Night Callers by Susan Buffum
It was the sound of a coyote howling in the woods behind the house that drew me out onto the back deck. It was fairly dark, only a half moon hanging above the house casting a wan swatch of light across the massive oak tree with its sprawling canopy of green leaves. I checked the time on my phone. Quarter of twelve. The coyote bayed again, a haunting, eerie, ululating cry. I tapped the camera icon, then the video button, and finally record. “Sing to me,” I murmured.
As if in response, the coyote howled again, a longer, more varied version of the first call that had summoned me outside. It stopped. I strained my ears, listening for the crack of twigs, the rustle of debris on the ground that would indicate it was approaching, or wandering farther away. To me, its last cry had sounded just a little nearer.
When I began to think it had moved on, chasing its prey deeper into the woods, the baying began again, this time concluding with a stuttering, strangled sort of barking. It was an awkward way to wind down and I shook my head just as a crow, disturbed from its slumber, rattled a ratcheting protest cry. Otherwise, it was so quiet outside that I heard the flutter of the crow’s wings, the papery shifting of leaves as it flew from its perch in the woods to the big oak just off the deck and gave another cry. I was happy to have his voice added to the video.
The coyote howled once more, sounding closer now. The bird repeated his protest. It was just above me in the high branches. I looked up, straining to make out its black form amid the shadowed leaves, but the wash of moonlight through the branches was weak. The sound of an animal moving in the woods drew my attention back toward the path. I couldn’t actually see the path, but I figured since I’d seen the fox that trotted through the yard each morning on its way home to its den use this path down to the brook that other animals also used it. I hoped to see it, even as an indistinct shadow, moving stealthily across the lawn.
A sound above and behind me made me gasp as I spun around, eyes rising to the roof. My phone camera was still recording. My hand was shaking. Whatever it was up there, it had sounded big. A great horned owl? I couldn’t think of what else could be on the roof.
My eyes strained as I scanned the roofline against the night sky. A smattering of stars twinkled between drifting charcoal-colored clouds. I saw nothing at first, but then something moved again up there. I caught the movement in the corner of my eye, turning my head toward the chimney where I watched, in fascinated shock and horror, as something seemed to grow taller and then separate itself from the mass of the chimney, taking on a form of its own. Behind me, the coyote howled, sounding even nearer now. It had come into the yard. I had missed its arrival, distracted by…by what? What was this thing on my roof? It had tall, sharply angled wings. It was too huge to be a bird, but it reminded me of an eagle, only much larger.
I heard it, talons scratching over the shingles as it came toward the eaves above my head. “Go away!” I managed to croak past the constriction in my throat. It felt as if someone had gripped my neck and was strangling me, but there was no one else out here. Only me. And the coyote. And the crow. And this…this…I didn’t know what!
I caught a glint of dull light in its eye as it cocked its head and regarded me. It had dropped into a crouch about two feet from the eaves. I could actually hear it breathing. I was staring at it, still trying to make sense of it, when the coyote bayed from the lawn, so close that it startled me. I couldn’t stop myself from turning toward the sound, still trying to get the animal on video.
And that was how I missed the thing on the roof as it skittered the last two feet and landed with a jarring thud on the deck just behind me. It was big and it was solid. I shuddered and then tensed, thinking that I was going to die, that momentarily I would be dead. The coyote howled from the sidewalk at the foot of the deck stairs. Something gripped my shoulder. With the coyote still howling and the crow now making its guttural protests from high in the tree, my voice joined them in chorus as I screamed. I was the loudest of the three of us by far, but even with my own voice ringing in my ears, I heard the voice behind me quietly say, “Hush.” I couldn’t seem to control my larynx. It still vibrated, still was making that tea kettle shrieking sound. “I mean you no harm.”
A hand, well, a hand of sorts, came over my other shoulder and took the phone from my trembling hand. I relinquished it without protest as my scream abruptly stopped. I had run out of breath and needed to inhale. I was shaking, my legs wobbling. “Wha…what do you want?” I whispered, my mouth dry and cottony.
“Water and meat.”
“What kind?”
“Cold. Raw.”
I was warm, but I thought it meant cold water. The terrible, lucid realization that to a beast I was nothing but raw meat jolted me and made me take two awkward steps forward. My phone disappeared over my shoulder. I don’t know where the courage to do so came from, but I spun around to confront what had jumped down from the roof and my mind froze at what I could see of it in the dark. It looked part reptilian, part amphibian, part eagle, part dragon, and part human. “Oh, my god,” I moaned, unable to comprehend what I was seeing. Was this an alien being? Had a UFO landed in the front yard without my being aware of it and this alien thing climbed up and over the roof?
Scrabbling noises on the deck stairs made me spin back around. The coyote was coming up the stairs. “Go inside.” I didn’t need to be told twice. As frightened as I was of this beast, it spoke my language. I obeyed, hurriedly let myself into the kitchen which seemed too bright, too quiet. The house surrounding this room took on a strange eeriness, a flesh-crawling, foreboding aura of the unknown in the dark. I hadn’t put any other lights on in the house since I had been writing at the kitchen table, my usual after dinner activity.
The house was too quiet making what was happening on the deck outside the screen door only too loud and vivid. There were scuffling sounds and the coyote snarled. Then it yelped. There next came nerve wracking sounds, as if someone was breaking branches and then wet, tearing, ripping, snuffling, and slobbering sounds that sent me rushing to the sink, my stomach lurching and emptying. I was keening, half sobbing, sick and terrified, dizzy and weak. I clung to the edge of the sink, blinking hard, trying to make the dark fog in the periphery of my vision stop advancing. I did not want to pass out.
“Water,” said the quiet, gruff voice from behind the screen door. I opened a cupboard, grabbed a pitcher, filling it at the sink, carrying it, sloshing and spilling, to the door. My hands were shaking as I released the latch and pushed the door open with my shoulder, just wide enough to slip the pitcher through the gap. I cringed and whimpered as the bloodied, taloned hand… paw… whatever you may call it, gripped the curved handle of the pitcher, taking it from me. I let the door close as I took a step back.
By the light spilling through the screen onto the deck, I stood there watching the beast guzzle down the contents of the pitcher without pausing for a breath. It emptied the last few inches of water over its face, rinsing off gore. Behind it, I could just see the hind legs of the coyote carcass, and a dark, glossy pool around them that I knew was blood.
The sound of glass meeting decking made me jump although it had not been loud. The beast had set the pitcher down with surprising care. Its wings rustled as it turned, crouched down, lifted the dead coyote, and then rapidly descended the deck stairs. I heard it running across the lawn, found myself stepping out onto the deck, skirting the blood and tufts of fur, straining my eyes to make out the large shadowy form as it suddenly rose into the air, having gained momentum and lift. Its wings flapped like the sails of a windmill, that kind of sound. It rose higher.
From the oak tree, the crow also took flight and followed, a big bird looking more the size of a canary compared to the larger, winged creature it shadowed over the treetops as they flew higher still and then over the cliff top of the mountainside I lived on. In mere moments they were gone.
I turned, accidentally kicking the pitcher, knocking it over. Fortunately, it didn’t break. I bent, picked it up, and looked all around for my phone, but I didn’t see it. With a barely suppressed shudder, I slipped into the house, flicked on the outside spotlights, filled the pitcher and used that water to begin rinsing the blood off the deck. It took seven pitchers full of water before I was satisfied that I’d washed away the majority of the reminder of what had just happened. As I reached for the screen door for the last time, something propped against the house reflected a random bit of moonlight. Curious, I went and picked up what turned out to be my phone. I carried it inside, swung the door closed, and locked it, although I was fairly certain that whatever that beast had been, it possessed enough raw strength and power to kick the door open should it return and want to come inside.
My phone was dead. The battery had been nearly drained when I’d gone out to capture the coyote howling. I had intended to put it on the charger after dinner, but hadn’t done so. I did that now and then looked at my laptop sitting on the kitchen table. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to relax, wouldn’t be able to sleep, I knew what I had to do. I rinsed the pitcher at the sink, put it in the dishwasher, washed my hands then sat down and began to type—It was the sound of a coyote howling in the woods that drew me out onto the back deck that night…
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