The Darkness and Dogs

by Lanchbery, T. S.

  “Didn’t fancy saving the boy then Lowell?” The figure calls out.

  At the sound of his father’s clipped British voice echoing through the woods, the man – Lowell - tenses, and then slowly lowers the machete, places it on the ground, and takes his head in his hands. In front of the shelter, his father pushes himself away from his tree, brushes the side of his jacket with one hand, walks over to the corpse of the boy, nudges it gently with his foot, and then shakes his head sadly.

  “Real shame that, damned dogs. Don’t blame yourself. I totally understand son, it was either you or he - that old chestnut. Of course, if I was here sooner I might have done it differently, but that’s just the way you are.” He says.

  Still, Lowell remains silent. As his father continues to harangue him in the background, he begins to rock gently back and forth, and then he again begins to mumble half-formed words under his breath, a constant stream of babble to block out his father’s jeremiad.

  “… The most mind-blowing fact of all is that I might have somehow produced such a pathetic wretch in the first place! God knows what your mother would have to say if she were here to see you now.”

  And still Lowell remains silent. His eyes are closed now, and his swaying is ever more pronounced. Suddenly, his eyes snap open, his right hand leaps to his side and seize the machete, and he leaps to his feet, and then stands still, breathing heavily, eyes scanning wildly from side to side. The mist is gone, his father is nowhere to be seen, and only the occasional damp thud as pieces of rotten wood dislodges from the trees and hits the ground somewhere in the forest breaks the silence. Lowell bends down, lifts his pack from the ground, and turns to leave.

  Just past the entrance of his hide, he happens to look down into the dirt and spots the holdall that the boy had thrown aside as he fled the dogs. He leans down to retrieve it, unbuttons the front flap and empties the contents onto the ground in front of him. A small leather bag tied with a scrap of string yields a single unripe apple and some scraps of dried meat. These he deposits into his own pack, along with a rusted steak knife, a pocket mirror, and a small foil packet of iodine tablets. The rest of the boy’s possessions amount to a grubby brown baseball cap, a small pair of mittens, and a handful of shards of broken china. Lowell picks up the two largest of the pieces and matches them together, revealing the front edge of a cheaply printed novelty mug. The image of an overweight, cheerful man in a chef’s hat beams out under the legend Gutbuster’s Employee of the month April ’18. The man tosses the fragments to the dirt along with the empty leather holdall and sets off again, grinding the image of the man’s face into the earth with his heel as he turns to go.

  *****

  “My father and I used to go “camping” every so often. He got the bug as soon as we moved out from England, kept talking about how ‘this was God’s own country’. Never shut up about it. First thing I would know about it was when he’d shine a flashlight into my face at three AM, roll me out of bed and point urgently at his watch. Ten minutes later we would be outta the door. We’d drive fifty miles out of the city in his shitty old $200 RV and park up next to a lake. He would fish, while I would sit by, no rod of my own, just passing him whatever he asked for and yawning and shivering and cursing his name. After, we’d eat a cold pre-packed meal and then sit there while he drank three beers, never more, and then we’d return to the RV to sleep. I got the feeling that he thought that I secretly loved those outings - that I was just playing at being tired and grumpy and sullen. Christ. We’d barely speak on those trips; sometimes I’d try and talk, if only to complain, but the only words I’d hear out his mouth in return were “just savor the silence, Lowell”. Well, Christ, would he love it now.“

  *****

  Bent low, with his knife gripped tightly in one hand, Lowell cuts a cautious path through the woodland, scanning the way ahead, Argus-eyed, for any sign of the dogs. At any slight movement in the undergrowth or off sound he presses low to the ground, machete in hand, and then springs up again as soon as possible to press onwards. Despite his nervous hesitation he makes good time, and finds himself at the edge of the forest with a little light still left in the day. Out of the woodland the landscape transforms into a rocky valley, not quite five miles in length, dotted here and there with small copses of native pines. An old loggers road curves around the edge of the plantation, ascending along the upper brow of the valley and then dropping abruptly out of sight. The trees along the edge of the plantation have flourished with the extra sunlight that reaches them, and he lays low amongst the dense foliage, watching the road ahead for some time before scurrying out and onto the asphalt. He keeps to the edge all the way up, driven continually forward as much by a raging thirst as the need to find shelter by nightfall. Some time later, as he finally reaches the crest of the valley, he pauses once more to survey the route ahead and is just in time to make out seven black dots disappearing from view in the distance. An insistent, steady wind blows into his face, ensuring the dogs won’t pick up his scent, and he hugs close to the edge of the road as he edges cautiously forward. All the while that the terror of the dogs urges him back, his thirst propels him forward. He knows that reaching the lake will guarantee him both water and safety - at least for the night, and he can only hope that the dogs are not heading in the same direction.

  Later in the afternoon, as the sun’s descent into the horizon picks up pace, He leaves the road and picks his way over some rocks down a steep incline. He had last sighted the dogs over an hour earlier but still treads gingerly, hugging himself low to the ground as he reaches level ground and ducking through a screen of bushes that separate him from the waters edge.

  The man crawls forward on his elbows until he can see the far shore of the lake. There, the alpha lounges half asleep, his two deputies lying on either side, the two lowly-ranked bitches rolling in front of them, engaged in another futile power struggle. They circle one another, each occasionally springing forward to deliver a vicious bite before withdrawing to continue their furious hora. Eventually, one of the dogs delivers a particularly painful bite to the haunch of the other, who yelps and limps off, hunched low in submission. The other stalks proudly toward her leader, head held high. Upon her approach, he raises one eye from his slumber and briefly appraises the victor before looking away, laying his head upon one paw and returning to sleep. As the conquering bitch comes close, the alpha’s favorite lets out a low growl from her position on his right, forcing the other to continue around and away. Eventually she settles on a position behind the alpha, satisfied that she has earned an improved position, but ready to flee at the first signal of aggression from any of the three top dogs.

  Lowell watches this display of political infighting from his position on the other shore. He dozes in sync with the dogs for a while, his teeth chattering as dusk settles on the lake and the temperature plunges ever lower. Eventually, as night has almost fallen, and he strains to make out the dogs across the water, the alpha rises and stalks away into the woods, the others following in their allotted order. He stays in place for as long as he can bear until finally, his frigid limbs shutting down from the cold, he emerges from hiding and sashays around the rocks at the edge until he reaches his concealed beach and hunkers down for the night.

  The man remains at the lake for two days and three nights. Witnessing the death of the boy has taken a mental toll, and each night in his dreams he relives the moments of the infant’s demise with a lucid intensity. Interwoven with these nightmares is a more familiar one, in which he walks through his former neighborhood. In it, the streets are strewn with the bodies of the fallen, those in their death throws clutching at him with fingers curled by pain as he stumbles blindly towards his former home. Urged forward by the terrible sound of a constant barking and howling in the distance, he finally stumbles to his front door, and wrenches wildly at the handle, only to find the door is bolted fast. As he hears the dogs’ furious barking grow nearer he drops to his knees to stare through the letterbox, and mak
es out the dim shape of a man at the back of the vestibule. He shouts to the man to let him in, but the shadowy figure averts his eyes and places his hands over his ears. As the sound of the barking grows louder and louder behind him he bangs desperately on the door, he pleads over and over to be let in to no avail. Finally, with not a movement from the figure inside the house, he turns to see the dogs closing in - just a few meters now - he hits with a renewed intensity against the wood, his palms stinging with the effort. And then, just as he feels the jaws of the first dog closing against his flesh and he is wrenched downward, he finally sees the man inside look up, sees his own face looking back at him, weeping with a cowardly shame, and he wakes in a cold sweat, shivering violently with anger and fear.

  Chapter Seven

  In the morning, he breakfasts on his last remaining tin of peaches, before crossing the lake to the beach on the far side. There, he scours the surrounding woodland until he finds the dogs’ faint two-day old tracks. Machete in hand, he picks his way through the trees in the same direction they have travelled, a vague and ill-considered thirst for revenge both quickening his step and muddying his thoughts. Steadily he pushes forward, occasionally doubling back as he loses the tracks, searching over before picking up again on the rediscovered trail. Beyond the lakeside woodland, the tracks lead him through a vast wildflower meadow, populated with scores of fleabane, vetch, and asters beyond counting. Here, the earth is dry, and those plants that the dogs have trod underfoot have long since sprung back, and so the trail grows ever colder. Still Lowell presses on, hoping to providence that he might somehow stumble upon some small sign that will betray the dogs’ direction.

  *****

  “It’s amazing how that silence can focus the mind, and what you notice when you’ve got nothing but time to look. From zero experience when I started, I can now tell you the size, species, direction of travel, and freshness of the trail all in a single glance at a good quality animal print. When the woods all around you are teeming with bears and boars and cougars you have quite the incentive to become a fast learner. It got to the stage where I could sometimes think I could smell a bear before I ever saw it: that musky odor the big males get when the season’s right. Never had a problem with one, mind. I’ve had a few posturing at me when I’ve got to close but that’s about it. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I sense them and I’m outta there long before there’s a problem, all because of tracking and watching trails. Others might have wasted their time picking up combat skills, but I’ve got good at knowing when to run, when to chase, and when to hide. I’ve seen countless others set off on revenge missions, seen the blood rise in their cheeks, and seen it drain out soon after. It took me a while to accept that we are the prey now, others could not accept that fact, thought that they needed to learn how to be a better hunter, but I set myself to learning how to be the most difficult prey. Nothing I’ve seen so far has convinced me to try another way, at least not until now.”

  *****

  Deep into the afternoon he crisscrosses the meadow, searching for a new route to forge. Much later, as his shadow lengthens on the grass, he stops, drops his pack on the ground and wipes the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. His fury has by now begun to abate, and he at last questions his intentions in pursuing the pack at all. He knows that he will not stand a chance of defeating them, and asks himself what good can be done by laying his life down to settle a score with such an impulsive, unthinking foe. He has long since accepted that his role in life now is one of prey to the dogs. When he inevitably questions the worth of such a life, he then asks himself what the value is of any animals life, and is forced to admit that the wonder is not that humanity has fallen so low, but rather that it had, for a short spell at least managed to lift itself out of the natural order. In these moments of existential doubt, it is invariably his stubborn character that forces him to continue moving on - and so it is now. After his long day of fruitless and reckless pursuit, he is hungry and tired, and tells himself firmly that he is damned if he will surrender himself to a brutal death whilst there is still food in his possession. Thus resolved, and with a new lightness in his step, he hoists his pack, replaces his machete in his belt and starts out towards the far edge of the meadow.

  As he nears the edge of the field, he slows his pace and breathes in. A sharp, rancid smell fills his nostrils, one that he recognizes at once as the sickly-sweet odor of fermented death. Dropping down, he places one palm on the ground, lifts his head high and inhales deeply, noting the heading of the wind, and walks instinctively in the direction of the source. Before long the meadow grass thins out, and as Lowell cautiously approaches he makes out a small hut, built into a natural depression. The hut stands alone in a small clearing, almost completely obscured by a makeshift fence that encircles it. The fence looks as if it had been hastily constructed of whatever was to hand; assorted lengths of wood, branches, and sheet metal bound roughly together with rusted barbed wire, but it looks sturdy enough nonetheless. No attempt has been made to camouflage the enclosure, but none is needed: the meadow itself provides a natural screen that will surely keep out all but those who stumble mistakenly upon it, as he has done now. Cautiously, he circumnavigates the perimeter, searching fruitlessly for some way in. On his third orbit, he finally notices a wooden board that protrudes further than the others, and on closer inspection he sees that it is not attached to the rest of the materials, but instead is hooked in to a bracket on either side that allows it to slide up and down by means of a wire hook nailed to the foot of the panel. He drops to his knees and listens carefully for a moment. Hearing nothing, he grips the hook and carefully lifts the board up to its limit, wincing as the rusted metal squeals its resistance. At the top a nail has been hammered from which to hang the hook and secure the board in place. Before entering, he stays in place for another long moment, again listening for the slightest sound inside the enclosure until he is satisfied, and then he pulls his shoulders in close to his body and crawls stealthily through the narrow opening.

  Chapter Eight

  As soon as Lowell emerges into the enclosure, the smell intensifies to an unbearable degree, and he is instantly overcome by wave after wave of nausea that rock him backwards. Steadying himself with one hand against the fence, he lifts his shirt up to cover his nose and staggers to his feet. The source of the smell is not immediately apparent, but just around the corner of the hut he can see a thick cloud of flies humming in and out of view, and now he can hear their continuous drone filling the air. Steeling himself to what he might find, he edges unsteadily around, his back pressed against the fence. At the scene that confronts him, he recoils, heaves forward again and finally gives in, lurches over and vomits copiously onto the ground. Propped against the wall of the hut, open eyes staring vacantly into space, sits the naked, mutilated body of the boy’s mother. Her ripped and bloodied clothes are haphazardly discarded around her corpse, her green dress lies closes to her body - now stained a muddy brown from the steady absorption of blood from a large puddle pooled to one side. Sinking to the floor, knees pressing fresh indentations into the blood soaked ground, he stares grimly at the woman’s bare and battered body. His mind casts back again to the day he saw her at the lake, and now in his remembrance she possesses a greater vitality and radiance than was ever the case in reality. His mind is once again churned into a lather of wrath and indignation, as his delusional fantasies are torn and trampled by the jaws and claws of his despised adversaries.

  He is consumed this way for several minutes before a semblance of logic manages at last to cut its way through the fog of his thoughts, clamoring for his acknowledgment. He clambers to his feet and, checking that his shirt completely covers his nose and mouth, approaches as close to the corpse as he dares. Scrutinizing the carnage in front of him more closely, he considers the cuts covering the woman’s clothes and flesh afresh. With a clearer head now, he reaches forward and lifts the woman’s head with the end of his machete, noting grimly the precise nature of the la
cerations, and saw how little resemblance they bear to the ripping wounds he had witnessed the dogs inflicting on her boy days earlier. A new, chilling horror rises slowly in his gut, he retraces his steps to the entryway to the enclosure. On the inside of the hatch, he finds another board of the same design as the outer and unhooks it from the nail, lets it drop to the ground to close the hole, then stands up and begins a thorough investigation of the fence from the inside. After his first circuit he is convinced that no dogs could have broken through the closed barricade, but it is not until his second time around that he finds the clear evidence he seeks; pressed into the sodden earth next to the woman’s body is plainly visible the unmistakable tread of a man’s boot print.

  Lowell finds himself gripped by a terrible panic. His every instinct is to flee the scene, to return to his woodland shelter and hide away there for as long as he can remain. Despite his consuming urge to get away, he breathes deeply and forces himself to remain pragmatic. Night is drawing rapidly in, and he is in no way prepared to make the trip back to the plantation in the dark. Approaching the door of the hut, he notices for the first time clear evidence of forced entry. The foremost plank in the door has been smashed in from the outside and hangs limply to one side. The door is ajar, so he pushes it tentatively open, quickly appraises the interior, and steps inside.

  Within the hut he discovers a scene of utter devastation. Fragments of broken pottery and splinters of wood litter the floor nearest the door. Further in, a stool lies on its side, one leg has been broken off and tossed several feet away in a corner. The nearest wall is liberally splattered with dried blood, a trail of which extends to the floor before leading out to the door and beyond. If there had ever been any food or other possessions of value here they have now been removed. The only items still whole are a stained and grubby mattress and broom leant against one wall. With darkness falling, he does his best to sweep the worst of the detritus out of the door, arranges the mattress in the corner and lies down. He watches a fly on the wall opposite as it buzzes from dark brown stain to dark brown stain: pausing at each for a moment before launching away with what seems to the man to be a distastefully energetic and ecstatic display; a heady, spiraling victory lap after every feed that each time loops closer and closer to his makeshift bed, gloating and taunting him. But is it feeding? It occurs to the man then that the fly is actually laying eggs in the blood. Eggs that will hatch maggots whose first act will be to consume the blood of the woman. As he watches the fly bounce dumbly from food source to food source the man’s fingers close to a fist. Three times more it passes close to his head, and then on the fourth he lets out a half-cough, half-yell and jumps to his feet, grips one corner of the mattress and lifts it in fury toward the insect, but succeeds only in shifting the top side over by less than two feet before he falls backwards onto the mattress and lies there and watches once more as the fly continues on its way, quite oblivious of his wrath. He remains still for only a moment and then stands up again, heads to his pack, and removes a thin sheet from within. Covering his mouth once more with his shirt, he heads back outside. Gingerly, he approaches the woman’s body, grips it lightly, and lays it gently to the ground. Taking his sheet in both hands, he drapes it over her and tucks it in, covering it completely from the flies and elements without. This done, he returns to the hut, uses the broom to chase the fly from within and then wedges shut the door from the inside, and lies down to a restless sleep.