
Dad"s voice was a mixture of fear and anger. Thor was torn between obedience and Duty, but his Duty wasn"t clear in this situation.
The Bad Thing growled in antic.i.p.ation of Dad"s arrival, but Dad either couldn"t hear it or didn"t care. Of maybe he did hear it, and that"s why he kept his distance.
"Get over here!"
Thor knew he was on the brink of being a Bad Dog. It was a line he didn"t want to cross.
Snarling and showing his teeth to the Bad Thing, he circled it cautiously and started back toward Dad, glancing over his shoulder at the nightmarish creature as he left.
The Bad Thing snarled back at first, but when it saw that Thor was leaving, it exploded. It opened its mouth wide, showing its teeth, and issued a loud, voiceless, hateful hiss. It thrashed its head and shoulders from side to side in mindless fury, frantically trying to break the handcuffs or the tree trunk itself. The handcuffs bit into its wrists and it attacked the tree trunk with its teeth again. It took as much of the trunk into it jaws as it could, then lifted its hind legs and kicked against the tree like a cat. Thor stopped for a moment to watch its maniacal display, to see if it might break free after all, but the tree trunk held. The Bad Thing would not escape.
"Thor!"
Thor turned toward his Pack Leader, still worried for the safety of the Pack, but unable to disobey any longer. He trotted briskly through the dark to the distant flickering flashlight beam, trying to make up for lost time.
He approached Dad deferentially, head, ears, and body low, tail wagging apologetically between his legs. Dad stood waiting for him in Mom"s bathrobe and slippers, hands on his hips, the leash dangling from his wrist.
Thor glanced over his shoulder. The Bad Thing was too far away to be seen. If only he could show Dad . . .
"Get over here!" Dad said again. He was furious. Thor was in Big Trouble. He nearly crawled to his leader, and when Dad bent down to put on the leash, he cowered as if he expected to be hit. But when Dad grabbed his collar and held it in place for the leash clasp, Thor noticed his hand was trembling. Dad acted angry, and he was - but he was also afraid.
Thor"s heart sank. There was no chance of showing Dad the Bad Thing; Dad didn"t want to see it. That was why he"d hung back and called Thor from a distance.
Dad gave the leash a sharp jerk and started off toward the house. Thor knew better than to resist. Behind them in the woods, faint sounds of the Bad Thing"s struggle filtered through the forest.
Thor sniffed the air as they walked back to the house. At the spot where Dad was waiting, the Bad Thing"s scent was barely detectable. A few yards closer to the house the scent vanished completely, replaced by the ever-strengthening scent of Uncle Ted. As always, Dad was totally oblivious to the scents. Even if Dad had a real nose like Thor"s, his head was too high to follow the trails.
Did Dad know Uncle Ted was out there somewhere? If so, he didn"t seem to care. Dad and Thor were about a half mile from the house, and the Bad Thing had never come near the Pack. Was Thor crazy to go so far to meet a potential enemy? The closer they got to home, the less afraid Dad became, and the more Thor doubted his own judgment.
Maybe Dad was right. Maybe the Bad Thing was too far away to pose a threat. Maybe Thor had wakened the Pack for no reason. He began to feel that awful Bad Dog feeling. But his instincts still told him the Pack was in danger.
He felt miserable; guilty for having been disobedient, guilty for waking the Pack in the night, guilty for dragging Dad into the woods for nothing. And guilty for not protecting the Pack.
For not killing the Bad Thing when he had the chance.
He almost wished Dad would punish him, to cleanse him of his guilt, but he dreaded punishment, and he dreaded the possibility of losing Dad"s love more than anything else.
But if he were punished, Dad wouldn"t be mad at him anymore. If he were punished, Dad would love him again.
Halfway back to the house, Thor noticed the occasional sounds of small animals scurrying away as he and Dad approached. They were no longer alone in the woods with the Bad Thing. There were in safe territory. Dad"s nerves seemed to quiet down, too. The leash no longer transmitted tremors or twitches from Dad"s hand. But he didn"t slow down; he was understandably eager to get back to the house, back to his warm bed.
They emerged from the forest and crossed the little creek into the backyard. Dad walked straight toward the house, ignoring Uncle Ted"s scent trail as it veered away toward the garage. It was the trail Uncle Ted had left when he went into the woods. Uncle Ted hadn"t come home. Thor glanced up at the apartment windows above the garage. The lights were on, just as they had been when Uncle Ted left.
Dad gave the leash and angry jerk as they approached the back door, and pulled it as Thor climbed the stairs. The moment of truth was approaching. Once inside, Thor would face judgment. He wished he could sink into the kitchen floor and vanish.
They entered the kitchen and Dad closed the door behind him. Dad unhooked the leash from Thor"s collar, and Thor slinked into the farthest corner from the cellar door.
Dad walked over and squatted down, then lifted Thor"s jaw in his hands to make Thor look at his face. Thor"s nose pointed directly at Dad"s, but his eyes refused to meet Dad"s. He felt extremely uncomfortable. It was not his place to look Dad in the eye.
"Just what the f.u.c.k is wrong with you?" Dad said with equal parts of anger and curiosity. Thor had no answer.
"I want you to be quiet! Understand?"
Thor wanted to be quiet, wanted to be a Good Dog. But what could he do if the Bad Thing came back? Dad didn"t want to punish Thor, but his demands for obedience left Thor in the same quandary as before. Thor almost wanted to go to the cellar, just to absolve himself of this whole mess. Almost, but not quite. He couldn"t imagine being so Bad that he would want to go to the cellar.
He just wanted to lie in the corner and feel miserable for as long as it took for this incident to blow over.
But Dad had other ideas.
He dragged Thor by his collar to the cellar door, opened it, and pushed Thor"s nose into the opening.
"You! Be! Quiet! Or you"re going in the CELLAR! You understand me?" Thor trembled violently. He got the message; this was his last warning.
Dad let go of the collar and closed the cellar door. Thor thumped his tail loudly on the floor and licked Dad"s hands in thanks for his reprieve.
Normally, Dad would have forgiven him. He would have patted Thor"s head and repeated his warning without anger, then gone to bed. But this time he didn"t. He was still angry. He stood up, not allowing Thor to make amends, wagged his finger at him sternly, and repeated his orders.
"Be quiet! Got it?" Thor half-leaped to kiss his hand. "You better be good, dammit," Dad said, and turned to go to bed. Thor watched him walk to the kitchen door, waiting for him to pa.s.s through before leaving the kitchen himself. But Dad didn"t let him.
"No!" he said. "You"re staying in here tonight. And if you"re not quiet, you"re going in the CELLAR." He pulled the kitchen door closed behind him and snapped the latch shut, and Thor"s fate was sealed for the night. He wasn"t in the cellar, but he wasn"t allowed to be with the Pack, either. It was a kind of halfway house, a purgatory. He slinked back to his corner and lay down, defeated.
Sleep was out of the question.
He spent the rest of the night with his front paws criss-crossed under his jaw, staring at the gla.s.s window in the back door, listening for unusual sounds from the woods. About a half hour before sunrise, his feelings about the Bad Thing began to fade. As the sky began to lighten, his gut told him the danger had pa.s.sed. For the moment at least, the Pack was safe.
As the sense of menace faded, sleep settled over his thoughts like a warm blanket. He slept for two hours before the sound of Mom coming downstairs woke him. Thor was desperately tired, but he had to go jogging with Mom. He could never again let her go into the woods alone.
As tired as he was, he was relieved to be wakened. His sleep had been filled with disturbing dreams consisting of hideous images of the Bad Thing and Thor and the Pack. Images that, mercifully, he forgot upon waking.
Chapter 10.
"Well, if it isn"t the a.s.shole," Janet said, confident that the kids were still upstairs sleeping. She felt like she"d been up all night, but she was still glad Thor had been on the alert. As much as she loved jogging in the woods, she didn"t always feel safe living so close to them. And it wasn"t just animals that worried her.
She"d considered skipping her morning jog today, but decided if Thor wasn"t worried, she wouldn"t worry. If last night"s uproar proved anything, it was that no intruder could sneak past Thor.
"You better be careful when Dad comes down," she warned. "He wasn"t very impressed with your little performance last night."
Thor watched and listened expectantly as Mom spoke, and though her words meant nothing to him, her tone was soothing. She was trying to sound stern (and thinking she was doing a good job), but her voice revealed her inner forgiveness. Thor wasn"t surprised. He and Mom shared a powerful common bond: They both worried about the Pack"s safety every day.
Thor kissed her hands to apologize for last night, and they stepped out together into the early-morning sun.
Thor sprinted across the yard, nose to the ground, occasionally looking up as if he expected to see someone coming. Instead of crossing the creek and starting into the woods, he stopped just short of the water, sniffed the ground for a second, then followed his nose back to the garage stairs.
He"d picked up Uncle Ted"s latest scent trail, mixed with traces of the Bad Thing. It was a fresh, strong trail, only an hour or two old. Uncle Ted must have returned while Thor was sleeping. The new trail backtracked along the original trail precisely. Thor followed it up the stairs and sniffed around the edges of the apartment door as Mom stood watching him, bewildered.
As far as he could tell, Uncle Ted was inside the apartment. He could hear heavy snoring inside, and though he"d never heard Uncle Ted snore before, he a.s.sumed it was him. There was, after all, no other scent trail on the stairs.
Satisfied that he"d learned all he could, he hurried back down the stairs and carefully urinated on all the fence posts in the driveway, stopping to sniff each one to be sure it was well marked. He crossed the creek and marked all the nearest trees in the same meticulous fashion, then started back to rejoin Mom. About halfway across the yard, he had an afterthought. He trotted back to the base of the garage stairs and urinated on the bannister.
"Hey!" Mom yelled, more surprised than angry. Thor ignored her. He finished the job in seconds and sauntered up to her, smiling and wagging his tail as if nothing unusual had happened. She shook her head in wonder at his odd behavior and together they started off into the woods.
She felt a strange mix of rea.s.surance and apprehension at the way he never left her line of sight and frequently doubled back to be close to her. He didn"t seem worried - his hair didn"t stand up on his shoulders - but he"d never acted this way before. Whatever had bothered him in the woods last night was obviously gone, but Thor was still being cautious.
And her own feelings agreed. She"d felt something last night, a sense of imminent danger that she"d tried to shrug off as nerves or imagination. But this morning was different. Neither she nor Thor felt anything today.
They jogged together as if nothing were out of the ordinary. Except that Mom found herself running slower than usual so she wouldn"t have to stop for breathers. And Thor took an inordinate interest in the scents he found. And they both stopped and listened to sounds in the distance.
They finished their run in a little more than half the usual time, and were both glad to head back to the kitchen.
By the time Dad got up, Mom was already plucking bacon out of the frying pan and laying it out on paper towels.
The smell filled every s.p.a.ce in Thor"s brain, and he almost forgot about last night. He was just about to beg for a slice of bacon when he heard Dad"s footsteps on the stairs and remembered he was canis non gratis. He quietly went back to his corner and waited.
Dad came into the kitchen and looked straight at Thor as if Mom weren"t even in the room. Thor thumped his tail tentatively and looked at the floor near Dad"s feet.
"So," Dad said. "I hope you slept well. s.h.i.thead."
He turned to Mom and put his arm around her waist and kissed her cheek. His mood seemed to change completely, but Thor wasn"t fooled. Dad hadn"t forgiven him yet.
But forgiveness was on the way, and would probably come before Dad left for work. The tightness in Thor"s chest loosened a notch. He almost felt ready to go back to sleep.
But something kept him awake. A feeling of unfinished business. He wanted to go out to the woods by himself and check on some loose ends from last night.
Teddy and Brett came downstairs, bleary-eyed and cranky.
"Stupid mutt," Teddy said contemptuously.
"Yeah," Brett chimed in, "thanks for waking us up, stoopid!" Thor ignored their derision. He had more important things on his mind than disapproval from those he outranked.
"Oh, leave him alone," Mom said. "He can"t help it. He heard something outside, and he thought was protecting us. You guys should appreciate him more."
"But he"s so stupid!" Teddy whined. "Does he have to wake us up every time a racc.o.o.n comes within a mile of the house?"