Maggie was four steps ahead of him. He could see that this was as far as she would go. There was no point in sending her up any farther anyway. He checked the tranquilizer gun. They had loaded it with
serum darts strong enough to bring down a dog twice the size of the normal German shepherd. He hoped to be some distance from the dog before he shot at it. He needed some room to retreat while the tranquilizer took effect. He expected the wound would surprise the animal and disorient it quickly. Once Qwen had captured the dog, he would tell the whole story; the authorities would have the animal to test and examine as a way of validating Qwen’s claims. They would no longer be able to hide Fishman’s death, and the attempt to have Qwen killed would be exposed as well. The potential realization of all these goals motivated him to take another step and then another.
And then something happened that he had never anticipated. Maggie stopped barking and lowered her body to the steps, crouching as though she expected to be run over. She inched down. Qwen looked up at the corner just as the great dog put its head out from behind the wall. For a long moment, during which Maggie produced a thin, subdued whine, Qwen and the German shepherd faced each other.
He had the rifle about chest-high, but he didn’t lift it into position for firing. He and the dog studied one another with an almost similar curiosity. Qwen saw something familiar in the dog’s eyes. It was easy to detect a higher intelligence behind its gaze, but along with that was the look of something wild. For Qwen it was as though he were looking at a different form of himself—something that loved and belonged in nature, but something with an awareness and perception far beyond anything born and bred in the wild.
This sight took Qwen by surprise and it was a long moment before he realized how close he was to the animal and how dangerous a situation he was in. When he did so, he raised the rifle and took a step back. The dog did not charge forward, though. Instead, he retreated
behind the wall before Qwen could get off a shot.
“Are you all right?” Michaels called up the stairway. “Qwen?’
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Two patrol cars just pulled up.”
“Keep them down there.”
“Any sign of him?”
“Not yet,” Qwen called back. He couldn’t tell Michaels what had just occurred, because he couldn’t explain it to himself. “Easy, girl, easy, Maggie,” he said. He moved up the stairs to the landing and looked down the corridor. Much of the floor was gone. Beams running beneath it were clearly visible. There was just one large, gaping hole at the end of the corridor where the wall had been. Qwen hesitated before going forward. He hoped the dog would reappear and he could get a clear shot, but it didn’t.
Qwen stepped farther into the hallway, balancing himself on the more secure portions, and inched his way toward the doorway of the first room on the right. At this point Maggie remained a foot or so behind him. He paused and listened. He heard the voices of the policemen below and he heard Harry Michaels’s voice. He looked down through a hole in the floor. It seemed as though the opening went all the way down to ground-level. Then he moved a few feet more. He was less than two yards from the doorway of the room, and he was sure he heard sounds coming from it.
Qwen lowered himself into a crouch and brought the rifle stock against his shoulder. He heard the policemen below start to make their way up the stairs behind him. There were a number of them now and they made considerable noise.
Phantom heard it too, and to him it meant that the pack was closing in; it would be only moments now
before he would do deadly battle. He knew where Qwen was and he knew where he had placed himself in relation to avenues of escape. He looked at the carton in the corner. A part of him wanted to retreat to it, but there was something else in him that longed for the fight.
These conflicting drives made him pace up to and back from the doorway. Finally, driven by a rush of anger and frustration, he turned and charged out. Qwen fired the moment the dog’s head appeared, and the dart struck him in the neck. The gunshot and the blow sent him reeling to the right. He stumbled down the corridor toward the opened wall.
Qwen stood up and moved slowly toward him. He saw that the dog looked confused. He wavered to the right and then to the left, leaning against a part of the wall to steady himself. The policemen were shouting now and moving faster up the stairs. Qwen heard Harry Michaels shout his name, but he couldn’t respond; he couldn’t do anything but watch the dog as it turned and faced him, battling against the effects of the serum.
Phantom started toward him, stumbled, and fell to the right. Then he struggled to get back to his feet and fell farther to the right. Qwen saw what that meant. The floor was obviously weak there, it was cracked, and there were small holes along the boards. He moved as quickly as he could toward the animal, but when the dog raised himself again by pushing downward, his forelegs went through the decayed floorboards and his body slammed down on the weakened slats.
The rear portion of the great dog disappeared first. He struggled to maintain a hold on the firmer portions of the floor, but he sank lower. Qwen charged forward, disregarding his own safety. He took a position on the solid side of the corridor and reached out to grasp the
dog’s collar. He caught it just as the rest of the floor gave way under the animal; Qwen tried to hold on, but the weight of the dog was tremendous. He could hold it for only a few moments.
The dog looked up at him then turned its head as though to snap at his wrist. Qwen released his hold and the great German shepherd fell into the dark, hollow guts of the deteriorated building, disappearing within as if he had been swallowed into the mouth of Hell. Qwen heard a crash, but no sound came from the dog. Qwen imagined it had lost consciousness before it hit.
W
HEN THEY FINALLY
located Phantom below, Qwen determined that the dog’s neck had been broken. Blood streaked from its mouth, and there was a deep gash in its right shoulder. Dead within the ruins of the building, the German shepherd somehow didn’t seem as big as it had in life. For Qwen, and especially for Harry Michaels, it was as though the dog’s body had already begun to decompose.
“It’s not as big as Ernie said it was,” said one of the policemen standing by.
“When it’s comin’ at ya, it’s twice the size,” Michaels said. He held up his arm. “Believe me.” All the policemen looked at him and then back at the dog. Qwen stood up. “Too bad,” Michaels told him.
“Too bad?” Horowitz said. “Whaddya mean?”
“We needed it alive,” Qwen said.
“For what?”
“For proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Qwen said. He started out, Maggie at his heels. Michaels started after him.
“Hey, where are you going?” Patrolman Horowitz called.
“Take us back to my car,” Michaels said. He kept walking.
“Wait a minute. Hey. Listen, the captain wants you two back at the station. You’re going to meet the commissioner.”
“Shit,” Qwen said.
“We don’t have time for that,” Michaels said. “I got a town to get back to. We got our own problems up there.”
“But—”
“Just drive us back to our car,” Michaels repeated.
“What the hell are you guys so unhappy about? Jesus, you two act as though you killed Lassie.”
“We needed that dog alive,” Michaels said. They all got into the patrol car and Horowitz started away from the demolished building. Qwen looked back through the rear window.
“I had him by the collar,” he said, “but I couldn’t hold him, and before I could get another grip on him, he turned to bite me, even though he knew he was goin’ to fall.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to go back to where he was,” Michaels said. Horowitz looked at him and shook his head again.
“Maybe. I got the feeling he knew it was over.”
“You know somethin’,” Horowitz said, “listening to you guys talk about that dog gives me the creeps.”
“Join the party,” Michaels said.
When they got back to the station, Horowitz pleaded for them to go inside, but they refused again.
“Just tell the captain thanks for the use of his city,” Michaels said.
Horowitz watched them get into the Fallsburg patrol car and drive off. He pushed his hat back and scratched his temple.
“Who the hell were those guys?” he muttered and went in to tell the captain that they wouldn’t stay to meet the commissioner.
On the way home, Qwen described to Michaels his
battle with the dog. Now, with the two of them alone, Qwen had more time to reflect on what had occurred. He decided he would try to explain to Michaels what it was like when he had his first face-off with the German shepherd. He wanted to see if Michaels understood what Qwen meant when he talked about a mesmerizing effect.
“Of course, I didn’t have time to look into his eyes like that,” Michaels said, “but I imagine it would be some helluva experience if I was a few feet from him and he just stared. Now me, I’d probably piss in my pants. Especially after our introduction,” he added, holding his arm up.
“You know,” Qwen said, almost as if he didn’t hear a word Michaels had uttered, “old Maggie here can look at me and I can look at her and we can talk to each other, express feelings, if you know what I mean. But there’s never a doubt as to who’s the dog and who’s the man. It was different on those stairs.”
“I wish we woulda gotten him alive,” Michaels said.
They were quiet for a while, both lost in their own thoughts. Maggie had curled up on the back seat, where she was now asleep. The sun had dropped below the mountains in the west; darkness crawled over the landscape, dropping first like a thin veil of shadows and then thickening into a heavy blanket that made houses and trees and portions of highway disappear with an eerie magic.
“Shit,” Michaels said when a New York State Thruway road sign announced a roadside restaurant, “I can’t even remember when I ate last. What about you?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s have a quick bite. You’ll probably wanna get somethin’ for the dog, too.”
“She likes cheeseburgers,” Qwen said.
After they’d gotten their food and taken a table,
Michaels went to make a phone call. He thought it was best to check in and tell the dispatcher to call Jenny to let her know where he was and when he’d be home. Qwen looked up as Michaels returned to the table. He knew immediately from the look on the police chief’s face that something was wrong.
“What is it?”
“Sometime during the late afternoon they claimed they got the dog.”
“What?”
“They killed a German shepherd, a big one. Pictures and all.”
“It wasn’t ours,” Qwen said. Michaels nodded, but Qwen saw that there was doubt in his face. “You saw what this dog did. It wasn’t ours,” he repeated. Michaels nodded and finished his coffee.
“No chance of them havin’ more than one?”
“Not from what I learned. This was part of an experiment. The dog was special. What they claimed up here is bullshit just to throw off any connection with what went on in New York. It calms everyone down and it’s all forgotten.” Michaels nodded again, but Qwen felt uneasiness. “Look,” he said, “they sacrificed some dog, that’s all. I know what,” he said, an idea coming to him, “let’s not go right back to your police station.”
“Whaddya mean? Where the hell else should we go?”
“To the institute. Let’s confront them directly. You call in when we get within radio range and let your people know where we’re going—just in case.”
“I don’t know.”
“I got to get my truck back, anyway,” Qwen said. “Listen,” he added, “you’re into it this far, you might as well finish it with me. People in your town were hurt and killed. You got a right to know whatever there is to know.”
Michaels thought for a moment. “My wife’s going to kill me,” he said.
“There are worse ways to go,” Qwen said. Michaels laughed. “You don’t know Jenny.”
After Maggie had feasted on her cheeseburger, they continued up the thruway. Qwen described the institute compound and told Michaels as much as he could remember of what Kevin Longfellow and his assistant Ann had explained about the experiments and the conclusions they had made about the dog. Michaels listened, but the darkness and the day’s events had left him tired. It was a deep fatigue, one that went through more than just his muscles and bones. It was as though a very heavy weight had shifted within him; he had all he could do to keep it from toppling. It would take a younger, stronger man to set it all right again. He was eager for that to happen. He was eager to walk away.
He couldn’t help thinking that he was a holdover from an older world, a very different world. The villains in this new world were hard to recognize. If Qwen was right about it all, they were articulate, intelligent people in highly respected positions, doing work subsidized by a blind financial machine that responded to computer punch-outs. The differences between what was right and what was wrong had become muddled. Somehow, the priorities had changed, and Harry Michaels thought there was no way he’d be able to adjust. Surely, it was time to go, to retreat to some back porch and, among old friends, relive the past. Perhaps that was one of the benefits of age—a man could take such pleasure in a simple memory.
It was close to eight-thirty by the time they turned off the main road to take the side road that led to the institute. To Michaels, the uninhabited route with its surrounding dark forest looked ominous. Qwen added
to that atmosphere when he pointed out where he had left the car after he had done battle with Gerson Fishman and the driver.
The moonless, partly cloudy night sky offered little illumination, but the institute complex loomed before them in an inky silhouette. No lights were on in the building. The only light came from the security booth at the gate. Michaels turned on his revolving roof light as they approached.
“Might as well make this look official,” he said. He leaned on the horn at the entrance. “Where’s all that security you described?”
“They were here before.”
“Looks like everyone’s asleep.” He pressed his horn again. A figure appeared in the window of the security booth. After a moment the man emerged. When he stepped into the illumination of the patrol car’s headlights, Michaels and Qwen saw that the man looked elderly. “What’s he, part of another experiment?” Harry rolled down his window as the man came through the gate.