The dog approached him, its eyes somehow somber, as it nudged him with its nose. The gesture was unmistakable. The damned dog was thanking him.
Sam grinned. “You’re welcome.”
The dog gave an appreciative bark.
Sam laughed. “It’s all right. I said, not a problem.”
The dog lifted its nose in the air, as though taking in a deep sniff of the scent, and then barked again. It was a short, crisp, bark. There was no urgency in it like before. Instead, this one seemed to be an acknowledgement that they were out of danger for the time being.
Sam asked, “What was that thing?”
The dog put its paws forward, and lowered its head, as though cowering from a distant memory by covering its eyes.
Sam patted it behind his ears. “It’s all right. Whatever it was, it won’t hurt you now.”
The dog moved one of its paws. His single visible eye, glanced up at him, in a gesture one might see a child perform with a blanket, staring out after a monster interrupted their dreams. There was more than fear behind the dog’s eyes. There was a deep hurt. A loss and a pain that could never be fully healed.
“That thing…” Sam said, looking back at the forest. “It killed your master, didn’t it?”
The dog whimpered.
Sam said, “I’m sorry. We’ll find out what happened here. Whatever it was, won’t get away.”
The dog ignored him for a moment. Either it didn’t believe him, or it didn’t want to ever go back to the forest to see what had happened to his master.
Sam changed the subject. “I’m Sam by the way. Don’t suppose you want to tell me your name?”
The dog perked up, rubbing its thick, golden mane across Sam’s hips.
Sam gave him a good pat under his chin. “You’re a good dog.”
He stopped at the dog’s collar.
A smile creased his lips. He turned the nylon collar around until it revealed a thick nametag.
“Well. I’ll be…” Sam said. “You were showing me your name, weren’t you? You’re a smart dog…” Sam stared at the thick nametag. “Caliburn.”
The golden retriever barked once in confirmation.
“Caliburn,” Sam tried it out again. “Nice name.”
The dog set its dark brown eyes on him again. They were somehow distant, more lost than confused, as if to say, now what?
Sam said, “Now we find out if my car’s been repaired.”
Chapter Seven
Sam looked at his yellow 1956 Ford Thunderbird.
The hood was down and the keys were in the ignition. A handwritten note was left on the steering wheel.
It read, I fixed the radiator, but you have some other issues with the car that you’ll need to get addressed before you want to drive it.
Sam sighed.
That was the last thing he needed. Some vacation this was turning out to be. First the radiator, then an evil creature in the woods, and now this.
His eyes set on the keys in the ignition with a half-grin. Only in the country are folks so trusting. The Thunderbird was a collector’s item, originally purchased new by his grandfather, and lovingly maintained. It was worth a mint.
Caliburn barked, snapping Sam out of his thoughts.
He turned to face the dog, who was now growling at the resident’s section of the garage and general store.
“What is it, boy?” Sam asked.
The dog made a low-pitched growl.
Sam raised the Remington shotgun, taking aim toward the door.
Everything felt different than in the forest. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to have the same sense of evil that the forest was projecting. The situation, including the missing mechanic and growling dog, was wrong, but not overtly evil.
In a loud, clear voice, he said, “Excuse me, sir. Are you all right?”
He was greeted with the hiss of silence.
“Hello. Is anyone there?”
Still no response.
Sam stepped toward the door.
The door itself was made of wood and had been wedged open with part of an old engine block, but a screen of beads designed to keep the flies out, drifted in the wind. He glanced at Caliburn, half expecting the dog to prevent him from entering the mechanic’s home.
He glanced at the dog. “Are you coming?”
Caliburn turned his head toward the forest, as though taking a protective stance as a guard. His blank face looked outward, his tongue resting out the side of his mouth, still catching his breath after the hard run through the forest.
Sam stared at the dog.
There was something else in its face. Was it disinterest? No, not disinterest. Instead, something else entirely. Resignation. As though the dog accepted that he’d already made his warning to Sam, and no longer cared what the mere human decided to do with the information.
“Some help you are,” Sam said. “All right, I’ll go check it out myself. You just stay here and let me know if we have company.”
Caliburn made a single bark, stretched his paws out, shuffled his belly across the ground until he was comfortable, and stared out into the forest.
Sam used the barrel of the Remington shotgun to part the beads that draped down from the doorway. It looked like the mechanic lived on his own. Sam ran his eyes across the room. It was little more than a single room log cabin. A bachelor pad for an old man with the need for very few possessions. There was a fireplace with an iron pot and a couple of cooking utensils hanging above. On the opposite end of the room was a single bed and a leather chair overlooking the flicker of an untuned TV with its volume switched off.
The mechanic appeared to be sitting in the chair. Sam could just make out the view of his leather boots as they stuck out, relaxed from the base of the chair.
“Are you okay, sir?” Sam asked, lowering his shotgun.
The man didn’t flinch.
Sam stepped forward, and swore.
The mechanic was dead.
His head had been sliced clean off, and someone had gone to the trouble of setting it upright in his lap, staring straight at the TV.
Sam stepped outside.
The dog looked up at him with somber brown eyes, as if to say, “I told you you wouldn’t like what you saw in there.”
Sam picked up his cell phone and dialed 911.
Chapter Eight
The sky turned to pre-dusk gray and the garage became shrouded in darkness as the last of the sun disappeared behind the mountains.
A gentle breeze caused the distant trees to whistle as it made its way through their branches, and rustled the leaves. Sam stared outward at the woods. His eyes narrowed, as though searching for the somehow hidden evil that lurked.
The whistle turned to a mysterious and somehow sinister, hyoo, hyoo…
The dog lifted his nose upward and took in the scent which blew with the wind. His ears pricked up, the hair on his back spiked, and the dog released a low pitched, guttural snarl.
Sam said, “You hear it too, don’t you boy?”
The dog met his eye, and mewled unhappily.
“It’s crazy. But I think you’re right. There’s something out there that’s pure evil. It’s still coming for us, isn’t it?”
The dog made a soft bark. Something about it made him think the dog was saying no.
Talking to himself, more than the dog, Sam said, “Not me?” His eyes widened with realization. “It’s coming after you?”
The dog shuddered violently.
His fear was somehow infecting Sam.
Sam looked at his cell phone. It was impossible for him to try and explain to a dog that he’d called 911 and that help was on its way. Besides, the Sheriff’s department said someone would be there as soon as possible, but how long would that be in the middle of the Tillamook State Forest? Somehow, Sam just couldn’t shake the unmistakable and uniquely palpable sensation of evil stalking him. Stranger yet, was the fact that despite holding a Remington 12-gauge shotgun, he still felt the fear creep in too.