Howl

Damn it people, move! If you moved much slower, it would be January before I made it home…

There are people everywhere as I walk down the slush-coated street, wrapped in my hunter green winter’s jacket. My dress shoes are in a small backpack, my heavy winter boots hit the wet snow on the pavement with a soft, hissing squish. And yet, despite the grey, cold weather, there are people bustling around everywhere, at four in the afternoon, clamoring to get a look at the Christmas tree the city’s installed not even five blocks from the hospital. The perks of living in downtown Grand Rapids – you get all of the tourist behavior from the locals, but none of the actual tourists.

I sigh heavily as I slowly force my way through a crowd of people, murmuring an apology as I kept my head down. I could have gone to the hospital to see Andrea, yes – but not dressed in my work clothes, not dressed in the crisp business shirt and blue-striped tie, not in my dress pants. She hated seeing me like that, she hated feeling like I was doing all the work while she couldn’t do any. It would have been too painful for her, it would have reminded her too much of what she’d already lost. No, I had to change first before I went to see her, because I didn’t want to, and couldn’t, bear to do that to her.

My phone chirps cheerfully in my pocket, and I pull away from the flow of foot traffic towards the brick wall of a local pizzeria. Glancing at the phone’s touch screen, I realize where the number is from.

The oncologist.

Oh dear God, now what’s wrong? I worry, hastily answering.

“Hello, Michael speaking…”

“Thank goodness, Mr. Zarkoff, we’ve caught you when you were leaving work… There’s been an emergency.”

My heart sunk into my stomach and all traces of blood drained from my face.

“W-what…?” I whispered, leaning against the building to stabilize myself.

“Your wife…” The oncologist trailed off, clearly trying to decide how to word his statement, “Please do not panic, but your wife is in critical condition. We were doing a routine CAT scan this morning, and we discovered a tumor located on the left frontal lobe of her brain. Now, it’s not a very big tumor, but we’d been monitoring her in case something happens…”

The world screeched to a halt, and my hands shook. My throat parched, and my legs threatened to collapse on me.

“No… no, doctor, this… there has to be some mistake, it… she can’t…”

“I understand how frightened you are for her, but at this point the only options are to remove the tumor, or to pull her off life support. If we remove it, she could live a bit longer, but if we don’t… if we don’t, she could suffer severe brain damage or worse. It depends on your wishes for her, Mr. Zarkoff…”

Brain damage.

The words hit me like a sledgehammer to the face.

Brain damage.

Either I lose her mentally, then physically… or I lose her physically.

Either you lose her now… or you lose her later.

“Remove it…” The words sound as if a much older man had said them. “Doctor… please… remove it…”

“We’ll do so immediately, Mr. Zarkoff, but we need you to sign off on some paperwork before we do. If you can make it to the hospital as soon as possible…”

“Just do the damn operation and I’ll get to the paperwork later, I gave you permission!”

“Mr. Zarkoff, it’s a legal obligation, we have to have written permission before we do any invasive surgery, let alone brain surgery…”

The connection began to waver, and I stared up in frustration at the winter clouds overhead. Damn weather…

“Mr. ...arkoff, can you still hear…? You’re cutting out…”

“I’m sorry, I’m outside,” I replied, “But I’ll make it to the hospital as soon as possible.”

“Can’t make out… saying, but try… as soon as possible. We need –”

The call cut out abruptly, leaving my phone to blare a busy signal. That’s not right, the weather shouldn’t have made it hang like that… I think, fiddling with the lagging piece of technology in frustration, watching the graphics glitch strangely as I tried to pick up a signal again.

Someone’s hand landed on my shoulder. Its fingers were skeletal, and its touch was chillingly cold. Familiarly so. And whomever it was stood behind me.

I immediately spun on my heel to face the unknown person, and for the first time in minutes, I looked up. I wish like hell I hadn’t, because there stood the Man, featureless face tilted down towards mine in intrigue, the little girl Mori peeking out from behind his stilt-like legs.

“I fucking told you not to do that again!” I screeched, jolting away from his touch and curling into myself. I hated him. I hated being near him, I hated how he made every fiber of my being curdle into itself, I hated how everything felt so very wrong near him, I hated how he forced me to stay, and I hated that I couldn’t get away from him.

The tall being’s eyeless stare intensified in its focus, and it was as if a spotlight has suddenly exposed me, as if hundreds cameras turned towards me, as if thousands of eyes watched my every move. I felt… small, painfully small, and isolated in my discomfort, every motion I would have made intensifying the off-kilter sensation of time slowing down…

I shrank away and bit my tongue, feeling more than comprehending the creature’s meaning. The Man was upset at my comment. Very upset…

“You should watch your language, Michael,” the child murmured, approaching me slowly and staring at me with her sad eyes. “He says it’s very rude.”

“S-sorry… I… I just…” My eyes fell to the ground, and clamped shut. Jesus Christ, I have never felt this incredibly vulnerable, this shaken, around any other person or creature. It was as if an instant anxiety attack had started, like speaking to my boss after getting in trouble at work. And I never wanted to experience it ever again.

“You were scared,” Mori responded, finishing my sentence for me. “He knows. You are always scared… Good thing he interrupted or you would have made a fool of yourself in front of everyone…”

The girl motioned to the surrounding crowd, and I looked up to find the world frozen. Literally frozen, as if I had stepped into a snapshot of the busy street. People were stuck mid-stride, snowflakes hung still in the air, cars waited at traffic lights that never changed from red to green...

Awed, I glanced to my glitching phone, looking at the digital clock. The readout displayed the time as 4:15 PM and 49 seconds, not so much as starting to change the digits over.

“… How…?” I asked, the question escaping me as I glanced up in awe and fear at the Man. “Why…?”

The tall being gave a slight nod, his gaze never wavering from mine.

“Courtesy,” Mori responded, folding her hands behind her back and nodding. “He says you’re welcome.”

“No,” I responded, shuddering to myself as I began to comprehend just how powerful this made the Man. “No, I mean… why? Why are you following me? Why won’t you or any of the others just let me be? I… what did I ever do… to deserve…?”

 “No.”

I looked to the girl and her master in confusion, both of them shaking their heads at me.

“No?” I asked, confused. “No? What do you mean, no? That… that doesn’t make any sense, none of this makes any sense, none of the shit I’ve been dealing with since Andrea got sick makes any goddamn sense!”

“No,” the girl murmured again, a small smirk playing about her lips. “He doesn’t want to leave you alone. He won’t, because he knows you’re still scared. Because you won’t answer his question.”

“What question?” I sighed, squirming under the Man’s gaze and completely exhausted. “You need to answer mine first, what do you want with me?”

“His first, then yours. What are you going to do, Michael? Not what you’re going to do with Andrea, nothing can be done for her. What are you going to do with yourself?”

The Man’s gaze intensified, and my mind reeled with the question. The pressure was so much, too much, so intense. He wanted an answer to something I couldn’t predict. He wanted something I couldn’t give. And I was never going to get rid of him until I answered him.

Despair and panic began to grip me, and I crumbled.

“I… I don’t know,” I whispered, shoulders slumping, and tears forming at the corners of my eyes. “I don’t know, alright? I can’t answer your goddamn question, because I don’t fucking know… How can I give an answer to something I don’t know?”

I trembled with the shockwaves of the Man’s scrutiny drilling through me, and something warm and wet slid down my face to land on the frigid ground below. My whole world was imploding and all I wanted to do was forget about it. Why did these hallucinations, these nightmares given form, why did they want to keep reminding me? Why?

“Why do you care what happens?” I asked the ground, clamping my eyes shut. Just go away. All I want is for you to go away…

“He’s more interested in why you care, Michael,” the girl responded, tugging gently on my coat to get my attention.

“How can something that can’t even emote,” I snapped, eyes slamming open and flicking towards the child and the Man, “Know what love is? You say you two know me so damn well, even better than I know myself? Then you’d know I would do anything to make it alright for her. I would die for her if it meant she’d live. How can I expect a monster to understand that?”

The Man’s head inclined in intrigue, as if processing my response, and the girl said nothing for a very long time. Then, slowly, the Man’s long, thin arm rose, his hand pointing to something behind me in the distance.

“What?” I asked, turning to look behind me. “What are you…?”

I trailed off, watching the crowd of people moving once more, the snow falling onto my face in gentle flakes, the traffic in the streets pull away from the now green traffic light. I heard the swoosh of tires on slushy pavement, the sharp slap of feet hitting concrete, the babbling undercurrent of speech, the sound of a dog yelping and snarling…

Wait, what?

My eyes focused on the alleyway entrance not more than seven feet away, and I watched as a four-legged creature limped pitifully from the alley into the street, sending people backing away as they, too noticed it. It was a stray dog, but not a normal one… no, this poor creature looked as if it had been through hell and back. Its black fur was falling out in chunks and it was bleeding in places. Its emaciated body little more than a skeleton with skin stretched over the frame, I could see hip and shoulder joints protruding, rubbing the skin raw. And its left leg… it held its paw against itself, shaking from malnourishment as it moved slowly onto the sidewalk before finally collapsing to the ground, exhausted.

Instantly, a crowd began to form around the stray, keeping its distance as murmurs of concern rose from the people gathering there.

“Oh my God, that poor animal…”

“Stay back, it might be rabid!”

“There’s no way it’s rabid, it’s not foaming at the mouth…”

“Looks like it’s dying…”

“Someone call animal control!”

Concerned, I approached the crowd, listening as the dog continued to growl weakly at the growing crowd of people. I’d never had animals as a child, but I had friends who did, and always got along well with their pets. Even then, I was wary – clearly, this animal didn’t want anyone near it, and I wasn’t about to end up getting bit over my concern for an animal that looked sick.

The dog sensed my approach immediately, and quieted, whining as it turned towards me. Its red, bloodshot eyes regarded me oddly, with a look of trust I found strange for such an injured, ill animal. It was almost chilling how curious the dog regarded me, its eyes never leaving mine. As if it knew something I didn’t…

As soon as I peered into the crowd at the sickly animal, I felt horror and pity overwhelm me. Long, thin scars marred the dog’s flaking, mangy skin, likely from a whip or a chain of some sort. Where there weren’t any scars, infected-looking ulcers wept bloody pus, gangrenous at the edges. I could see its spine and ribs protruding under the skin, amongst other bones. And the creature’s leg… I could barely call the poor thing’s leg a leg, considering it was so swollen, bloodied, and mangled by tumors that it looked more like a fleshy, stomach-churning mass.

The dog whimpered, licking at its raw wounds, and shivered in the slushy street.

I don’t know what in the hell possessed me to kneel down in front of the animal and extend my hand to let it sniff it. It was a damn stupid idea, and I knew it. Even the crowd around me knew it, and began yelling at me.

“Back away, it’ll bite you!”

“The hell is he doing…?”

“He’s gonna make it angry…”

The dog looked up at me with its tired, reddened eyes, and sniffled at my fingers carefully before extending its tongue and licking them. Its bony tail feebly banged against the pavement, more of a twitch than a wag.

“Hey there, buddy…” I murmured, choking back my horror at the animal’s condition. “You’re someone’s pet… aren’t you?”

The dog looked up in understanding, its gaze never leaving mine, and I felt anger flood my core. This animal… this animal was tame. It had only ever snapped out of fear and pain. It was someone’s pet, and it had clearly been neglected, or worse yet, abused…

I stood, frustrated, and reached to pull out my phone, but was stopped by a young brunette woman.

“You don’t have to, my uncle’s with the Grand Rapids Police Department,” she responded, holding up her phone. “I already called his department. Someone should be here shortly.”

“You’re a saint…”

“No, sir, I just can’t stand to see an animal suffer like that…”

“Neither can I,” I responded, watching as the rest of the crowd began to dissipate. “I don’t understand why…”

“I know what you mean,” the woman said, adjusting her purse strap. “Some people are just monsters… hurting an animal like that. I don’t understand why either… Labs are normally such sweet, friendly dogs, too…”

She looked down towards the wounded dog, which proceeded to growl at her menacingly.

“Kind of weird it only seems to like you, though…”

“Yeah… that is rather strange, now that you mention it…”

The soft swoosh of car tires sounded on pavement, and I looked up to notice the police cruiser, followed by a white-marked animal control van, pull up to the curb. Out stepped a blue-clad officer, his dark hair trimmed neatly under his cap.

“Officer Hernandez, Grand Rapids Police Department,” the policeman said, approaching both I and the dog as the animal control unit behind him piled out of the van and proceeded to assemble their equipment. “I understand there was a call concerning a stray animal.”

“Yes, officer, this young lady made that call,” I responded, nodding towards her.

The officer nodded in response at the young woman, then turned his attention to the snarling animal on the pavement. A few people down the street stopped and watched the proceedings, a crowd once more beginning to form around the perimeter of the scene.

“He stumbled out of that alley over there,” the brunette added, pointing towards the alley in question. “This man managed to calm the dog down, but we’re concerned he might have been neglected, or at least could be dangerous…”

“Alright, well we did call for an animal control unit,” the officer responded, glancing at the dog. “I’ll have to ask you two to step away while they get the dog contained. Neither of you happened to see or know who the owner of this animal is?”

“No, officer, I didn’t,” I responded, and the brunette shook her head. “But the dog seems to calm down if I’m close to it.”

“Understood, sir, but I’ll still need to ask that, for your own safety, you step back from the dog, please.”

Reluctantly, I looked at the dog and stepped back, watching as the animal control personnel brought in a red-and-white pole. On the end of the pole was a loop. A loop which the dog proceeded to snarl at as it shakily stood, barking and growling angrily.

“Don’t hurt it,” I cried, worried.

“It’s okay, I’ve seen this on TV,” the woman responded. “It’s a catchpole, they’re just trying to make sure neither they nor the dog gets hurt.”

I watched as the dog instantly turned vicious as soon as the loop surrounded its neck. Its teeth clamped against the metal catchpole, snarling and barking angrily as it twisted with violence I would never have thought possible for an injured animal. Eventually, the dog gave up, exhausted but still upset, watching the animal control officers in nervous anticipation as they slowly lead it towards the van.

The dog looked meaningfully at me as it was pulled away, tail wagging as if waiting for me to follow. It killed me. I couldn’t just leave the poor thing there, even if it was in the right hands…

“… Let me go with you, officer,” I murmured, concerned.

“Sir, that would be unnecessary and unhelpful,” the policeman responded, “And we’d rather not a civilian get hurt. The dog’s in good hands, trust us.”

“Officer, this man single-handedly calmed that animal down when nobody else could,” the young woman protested, watching as the animal control officers scanned the dog with a microchip reader. “He might know something that nobody else saw…”

The microchip reader beeped as it swept over the dog’s shoulders, and the animal control officer looked at the readout, interested.

“Officer Hernandez, this animal is from near Bridge Street and Pine Avenue, not too far from here,” she announced, putting the reader aside. “We’ve had trouble with an animal hoarder near there, but as far as I know, no cases of neglect…”

“Wait,” I said, looking from her to the officer and back. “Did… did you say near Bridge and Pine?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s… that’s not all that far from where I live,” I responded, concerned. “I live at Riverfront Apartments, I can literally see that area from my house… And I know a few people from that area who own dogs…”

The officer was instantly interested, regarding me with a stony, intrigued look.

“Actually sir… perhaps you should come with us,” he said, nodding. “I’m going to accompany the animal control unit to the ASPCA’s Grand Rapids chapter, and I’ve got a few questions for you…”

He then nodded to the young woman.

“Thank you for the call, ma’am. Rest assured, we’ll figure out who’s responsible for this.”

“Thank you, officer,” the young woman replied, turning to me. “Don’t let ‘em make you too nervous, okay? They’re trying to find out what happened to the dog, not bringing you to jail… You take care.”

“You too.”

A small smile from the woman, and she turned to walk away, disappearing into the rest of the foot traffic. I watched her leave as the officer turned to me once more.

“Now, sir, if you could please follow me to the car…”

The drive to the animal shelter was short and tense. I am a good man. I’ve never been arrested or otherwise had cause to be in a police officer’s car before, but something about being in one even for questioning as a witness made me unspeakably tense. It almost felt as though I was in trouble, as if I had broken some unspoken taboo… 

Andrea is never going to hear a single word of this, I silently promised myself as the officer parked in front of the animal shelter and proceeded to start questioning me. The interview only had a few questions to it, and it was barely ten minutes long, and yet, it felt like thirty. Funny how, once you get in an uncomfortable situation, even for a minute, you can’t help but want it to just stop. It did eventually stop, of course, once the officer was satisfied with the information he’d received, and the both of us walked into the animal shelter.

Thank God, I never want to do that again.

The wait was excruciating as I watched the on-call veterinarian take the tranquilized animal, shivering and bundled in a blanket, into his arms, murmuring lowly to it in order to calm the dog down. The animal control officers followed, followed by several vet techs, and they stayed in the back room for a very, very long time.

So much for getting to the hospital to sign that paperwork, I thought, listening to melting snow drip off the gutters outside and glancing at my phone. It was now five in the afternoon, and I was beginning to worry. What if Andrea died while waiting for my signature on a bullshit piece of legal paperwork? What if she lapsed into a coma while waiting? What if they did the operation because they couldn’t wait anymore, and botched it, and she bled out on the operating table?

The horror flooded me, trickling slowly into my gut.

Oh my God, no. No, please. Michael, don’t say that. Please don’t say that, don’t think about it, just. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don-

“Are you alright, sir?”

I jolted, looking up at the officer next to me. His face had softened, his dark eyes no longer seemed as critical as they were before.

“No, it’s my… it’s my wife,” I said, sighing. “She’s in the hospital undergoing chemo, and she needs to have surgery done, and I was supposed to be there…”

The officer’s eyes fell to the floor as he considered what to say, and slowly came to meet mine again.

“I’m sorry to hear that, sir,” he said, his voice no longer containing its serious edge. “My sister… bless her, I lost my sister to pancreatic cancer three years ago. It’s scary stuff.”

I nodded numbly, staring at the white-tiled floor.

“Hey. I know it’s rough. You’ll get through this, okay? Things happen for a reason.”

“How do you know that?” I asked, looking up at the officer wearily.

He shrugged, eyes sincere.

“It’s just something you have to have faith in. Helped me. Didn’t stop the pain, but it’s a comforting thought at least.”

The soft sound of sneakers on tile sounded, and both I and the officer looked up to see the veterinarian, clad head to toe in blue scrubs, walking into the room with the shaking dog in his arms. But as I looked at his face, I felt an odd sense of déjà vu. Had I seen this man before, somewhere…?

The awful realization hit me as soon as he spoke.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, his voice as grimy as an oil slick as he spoke to me. “But is this your animal? From what I understand, he’s come from near your area…”

I looked up nervously at the Surgeon, feeling my stomach churn. God, not him. Not him again. I’d just dealt with the man and the girl earlier, and now him, too?

“N-no, doctor, he’s not my dog,” I murmured, hands shaking.

The Surgeon nodded once or twice, then turned to the policeman.

“Officer, if you don’t mind, I’d like to speak to this man alone, seeing as he’s the one who found the animal…”

“Not a problem, doctor,” the officer said, standing. “I’ve got all the information about the case I need, I think, and I’ll be taking it to my superiors immediately. This is starting to look more and more like an animal cruelty case by the minute, and I don’t like it…”

The officer nodded to me in farewell, and then to the Surgeon before leaving the animal shelter… and me alone with the creature in front of me.

“What?” I murmured, fidgeting and eying the Surgeon warily as he set the dog down on the floor. “What now?”

“Michael, you should be aware that this animal is not going to survive,” he said, calmly folding his gloved hands behind his back. “She, and yes, she is female, is not only suffering a severe case of bone cancer, but is also afflicted with mange, which comes from a type of mite. Interesting little creatures, demodex mites, they tunnel through skin like dirt... It’s the most severe case I’ve ever seen on a dog, actually… big fleas have little fleas, you know, and so on, ad infinitum…”

“What are you even talking about?” I asked, disturbed. “She’s not my dog…”

“What I mean to say, Michael,” the Surgeon continued, flicking his mildew-green eyes towards me, “Is that the bitch will likely have to be put down. And you, being the one who found her, will have to give consent.”

At this, the dog looked up at me, eyes fixed on me intensely, eyes fixed with an oddly human intelligence… wait, had it gotten more injured since I’d last seen it? I didn’t recall it being blinded in one eye, or its ear having been torn like that… and wasn’t it the other paw that it had been favoring earlier?

Cold chills shot down my spine, and I squirmed in my chair. Was this dog another one of them, the things haunting me, just like the man, and the old woman with the birds, and the Surgeon? Just like the boy? Just like all the rest? The old woman in the park had said there would be others… was this what she meant?

“It’s nothing personal, of course,” the Surgeon continued, casually walking to the hand sanitizer bottle on the desk and pulling at the nitrile gloves on his hands. They slid too easily off his gangrenous, rotting skin, mildewed and slick with some foul secretion or another from his infection, and the smell alone sent my stomach into aerobatics. “I’m not trying to force you to cause harm… It’s just that someone must at least be told about the dog’s condition and why the euthanasia is occurring.

I watched as the Surgeon dropped the contaminated gloves into a nearby trash bin, then applied the alcoholic hand sanitizer to his hands. As if it would have done something against that level of bacterial contamination and destruction… Didn’t it hurt, putting alcohol into an injury like that?

“Safety first,” the Surgon murmured sarcastically, picking the dog back up once more. “Now, Michael… can I trust that your continued silence here is consent to euthanize the dog? Yes? Very well, then…”

I watched, distressed and unable to speak, as the Surgeon calmly walked towards the door to the back room, dog in tow.

“Oh, and Michael? Do try to cheer up. At least you can rest easy knowing that she’ll no longer suffer… Do no harm, you know…”

The back room door slammed shut behind him, and I stared numbly at it for a second, calming my churning insides. For about five seconds, I thought about the Surgeon’s words as I stared at the door, thinking, contemplating… What if it did come to that? What if I did have to pull the plug? What if I did have to let Andrea go…? Would I be able to if it came down to that versus a slow, painful death for her?

I bristled where I sat, unsure. What if it did… and I couldn’t?

My phone chirped brightly at me, and instantly my hand flew to my pocket. The phone rested against my ear as I answered.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mr. Zarkoff? I’m sorry to interrupt, but we really do need you to sign this paperwork…”

“I know, I just…” I sighed heavily, standing and walking out the front door. “There was an emergency involving a dog, the police were called, and I was asked in for questioning. They thought it was my dog, and my car isn’t here to get me to the hospital, I’m sorry…”

“No, it’s… it’s understandable, we just need you here as soon as possible… do you need us to call a taxi for you?”

“That would be nice, thank you… I’m at the animal shelter, on Blandford Drive?”

“No problem, that’s maybe a half a mile from here. We’ll send the taxi, and see you when you get here…”

The phone clicked off as I sat on the bench outside the animal shelter, waiting.

Somewhere in the trees above, a raven cawed.