The Darkness and Dogs

by Lanchbery, T. S.

  I will not come again to you, and risk the help I fled–

  the doctors and darkness and dogs,

  the hide and seek for me- “Cuckoo, cuckoo. Here I am...”

  Robert Lowell, Suicide

  And in the end, she will be with him. If you were to tell him that now, he would not comprehend, would not be able to comprehend. Not because his thoughts have become a mush, chaotic, inhuman - although they have become all of those things - but rather because, in all of his years alone, he has forgotten that to be alone, together, can be a beautiful thing.

  *****

  “I’ve been thinking a little bit about a man I once knew. Paul something… I want to say Wilkins? Wilson? Something like that anyway. I never knew him really, just another guy in the factory, worked on some menial job, polishing metal parts or drilling ‘em or cutting maybe. First time I really noticed him was the day I came across him, him leaning over, with one hand resting on the workbench, and looking awful pale on account of the twelve-odd inches of metal poking out of his hand spearing him right there in place. I don’t remember much more than that, I just stared at him for a few seconds, and he looked right back mutely at me. In his eyes there was no pleading for help, rather a deep confusion, that a task he had done again and again, a thousand times a day, could suddenly go so unexpectedly awry. Then someone else walked by, saw what had happened, and in a second reacted as I surely should and all hell broke loose. I never saw him again; I guess he was fixing up ready to come back and never made it. The reason I’ve been thinking about him is I saw a man the other day skewered in much the same way, except on a piece of jagged fence post. He didn’t make it either. I guess that he’d probably walked by that fence a thousand times and never given it a second thought. He wasn’t alone though. Untold millions walked past their eventual killers back then without any idea of what was to come, that boy and his mother for instance...”

  Chapter One

  The trees extend in precise, machine-planted rows as far as the eye can see in every direction. They are all conifers - some genetically modified strain of Scotch pine - and all clones. Once, the plan would have been to fell them as soon as they reached maturity, but in the absence of the machines and the operators they have continued to climb upwards and outwards - each tree straining with frail limbs to meet its nearest neighbor. The dank taste of mold hangs in the undisturbed air, and apart from an occasional low whumph as a rotted bough falls to the mat of pine needles underfoot, an oppressive silence reigns throughout the plantation; the absence of birdsong further betraying an unnatural realm. Without its creators, the forest is sick, and dying. With so many trees in such close proximity, a pestilence has run riot. Sawyer and bark beetles, and with them the pine nematode, have brought pine wilt disease, and many of the trees are in the final fatal stages of infestation. With the trees spread very little sunlight penetrates below the canopy, and the forest floor is a thick carpet of pine needles, piling year upon year with few of the natural processes one would find in ancient woodland to quickly break them down. Here and there a tree has succumbed and fallen, often taking one or more of his brothers with him. In one such place five trees have fallen together, two from one side and three crossing against them from the other. Against this accidental framework more boughs are piled on the open side. A stretch of bare dirt extends for several meters in every direction, and the sodden pine needles that have been removed are piled against the outside of the makeshift shelter. The slow-rotting mat of needles has been removed from the inside also, and used to further fortify the outer wall. In the bare earth outside the entrance a shallow trench steams, emitting a noxious cloud of ammonia and wet smoke.

  The tree nearest to the hide has strengthened in the absence of its neighbors. This tree is the only one that displays some sign of recent pruning, all of the smaller branches having been removed from its near side. The thicker limbs have been left alone, and extend upwards some twenty feet to where the agent of this activity now clings, precariously braced against the trunk. At a glance, it would be possible to miss him entirely; as the muted tones of his filthy clothing, his unkempt dark brown hair, and a liberal covering of dirt serve to effectively camouflage him from view. While he is still, he is almost invisible: almost, all apart from his teeth which appear and then disappear with a rhythmic peekaboo of dull yellow ivory; a constant silent chattering motion of which the man seems quite unaware. In fact, he is not wholly silent, but rather emits a near constant, almost inaudible, babbling. A whispered, scratching, jabbering chatter that swings between sounds and mouth movements, occasionally settles on a sound close to a word and then wings and swings away again to a staccato nonsense far removed from language: “patapatapatapatapatapata” then a pause and “patapatapata…lo..lo..lo..lo…lolololo….patapatapata” and on without cease. All the while he moves with what seems a practiced motion; a glacial hypnotic wobble like a sloth, a mode of movement that values concealment over momentum. Slowly, two-inches up for one-inch down, he extends his right foot towards the branch jutting out below him and eases his weight onto it. Now he is able to relax his left side slightly, he grits his teeth as a lemony pain courses through his left leg. He lifts his foot and rolls his ankle to bring some life back into it. Now that he has relieved the pain in his leg, his right arm, still locked around the bough above him begins to petition for his attention. Ignoring this, he carefully watches the row of trees before him. As the wind catches the furthest tree he makes ready and observes as each tree sways in turn. He adjusts his balance again and waits, conserving his strength until the moment before the Mexican wave reaches his position and only then does he brace as his fir swayed violently forward, and then spring back. As he rides out the turbulence, he keeps one eye on the boy laid out in the dirt at the foot of the tree. The longer he stares at the body on the ground, the more agitated become the noiseless but constant muttering motion of his lips, accompanied now by a regular tick that closes one eye and jerks his head off to the left, as the man tries to stifle the uncharitable half-hope that the fall might already have killed the boy.

  Chapter Two

  He had first seen the boy several weeks earlier, whilst washing his clothes in the lake beyond the forest, far across the valley. It was a fine day, and so he stashed his boots and leather jacket in his pack, dove in and struck out to the far bank. There he settled in to his familiar routine: strip off, weigh his clothes down with rocks in the shallows and lay down to bathe. He knew the terrain well, and picked a spot with his back to a steep incline of rocks, which curve all the way around to the waterfall that feeds the lake. In the beginning, long ago, he had washed in the waterfall, but he learnt early on that dogs and black bears would often use the beach there as a watering hole and so he now avoided it completely. After a long soak, he took his shirt and washed it out, wringing and soaking repeatedly until he was satisfied. Then, using it as a washcloth, he scrubbed his blackened skin, avoiding the fresher of the cuts and scratches that almost covered his emaciated body. Once this was done, he re-soaked and wrung out his shirt and the rest of his clothes and laid them on the side of a boulder facing away from the lake. The sun wouldn’t completely reach them there but they wouldn’t be seen from the far bank, and he had time enough to wait. As he waited for them to dry, he took the last of the dried meat from his knapsack and eased himself back into the water, concealing all but his lank-bearded head and one skeletal arm from view. As he bathed he let his mind wander until it fixed on a mental exercise; to remember the fifteen items he needed to buy from the store. First he segregated them by use: eight edible items, three others for the kitchen, two for the bathroom, then smokes and beers. As he recalled each item he imagined its place in the store, lifting it from the shelf and
placing it into his basket. He lingered over the smokes and beers; his fingers unconsciously twitching in the water as his forefinger ran a line through the condensation of an imaginary can, then rushed through the inedible items before slowing down once more to savor the thought of each food item in turn. He had been resting there for some time, and had just reached the tinned food section in his mind when, noticing a movement in the copse across the water, he quickly bobbed lower into the lake and waited, holding himself still in the water. After a few moments a young woman stepped out cautiously and crouched down, her eyes darting warily around the waters edge. The woman was waif-thin, obesity no longer being too much of an issue these days, and barefoot, and had long matted hair that hung low to her breasts. She wore a thin, shapeless dress of faded green and a makeshift woolen shawl that may have once been a pullover tied around her shoulders. As he watched, she crawled slowly to the lake and drank, cupping the water to her mouth with both hands. As she slurped, she looked all around her again and again and then, when seemingly satisfied, raised her hand towards the copse. After a moment, the boy stepped out and joined the woman at the water. He was young – he looked no older than ten - but was likely stunted by malnutrition and so older than he appeared. Like the woman, he was poorly dressed in thin, shabby clothes and had the same ever-roaming, cautious eyes. He bent his head low to the water to drink, like an animal, and then drank desperately, as if it was his first water for some time. Once they had both had their fill, the woman called softly and the boy ran obediently back to her and stood, swaying slightly, eyes lifted towards the sky, as she stripped him and gave him a brisk, cursory wash; throwing handfuls of water onto his skin with one hand, rubbing him quickly, and then drying almost simultaneously with a rag held in the other. This done, she dismissed the child with a nod of her head, removed her own clothes and began to give herself a more thorough bath. Watching on the far shore, the man was entranced. Although the woman was plain, and her body bruised, covered in scars, and wracked by starvation, he had not seen a female form for a long time, and was taken aback the strength of his desire. He was also surprised that although this was partly a sexual attraction – the evidence for which was now bobbing merrily in the surface of the water in front of him – predominately he longed to be held and mothered by the woman; to be washed as he had watched her cleaned her son. So engrossed in the spectacle was he, that it was not until the woman had gathered her clothes to dress some time later that he finally noticed the boys absence.

  Whilst the man was distracted, the boy had walked around the rocks that encircled the lake, and was now stood stock still some twenty feet away from his position. He was relieved to note that the boy had still not spotted him, but rather had his gaze fixed on a rock, almost within leaping distance, upon which sat lazily sunning itself a fat freshwater turtle. For a minute or more the boy remained motionless, staring at the animal before he began to inch painstakingly forward, whilst simultaneously easing himself round to its rear, and then dropped down onto all fours. Once behind his prey, the boy proceeded to edge forwards, one hand, then one foot, then pause, hand, foot, pause, each movement of the smallest possible distance until he had finally moved to within striking distance. Turtle and boy remained frozen, each on their respective rocks, for perhaps a minute before the boy pounced. Whilst the boy was still in midair the turtle suddenly sprang to life, its head twitched round to regard the boy, and then it pushed forward, slipped languidly off of the rock and flopped into the water. The boy was deceptively fast though, and barely grazed the surface of the rock upon landing before he too propelled himself in to the water and after the turtle. As soon as he hit the water, he began to push out towards his quarry, but the turtle was in its element now and darted out of reach with a mocking, graceful ease. Try as the boy might, he never stood a chance of winning the pursuit and as the turtle shot away he slapped the water in frustration, kicked out to the waters edge and stepped out of the lake directly in front of where the man bathed.

  If the boy was surprised to see the man there, he did not show it. The look of frustration at a meal lost was still seared into his face as he stared at the man. Though he was surely also frightened he barely betrayed this either, but merely stared into the man’s eyes for a long moment, as if appraising whether he represented a threat, a renewed chance for a meal, or merely a curiosity. The boy stepped forward slightly and made as if to speak, but at just that moment, the mother realized that her child was out of sight, spied him on the other side of the water, and let out a low, cautious whistle to call him back to her. The spell had been broken, and the boy turned away from the man and swam back to his mother without a backward glance. It appeared that the mother had not seen the man, and for the boy’s part it was as if once his mother called him back that for him the man had ceased to exist. By the time the boy reached the beach, his mother had collected together their meager possessions and, without a word, the boy followed her into the woods and away. For the man’s part, he was intrigued by the boy’s boldness, and as he lay back into the water he pondered whether it were born of a natural courage, or an unnatural hunger.

  *****

  “Of all the people I’ve encountered in the wild, they had just about the biggest impact on me. I wondered for the longest time after that meeting what would have happened if I had revealed myself to them, and subsequently often fantasized about the three of us living a simple life of tranquil contentment together. In these daydreams I would employ skills I had never possessed to hunt, to construct fort after fort of ever-increasing grandeur, to grow crops of a mouth-watering variety. I imagined survivors stumbling into my realm, and the humble yet imperious fashion in which I would receive them. I invented complex systems of defense – wooden palisades and huge lines of sharpened stakes, ditches and cunningly planted rows of impenetrable buckthorn. I could see myself eventually settling into a life of dotage, as my ever-burgeoning family took care of my every wont and need. Though always bucolic at first, these dreams had a habit of rapidly deteriorating into furious epics of conquest and war, my self-sufficient family morphing into a personal army, with which I would do battle with my foes to reclaim our lost civilization. I see the irony now. That I could ever have thought myself capable of achieving any of this!”

  Chapter Three

  Now, he as he holds tight to the tree, he recalls the cocktail of emotion he had seen in the boy’s eyes that day. Though there had been fear there, it had been a familiar alarm, born of a lifetime’s experience of the unsympathetic rules of nature. That of an animal ruled by instinct, and used to playing the role of prey. While he does not doubt that the boy will try to put up a fight when the time comes, he nonetheless knows well how the scene before him will likely play out.

  He had heard them coming, left his shelter, and made for the tree, long before he saw the boy. At first he assumed that they had caught his scent, and briefly wondered about bolting, but as he knew how swiftly they ran he dismissed the idea. Then, he had considered laying in wait, and attempting to take at least one down before he was discovered. He had acknowledged though, that the chances of them scenting him before he could spring his ambush were too high, and so he made for the tree instead. About halfway up he spotted the boy. He was moving fast, but with the exhausted, staggering gait of a long-distance runner at the end of his race. The boy spied the shelter at about five hundred yards and had just started for it when the man observed a movement in the trees beyond him. As rapidly as the hope that it might be the boy’s mother had come to his mind it was dashed, as he saw the seven long dark shapes materialize behind the boy that would signal his extinction. The boy heard them approaching also and increased his pace, throwing aside a leather holdall he was carrying in one hand as he ran. The man could soon see the lead dog clearly, it was of the same sturdy build that so many of the surviving dogs seemed to take these days; tall, long-legged and powerfully framed, with well- defined muscles clearly visible beneath a glistening jet-black coat, set atop with a ferocio
us, lupine head. A few seconds after the lead dog had appeared, the man saw the others emerging just behind him. They were a mixture of breeds; all formidable, if for the most part smaller than the leader, and were ranged out in an uneven line cantering swiftly through the forest. It was clear that the dogs were not running at full pace, but moving languorously, waiting for the boy to use the last of his energy before they attacked. As the boy made it to the shelter, limping slightly, the dogs on each side of the line increased their pace, and drew out on each side. The boy sensed that they had seen him and kept sprinting on, passing the shelter by. As he passed, he saw the manicured tree and made straight for it. In his haste, he stumbled over a root as he approached the tree and half fell, but managed to regain his footing at the last moment. If the man had entertained any brief thoughts of saving the boy, they had then left him as quickly. As the boy faltered he saw why the boy had been limping - a small, vivid-red slash running across his left ankle, indicating a bite. As the boy recovered his balance, the lead dog seemed to sense that the boy would make the tree before he would, and leapt forward, taking off anew with a snarl of frustration. The boy reached the tree and climbed the first few feet before he looked up and saw the man. Unlike when they first met, this time the man could see both surprise and fear writ large in the child’s eyes. As the boy saw the man he froze for a split-second, his hand wavering on the branch above his head, suspended a step below salvation. In that instant, needing only to reach out an arms length to pull him to safety, the man no longer saw the boy at all. Rather, he found himself transported to a decade earlier. He no longer felt the tree against his back, but rather the hard edge of the davenport in his former home, his eyes fixed on those of a girl staring back at him through his letterbox. He saw again her pleading expression as it was replaced by one of horror, and once more heard her tormented wail cut short as she was wrenched from view. This brief moment of remembrance passed swiftly, and the man now saw that his indecision had been enough to settle the boy’s fate. As he watched, the lead dog jumped high, gripping the boy’s ankle, and hauled him back towards the ground. The boy held on for another instant, fingers grasping for a hold, before he crashed to the forest floor.