“My feet’re gonna freeze,” he moaned.
“Come on! Help me across this friggin’ wall.”
He was only too glad to give Garner a leg up. Sam scrambled to his hands and knees atop the wall and then dropped over into the park.
At once everything changed. Central Park in winter is as quiet as a desert. This was true especially up here near the wall, away from the paths, an area choked by snow-covered bushes. Garner turned and looked back. Fields was not following. “Fine,” he thought, “I’ll get the Goddamn story myself. Better not be any pictures.” He pushed bushes aside. It was cold and wet in here and he wasn’t dressed for a stroll in the shrubbery. Then he saw it again, the little red trace lying on the snow. And there were more pawprints here, at least three sets. Whatever made them had gone tearing through here not too long ago. A pack of wild dogs running from two trigger-happy detectives? What the hell, this was getting interesting.
He followed the tracks a few more yards, then stopped. Before him was a great smear of blood, and leading away from it were heavy splashes, impossible to miss. This trail led up a low rise and into even deeper brush. Cursing, Garner followed it. Low branches overhung, dropping snow on him every time his bent back brushed against them. He clambered along from splash to splash, and came upon a place where branches had been broken, many paws had ground away the sodden snow, and everything was bloody. “Oh God,” he whispered. Bits of meat and fur were scattered all around, lying half-frozen on the ground, stuck in the bent twigs. It was a fearful sight and it made Garner feel suddenly alone and afraid. He peered into the bushes around him. Were shapes moving there beyond the edge of visibility? This place was awfully quiet. It had the sullen atmosphere of a crime scene, a place where violence had been done and gone, and it stank. All around there was a nasty, cloying animal smell. It was musty, reminding him… it was a female odor, mixed with the stench of the blood. “What in hell is this?” he said softly. His mind turned to the two detectives, to the strange events of half an hour ago. What in hell was going on here?
He backed away from the area slowly, carefully. Sweat was popping out all over him. He gritted his teeth, fighting an impulse to turn and run wildly through the trees. Instead he walked as softly as he could. Not far off he could hear the rumble of traffic on Central Park West. Yet it seemed an eternity away right now in this savage, inhuman place. That was the word to describe it—inhuman. There was a powerful and monstrous presence about the spot, the blood, the bits of flesh, the horrible odor—it all combined to produce in Sam Garner an overwhelming dread that seemed to rise up out of his dark core and threaten to reduce him to blind, running panic. He moved faster but he did not run.
“Hey, Sam,” came a distant voice. “Sam!” Garner heard it but was afraid to answer, afraid to raise his own voice. Something was near him, he was sure of it, pacing him, keeping just out of sight beyond the bushes. He broke into a trot, then a loping run. Branches lashed at him, scratching his face, knocking off his old fur hat, cutting his hands as he struggled. Then the wall was before him, too high to scale from this side. “Rich,” he shouted, “Rich!”
The photographer looked down. His eyes opened wide, he let out a high bleat of a scream.
“Help me!” Garner shrieked. He raised his arms, grabbing frantically for the photographer’s outstretched hands. Slowly, painfully he clambered up the wall and with Fields’ help got over onto a bench.
“Good Christ, what the hell was that thing?” Fields babbled.
“Don’t know.”
“Come on—gotta get out of here!” Fields ran to the car, causing traffic along Central Park West to screech and skid as he hurried across the street. Weakly Sam Garner followed him. He was sick with fear. Something unspeakable had been going on in that park, and he had been paced by some kind of hellhound as he had left.
He jumped into the car, slammed and locked the door and leaned his badly scratched face against the steering wheel. “What was it?” he whispered. Then he looked up at Fields, blinking tears out of his eyes. “What was it!”
Fields was embarrassed and looked away. “Dunno. Lots bigger’n a dog.” Now he mumbled. “Had a sort of… face. Good Christ…”
“Describe it! I’ve got to know.”
“Can’t… only saw it for a second.” He shook his head slowly. “No wonder those two cops are trigger-happy. That thing came straight from hell, whatever it was.”
“Bullshit,” Garner replied. His chin was jutting out now, he was regaining himself. He took deep breaths. “Bullshit, whatever it was it was real. A flesh and blood something-or-other. Tasmanian devil, I dunno. But one thing is sure, it’s on the loose in New York City and it’s damn well gonna be big news.”
“So a wild animal escapes. Page two.”
“Ha! Think about it. Mutilation killing in the park. Cops scared to bejesus of something that looks like a dog. Then we get a closer look, and it ain’t no dog that’s spookin’ ’em.” He stopped, a powerful and withering image of that thing in the bushes near him overcoming his pugnacity. He hadn’t seen it clearly but he could imagine— “Rich, there was a fuckin’ bloodbath in there. I mean, I found a place where there was so damn much blood it looked like a slaughterhouse. Something got it bad there, man, not so long ago, and the smell, Holy Christ!”
“Smell?”
“It was obscene. All the bushes were covered with it, like something had been sprayed on them. You couldn’t see it but you could smell it. It was like—”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Never mind.” Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a fierce, inhuman face peering over the wall so he put the car in gear and moved out. He got away from there, going downtown into the heart of the city. Their press credentials made it easy to park, so they stopped at the Biltmore for a drink.
“The place is quiet,” Sam muttered, “and there ain’t any other newshounds hangin’ around. I just want to get myself together again.”
Fields didn’t protest, just followed “So whaddaya think?” he asked as soon as they had slipped onto a couple of stools at the luxurious mahogany bar.
Sam didn’t answer. “Perfect Manhattan, up,” he said to the bartender. “They know how to make a Manhattan here,” he growled. “That’s my definition of a good bar.”
“What’s going on, Sam?” Fields was insistent now. He wanted to know. This was a good story and there were going to be great pictures. He certainly wasn’t going to tell Sam Garner, but he had gotten a good look at the thing that had been following the reporter. It had come out of the brush just as Sam reached the wall and had sat and watched him go. Then its ears had snapped toward Rich Fields and it had simply disappeared. There it was one second, then a flash of gray and it was gone.
There had been a perfect picture there for a second before the thing had taken off. But Rich Fields hadn’t taken a picture. For that second he had been frozen, staring at the most horrible living thing that he had ever seen. But it had all happened so fast. You couldn’t be sure about moments like that, maybe it was a trick of light on a dog’s face. He eyed Garner. “What was it?” he asked.
“How the hell do I know! Quit ridin’ me, you ain’t an editor. It was somethin’ weird. Out of the ordinary.”
“Well, that’s obvious. Did it kill Evans?”
Garner raised his eyebrows, looked at the photographer. “Sure. And it was responsible for the bloody bench the cops found this A.M. too. It’s a monster livin’ in the park.” He stared a moment at the drink before him. “Monster Stalks Park. It’s more a National Herald story, ain’t it? There’s no proof, except what we might have seen. That won’t work in the Post.”