The Bog by Michael Talbot Page B

something was seriously wrong. Ben’s barking was no longer just the slow saraband of warning, but had accelerated in tempo and taken on a desperate and frenzied tone. “Ben! What is it?” David called, but the dog just kept up his feverish cries. From the sound of his barking it appeared that he was only a short distance out in the yard. Occasionally the barking moved, as Ben apparently raced from one side of the yard to the other in his impassioned attempt to ward off the unseen danger, but for several minutes he maintained the same distance from the house.
    Finally, even Ben’s already feverish barking crescendoed into a rapid series of staccato yelps, as if whatever the menace was that he was trying to keep at bay had drawn even closer, and from the sound of his barking David could tell that he had once again broken into a run. And then suddenly his barking was cut short in an abrupt and strangely truncated yelp.
    “Ben!” David called again. For several moments he listened carefully, but he heard nothing. No barking. Not even the rattle of the retriever’s collar as he padded across the lawn. “Ben!” he repeated, but still the only response he got was silence.
    Behind him Melanie had turned the light on and was sitting up in bed, her face creased with worry. “David, what is it? What’s happened to him?”
    For the moment David hushed her with a finger placed to his lips as he continued to listen. He did not know what had happened. He had only heard Ben make a sound like that once before, when they had still lived in the States. Melanie had allowed her clothesline to hang too close to the ground and one evening, not seeing it, Ben had run into it headlong and had had the wind knocked out of him in midbark.
    This reminded him of that incident, for as he continued to listen he could still hear absolutely nothing, no sign of growling or a struggle that might indicate that Ben’s silence was due to a confrontation with another animal. Finally he slipped on a robe.
    “David, what are you doing?”
    “I’m going out to check on him.”
    “You’ve got to be kidding.”
    “Honey, don’t worry. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
    She looked at her husband beseechingly. “Please, David, don’t go. I have a terrible feeling about all of this.”
    “Melanie, it will be all right,” he repeated as he grabbed a flashlight from the dresser drawer. She too got out of bed and slipped on a robe, but before she could stop him he had gone downstairs.
    Outside, he still heard nothing, and as he stood there listening carefully it occurred to him that even the night itself had gone oddly silent. Normally, after darkness had fallen, around the cottage could be heard the cadence of crickets and other night insects, and even the call of an occasional night bird, but as he stood there now it seemed that everything had been enveloped in an unearthly hush. Only the rustle of the wind through the willows gave any indication that he had not entered a tomb. He called Ben again and again, his bare feet clammy in the dewy evening grass, but there was still not a sound, not even a whimper. He shone the beam of the flashlight across the lawn and through the trees, hoping at least to see Ben’s eyes glowing comfortingly in the clear white light, but the retriever was nowhere to be seen.
    Melanie appeared at the door behind him and called out. “Please, David, come back in.”
    “Go inside,” he told her. “I’ll be right back.” And then, as an afterthought, he yelled back to her. “And lock the door until I get back.”
    He heard Melanie let out a little cry of distress as she did as she was bid, and he walked farther into the darkness. He passed through the creaky rusted gate in the stone fence and went out into the lane that ran by the house. He pointed the flashlight down the road in one direction, and then the other, but still saw nothing. He walked a little farther in the direction of the moor, and then suddenly he thought he