“ Start counting now,” he yelled back, returning the thumbs up sign, before he started crawling in under the bushes. And he started counting himself.
One, one thousand, and he was under the bushes, heart racing, head down.
Two, one thousand, and he was through the bushes, in the dark area between the houses.
Three, one thousand, and he was pushing himself to his feet, straining his eyes to try and see in the dark.
Four, one thousand, and he was holding his breath, expecting the wolf’s strong jaws to rip into him any second.
Five, one thousand, and he was still holding his breath as he stuck his hands out in front of himself and tried to feel his way toward the wall.
Six, one thousand, and he was at the wall, feeling along it, moving toward the bushes at the back by the fence.
Seven, one thousand, and he stopped, using his ears, looking for a sound that would tell him the Nightwitch was there.
Eight, one thousand, and he exhaled and inhaled the cool night air.
Nine, one thousand, and he shivered from the cold, quivered with anticipation, and trembled with fear.
Ten, one thousand, and he yelled out, “It’s okay.” Then he dropped to his knees in front of the bushes in the back by the fence.
“ Nothing’s getting in there, Arty,” Brad yelled out and Arty started feeling around for the skin.
The rain stopped as quickly as it had started, leaving the neighborhood covered with that fresh smelling clean taste that usually makes you feel good after a rain has finished. But Brad didn’t notice the crisp feeling as he stood in the middle of the lawn, shotgun at the ready, eyes scanning in the dark.
He shuffled his feet and took a right hand off the shotgun and tried to wring some of the wet out of his hair, and wipe some of the water from his forehead, but the wet on his forehead was sweat mingled with the sweet rainwater, and it came right back. He put his hand back on the gun, wrapping his index finger around the trigger, and rotated his head a hundred and eighty degrees.
With the end of the rain came a slight wind and the clouds above parted, allowing sufficient moonlight for Brad to see both corners of the street from his post on the lawn. The cool breeze dried the sweat from his forehead, but it delivered an icy chill to the rest of his body. His teeth chattered with the cold. His fingers started to go numb against the cold shotgun and his shoes made squishy sounds as he shuffled back and forth.
He looked up and saw a shooting star. He’d seen them before, when he was hunting with his father, but this one was different. It curved from its expected straight path and came shooting toward the far corner of the block. For a second it looked like it might hit earth and explode, but ten feet from the ground, it changed direction and shot over the street, moving as fast as any car.
Brad ducked when it flew overhead. It turned at the other corner and came back, even faster, dropping to earth, five houses away, in a reddish flash of blinding light. Brad squinted his eyes, but didn’t turn his head. When the light cleared away, he was facing the glaring red eyes of a black wolf, larger than any dog he had ever seen.
He leveled the shotgun and waited. He’d been hunting enough times to know the wolf was out of shotgun range. The wolf didn’t move. Brad didn’t waver. The animal stared into his eyes. Brad held his fire. It had to be close for the shotgun to be effective, both Brad and the black wolf knew it.
If the wolf wanted to get between those houses it was going to have to do more than stand off and wait for Brad to waste his shots. And the wolf, sensing this, came at him, flying across the ground, silent, swift and deadly and Brad waited, one, two, three house lengths, faster than a blink, and still he held his fire.
The wolf was halfway across the last lawn when Brad pulled the trigger, taking half its face away, but the red eyes still glowed through blood and pulp and bone and the wolf kept coming. Brad pumped the shotgun and blasted away again, removing the rest of the wolf’s face and turning the red eyes out. He ducked as the leaping wolf turned into a shooting ball of flame, shooting over his head, singeing his hair as it passed. He whirled and saw it shoot into the sky, circling, then shooting straight up, a ball of red flame with a white tail.
The first shot riveted through Arty like a spike to his soul. The second rammed the spike in deeper. He burrowed into the bushes by the fence, moving his hands over the wet, black earth, pushing through dead leaves, twigs and live bugs, feeling the dirt squish through his fingers.
He crawled further into the bushes, pushing and pulling aging debris away-a soggy newspaper, an empty tin can, more wet leaves, cloth, maybe an old shirt or towel-but no sack of skin. He went in further, until he was stopped by the fence. He ran his fingers along the solid bricks, moving from one house to the other. More leaves, dead grass, an old shoe, but not what he was looking for. If only he could see. If only he’d thought of a flashlight.
On the front lawn, Brad watched the ball of flame as it rose into the heavens, shooting skyward. Then it looped and shot back to earth, shedding its tail into thousands of sparks as it descended, coming down like an avalanche of fireworks, landing on that same lawn five houses away, the sparks flaring out, leaving a roaring white tiger in their place.
Brad brought the gun up to shoot as the animal charged. The tiger was faster than the wolf, but Brad’s aim was as true as before. He hit the tiger between the eyes, before it started its leap, and he was pumping the gun for a second shot when the animal veered off, darting into the middle of the street, moving away, till it was out of range
Brad swung the gun around, keeping the barrel pointed at what remained of the beast’s head. Two eyes without a face. Glowing orange instead of red. No white fur with black stripes left. No jaw, no teeth, no fangs. He was able to see down the bloody throat of it as it screamed its roar into the night. But it was at the edge of the shotgun’s range and Brad was determined not to fire, no matter how much the raging animal goaded him.
Arty heard the third shot and he moved his hands around the dirt with a vengeance. It has to be here. The wolf wouldn’t be out there trying to get in if it wasn’t. He crawled out from the bushes by the fence and felt his way along the house opposite Carolina’s, until he banged his hand on the gas meter. He ran his hand around and under the meter-nothing. He crawled across the space to Carolina’s house and felt along it till he got back to the fence- still nothing.
Maybe she buried it. Then I’ll never find it. He crawled under the bushes again, running his clawed fingers through the dirt like a rake, digging up mud, roots, worms, sow bugs, small rocks and bits of concrete left over from when they built the brick fence, but no bag of skin.
The white tiger without a face roared, trying to frighten Brad into firing, but he’d been on too many hunting trips with his father to waste his last two shots. He kept the gun up and pointed, moving it along with the tiger as the animal paced the street. His shoulder ached with the pounding it was taking from the powerful kick of the shotgun. The screaming roar frightened the holy shit out of him, but he wasn’t going to run.
And he promised God that if he got out of this alive, he would never pick on another kid again as long as he lived. He would never miss Mass on Sunday and he’d even become an altar boy. If only Arty would hurry up.
The tiger charged in midroar. Brad fired as it crossed the curb. He pumped and fired the last shot, taking off the head of the beast as it crossed the sidewalk and he saw flying bits of fur, skin, blood and bone splatter and turn into sparks, as once again the beast turned into a ball of flame and shot skyward.
Arty heard the last two shots and knew his time was up. Then he figured it out. He was the only paperboy in town and he never missed. It wasn’t a soggy newspaper. It was what he was looking for. He scrabbled back to where he’d chucked the trash he’d found under the bushes. He smiled when his fingers dug into the soggy skin.
“ This is for Harry Lightfoot.” Arty pulled the container of cayenne pepper out of his pocket and poured it over the skin. Then he jammed it inside the bundle, emptying it. He tossed the plastic container aside and dug out the other one. “And this is for me and Carolina.” He poured the mixture of rock salt and ground chili pepper inside the
