Dean Koontz: Odd Hours

Although the exit was locked, it featured a thumb-turn for the deadbolt. Through the French window in the top of the door, the cold curdled fog was brightened by an exterior stoop light that had come on with the hallway fluorescents, and it appeared welcoming compared to the Hoss-stalked realm behind me. As I was about to disengage the lock, however, a coyote stood on its hind legs, put its forepaws on the door, and peered at me through one of the four panes of glass.

WHEN I LEANED CLOSE TO THE WINDOW IN THE door to see whether I would have to deal with a lone wolf, so to speak, or with a group, the coyote bared its stained and ragged teeth. The beast licked the glass as if I were a tasty treat displayed in a vending machine, for which it lacked sufficient coins to make a purchase.

Low to the ground, swarming in the fog, were radiant yellow eyes and, bearing the eyes, more coyotes than I had the time or the heart to count. A second individual stood up boldly at the door, and the multitudes behind these two leaders roiled among one another with increasing agitation, though they remained eerily silent.

Annamaria had told me earlier, on the greensward along Hecate’s Canyon, that the coyotes menacing us had not been only what they had appeared to be. She had admonished them that we were not theirs to take, that they must leave-and they had gone.

Although she had told me that I had nothing to fear from them, that I needed only to be bold, I did not feel capable of a boldness to equal that of these coyotes, which had the effrontery to threaten a man taking refuge in a Sunday school.

Besides, Annamaria understood something about them that I did not. Her knowledge made her bold. My lack of knowledge might get me killed.

Hastily retreating from the exit, I slipped into a classroom and closed the windowed door. Light entered from the hallway, and I stood to one side, in shadows.

I listened for Hoss Shackett but heard nothing.

Although usually coyotes explore only the portion of encroaching civilization that borders canyons and open wildland, occasionally one will venture far out of its territory and into the heart of a town. A Columbus of his species.

I had never before seen more than one or, at most, a pair this far from their natural habitat. The horde waiting in the fog seemed to be without precedent.

More peculiar than their distance from open hills and rough canyons was in fact the number of them. Although a family of six had threatened us earlier in the night, coyotes do not travel in traditional packs.

They hunt alone until they mate, whereafter they hunt in pairs. In the cycle of their lives, there will be a period when they hunt as families, the parents with their offspring, until the young decide to venture out on their own.

A female will bear three to twelve pups in a litter. Some will be stillborn, and some might die in their first days. A large family numbers eight or ten.

Although the fog could be deceiving and although my imagination is notorious, I was convinced that at least twenty of the beasts had swarmed beyond the door, and perhaps many more.

If they were not, as Annamaria had said, only what they seemed, then what else were they?

Whatever they might be, I supposed that Mama Shackett’s boy was deadlier than all the coyotes in the night from the Pacific to the Mississippi. I became increasingly unnerved by the stealth with which he sought me.

Hooding my flashlight, I explored my surroundings, hoping to find something that might serve as a weapon, although I recognized that a Sunday-school room would not offer the choices of an armory or, for that matter, of Birdie Hopkins’s purse. The chief most likely would not be so slow-moving that I could buffet him into submission with a pair of blackboard erasers.

In my explorations, I came upon another interior windowed door, this one with a vinyl blind drawn over the panes. I discovered that it opened into the next classroom, perhaps so that one instructor could easily monitor two classes.

I left the door standing open behind me, both to avoid making a noise and to leave a clear route for a swift retreat.

Each room featured a narrow supply closet in which I could have taken refuge. And each teacher’s desk offered a knee space big enough to conceal a man.

If Hoss Shackett conducted a thorough search, which I expected that he would, perhaps after calling in a deputy or two for backup, he would inevitably find me in any closet or knee space. The only question then would be whether the chief would beat me brutally with a nightstick and then shoot me to death-or shoot me to death and then beat me.

Because the second classroom connected to the third by way of an interior door, suggesting that all of these rooms were similarly joined, I might be able to circle through the annex to the entry corridor, getting behind Shackett and away.

Something creaked. I switched off the flashlight, and froze.

The sound had not come from nearby. I couldn’t discern whether it had arisen from the hallway or from one of the rooms through which I had recently passed.

I could have gone to the windows to determine if they were fixed or operable. But I knew that I would find the same admiring throng of chop-licking coyotes urging me with entreating eyes to join them for a run on the wild side, which was how they lured domesticated dogs to their doom.

I stood frozen a moment longer, then thawed, and switched on the flashlight. Filtering the beam through my fingers, I went to the door between this classroom and yet one more.

With my hand on the doorknob, I hesitated.

Either intuition or an overstimulated adrenal medulla, pumping inordinate amounts of stress hormones into my system, led me to the sudden perception that Hoss Shackett was in the next room. And not merely in the next room but standing inches away on the other side of this door. And not merely standing on the other side of this door, but standing with his hand on the knob over there, as mine was on the knob over here.

Both sides of the window in the door featured privacy blinds. If I peeled back this blind to peek, I would only see the back of the other blind-unless the chief peeled his back to peek at the same time that I did, in which case we would be eye to eye.

My heart raced. My mouth went so dry that I knew my tongue would rattle against my teeth if I dared move it. I was afraid to turn the knob because, as the chief felt it rotate under his hand, he would know where I was, while I would still not be entirely convinced about his location.

At some point, when paralyzed by fear, you have to decide if it is better to move at any cost or to remain motionless until you fall dead from a burst bladder or go raving mad with terror. Thus far, in such moments, I have always decided to move, and again I made that choice.

I turned the knob, thrust open the door, and entered the next classroom. Hoss Shackett was not waiting there for me.

Although annoyed with myself, I was not embarrassed. Even for someone like me, gifted with paranormal perception, it is often difficult to tell the difference between reliable intuition and the effects of an overstimulated adrenal medulla. You must shrug and take comfort that it was merely the medulla malfunctioning, for if it had been the entire adrenal gland, you would suddenly grow hair on your palms and begin lactating.

A few steps into the new room, a disturbing sound caused me to halt and cock my head to listen. An arrhythmic clicking-ticking rose from other classrooms or from the long hallway to the back entrance, at first utterly alien, then familiar, then abruptly recognized: the click of sharp claws on vinyl flooring as eager coyotes scrambled and slipped and sniffed in search of something odd to eat.