Instinct (20 page)

CHAPTER 12: LAKE ERIE, NEW YORK

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EDRIC
and turned his attention back to his stride. He had a habit of scraping his right foot when he wasn’t putting his full energy into his running. That scraping would trip him up when he got tired enough. It would also eat up his right shoe.

After another ten minutes of easy jogging, Tim pulled up and stopped. Cedric looked up at him.

“I think we’ve gone more than two miles. Did I miss a sign while I was thinking about Thanksgiving?” he asked the dog. Tim spun slowly and looked around. They were on a country road with widely-spaced houses and a faded double-yellow line down the center.
 

Cedric sat down on the pavement.
 

“You look thirsty,” Tim said. “I’m thirsty.”

Tim lifted his heel to his butt, stretching his thigh. He repeated with the other foot. He headed towards the only house that was close. Cedric bounded ahead.

The door was closed, but unlocked. After testing the handle, Tim knocked and waited.

“I know it’s silly, but after those crazy people on Sunset Point, I don’t want to take any chances.”

He knocked one more time and then opened the door. The house was stuffy and warm. It smelled of baked dust. Tim knew what to do. He started with the kitchen. Their best bet was a well-stocked pantry. He threw open a few cabinets. He found some cat food, some crackers, and a sealed bag of chips. Anything non-perishable, he moved to the table. He swept aside a stack of junk mail.
 

“No bottled water,” he said, as he dumped some cat food into a small bowl. Cedric waited for him to place the bowl on the floor before he dove in.

Tim found a couple of big pots in a lower cabinet. He whistled as he glanced around for the basement steps. For an old place, the basement was in good shape. It was a poured foundation, with little windows on two sides that let in plenty enough light to see. Cedric came down the stairs as Tim squatted in front of the well’s pressure tank. He positioned a pot in front of the drain spigot and turned the handle. Clear, cold water flooded into the pot. Tim switched it out when it was full.

“Don’t drink it yet. Better safe than sorry.”

Tim took the pots up one at a time and set them on the gas stove. He lit the burners to boil the pots of water. He dumped another can of cat food in Cedric’s bowl and then sat at the table.

“When we were running, I kept thinking about the day we met,” he said to the dog. “I swear, you saved my life in that police station.”

Tim couldn’t sit still. His legs still wanted to run. He pushed up to explore the rest of the house.

The first floor had one bedroom and another tiny room that served as an office. The desk took up most the room. Tim sat down in the office chair and opened the laptop sitting there. The battery was dead. He pulled open the drawers and glanced at the contents.

He heard a noise behind him and spun to see the dog.

“You scared me.”

Cedric wagged his tail.

Tim turned back to close the drawers. As papers slid, he spotted something silver. It was a spare battery for the laptop. Tim pressed the little button. He was surprised when three green lights appeared.

“Half charge!” He turned and gave a thumbs-up to Cedric.

Tim plugged the battery in and turned on the laptop. It booted while he walked back to the kitchen. There were still several things that could go wrong. The machine could be broken, or locked by a password. He went to the stove and watched the water heating up. The machine made a welcoming sound and Tim looked over to see that it was up and running.

“Surprise, surprise.”

Tim patted his pockets until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a USB drive and turned over the laptop until he found where to plug it in. When he did, a window popped open with the contents of his drive. He scrolled through until he found what he was looking for.
 

“You know what? Better safe than sorry.”

He copied all his images to the machine and then removed the USB drive and put it back into his pocket. With the images duplicated to the machine, he began to review them once more. He slid the window to the side so he wouldn’t see the preview. Most of the pictures he had were of the hypnotic murals. He didn’t want to collapse in this strange house with water boiling on the stove.

“Here it is,” he said. He opened an image of a map he’d scanned. The edge of the map ended just south of his location. “Damn,” he whispered.

The water boiled. He turned off the burners and shutdown the laptop. He added the computer to the stack of useful things he’d found.

“It’s still hot. You can’t have it until it cools down. You should know that by now. How long do dogs remember things? Do you remember your old house? That little blue place with the suicide? That’s the first place I saw one of those murals. I don’t have a picture of it. I didn’t start taking pictures until after the police station. I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared than that day.”

Tim remembered.

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He slid to a stop under the counter and pulled his legs around the corner. He heard the door creaking as its spring slowly dragged it closed. He looked at the dog. Its amber eyes were wide and its ears twitched at each sound. The dog’s nostrils flared as it sniffed the air.

Tim couldn’t see much but the floor under the desks. Another shadow passed across the windows and he watched it make it a quick pass, back and forth, over the floor. From the lobby, he didn’t hear a thing. He didn’t hear footsteps, or breathing. Tim waited. He forced himself to breathe slowly, in and out. His instinct was to hold his breath, but he knew if he did, he would eventually have to suck in noisy air.

That’s when Tim’s memory of the day had a strange gap. He knew he had been hiding, trying to not make a sound. He had been huddled under the counter, with his legs pulled to his chest. The next thing he knew, he had a strange pain in his arm.

Tim looked down, surprised to see that he was on his knees and his head was about to move around the corner, in full view of the lobby. His arm was clamped between the jaws of the dog he’d rescued from the locked house. The dog wasn’t squeezing or tearing at his arm. In fact, although it was painful, he doubted if the bite had even broken his skin. But the dog was persistent. It didn’t let go, even when Tim tugged.
 

He pushed his arm towards the dog and caught the dog’s eyes in a stare. After a second, the dog’s jaws opened and let go of Tim’s arm.

Tim actually opened his mouth to thank the dog, when a jar of pencils fell to the floor a couple of desks away. Tim closed his mouth again and looked under the desk. The jar was still rolling back and forth. He saw another shadow pass between the desks.

A low hum seemed to vibrate the air around him. It sounded like a machine, very far away, but the vibration was close. He could feel it making his hair dance and making his knees itch where they touched the floor.

Tim looked to the dog again.The dog was squinting its eyes, like it was expecting to be hit. While he watched, the dog closed its eyes entirely and rested its head on its paws. Tim didn’t know why, but this suddenly seemed like a good idea. He closed his own eyes and rested back on his heels.
 

This time he did hold his breath. He focused all his attention on what he could hear, which was just the humming sound and the rocking sound of the pencil jar, which refused to sit still.

Something brushed by Tim’s face, but he kept his eyes shut. The feeling was cold and prickly on his skin. The thing brushed the back of his hand, and then his ear. Tim kept his eyes shut. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to see it.

He waited there until his shoulders began to cramp and his knees ached from the hard floor. He heard the rattle of the dog’s tags and finally opened his eyes. The room seemed brighter than before.

The dog had its eyes open. It sniffed at the air and then rose to its feet. It glanced back at Tim and then started to weave between the desks. Tim wasn’t sure what to do. He could go back out through the heavy doors and hope that the thing was gone. If his bike was still there, he could continue on his quest to find the authorities. Perhaps the police station had some communication device that was powered by a generator. Maybe he could find a way…

The dog reappeared between the desks and looked at him.

Tim glanced around. He didn’t know what the dog wanted. In fact, he had just started to think that he might be free of the dog.

The dog didn’t make a sound, but somehow communicated to Tim with only its eyes. Tim crawled after the dog.

They went through the back door of the station and found stairs that led to the parking garage. Tim stayed low and followed the dog behind a short concrete wall. The dog used its nose to choose their path. It looked around often to make sure Tim was following—at least that’s how Tim interpreted the dog’s actions.

Through a gate, they found a path that ran alongside a tiny graveyard. The space was bounded by the garage on one side and buildings on the others. The dog moved quickly between the old headstones and waited at the backdoor of the church. Tim followed. He was sure the church would be locked. It was Thanksgiving—most everything was probably locked. He tugged on the door and was surprised to find it swing out. The dog slipped inside.

Tim continued to follow. The dog seemed to have a purpose.

They ducked into a few rooms that were dead ends. Apparently, the dog’s navigation wasn’t perfect. These would look like normal offices and classrooms if it weren’t for the religious paintings and statues everywhere. Tim avoided the icons with a deep superstition.

They eventually found their way to a side exit. The dog sniffed at the gap under the door and Tim looked out the window. He didn’t see anything in the sky, and didn’t see any unexplained shadows passing overhead.

He waited until the dog scratched at the door and then he pushed it open a few inches. They both seemed to have the same concern. Both Tim and the dog peered through the crack up to the sky. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but Tim studied the sky for any threats. It seemed risky to move out to the street and he didn’t even know why.
 

He let the door close on its own and stood back from it. Tim wiped his face and tried to think. Whatever had been in the lobby of the police station could follow them here, or it could be outside. He didn’t know enough to make a decision. The windows on either side of the door had panes of frosted glass. Each pane had a painted handprint in the center. They looked like pedestrian traffic signals, telling Tim to stop.
 

The dog walked forward until its nose hit the door. The dog pushed forward, deflecting its own nose until its whole face pressed against the metal. Still, the dog’s legs tried to propel it forward. Tim cocked his head as he watched. He heard a click within the door and then recognized it as the latch mechanism. The door was about to open by itself, allowing the dog to walk out into the sunlight.

Tim grabbed the dog’s collar, hoping its head wouldn’t swing around to bite him again. He knew better though. He knew the dog hadn’t been biting him earlier. It had been saving him. Now he had the choice to return the favor. The dog was strong and its will increased as a sliver of light appeared in the crack of the door. Tim dragged.
 

He pulled the dog to the stairs that led down into the darkness. The dog’s feet slid against the tile as it pushed all four legs straight out, trying to resist Tim’s pull. The light from the door cast a thin band of brightness on the floor. The band was growing wider each second. Something was pulling the door open. Tim pulled the dog. Tim was four stairs down when the dog’s front feet finally slipped over the edge of the top stair. The change in balance seemed to wake the dog up. Its head whipped around, it saw the door, and life returned to the dog’s eyes. It shot past Tim and ran down the stairs. Tim followed.

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Tim eased the door shut behind him. The room wasn’t entirely dark, but it was close. Only tiny pinpricks of blue light on his right gave him reference. Tim shuffled forward. The dog was somewhere up ahead, moving silently. As Tim neared the lights, he saw the dancing blue flames. They were pairs of pilot lights, burning on a long stovetop. They gave him just enough light to navigate the long kitchen. At the far end, a swinging door led to a much larger room.

It was a small gymnasium, with a basketball hoop at one end and a badminton net stretched across the center. On the far wall, high windows looked out at the sidewalk. Tim looked down. The dog poked his head through the gap in the swinging door that Tim held open. The dog looked at him. Tim shook his head. Either dog understood, or it had the same thought. They backed up and let the door shut. They were alone in the dark kitchen with the eternal blue pilot lights.

Tim found a wall and put his back to it. The dog pressed to his side.
 

He worked blind, untying and then unlacing his shoes. He tied the laces together and then made a knot around his wrist. The dog didn’t protest as Tim attached the other end of his laces to the ring on the dog’s collar. They were tethered. Tim let his eyes shut.

The church was a noisy building. Creaks and knocks made Tim jump constantly for the first hour. The dog calmed him. The dog rested its head on Tim’s leg and its breathing settled into a slow rhythm. Eventually, the dark won and Tim fell asleep.

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Tim woke to the dog nudging his hand with its cold nose. He blinked at the darkness and saw the top half of the room in the blue glow from the pilot lights. He crawled to the swinging door and lost one of his shoes in the process. The gym was now darker than the kitchen. The windows were like little optical illusions at the far end of the room. They let in just enough light to give Tim a reference.