Of Saints and Shadows (1994) by Christopher Golden Page A

stove, carrying them back into the living room.
    As soon as he broke into the bag of chocolate chips, Max woke up. It wasn’t Dan’s plopping back into his chair that roused the animal, it was the sound of the bag crinkling open. The commercials seemed to run eternally as he consumed cookie after cookie. Finally, the film came back on and Dan reached for his Coke to wash down the junk food.
    Of course, Max wanted a cookie.
    As Dan tipped back his glass Max jumped up, front paws on Dan’s lap and nabbed a couple of goodies.
    “Shit!” Dan yelled as Coke spilled down the front of his robe and into his lap, soaking what cookies hadn’t been salivated on by his hungry pooch.
    He continued cursing down the hall to the bathroom, where he pulled off the robe, soaked it for a minute in the sink, then threw it in the hamper. Not that it was the first stain on the old robe, and he sure didn’t expect it to be the last. Still—he was pissed.
    “Dammit.” This night had quickly turned into as nightmarish an experience as his day at work had been. He knew it wasn’t the dog’s fault, but he had to stifle an urge to kick his faithful canine companion right in the ass.
    He’d missed more of the film, and any chance of enjoying it was shot to hell, but he swore to himself that he’d finish watching the damn movie if it killed him. There couldn’t be any further interruptions, he told himself. What else could happen? He promised himself that even if another distraction did present itself, even if Santa-fucking-Claus shimmied down the chimney, even if the house burned down around him, he would not move his ass from that chair until the last credit had rolled on The Maltese Falcon. That shouldn’t be too hard—there couldn’t be more than five or ten minutes left to the film. He headed back down the hallway where Bogart flickered in the dark.
    And then the power went off.
    So that’s what rage feels like.
    “FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK! Fuck.”
    Dan felt destructive for a long moment. Goddamn fuses, he told himself, and headed for the kitchen to find a flashlight, but on his second step he tripped over Max. The dog jumped up and moved away from him, wary of further injury.
    As Dan stepped into the kitchen Max began to bark.
    It was more like a growl at first, a low snarl building until it became a loud and angry bark at the shadows. Dan was spooked. It wasn’t like Max to react so violently to such a minor event. He turned back toward the darkness of the living room and could scarcely make out Max’s quaking figure in the moonlight falling through the windows. Max was standing in the middle of the room, circling first in one direction and then in the other, barking at nothing.
    Dan moved quickly into the kitchen in the dark. He wanted to get the lights back on as fast as possible, and he rifled nervously through kitchen cabinets and drawers until his hand closed upon the flashlight. His eyes were finally starting to adjust, but he would need the flashlight to find the fuse box in the basement.
    He had just reached the door to the basement when the barking stopped and the howling began. An urgent, alarming howl, practically a wail, filled the house and Dan’s anger and frustration turned to fear. He stood listening, chilled as Max’s howl turned abruptly into a quiet whimper. Slowly, almost against his will, he turned and walked back toward the living room.
    Somehow, even the moonlight had disappeared.
    Dan’s pupils attempted to focus, to no avail. In the utter, unnatural darkness only his flashlight offered any illumination, and its light was strangely dimmed and condensed, so that it shone weakly in a very small circle as he scanned the room.
    He heard sounds then, terrible, wet, slapping sounds, and he aimed the light that way. When it fell on the black-clothed back of an intruder, Dan’s heart jumped and he sucked in his breath. Before he could become angry at the intrusion, he became frightened, and though he loved his