Creature by John Saul Page A

louder, the sound changed, becoming a scream of something that sounded like pain.
    Pain, or fury.
    It was an animal sound, vicious and feral, and Mark felt a chill in his body as the howl slashed through the peace of the evening.
    A split-second later the howling abruptly ended, leaving not even an echo to reverberate through the hills.
    Chivas, at his side, barked once then fell silent.
    The two of them stayed where they were for several long minutes, listening for the sound again, but a silence seemed to gather, and as the sun continued to set and the sky in the west took on a brilliant, pinkish tinge, long, deep shadows could be seen in the valley below.
    “Come on, boy,” Mark said, instinctively dropping his voice to little more than a whisper. “Let’s get home.” He rose to his feet and started back along the path through thewoods. This time Chivas, instead of bounding off on a path of his own, stayed close to his master. Every few yards the dog paused to look back, a soft whimper rising in his throat.
    Mark hurried his step, but it wasn’t until they’d crossed the bridge once again and were back in the more familiar surroundings of the town that he finally felt himself begin to relax.
       Linda Harris watched anxiously as Tiffany Welch took a deep breath, ran three quick steps, jumped, then hit the end of the springboard perfectly. The board launched her upward, and she executed a near-perfect flip in the air before landing unsteadily on the shoulders of Josh Hinsdale and Pete Nakamura. The two boys, feeling Tiffany’s legs tremble, grasped her ankles to steady her, and she threw her arms wide as she remained on their shoulders for a moment before losing her balance. Yelling for them to let go, she jumped back to the mats that covered the floor of the gym.
    “All right,” she said, reading the look in Linda’s eyes. “So it wasn’t perfect. But at least I got up, and by the time we have the homecoming game, I’ll be able to stay up.”
    Linda shook her head. “Or you’ll wind up with a broken back. I’m telling you, Tiff, if Mrs. Haynes finds out what you’re doing, she’ll kill us all.”
    “So we won’t let her find out,” Tiffany said. “I’ll just keep practicing until I get it right, and then we’ll show her.”
    “Well, I’m not practicing anymore tonight,” Linda told her. She glanced up at the clock. “It’s almost nine, and I still have to do my algebra. Come on.”
    The two girls said good-bye to Josh and Pete, then hurried into the locker room, showered quickly, and dressed. “Want to grab a Coke?” Tiffany asked as they left fifteen minutes later, their hair still wet, but drying quickly in the dry mountain air.
    Linda shook her head. “Can’t. Besides the algebra, I’ve got an English paper due.”
    “ ‘My Summer Vacation, by Linda Jane Harris’?” Tiffany asked, her voice edged with sarcasm. “Don’t you just hate those things?”
    Linda giggled. “Except that this one’s even worse,” she said. “I have to come up with a thousand words on The Most Important Person In My Life.’ Maybe,” she went on, as a sudden image of the English teacher’s humorless face came into her mind, “I’ll do my paper on Mr. Grey himself.”
    Tiffany shook her head. “My brother tried that two years ago. Mr. Grey gave him an F and made him do it over again.”
    As they turned the corner around the school building, a figure suddenly stepped out of the shadows ahead. Both the girls froze for a second, but then they heard, “Hey! It’s just me.”
    The figure moved fully out of the shadows, and Jeff LaConner appeared in the light of the streetlamp above. “I was waiting for you,” he said to Linda.
    Tiffany glanced at Linda out of the corner of her eye. “How about Jeff?” she said. “You could write the paper about him, couldn’t you?” Then, before Linda could think of a good retort, Tiffany said a quick good-bye and hurried away, leaving Jeff and Linda