Clambering unsteadily from the box, he takes a moment to carefully look all around himself for any other possible way out. It doesn’t look good. In desperation, he lifts one corner of the faded thin blue carpet laid underfoot on the off chance that there is some sort of hatch hidden underneath. No such luck. All that greets him there is an unyielding, unfinished concrete floor. Sighing heavily, he replaces the carpet and returns to the desk. It seems that all of his escape routes are blocked, but Lowell learned long ago the effectiveness of the long game in survival situations. Staring grimly at the Malamute on the other side of the glass, he is comforted as he thinks that whilst he may not be able to fight his way out, he had at least taken plenty of food from the house, and will be sure to outlast the dog in any long siege, and with that uplifting thought, he returns to his bag and begins to rummage inside for his water bottle.
A short few minutes later, Lowell sits on the floor, beads of sweat running freely down his forehead, his knees hugged tight to his chest. On the floor all around him and covering the desk above lay the evidence of an increasingly frantic search through his pack he had undertaken a moment before. All of his possessions have been hurriedly removed and are strewn in all directions. All, that is, apart from his water bottle, and with a sickening sense of rising panic he finally remembers with a grim certainty where he had left it - tucked securely out of sight behind the crate in the attic of his house. Suddenly, his situation has altered terribly. As soon as he is aware that he doesn’t have his water, a terrible thirst springs upon him. From his initial search of his surroundings he is sure that there is no water within the back room, but as he lies backwards with a deep and familiar sense of self-loathing, a thought occurs to him. Standing up and approaching the plate window once more he peers within the arcade and, as he had recalled, away in the far corner just beyond where the Malamute reclines, he soon spots the distinctive shape of a water cooler, just visible through the gloom.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“No sooner had I touched the back of the Dalmatians neck, than it leapt upwards as if it had been shot, twisting violently in mid air whilst simultaneously reaching out to snap violently at my hand. I stood there, mouth handing open, for several seconds in complete shock, this being so far away from how I had imagined the scenario playing out, whilst the dog slowly backed away against the wall behind it, all the while continuing to growl steadily at me and bare its teeth. If I had had any sense, I would have backed away myself, given the dog a wide berth, and carried on towards my home, but I guess I was too invested in my fantasy to give up so easily. My limited experience of dogs told me that, regardless of the terror I felt, and of the fact my knees were shaking from the shock, all I needed to do was to assert my natural dominance. And so, gathering up what remained of my confidence, as well as my makeshift leash, I determined to press on with my task. Staring the Dalmatian straight in the eyes, I shouted “NO” as commandingly as I was able; dashingly reinforcing the command with a firm finger pointed straight at its head. At the time, I was surprised by how effective this had been; as the dog instantly ceased it’s growling and looked at me with what seemed a newly found sense of respect. Triumphant, I leant forward to tie the noose around its neck, at which point the dog decided it had had enough. In an instant it exploded with rage, leaping forward and ripping the tie from my hands. I staggered backwards, at that moment ready to submit as fast as it would allow me, but it wasn’t willing to give me that chance. Before I could react it dropped the tie and grabbed hold of my sleeves, wrenching me down toward its jaws. Pulling desperately, I eventually managed to tear free my sleeve, and then turned tail and ran as hard as I could. I got about half a block before I turned around and realized it wasn’t following me but was instead just standing by the store panting angrily, but no sooner had I slowed down though than it set off after me again. About another two blocks further on it caught me, sinking its teeth into my left leg and holding on tightly enough to whiplash me forward face first into the street. At that point I blacked out for a moment, how long exactly I don’t know, only coming to a moment later as I was lifted off the ground by an old man who had managed to the get the dog off me before it could finish me off. Later, as the old man walked me home, I sadly cast my mind back to the mental picture of my triumphant return home that I had imagined earlier, and compared it to the state that I was in now. My shirt and trousers were badly ripped. My tie was lost. I had a nasty cut on my head from the fall, and a large open wound on my leg from the bite. On top of all that, a long dark stain had spread liberally from my groin down to my shoes, which proceeded to squelch shamefully with every step I took. I never did get my scout badge, although on reflection I’m not sure how much help that badge would have been on the day that the world fell.”
*****
As Lowell stares at the Malamute, the memory of his encounter with the Dalmatian long ago swirls round and round in his head, his historical defeat continuing to feed the cowardice and deep-rooted fear that has served him so well in recent times. Whilst he had fought the Labrador at the church, that battle had been the result of intoxication rather than of any particular desire to take the fight to the dogs. Since the outbreak, he has operated almost exclusively from the shadows, and from that position he has seen many a braver man cut down all too easily by the dogs, each one reinforcing his determination to stay out of the fight altogether. Now, it seems that any chance of doing so has been taken out of his hands. He is uncomfortably aware of his growing thirst, having realized with dismay that he hasn’t drunk a thing since he first got to the attic nearly twenty-four hours earlier. His best hope now is that perhaps the Malamute’s injury is worse than he had first calculated. Aside from moving its head to continue staring at Lowell as he moves around the office, it has barely shifted position since getting inside, and even from his position ten or so meters away he can see its leg shaking - he assumes from the trauma of its injury. Taking a deep breath and cracking his fingers nervously, he casts an eye around the office until his gaze comes to rest on what is left of the ball of string that he keeps in his pack. Wandering over to the table he picks it up thoughtfully, and then looks up at the foam panels that cover the ceiling.
The best part of an hour later, Lowell stands uncertainly in front of the door to the arcade. Although it is impossible to tell by looking at him, he is biting his lip nervously, and sweat is streaming down his forehead. He desperately wishes he would stop perspiring so much, as he is really starting to feel his dehydration now; his mouth is dry, he has a terrible headache, he is feeling increasingly lethargic, and he has begun to experience regular spells of intense dizziness in which static dances wildly in front of his eyes and he is forced to lean forward and place his hands on his knees to maintain his balance. His choice of attire is not helping matters. The entirety of his body from head to toes is wrapped in a swaddling layer of insulation he has ripped from the roof; with only two small gaps left free for his eyes and mouth. To hold the insulation in place, he has managed to squeeze on top of all this the largest t-shirt and trousers he possesses. He has completed the outfit by using his spool of string to tie several ceiling tiles to his chest and back, with broken-off half sections attached to his arms and legs, the whole neatly reproducing the effect of a cut-price samurai in some very low-budget high school stage production. One hand he has bound with insulation, and then used the last of the string to tie his knife in place, and the other he has left unencumbered to hold his gun. This he hefts awkwardly as he stares at the Malamute on the other side of the glass. The dog seems to be asleep now, lying heavily on one side, with three of its legs extended straight out in front and one lifted rudder-like straight up in the air. He could almost have thought it were already dead, if it weren’t for the fact that every now and again its legs begin to paddle energetically in mid-air whilst it emits a series of small, distant yaps. It is the first time that it has stopped staring intently at him since they entered the shop, and although his original plan had been to a
ttempt to retrieve the water without confronting the animal if possible, he now feels that this is too good an opportunity to remove such a threat and deal with the animal for good than he can reasonably pass up.
Moving as slowly and carefully as he can manage in his cumbersome ensemble, Lowell slowly lowers the handle and eases the door open, all the while keeping one eye on the dog, and pausing with baited breath whenever it stirs even slightly in its sleep. With the door open – and left ajar to allow a quick retreat if needed – he maneuvers himself around to the right of the opening and begins to shuffle cautiously along the wall, slowly advancing until he is nearly at the far corner of the shop and the dog’s back is facing toward him. From here, he begins to shuffle glacially towards the Malamute, taking care to lift each foot well clear of the ground before placing it cautiously forward, and stopping several times on route to lean forward and rest as bouts of dizziness rise up to almost overwhelm him, and then fall away again like the constant heavy drops of sweat raining from his brow. He waits until he has got to within two feet of the dog, and he can hear its regular wheezing snore even through the thick padding covering his ears and then lifts his gun unsteadily and points it squarely at the back of the dog’s skull. As he prepares to fire, he feels a deep shame at himself for killing this animal that has not demonstrated any aggression towards him since they entered the building. Despite this, he knows what he has to do, and he takes a moment to remind himself of all those people that he has seen killed by the dogs since the outbreak, and then he inhales deeply and pulls the trigger.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lowell continues to stand in the middle of the room for several seconds, gun still pointed at the Malamute, as his brain clicks slowly through the gears. All the while he continues to pull impotently on the trigger. After his mistake outside the church, he had this time made sure to load and cock the gun before leaving the office, and so he feels a bitter rising frustration at the gun’s repeated refusal to do his bidding. A long moment later, as he finally realizes what he has done, or rather has failed to do; he panics. Lifting the gun upwards, he swings his other hand over to release the safety, only to succeed in delivering instead a nasty cut to the thumb of his gun hand; courtesy of the knife he has attached to his other limb.
For several confused seconds he engages in a complicated juggling act in which he struggles to keep the gun in his possession before, with one final misjudged act, he sweeps it clear, sending it soaring through the air where it lands with a crash a meter or so beyond the dog and then slides noisily toward the far corner of the room. Instantly, the dog wakes with a loud bark and a wild flailing of its limbs and lunges towards Lowell with an instinctive and immediate horror, snapping its jaws closed just shy of his groin before backing away, growling fiercely and bristling all over. Lowell stands uncertainly for a few more seconds, all the while waving his knife-hand vaguely in the direction of the dog. The sudden escalation of the situation has shocked him hugely, and on top of this his sight is blurring, his head is pounding and he has begun to feel decidedly unwell. Wavering slightly, and still swiping imprecisely towards the dog with his knife-hand, he stares wistfully back in the direction of the door to the back room and takes one half step toward it before pausing and reaching indecisively back towards the water cooler. In front of him, the dog continues its slow retreat, keeping up a continuous snarling as it goes. Lowell shakes his head groggily to still his thoughts and then, as his body finally gives up the fight, looks up abruptly at the dog, fixes it with a final sad helpless smile, and topples straight over to one side. As he falls, his heavily bound head thunks brutally on the edge of the nearest fruit machine before he lands a second later - spread-eagled, limp and out cold on the hard floor.
Lowell wakes slowly and painfully, as if surfacing from deep underwater into a cold, harsh light. It takes him a long time to piece together the events of the night before. At first, he wonders why his right hand is so numb with cold, whilst the rest of his body feels so unusually warm, and it isn’t until he reaches up to lay one hand gingerly on his throbbing head that he encounters the thick layers of insulation and remembers his dangerous plight. At once he reaches out to one side and groans with effort as he pushes himself up, only just managing to avoid delivering himself a fresh wound with his knife-hand as he does so. At the sight of the makeshift weapon the remainder of the nights events swim blearily into focus and he at once panics, struggling for breath and darting his eyes warily all around before he finally locates the Malamute, sitting bolt upright and alert and staring at him from its position backed up as far as can be away from him in the furthest corner of the room. Confused, Lowell turns his attention to himself again; a quick scan of his body shows no fresh wounds, but a pool of blood stretches away on the floor from the injury his knife had inflicted to his right hand; a deep gash running along the back of his thumb that stings and oozes anew as he now attempts to gently flex his hand.
He looks again at the dog. It hasn’t moved since he has awoken, but continues to fix him with an intense stare, only breaking it off and gazing instead at a fixed position just of to the left of Lowell’s head whenever their eyes meet. Thrusting a finger into the insulation around his forehead to itch his scalp thoughtfully, Lowell pushes all thoughts of the Malamute to one side for a moment. For whatever reason, it has left him alone, and his craving for water has to take precedence over everything else for now. Pushing down hard on the floor, he attempts to rise to his feet, straining against all of the extra weight from his bulky costume and only managing to make it half way before his left leg, numb from a night bearing his weight on the stone floor, gives way beneath him and sends him crashing back to the ground. Pushing himself back up to his hands and knees, he crawls painfully the few feet to the water cooler and rises up, immediately flipping the plastic tap upwards and then gratefully lifting his parched mouth forward and wide open to meet the flood of water that cascades down upon him. The relief of getting some water at last is instantaneous, and he stays in this position for some time, quenching his thirst whilst his head covering and the insulation around his front become heavy and sodden from the downpour.
As soon as his thirst is quenched, he reaches up and flicks the tap into the off position, simultaneously noticing a strange coloration to the remainder of the water left in the tank. He stares at it in confusion for a few seconds before realizing what it is, some strange green algae-like organism that has formed a thick film up the sides of the cooler, and bloomed across the surface of the water itself. He gags at the sight, as a previously unnoticed bitter taste floods his taste buds, but he manages to hold the rancid water down nonetheless – he will worry about that later, and will just have to hope to avoid any ill effects.
After resting for a few more minutes, and as his headache gradually begins to subside at least slightly, he manages at last to clamber to his feet. Walking slowly and unsteadily, he toddles back towards the room at the rear of the shop, his path taking him nearer to the Malamute still pressed into the corner. As he passes, he gets a closer look at the animal, and sees the wound to its back paw closely for the first time. Pausing, he squints to make out more detail. From where he stands now it is obvious that this was not after all an injury it had sustained whilst entering the shop, but is rather a bite; the familiar ugly pattern of puncture marks combined with a tearing gash where a canine has gripped and ripped open the flesh as the dog had attempted to run away. The implication is astounding, and causes Lowell to stop dead for a second in his tracks: does this mean that the Malamute had been fleeing from the rest of the pack? If so, had its instinctive urge to attack Lowell overtaken its flight or had it rather followed him looking for sanctuary for itself? He has no way of knowing the answer to either question for sure, but is just thankful that for whatever reason the dog seems happy to keep to itself for now and not seek any conflict with Lowell.
Backing off steadily, Lowell carefully retreats away from the dog and continues withdrawing slowly towards the doo
r, waiting until he is within a few steps before turning and darting within the back office and shutting the door behind him. Breathing deeply, he looks around as his eyes gradually adjust to the dimmer light within, before blinking with surprise at the sight that greets him. He has no idea for how long he had been unconscious, but it appears now that the dog had not been as inactive as he had first thought during his convalescence. His pack is lying open, and a new large tear now runs across the front, exposing the inner, and the rest of his belongings that had been either within the pack or arranged upon the table are now spread liberally around it on the floor. Several of the tins show evidence of dents and teeth marks where the dog has attempted to get to the food inside and the plastic wrapper that had held his last piece of candy has been ripped to shreds; the food itself long gone and the majority of the packaging also eaten. Finally, the small leather pouch he had taken from the boy’s holdall has been removed and well chewed, a large portion of the leather missing and the rest discarded in pieces on the floor. Lowell looks out towards the dog. He isn’t angry; in fact it is quite the opposite. The pressing matter isn’t that the dog had attempted to get his food, but that if it were so hungry as to attempt to eat leather, why hadn’t it taken the opportunity to attack him as he laid defenseless and bleeding profusely in the other room? Whatever the reason, Lowell feels deeply thankful.
The Darkness and Dogs Page 12