Watchers (29 page)
Her fantasizing was interrupted when, about forty yards from the stables, she stepped in something mushy and slippery, and nearly fell. She didn’t smell manure, but she figured it must be a pile left by Goodheart when they’d had him out in the yard last evening. Feeling stupid and clumsy, she switched on the flashlight and directed it at the ground, and instead of manure she found the remains of a brutally mutilated cat.
Tracy made a hissing sound of disgust and instantly switched off the flashlight.
The neighborhood was crawling with cats, partly because they were useful for controlling the mouse population around everyone’s stables. Coyotes regularly ventured in from the hills and canyons to the east, in search of prey. Although cats were quick, coyotes were sometimes quicker, and at first Tracy thought a coyote had dug under the fence or leaped over it and had gotten hold of this unfortunate feline, which had probably been prowling for rodents.
But a coyote would have eaten the cat right on the spot, leaving little more than a bit of tail and a scrap or two of fur, for a coyote was a gourmand rather than gourmet and had a ravenous appetite. Or it would have carried the cat away for leisurely consumption elsewhere. Yet this cat had not looked even half-eaten, merely torn to pieces, as if something or someone had killed it merely for the sick pleasure of rending it apart . . .
Tracy shuddered.
And remembered the rumors about the zoo.
In Irvine Park, which was only a couple of miles away, someone apparently had killed several caged animals in the small petting zoo two nights ago. Drug-crazed vandals. Thrill killers. The story was just a hot rumor, and no one was able to confirm it, but there were indications that it was true. Some kids had bicycled out to the park yesterday after school, and they’d not seen any mangled carcasses, but they’d reported that there seemed to be fewer animals in the pens than usual. And the Shetland pony was definitely missing. Park employees had been uncommunicative when approached.
Tracy wondered if the same psychos were prowling Orange Park Acres, killing cats and other family pets, a possibility that was spooky and sickening. Suddenly, she realized that people deranged enough to slaughter cats for the sheer fun of it would also be sufficiently twisted to get a kick out of killing horses.
An almost crippling pang of fear flashed through her as she thought of Goodheart out there in the stable all by himself. For a moment, she could not move.
Around her, the night seemed even quieter than it had been.
It
was
quieter. The crickets were no longer chirruping. The frogs had stopped croaking, too.
was
quieter. The crickets were no longer chirruping. The frogs had stopped croaking, too.
The galleon clouds seemed to have dropped anchor in the sky, and the night appeared to have frozen in the ice-pale glow of the moon.
Something moved in the shrubbery.
Most of the enormous lot was devoted to open expanses of lawn, but a score of trees stood in artfully placed groups—mostly Indian laurels and jacarandas, plus a couple of corals—and there were beds of azaleas, California lilac bushes, Cape honeysuckles.
Tracy distinctly heard shrubbery rustling as something pushed roughly and hurriedly through it. But when she switched on the flashlight and swept the beam around the nearest plantings, she could not see anything moving.
The night was silent again.
Hushed.
Expectant.
She considered returning to the house, where either she could wake her father to ask him to investigate, or she could go to bed and wait until morning to investigate the situation herself. But what if it
was
only a coyote in the shrubbery? In that case, she was in no danger. Though a hungry coyote would attack a very young child, it would run from anyone Tracy’s size. Besides, she was too worried about her noble Goodheart to waste any more time; she had to be sure that the horse was all right.
was
only a coyote in the shrubbery? In that case, she was in no danger. Though a hungry coyote would attack a very young child, it would run from anyone Tracy’s size. Besides, she was too worried about her noble Goodheart to waste any more time; she had to be sure that the horse was all right.
Using the flashlight to avoid any more dead cats that might be strewn about, she headed toward the stable. She had taken only a few steps when she heard the rustling again and, worse, an eerie growling that was unlike the sound of any animal she’d ever heard before.
She began to turn, might have run for the house then, but in the stable Goodheart whinnied shrilly, as if in fear, and kicked at the board walls of his stall. She pictured a leering psycho going after Goodheart with hideous instruments of torture. Her concern for her own welfare was not half as strong as her fear that something terrible would happen to her beloved breeder of champions, so she sprinted to his rescue.
Poor Goodheart began kicking even more frantically. His hooves slammed repeatedly against the walls, drummed furiously, and the night seemed to echo with the thunder of an oncoming storm.
She was still about fifteen yards from the stable when she heard the strange guttural growling again and realized that something was coming after her, bearing down on her from behind. She skidded on the damp grass, whirled, and brought up her flashlight.
Rushing toward her was a creature that had surely escaped from Hell. It let out a shriek of madness and rage.
In spite of the flashlight, Tracy did not get a clear look at the attacker. The beam wavered, and the night grew darker as the moon slipped behind a cloud, and the hateful beast was moving fast, and she was too scared to understand what she was seeing. Nevertheless, she saw enough to know it was nothing she had ever seen before. She had an impression of a dark, misshapen head with asymmetrical depressions and bulges, enormous jaws full of sharp curved teeth, and amber eyes that blazed in the flashlight beam the way a dog’s or a cat’s eyes will glow in a car’s headlights.
Tracy screamed.
The attacker shrieked again and leaped at her.
It hit Tracy hard enough to knock the breath clear out of her. The flash-light flew from her hand, tumbled across the lawn. She fell, and the creature came down on top of her, and they rolled over and over toward the stable. As they rolled, she flailed desperately at the thing with her small fists, and she felt its claws sinking into the flesh along her right side. Its gaping mouth was at her face, she felt its hot rank breath washing her over, smelled blood and decay and worse, and she sensed that it was going for her throat—she thought,
I’m dead, oh God, it’s going to kill me, I’m dead, like the cat
—and she would have been dead in seconds, for sure, if Goodheart, less than fifteen feet away now, had not kicked out the latched half-door of his stall and bolted straight at them in panic.
I’m dead, oh God, it’s going to kill me, I’m dead, like the cat
—and she would have been dead in seconds, for sure, if Goodheart, less than fifteen feet away now, had not kicked out the latched half-door of his stall and bolted straight at them in panic.
The stallion screamed and reared up on its hind feet when it saw them, as if it would trample them underfoot.
Tracy’s monstrous attacker shrieked again, though not in rage this time but in surprise and fear. It released her and flung itself to one side, out from under the horse.
Goodheart’s hooves slammed into the earth inches from Tracy’s head, and he reared up again, pawing at the air, screaming, and she knew that in his terror he might unwittingly trample her skull to mush. She threw herself out from under him, and also away from the amber-eyed beast, which had disappeared in the darkness on the other side of the stallion.
Still, Goodheart reared and screamed, and Tracy was screaming as well, and dogs were howling all over the neighborhood, and now lights appeared in the house, which gave her hope of survival. However, she sensed that the attacker wasn’t ready to give up, that it was already circling the frantic stallion to make another try for her. She heard it snarling, spitting. She knew she would never reach the distant house before the thing dragged her down again, so she scrambled toward the nearby stable, to one of the empty stalls. As she went, she heard herself chanting, “Jesus, oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus . . .”
The two halves of the Dutch-style stall door were bolted firmly together. Another bolt fastened the entire door to the frame. She unlatched that second bolt, pulled open the door, rushed into the straw-scented darkness, shut the door behind her, and held it with all the strength she possessed, for it could not be latched from inside.
An instant later, her assailant slammed into the other side of the door, trying to knock it open, but the frame prevented that. The door would only move outward, and Tracy hoped the amber-eyed creature was not smart enough to figure out how the door worked.
But it
was
smart enough—
was
smart enough—
(Dear Lord in Heaven, why wasn’t it as dumb as it was ugly!)
—and after hitting the barrier only twice, it began to pull instead of push. The door was almost yanked out of Tracy’s grasp.
She wanted to scream for help, but she needed every ounce of energy to dig in her heels and hold the stall door shut. It rattled and thumped against the frame as her demonic assailant wrestled with it. Fortunately, Goodheart was still letting loose shrill squeals and whinnies of terror, and the assailant was also shrieking—a sound that was strangely animal and human at the same time—so her father could have no doubt where the trouble was.
The door jerked open a few inches.
She yelped and pulled it shut.
Instantly the attacker yanked it partway open again and held it ajar, striving to pull the door wider even as she struggled to reclose it. She was losing. The door inched open. She saw the shadowy outline of the malformed face. The sharply pointed teeth gleamed dully. The amber eyes were faint now, barely visible. It hissed and snarled at her, and its pungent breath was stronger than the scent of straw.
Whimpering in terror and frustration, Tracy drew back on the door with all of her strength.
But it opened another inch.
And another.
Her heart was hammering loud enough to muffle the first shotgun blast. She didn’t know what she’d heard until a second shot boomed through the night, and then she knew her father had grabbed his 12-gauge on the way out of the house.
The stall door slammed shut in front of her as the attacker, frightened by the gunfire, let go of it. Tracy held fast.
Then she thought that maybe, in all the confusion, Daddy might believe that Goodheart was to blame, that the poor horse had gone loco or something. From within the stall she cried out, “Don’t shoot Goodheart! Don’t shoot the horse!”
No more shots rang out, and Tracy immediately felt stupid for thinking her father would blow away Goodheart. Daddy was a cautious man, especially with loaded guns, and unless he knew exactly what was happening, he wouldn’t fire anything but warning shots. More likely than not, he’d just blasted some shrubbery to bits.
Goodheart was probably all right, and the amber-eyed assailant was surely hightailing it for the foothills or the canyons or back to wherever it had come from—
(What
was
that crazy damn thing?)
was
that crazy damn thing?)
—and the ordeal was over, thank God.
She heard running footsteps, and her father called her name.
She pushed open the stall door and saw Daddy rushing toward her in a pair of blue pajama bottoms, barefoot, with the shotgun cradled in his arm. Mom was there, too, in a short yellow nightie, hurrying behind Daddy with a flashlight.
Up near the top of the sloped yard stood Goodheart, the sire of future champions, his panic gone, unhurt.
Tears of relief sprang from Tracy at the sight of the unharmed stallion, and she stumbled out of the stall, wanting to go have a closer look at him. With her second or third step, a fiercely hot pain flamed along her entire right side, and she was suddenly dizzy. She staggered, fell, put one hand to her side, felt something wet, and realized that she was bleeding. She remembered the claws sinking into her just before Goodheart had burst from his stall, frightening off the assailant, and as if from a great distance she heard herself saying, “Good horse . . . what a good horse . . .”
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