Free Night Howl by Andrew Neiderman

and came back out at him. Then it died away in the darkness. He understood that others would come and find the man dead, but he hadn’t killed him the way he killed deer and rabbits. Perhaps they wouldn’t know he’d done it and they wouldn’t come looking for him in packs.
    But he couldn’t be sure, so he listened to his instincts and fled to the security of the forest darkness. He stayed close to the farmhouse, watching, waiting, and listening. He saw the other man drive up to the house and enter it. He saw him come out and he heard the man shouting. He watched the man find the body and he watched the pack arrive with their lights and noise. He thought it was wiser to go away from the farm and back toward the house where the dog had lived. There, in the woods across the road, he found a space between two large boulders and slipped himself securely within. Through the trees he could see the lights of the house and remain undetected. He rested his head on his outstretched front legs and waited.
    When he closed his eyes, a hodgepodge of images and memories began to play on the inside of his eyelids. The earlier remembrances were disjointed and sensual; there were things that made his mouth water, tastes he had nearly forgotten; he recalled feelings of warmth, the tongue of a larger creature, like himself, stroking him. He remembered the sound of flowing water and he remembered running in a field, digging holes in soft earth, going in and out of structures that took him through darkness and into light; he remembered being lifted and stroked and then being kicked and slapped by the same kind of creature. Once again he felt himself being tugged; he remembered the collar being tightened on his throat until it made him gag and he had no alternative but to turn or stop or to lie down.
    Then there was another kind of light, a brighter light, and the confinement of bars. He pressed his nose in-between them and took in the scents of things he didn’t recognize. These images, which were more recent memories, were like nightmares now; they made him uneasy and he couldn’t prevent a spontaneous growl from forming at the bottom of his throat. He pawed the earth and opened his eyes to escape thememories. Something burned at the base of his brain and he gagged on his own breath.
    He started to stand but lowered his body immediately at the sight of the approaching ambulance. When he had heard it coming to the farmhouse before, it had made him think of some giant bird, some creature that had been in a cage not far from his. He recalled how it had lifted its claws through the bars and had thrust those claws repeatedly in his direction. Its eyes glowed like the tiny bulbs on the metal boxes around them and it screamed hideously at him until it fell over and lay still in the cage. He saw them take it out and he saw them put it on a table and cut it open.
    He had gotten to the point where he was very content to simply sit there and watch them. They didn’t seem to notice him as much as he noticed them. He watched what they did with their hands, with their tools, and with their bodies; he came to an understanding of the meanings in many of their gestures and sounds. After a while he was able to anticipate what they were going to do and he was cooperative or uncooperative according to his own curiosity. If he wanted to see the outcome of something they were going to do, he was as pliable and as easy as an obedient puppy, but if he was bored because he had done it so many times before, he put up some resistance.
    When the police car appeared, his memories were interrupted again. He saw the car pause in front of the house and he saw the spotlight go on to wash away the darkness around the doghouse. He lowered himself into the full protection of the rocks and waited. To him the vehicle seemed like some giant creature, panting while it decided what it would do next. When it started away, he rose to watch it disappear down the street. Once it was