The Library at Mount Char (20 page)

“No…no.”

“What?”

“I just…I wish there was a way to keep in touch with you while you're out there. Doing the run. I just can't think of anything we could…” She trailed off. “What?”

Steve was staring at her. He was thinking,
This woman is…not insane, exactly…something else?
What he said was, “Have you not heard of cell phones?”

“Oh,” she said. She nodded, wide-eyed and, to Steve's increasingly practiced eye, completely full of shit. “Yeah. Sure. Lots of times.”

A
bout ten the next morning Steve jogged into the weeds on the shoulder of Highway 78 and slowed to a stop. Acutely aware of his mug shot on CNN, he pretended to be really interested in something in the woods until the car coming up behind him passed. It was a cool, gray morning, just right for a run.

Garrison Oaks came into view as he rounded this last bend, half a mile away and a little downhill. It didn't look like anything special. A couple dozen houses flanked the main drive in neat rows. Three secondary roads branched off it, terminating in culs-de-sac. Some guy was out mowing his lawn. Yawn.

Steve's burglar instincts reared up momentarily. The houses were OK, if a trifle on the modest side, but most of the cars out front were fading relics—a 1977 Cutlass Supreme, a blue Datsun, even a station wagon.
Do they even
make
those anymore?
A good rule of thumb, he'd found, was that if a dude has enough cash to drop on a new car, he's also got enough to drop on electronic gizmos, jewelry for the wife, and other pawnable stuff. The converse, he'd found, was also true.
Nah
, he thought.
This place isn't worth robbing
.

Of course, this was no normal burglary. Among other things, he'd never carried a gun before. Carolyn hadn't thought to provide a holster, but twenty minutes or so in Mrs. McGillicutty's garage took care of that.
How
, he wondered,
did humanity ever get along without duct tape?
The
makeshift holster was comfortable enough, but the thought of the pistol smoldered in the back of his mind. Dry leaves swirled around his feet as he moved, blown down from the bluff that flanked his course on the left.

When he was a hundred yards or so from the subdivision sign he slowed to a walk, then unclipped Mrs. McGillicutty's cell phone from the top of his sweatpants and punched number 1 on the speed dial: “Home.” Number 2 was someone named Cathy. The third slot was a funeral home. The other five slots were empty. He felt a little bad for Mrs. McGillicutty.

Carolyn picked up on the first ring. “Steve?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are you?”

“About fifty yards out,” he said, clipping the phone back in his waistband. Mrs. McGillicutty also had a Bluetooth headset, which he had found unopened in the box. Now it was clipped to his ear. Between that and the pistol he felt like a mall ninja pretending to be a Secret Service agent.

“OK. Remember, when you get near the gate, you want to enter gradually. If you feel anything out of the ordinary, turn around and head back the way you came.”

“Understood,” he said. He brushed the Garrison Oaks sign with his fingertips as he passed. “I'm in.”

“Feel anything?”
Clink
.

“Nope. Nothing.” Two steps, three. He thought about asking her if she was sure the whole thing wasn't in her head. Then he looked down. The asphalt under his feet was dark with congealed blood. There was a lot of it. The question died in his mouth.

“How far in are you?”
Clink
.

“Twenty feet or so.”

“OK,” she said clinically. “That means you don't have the trigger. If you did you'd be feeling it by now.”
Clink
.

“If you say so. Hey, what's that clinking sound I keep hearing?”

“Margaret is playing with her lighter.” Carolyn said something in angry tones. The clinking stopped. “Do you see anything unusual?” Her voice was tense.

“The guy on the corner has a lot of dandelions in his yard,” Steve said. “A real infestation.”

“I mean is there anyone watching you? Anything like that?” She spoke pleasantly enough, but it sounded like she was gritting her teeth.

Steve, pleased to be getting under her skin, smiled in a way the Buddha would have disapproved of. “Nope. There's a guy out mowing his lawn. He's the only one I see.”

“What about dogs?”

“Nope. Oh, wait…there is one.” Deep in the shadows of someone's front porch there was a silhouette. And eyes, watching him.

“What does it look like?”

“He's a pretty good size—maybe eighty or ninety pounds?—black, white, and tan fur. What do you call that breed? Bernese mountain dog, I think.”

“Does he have one blue eye and one brown?”

“I can't tell…wait.” The dog stood up, moved into sunlight. “Yeah. How'd you know?”

“Thane,” Carolyn said under her breath.

“What?”

“The dog's name is Thane,” she said. “He's the lord.”

“The what?”

“The pack lord. It's what they call—never mind. He's the alpha dog. What's he doing?”

“He's walking out into the yard,” Steve said. Thinking of Petey, Steve waved. “Hey, buddy!”

“Are you
insane
? Don't engage him, Steve!”

“What? Why not?”

Carolyn sighed. “Just trust me, please? Ignore the dog. Ignore any dogs you see.” She was gritting her teeth again.

“OK,” Steve said, amiably enough. He continued walking. After a few steps he was in front of someone else's yard, this a red brick house of odd design, carved double doors in front, dark windows. It looked very familiar to him, though he didn't recall ever having been there before.

The mountain dog followed him. He barked, just once. In response another dog, a fat beagle, came trotting out from behind this house. It ran up to Steve on comically stubby legs and set about giving high alert.

Pretty good set of pipes on him for a little dude
, Steve thought.

Carolyn heard the barking. “Is that a beagle?”

“Yeah.”

Steve quickened his pace a little, hoping the dogs would leave him alone once he was out of the beagle's yard. But they followed, the beagle barking his surprisingly baritone bark, Thane watching him with one ice-blue eye.

“Do you see any others?”

Steve didn't really want to take his eyes off the two immediate problems, but he heard the urgency in her voice. He glanced on the other side of the street. A little ways ahead a pair of Labrador retrievers, one black and one yellow, trotted alongside each other.
They're pacing me
. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. Motion caught his eye. As he watched, a smallish German shepherd crested the hill in front of him. Seeing him, it barked once. “Yeah,” Steve said. “Three more. Lotta dogs in this neighborhood.”

“Only three?”

“Yeah. Well, five in all.”

“How far in are you?”

“Almost a block. Coming up on the first intersection.” He paused. “Are these dogs known to, you know…bite?”

“Almost never.”

“
Almost
never?”

“Let me know when you get to the intersection. We'll see how they act then.”

Steve continued walking. Thane and the beagle continued to follow alongside though, thankfully, the beagle shut up when they were well outside of his territory. The Labs paced him on the other side of the street.

Now he was up to the old guy mowing his yard. He was a sixtyish man, probably retired, wearing a ball cap and work boots.

“Are these your dogs?” Steve called, forgetting momentarily that he was a fugitive who didn't want to draw attention to himself.

The old guy waved.

“Hey, buddy, can you call off your dogs for me?”

The old guy wrinkled his face in confusion, put his hand to his ear.
I can't hear you!
He didn't shut off the mower.

“Can. You. Call off. Your DOGS,” Steve said, louder.

The old man shook his head again, smiled, pointed at the noisy engine.

“Asshole,” Steve muttered. He was walking very slowly now. The mower noise receded as the old guy moved down to the far end of his yard. The dogs matched Steve inch for inch.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, never mind. I'm almost there. OK, I'm at the intersection.”

“Hold up there for a second. What are the dogs doing?”

“Uh…the two Labs have trotted up to the German shepherd. And there's a new one in the mix, some sort of black-and-white breed, maybe an English spaniel, mid-size. Are these, like, guard dogs?”

“Not the way you mean. Try taking a couple of steps forward.”

Steve did. The reaction was immediate and furious. The four dogs in front of him went from passively watching to full-on attack, barking, sprinting at him. At the same time the big mountain dog leaped up and clamped down on Steve's arm. The beagle latched on to the tongue of Mrs. McGillicutty's son's Reebok.

“Aaaah!” Steve screamed as much out of surprise as actual pain. The pain arrived in a second, though. Thane, the mountain dog, had sunk his teeth into the meat of Steve's upper right arm. Now he dangled there, all ninety pounds of him pulling on the triceps. Steve elbowed him furiously, then reached around with his left hand to loosen the jaws. The dog's brown eye rolled at him, darkly furious. Steve's blood stained the white fur of his muzzle.

“What's happening?” Carolyn said. “Steve?'

He was making some progress on dislodging the mountain dog when the other four hit. The yellow Lab bit down on his left forearm. The black Lab latched on to his left ankle. The shepherd went for his left butt cheek but mostly just got the cloth of his sweatpants. It whipped its head back and forth. Steve heard cloth tear, felt cool autumn air on his ass.

“Steve? Steve, answer me! What's happening? Is it the dogs, Steve?”

These dogs mean to kill me
. The thought carried a burst of adrenaline. He twisted, gyrated, trying to shake them loose, but they hung on him like Christmas ornaments. He lurched a step back in the direction that he had come, thinking hysterically that that might do the trick, convince
them to let him go. All this happened in silence. The dogs weren't barking anymore, because they had their mouths full. The pain was not yet so bad that he needed to scream again. The only sound was the lawn mower. He took another step. The beagle let go of his shoe and clamped down on Steve's Achilles tendon. The pain drove him to his knees, or maybe he tripped. The mountain dog let go of his right arm and bit at his ear, his scalp, his face.

Steve struck out blindly, punching with his right hand. Now he was screaming.

“That's it,” Carolyn said. “I'm sending in the backup.”

F
acedown on the asphalt, buried under the marauding dogs, Steve felt surprisingly peaceful. He heard the blood roaring in his ears but felt no real pain.
Probably I'm dying
. He noticed a piece of gypsum baked into the asphalt of the road, inches away from his eye. It was very interesting.

Then, as if from a great distance, he heard a sound that was not a dog, not a lawn mower. It was a bass rumble, a roar. He felt it in the depths of his chest.

A moment later the shadow of the mountain dog—
Thane
, Steve thought,
his name is Thane
—fell away from his face. Unexpectedly, he was in daylight again. The dog on his right arm fell away. Then his left leg was free.

“—an you hear me, Steve? Answer me! Are you—”

Steve, dazed, put his right hand down on the asphalt and examined it. He had a good, wide gash in his arm. When he flexed his fingers he could see the muscle work.
Not much blood, though
. The muscle of his forearm looked a lot like raw chicken. He found this very interesting as well, and clenched his hand a couple of times to watch it work.

“The gun, Steve! Use the gun!”

Hey…that's a pretty good idea
. He put a hand down and pushed himself off the asphalt. The old guy mowing his lawn was headed his direction. Steve waved him over for help with one bloody, shredded hand. The
old guy smiled and waved back. He cupped a hand to his ear and shook his head, pointing at the mower.

What…the…fuck?
That was weird enough to bring him back to himself, at least a little. He got to one knee, took a quick inventory. His right leg worked. The beagle hadn't been able to do much damage to his ankle.
Not for lack of effort, though
. His left, not so much. He'd been badly bitten in the calf. It hurt to put weight on it.
Wonder what happened there?

“The gun, Steve! The gun! Shoot the dogs!”

That did it. Steve, fully conscious again, remembered who—what—had done this to him. He was suddenly and acutely aware of the slavering dogs at his back. Black murder bubbled up into his heart, the Buddha's message of compassion for all life temporarily forgotten.

“C'mere, Thane,” he said, drawing the pistol. “I got a treat for you, buddy.”

Wow
, he thought,
that's a
really
big dog. Must be—what?—four hundred pounds or so. Maybe five hundred
.

But of course it was not a dog. It was a lion. Two of them actually, an adult male with a thick brown mane and a smaller female, standing between him and the dogs.
Lions, huh? That's kind of unusual
.

He pulled the slide back on the HK, cocking it. He leveled it, aiming at the center of the big lion's mane and carefully squeezed off a shot. He missed completely. The bullet went between the two lions and ricocheted off the asphalt, kicking up a small spark.

The big lion turned around and roared at him.

“Steve,” Carolyn's voice came in his ear, “what are you doing? Don't be an idiot! They're there to protect you! They're your backup!”

“Say again, please?”

“The lions
saved
you. They're the
backup
. Do not shoot them.”

“How did you know I tried—”

The big lion roared again.

“He says there's more dogs on the way. Can you shoot? Use the gun. But be careful. How many dogs are there?”

Steve took stock. The beagle lay dead in the road, his back broken. Thane, bleeding from a wound in his ass, the fur on the back of his neck high, paced back and forth in front of the lions, studying them with his
eerie mismatched eyes. Behind him the other four dogs stood, growling, slightly wounded, uncertain. Three new ones, two Rottweilers and a poodle, had arrived while Steve was out of it. As he watched a golden retriever crested the hill. “I count nine.”