Grendel Rising

Chapter 1: Halloween

Chapter 1: HalloweenI got down on my hands and knees and peered under the bed.

The eyes that regarded me from the shadows were steady, unblinking, and defiant. After a long silence, I sighed—which produced a noncommittal blink from the eyes.

I blinked myself. I was acutely aware of a sense of impotence. It was a stand-off, pure and simple and, as I remained there unmoving, the only development was my knees began to hurt. So, I sighed again, but more deliberately this time, and got slowly to my feet.

“Oh well,” I said as I walked out of the room, then in a louder voice when I reached the top of the stairs, “I guess Jake doesn’t want to go for a walk.”

Nothing.

I shook my head and began to descend the stairs, slowly. When I was standing just inside the front door, putting on my jacket, I tried one last time.

“Oh well!” I said loudly and unlocked the door.

That did it.

A moment after the lock clicked, there was a skittering of claws on wood above, followed by a plop, plop, plop, and Jake appearing, rapidly descending the stairs. I smiled to myself as I took the halter and leash from their wall hook and turned to face my dog.

Jake, my beloved Jack Russell terrier, was standing facing me, just out of reach, and wagging his tail tentatively. I squatted down and held out the halter and was puzzled by the fact that he didn’t move. He was clearly in the grips of a strong canine conundrum.

I blinked as I contemplated this very odd behavior. I must have been distracted—I had been doing an evening session in my second-floor home office, finishing up elements of the software contract due in two days. Apparently, I had not really come out of work-mode when I called Jake for his evening walk, and he had gone under my bed. It was only now it hit me.

It was Halloween!

* * * *

I had gotten Jake, as a three-month-old puppy, just over a year ago, in August. And during my first weeks with him I had been impressed with how well he took new experiences—larger dogs, moving cars, and the occasional cat sighting. Though at times cautious, he never seemed afraid, and I concluded Jake was a courageous and stoic little dog.

So, when Halloween came around, I had the brilliant idea of greeting Halloween trick-or-treaters with a candy bowl and my new puppy—on leash of course. I prepared the candy jar, put it on a chair just inside the front door, out of reach of Jake’s obvious interest, seated myself and waited. Jake’s leash was tied to the newel post of the stairs, and he sat, looking up at me, puzzled, while I told him how exciting this was going to be.

Turns out, I had underestimated this.

When the doorbell rang with the first trick-or-treaters, Jake gave his usual challenging bark. Only that, one bark—providing I was around and responding to the doorbell. Seeing me rise to open the door now, he was content to wait and see who it was before further action. I grinned down at him and said playfully, “Now, who could that be?”

He was wagging his tail slightly in anticipation as I opened the door.

“Trick or treat!” screamed a trio of small monsters happily into our faces. They were a ghost, a witch and a vampire, all about six or seven years old. I was just turning to reach for the candy jar when Jake, to put it baldly, simply lost his mind!

I had tied his leash so he couldn’t go beyond the door, but now he didn’t advance at all, but simply stood there in the middle of the hallway, legs braced, hackles up, and barked his head off! I jerked my head around in astonishment, and for one instant I saw him as a monster too, a creature that was all teeth and aggression. Then I was brought back to the situation by the terrified screams of the kids as they fled from my door.

“Sorry!” I called to the parents who, having come forward from the sidewalk, comforted their offspring while scowling fiercely at me. I shouted apologies to their retreating backs, then stepped back and closed the door.

Sitting in the hallway, Jake licking my hand, I finally recovered enough to reach up and shut off the outside front light. Then, I took Jake into the living room, petting him reassuringly. It wasn’t his fault. I lifted him so he could peer through the front curtains at the other trick-or-treaters who were coming out now in the dusk. Being safe in my arms, he stiffened, but his only utterance was a growl deep in his throat.

“See?” I said, putting my head against his side. “It’s just—well, it’s a game we humans play.”

I stood there for some fifteen minutes and gradually his growls diminished. They didn’t disappear altogether, however, so my half-formed intention to try the experiment again died a quiet death in my heart. I turned off the lamp in the living room and, putting Jake down, retreated to the kitchen at the back of the house. I closed the door to the hallway and made a late dinner, listening to the radio while Jake, having been fed earlier, went to his kitchen doggie bed and curled up.

* * * *

That had been Jake last Halloween. Since then, he had grown from a puppy into a confident and intelligent—I would even say wise—dog. But I hadn’t forgotten that traumatizing experience, and when Halloween came round again, I had decided to avoid any possibility of a repetition. So, as dusk approached, I closed the living room curtains and didn’t turn on any lights in the front of the house. I fed Jake, let him outside in the backyard for several minutes, and then went upstairs to work.

I became so engrossed in what I was doing, accompanied by music on my headphones and Jake curled up in the doggie bed in my office that, when I realized it was dark outside, I thought of our evening walk without reflection.

So, here I was, quite helpless in a squatting position, holding out the halter to Jake, and Jake wanting, I knew, to come and get hooked up, but unable to do so. Like I said, a canine conundrum.

Something about the situation made me feel helpless, too. I let my head fall forward and gave another sigh, a genuine one this time.

Perhaps it was the sense that I had genuinely given up, was at the end of my tether, so to speak, that did it—for after several seconds I felt the gentle warmth of air on my ear, and the touch of a wet nose. I smiled and, without raising my head, reached out and gently stroked my dog.

Once I had done this he didn’t try to get away, and when I finally raised my head and looked at him, his expression was definitely penitent, one of sorry, Dad!

“That’s okay,” I said smiling and scratching him under the chin while I reached for the halter with the other. I slowly brought the halter around and slipped it over his head, but he never moved.

“Good pup!” I murmured gratefully as I got to my feet. Jake, now recovered from his anxiety, went to the door, his tail wagging. But I noticed it was not in his usual eager and excited manner.

“Okay,” I said. “Here we go.” I opened the door.

Stepping out into the cool October night, I paused at the top of my front steps and looked around. Delightful! It was full-on dark now, and as I breathed, I smelled that wonderful odor of fall comprised of dead leaves and a slight crispness in the air.

“Oh, man!” I murmured. “I love this weather!”

Looking down at Jake, I noticed he was keeping close to my leg as he surveyed the empty street suspiciously. I suppressed a laugh and reached down to pet him.

“All gone, boy,” I said reassuringly after surveying the now-deserted street. “They’ve all gone home to feast on their hoards of candy.” Images of this activity were displaced by the parties of costumed teenagers, gathered in the rec rooms of their parents’ houses. I shook my head and smiled. It was the suburbs, after all.

“C’mon, Jake,” I said.

Walks with Jake were always accompanied by pleasant mental meanderings. Tonight, I remembered the Halloween parties had I been invited to. There had been two in high school—not very successful from my point of view—and three in my early twenties. That had been enough to teach me parties were not really my thing.

Square was what I had been called, and probably that was fair enough. I had done drugs in college but hadn’t really found any real joy in them. Besides, hadn’t it been that famous gay man, Noel Coward, who had said: Work is more fun than fun?

The truth was, I liked my job—my career—having my own one-man company. The puzzle of developing software for clients had always been a delightful challenge, and something I was good at—enough that I was able to buy the detached house I now lived in, while still in my twenties!

Before that, I had tried living in the downtown gay village. Sure, it had been fun and exciting—at least at first. But after several years all that had begun to pale. Occasionally the neighborhood had been just a bit too exciting; and after the third time my place had been robbed, I began seriously to think about moving.

My appreciation of green lawns and quiet streets had been learned in my early childhood, when my family was still together. I was only five when my father left us, and my mom and us kids had had to take lodgings in a less-than-opulent area of town, so I guess I remembered that suburban world with bucolic nostalgia. Certainly, I dreamed about it often enough. So, when I began to have success as an adult, I directed my habitation interests to the greener and quieter suburbs of our city—and finally bought my first house—and two months later got Jake.

And so, I was to all intents and purposes, settled.

Friends were not so approving. “What about a boyfriend?” they asked. “You’re not going to find Mr. Right out there in that middle-class, heterosexual wasteland.”

My response, because I wondered that myself, quickly became a dismissive, “There’ll be time enough for that.”

But now, as I was led by Jake along his favorite route through the quiet, curving streets, illuminated by streetlights and curtained windows, many with candlelit jack-o’-lanterns in them, that challenge of finding love came back to haunt me.

What about it, Ken? I asked myself. What about finding, as the song says, “somebody to love?”

Jake brought me back from these fruitless ruminations when he stopped, frozen in place, staring into the dark shadows of a front yard. I shook my head to clear my mind and looked where he was staring. Nothing. Yet, Jake’s hackles were raised, and he was growling, which I knew meant something.

Still, I was puzzled. There was no Halloween decoration visible, no jack-o-lantern in a window, nor a stuffed figure of a witch peering around the column on a front porch. We had encountered the latter on previous nights, when Halloween decorations had gone up prior to the day itself. Jake’s reaction had been the same each time. He froze, stared for several seconds, and then erupted into a fusillade of barking. I had reassured him each time and made a point of letting him sniff each decoration. After this, he seemed to recover, and I thought him more or less inoculated by this point.

Yet, here it was again, that reaction. Yet I could see nothing.

“What is it, boy?”

I held onto the leash as I stepped forward to where he was, the thought in my mind being: skunk. We had already had one close call, and I didn’t want to have to deal with a skunked dog, either the trauma to him or the cleansing.

I had just reached him and was about to squat down to pet him reassuringly, when he lunged forward a foot and simply exploded with a burst of furious barking. I pulled back on his leash, stepped forward and knelt down, putting my arms around him and breathing “Shhhh!” in his ear.

It wasn’t late, but still, I didn’t want Jake to get a reputation for too much barking.

Usually, this tactic worked. But this time, while his barking died down, it was replaced by a kind of whining I couldn’t seem to stop.

So now I was curious. I stood up and, holding him firmly on a short leash, moved forward. I noticed Jake was not pulling now. He was staying right beside me, but still making odd anxious noises.

I continued to peer into the darkness of the yard but could make out nothing. On the right was a large shrub, and on the left, along the line of the front walk of the house, a hedge. I was alert for the telltale sign of movement that would indicate an animal, but there was nothing.

After taking another step, however, I was just able to make out something—or, rather, several somethings—amid the grass lawn: a larger something in front, and two smaller somethings on either side and back somewhat, in a triangular configuration.

I stared, trying to figure out what I was looking at. Then it came to me, and I experienced a frisson of real terror.

It froze me for several heartbeats as I stared, incredulous but horror-stricken, at what apparently was a huge face—a nose and two eyes just barely protruding above the grass surface.

It only took that long for my rational mind to override this impression, and I chuckled shakily with relief. I had seen something like this before—in daylight, a week previously: an artificial nose and eyes, placed on a front lawn to suggest a buried head. I had been walking Jake, but because I had spotted the thing from across the street, Jake had not noticed it. I was careful afterwards to avoid that particular house. But that was several streets over. This one I realized must be new. Very new, in fact, for it certainly hadn’t been here as recently as yesterday.

I looked down at Jake, who was still standing stiffly next to my leg, staring at the thing.

“It’s okay, boy,” I said, reaching down and petting him.

Something in my voice must have reassured him, for after looking up at me anxiously, he made no further utterance.

“It’s just a Halloween decoration,” I continued soothingly. “C’mon. Let’s go check it out.”

I took a step forward, and then another, and was surprised at how cautious I was feeling, more than seemed reasonable. I chided myself: this was not the way to reassure one’s dog! I took another deliberate step. Now the three elements were quite clear: the nose and two eyes. And wasn’t there something beyond the eyes? I ridge of sorts? I frowned, then squinted to blur the image and get an overall picture. Immediately, I saw this fourth element might be the eyebrow ridge on the forehead of the buried face!

I was impressed. This was of higher quality than the other so-called face had been. No wonder Jake had been fooled! What was the scale? It must be about three times human size. The nose was very well-formed. It was the size that made the buried face so frightening. Perhaps it triggered a long-buried instinct. A fear of dinosaurs, perhaps? No. Those were long gone when humans evolved.

Still.

Jake was no longer straining, so I eased my hold on his leash. He was still staring at the decoration and remained next to my leg. I squatted down and petted him again.

“It’s okay, boy. This is just another silly thing we humans do.”

He looked up at me, his expression still slightly anxious, which made my heart twist. I didn’t like my dog being afraid. So, I decided to help.

“Here,” I said. “I’ll show you.”

I stood up and took another step forward. Jake remained where he was.

“It’s okay!” I said quietly. He looked at me but didn’t move. I laughed gently. “I’ll show you.”

Taking a deep breath, I stepped almost right up to the nose, and looked down again at the face. From this proximity I felt even more impressed with the realism of the features. There were actual eyebrows on the ridge of forehead, and eyelashes on the eyes. It all looked quite genuine, except for the blank look in those eyes, which clearly gazed at nothing.

And that nose! Probably Styrofoam. It stuck up, several inches above the grass. I was about to nudge it with my sneaker, but instead I stepped to the side and half turned, so I could see both Jake and the nose. Then I squatted down and touched the nose with a fingertip.

What?

I leaped back, toppling onto the grass. Immediately, Jake was next to me, licking my face in concern. I put my arm around him and pulled him close, then just lay there, unmoving, while I caught my breath.

But when I remembered why I had fallen, I sat up hastily, ready to scramble to my feet as I stared at that nose thing, I could feel the hackles on my neck stand up.

That nose was not Styrofoam; it had felt distinctly warm.

I looked at Jake, who was still watching me anxiously.

“Maybe we should leave,” I murmured.

But something in me wouldn’t allow that. I was unnerved, but still—I wanted to know what it was. And besides, the idea of fleeing from a lawn ornament—

My mental use of the term brought me back to some sense of reality. That’s right, I told myself. It’s just a damned Halloween ornament—meant to scare little kids. That made me feel a little better. But it had been warm, had in fact felt very lifelike. But how could that be?

Then, it came to me: heated of course! That seemed odd, but maybe that was to make it scarier? Did that make sense? I wasn’t sure but decided that must be it. Perhaps it was just another aspect of the detailing.

I shrugged, and murmured, “Okay.”

So, squaring my shoulders, I faced the display, looked at each of the four elements, and then at them together. My eyes had by now adjusted to this deeply shadowed part of the yard, and still the effect was startlingly realistic. I was even more impressed. I thought of the scare both Jake and I had had, and chuckled. That was what Halloween was all about, after all.

I looked down at Jake. He was standing next to me, still staring at the ornament, but no longer looking frightened. Perhaps my touching the thing, even with my subsequent tumble, had reassured him.

If only it had reassured me!

But I tightened my jaw. “You’re made of sterner stuff,” I murmured, and took a step forward again. Then another. A foot from the nose, I squatted down to examine the object, the smooth, curving shape of the thing; so fleshy. Then, an image came to me of the hypothetical rest of the form, at the same scale. The image of so much flesh—I found myself getting slightly aroused.

The simultaneous amusement and mortification that this produced helped my state of mind. Was it a male nose? I decided it was, somehow. And its curves really were quite beautiful. Majestic. I felt another tingle of s****l excitement, and chuckled.

I squatted down, examining the nostrils—and received another shock. There appeared to be actual nostril hairs. More detailing? I reached out toward the nostrils but hesitated to touch.

A moment later I drew my hand sharply back, as if I had been burned.

I experienced a swooping sensation in my stomach, and I had to bite my lip to stop myself from crying out. A veritable orchestra of symptoms afflicted me now: creeping flesh, icy chills and my hair standing on end.

Deliberately, I turned my head and shoulders so I could see the sidewalk, the street, the overall peaceful look of a night in the suburbs. It was reassuring.

Even so, it took nerve to turn back to that nose again. Those well-formed, oval nostrils. What I had felt was a slight but definite flow of warm air coming from them.

As if from breathing.

I slowly stood up and took a step backward. It really was getting late, and I should probably get Jake home. I had taken several steps toward the sidewalk when I thought, with a stab chagrin: What a coward!

I turned back and looked at the ornament, frowning. A moment later, I clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle a real scream of terror. The eyes had blinked. Moreover, they had lost their blank look and were now quite definitely gazing directly at me!