Night Howl by Andrew Neiderman Read Free Book Online Page B

was a dog, he could call the dogcatcher, but as usual the stray wouldn’t be around when he arrived and then he would take his time returning. Naw, there was no better way than handling your own problems yourself. That was the difference between men like him and men like . . . men like his son Charley. It made him sad to think it. He walked on toward the barn.
    Somewhere from one of the shadowy corridors of his mind, he could hear Ethel saying, “You be careful, Ken Strasser. You’re no young bull anymore. Don’t go around acting like you are. You’re foolin’ nobody, least of all me.”
    “Right, right,” he muttered. He shook his head. Didn’t the shadow cast by the silhouette of the barn look long and dark, though. He almost wished he’d brought his flashlight along. Goin’ to need it inside there, he realized. Probably will have to go back tofetch it anyway. Oh well, he thought, might just shake him out of there without much trouble.
    He crossed into the shadow and moved like a shadow himself.
    He heard the man coming even before the man emerged from the house. He was keen about any sounds in the rear of the building. Whenever he was in the barn, he was well aware of where the old man was at all times. Either he saw him move about the grounds, or he saw his shadow in the windows, or he heard him in the house. He wasn’t afraid of him as such; he was simply alert and conscious of everything around him, more so than he had ever been. His senses were extraordinarly sharp, his perception far beyond anything he had ever known.
    He had created a place for himself near the partially opened barn door. When he first discovered the hideaway, he brought large mouthfuls of hay to this location and created a warm and comfortable bed for himself. From this position, he could look out at the house and the yard and he could see and hear any potentially threatening movement.
    As soon as the old man emerged from the house, he got to his feet. He knew that what the old man was carrying could inflict great pain and even death. He wasn’t sure how he knew this. The realization came to him from a pocket of awareness fed by information gathered during some earlier time of his life. The intellectual process was quick and his resultant anger immediate. A low, threatening growl began in the base of his throat; he held it there in check, recognizing the need for silence.
    He backed a few steps away when the man drew closer. In these few moments he was carved of stone. He remained outside the small ray of light that enteredthe barn, so that even his eyes were unseen. The old man paused a few feet from the door. He swung the rifle from the side of him so that the barrel faced the door.
    “Hey,” the old man yelled, “Get the hell outta there!”
    He didn’t move. He heard the old man curse and then saw him come forward. He backed farther away, rubbing his body against the door, keeping himself close to it. When the old man slid it further open, he moved along with it as though he were attached to it. That made him invisible. He hoped that was all he would have to do. Attacking the old man wasn’t part of his plan . . . not yet. But the old man entered the barn, rifle up and ready.
    “Where are ya?” he shouted. “I know you’re in here somewhere,” he muttered to himself. He started to turn.
    Before this, anything he attacked had been forewarned. His growl served as an announcement. The prey or the antagonist had an opportunity to bring up its guard and feign off his first thrust, or at least to block it. But this time he came out of the darkness, a fist of darkness, himself. He was an extension of the black, the air turned into a solid mass of muscle and bone.
    He struck the old man in the chest and drove him back out of the barn, where he fell backward, the rifle flying over his head and bouncing somewhere in the yard. Still, he didn’t growl. Once again, he lunged in silence.
    Ken Strasser was confused by the blow. He