Nighty-Nightmare (5 page)

I saw Chester looking back and forth between us and the Monroes.

“Come back!” Mr. Monroe was calling.

“Harold!” Mrs. Monroe shouted. “Howie come here!”

Spud spoke then, for the first time. “Don't worry about them,” he said. “Dawg knows his way around these woods like he knows his own name.”

Spud might have said something else then or maybe it was the glint of his knife as he pulled it from his belt that did it, but the next thing I knew, Chester was behind us.

When we caught up with Dawg at last, there was just enough daylight left to see that we were in a clearing of some sort, surrounded on all sides by tangled trees and vines.

“Dawg,” I said, catching my breath.

He regarded me with a vacant stare.

“Dawg?”

“Actually, Dawg is my nickname,” he said then. “My real name is Teufel. It's German.”

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“I know,” Chester said, as the last remaining
light fell away and there was no one left in the stillness of the place but the four of us and the shadows. “It means . . .
‘devil.'”

“Oh,” I said, “should we call you Teufel?” “No, no, Dawg's jes fine. I wanted to clear up my real name, that's all.”

“Things are not what they seem,” Chester said to me. Then to Dawg, he said, “Well, as long as you're clearing things up, where is . . . whatever it is you wanted us to see?”

“Well, that's hard to say,” Dawg said. “Wh-where are we?” Howie asked, starting to whimper.

“Oh, now, that's easy,” said Dawg. “We're lost.”

[
FOUR
]

“
L
OST ? ! !” CHESTER SHRIEKED.

With that, Howie's whimpering quickened by several rpm's. I decided the last thing an impressionable young puppy needed at the moment was hysteria.

“Chester,” I said, “calm down. Dawg knows these woods like he knows his own name. Right, Dawg? Dawg. Dawg, I'm talking to
you”
A whimper started to rise in my throat. “Well,” I said, swallowing it, “at least there's a full moon,
so it should be easy enough to find our way back to camp.”

Just then, a cloud passed over the moon.

“Aw, you guys are so lily-livered,” Dawg said. “You'd think these woods was full of ghosts er something.”

“Er something,” said Chester.

“May-maybe we
should
go back to camp,” Howie suggested.

Dawg sidled up to Howie. “Whatsa matter?” he said. “You chicken?”

“No, sir!” Howie said. “We're not chicken, are we, Uncle Harold?”

“Of course not,” I said. “It's just—”

“We're not chicken, are we, Pop?” Howie asked Chester.

“Buck-buck-buck-
buck
!” Chester cackled.

This made Howie laugh. “That was pretty funny,” he said. “You're a regular
Hen
-ny Young man, Pop.”

Chester scowled.

“Who's Henny Youngman?” I asked.

“An old-time comedian,” Chester said. “Howie's been listening to Mr. Monroe's nostalgia tapes again.”

“Yep, that was pretty funny,” Howie went on. “Just watch out that your next joke doesn't lay an
egg
, though.” He chortled merrily, having forgotten our predicament, it seemed.

Dawg took advantage of the situation. “Come on, Howie,” he said, “what do you say? I'll show
you what I wanted to show you and get you back to camp before you know it.”

“All
right!”
Howie shouted. “Let's go!”

“I thought we were lost,” Chester pointed out.

“Well, we are,” Dawg replied. “So at least we don't have to worry about that anymore.”

“Makes sense,” I said, as we started off.

“Something else is beginning to make sense,” Chester whispered to me. We were trailing several yards behind Dawg and Howie.

“What?” I asked.

“Dawg wants us lost.”

“Oh, come on, Chester,” I said. “Why would he want that?”

“I don't know, but there's something fishy about this whole thing. I think he's leading us somewhere, Harold. Leading us to our doom.”

“Well, at least we've eaten,” I said, trying to humor Chester out of his gloomy thoughts.

“Our last meal, perhaps,” Chester mumbled. And then he stopped dead in his tracks.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“I've figured it out,” he said. “The Monroes, they—”

“What?” I said, beginning to feel alarmed. Chester has a way of doing that to me at times.

“Don't you see, Harold? He's leading us on a wild goose chase so that the Monroes will be alone with—”

“Bud and Spud,” I said, finishing the sentence for him.

“Harold, the Monroes are in danger.”

“You could be right,” I said. “Bud suggested we take this hike. And Spud didn't try to stop us when we took off after Dawg. But what can we do now? We don't know our way back.”

“We'll have to look for an opportunity to break away from Dawg,” Chester said. “Then you and Howie can put your tracking skills to good use.”

I looked ahead. Howie was racing to keep up with Dawg, laughing as he went.

“I think Howie has made a friend,” I remarked to Chester.

“A calculated move on Dawg's part,” he said.

“He's won an ally. He knows we won't leave
Howie behind. And now we'll have a hard time convincing Howie of Dawg's ill intentions. Oh, Harold, I believe we underestimated the moronic mutt. He's no dummy, after all.”

Dawg turned back. “You guys coming or are you going to flap yer yaps all night?” he yelled. The moonlight made the ribbon of drool hanging from his lower lip glisten. It reminded me of Spud's knife shining in the light of the Monroes' campfire.

But then I noticed once again the vacant look in his eyes.

“I don't know, Chester,” I said. “It's difficult to imagine Dawg as being capable of what you're suggesting.”

When we were still lost three hours later, it had gotten easier.

[
FIVE
]

M
Y LEGS ACHED from walking. I'd never realized just how
big
the woods were on this side of Boggy Lake. Was Dawg trying to wear us down, so that when we finally stopped to sleep, there would be no fear of our waking until it was all over? I tried not to think such thoughts but couldn't help myself. With each step we took, with each utterance Chester made about the spirit of evil being let loose at midnight, with each reflection of the moon I caught in Dawg's eyes, I wondered . . . and I wondered . . . and I wondered.

“What do you suppose is happening to the Monroes?” I asked at one point. Chester just shook his head darkly, and I didn't ask again.

After a time, he began telling stories of Saint George's Day, not to frighten us, he assured me under his breath, but to check out Dawg's reactions. There were none that were noticeable. Howie, seeing the lack of response in Dawg, reacted not out of fear but delight.

“Tell us more,” he'd say after Chester had finished each tale of twilight terror.

And so Chester would regale us with another.

And another.

Until: “It is near,” he said. And he fell silent. I believe he was referring to the midnight hour. But Dawg interpreted his remark differently.

“Yep,” Dawg said. “We're going in the right direction this time. I can feel it. Pretty soon, we'll be there.”

“I can't wait,” Howie squealed enthusiastically, as if we'd been walking for three minutes rather than three hours.

Dawg sniffed at the ground. “If we just follow the bed of this stream,” he said, “we'll be there right quick.”

We walked now on muddy ground, our paws sticking with each step. Covered with cockleburs and mud, I was beyond the point of caring, wanting only to stop and rest, stop and sleep for the night. . . even if it meant the worst. I was beginning to nod off, when I heard Howie's excited voice cry out, “Look! Look, there in the mud!”

Chester, Dawg, and I rushed to Howie's side. There were fresh footprints.

“The prints of darkness,” Howie said ominously.

“They were made by people,” Dawg said. “I wonder if that means... yep, I'll bet it does. We're almost there, just like I told ya. Come on, follow me!”

Once again, he bounded off. Howie, who was as endlessly full of energy as a rechargable battery, was quick to follow. Chester and I lagged behind.

By the time we caught up with them, they had found what Dawg had been looking for all this time. Through an opening in the trees, we made out a large house standing in an open field. Its spires were silhouetted against a purple sky; its windows were dark but for one, which quivered with a yellow light. It seemed like something from another time and place.

When he saw it, Chester gasped.

“I'll bet you never thought you'd see
that
in the middle of the woods,” Dawg said. “Ain't it a sight?”