Night Howl Read Online Free

he said. “I know it wasn’t because I had to go to the bathroom and I went and I stopped by your door, but you and Mommy didn’t hear me, so I went back tobed. I looked out again, but he was gone. He’ll be back tonight, won’t he?”
    “Clara!”
    “What is it?” Clara said, looking back through the doorway. She had gone to the kitchen to prepare dinner.
    “Now he’s saying the dog was here last night.”
    “I know. He told me the same story.”
    “Didn’t you explain that it was a dream?”
    “He doesn’t believe me. You explain,” she said and disappeared again.
    “All right, I’ll tell you what, Bobby. If King comes back, you come into my room no matter what and wake me up so I can see him too, okay?”
    “All right.”
    “And I want to tell you something else, son. German shepherds are common. You’ll see dogs that look like King from time to time. That doesn’t mean it’s King.”
    “Nobody else has a German shepherd on Lake Street,” he said.
    “That’s true. As far as I know, that is.” He thought about it for a moment. “I’ve been home for three straight days now and I haven’t seen any,” he added, more for himself than for his son.
    “So then it must have been King,” Bobby insisted.
    Sid looked at his son. The kid has my serious expression, he thought. He has Clara’s eyes and Clara’s nose, but when he thinks, he looks like me. Bobby was always precocious. It wasn’t surprising that he held on to his ideas.
    “Listen, Bobby. Do you know what had to be done after King was shot? I didn’t tell you all of it because it isn’t pleasant. They had to cut off his head and send it to the laboratory in Albany for examination to see if he had rabies. Now how could he come around without a head?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “So it can’t be King, right?” He could see that he had succeeded in placing some doubt in Bobby’s mind.
    “I don’t know.”
    “You know. Don’t say you don’t know. He couldn’t go get his head and put it back on again, could he?”
    “No.”
    “Then it wasn’t King or it was a dream, okay?”
    Bobby didn’t respond. Stubborn, just like I am, Sid thought.
    “Why did he bite me?” Bobby asked softly.
    “I don’t know yet, son. But I will. You can be sure of that.”
    “He didn’t want to bite me again. He sat down on the grass and looked up at me. He wanted me to come out and pet him and play with him, just like always.”
    “That was your dream.”
    “What if I’m having a dream and I go out?” Bobby asked.
    “That’s called sleepwalking. Don’t worry, I won’t let you go out.”
    “You didn’t hear me go to the bathroom.”
    “I’ll hear you open the front door. That’s different. Besides, if you went out, there would be nothing there. You’d wake up and come back inside.”
    Bobby looked at the television set and began to work the video sticks, but Sid could see that the boy’s mind wasn’t totally on it. Suddenly, Bobby got up and ran to the front door.
    “Hey, where are you going?”
    “You’ll see,” Bobby said. He opened the door and rushed out. Sid got up reluctantly and followed his son out of the house. The gray afternoon seemed to have grown even darker. Sid thought he saw rain in the approaching overcast. He stood out on the patio and looked about, at first not seeing Bobby. Then he saw him crawling about on the lawn near the rosebush.
    “What are you doing, Bobby?”
    “Here,” his son said. Sid walked to him. “He was here, looking up at me,” Bobby said, pointing to his bedroom window.
    “Bobby,” Sid began, thinking he had to be as patient as possible. The kid had gone through a hell of an experience.
    “Look,” Bobby said, pointing to the soft earth around the rosebush. “See?”
    Sid focused on the ground and then squatted slowly so he could inspect the area Bobby had indicated. There was a paw print there, a large dog’s paw print.
    “He was here,” Bobby said. “It wasn’t a