Video Nasties

by Ralston, Duncan

  "What was that?" Diane wondered. She placed the bottle of chilled sparkling wine--So bubbly!--on the table to go to the window. In her absence, Grace topped up her glass, then raised it in a mock cheer. After 46 years, she was finally free. No more bitter looks. No more complaining about her cooking, or his leg, or the government, immigrants, her sister, the "spoiled" grandkids, and all his ignorant racial stereotyping. This was a new world, and Grace wanted to be a part of it. There was no room for miserable old men like Donald.

  "You get what you pay for, Donnie," she muttered, and downed the glass.

  "Beg pardon?" Diane asked, still looking out the window.

  "I said 'Merry Christmas.'"

  Diane smiled, much too drunk. "Merry Christmas," she agreed.

  STRAY

  MAX AWOKE FROM an uncomfortable dream, vaguely aware of a wet, prickly thing sliming the palm of his left hand. He tore the hand away, shrinking back against the seat, clutching the duffel bag handle in his right.

  A dog--a husky or malamute, Max couldn't tell which, and the breed didn't matter so much as the fact of its presence here at all--looked up at him with sad ice-blue eyes, peeling its lips back in a yawn or a snarl. Max couldn't decide which, and again, didn't care.

  Looking up and down the car, hoping to find its owner, he found no one. The dog was on its own. Max was alone with it.

  "Go on," he said, anxious. "Get out of here."

  The animal didn't move, only panted, staring.

  "Get lost!"

  The dog whimpered, shrinking back, then sat on its haunches in front of the doors with a jingle--a sound signifying ownership, though Max saw no collar around its thick neck. Instead, a small loop of bathtub chain and silvery tags peeked out from its fur, reminiscent of another kind of dog tag. Its big pink tongue came out to lick its chops, as it eyeballed him with that I-know-something look.

  Could it smell the rising fear in his sweat? Could it hear the increase in his heartbeat?

  What was it doing on the train, anyway? Was it a stray?

  Max had read an article once about abandoned dogs in Moscow that had learned to take the Metro into the city. Street dogs worked in packs there, using the smallest and cutest to beg for food and share amongst them. They stood behind people and barked, startling feckless humans into dropping their food so the dogs could eat it from the ground. The pack leaders were not the biggest and strongest, as in other species, but the smartest. The dogs with the most cunning.

  What had occurred to Max from reading the article (and further research, including several videos) was that dogs, as a species, were growing smarter. But were they evolving, he'd wondered, or was it just a natural response to their environment, a "societal" change? Being a History major, Max wasn't scientifically inclined enough to say one way or the other, but history told him to be wary. And it was history--History class, in fact--that had put him on the train so early this morning, long before the other commuters. He'd needed to get to school before his fellow teachers, before Principal Anders, and before Don McTavish, the security officer. The janitors, who arrived early, would let him in without trouble, but Anders and the others would wonder what he was doing at school, and what exactly he had in his duffel bag.

  ❚❚

  "... CLAUBERG TOLD THE women he'd artificially inseminated them with animal sperm, and while it's unclear whether this is true or not, it's yet another example of the Nazis employing torture under the guise of scientific advancement."

  Silence drew out in the small classroom. A few students fiddled with their cell phones, one or two girls twisted their hair around pencils or chewed it. Others doodled. The kids in the front row wore looks of disgust, which had been his intent. He'd wanted to shock them out of their apathy. What he hadn't known at the time was that this lesson would get him a six-week suspension. The school board would go on to cite some of his extra-curricular activities as being "red flags," in particular the small bit of enjoyment he got from playing General Custer in the Battle of Little Bighorn reenactments. They had wondered why he would "celebrate" such an atrocious period in America's history, acting as if he flew the Confederate flag and wore white sheets in the night. Even his brief tour of duty in the Iraq Conflict had raised suspicions at West Brinkley High. The fact that his left arm was barely functional due to shrapnel from an IED had been the subject of much speculation during his three years teaching History to students who for the most part couldn't remember beyond their last keg party.

  One of the football players in the back shot up his hand. Max held his right hand palm-up toward him, as Principal Anders had deemed pointing "too confrontational."

  "Yes, Michael."

  "So, like, all that stuff happened a long time ago?"

  "During the Second World War," Max said, nodding genially, though he suspected Michael had something tricky up his sleeve.

  "So, like, I mean, why should I care about what happened before I was born?"

  A handful of others nodded, muttering their agreement.

  "Well, Michael, a wise person once wrote, 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'"

  "And was that wise man you, Mr. Ellis?" Michael inquired with a shrewd smirk, garnering a few chuckles.

  "No, Michael, it was George Santayana." He smiled as Michael's grin faded. "So what do you think it means?"

  "Huh?"

  "The phrase, Michael. Let me put it another way. When Churchill misquoted it, he said, 'Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.' What do you think that means?"

  Michael stared blankly for a moment, his mouth hung open, his shaggy hair hanging in his face. "Like... you're gonna fail me if I can't answer the question?"

  "No, Michael. You'll fail life. History is the most important subject."

  "Not for me. I'm gonna go pro." Michael flashed his straight white teeth. "Gotta get paid," he said, and held his hand out so his friends could slap it.

  "I'm going to be an entrepreneur," a girl in one of the middle seats said. "Why do I need to know all this gross stuff?"

  Emphatic agreement met this. Even the burnouts perked up to join in.

  These kids don't want to be teachers, or thinkers, or cure disease, Max despaired. They all want to be Kardashians.

  "If you don't know this 'gross stuff,' you won't see the signs of it happening again under your nose, Larissa. Just as it's our responsibility to leave the environment in a good state for our children's children, we're also responsible for the state of society. We have to be wary, and speak up against what we feel is wrong, no matter the consequences. And when they come to silence you, when they force you into the shadows, remember what Edmund Burke said... 'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.'"

  This drew blank looks from almost half the class. The others appeared to ruminate on it, even the class entrepreneur, even a few of the burnouts.

  Perhaps there's hope for the world after all, Max thought.

  But someone had reported the lesson to their parents, and the parents had informed Principal Anders. Within a week, Max was out on his ass, his pleas for sanity unanswered. And during those first few weeks sitting alone in his apartment, pondering his place in the world, he wondered if he'd been wrong about there being any hope at all.

  He began to think about the contents of his duffel bag.

  ❚❚

  HE'D PLANNED IT all out so carefully in the following weeks, allowing for several possible contingencies. Not even the greatest military strategists--Carl von Clausewitz, Hannibal Barca, Julian Corbett--could have foreseen the dog.

  Max watched as the it splayed its legs and began licking its genitals, dispelling any myth of higher intelligence.

  How many times did it do that before licking my hand? he wondered, letting himself relax against the seat back. Releasing the handle of his duffel bag from his white-knuckle grip, the zipper tab clinked against its metallic teeth. It was a comforting sound, like the tinkle of wind chimes
he remembered from summer nights at his parents' farmhouse when he was a kid, drinking lemonade on the porch after a long day's work as cicadas droned in the fields.

  The doors opened with a discordant chime, sounding like an elevator arriving at the basement of Hell. A woman in a sharp business suit made to enter, looking up from her Blackberry just in time to see the dog. She leaped back, startled, then composed herself and scowled at Max, as if he owned the dog. When the doors closed, she was still glowering at him.

  In the blink of an eye, the dog darted forward and bit his hand.

  Pain splintered up Max's arm in hot waves. Crying out in surprise, he grasped his hand at the wrist, blood oozing from the jagged gash along the second and third knuckles, splashing against his work boots. Slashes of brilliant white bone peeked through the wounds on his numbing fingers. As he clenched his hand into a fist, tendons pulled taut in the exposed meat.

  "Bit me!" he bellowed, incredulous. "You bit me!"

  The dog reared back and bared its teeth, pink with blood. Max tucked into a quick roll as the dog charged again, slamming its full weight against the seatback he'd vacated. It staggered back, legs spread out to stop itself from slip 'n sliding across the slick tiles, then shook its head vigorously, spittle flying from its lips.

  Max yanked the duffel bag off the seat and pulled it to his chest, using it as a shield as the dog attacked again, its powerful jaws tearing off a ragged swatch of oiled canvas.

  With his left hand, Max tore at the zipper, shooting pain up his muscles from his old combat injury. The zipper slid easily partway, then caught. Momentarily fazed, he watched the dog spit out the grimy fabric, hacking at the taste. Grinning, Max reached into the bag and rummaged with his left hand. Pushing aside the Colt 1911--he'd trained himself to know each weapon by feel and weight, even with the backs of his fingers--he found the FN Five-SeveN easily, the same weapon used by Mexican drug cartels and the Fort Hood shooter. He jerked it free with a quick draw that would have made Cherokee Bill proud.

  The dog registered almost human surprise as Max racked back the slide with the wrist of his injured hand, the hand itself still oozing crimson, and aimed with his left.

  The dog bounded at him, snarling.

  A deafening report filled in the cramped car. The Five-SeveN fired as smooth as--well, there really were no comparisons, in Max's mind, and if he'd done the firing with his right hand, it would have hit its mark. Instead, the bullet struck one of the safety glass windows and blew it outward. Hot morning wind blasted in, the sound of the elevated tracks clickety-clacking suddenly as loud as the gunshot.

  The dog startled. Max fired a second shot, striking the dog in the leg, flipping the feral beast back with an arcing sprinkler spray of blood, Technicolor red under florescent lights. It rolled and slid all the way to the doors, where it slumped, eyes closed, bleeding on the shiny tiles.

  Max stayed put, pressed against the seat, using the duffel in his lap to keep his aim steady. He wasn't stupid enough to think the thing was dead, to fall for that horror movie trick. Nor was he about to get up and check, like a kid approaching a firecracker that had fizzled out just before the explosion.

  The dog shook its head, the chain around its muscular neck jingling. It lurched to its feet, eyeing him with its head lowered, and moved shakily toward him. A flap of grisly meat hung from its left hind leg, though the shot had merely grazed the flesh.

  Max pulled the trigger, the kill shot, but the train began its herky-jerky entrance to the station and the small-caliber hollow-point went wild, carving a fist-sized hole in the ceiling that whistled as the train slowed to a jerky stop.

  His right hand was scorched earth, the crotch of his jeans and the front of his plaid shirt black and gleaming with his blood. He could smell it, that acrid copper smell, and if he could smell his own blood, chances were pretty high the dog could, too.

  Gravy Train makes real meat gravy, he thought humorlessly as the train stopped.

  The shrill, unmusical chime stabbed his throbbing skull, and with the pain came a difficult decision. He could stay and fight, hoping he had it in him to go hand-to-teeth should the situation take a drastic turn--if the wounded dog managed to somehow gain the upper paw, ha ha so funny. Or... he could get off this Helltrain right this fucking second.

  A man has to choose his own path, someone who'd never made the history books once told him. Courage comes not from following the path others have chosen for you, but by straying from it.

  Max hauled the bag into his arms and as the doors began to close, he heeded the advice of his father, a Montana wheat farmer, by bolting off the train into the empty station.

  A sound somewhere between a bark and a snarl told him the blood-crazed dog had followed.

  The doors shut. The train began to move. No chance to turn back.

  Max considered jumping down onto the tracks, but he couldn't count on the dog not following him down there. And he worried about that third rail. The knowledge of it might give him the upper hand, but even if he was able to shove the dog onto the electrified rail, he didn't know enough about electric current to be sure he wouldn't fry along with it.

  Running for the stairs with the sluggishness of a nightmare, the duffel bag weighed him down. If he tossed it, everything went with it. All of his planning. All of his goals.

  He chanced a look back, saw the dog slobbering at his heels, and heaved the duffel at it. The mutt yelped and skittered off toward the edge of the platform--

  A breadcrumb trail of blood led from where he'd gotten off the train to the place he now stood, watching for a hopeful moment as the dog skittered and slid on the smooth tile. But the stubborn mutt struggled to its feet, undoing his attempt to make headway by throwing the bag in the first place. Now he was short a dozen magazines, the Colt 1911, a change of clothes--he would need it now, drenched as he was in his own blood--and he'd barely gotten a foot ahead.

  Blasting off a few blind shots over his shoulder, he shortened the distance between himself and the stairs. Granite tile burst behind him in jagged gray clouds. The escalator stood not twenty feet ahead--blocked by a cage, CLOSED FOR REPAIRS. The stairs led down beside it. With a sudden burst of energy, like the last headlong rush to the toilet of the man who could hold it no longer, Max bolted ahead. He reached the stairs and bounded down two at a time. He hit the floor running in a bone-jarring crouch, saw the entrance, saw the fare collector sitting in his booth. Max got to his feet and waved his arms, running at full-speed.

  "Help! HELP!"

  But the man was asleep. Oh, that's great! Hope you're having pleasant dreams, you asshole, Max thought as his lungs grew tight and his muscles cramped. He dared a look over his shoulder, saw the dog still descending the stairs, squatting and moving down one step at a time, squatting and moving down, a look of fixed concentration in its wild blue eyes, its tongue lolled to one side.

  "Ha!" Max cried ecstatically. "Ha-ha!"

  Running for the turnstiles with renewed confidence, he smelled fresh air beyond them, summer rain and freedom just up the other set of stairs. Moist dirt and damp concrete. The sun would be up soon. All the little kiddies getting ready for school...

  Behind him, all four of the dog's paws clacked down on the tiles. It had conquered the stairs, and now it would run full-bore toward him, treating the seat of his pants like a greyhound's rabbit.

  Max used his gun hand to leap the turnstile.

  "Hey! Hey, sir!"

  Now the guy woke up. And he was concerned about the fare.

  Max wanted to shout back at him, Open your eyes, pal! But he was short on breath and shorter on time. The dog skirted under the turnstile like a Marine under barbed wire, and now it was chasing, chasing, slobber dribbling back from its mouth, its fur rippling, and soon it would catch up to him...

  "Hey, bud--" the fare collector said, then: "Jesus!" Max wasn't sure if the exclamation was about the bloodthirsty dog or the gun.

  With a snarl, the dog bit into his Achilles tendon.
>
  Max fell back, crying out in anguished surprise. He felt the flesh tear all the way up to the back of his knee, heard it tear like Velcro, yanking him back as the dog shook its monstrous jaws. His right foot slid forward on the newly buffed floor and the flesh tore free, like ripping off the world's largest Band-Aid, every nerve bursting, pop-pop-popping on his pain receptors, white-hot flecks of agony dancing in front of his eyes. The gun slipped from his grip and flew, clattering near the stairs to the outside, to freedom, and he lost his balance, arms pin-wheeling as he fell backward, slumping over the startled mutt.

  The slashes on his hand had burst open, spraying fresh blood, and the back of his shin had been bitten entirely off, the torn scrap of flesh and tendon a joke-shop splat on the floor by the dog's hind paws.

  The fare collector was on the phone. Max kicked the dog in the ribs with the boot heel of his uninjured right foot. It skittered back with a gurgling howl, teeth pink with his blood. Max pushed up onto his butt as the dog got to its feet and whipped around to snarl at him.

  He snarled back, baring bloodied teeth of his own.

  Max slipped the knife from his boot. The dog backpedaled, arching its back and lowering its head, watching as Max swished the blade back and forth, cutting the air, following the knife edge like a piece of meat.

  Max darted forward with the Grohmann in hand. Its blade parted the fur on the dog's flank, slashing the grayish flesh beneath, finishing its arc bloodied.

  The dog howled.

  "Sir, the police have been called," came the fare collector's jerky voice over the loudspeaker.

  "Fuck the police, call Huckleberry Hound!" Max shouted back with a crazed laugh. He turned back to the dog just in time to see its tartar-stained teeth clamp down on his face. They tore through his left eyebrow and eyelid, pressing like sharpened vice grips against the eyeball itself. Max's nostrils filled with the smell of dog breath, his entire face clamped between the dog's strong jaws, and he screamed into the wet, ridged cavern of a mouth as the dog jerked his head back and forth in its teeth, the straining in his neck muscles less worrying now than the sound like a popped cork--virtually painless--and the trail of something cold slime oozing down the cheek below his obliterated eye.