Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection (81 page)

When Parker was sure Truong couldn’t hear, he asked in a whisper, “What’s the story with him?”

“He came here about six months ago,” Doc said in a low tone. “Said he was good with animals and would work for room and board. So I snatched him up. I guess he was in some sort of traffic accident years ago that kind of messed his left side up, put out one eye. But he gets around fine. He emigrated from Thailand just a few months back. He
is
damn good with dogs. Even sleeps with them. Of course, I can relate to him there.” Doc smiled.

Truong came back into the room and handed Doc a manila folder. Doc pulled out a set of small-lensed reading glasses and put them on.

“I’ll let you work,” Parker said, taking a step back. “Call me if you need anything.”

Dr. White Cloud glanced over his reading glasses and gave a look unusually sober for the old vet. “Tony, be careful. This dog that’s loose, Jezebel, she’s a beauty. Biggest damn dog I’ve ever seen. Forty-two inches at the shoulders and fangs as long as your little finger.”

Parker nodded. “That’d be a record, wouldn’t it? Especially for a female. Is she a freak?”

“Yeah, probably would be a record if anybody troubled to have it recorded. But she’s no freak. Beautiful animal. Black and sleek and intelligent, too. That’s the scary part. She’s also the smartest dog I’ve ever seen. A lot smarter than most humans that walk through these doors. She was real even tempered, too. She liked to play. But she’d get homesick and start howling if we’d keep her here for more than a couple of hours. She had a real strange howl, kind of hoarse. I didn’t think Great Danes howled, but this one.…” Doc paused, and Parker wondered if he was thinking about the howl he’d heard last night.

“I’d believe she spoke seven languages and was running for governor from the way people talk about her,” Parker said.

“Yeah, she’s something all right. But, Tony—Tony, if she’s gone mad—well, I just hate to think. Be careful, Tony.”

CHAPTER 10

T
he day’s heat carried over into the still twilight. The air clung thick with low foggy patches and had the fresh, clean smell of an imminent rain. Storm clouds in the west caused dark to come early, and distant flashes of lightning promised the needed moisture, though that promise had been broken for several weeks in a row.

The little Lutheran church down by the river let out, and half a dozen voices broke the evening’s silence. Pastor Carl Santini’s bright white collar seemed luminescent in contrast to his black shirt and pants. He stood on the short stoop in front of the large double doors and bade good evening to each of the parishioners with a cheerful smile and friendly handshake as they stepped out. The old preacher’s hands were wracked with arthritis, twisted from years of torture from the disease, but the large smile on the little man’s face didn’t give away the pain shocking his frail body as some of the more enthusiastic handshakers proved their sincerity with firm grips.

It hadn’t been a scheduled service but a meeting of the church council that caused them to stay late. The church budget was the issue. After some debate, it seemed every aspect had been handled in a satisfactory manner to all.

Pastor Carl waved as the last of them walked away. He rubbed his hands together, attempting to alleviate at least some of the pain and noted the unusual darkness. He flipped the light switch just inside the door for the outside light but without results. How odd that both the street light in front of the church and the light over the door would be burned out at the same time. He’d have to make sure the janitor knew to replace the bulb over the door and report the streetlight to the city.

The night grew silent after the last of the church council members drove off into the peaceful evening. He raised his wire-framed glasses to his forehead and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. After adjusting the glasses back into place, he took a second to look up at the few stars peeking through scattered clouds.

Pastor Carl thought about the insignificance he felt. As thousands of times before, he gazed at the twinkling pinholes in the blackening sky. He could see them well due to the darker-than-usual street.

He hadn’t made a big difference in the little world in which he had survived his sixty-eight years. But he was happy to think he had made the lives of many of his fellow worshipers just a little more bearable, special, maybe more meaningful. He wished he could have done more. He wished he could have saved more souls, perhaps as a missionary to cannibals in New Zealand or as an evangelist with millions of television supporters. He drew a long breath while he looked up and reached into his trouser pocket to find the key to the door.

A growl-like noise broke the stillness.

At first, Pastor Carl thought he had imagined it. He looked, straining into the darkness of the street. A park with lots of bushes and trees was across the street, but nothing, or no one, could be seen to make such a noise. Small homes lined the deserted street going the other way. Only a few had their lights on. But the strange noise wasn’t one he would associate with them. Perhaps it came from a hopped up car with loud mufflers, driven by an untamed youth several blocks away.

Now a howl. A distant howl but no less alarming. It keened long, sad and hoarse, unlike any he’d heard before.

That dog, that huge killer dog, was still out there. He’d heard about it on the radio. Everyone talked about it at the council meeting. Pastor Carl had even asked God to help them find it before it had a chance to hurt anyone else. Could this be that dog? The MacGreggor house wasn’t but half a dozen blocks down the street. No, it couldn’t be. A neighbor kid was trying to frighten an old man. Surely that was all it was.

He pulled out a set of keys attached to a small ring with a white luminous cross on it. His eyes shifted around the darkness. He fumbled with the keys with fingers that might as well have been toes. They slipped from his hands and dropped to the ground striking the concrete with a clatter.

The odd sound came again.

Pastor Carl looked up from a bent position as he reached for the keys. The noise came louder, this time closer, much closer, and definitely a growl, not a noisy muffler. He gazed into the darkness, still reaching. Nothing in sight. He finally grabbed up the keys and with shaking, gnarled hands found the correct one and locked the door quickly.

He turned, looked out at his car parked across the street and stepped toward it.

Something moving over there
.
Something dark and big
. He stopped halfway down the walk. The thing shifted back and forth behind his car.
It must be a prankster, a juvenile trying to scare a poor old man out of his wits
.

“All right now,” Pastor Carl said in a reprimanding tone, “I see you over there. The joke’s over. You’ve had your fun.”

No reply. Still the shadowy figure moved back and forth behind the car.

“I said enough!” Pastor Carl was more insistent this time. “I know who you are, and I’ll tell your parents. Now go on home.”

The shadow stopped. Pastor Carl’s skin crawled. This was no prankster. He sensed an evil presence, something diabolical.

“Oh, Lord Jesus,” he prayed. His trembling hand rose with the keys, and again he searched for the one to the church door.

The shadow came around the car.

It advanced into the street. It came for him. He would be unable to get to the car. The thing approached in between. No place to run, his aged body wouldn’t last. He must get back to the church. Inside, he would be safe.

Once again, as he bungled with the keys, his fluttering hands fumbled them, and they fell fifteen feet in front of the door. Without looking to see how close the thing was, he bent down as quickly as he could and groped for the keys. As he did, his wire framed glasses slipped from his face and also fell to the ground.

“Damn it!” he exclaimed, then considered his slip briefly. “Forgive me, Lord.”

The world became a dark haze. He felt the shadow’s presence as his hand finally made contact with the keys. He looked. Now within ten feet, his elderly eyes saw only a dark blur moving slowly, steadily toward him.

No time to feel for the glasses. He stood upright.

“Have mercy on me, Father!” Pastor Carl prayed as he turned and scurried toward the door while searching among the half-dozen keys for the elusive door key.

He found the correct one and shoved it at the door lock. The key glanced off, scratching the brown painted steel.

Pastor Carl screamed. He was thrown against the entryway. The thing had him. He raised the luminous cross in front of his face.

“Away with you, Satan!” he cried out.

The key chain was batted from his hand, and he could feel his fingers, wet with blood.

A flash of light shot in his eyes. A sort of sparkle like from a precious stone, a diamond perhaps, reflected what little light it had captured from the house lights down the street. He tried to focus, but his old, tired eyes showed him nothing but a large fuzzy shape, hulking in the darkness in front of him.

Again, the thing came at him. He felt pain in his throat, and warm blood drenched his shirt as he thought of how his bright white collar would be ruined.

*-*-*

They had seen neither
hide nor hair
of Jezebel. To Tony Parker it was as if she hadn’t been at all. He’d never actually seen her. She was only a rumor, or, more accurately, a legend.

Parker looked forward to this night. It was nine thirty, and he and Julie got ready for bed early. Everything seemed perfect. He had saved the peace with Julie. Frustrated from the unsuccessful attempt to find even a trace of Jezebel, he went home around six p.m. Although the long day and relentless heat had taken its toll on his not-as-young-as-it-used-to-be body, he took the family out for pizza, then to the mall. The pizza, now haunting him, seemed to be burning a good-sized hole in his stomach.

They had gotten all of their shopping done in preparation for the picnic tomorrow that Julie had been insistent they have, no matter what this Jezebel did. They had picked up some last minute items for Nick for school. He’d be a big first grader on Monday. It didn’t seem possible.

At Sears, Tony told Julie to pick out a new outfit and shoes. That would be her anniversary present, even though she’d said she was willing to settle on a vacation to Missouri the week after next to see her folks. She had a whole hundred dollars to blow. That wouldn’t have seemed like much before Audrey came along, but now, it was a fortune.

Julie showed her child-like enthusiasm as she danced down the aisles and through the multitude of clothes racks. Tony had seen the guilt flush Julie’s face as he laid down the hundred-dollar bill at the register. He felt it himself as the clerk asked for another five fifty and, looking into his wallet at a lonesome ten-dollar bill, realized they had burned up a whopping two hundred and fifty dollars that night.

Lying naked under the covers of the king-sized waterbed, Tony watched as Julie came out of the bathroom drying off from her shower. The only light in the room came from the television, in which he had lost all interest.

The years hadn’t hurt Julie a bit in Tony’s mind. There was no thought of comparing this morning’s view of Sarah Hill with her. He couldn’t see the few extra dimples in her cute, but slightly wider-than-twenty-years-ago, butt. He didn’t notice that her breasts suspended just a bit lower on her chest. He didn’t see the lines in her face that stayed, even after smiling. He was still every bit as much in love with her as ever before.

Tonight, he felt an old spark. It amused him and he was reminded of the days gone by when he and Julie were first married. They would make love tonight. He knew they would. He could tell she wanted to by the way she had smiled at him. The way she’d held onto his arm in the shopping mall. The way she touched him lightly as they talked in the Pizza Hut during supper.

The lovemaking would be as it had been many times before. It might not be as wild a session as when they were younger, but the years hadn’t eaten away all of the passion. They would make love once, maybe twice, before they collapsed into each other’s arms on sweat dampened sheets, their steamy, sex-heated bodies writhing and heaving from their frenzied rapture.

Tony showed a small grin as he watched her from across the room. Julie looked over and grinned back.

“What?” she asked.

“Oh, nothin’,” he said, grinning wider with his hands clasped behind his head and covers pulled up to his navel.

“Come on, what?” she insisted, with a chuckle.

“You.”

“Me, what?”

“You’re still my beautiful prom queen,” he said in a dramatic tone.

She fired her towel like a fastball, and it hit Tony in the face. “And you’re the same silver-tongued devil, too!” She jumped onto the bed, straddling him and pinning him down by the wrists.

Tony heard the Ten O’clock News come on the TV. Julie’s senses seemed closed to the television and everything else as she stared down into Tony’s eyes, still smiling.

“And with tonight’s top story, Henry Haskins,” the anchorwoman said.

Julie bent down and kissed Tony, open mouthed, and Tony received her with eyes wide, listening.

Haskins’ voice came on the TV. “Thank you, Sally. The citizens of Wichita are in grave danger tonight as a huge, black, monstrous Great Dane roams our streets, unchallenged, and three men are dead.”

“Oh, shit!” Tony said, pulling away, frowning.

“Now what?” Julie asked, jerking her head back.

Tony didn’t answer. He looked around Julie to see the newscast. Julie bent down again and began planting small kisses methodically, starting on his forehead and slowly working down the side of his face.

“At around midnight last night, a man was savagely murdered by this beast in his home in the eleven-hundred block on Whiteside. This morning, two officers, responding to a call from a neighbor, were also killed at that home. Here is my report, taken shortly after the officers were killed.”

The first five seconds of the report showed Haskins puking over the railing. The picture went back to a frowning Haskins. He looked off camera. “I told you to edit that!” he yelled.

The picture returned to the report, showing Haskins standing in front of the MacGreggor house.

“Citizens of Wichita, beware! Roaming our streets is a giant, killer Great Dane that could be, at this very moment, stalking your neighborhood for its next victims. The demonic animal is as black as a hell bound night, has two-inch, razor-sharp, flesh-ripping fangs, and is nearly big enough to look a man eye to eye while standing on all fours. This animal, reportedly named Jezebel, is extremely dangerous and will likely kill at random with no provocation. After three gory deaths, it is apparent that the dog goes for its victims’ throats with tremendous jaws capable of popping a man’s head off, effortlessly.”

The picture went back to Haskins and the aghast anchorwoman behind their desk.

The reported continued, live, “Details are sketchy at present, but it appears there were two Great Danes that did the killing. One of them, the largest, is still at large. The officers killed were Sergeant James Morowsky, a nineteen-year veteran of the Wichita Police Department, and Officer Farley Cox, who had just began his career in law enforcement, ironically enough, this morning. The name of the other victim, who was also the owner of the dogs, is being withheld, pending notification of next of kin.