Coyotes

Coyotes are recurring wildlife in the hills around Los Angeles, where their calls and movements mark the boundary between suburban routines and the darkness beyond them. In the narrator’s memories, they are at once ordinary animals and a source of unease: their presence repeatedly coincides with moments when he feels watched or exposed, though the narrative does not establish that they are connected to the human violence he fears.

Night Drives and the Canyons

During his high-school years, the narrator sometimes drove home late through the canyons after nights out, passing through neighborhoods from Studio City and Sherman Oaks to Encino and Tarzana. On Mulholland, coyotes appeared in the Mercedes’ headlights, their eyes flashing green as they crossed the road, sometimes in packs. He stopped to let them pass before continuing home. The encounter belongs to the routine freedom of his late-night drives, when deserted roads and music accompanied his movement through the city.

The Buckley Flashlight Sighting

On a later night at Buckley, the narrator watched a flashlight move precisely through the courtyard near the koi pond and the school’s Griffin statue. When distant coyotes began calling from the surrounding hills, the unseen flashlight holder seemed to hear them too: the beam paused, then swept toward the hillside as if searching for the source. The light went out, leaving the narrator unsure what its holder had been looking for. Coyotes do not explain the sighting, but their cries enter the scene at the instant the unseen figure’s attention shifts, heightening the uncertainty around the school grounds.

Fear at the Empty House

After leaving Buckley, the narrator drove to the empty house on Mulholland. Debbie had left an anxious message, and the narrator was already worried about being alone and vulnerable. He imagined an intruder and wondered whether his dog, Shingy, was responding to the coyotes’ calls, which seemed closer than usual. Outside, the narrator heard them moving through the canyons but saw nothing; he locked the doors, activated the alarm, and retreated indoors rather than use the Jacuzzi. The animals remain outside the house, yet their calls help shape his impression that the surrounding darkness is pressing in.

Narrative Significance

Coyotes connect several settings—the hillside roads, Buckley’s grounds, and the narrator’s home—through sound and nocturnal movement. Their appearances remain grounded in the local landscape rather than being identified as supernatural or as evidence of the Trawler’s actions. That distinction matters: the story lets a real, familiar presence intensify fear without resolving its cause, making the narrator’s heightened vigilance difficult to separate from the environment around him. Coyotes are not merely a clue or a symbol of the threat; they are animals moving through spaces the human characters occupy, even as the narration chiefly registers them through the fear and attention they provoke.