"The Spirit of Rancor"
© 2005 Cashew Lou
Kelly was quite possibly the most cool-headed, logical, rational guy I could ever hope to meet. He was a worshiper at the Holy Church of the Dotted-I and Crossed-T; you know the type. Anal retentive. Cans and boxes in the pantry arranged in alphabetical order. You get my drift.
Kelly the hyena usually looked as though right after the doctor spanked him upon birth, he was poured into a sensible, hand-stitched three-piece double-breasted business suit. So try to imagine my shock when I saw said suit rumpled, tie half-undone (for all I knew, he wore his tie to bed at night), eyes red-rimmed, when he had summoned me to meet him after eleven on a Tuesday night.
That's another thing; a Tuesday night! A work night! He could carry on once in a while on the weekend, sure, but Monday through Friday were one hundred percent devoted to his job.
But here we both were, at a bar on a Tuesday night, at his request.
And Kelly looked like he had come totally fucking unglued. At least three tall, slender glasses were on the table before him—I assumed they had once contained long island iced teas, a fairly powerful concoction—and he was nursing his second martini when I arrived. One empty martini glass stood among its fellow dead soldiers, and Kelly was fishing a pearl onion out of the second with shaking fingers.
"Shit, Kelly," I said, sitting down, "you look like you've seen a—"
"Stop. No. Stop right there."
Confused, I stopped in an awkward position, halfway between standing and sitting, hovering over the chair. "Um...okay...."
Kelly closed his eyes as if a migraine was preparing to set in; he shook his head vigorously. "No. Sit down. I meant for you to stop what you were saying."
I nodded and sat down quietly. It seemed prudent to let him do the talking—when he was ready.
A soft, shuddering sigh drifted from his muzzle, and he looked up at me, his expression pinched and ravaged. "Shit," he half-whispered.
"Well, that's a start," I said. Carefully.
"Right," he said, with a slightly hysterical little chuckle. "Sorry, Lou, I'm still trying to compose myself. "It's been one hell—"
"What can I getcha?" The barmaid abruptly hollered as she approached our table.
"Jesus Christ!" Kelly screamed, bumping his knees on the table and knocking over one of the tall glasses.
"That's kind of a tall order, hon," she said with a smile.
"Can't you fucking let people know you're coming? God damn, do I have to put a cowbell around your neck?"
"Shit, Kelly, calm down!" I said, at the same time trying to give the barmaid a reassuring smile. "He's a little...um...."
"Yeah," Kelly murmured. "Sorry. Sorry."
The barmaid nodded and gave Kelly a questioning glance. "'s okay, hon." She turned and walked back to the bar.
I guess my drink order would have to wait.
Kelly brushed his fingers through his headfur, his paws trailing down to smooth his suit. It looked like at least a little bit of businessfur Kelly had returned. "Okay, then."
"So what's up, Kelly? Where's the fire?"
"You are not going to believe this."
If I had only had a dime for every time I had heard a story beginning with those words! "Try me."
"You're the only wolf I could call. I know you're kind of a ghostbuster."
I couldn't help but chuckle at that. "Oh, please."
"Well, you are, aren't you? I remember you telling me that yourself."
"I am an amateur paranormal enthusiast. Not a 'ghostbuster.'"
"What's the difference?"
I let out an exasperated sigh. "Nothing. Semantics, I guess. So, you saw a ghost, then?"
Another half-hysterical, laughing little bark. "Lou, I saw the granddaddy of all ghosts."
"Lay it on me, then."
And damn, did he ever! He talked for nearly two hours; my only input was a series of nods and assenting little grunts as he recounted what happened. It may have been longer than that; I remember the barmaid giving us those little would-you-please-leave-so-I-can-close-up kind of looks. Nonetheless, what follows is as accurate a retelling as I can muster.
Kelly worked as an up-and-coming executive in the Kane Tower downtown, on the sixteenth floor. Since he wasn't yet a full-fledged executive, his working space was out in the open; the majority of the floor was set up with desks and tables much like the newsroom of an old-time newspaper. The offices that lined one wall of the floor were his ultimate goal; to occupy one of them would make him official, would mean he had arrived. But he wasn't there yet.
This specific Tuesday night he was sitting at one of the long tables near the center of the room, binders and papers spread all around him. Some dumbass at corporate had accidentally mixed the records of the midwest and southeast divisions. Kelly's frustration grew as he tried to sort the mess out; who knew both Ohio and Georgia had both a Columbus and an Athens?
Lucky him; there were division offices in all four cities. Shit.
The hyena had his concentration focused on a binder full of shipping records when he noticed the slightest movement out of the corner of his eye—or at least he thought he had seen something move.
Blinking and rubbing his eyes, he shook his head back and forth, trying to clear the cobwebs in his mind. Screw this seventy-hour-a-week shit, he thought. It's not worth just getting your name on a bronze plate on an office door. Is it? He knew in the back of his mind he would keep at it anyway; some masochistic part of him liked the exhaustion, the extra hours.
The brimming binder full of business statistics beckoned, and Kelly answered its call, returning his gaze to the neatly-arranged columns and rows of names, places and figures.
There was no doubt about it; the left-hand page on the binder was moving. Nothing peripheral this time; he was looking right at it. The sheet of paper was fluttering slightly, as if caught in the breeze of a small table fan. Its movement was erratic, though: Flit. Flitflit.
"What the hell?" Kelly muttered to himself, the sound of his voice sounding far louder than normal in the empty, cavernous space of the office floor. The air conditioning wasn't on; it was a cool, late April evening. The nearest desk fan was halfway across the room—and was turned off, of course. No windows were open, either; up this high, all the windows in the climate-controlled building were permanently sealed shut.
Flitflit.
Kelly slammed his paw down on the sheet of paper. Tiny tendrils of ice-cold air poked and tickled at his fingers—but only for a moment.
"What the hell?" he repeated, standing up quickly, his chair's casters whispering across the floor as it was propelled away.
There was nothing to account for the breeze, or for its coldness. The silence surrounding him was unnerving. All there was to hear was the soft humming of the overhead fluorescent lights—a sound so quiet that it was totally drowned out during the normal bustle of business hours. Kelly's head swiveled back and forth, surveying the office for any clue, any sign of movement other than his own.
Even the binder page lay still now.
Kelly rested his palms on the table and let his head hang down loose, relaxing his tensed neck muscles somewhat. He coughed softly. A businesslike mantra ran through his head repeatedly: Getaholdofyourselfgetaholdofyourselfgetaholdofyourself!
Any likelihood of that was about to be utterly demolished.
Across the room, up against the floor-to-ceiling windows, papers began to flutter on several desks. This was no light breeze from a desk fan; smaller items scooted across desks and tables and fell to the floor, creating a confused cacophony of noise.
The hyena's head whipped to the side in reaction to the sudden clatter. Through the whirlwind of flying paper clips, rubber bands and post-it notes, Kelly could see a slight discoloration forming on the windows. More or less circular in shape, it spread quickly, a dull, misty white obscuring the view of the city skyline beyond.
Perhaps against his better judgment, Kelly felt himself taking a step toward the window. The temperature in the room was steadily dropping—which was considerable, taking into account the size of the room—and the patch on the window was becoming whiter and more opaque. Around the edges of the patch, tiny wisps of steam started to rise. It was frost! The temperature outside couldn't have been below forty-five degrees.
The logical mind sometimes seems to shut down momentarily when things that can't possibly happen do happen. Kelly's mind was more logical and organized than most, therefore his shutdown was a little more profound. Wide-eyed, he stared at the window, absolutely and unquestionably dumbfounded. The oblivious, shocked state of his mind didn't even allow it to register that a cool patch of air was slowly engulfing him.
A tiny, rhythmic clicking sound shook Kelly out of his funk; his mind seemed to clear somewhat when he realized his teeth were chattering. Jesus; it's like winter in here! he thought, his mind scrambling to calculate an explanation that just wasn't there.
He had to consider his options. A certainly weird and potentially dangerous situation was taking place. What should he do? There was nothing in any employee manual or procedure handbook for what was going on; he was completely on his own. It almost disgusted him to think just how much of his life was lived according to procedure, to ritual, to someone else's pre-written rules.
What the hell do I do?
The flight instinct felt pretty strong; he could just walk out of here while he had the chance. Walk? Hell, he felt capable of a two-minute mile. Then again, the rubberneck mentality was stronger, at least for the moment. The ruffling papers, the spreading patch of frost—it was all so compelling, so irresistible to witness. Would he ever forgive himself if he didn't see this out to its conclusion, whatever that may be?
Curiosity killed the cat, right? Well, he was a hyena, so he had that base covered. If not, satisfaction would bring him back.
Hopefully.
Kelly's mind had become well-enough adjusted to the current happenings around him that it didn't occur to him that they could escalate. Indeed, he was almost smiling to himself when he saw two round, dark circles forming in the enormous patch of frost.
The patch itself was absolutely gigantic now; it stretched from ceiling to floor, some ten feet or so in diameter. The darker circles, some four feet off the floor, expanded until they joined in a sideways figure-eight shape. From there, they expanded until at least half of the frost circle was gone, the glass clearing.
What they revealed nudged Kelly from curiosity—accompanied by a vague sense of 'the creeps'—to outright terror. Even though he could see through the translucent apparition, there was no mistaking what was making the frost melt.
A gigantic, lupine nose was hovering outside the window, one hundred fifty feet off the ground. The heated breath from its nostrils was clearing the frost, of course; that made perfect sense. What didn't quite fall into place was the size of the wolf's muzzle; to peer into a sixteenth-story window, assuming it was standing on the ground, well....
The enormous nose moved forward; Kelly expected it to flatten against the thick plate-glass window. When it passed through the window noiselessly—headed directly for him—the hyena's adrenaline kicked into full gear. He backpedaled as quickly as his footpaws would carry him—directly into a computer desk. Two tables bracketed the desk, pinning him neatly in place. The only way out was the direction from which he had come.
Toward that thing.
As it drifted forward, more of the immense wolf's face came into view—with a quivering view of the city skyline visible through it. Its eyes were fiery red; somehow, they seemed a bit more solid than the rest of the apparition. Though he felt his sanity abandoning him, Kelly still had his wits about him enough to notice the wolf's shoulders were flush with the floor.
What were people on the lower floors seeing? he couldn't help but wonder. What were folks on the sidewalk outside seeing—or those in the buildings across the street? What he was seeing looked very angry; its great scarlet eyes seemed to radiate fury.
The tempo of Kelly's pulse rose far too quickly to a hummingbird's pace; he felt the sickening, dizzying nausea of alarm in his stomach as the monstrous wolf's head approached him slowly. All too soon the beast would be upon him—oh fuck, and then what? Bolting now was no longer an option—as if it ever had been one—the ethereal titan's head was mere feet away now, and closing in. The paralysis of horror riveted the hyena to the spot, and his body felt distant, foreign, like so much immovable marble.
Oh, fuck, here it comes. Ohfuckohgod....
Morbid fascination propelled his paw forward as frigid air the temperature of dry ice closed around his fingers. Kelly watched his own motions in detached horror as his arm reached out to touch the hellish specter. He felt no more control over it than he did over the oceanic tides.
Incredible coldness swept through Kelly's entire body as the gigantic, black nose touched him. Well, it didn't precisely touch him; the coldness itself was the touch, jarring as a sudden jolt of raw electricity. The beast was going through him, the crippling, freezing sensation turning the hyena's blood to ice water.
Distantly, as if he were an observer of the entire event, Kelly could sense he was crying. Great, heaving, childlike sobs of fear shook his shoulders with their intensity.
A horrible, baritone growl filled the air, filled his mind. It spoke of pure, totally undiluted hatred, a hatred that must steep and grow over decades to become so strong. Its throaty thunder rose in volume, seeming to shake the entire building with its power. Beneath the hatred, swirling in the maelstrom of fury, was an almost quiet, sad undertone. Was it pain? Helplessness? Something deep in the booming, seismic growl seemed to beckon, to beg. Try as he might, he couldn't draw a bead on it; as soon as his horror-fogged mind seem to almost pinpoint the underlying emotion, the powerful rage would sweep it away.
So much blind, vengeful anger! Too much; Kelly was positive he was going to die. No body as small as his could take this kind of punishment, this poisonous, black, giant hatred. It felt as though no other emotions were possible for the giant to feel now; the anger would most certainly crush them flat. It also felt to the hyena that surely his own triphammering heart would burst in his chest.
The lights went out on the entire floor at that moment. No flickering, no warning at all; just instant darkness. Oddly enough, the emergency lighting system did not come on. His distant, observer's mind sensed a sharp bark of surprise coming from his own mouth.
All Kelly could see now were the blazing embers of the giant's eyes, piercing him, marking him as they drifted forward. To touch one of them would not be ice cold; he knew this as indisputable fact. To touch one of those eyes would be like plunging headlong into one of the swift-flowing lava rivers of Hell itself. Their gaze seemed to burrow into his soul.
Too much. Too much.
The sensory overload was now complete; Kelly swooned and dropped to the floor, the gigantic wolf's angry growl roaring and following him into the black tunnel of unconsciousness.
When Kelly came to, all the lights were on, and all the windows were clear. The entire office floor seemed comfortably warm and disturbingly normal. The only sign of his encounter was the debris of paper clips and pens scattered by the ghostly wind.
Somehow, he got himself down the elevator and to the bar across the street. He had no recollection of how the hell he got there.
"Sonofabitch," I said quietly once Kelly had finished his story.
"Yeah." What else could he say?
"That's messed up, Kel. No other way to put it."
"Well, I can't go back there," he noted with absolute finality. "No way in heaven or hell are you getting me back up there."
"Hold on now; don't be so quick to—"
Kelly quickly leaned across the table until he was practically nose-to-nose with me. I could smell gin. "I just got mind-fucked by a giant ghost wolf! Don't you fucking dare tell me I have to go back there!"
"Kel. Chill." I put my paws on his shoulders and pushed him back down onto his seat.
I could see the beginnings of tears in his eyes. "I can't," he whispered hopelessly, waving his arm over the table, indicating all the empty glasses. "Two gallons of booze in four hours, and I still don't think I can sleep a wink."
"Really, it's not the end of the world. I think I can help."
"Not the end of the world?!" Here came the hysterics again. "You go up there. Go ahead. Go up there and have Satan whisper in your ear for a few minutes. Then you tell me where the world ends and that fucking wolf begins!"
"Kel!" This shit was starting to piss me off.
"What?"
"Can I talk now? Uninterrupted? For, say, ten seconds? You asked for my help, and I am fucking well trying to give it to you. Tearing me a new one will only make me walk away and leave you to deal with MegaCujo up there."
That seemed to do it. "Okay."
"Okay, what?"
"Okay. I need your help, and I'm sorry. What do you want me to do?"
I stood up and walked behind Kelly, massaging his shoulders a little bit. He felt like he had high-tension cables under his fur. "Go home. Sleep. Call in sick tomorrow."
Calling in sick was usually against his strict business sense, but he seemed relieved to hear the advice from me this time. I could actually feel his shoulders relaxing a touch. "Okay. Then what?"
"Call me about six tomorrow night. I will see what I can dig up. Okay?"
"All right." He stood up, weaving a bit on his feet. "Feh...better walk home."
"I'd give you a lift, but I'm hoofing it, myself."
Kelly nodded and smiled a little. "Lou? Thanks."
"Don't thank me yet. Go. Sleep."
Another tired nod, and he padded off into the night.
Holy shit, did I ever have some work to do.
I spent the majority of that Wednesday in research. This is the boring part of 'ghostbusting' that is generally left out of parapsychologically-themed stories and films. Even though it's a crucial part of serious paranormal study, your average reader or movie-goer would rather not spend their time watching someone filter through paper and microfilmed records in a dusty library basement. The only way that would be exciting to an audience member would be if said basement contained a ghost. I'm sure if Ivan Reitman were telling this story, it would. But he ain't.
I want to tell you I found something gripping and exciting while sifting through acres of blueprints, titles, deeds and newspaper articles. I suppose for the sake of nail-biting drama, I could make something up. Sadly, the truth of the matter is I found very little information at all, and so far as I could tell, nothing at all relating to Kelly's apparition.
After seven hours of sleuthing, I knew this much:
The Kane Tower's construction was completed in December of 1931, making it the third-oldest building in the downtown district. At its erection, it was the tallest structure in town at sixty-four stories; today, it is the fifth-tallest.
From 1872 to 1928, a textile storage warehouse stood on the real estate now occupied by the Kane Tower. The warehouse was demolished in the early spring of '28—and that is literally all I can tell you about it. It was as though every media outlet in the area at that time decided to edit out some of the most mundane, but important details. Nowhere could I find the name of the demolition company (they usually love the free press), the reason the building was taken down, or what was planned to replace it.
Newspaper accounts of building demolitions almost always include two photos; the subject matter of these pictures is so intertwined, having one without the other would be like cropping out one of two Siamese twins. Now, think back in your mind as I say this. On the left side of the front page of the paper—usually, now—there is a picture of the old building coming down, generally with a huge cloud of dust at its base as it the charges are being detonated. Its twin picture to the right is almost always a contractor's drawing of the project slated to replace the old building. Right? You may have a third or fourth photo inside on page three—a sepia-toned snapshot of the edifice in its heyday, a close-up of the demolition's remaining rubble—but the journalistic template for such a story is almost always exactly the same.
I could find nothing of the sort regarding the old textile building. Usually the horn of civic pride is blown quite loudly—here we grow again! In this case, however, the only headline I could find was "Warehouse Demolished." That's all. Totally devoid of fanfare; hell, it was nearly devoid of facts. I still don't know what the building's name was, if it indeed had one at all. The article included no interviews with anyone—civic leaders, fire or demolitions personnel, or Joe Six-Pack on the street.
Also missing were any plans on the erection of the Kane Tower; in fact, I could find no mention of its construction until May of 1930, almost a year and a half after the warehouse teardown. Downtown lots are generally premium real estate and rarely left idle; why would this case be any different? True, this was the advent of the Depression, but it was in full swing when the plans still went ahead for the tower. I don't know.
All in all, this newspaper item was a short, dry little piece—buried on page nine, I should note. It seemed to dare the reader to ignore it, forget it, move on with his or her life.
But two little words in that article really bugged me. I quote:
"The building's destruction, executed Thursday night, has left a considerable pile of debris. Onlookers are advised to keep clear of the rubble, so clearing crews may..."
Thursday night? Who the bloody hell tears down a building in the dark?
I'm sure some of you reading this are a step or two ahead of me here. The building was demolished at night in early spring, right? you may be asking. Kelly saw the specter at night in early spring, right?
Well, yes. And those thoughts crossed my mind, too. The building was torn down on an April night in 1928, to be more precise. This kind of conjecture just gives birth to too many weird questions. Did a giant wolf have anything to do with the textile warehouse's destruction? Would seem the logical leap to take, right?
Then why was there no media coverage of the event at all? You can't tell me one hundred fifty-foot-tall wolves were an everyday occurrence in 1928—or any other year, frankly. You would think that would have gotten someone's attention.
Then again, the press knew about Franklin Roosevelt being wheelchair-bound. They were aware of the Kennedy boys' hanky-panky in the White House. These are facts Joe Public didn't find out until decades after they took place. Maybe the story I was researching was covered up for much the same reason as the presidential secrets: the public would have been simply too weirded out. What they don't know can't hurt 'em.
And maybe Elvis is piloting a spaceship somewhere out near the Horsehead Nebula. I try to take pride in my resistance to running down the road of media and governmental conspiracy. My doing so would only categorize me with the crackpots who give paranormal research a bad name. I'm not like Sister Yolanda on the east edge of town with a giant tarot card painted on her house door and a yin-yang symbol in garish blue and pink neon in her bay window. I am not.
But dammit, it made me think. Thursday night, it said. Still, with no concrete proof, I just couldn't bring myself to make the cognitive leap. Leaps of faith are foolhardy things in serious parapsychology.
But I digress. At six o'clock, I gave Kelly a call and arranged to meet him for dinner. I only wished I had more to tell him than I did.
He looked marginally better than he had the night before—all things considered, that wasn't really saying much. Even though he had taken the day off, he was sharply dressed in a business suit, and he looked less...well, less rumpled and disheveled. There were small bags under his eyes, and his eyes themselves still looked a little red-rimmed. I wondered if he had gotten any sleep at all. It also occurred to me that he must be nursing one bitch-kitty of a hangover; his dinner was accompanied by nothing more than cup after cup of steaming black coffee.
We ate in almost total silence; I was relieved to see he still had his appetite intact. I found it a little curious that he hadn't bombarded me with a flurry of questions when he met me at the restaurant—or on the telephone, for that matter. Then again, maybe he didn't possess the same dominant trait of curiosity I did. Simply put, maybe he didn't really want to know anything more.
"So that's that, then," he said resignedly after I briefed him on what little I had researched. "A curiosity here and a maybe this and a maybe that. And I have to go back to work tomorrow in the seventh circle of Hell." He seemed to physically deflate at that thought, his shoulders slumping, body sliding downward in his chair.
The temptation to tell him things weren't all that bad was overwhelming; the words had almost escaped my lips. But I hadn't been there. Saying those ill-chosen words to him at that moment would have either depressed him more or launched him across the table at me in a fury. Neither likely outcome was very appealing, so I lowered my head a bit with an almost imperceptible nod.
"Bottom line, Lou: I can not go back up there. You wanna know the only thing I got accomplished today at home?"
It didn't sound like any twinges of panic were in his voice, so I nodded again, more emphatically this time. "What's that?"
A nervous little chuckle. "I updated my resume. Over half my professional life at this place, and overnight all I could think about was getting out."
"Well, don't give up the ship just—"
"Immediately. I don't even want to go up there in broad daylight to quit in person. I'm half-considering faxing my resignation."
"That's a little abrupt, isn't it?"
Kelly shook his head slowly, and a serious, intense brightness shined in his eyes as he leaned forward, tapping his right temple with his index finger. Slowly, deliberately, he spoke, a jab of his finger emphasizing every syllable. "He is in here, Lou."
"In—?"
"Yes. I can feel him. He's pissed off as hell. And about two dozen times today I wanted to shove a letter opener into my ear and dig the sonofabitch out."
What the hell does someone say to that? "Jesus," I muttered.
He stared down at the table, letting out another shaky little giggle. "I don't think either he or his dad are within a country mile of this shit."
I had a little legal pad of notes on the table in front of me. They were of no help at all as I stared down at them helplessly. Pointlessly, I reached down and shifted the pad around a little. "I'm sorry," I said, feeling useless.
A pregnant pause followed. It likely only lasted a minute or so, but my discomfort level rose over a period of time that felt like hours. Days.
I was still staring down at my notes, making a conscious effort not to look Kelly in the eye, when he finally broke the silence—after tentatively clearing his throat. "So, are...um, are you sure you covered every base? Nothing you've overlooked?" The tone of his voice seemed calmer; instead of pleading, it was more businesslike, more analytical. More Kelly.
"You tell me, I guess," I answered, shrugging. "I've only had one day's work on this, after all. I hit city hall, the libraries, the newspaper and television archives...."
"Anyone at the tower itself?"
"Yup. First place I stopped. I wanted to see the security tapes from last night, if there were any."
"Okay. And?"
"Meh," I sighed, "between you, me and the fencepost, the security guard is an asshole."
This seemed to really puzzle Kelly. "He was...?" In an almost cartoonishly obvious change of expression, an idea appeared to come to him. He leaned back in his chair and palm-smacked his forehead. "Oh, hell, of course! You talked to Don."
"Did I?"
"German Shepherd? Bad teeth? Looked constipated?"
I let out a little chuckle, both of amusement and relief; the mood was shifting in a more favorable direction. "That's the guy."
"Don's a Gestapo shitbag. He wouldn't tell his own mother what he had for breakfast. You need to talk to Mack, the night security guard."
"Well, what time does he go on shift?"
"Six."
"And what time is it now?" I almost never wear a watch; it's a habit I should get out of someday. I knew Kelly always wore his.
"Seven twenty-six." I would have rounded up and said seven-thirty, but hey, that's me.
I stood and pushed my chair closer to the table. "No time like the present, then."
"What? Now? There? After dark?"
"Oh, come on, Kel; the lobby of the tower has about half a million footcandles pouring out of it, even at two in the morning. You'll be fine."
"Well...."
"I'll get the check." I cheated; I knew that would work.
Kelly braced himself against his chair as he stood behind it, stiffly working on steeling his resolve. He gave me one quick, sharp nod. "Let's roll, then."
I liked Mack the second I met him; he had a hearty greetings-fellow-well-met charm and manner to him that put anyone around him at ease. He was a tall, heavy set cheetah—come to think of it, he was the only overweight cheetah I think I had ever met. His chair squeaked and clicked ominously in protest as he leaned back against it, the seat fighting his bulk. Though big-bellied, I had a hunch he wouldn't be anyone I would want on my heels in a chase. Big, yes; but he looked fast at the same time.
Mack's demeanor was pure magic, as far as I was concerned; Kelly was more relaxed around the security guard than I had seen him in the past two days. The big cheetah allowed us behind his security desk—something I'm fairly sure he wasn't supposed to do—and indicated a large monitor centered in a semicircular bank of electronic equipment. Smaller monitors blinked and flickered, this one panning back and forth around the building's exterior, that one showing a deserted floor of offices, another providing a view down an empty corridor.
"Okay, now," he said, still pointing, "watch here, and I will pull up the video from your floor—" he gave a little nod to Kelly— "from last night."
Video snow danced on the monitor's screen, accompanied by the soft hiss of white noise. Our gazes were intently focused on the screen when a black, horizontal bar drifted from bottom to top, leaving behind it a view of Kelly's office area. Mack folded his arms over his barrel chest and watched detachedly as the recorded events unfolded before us.
Unfortunately, the surveillance camera was approximately twenty feet from where Kelly was standing when everything took place. This didn't allow for a detailed, close view of little things that may have been taking place; however, it did give a fairly wide and comprehensive shot of the area.
It was as Kelly described it, of course. The flicking page on his report binder couldn't be discerned from that distance, but his reaction to it was easy enough to pick out. Paper clips and post-it notes scattered in an unseen wind on the desks nearest the window. He held his arm up in a warding gesture, and just a moment later, the fluorescent lights in the ceiling went out.
"Huh," Mack commented quietly.
The video—though in deep shadow—showed Kelly swooning and dropping to the floor, and the lights in his office block blinked back on scant seconds afterward. After hearing him describe it in such detail the night before, I was surprised at how quickly things had happened up there; the entire event, from the binder page to Kelly's terrified departure from the scene, took place in just under fifteen minutes.
The big disappointment? No wolf at all, giant or otherwise, showed up on the videotape. It looked as if Kelly had been an actor reacting to a special effect to be added in post-production.
"Those lights did not go out," Mack commented matter-of-factly, startling both Kelly and me. I saw him jump a little, and I know I did.
"Um," I started carefully, "you mean the lights we just watched go out on the tape?"
"That I do."
Kelly jumped in. "The lights that went out didn't go out? Uh...?"
Mack pressed a button on the panel before him, and the large screen froze on a view of Kelly's empty office area. "No electrical problems were reported on the sixteenth floor last night—or anywhere in the building, as far as that goes. I know; I was here."
"Well, you and I may have been the only ones in the building at that time, Mack," Kelly said, "and I was in no shape to report anything."
Before I could comment, Mack said exactly what I was thinking. "There are sensors for everything in the tower, Kelly. Electrical, phone lines, sprinkler system, emergency lighting—"
"Which didn't go on when the lights, um, didn't go out," I interjected.
The big feline let out a bellow of laughter. "Well said!" He clapped me on the back in a friendly manner that I feared may have dislocated six of my vertebrae. "But you see what I'm saying: the emergency light system didn't think the lights went out up there, either."
"So...." Kelly's logical mind was having none of this, it had no intention of rewiring itself to think its way around this nonsense.
I picked up the thread of Kelly's thinking. "So did the lights go out, or not?"
"You tell me," Mack said, scratching his stomach, "they did and they didn't. It depends on who you talk to, doesn't it?"
Kelly growled softly. "Oh, come on, dammit! What happened up there, then?"
Mack's entire upper body seemed to shift a bit as he gave Kelly a slow, rolling shrug. "Beats the hell outta me. Our buddy Rancor likes to play his little games now and then."
Kelly and I both blinked and stared first at Mack, then at each other; we had the same nonplussed expression on our faces. Basically, it could be translated vocally as: Huh? Wha?
"One night, he flushed all the toilets on the ninth floor," Mack went on, "repeatedly. We finally had to turn the water off 'til the next morning."
"Who...who did?" Kelly asked in a half-whisper.
"Well, Rancor, of course. You payin' attention?"
Okay; no one else was going to say it, I figured it was up to me. "Who, or what, the hell is Rancor? Did I miss a few pages of the script or something? Have I time-warped through some important information here?" I leaned forward, not watching what I was doing, and one of my paws hit a button. A smaller monitor showed a camera's view panning almost violently in an arc until the lens was pointed at a wall.
"Well, shoot," Mack said, "gonna have to go up and fix that."
"Erp. Sorry. But you...you kinda caught us off-guard."
"Who is Rancor?" Kelly asked, clearly implying it was probably the last thing he really wanted to know.
"Rancor?" Mack replied, as though it finally sunk in what we had been asking. "Big ol' wolf. Built like a brick shithouse and as big as twenty of 'em stacked one on top of the other."
"Wol—" Kelly croaked hoarsely as he sat down roughly on the tiled floor. "God."
"'Bout the size of one, yup," Mack deadpanned.
We had not mentioned anything about a wolf, let alone a titanic one, to Mack. After crouching down to ascertain that Kelly was all right, I turned to the guard. "You do know he saw last night exactly what you just described?"
The cheetah's eyebrows raised in a well, duh! expression. "Kinda what I gathered, yeah."
"Can you tell us more, please? Do you know more?"
I have to pause for a moment and mention something here. Some paranormal investigators rely heavily on oral tradition: stories passed down over time, many of them not even written down. They believe campfire stories carry a grain of truth—and information you will never get from any official sources. I had always considered oral tradition relatively unreliable and a source of last resort; it went hand in hand with the media conspiracy thing, I guess.
Okay. So I was an idiot.
Mack pushed down on my shoulder until I was seated on the floor next to Kelly. "Sit on down, kids; let your uncle Mack tell you a story."
I whispered to Kelly, "Are you okay with this?"
"If it helps, yeah," he said.
The two of us sat on the floor, the enormous cheetah looming over us in his office chair. He paused a moment, gathering his thoughts. Then he began, like a god passing wisdom down to the mortals from Olympus.
"My granddad was on the clean-up detail after Lynne Cloth was knocked to the ground. It was one of—"
"Lynne Cloth?" I interrupted. "That was the name of the textile warehouse?"
"Yessir. Stacked darn near to the ceiling with rolls of carpet and big ol' bolts of cloth, when business was good."
Kelly smiled a little. "Already we know something we didn't know before."
"Covering all bases," I said, playfully punching him in the arm.
"Anyhow," Mack continued, "my granddad helped out on the clean-up crew. It wasn't his regular job, but they needed all hands on deck for this one."
"Quite a mess, was it?" I asked.
The big guard nodded. "You could say that. Either of you fellas know what they normally do to a building before knocking it down?"
Kelly raised his arm, almost out of instinct.
Another bellow of laughter from Mack. "This ain't grade school, son. Speak your mind."
Blushing sheepishly, Kelly lowered his arm. "They gut it, don't they? Take out everything that isn't nailed down."
"They take out the windows beforehand, too, don't they?" I asked.
"That they do. Interior walls, too, sometimes. Let's just say the Lynne Cloth warehouse didn't have that luxury. You see, the building was full. All the offices still had desks, chairs and whatnot in 'em, and the warehouse itself was piled high with a pretty full inventory."
"Not very well planned out, if they knew it as coming down, was it?" Kelly inquired, logically.
Mack placed his index finger alongside his nose and winked at both of us. "Not at all, kiddo."
"It wasn't meant to come down," I murmured, more or less to myself. I looked up at Mack and said a little more loudly, "Was it?"
"Nope. The big bad wolf decided to blow the house down that night—and it left an unholy mess. Most of the time, it's just concrete, metal and plaster that needs to be hauled off. This time, though, they had to pick through it all and salvage what they could. Took about three times as long as normal; nearly a month.
"Now, my granddad wasn't there that night, but he knew a few folks who were. From what they told him, the building sorta gave back what it got. No matter how big you are, that much broken glass and live electrical wiring can do a number on you."
Kelly asked with a hopeful tone, "So it killed him?"
"Not right off; not that anyone saw directly, anyway. But it changed his mind and put him off raising any more hell that night. He hot-footed it outta there."
My friend looked disappointed. "Oh."
"But," Mack noted, "your seeing his ghost kinda puts that matter to rest, don't it?"
"Well...yeah," said Kelly, "but he didn't seem any less mean as a spirit."
"Less destructive now," I threw in, trying to help.
"Foul temper as high as the sky," the big cat said, gesturing toward the lobby's high ceiling. "Pure rage, I'm told."
A visible shiver raced through Kelly's body, and he rubbed his forearms briskly as he recalled the coldness he had encountered the night before. "That's putting it mildly."
I tried to steer the conversation away from the negative. "So, Rancor stomps in, trashes the warehouse—then what?"
Mack shook his head. "Not much. Like I said, he took off, and was never seen in these parts alive again. Some of those who saw the whole thing said he looked to be in a lot of pain."
A thought struck me. "Did anyone follow him?"
"Would you? Would you go chasin' a pissed-off, wounded, hundred-fifty-foot wall of muscle with claws and fangs the length of your arm?"
"Shit, no," Kelly muttered.
"That's right," Mack said, "you saw his business end up close and personal."
"He went through me." Another shudder. "It feels like part of him is still around—either trying to tell me something or drive me insane, whichever comes first."
The burly feline reached down and patted Kelly on the shoulder. "Then I'm guessing you don't wanna go visit him, pay your last respects, huh?"
"Hell, no!" barked Kelly.
Something Mack had said confused me. "You know when he will show up again?"
"What, here? Oh, no; he comes and goes as he pleases here. Usually around this time of year, though. What I meant was physically visit—well, what's left of 'im."
Kelly and I snapped in chorus, shocked. "What's left of him?!"
Mack held a paw up. "Lemme finish. Sometime in the early fifties, a train arrived with a flatcar that had a huge skull on it. The only instructions that came with it were that it was to be left at this stop."
"Rancor?" It seemed to me the obvious question to ask.
"Again, you tell me. That was the buzz. It took nine people about two hours and a lot of sweatin' and cussin' to get that thing off the flatbed."
High beams seemed to switch on behind Kelly's eyes. "The museum! Right there in the lobby!"
"A-plus, kiddo," Mack said, picking up a flashlight and tapping Kelly's shoulders with it, as if knighting him.
"No, no, no, wait," said Kelly, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "The plaque next to the skull says it's a fake. 'This model is enlarged to show detail,' or something like that."
I felt I could field this one. "I think it was just easier for the museum to go that route. Mr. and Mrs. Citizen would flip out if they thought it was real."
"No," my friend countered, "they have a dinosaur skeleton, and that's huge—and real."
"How many dinosaurs rampaged through the industrial district in 1928?"
"But—"
"People know the dinosaurs went extinct millions of years ago; there's a comfort level there. If they knew a predator even larger than T. rex tore up downtown less than eighty years ago, they would just shit."
"What they don't know—"
"Can't hurt 'em," Mack chimed in, smiling.
I rose to my feet, lowering a paw to help Kelly do the same. "Looks like we have another base to cover, buddy."
Kelly nodded, brushing off the seat of his trousers. "Well, we can't right this minute; the museum closed at 5:30."
"I know, but I just want to take a look. We can peek into the lobby from outside, anyway." I turned to Mack and extended a paw to him. "I owe you a great debt of gratitude. You've told me more I needed to know in twenty minutes than I learned in seven hours of painstaking research."
The big guard's massive paw engulfed mine in friendly warmth. "My pleasure, Lou—and a pleasure to meet you, too. Drop by again sometime; it's pretty quiet down here—" he winked at Kelly, "—usually."
The hyena grinned and shook Mack's paw heartily. "Good to see you again, Mack. Be well."
"Always!" The guard boomed. "You feel better soon."
Once outside, I pressed my paws against the small of my back in an attempt to push my spine back into alignment. Sitting on that hard floor for half an hour had done me no favors.
A rapid-fire succession of tiny pops cracked out as my vertebrae tried to rearrange themselves. "Arrrngh!" I grunted. "Damn. I'm no spring chicken anymore."
Kelly chuckled, taking in a deep breath of the cool night air. "Hell, me, either." He lifted his arms high above his head in a big stretch.
I snapped my fingers. "I just remembered; I need to ask Mack if he has ever seen Rancor's ghost. Especially last night, you know?
"'Course, it can wait 'til tomorrow." I was on a roll. "Wouldn't hurt to see the video from other floors in the tower, either."
Kelly gave me a soft, noncommittal grunt. I turned around and saw he had stopped walking about ten feet behind me, his footpaws planted solidly in more or less the center of the street. I had been babbling along, thinking he had been alongside me all the while.
"What'sa matter, Kel? Cramp?"
No answer. He was no longer facing the crosswalk; he had turned ninety degrees to the left and was staring down the street.
And he was looking up—so of course I did, too.
Rancor stood less than a block away—gigantic, seething with rage—and glaring down at both of us.
Okay; I openly admit there was a bit of ego involved in that statement. Rancor was focused on Kelly; I may as well have not existed.
Be that as it may, I rushed toward my friend, and in the moment's confusion, he rushed toward me. Since both of us were staring up at the gigantic ghost, we wound up on opposite sides of the street, more or less having traded places with one another. The whole thing was a surreal Keystone Cops sort of moment; it really was a miracle we didn't run smack-dab into each other.
"Rrrrrdammit get out of my head!" Kelly screamed, clutching the sides of his head with the force of a vise. I glanced over at him, and his eyes were damned near popping out of his skull, glistening with moisture. Whether they were tears of pain, emotion or a combination thereof, I really couldn't tell. Anything was possible. "Fucking leave me alone!"
The big wolf hadn't moved, and his focus seemed to have shifted to the Kane tower itself. With a roar felt more than heard, he raised his muscular right arm high into the sky, swinging it downward in a quickening and deadly arc of momentum directly toward the building.
I winced in anticipation briefly—but then realized, Rancor being a ghost, nothing would happen. Indeed, his gigantic but essentially massless arm swept right through the building, the leftover power of his swing making him almost clap himself on the left shoulder. To a detached observer, the titan's reaction to the futility of his attack might have been almost comical—for about a second or two. A gigantic, pissed-off wolf is rarely funny on purpose.
Indeed, an eyeblink later, Rancor was incensed. Snarling evilly, he took several more swings at the tower, kicking with alternate blows with both legs—all, of course, to no effect. Ghost or not, I could see the muscles in his legs bunch and relax each time he released a kick; he was really putting his all into it. Had he been physically there, the building wouldn't have had a prayer.
Peripherally, I saw Kelly drop to his knees in the street; the ghost's anger was stepping up exponentially, and I thought its effects would damned near be killing my friend. Though Kelly was whimpering softly, he wasn't growling or screaming as he had been scant seconds before. It dawned on me: Kelly's pain wasn't dependent on Rancor's proximity; it was correlated to the beast's focus.
Allow me a quick moment's interlude, if you will. In my parapsychological studies, I learned years ago that the majority of ghosts are what can best be called a 'psychic tape loop.' That is to say, they repeat actions they commonly went through in life, almost without deviation. Additionally, they walk up staircases that existed when they were alive, even if said stairs were removed years after their corporeal deaths (this accounts for many apparitions seeming to float or hover). Importantly, most ghosts are not really aware of the here and now, almost never interacting with those beings of flesh and blood.
The spirit of Rancor seemed to break this general rule. He was certainly aware of the Kane tower—which never existed during his lifetime—and he saw Kelly, too.
And then—he saw me.
He was still a block away, and I had more than enough time to get the hell outta Dodge. I would love to take the high road here and say I stuck around to assure my friend was going to be all right. That would have been the honorable and right thing to do—but, sadly, the honor of friendship had nothing to do with my motivations at that moment. Little old chickenshit me was scared half to death and frozen in place.
Now, when you're one hundred sixty feet tall or so, covering the space of a city block doesn't take too much time. Apparently, Rancor decided I had something to do with his inability to reduce the Kane tower to rubble, and his big, shaggy ass was headed right for me. In a big fast goddam hurry.
I watched with numb horror as a massive footpaw thumped down onto the street a dozen or so feet in front of me. Correction: the giant's paw pressed against the street, the toes splayed—but it all happened soundlessly. Not even a cigarette butt or leaf stirred under the shimmering blue paw. Somehow, this made it all that much more terrifying to me; common sense told me the earth should be shuddering under my feet.
Somewhere a billion miles away, I heard Kelly groaning and cursing under his breath. I couldn't turn to look at him, though; I had other things on my mind. You know, trivial little matters like the enormous footpaw sweeping forward and drawing a bead on me. I would have sawed off my left testicle with a rusty butter knife to be anywhere but where I was right then.
Jesus Christ, he looked as big as the world. Midnight-blue footpads lowered toward me with staggering velocity. I could see through his paw to the night sky above, but this gave me no solace whatsoever. Something told me my luck would be such that his form would, for one split second, take on real weight and solidity—and I would become a smear of fur-covered tomato paste on the concrete.
I wished I could pass out. I tried to will myself to pass out. No such luck.
I was under the great wolf's footpaw. I was inside it. Wispy, Robin's egg-blue tendrils of ectoplasm danced around me frenetically; whenever one touched me, it felt like an ice-cold pin prick. It was like being shoved into a meat locker and having a large pillow pressed down over my muzzle; I’m fairly certain I didn't breathe the entire time I was under—inside—the colossal paw. It may have an involuntary act of self-preservation on my body's part; I shudder to think what might have happened had I inhaled any of Rancor's essence.
As quickly as it happened, it was over. The chilly April air swirled around me like a warm cocoon, comparatively, and I drew in a shuddering inhalation of clean, crisp air. I could relate to Kelly's torment now; I had felt like I had been psychically violated, mentally penetrated. Traces of the giant's anger tickled inside my head—and I had only encountered his foot. Kelly had been through the wolf's mind. Jesus wept.
Kelly! I had almost forgotten him, shameful as it is to say. I wheeled around wildly to face him—damned near losing my balance--and he was still on his knees in the street. Rancor had passed over him without incident, and the hyena had turned to watch the ghostly giant stomping away from us.
When at last he turned toward me, his face looked considerably more serene than before. He stood, picking bits of dust and leaves from his knees, and said to me, "I think I get—"
Then all hell broke loose.
I felt a blunt, powerful blow against my back, and I found myself in Kelly's arms, the both of us consequently collapsing to the street. A horn blew, and unkind words were bellowed at us as a taxi cab sped down the street at dangerous speed. All this was punctuated with a muffled crunching sound, like a shotglass wrapped in a towel being crushed under a bootheel.
"Cripes that smarts!" Mack, apparently out of nowhere, came padding toward us, walking with measured, careful steps. "You boys okay?" he asked, offering us a paw up.
"What happened?" the both of us chorused as we got to our feet. Down the street, the taxi disappeared around a distant corner. Nice of them to stop, I thought—but then again, had I seen Rancor, would I have stopped?
Mack stood up straight after helping us, his paws moving to his lower back as he let out a little "umf!" of discomfort. "Well, you just about got run down by that cab," he said, pointing down the street. "An' if I hadn'ta pushed ya, you woulda been road pizza." The big guard braced his back with his paws, arching his head back. The resultant series of cracks sounded as though his entire spine had spontaneously realigned. His bright smile was laced with a wince of pain. "Dang, they gave me a yank!"
I padded around behind the hefty cheetah to see what was causing his distress. Mack's tail hung limply from his body, and it was bent crazily to the left at a forty-five-degree angle. With a sick, spiraling sensation in my stomach, I realized what the crunching sound had been. Not only had his tail's tip been run over by the cab, but when his considerable bulk kept moving, his tail had not; it had been dislocated. It hung as though it had been pinned to him, lifeless, with no characteristic feline twitch or anything.
"Damn, Mack," I said, studying his tail, "you ought to have that looked at." Kelly peeked around from the other side of the security guard; his fur seemed to pale three shades when he saw the crooked tail.
Mack chuckled. "That thought occurred to me, yeah." He began to carefully mince his way back toward the tower. "If you boys will excuse me...."
"Would you like us to--?"
"Nope," Mack answered emphatically, turning slowly around to face us once more. "I'm good; no need for a babysitter. I can call a squad, and they can be here in the—" The big guy trailed off, his smile fading for a millisecond. I was pretty sure he was going to say in the shake of a tail.
"Besides, you boys have a game of fetch to play with Clifford the big dead dog." With a wide grin and a wave, he padded slowly back to the building's lobby.
I liked Mack. But damned if I knew what he was talking about. Rancor was gone, so far as I could tell—and I had no desire to hunt him down. Game of fetch, indeed.
Kelly, on the other hand, seemed to be reenergized. Excited, even. "You know, I think he knew what was going on even before I did." He let out a hearty, natural laugh—no nervousness to it at all. Another reason not to seek out the big wolf, I thought; with no Rancor around, Kelly was more or less himself. "But it's something he was trying to tell me all along, I think," he concluded.
I was fairly sure Kelly was now talking about two different people. "Who was right? What was he trying to tell you?"
My friend shook his head and started to speak slowly, as if I were retarded. "Mack was right about the 'game of fetch—" His condescending tone was a little irritating to me. My nerves were shot, I’d had a hell of a night—and I now had the sinking feeling it was nowhere near over. "—and Rancor has been trying to tell me something, maybe even since last night."
"Rancor—?"
"Yeah. Yeah. He's been so pissed off, so flustered that no one has paid attention to him." Kelly didn't seem to be addressing me directly; he was essentially thinking out loud, working things out in his mind. "Underneath all that rage, he's hurt."
"Getting yourself dead will do that to you."
"Stop it. Hush." He looked pretty stern.
"All righty, then."
"Seriously. His spirit is hurt. He's, um...he's—" The hyena's paws waved about, as if casting about for the right word. "He's not whole. He's—he's incomplete! That's it. Yeah!" Kelly looked at me, his eyes bright, his expression pleading, as if saying, "See? See?!"
"I, uh—"
"He wants his head back, Lou. His fucking head. He’s been missing it for about seventy-five years and he’s understandably cranky." Paws on hips, Kelly was the school-marm making a screamingly obvious point to a slow pupil. "Wouldn't you be?"
I had no valid excuse for my cement-headedness, nor for how long it took the lightning bulb to go on between my ears. "The museum," I muttered, "his skull is in the museum!"
"And Rancor's headed the wrong way! We have to go find him and show him where the museum is."
We? What's this we shit? I thought. Fuck you, Kemosabe. Before I could have voiced any of those thoughts—luckily—Kelly was long gone, sprinting down the street in the same direction Rancor had stomped only minutes before.
Kelly was a good friend, and I felt horrible about the unvoiced thoughts I had been having. I did what a good friend should do: I followed.
A game of hide-and-seek with a ghost wolf who is sixteen stories tall is, to put it mildly, an exercise in futility for the giant. Kelly and I hadn't gone two blocks when we saw the huge specter trudging toward the City Center, a mall and concert venue in the heart of downtown. Panicked shoppers were fleeing the horrific apparition; my friend and I were the only two souls in the city headed toward Rancor.
The beast was in overdrive now; he was a frantic dervish of frustrated rage. Hunched down on all fours, he was growling—growling I could actually hear, albeit faintly—his fists and muzzle clawing and snapping at buildings, light posts, shoppers and cars. The big wolf, it seemed to me, was frightened and confused, and he was taking it out in the only way he knew. None of his swipes or bites actually affected anything, much to the giant's extreme consternation. He was a lashing, roaring natural disaster which left no physical damage whatsoever.
The crowd around us dispersed very quickly; the last few of those fleeing must have thought Kelly had gone batshit insane. He waved his arms wildly, yelling, "Hey! Hey!" up at the ghostly wolf—who for some reason chose this moment to ignore the hyena entirely. Irritated, Kelly picked up a rock in the parking lot and hurled it up toward Rancor. Of course, it hit nothing, arcing right through the giant's body to hit with a loud tunk on the roof of an SUV.
Amazingly, that worked. Rancor rose from his crouch and stood at full height before Kelly, staring straight down at him.
My earlier guess had been right on; Rancor's focus of attention definitely had an influence on how strongly the beast's emotions affected Kelly, for the hyena was again on his knees, groaning and growling almost ferally. "Nnnngfucker I'm trying to help you," he muttered, staggering weakly to his feet.
I rushed to Kelly's side, circling his waist with an arm. "Just hold on," I whispered to him, guiding him—and hopefully, Rancor—in the general direction of the museum.
Six city blocks isn't so long a trip on foot; that was the distance we needed to travel from the City Center to the museum. Traffic certainly wasn't an impediment; any vehicles that happened upon us promptly executed U-turns and hightailed it out of there. With Kelly in tow, though, the short walk felt to me like the Bataan Death March. One moment, he would go completely limp, his body feeling like three hundred pounds of immobile dead weight. The next, he was writhing angrily; Rancor's domination over his psyche exhibited itself in a frightening manner when the the hyena's powerful jaws clamped onto my forearm.
"Jesus Christ, Kel!" I screamed, punching his muzzle to make him let go. Warm blood trickled down to my elbow.
"Oh god," he muttered weakly, limply lifting a paw to his bruised jaw before he went dead in my arms again.
I had more than enough to occupy myself mentally and physically with Kelly; I wasn't even one hundred percent sure Rancor had followed us. The only sure signs that he had were Kelly's occasional outbursts of violent behavior; I knew that had to be the giant's influence—it simply wasn't in my friend's behavioral makeup.
Sure enough, I was right. Once Kelly had relaxed again, I glanced back to see the spectral blue outline of Rancor, hot on our trail.
I had never been so happy to see that museum in all my life.
The museum's lobby was visible through the tall white columns that supported the structure's façade. Brightly lit, even at night, the enormous wolf skull seemed to glow behind the ceiling-to-floor windows. Confined inside like it was, the skull looked absolutely enormous; I had a moment's doubt as to whether it were really Rancor's. It looked too big to me.
I gently put Kelly down on the sidewalk, and he slumped into a prone, but at least peaceful, position. It took a moment or two of listening closely to make sure the poor guy was still breathing.
"There!" I pointed, yelling up at the towering ghost. "In there, dammit!"
Unbelievable. The big dumb bastard just stared down at me. He didn't even look toward the building. Great, I thought. My turn to lecture the slow pupil.
"Your head," I yelled, helpfully pointing to my own head, "is in there." Again, I indicated the museum. "Get your head and get the hell out of his!"
At least this time, he looked toward the museum—and then back to me. And he didn't move. I would have almost preferred his blind range to the vapid, clueless gaze he gave me.
I ran up to the building and gave one of the columns a sharp smack with my palm. "There!" I gestured broadly and dramatically with both arms toward the skull. "What big teeth you have, grandma—now get them and put them where they belong!"
Finally Rancor took the few steps needed with his great stride to put him right next to the museum. The giant lowered to his knees over the single-story building, his mighty legs bracketing the small annex next door. With a quizzical tilt of his head, he regarded his dilemma. What I need is in there, but I am out here. What do I do?
"You can go through walls, you great stupid idiot!" I was at the end of my tether. My arm hurt like hell. I wanted this bullshit to be over.
"Lou," Kelly croaked weakly, propping himself up on his elbows. "Be nice."
I sprinted back to my friend and knelt beside him, happy to see him conscious and more or less of sound mind. "Kel, I love you like a brother, but if you think I am gonna be nice to—"
Kelly lifted one pawfinger to his lips. "Shush." Turning his attention upward, he said in a stronger tone, "Rancor!"
The wolf's gigantic head lowered down toward us, until his wide black nose was a mere eighteen inches from Kelly's face. Through Rancor's transparent head I could see the skull in the museum's lobby. With the comparative perspective, I couldn't help thinking that I had been wrong; it now looked like a perfect fit. Silly wolf, it is a perfect fit! my mind screamed back. Scream or go crazy scream or go crazy, those seemed my options. Jesus Christ on a crutch, that wolf is big....
"Rancor," Kelly half-whispered to the godalmighty fucking big wolf. His voice was somewhat soothing, and I felt a bit better anchored in reality. A bit. Wasn't Kelly the one about to go out of his mind not too long ago? I thought. Distractedly, I tried to reason just exactly when it was my friend and I switched places in the mental stability department.
"Rancor," he repeated (bringing me back to my senses), "it's in there. It's yours. It's okay." The hyena indicated the museum with a slight tilt of his head. "It's yours."
The massive, shaggy head lifted up and away from us—thank god!—and Rancor turned toward the museum. He seemed to get it now. Oh, sure, I thought, I practically drew him a map and the whopping doofus didn't get it. Then again, I hadn't taken a stroll through his brain.
Somehow, Rancor looked even larger on his knees, crouched over the museum; perhaps it was because there was more to compare him to than there was when he was fully vertical. The specter leaned forward and pressed his nose against the flat roof of the museum, sniffing. I heard a quiet, ghostly whimper, as if it was swept in on a wind of distant origin. The wolf turned and looked at both of us almost forlornly. For a fleeting second, he looked puppylike. Lost. Scared.
"Go ahead," Kelly urged, "it's yours, Rancor. Take it back."
The big wolf's nose disappeared into the roof of the museum, and Kelly and I both instinctively lowered our muzzles, our lines of sight drifting down from the ceiling to the skull. Sure enough, as Rancor's huge body leaned into the building, the misty-blue shape of his head appeared, filling the lobby. The giant's nose nuzzled at the skull, and he whimpered softly again. I felt almost sick for the big wolf; his goal was in sight, but there was no apparent means of retrieving it.
For an agonizingly long time, nothing seemed to happen. Rancor was shifting his head this way and that, making tiny adjustments, making sure the skull was properly positioned in his head. The giant's whimpering had ceased, and he seemed to be working with a quiet, sure plan now. I wondered how he—being an ethereal being—was going to lift a solid physical item through the equally solid roof of the museum. Was the skull bolted to the floor? I didn't know that, either.
I turned my head and was about to whisper a couple of these questions to Kelly when he gasped softly, redirecting my attention to the museum. "Look...he's got it."
The skull was glowing a pale blue, and the back side of it rose a few inches off the tiled floor. The front of the skeletal head shifted back and forth a bit, making muted scraping sounds. It looked as though Rancor was getting adjusted to the new weight, the skull and his head tilting nose-down toward the floor. A moment later, it was apparent he had it for sure; the skull lifted cleanly toward the high lobby ceiling.
Then, for a torturous moment, it looked as though he was stuck. From our angle, all Kelly and I could see was the underside of the lower jaw of the skull; the lighting in the museum wasn't really focused on the ceiling. Truth be told, if the big wolf's glowing blue form hadn't been surrounding the skull, we may have seen nothing at all. Outside the building, we could see Rancor's broad shoulders heaving, his upper body tugging at his reclaimed head. The giant's furred paws were pressed on the ground for leverage.
I was hoping I wouldn't see the skull crash to the floor, where it would undoubtedly break into several pieces. I didn't even want to guess at what kind of hell would break loose then. I imagined Rancor's rage at that set of circumstances would likely kill Kelly, if the ghost aimed his psychic energy his way.
"Come on," Kelly murmured, seemingly channeling my thoughts, "don't drop it...."
Initially, I mistook what I heard next. There were deep, rumbling groans coming from the museum roof, and I thought they were Rancor's growls of disappointment. Only when pebbles of plastering started to drop to the lobby floor did I realize what I was hearing was the structural integrity of the roof giving way.
Our view of the goings-on then became brilliantly illuminated for a few seconds. Inside the ceiling, plenty of live electrical wires were snapping. A popping yellow-and-orange indoor fireworks display gave the both of us a perfect look at Rancor's skull as it ground its way upward through the protesting roof.
Then it got very noisy. Rancor shifted his body, planting himself more firmly. Somewhere in the museum ceiling a water pipe gave way—possibly the sprinkler system—and it began to rain onto the floor, the tile gleaming with the new wetness. The floor didn't remain pristine for too long, though; very large chunks of ceiling material began to drop. It's a miracle no fires broke out; wires and cables danced spastically over the littered floor, spitting sparks and leaving angry black scorch marks everywhere. It must have been quite a cacophony inside the museum, for Kelly and I could hear the crashing noises clearly from our position outside.
Rancor's upper body lurched to the left, then to the right—and he broke free. The skull glowed eerily inside the giant's head, giving him a fierce and frightening appearance. Oddly enough, though, he seemed to be more or less at peace; his only irritation seemed to be adjusting to the skull's weight, his head canted down toward his chest.
The center of the museum building caved in upon itself, the floor now littered with a small mountain of building material. Rancor shook his muzzle, the last bits of lathing and insulation falling down into the gaping roof's hole. Erratic orange flashes from below lit the underside of the giant's skull, which had faded from bone white to a mellow purple color.
Slowly, Rancor returned to his feet. What had been an honest-to-god real skull just moments before seemed to be absorbed into the ghost's head, disappearing into his ethereal features; already I could see stars and planets through it. The furred colossus looked down at the two of us in an almost benevolent manner—or at least it seemed that way to me.
I swear on all that is holy that Rancor smiled at us.
"Good for you, Rancor," Kelly said, his voice choking up a bit. "Good for you."
I didn't need to look at my friend to know he had tears in his eyes. Dammit, I did, too.
Rancor's mighty chest swelled as he reared his head back and let out the most melodious and haunting howl I had ever heard in my life. It was a howl of release, of celebration, of final peace. The giant's music sought the deepest places in my lupine heart, and I couldn't help but join in the howl. Rampaging ghost wolf from two generations ago or not, he was a wolf brother. And lone wolves rarely howl; it is a social sound, after all. Even Kelly howled with us. It sounded a little funny, but it was heartfelt.
We howled Rancor to his rest, until the gigantic wolf was no longer visible. He faded slowly until there was nothing left but little blue swirling eddies in the night sky. Many long seconds after he disappeared, his howl echoed down to us.
"Happy hunting, Rancor," Kelly whispered, and the two of us just held each other there on the sidewalk for quite some time.
