Black House

The dog-thing’s eyes blaze, and its feral, wedge-shaped head seems to assemble itself out of the darkness in the air and emerge into view. As though an inky robe had been partially twitched aside, Sonny can see a thick neck descending to meaty shoulders and strong front legs. Maybe the tide is turning here, maybe this monster will turn out to be vulnerable after all. Sonny braces his right wrist with his left hand, aims at the dog-thing’s chest, and squeezes off another round. The explosion seems to stuff his ears with cotton. All the railroad spikes in his head heat up like electric coils, and bright pain sings between his temples.

Dark blood gouts from the creature’s brisket. At the center of Sonny Cantinaro’s being, a pure, primitive triumph bursts into life. More of the monster melts into visibility, the wide back and a suggestion of its rear legs. Of no recognizable breed and four and a half feet high, the dog-thing is approximately the size of a gigantic wolf. When it moves toward him, Sonny fires again. Like an echo, the sound of his gun repeats from somewhere close behind; a bullet like a supercharged wasp zings past his chest.

The creature staggers back, limping on an injured leg. Its enraged eyes bore into Sonny’s. He risks glancing over his shoulder and sees Beezer braced in the middle of the narrow road.

“Don’t look at me, shoot!” Beezer yells.

His voice seems to awaken Doc, who raises his arm and takes aim. Then all three of them are pulling their triggers, and the little road sounds like the firing range on a busy day. The dog-thing (hell hound, Sonny thinks) limps back a step and opens wide its terrible mouth to howl in rage and frustration. Before the howl ends, the creature gathers its rear legs beneath its body, springs across the road, and vanishes into the woods.

Sonny fights off the impulse to collapse under a wave of relief and fatigue. Doc swivels his body and keeps firing into the darkness behind the trees until Beezer puts a hand on his arm and orders him to stop. The air stinks of cordite and some animal odor that is musky and disgustingly sweet. Pale gray smoke shimmers almost white as it filters upward through the darker air.

Beezer’s haggard face turns to Sonny, and the whites of his eyes are crimson. “You hit that fucking animal, didn’t you?” Through the wads of cotton in his ears, Beezer’s voice sounds small and tinny.

“Shit, yes. At least twice, probably three times.”

“And Doc and I hit it once apiece. What the hell is that thing?”

“ ‘What the hell’ is right,” Sonny says.

Weeping with pain, Mouse a third time repeats his cry of “Help me!” and the others hear him at last. Moving slowly and pressing their hands over whatever parts of their bodies hurt the most, they hobble up the road and kneel in front of Mouse. The right leg of his jeans is ripped and soaked with blood, and his face is contorted.

“Are you assholes deaf?”

“Pretty near,” Doc says. “Tell me you didn’t take a bullet in your leg.”

“No, but it must be some kind of miracle.” He winces and inhales sharply. Air hisses between his teeth. “Way you guys were shooting. Too bad you couldn’t draw a bead before it bit my leg.”

“I did,” Sonny says. “Reason you still got a leg.”

Mouse peers at him, then shakes his head. “What happened to the Kaiser?”

“He lost about a liter of blood through his nose and passed out,” Sonny tells him.

Mouse sighs as if at the frailty of the human species. “I believe we might try to get out of this crazy shithole.”

“Is your leg all right?” Beezer asks.

“It’s not broken, if that’s what you mean. But it’s not all right, either.”

“What?” Doc asks.

“I can’t say,” Mouse tells him. “I don’t answer medical questions from guys all covered in puke.”

“Can you ride?”

“Fuck yes, Beezer—you ever know me when I couldn’t ride?”

Beezer and Sonny each take a side and, with excruciating effort, lift Mouse to his feet. When they release his arms, Mouse lumbers sideways a few steps. “This is not right,” he says.

“That’s brilliant,” says Beezer.

“Beeze, old buddy, you know your eyes are, like, bright red? You look like fuckin’ Dracula.”

To the extent that hurry is possible, they are hurrying. Doc wants to get a look at Mouse’s leg; Beezer wants to make sure that Kaiser Bill is still alive; and all of them want to get out of this place and back into normal air and sunlight. Their heads pound, and their muscles ache from strain. None of them can be sure that the dog-thing is not preparing for another charge.

As they speak, Sonny has been picking up Mouse’s Fat Boy and rolling it toward its owner. Mouse takes the handles and pushes his machine forward, wincing as he goes. Beezer and Doc rescue their bikes, and six feet along Sonny pulls his upright out of a snarl of weeds.

Beezer realizes that when he was at the curve in the road, he failed to look for Black House. He remembers Mouse saying, This shit doesn’t want to be seen, and he thinks Mouse got it just about right: the Fisherman did not want them there, and the Fisherman did not want his house to be seen. Everything else was spinning around in his head the way his Electra Glide had spun over after that ugly voice spoke up in his mind. Beezer is certain of one thing, however: Jack Sawyer is not going to hold out on him any longer.

Then a terrible thought strikes him, and he asks, “Did anything funny—anything really strange— happen to you guys before the dog from hell jumped out of the woods? Besides the physical stuff, I mean.”

He looks at Doc, and Doc blushes. Hello? Beezer thinks.

Mouse says, “Go fuck yourself. I’m not gonna talk about that.”