Breeds (17 page)

The blizzard could kiss his fat ass.

The farthest house on the northeastern edge of Upper Amherst Cove belonged to Clifford and Marie Spree. The Sprees had moved to the island back in ‘89, as an early-retirement home from their life’s work in designing and redesigning kitchens, based in Boston. It wasn’t a difficult decision to make. They had visited Newfoundland several times before in their Winnebago, and fell in love with the rugged coastline, the sentimental matchbox houses, and the clear air. Contrary to their family’s beliefs in New York, the weather was milder in the stormy seasons, with Hurricane Igor being the lone exception to the rule.

Upper Amherst Cove, with its single, rustic road and excellent view of Bonavista Bay, was the ideal place to steal away and live out the rest of their gluten-free lives. Clifford occupied his time with a myriad of hobbies, including learning the guitar, while Marie set about growing and cultivating potatoes, spinach, carrots and other vegetables in a small patch of land behind the house.

Clifford gazed out through a window that framed a picture of absolute midwinter darkness.

“See anything?” Marie asked, taking small steps about the kitchen, feeling her way before stopping at the large, hardwood table and lighting a row of candles.

“Nothing,” Clifford mumbled. He turned to his wife of near forty-nine years and watched her putter back to a row of cupboards. “Where’s the flashlight?”

“What flashlight?”

“The big one.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“You know, the big one with the–the–the battery fixed to the bottom there. One flick and
whoosh
. Damn thing could direct in air traffic. The space station would call down and ask ‘what the hell’s that?’ when it’s turned on.
Blind
people see the thing. I’m a regular one-man light show with that beast.”

“Ohhh,
that
flashlight.” Marie smiled evilly, and Clifford knew she had the goods on him for
something
, but damned if he could remember exactly what. At seventy-four, he’d thus far managed to stave off Alzheimer’s, or at least so he thought. Though there were moments of irritating memory lapses, like going into the kitchen for something, forgetting what that something was, then remembering it once back in the living room, only to forget yet again upon returning the kitchen.

Clifford hated when that happened to him.

But Marie, like any good woman, kept him mostly on the straight and narrow. Right now, however, her tone suggested they had addressed this very subject earlier, but he couldn’t recall when.

“All right.” He stood and waited with hands on hips.

“All right what?” she replied sweetly. That was the final telltale hint. Yep. She knew, and she was torturing him with it.

“Where is it?”

“Where do you think it is?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking.”

“You don’t remember.” Marie smirked. She turned her back on him. “You know what this reminds me of?”

Clifford didn’t want to ask, but he did. “No. What?”

“The time you forgot where New Delhi was.”

“Aw, c’mon, that just slipped my memory. Stop bringing that up.”

“But you’re so cute when I do.”

“You’re being a hard ass,” Clifford pointed out.

“What’s it look like out there?” Marie asked, changing the subject.

“Like shit. Now where’s the flashlight?”

“Power’s gone out everywhere?”

“Long gone.” He snapped his fingers. “Flashlight?”

“I could use a massage tonight.” Marie straightened and placed a hand to her cheek, striking a pose of deep thought.

“If I had that flashlight I could find you and give you that massage.”

Marie shook her head, making her short bangs bounce, and pointed to the countertop barely glazed in candlelight. “Never mind about that thing. Look. We have these flashlights.”

She pointed at a handful of smaller, hand-generated units.

Clifford frowned. “Those are… birthday cake candles. Where’s the beast?”

“You won’t like where you left it.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s outside in the shed.”

Clifford balked. “Well, shit. Why the hell did I put it there?”

“How often have I asked the same thing?” Marie remarked with a saucy look down the front of his jeans.

“You’re telling the truth now?”

“Yes,” Marie said. “Leave it for tomorrow. It’s too cold to go outside tonight.”

Well, that wasn’t going to do in Clifford’s mind. He did grab one of the small flashlights before exiting the kitchen and descending a short flight of steps to the back door. He flicked at the light switch to confirm the power was still out, then fumbled with his boots and a heavy coat.

Marie leaned against the wall at the top of the stairs, a lit candle perched astride a wooden holder in her hands. “You’ll freeze your ass out there.”

“Then
I’ll
need the massage.” Clifford pulled on a John Deere hat. “Preferably with the happy ending.”

“At least put something warmer on your head.”

“I’ll be back in a minute. I remember where it is. Right on the workbench. I’m opening the door now.” Clifford winked. “Best stand back else you get party darts.”

“You
wish
I get party darts.”

Cocking his head at what wasn’t a bad idea at all, Clifford powered up the flashlight, opened the door, and headed outside.

The blizzard swallowed him whole, chilling him almost immediately. He closed the door as sixty-mile-an-hour winds crashed into his back and nearly tossed him off his deck. John Deere flew off into the depths of the night, eliciting a short but emotional curse. His hand latched onto an icy length of wooden railing and he pulled his way to the first step, tucking his head down to split the killer wind. To his left, the bay, glorious in the summertime when the sun turned cloudy ribbons into salmon pink, was now a black maw devoid of the usual lights on the other side.

Fifteen feet. No more than that.

Clifford set his jaw and made his way to the shed.

Ten minutes.

He’d been gone only ten minutes. Ordinarily, Marie wouldn’t worry about her man in such a way, despite him getting on in his years. But there
was
a blizzard outside, gnawing on the house, and there
were
no lights to see his way back. She’d returned to the kitchen just after Clifford had left, to take further inventory of what they had for light. They had a fireplace, but she suspected the winds might be too harsh to light it. She then returned to her oversized sofa chair in the living room, drew her legs up under her, and gazed out at the black, shrieking weather beyond a finger’s width of glass.

When she realized he’d been gone for a while.

Ten minutes? Could have been longer? She retraced her actions in her mind, mentally checking them off, and by the time that was done it had to have been fifteen minutes.

All that time to get to a shed and back? Her legs unfolded, her feet touched the rug underneath, and she held that pose for ten more seconds, listening to the roof creak in the ferocious gale, hoping that, any second, she’d hear the back door open and Clifford thump around in what he called the “home again two-step.”

But he didn’t.

Marie stood, gathered up her candle, and gravitated to the top of the steps leading to the back door. Snow raked across glass, raising her unease. The house was an old, two-story job, partially renovated when they bought it, but it suddenly felt disturbingly… creepy, and Marie scoffed at her unease. The original builders had situated the house at the very edge of Amherst Cove, only fifty feet away from a thick wall of forest. After the residential squeeze of New York, the lack of neighbors had been a delight, and in the many years they’d lived here, even on the nights when she’d been alone because Clifford had gone off camping or something or other with one of the locals, she’d never felt the way she did now.

Twenty minutes. She leaned against the wall and
willed
Clifford to stomp through the door. He couldn’t have had a heart attack. So maybe something in the shed kept him occupied? The fucking question was
what
was so damned important in the shed that would keep him out there, in the dark, in the middle of a shit-kicking blizzard?

She descended one step and paused, holding the candle up, its golden reflection bright in the frozen pane of glass set in the door. Jesus Christ, she’d let him have it once he got back. She’d give him a massage all right.

Two steps now, and she could almost see her worried reflection in the window, a perfect movie poster of a character heading into places she should stay clear of. Right now, she smirked, everyone in the theater was telling her not to go out there. Don’t go
any
farther. In fact, she should go back and load up Clifford’s .30-30, just to be ready.

A powerful gust sprayed snow across the window, its wail growing with eerie might, only fully appreciated on nights without power, or when one’s man is missing.

Three steps, and she was halfway down the stairs. Through her sweater she felt her skin crawl in that subconscious way of knowing something was off. Ridiculous, she knew, but
where was he?

Something scratched at the door.

The sound startled her enough to halt her breathing. She scanned the entryway for the source. No one pressed their face against the glass, and if they did, Marie reckoned her resulting scream would strike dead a banshee.

But the scratching continued, insisting, right at the seams of the door. At first it was one hook, long and purposeful, but then others joined it, creating a sound like gouging nails, digging, digging away, all to the grim chorus of the blizzard’s winds.

“Clifford?” Marie called.

The scratching didn’t lessen. “Clifford? You all right?”

Some woman she was being. If it was anyone at all, they would’ve been inside already. The door was
unlocked
for God’s sake. Frowning, Marie composed herself, straightened her back, and went to the kitchen where she exchanged her candle for a flashlight. Thus armed, she took the last few steps to the door.

The scratching persisted, determined. The window remained a dim mirror, framing her anxious reflection.

“Clifford?” she asked again, softly, and placed her hand on the doorknob. Looked out.

Blackness. Snow rasping glass, so thick she couldn’t even see what was below the door. She frowned for a moment, thinking she spotted something down there, just outside.

“Who is it?”

Answered by the relentless rake of nails on wood.

Marie held the doorknob. It was too stormy outside for anyone. Anyone except Clifford. Her husband was out there, had been for more than twenty-five minutes now. Something had happened and she needed to find out what.

She turned the doorknob, opened it only a crack.

The cold air charged into the house, washing over her.

A presence moved beyond the door and a second later a frosty looking paw stabbed inside, along with the muzzle of a dog. Sad, muddy eyes implored her. The creature whimpered, a long violin note of mercy, and Marie felt her stomach and nerves all unclench at once.

“Ohhh, what are you doing out there?” she baby-questioned, opening the door just a little further, and placing her hand, palm out, to the dog’s cold nose. The animal sniffed eagerly at it. Snorted even. The winds blew into her face and body, freezing her, as she opened the door an inch further and shone the light down.

A bloodhound, she realized, recognizing the face.

The dog regarded her with those sad, sad eyes.

Then it opened its mouth to pant, revealing teeth stained in blood.

Marie’s breath glowed on the air just as a terrific force smashed the door aside, flinging her back against the steps. The hard edges stabbed her back, bringing her to the edge of blacking out. The flashlight rattled on the floor, bleaching it. Bare claws scuttled across, white in the light’s glare.

Marie screamed just as a mass of fur plowed into her face.

A second before teeth fastened on her throat.

“Phone’s dead,” Ross reported after replacing the silent receiver on its cradle.

“Yeah,” Kirk acknowledged from Borland’s washroom, pulling on a fresh undershirt and sweater taken from a chest of drawers. He hunted about for a new coat, but resigned to wear the one with the slashes in the front and back. Troubling thoughts darted about his mind, and the course of action he was forced to take.

“Listen,” Kirk called out. “Take a peek outside and tell me what you see, okay? Check on those two guys.”

“Okay.”

Kirk wandered back into the kitchen and opened the fridge door, inspecting the almost unseen contents. He was weak, near faint from blood loss, and the only thing he could think of that would rejuvenate him was food. Half a roast chicken lay splayed out on a platter and he scooped it up without a thought as to how long it might have been in there. The leg came off in his hand with a twist and he stuffed it into his mouth, rubbery skin and all. He then found a plastic jug with about a liter of water, a half loaf of homemade bread, a little stale but edible, and a few containers of peanut butter which he knew from smell alone. All of this, he tore into.

Ross entered the dark kitchen and heard Kirk devouring the food before he saw him. “The hell are you doin’?”

Kirk glanced up, jowls working on a chunk of chicken thigh. “Hungry.”

“Y’picked a fucked-up time to eat, y’freak.”

“Suppose so.” Kirk swallowed. “You check on them?”

“Yeah.” Ross sounded dazed.

“And?”

“They’re dogs.”

Kirk stopped eating.

“Yeah, they’re fuckin’ dogs, man. I even went out and kicked them. One even… one even had its head blown off. I mean, what the fuck is goin’ on here, Doug?”

Kirk cleared his throat. “I’m… not exactly sure. Just listen for a minute. I can’t tell you everything. I shouldn’t be telling you
anything
, but I figure I have to tell you something. You a superstitious man?”

“Huh?”

“Believe in vampires, werewolves, that kind of thing?”

Ross didn’t answer. His shadowy outline merely stood and stared.