Frank and Nora moved ahead and the four stood in a group. "Put out your lights," Wilson said. "They make good targets if the jerk's got any weapons."
They stood in the darkness, Nora holding tightly to Frank's arm. Frank said, "That was the damndest noise I ever heard."
"Like a siren?" Frank thought Jim Wilson spoke hopefully, as though wanting somebody to agree with him.
"Not like any I ever heard. Not like a whistle, either. More of a moan."
"Let's get into that goddam hotel and—"
Jim Wilson's words were cut off by a new welling-up of the melancholy howling. It had a new pattern this time. It sounded from many places; not nearer, Frank thought, than Lake Street on the north, but spreading outward and backward and growing fainter until it died on the wind.
Nora was shivering, clinging to Frank without reserve.
Jim Wilson said, "I'll be damned if it doesn't sound like a signal of some kind."
"Maybe it's a language—a way of communication."
"But who the hell's communicating?"