As it moved along, hounds began to bay in the distance.
It had moved too close.
The beast detached its senses, passing through the woods before coming into a clearing. A house was situated in the clearing, near the dirt road. The beast’s senses then continued toward the back of the house, where it found a small, temporary pen holding seven bloodhounds. The senses then entered each of the hounds.
The hounds didn’t stop baying instantly, so the beast had to bide its time. It simply sat on its haunches, patiently listening. Fifteen minutes passed before the hounds quite suddenly stopped their baying. The beast then waited for a while longer before proceeding.
It moved stealthily through the woods toward the house. Remaining near the edge of the tree line, the beast moved along until it was as close to the dog pen as it could get and still be in the concealment of the trees.
It then stood on all fours and walked toward the pen. Once the beast came near the pen the dogs started up again.
“Hush, now! Hush, damn it!” the beast said in Larry’s voice.
The baying quieted somewhat and the beast hurried to the gate to the small pen. As it opened the gate, they started baying again. It would have to work fast before they woke someone.
It seemed he had just come from outside when the dogs started up again. Larry had worked the dogs harder than usual today, hoping he could wear them down to the point that they would sleep tonight and give his hosts a break. It seemed like it hadn’t worked; the dogs sounded more active than ever. He was about to get up when the barking changed. Larry knew his dogs better than most people know their own wives. He recognized their current excited baying as the happy barking they generally reserved for when he fed them. This was strange. Perhaps some well-meaning stranger was unloading his scraps in their pen, but that wasn’t right either. The dogs never got that excited unless he was with them.
Larry sat up in his bed and stretched. The bloodhound-handler-Larry wasn’t as much of the type to worry about inconveniencing others as the family-man-Larry was. The bloodhound-handler-Larry had a one-track mind, and his only two concerns were tracking down whomever — or in this case whatever — he was sent to track down. And the welfare of his dogs. To hell with anything and everything else that didn’t have to do with one of these two concerns. However, the way Larry saw it, keeping the Ellises’ happy had a lot to do with both of these concerns. The Ellis house and the area around it were perfect for Larry and his hounds. Aside from the three horses that Larry had convinced Bob to move to another pasture for the duration of his stay, the Ellis place was well away from the various things that could distract the dogs from their training, like nosy neighbors and other dogs and animals. The Ellises also had a large backyard and a pasture to work the dogs, and the woods were near the house, so Larry could work them in the woods without having to load them up and transport them somewhere else.
As Larry searched the floor and under his bed for his pants (the bloodhound-handler-Larry was also quite a slob), he heard the dog’s baying change dramatically. Fear.
He heard a yelp.
Larry grabbed his revolver off the nightstand and took off, starting down the hall clad only in his long johns.
The Ellis master bedroom was on the other end of the house. Jewel woke up when the dogs started baying the first time, and she hadn’t been able to get back to sleep when they started again. She woke Bob and asked him to go see if Larry could do anything to quiet the dogs down. Bob, who had been sleeping like a rock through all the commotion, got up and put on his robe. He was on his way down the hall to Larry’s room when his guest burst out the door and slammed into him. Despite being about fifty pounds lighter than Bob, Larry didn’t fall. In fact, his step didn’t falter; he didn’t even break stride. He plowed into and over Bob and kept going.
Outside the dogs’ barking had turned to outright panic. Another startled yelp was heard, and was abruptly silenced.
Larry threw the sliding glass door that lead to the back porch open with such force that it jumped off its tracks and fell to the porch, shattering.
Another yelp came from the pen, this one long and pained. He could hear the rest of the dogs were barking and howling in outright terror.
Driven by a combination of rage, fear, and panic usually reserved for parents protecting their children, Larry leaped from the porch and started toward the pen.
There were security lights in the backyard of the Ellis house, but none of them were close to the pen. Larry was halfway across the backyard before he could make out something in the pen with the dogs. It was standing on two legs. Larry saw this intruder swing a long arm, and then saw what seemed to be one of his dogs fly across the pen and against the far wall of the pen.
“Son-of-a-bitch!” Larry shrieked, and fired his.38 in the air. There was no chance of him hitting whatever it was at this range without a risk of hitting one of the dogs, but perhaps he could scare it off.
Apparently it worked. Whatever was in the pen with the dogs ran out the gate and started for the woods. Larry fired two poorly aimed shots at the shape while still on the run.
The beast crashed into the woods with Larry not too far behind.
Larry continued chasing whatever it was that had hurt his babies. He couldn’t see it, but he could hear it. Every once in a while he would let his rage out, and shriek an expletive at the top of his panic-stricken voice. About ten cuss words later Larry tripped over a root and went sprawling face first.
Larry raised his head. “Bastard,” he said now in a hoarse whisper.
He then pointed his revolver in the direction he had been running and blindly fired his remaining three shots.
Bob made it to the back door just in time to see Larry crash into the woods. He turned to Jewel, who had heard the commotion and gotten up and now stood right behind him. “Call the sheriff’s office,” he told her.
Then Bob rushed back into the living room and turned on the light. He went to the gun-cabinet, and selected a.308 out of the dozen or so shotguns and rifles. Bob hurried to the back door, where he stepped outside, carefully trying to avoid stepping on the broken glass with his bare feet. Once past the glass, he started toward the dog’s pen at a trot.
As Bob hurried across the yard, he noticed the dogs were strangely silent. When he got nearer and saw the gate open, he first began to calm somewhat as he decided that maybe one of the dogs had somehow managed to get out and that Larry had taken off trying to catch them. But this didn’t make any sense. From what he had seen, Larry’s dogs were so well disciplined that if Larry wanted them to come back he’d just have to call them and they’d come running. In fact, it almost seemed that the pen was unnecessary; Larry could probably draw a circle on the ground and tell them to stay in it and they would. Not only that, but why had Larry been shooting?
As Bob approached the gate he began to hear a faint whimper. He knew it had to be a dog, but it almost sounded human. Then he saw the mutilated remains of what had been Larry’s bloodhounds.
“My God,” he gasped
In the distance three shots rang out, causing Bob to jump.
Bill was first to arrive at the scene. He got out of his patrol car, drew his pistol, and started around the house. “Bob! Jewel!” he called out.