The Dogs
A story by Keith Croes
He saw the dogs for the first time in mid-November, after an early cold snap. They crunched quickly in single file on a crust of day-old snow, crossing the street in front of him and disappearing between parked cars on the other side. There were eight or ten of them, their tongues lolling from their mouths and their breath rising in white streamers in air that pinched his nostrils. He stopped and watched them go, then hurried down the shoveled sidewalk. Where he crossed their path he could smell them through his scarf.
In early December he saw them again, ripping at something in a yard several blocks from his room. At least he thought it was them. He saw forms in the distance in the dying light, and though the route to his house would have taken him to the right at the next block, he continued straight down the street. Soon he found himself running, his gym bag flattened under his arm. But they were gone by the time he reached the yard. They had looked almost human.
He shared a large, three-story boarding house with eight or nine other men. They all rented rooms by the week. On the second floor were a communal bathroom and kitchen. The other men were grease monkeys and laborers who left black scum in the bathtub and filth in the sinks, so he showered each morning at the YMCA and ate hoagies or sandwiches at his desk at work or at the little restaurant next to his office. Bill Lorman was a clerk.
The room was the
first he found after breaking up with his girlfriend, Lisa, late that summer.
They had lived together almost a year. She had come to
Lisa left
Lorman was a meticulous man. He ironed his shirt and pants each evening and readied them for the morning, cursing the loud-mouthed rantings around him. He was saving to move out in the spring. He hoped he could last that long.
Lisa had been a wild woman, a pathological nag with a love for arguments. During their last three months together, Lorman had cried every night. If they were attracted to each other by being opposites, their repulsion was just as strong. Lorman marveled that they had gotten together at all and vowed that no woman would ever again bring him to tears. He wasn't sure that he had any left.
He tried to attribute the feeling in his guts to shock, because he knew he was indeed in a state of shock. Sometimes the knowledge that he was once again the master of his life would blossom into a kind of ecstasy. Sometimes the loss of Lisa was a frigid pit of desperation and he loved her when to love her was to hate himself. But the dogs had aroused in him a growing dread that itself seemed like an animal with a life of its own. It stirred in his abdomen.
The way they had stepped across the snow -- with the mindless confidence of worker ants, yet with dangerous purpose. They hadn't walked so much as marched. They were going somewhere to do something, something nauseating and insane. The overpowering image and impossibility of it grappled in Lorman's mind, dropping him into fitful sleep night after night. But not before he had ironed the clothes and set them out for the next day's work.
"Mike, have you ever seen a pack of dogs around here?" They were passing each other on the porch. Mike was young, maybe just out of high school, and he worked in a laundry. Their breath came in shadowy billows in the porchlight.
"No. I mean, I guess I've seen some dogs around here. You know. But no packs."
The next morning, wearing a thick coat against the gray cold and carrying his gym bag, he forgot about them briefly, thinking instead of how he hated to subject clean clothes to his unwashed body. Whether he saw them or smelled them first, he was suddenly filled with the awareness that they moved parallel to him on the opposite sidewalk. He watched them: a bobbing line of black and brown and white heads and backs and tails above the snowdrift plowed along the street. He slowed and stopped and they did the same. He walked and they walked.
At a break in the snowbank, he saw the lead dog's head emerge and the tongue snake around the lower teeth and back into the mouth, and he saw the pointy muzzle swing toward him to nose the wind.
It was a black dog, a shepherd mix, he thought. He was two blocks from where the residential street intersected a well-traveled thoroughfare and he ran. The dogs stopped at the corner and he ran another four blocks down the main road before slowing. He was sweating in the clean clothes beneath his coat when he reached the Y and his hands were slippery in their leather gloves lined with rabbit fur.
He saw them again a few days later, almost stumbling over the lead dog as he turned a corner. They marched past him on their way somewhere as he watched in rising panic. There were ten of them, all common breeds. But they were not well-fed and they stunk even in the still coldness.
On Christmas Eve,
Lorman got drunk and on Christmas Day he called his mother in
"Wish you could be here," his mother said.
"Wish you could be here," his father said.
Lorman wished so too, and wished that they were still together, all of them, and he held on to the calls as long as he could, something he had never done before.
They were marauders, naked marauders at home in subfreezing weather, gaunt and stealthy and deadly. Not like pets at all. Lorman laid on his bed and studied the ceiling.
Yet they had to be pets. He saw them as their owners never saw them, as few people ever saw them, together on the run, their animal nature bared by ancient pack instincts. They couldn't live out there, not in the city, not in the streets. Something drove Lorman out of his bed and he paced the room.
The city was part of it. A pack of dogs stalking the edge of the city. It was guerrilla warfare of some kind and he was in the middle. He should not be in the middle of this. He was not supposed to see this. He was not supposed to feel this dread, which was part of the dread, which was feeding on itself.
Wearing only a T-shirt he rushed out onto the porch and leaned over the railing, looking for them -- for something, for someone -- in both directions. Snow blew sparsely through the diminishing bright arches of street lights, the rutted path of the street framed by high houses and hedges with Christmas lights. Thick tree trunks held up the night like bony hind legs. No one was outside.
Lorman laughed at the unlikely thought of ten of these families letting out their pets at the same time. The dogs were outside. They lived outside in the streets of the city. And they knew that he knew it.
That night Lorman dreamed he was visiting his younger brother, who was showing him around the neighborhood. A huge fearsome dog with scores of razor teeth wandered by. "Why do you let that dog go wherever he likes?" Lorman asked. "That's Buzz," his brother answered. Just then the creature caught the strange smell of Lorman and ran straight at him, knocking him down and taking Lorman's neck completely within its jaws.
Lorman felt the teeth resting lightly against his soft flesh and realized that the beast had complete license and absolute control of the neighborhood. His brother stood nearby and did nothing. There was nothing his brother could do. The beast would decide when and whether to clamp down and, in one squirting motion, tear out Lorman's throat. Lorman lay helpless and hoped that his smell, his personal chemistry, was similar enough to that of his brother that the dog would find something familiar about it and spare his life. "I'm his brother. I'm his brother," Lorman pleaded. He woke up screaming it.
A few of the men had disappeared for the holidays and the week after Christmas was a quiet one. On the days that he had to work, Lorman walked to the Y for a shower and then to the office and then back to his room as always. But he started scanning carefully through the newspaper, searching every page for any item that might be related to the dogs.
And each night he thought he heard them outside his room. That Saturday he walked to a sporting goods store and bought 200 shells for a .22-caliber pistol his father had given him when he was a teenager.
New Year's Eve was a Monday, and though Lorman was supposed to work, he arranged to get the day off. In the afternoon he bought some beer and ate a hoagie in his room, poring over the newspaper. When darkness settled in he turned on the light and finished reading, barely aware of loud clomping on the stairs, men's voices, the sound of cupboards opening and pots and pans and dishes rattling. He put the newspaper down and smelled something cooking, He decided he wanted a beer.
His room was one of three on the first floor. With only a small lamp in the hallway, the kitchen was bright at the top of the stairs as he climbed. Three men sat around the small red-grained Formica table, Mike and two others. Lorman knew the one was named Sam and believed the other to be Joe or Jim. On a plate in the middle of the table laid the picked-over remains of a chicken carcass nestled in aluminum foil. The men looked up at him, their mouths slick from the chicken parts in their greasy hands.
"Hey, Bill." Mike motioned with a drumstick. He wore a black T-shirt and his arms were chapped up to the elbows from the chemicals at the laundry. "There's still some here if you want any."
"No thanks." Lorman yanked open the heavy door of the old refrigerator.
"You know Sam and Jim, don't you?"
Lorman glanced over and nodded. Chewing slowly, Sam and Jim nodded back.
"We don't see much of you, Bill," said Sam. His mouth was full. "Don't you eat?"
"Goddamn it!" Lorman pulled his head out of the refrigerator and looked toward the men, noticing the three cans of beer on the table. "That's my beer."
The men looked at each other. Sam and Jim put their chicken parts to their mouths. "Sorry. We didn't know whose it was." Mike caught the end of a long piece of meat between his teeth and drew it slowly from the drumstick, gulping it in a little at a time. Sam and Jim sucked and chewed at the bones they held, both of them giggling softly.
Lorman reached in, grabbed the three remaining cans in their plastic collar and slammed the door. The kitchen shimmied. "Look, just leave my stuff alone." The faces of the three men seemed to elongate as Lorman watched, their jaws extending to muzzles. They placed their hands on the table and their arms shriveled to paws. The dogs ate off the table, snatching portions into the air, shaking their heads and crunching loudly, then sticking their snouts back down to the table, sniffing over to the carcass and nosing into the aluminum foil.
"Sure, Bill. We really didn't know. We'll buy you another six-pack." Mike's lips glistened. "You okay?" Lorman blinked at the men in the bright fluorescent light, then walked slowly down the stairs and back to his room.
There were two lights in his room -- a desk lamp and a table lamp with a brown-twine lampshade on a flaking, cigarette-scarred end table -- and he turned them both on and sat on his bed. At one point he thought he heard a growl mixed with the muted voices upstairs. At midnight he popped the top of his last beer.
On New Year's Day he went for a walk. The pistol fit unobtrusively in his coat pocket. He kept his bare right hand clenched in a fist next to it and wore a glove only on his left hand, which he also kept pocketed. The plan was to take a different four-block area each evening and just walk. Just another citizen getting some exercise.
Later in the week, during his lunch hour, he used his supervisor's office to call the city pound.
"Have you had any complaints about dogs running in the Northeast?"
"They're just about everywhere," the lady said. "When did you see them?"
"They've been running in a pack since November."
"Are they causing a problem?"
Lorman stared at the receiver. "There are ten dogs -- mangy, hungry dogs -- running in a pack for two months. They can't be doing much good. Hasn't anyone complained?"
"N-o-o-o. How many?"
"Ten."
"Do you want to file a complaint?"
"Yes."
"Your name please."
Lorman hung up. He dialed another number.
"Medical examiner." The male voice ran the words together so they were almost unidentifiable.
"Yes, my name is Fred Blaylock. I'm a reporter with the Inquirer. We've heard that several people have been killed in the Northeast in the last few weeks. I know that's nothing new. But these would have been different, probably related in the way they died. Have you had anything like that?"
"You'll have to speak to Jill Casey, our public information director."
"Is she in?"
"Just a second." Lorman rapped a pencil against the edge of the desk.
"This is Jill Casey."
"Yes, Ms. Casey, I'm new with the Inquirer . We haven't talked before. My name is Fred Blaylock."
"Hello."
"We've had some reports that several people have been killed in the Northeast part of the city in the last few weeks under rather strange circumstances. They all would have been related somehow in the way they died."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, probably a lot of trauma, maybe like a knifing where they were cut up pretty badly."
"No. But that would have to come from the police department."
"I've spoken to them. I just want to confirm this with your office."
"Well, I can't discuss the medical examiner's findings on any homicides under current investigation."
"That's just the thing. I don't even think there is a current investigation. I'm just wondering if you've noticed one or two people recently who've been cut up pretty badly in the Northeast."
"What do you mean, 'cut up pretty badly?'"
"Like killed by an animal, like a dog -- ripped up."
"Oh." She paused. "Have we had anybody killed by an animal lately?"
"Yeah."
"No. Not in the Northeast."
"Where then?"
"Well, we had two children last year killed by the family dog."
"Have any adults been killed?"
"No."
"Have you had any adults or children ripped up pretty badly where maybe it could be a dog?"
"What's your name again?"
"Blaylock. Fred Blaylock."
"Mr. Blaylock, if it was a dog, we'd know it was a dog. If we didn't know it was a dog, we'd be treating it like a homicide, in which case I couldn't release any information to you. In any event, we'd need a name so that I could look it up. Do you have a name?"
"No. I'm just trying to confirm a report."
"Well, I can't help you."
"Believe me, Ms. Casey, I'm no weirdo. I hope we never get any names."
Lorman heard her sigh. "I know you do, Mr. Blaylock," she said.
The neighborhood was an affluent fringe on the city, the houses far apart and set well back from the street, each a unique and sparkling structure trimmed with stone escarpments and wrought iron and high hedges. The Christmas decorations that remained were tasteful, tending toward thematic use of light and color. The street Lorman was walking on, ruddy-faced beneath his blue ski cap, would turn into a country road within a mile.
Hands dug into his pockets, he walked along a hedge that blocked his view of everything to the right. It was so quiet he sounded loud to himself: his footsteps smacking on the sidewalk, his pantlegs slapping against one another, his breaths and his pulse colliding in a deafening private storm.
He couldn't help wondering why he was there on a night when the warmth seemed to have been sucked from the world. Maybe it was him. If people can turn to dogs before his eyes, maybe dogs can come from nowhere. Or maybe he only imagined their grim purpose, the ferocity of their common mind. He rubbed his knuckles against the cold steel of the gun.
He had stopped trying to see through the hedge and had accepted its looming, impenetrable presence to his right with mild discomfort. But he saw the approaching break only obliquely and was directly in front of it when the dog leaped with a roar that knocked him off the sidewalk into the snow. Fear blasted into his blood and he crouched. A Doberman stood as tall as a man against the opposite side of a rattling wrought iron gate and shook the night with giant howls.
Lorman walked quickly away, realizing that the thing must have heard him coming up the sidewalk, but had waited -- had waited for him to be directly in front of the gate. He also realized that he hadn't even reached for the pistol. He hadn't even opened his fist.
That night, after ironing his shirt and pants, Lorman dreamed of Buzz with its rows of killing teeth, its huge head bobbing like a mechanized Disney dinosaur outside of Lorman's window. Then Buzz's obscene face changed to Lisa's. She kissed him on the neck.
On Saturday Lorman had a name. The story was on the front page of the metropolitan section. The name was Ronald Erving, a city dogcatcher. He had been killed the night before in the Northeast. Lorman read the words -- "...apparently mauled by dogs..." -- and felt a flush of relief, as if he were a sane man who had mistakenly been detained in a mental institution and was beginning to believe that perhaps he belonged there. Although he yelled out loud when he first read it, he spent the remainder of the weekend silently in his room.
Erving had been killed three blocks from where Lorman had patrolled Friday evening. When he walked to work Monday morning, Lorman wasn't yet aware that three more people had been killed Sunday night in various locations around the Northeast, but for the first time he took the pistol to the office. He heard about the other three deaths from Kathy and Ginny, two women who worked at the title abstract firm.
During lunch break he called the medical examiner's office.
"Ms. Casey, this is Fred Blaylock of the Inquirer. We talked last week?"
"Oh yes, I remember. Just a second." There was the muted sound of being put on hold and then a strange click. Lorman hung up.
The people in the office seemed particularly animated as the afternoon progressed, full of morbid jokes and nervous laughter. There were eight of them who worked in close quarters and everyone seemed acutely aware of everyone else. Anyone who expressed fear was alternately comforted and teased. People would stop at each others desks and talk quietly, exchanging personal information about their families and friends. Someone had the radio turned to KYW, the all-news channel, instead of the easy-listening FM station that usually played. It was as if some natural disaster had brought them together, as if there had been a great flood or a paralyzing snowstorm.
The other seven readied to leave at 4:45 and were out the door by 5 o'clock. Despite urging from Kathy and Ginny to do the same, Lorman felt compelled to work late tallying figures for a fourth-quarter report due at the end of the week. He hadn't really thought about the walk home until the gun bounced against his thigh as he pulled on his coat. He turned off the lights on his way out and locked the door, setting his gym bag on the sidewalk.
The cold seemed to be holding the city and freeing it at the same time. It was a lens that sharpened everything: the edges of the buildings and the street and even traffic sounds, which snapped through the air. As Lorman walked, he felt it wedge pointed fingers through several openings in his clothing. It was including him in its grasp.
He stopped at the newsstand and bought a paper. He liked the man who owned the newsstand, but didn't know his name. The man watched him scan the front page and find the story. "Pretty strange, huh?"
Lorman nodded. The man was trim and about 50, good-looking in a rough way with darting brown eyes. Lorman knew that he also owned a race horse or two.
"How do you figure that a pack of dogs can live in the streets and pull that kind of shit?"
"I don't know," said Lorman. He caught the brown eyes. "I don't think they are living in the streets. I think they're trying to recapture them."
The man laughed reflexively. "Yeah, well, you better get movjn'. You know the mayor has a curfew on."
Lorman's mouth seemed to lag behind the words. "No, I didn't know that."
"Eight o'clock. Look, if you want to wait around a few minutes, I'll drop you off. You're walkin', aren't you?"
"No, thanks. I've still got a few minutes. I live just a few blocks away." He folded the newspaper and stuffed it in his gym bag on the way out the door. At the next corner he turned right, oddly calmed by the conviction that he would be dead by now if they wanted him dead, that perhaps he should have been dead already. But the farther he went down the empty sidewalk away from the main street, the more the night seemed to draw in on him. For a moment he wanted to run in panic, but just as quickly the impulse was gone. Sucked out of him. Replaced by the aching dread he had lived with for months. Somehow, it was all on the line. Everything he was, everything he knew was under attack.
Two blocks from his house, the hair beneath his collar bristled and his fingers sought out the handle of the pistol. The house and others around it stood on a bank about ten steps above the sidewalk. He climbed the steps in front of his house slowly, looking up at the upper portion of the door visible over the front of the porch. With each step he saw more of the door until finally, when he was even with the level of the porch, he stared into the eyes of the black shepherd.
It was crouched on the welcome mat and, as Lorman watched, its hindquarters rose and it turned its head. Lorman fired a shot that thumped into its neck. It continued to come up on all fours. The second shot sunk into its head with a twitch of fur. It arched its back and yawned. It was stretching. The pistol held nine shells and Lorman used the remaining seven as the dog stepped off the porch and toward him, forcing him to scramble to the side. He clung to the bank and watched the animal continue down the steps and across the street.
His gym bag tumbled to the sidewalk as a police car stopped along the curb.
They sat with a tape recorder under fluorescent lights in a room at the 93rd Precinct and Lorman told them about the dogs up through the black shepherd that absorbed nine .22-caliber rounds, yawned and trotted away. The man who seemed to be in charge, a big man named Delaney, had doffed his jacket and sat wearing a shoulder holster over a white shirt.
There were four of them, all intense and polite. When Lorman finished, he pointed at Delaney's shoulder holster. "I don't think that's going to do it."
"What will?"
"I don't know. Silver bullets, maybe?"
No one laughed.
"Why did you call Jill Casey?" Delaney asked.
"I told you. I had seen these mutts around for two months and thought they might have hurt someone."
"Nobody else reported them."
"I didn't report them. But I sure as hell saw them."
After another hour
they let him go. Delaney dropped him off, telling him that an officer would be
positioned outside the house that night, then went home and made his wife take
their two children to her parents' home in
Lorman ironed his shirt and pants. With both lights on, he stretched out across the bed and wondered how life could exist in such cold. A man naked to this weather would die in minutes. He's evolved his way out of the ability to survive, become stranded by the coziness of brain power, civilized himself to death. It made sense that other forms could prey on this weakness.
An easy sleep teased his musings as he heard, first from one bedroom and then another in the quiet house, the muted thudding of dogs stepping from the beds and the tapping of nails on the stairs and in the hallway outside his door.
THE END
keith@croes.com