Seize the Night

hollow syllables was reminiscent of a church bell tolling in the distance, which made me think of funerals, and in my mind rose a vivid image of good Orson lying battered and broken, a glaze of death in his eyes.
    My tongue grew so thick and my throat so tight with fear that I could barely swallow.
    The door by which we'd entered was wide open, just as we had left it.
    Outside, the sleeping moon remained bedded down in mattresses of clouds to the west. Only stars lit the sky.
    The cool clear air hung motionless, as sharp with dire promise as the suspended blade of a guillotine.
    The flashlight beam revealed a discarded socket wrench that had been left behind so long ago it was orange with rust, from its ratchet handle to its business end. An empty oil can waited for wind strong enough to roll it elsewhere. A weed bristled out of a crack in the blacktop, tiny yellow flowers rising defiantly from this inhospitable compost.
    Otherwise, the serviceway was empty. No man, no dog.
    Whatever might lie ahead, I'd deal with it more effectively if I recovered my night vision. I switched off the light and tucked it under my belt. “ Orson! ”
    I risked nothing by calling out at the top of my voice. The man I'd encountered under the warehouse already knew where I was.
    “Orson!”
    Possibly the dog had split shortly after I'd left him. He might have become convinced we'd followed the wrong trail. Maybe he had caught a fresh scent of Jimmy, weighing the risks of disregarding my instructions against the need to locate the missing child as quickly as possible, perhaps he had left the warehouse and returned to the hunt. He might be with the boy now, ready to confront the kidnapper when the creep showed up to collect his captive.
    For a two-bit philosopher full of smug homilies about the danger of investing too much emotional capital in mere hope, I was laboring mightily to build another of those gossamer bridges.
    I drew a deep breath, but before I could shout again, Orson barked twice.
    At least I assumed it was Orson. For all I knew, it could have been the Hound of the Baskervilles. I wasn't able to determine the direction from which the sound had come.
    I called to him once more.
    No response.
    “Patience,” I counseled myself.
    I waited. Sometimes there is nothing to be done but wait. Most times, in fact. We like to think we operate the loom that weaves the future, but the only foot on that treadle is the foot of fate.
    In the distance, the dog barked again, ferociously this time.
    I got a fix on the sound and ran toward it, from serviceway to serviceway, from shadow to shadow, among abandoned warehouses that loomed as massive and black and cold as temples to the cruel gods of lost religions, then into a broad paved area that might have been a parking lot or a staging area for trucks delivering freight.
    I had run a considerable distance, leaving the pavement and plunging through knee-high grass lush from the recent rains, when the moon rolled over in its bed. By the light that came through the disarranged covers, I saw ranks of low structures less than half a mile away.
    These were the small houses once occupied by the married military personnel and their families who preferred on-base living.
    Although the barking had stopped, I kept moving, certain that Orson—and perhaps Jimmy—could be found ahead. The grass ended at a cracked sidewalk. I leaped across a gutter choked with dead leaves, scraps of paper, and other debris, into a street lined on both sides with enormous old Indian laurels. Half the trees were flourishing, and the moonlit pavement under them was dappled with leaf shadows, but an equal number were dead, clawing at the sky with gnarled black branches.
    The barking rose once more, closer but still not near enough to be precisely located. This time it was punctuated by yawps, yelps—and then a squeal of pain.
    My heart knocked against my ribs harder than it had when I'd been dodging the two-by-four, and I was gasping for breath.
    The avenue I followed led among the dreary rows of decaying, single-story houses. Branching from it was a large but orderly grid of other streets.
    More barking, another squeal, then silence.
    I stopped in the middle of the street, turning my head left and right, listening intently, trying to control my labored wheezing. I waited for more battle sounds.
    The living trees were as still as those that were leafless and rotting.
    The breath I'd outrun caught up with me quickly. But as I