By Randal Snyder, Copyright 2021
Rain poured down the city streets filling the gutters with rivers of road-polluted grime. Lightning flashed and was answered a second later with the rumble of thunder echoing off the stone and glass buildings that lined the roads. No sane creature moved in the torrent, though some mad dogs and rats scampered and huddled in the shadows of overhanging roofs.
Few cars filled the streets; at least not here. Out here off Sedgewick Avenue, everyone was hunkered down avoiding the weather. Cars lined the street on either side of this quaint New York neighborhood. The three and four-story buildings were stacked side-by-side with just enough room for a squad car to check the alleys for vagrants or kids sneaking out of their homes at night.
From here, if you stood on the right rooftops and looked West, you could see the Harlem River, just past the parks and railroad tracks. But on this night, visibility had been cut to nearly nothing. Streetlamps seemed like lighthouses guiding the way to shelter from the whipping wind.
Inside their warm homes, people sat for dinner and listened to their music or television oblivious, for the moment, to what was about to occur. All but the most curious or terrified had their focus inward to their homes and family or downward towards their tables, desks, laps, and devices.
But to those that tuned outward, not just outside their homes but beyond their own narrow existences, tonight held an uncanny unease. The cats could feel it. The rats could feel it. All of the wild things could feel it. And even the dogs, so dumb and numb to their wild natures, pacified by soft and sedentary lives, even THEY could feel it.
Inside one of the many, red-bricked apartments sat Mary Walker playing by the window of her second story room. It looked out over the back yard just beside the concrete parking spaces. Normally it would be quite boring to her, but tonight with the wild wind and rain crashing against her bedroom window, she could not sleep and sat on her bed with her doll in hand, chin resting on her arm, as she peered into the blurry mess.
She could feel it.
Downstairs her mother watched TV, having turned up the volume loud enough to hear the prattle of the latest reality TV show and their overly excitable hosts. It was loud enough that Mary could hear them, but she really didn’t care. Tomorrow was Monday and that meant going back to school. And that, to an eight-year-old girl with her condition, was not exactly a fun affair.
Her mind would wander down fantasy streets in worlds distant and strange. And her fingers would dance in her lap with the fairies and devils that lived there. It wasn’t like her to pay much attention to anything, preferring to mumble to herself about one thing or the next or sing to herself tunes that no one else had ever heard. On occasion she would mutter what to most was incoherent babble, but to her was a true language – one more true to her heart than English or Spanish had ever been.
But on this night, she didn’t babble or sing, and she certainly did not let her mind wander. Instead, her eyes were fixed on a spot across the lawn. Despite the blur of water dripping down the window, she could clearly see the place where the man in white would die.
You would think that someone only eight, would cringe at the thought or the vivid image that kept filling her mind, but Mary was not an ordinary girl. Her mother knew that, even if only in the most instinctive ways. The knowing of what Mary was had never been more than an abnormality to her teachers; an annoyance at best and distraction at worst. But her mother knew there was something peculiar about her daughter, even if she could not put a word to it.
Mary liked to think of herself as a dream dancer. And she had so many stories to tell that her mother simply accepted them as fanciful imagination pulled from fairy tales. She only became concerned when the tales grew dark and Mary would tremble and shake as if she had witnessed something unspeakable. Night terrors is what she was diagnosed with. Though what she had would often come on during the day and during her waking hours. Mary’s mom could not afford the tests that the councilors wanted and there were no behavioral issues outside of the distractions. So, Mary went without medication and persisted tied to that wild imagination that the adults dismissed so readily.
Lightning flashed again and Mary’s gaze still rested on that spot in the yard. A little red tricycle lay in the grass, tipped with one tiny back wheel spinning slowly in the wind.
Mary watched that wheel intensely. As it spun, she felt herself delving into the depths as if slowly falling through the rain that blotted her vision. Bubbles rose and ran across her eyes and as the wheel spun her world spun with it.
And then Mary’s vision burst to life. What had been dark and rainy became bright and blinding. Most people would be startled by such an abrupt change to their surroundings, but Mary had become accustomed to it. She looked about at her new surroundings as her eyes adjusted to the light. Tall men walked down halls and stood behind glass walls behind instruments, boxy and covered in dials and bouncing meters. Green screens showed lines and pulses drawing regular patterns with each pulse of light.
The tall men, dressed in white coats covering smoke grey uniforms, spoke in a language Mary did not know. It was a harsh and brutish language and didn’t roll off the tongue like her mother’s Spanish. They seemed to be going through a check list as one blue-eyed man flipped through a binder as the others adjusted nobs and flipped switches on a control panel.
Mary danced unseen behind the men trying to see what they were doing. In her dream worlds she could fly and hover and even walk through walls. Only rarely did anyone in her dreams seem to even acknowledge her presence. And those times sometimes scared her.
But these men, they seemed wholly consumed by their tasks and soon Mary grew bored. She hovered above them and looked through the glass into the other room. It was then her heart surged. Chained by hands and legs to a steel frame in the center of the room was a bear. Or she thought it was a bear. Its dark black fur covered its body like a bear, but its snout and face looked more like a wolf. The thing stared at her, and Mary instinctively flew through the glass to hide behind the blue-eyed man. Her heart racing, she climbed up the man’s back to look over his hunched shoulder.
To her relief, the wolf did not look her way. Instead, it’s golden-brown eyes seemed to stare at the blue-eyed man as he spewed off commands to his companions in that harsh language.
Feeling more secure, Mary moved back through the wall into the wolf’s room. As long as it couldn’t see her she might as well find out what it was.
The thing panted hard as if it had recently been struggling, and it smelled like… like… dog?
Wet dog! That’s what it was! Mary decided to call it “puppy” despite it being monstrously large. This was by far the biggest puppy Mary had ever seen. Its brow was wrinkled and tight and its lips were curled in a snarl and ears pulled back. Mary was no expert in animal behavior, but she was pretty sure this doggie was angry.
Chained the way it was, it had to stand on its hind legs and its forepaws were stretched above its head making it look oddly humanlike in its stance despite its slumped shoulders and bristling hair. Mary wanted to feel its fur and wondered if it was soft like a cat or stiff like her uncle’s beard. Though she knew she could not feel it she reached out anyway, brushing the hair down the puppy’s spine.
To her shock, she could feel it. Every strand seemed full and real in her grip and the bear-like creature shivered and snarled, snapping over its shoulder at the floating little girl. Jagged fangs missed her fingers by only fractions of a centimeter.
She screamed and the thing’s eyes focused on her. It COULD see her!
Sheepishly she floated away no longer amused by the “puppy” but now genuinely frightened. Its eyes followed her as she hovered back through the wall to hide behind the blue-eyed man. The men made some comment about their captive and then chuckled only to resume their work.
Mary hovered over the blue-eyed man’s shoulder as he read from the book again. The little ghost girl leaned in too, unconsciously placing her hand on the man’s arm. Almost instantly he jerked away remarking in alarm and looking about. He rubbed his arm where she had touched him and made some hurried comments to the other men in white coats who seemed to shrug and dismiss the man’s concerns. But blue eyes did not seem put at ease as he rubbed his arm and cautiously resumed his reading.
Confused, she moved away from the man. She had never been able to touch anyone or for that matter hurt them with her touch and she didn’t know what it meant. She thought it best to stay away from them. Sometimes the monsters in her dreams tried to hurt her but she had never been able to feel them. She became conscious of something stuck between her fingers. A single black hair from the bear was stuck to her finger as naturally as it did in the real world. Though her young mind did not comprehend the full meaning she had a sudden realization that if she could walk through the glass, the wolf could too.
With a wave of his hand, the blue-eyed man yelled a final command and one of the others pressed a large red button with a dramatic flair. Yellow lights flashed overhead, and Mary could hear a humming that seemed to reverberate through her skull. The noise grew in power and the humming pulsed like an uneven fan whirring with a woo-woo-woo sound. The wolf howled and Mary screamed as she grabbed her ears, but it didn’t help.
The men stood as they watched the creature struggle against its bonds. To their horror one of its clawed limbs broke free of the chains followed by the other. But no, it had not broken anything. Instead, it seemed the beast had slipped out of the bonds as if they had melted through flesh and bone. Their harsh words grew excited, and they yelled and flipped switches on their panels as the hum grew louder and louder.
With its front legs free, the beast fell to the ground and shook free its hind legs. Rising, the thing stared with malice at the blue-eyed man who took a step back and tripped over the crumpled child that cried. He cursed in surprise and fell hard against the wall. His companions began to panic. The beast stalked forward, shoulders hunched and teeth bare, it raised its body to smash the glass, but its claws swiped through it as if solid material had dissolved into air.
The others in the room cried out and ran just as the beast launched. To the blue-eyed man’s horror, the beast caught his companion in one swift motion, lifting him off his feet and plunged its teeth deep into the man’s shoulder. Blood stained pristine white cloth and sprayed from the man’s neck.
Mary screamed, men screamed, and the beast stood fused at the hip to the desk full of equipment. The flashing lights pulsed in contrast to the humming in her head and Mary screamed again as a spark arched across the equipment panel. The hairy beast dropped its twitching prey, to the ground as it stepped through the now-transparent equipment. Light and sound flashed and rumbled as a blinding light crashed and the group found themselves falling and landing with a thud in wet, grassy ground.
Smoke and steam billowed around them as rain hit them from all angles. Blue-eyes rose from the ground looking at a yard and neighborhood he did not recognize. Massive electrical wires crackled on the ground nearby as electrical equipment high up on a pole zapped and hummed. Dazed, his ears ringing, the man clawed at the ground dragging his numb legs over the curled form of a little girl, silent and still.
Somehow, beyond all reckoning, Carl Hess’ experiment had transported them outside of the laboratory to this street. But he did not know where it was. He looked about, mind befuddled, but his senses returning. He reached out for something to help him stand and his hand gripped the frame of a red tricycle as rain whipped his face. Standing, he looked about.
On a darkened lawn lay the body of his comrade, Dieter Beck, a brilliant scientist and friend, and near the curb of the parking lot, slowly standing was his other friend, Kurt Von Brawn. His childhood friend looked haggard and confused as he tried to comprehend. But confusion turned to morbid fear as a black shadow rose from the ground. The only details Carl could see were glowing eyes filled with hate and silvery white teeth. In a flash, those teeth sunk deep into Kurt’s neck and Carl knew terror like he had never felt.
Before he could even think, he was running as fast as his legs could take him. Lighting flashed above giving him some clue to his direction and purpose and he ran between the tightly packed buildings into the back yards where dogs dared not bark. For they too knew what lurked in the dark.
The beast threw down the carcass that had once been a living, screaming man, and peered about. On the ground lay a tiny little lump in a pretty blue flower print nightgown. It shivered in the rain but did not move. Gore dripping from the wolf’s maw it approached. Rain pelted it as it hunched over the figure, and it sniffed the shivering mound.
It smelled human. It was human. But it smelled like this place, not the lab. Not the place it had just left. Not like the men that had done unspeakable things. The wolf contemplated ripping the small human to pieces. It was nothing more than meat and bone, after all. But it hesitated. Rain dripped down its snout and let the blood drip and pool near the child. It sniffed again and thought for a moment.
No. Despite what those humans had done, the unspeakable acts they had committed against the wolf’s kind, it would not stoop to their level. After all, unlike them, it wasn’t a monster.
A light snapped on from the nearest building and a figure appeared framed by the window. Despite the wind and rain, the wolf could hear the figure unleash a high-pitched scream.
Mary Walker woke to red and white flashing lights and the sound of machines beeping in the back of the ambulance. “She’s awake,” a man said from over her and before Mary could make sense of her surroundings she was being smothered in a hug from her mother. Deep sobs rocked her mother’s body as she nearly crushed the life from Mary, so intense was her grip. Once she could breathe again, Mary asked the strangest thing, “where’s the puppy?”