The Darkness and Dogs

by Lanchbery, T. S.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lowell’s face, which has lately taken on a decidedly yellow and jaundiced quality, experiences a further series of color changes as he first blanches white with shock and then gradually turns red as the strange scratching growl continues to seep from his throat, pushing all of the air from his body until he is quite spent and almost purple from lack of air. He starts to shake violently, and the photograph slips from his fingers and lands with a crash onto the floor, the glass in the frame splintering instantly and cascading in slow motion in front of him. The noise startles an arrhythmic breathing back into him, but he continues to stare into space and slowly drops forward onto all fours. Even as the palms of his hands press painfully against the fragments of glass on the floor he fails to react, but merely glances down at them uncomprehendingly and leaves them in place, blood quickly pooling from the cuts in his heads and seeping into the carpet.

  ******

  If the opening stages of the outbreak had for Lowell been characterized by inaction, distraction, and a misplaced confidence in the authorities ability to find a cure, it had for Beth been a blur of selfless activity. She had been one of the first to volunteer to deliver vaccines as the health service had been overwhelmed, and had spent the majority of the rest of her time doing all that she could to help in the temporary hospital camp on the outskirts of town that was rapidly swelling with new admissions. One fortunate side effect of her condition had been that she was for the most part kept away from administering aid to those patients in the latest, and most infectious stages of illness, and she was also therefore one of the first to be sent home, against her wishes, as the government curfew became ever more restrictive. Her return home had coincided with the eventual, belated realization by Lowell of the severity of the situation, and on that night he had spent an anxious eight and a bit hours with his face pressed against the window, watching for Beth’s return, and witnessing as the scene outside became ever more desperate.

  As soon as he saw her car pull up outside the house, he raced to the door, waiting with one hand on the latch and the other on the door handle until he saw Beth’s shadow pass in front of the window, then relief surged through him and he snatched open the door and gestured inside, yelping for her to hurry. His cry died on his lips. Standing outside the door was not Beth, but rather a short fat man in a dark green suit, squinting nervously at Lowell over the top of his half-rim glasses. The small allowance of thin hair that framed his head was damp with perspiration, and the man self-consciously grabbed his tie with one hand and wiped it across his brow. Despite the situation, Lowell found himself groaning inwardly. During her pregnancy, Beth had grown very close with Lucy, the man’s wife, and by default Lowell had been expected to become friends with the husband – something that had never quite happened despite many long hours of painful small talk in Lamaze classes, hospital waiting rooms, and even – eventually – dinner parties, so many, many dinner parties. The fact that the man was also Beth’s boss at the hospital, and also was by all accounts a wonderful man, only made things more difficult.

  “Walter?” Lowell began. The man attempted a smile – but managed only a grimace - snatched at Lowell’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly into his clammy palm.

  “It’s okay, Lowell. We need you to come to the hospital,” he said. Lowell stared in panic, and pulled his arm away from the sweaty fingers grabbing desperately at his sleeve.

  “She…” Lowell’s voice stuck in his throat. Walter pulled again, urging him forward toward the car.

  “She’s fine,” he replied, “everything else is fucked, as you may have noticed, we’re just going to grab Beth and then head back to mine for Lucy”. As Lowell continued to stand still, holding one hand on the edge of his door for support, Walter let go of his arm and ran halfway to the car, then turned and shouted back. “Now!” Lowell took one last look at the scene of despair along the street and then took a couple of faltering steps forward and ran towards the car, wrenching open the back door and jumping inside as Walter slammed into gear and accelerated away from the curb with a squeal of complaint from the rear tires and a wild swerve that sent Lowell sprawling across the back seats.

  On the road, Walter slalomed between already abandoned cars, veered in and out of the path of onrushing cars, horn blaring, never letting up on the accelerator for even a second. Despite everything, Lowell felt a mad thrill rush through him as adrenaline took over. His thoughts danced wildly between the scene outside the windows – where already fires had sprung up seemingly out of nowhere – to what lay ahead at the hospital, and then back to Walter, who kept up a staccato monologue of everything that had happened there over the past day. The increase in patients, the army moving in, the barricades they had set up at the front entrance, the sick, the wounded, the bitten. Lowell tried to listen but it was all too much. Instead, he stared at the fires blazing outside, distractedly wondering who in the hell had the time amidst all of the mayhem for a little light arson, or did it just strike people as necessary to achieve the full apocalyptic ambience?

  “… Dogs came from out of nowhere and ripped him to pieces. They shot them Lowell! In the hospital! But then the disease comes on and spreads so fast. We’re meeting at the residence and then moving on. You’ve not left your house until now?” Hey?” Lowell tore his attention away from the window and tried to concentrate on what Walter was saying.

  “Outside? No”. Lowell murmured. Walter stared up into the rearview mirror, watching Lowell intently, and Lowell looked back at him and held his gaze. “No!” he barked. Walter nodded curtly, hesitated, and then turned his attention back to the road.

  A block away from the hospital Walter swung the car down a side street and away from the main entrance. Sirens, gunshots, and the occasional scream mingled together into a discordant cacophony behind them, fading away as Walter pushed the car forward, swerving narrowly out of the way of an old lady wandering down the road in her nightgown as he took the corner at speed and swerved onto the ramp that led down to the entrance to the hospital’s staff residences. Suddenly, halfway down, he wrenched hard on the steering wheel, slammed on the breaks, and the car screeched to a halt, bucking wildly as the front wheel slammed up against the low wall that bordered the road. Confused, and a little sore, Lowell rubbed his neck, gripped the seat in front and pulled himself forward. Walter sat stock still, staring toward the building; all of the color seemed to have drained from his usually ruddy features. Lowell followed his gaze over to the plate glass windows of the housing block. Inside, a sea of concerned faces stared back at him. Some he recognized as Beth’s colleagues, a few soldiers were dotted about, as well as a dozen others he didn’t recognize. As he watched, he saw a little girl break through the crowd and run towards a man who had just entered from outside, jumping up into his arms with a cry of joyful relief. Looking over to the other corner he saw Beth smiling and waving at him and he breathed deeply with relief. Lowell glanced over to Walter, who was now staring off into the distance to their left, and felt a pang of sympathy. Placing his hand on Walter’s shoulder, Lowell spoke softly.

  “It’s going to be okay Walter, let’s just get in and out and we’ll be back to Lucy in no time, alright?” he said.

  Walter gave no indication that he had heard a word Lowell had said. Instead, as he continued to stare off to the left, his eyes widened, he gasped, and a single tear rolled down his face. Lowell frowned, placed one hand on Walter’s shoulder, patted it vaguely and turned to leave, and then his stomach lurched as he finally saw what had Walter stricken: a huge pack of dogs – maybe twenty strong - surging down the road opposite toward the building, barking and baying ferociously as they caught the scent of their prey inside the hospital building.

  Everything began to move too quickly for Lowell to keep up. His first instinct was to leap out of the car, and then he remembered - just in time to stop himself - that the doors to the hospital building were closed and that the dogs would not be able to get inside. He watched them rac
e closer, near enough now that he could make out the crazed expression on the faces of individual dogs. As they reached the building, the first – a stocky bull terrier – leapt up and slammed bodily into the thick glass. As the people inside turned to flee another dog took a running jump at the doors, and Lowell let out a shriek of horror as he saw the electronic doors part obligingly in front of it, and the dog, caught off balance, crash down awkwardly and slide smoothly inside the lobby. For several seconds, nobody moved, and then the dog clambered unsteadily to its feet, looked around wildly and leapt, biting savagely, into the groin of a young man in a blue gown too traumatized to make any move to escape. Immediately, panic took over, but too late: another dog had quickly repeated the first’s maneuver, and as soon as the doors opened again the rest of the pack had swarmed inside without hesitation, snapping and biting and ripping into anyone too low to move, and then moving on to the rest of the crowd that screamed and charged and fought to pile through the double doors at the far end of the lobby. Scanning desperately, Lowell just made out Beth’s back as she stumbled through the doors and away out of sight down the corridor.

  Inside the car, Lowell moved instinctively, leaping across the car to wrench the doors open, only to hear a thunk as the door locks clicked into place, locking him in. “Walter?!?” He shouted.

  Walter didn’t answer, but just sat still, eyes glazed, his right hand still resting on the car’s central locking panel. Lowell looked over to the hospital again, the lobby floor was slick with blood, but only a few dogs remained, the rest had pursued the others further into the building. Lowell pulled desperately at the door, beseeching Walter to move.

  “Walter, open the fucking door!” He cried. At first, Walter remained still, and then all of a sudden his right hand jerked up to the ignition switch and stabbed it on, and his left moved across to throw the car into drive. Immediately, Lowell through himself toward him, tried to grab at Walters arm, and then drew back his left hand and threw a feeble punch that scuffed off of the passenger headrest and then flapped weakly into Walter’s chin. Somehow this broke through to Walter, and he looked across at Lowell with a wild expression, as if he was only just seeing him now. At last, Walter stabbed at the door release, and Lowell rolled over, grabbed at the handle, half fell out of the car and then leapt to his feet. For a second he hesitated, as he saw that the front of the car was blocking the way ahead, and then he sprang into action, running around the rear of the vehicle. As he drew level, he heard the roar of the engine to his side, and half turned in surprise as Walter threw the car into reverse and the rear bumper slammed into his side, throwing him over the low wall and then down twelve feet onto the hard concrete of the parking lot below.

  *****

  A sound somewhere in the house snaps Lowell’s attention back to the present, and he finds himself drenched in sweat and shaking violently. It takes another long moment before he acknowledges the sharp pain coursing through the palms of his hands and lifts them away from the glass on the floor, leaving two irregular stains pressed into the carpet. A fog of hatred and furious anger fogs his mind, and a slew of violent fantasies for revenge crow for his attention. Clambering to his feet, he staggers away, pressing one arm against the nearest wall for support and rubbing his eyes furiously with the other hand as he tries to resist the thoughts that assail him. After a long pause, he stands up straight, wavers as his knees threaten to buckle once again, but resists. Removing his arm from the wall, and leaving another streak of blood in its place, he takes a deep breath and quietly pads to the door, closing his eyes and concentrating to listen for any further sounds. All is still for a minute, and then he hears it again, a low moan, rising and falling, coming from the other side of the wall. Readying his gun once more, he steps out in to the hallway, briefly glances all around, and then peeks over the balustrade and down to the bottom of the stairs. The noise seems to be coming from the room next door, the same room that he had avoided a moment before. Approaching it again, he steadies his ragged breath as best as he can and prepares to enter. Adrenaline has focused his mind, bringing him rapidly back into the present, but anger still leads him, forcing him away from his instinct to flee and pushing him instead towards confrontation.

  Bursting into the room, he is instantly overcome by a terrible odor, a sickly sweet smell that is immediately familiar to him. Sweeping his gun in all directions, he is unable at first to identify where the noise had come from. He fights hard to keep his emotions in check as he is confronted by the half-completed décor in the room; a scene of once vibrant primary colors and cartoon motifs covering walls that are now faded with age. On the furthest wall, amazingly, a large studio portrait of Lowell and Beth is still hanging in place: she in the advanced stages of pregnancy. The wooden cot he had spent so long constructing - that he had completed just before the outbreak - is gone, replaced by yet another pile of old bedding in one corner, just visible to him now as a blur through the tears that stream down his face.

  All of a sudden, a slight movement in his peripheral vision catches his attention, and, wiping his eyes, he now makes out the figure of a woman lying prone within the grubby sheets in the corner. Leaping backwards in surprise, he raises his gun and trains it on to her head, his finger hovering over the trigger. A few seconds pass before, getting no reaction, he takes a tentative step forward, the barrel of his gun wavering as he struggles to maintain composure. A thousand disordered thoughts run through his head. It has been so very long since he has spoken to anyone that he doesn’t know where to begin. He clears his throat and makes as if to speak and then pauses, as he finally manages to focus properly on the woman and realizes that something is terribly wrong; her face is blotchy and unnaturally red, her eyes are almost completely closed tight with a rapidly increasing swelling, while her limbs hang limply to her sides. Pressing his shirt closer to his mouth he takes another faltering step forward. He can hear her ragged breathing now; coming in fits and starts, broken occasionally by the same low moan he had heard before. He has seen enough people to know that she is in the final stages of the sickness, and he feels a strong urge to flee, but something, possibly the novelty of seeing another human alive, keeps him rooted to the spot.

  He has been standing there for a few moments when the woman seems finally to realize that he is there, forces her eyes open as far as she is able and with a great effort tilts her head almost imperceptibly forward to look upon his face. As their eyes meet, a brief look of surprise registers on her face for a second followed a moment later by what seems to Lowell to be recognition. Leaning as close as he dares, he scrutinizes the woman’s puffy features. He wonders if perhaps he had known her once, but if so, there is no way he can be sure, with her face now so bloated and distorted by infection. Even so, there seems to be something else in her eyes. He has seen many people perish in this way, and there can be no doubting that it must be a terribly painful way to die, but this woman, who had seemed just a moment before to have given in, is now fighting for one last effort from her body. Keeping her eyes fixed on his face, she summons her very last reserves of strength and manages to lift one violently wavering hand a few inches from the bed. Slowly one finger uncurls and points towards the portrait of Lowell and Beth that hangs on the wall. Her eyes bore into his, willing him to acknowledge her in some way and, keeping his hand pressed against his mouth, he nods to confirm that it is he in the picture. Her eyes flicker briefly, and she strains to keep her hand in place, still pointing, for a few more seconds before her strength gives out and she sinks backwards, exhausted. Lowell stands still and watches her for any further movement for a few more moments as her breath grows ever more feeble, until finally, after one last grating wheeze, she lies still.