by Luke Kondor
They passed another one of the cabins. Dark and empty inside. Wooden panels and even an outdoor sauna. There were at least five hundred of these wooden cabins within the holiday village. Forty or more were occupied. Most of the Hopefuls had taken residence in the cabins closer to the lake, on the inner circle, nearer to the town centre where Henry lived with his daughter, Veronica. Maybe some day the whole place would be occupied. Filled with smiling Hopeful families.
Colin doubted there was five hundred cabin’s worth of people out there in the Kent County to fill them. It would be a long while before they filled even half of them.
“Of course nots, Colin.” As Anton spoke, more of the barking travelled over the wind. This time the image of Wheat remained but he knew for sure the barking wasn’t in his head. The vocalisations of mutts were too many, too varied, and too loud to be some auditory mirage of the mind. “But a man does needs a purpose, no? Otherwise, he might start to feels lost. Alone. Trapped. Nobody wants to feel extraneous, Colin. Everybody wants to feel needed. After all, did you not have purpose in your old farm?”
Colin grunted in response, remembering with a sad fondness the old couple he had taken residence with for a good few years. Jerry and Kitty LeShard – Henry’s brother and sister-in-law. Good people destroyed by a terrible world.
They passed another cabin and saw, at the bend in the road, a cabin dissimilar to the others. Shabbier. Looking more like a big cardboard box with a smaller box strapped to its side. A single large plane of glass on the front of the annex. A rusty mountain bike leaning against a steel bike rack, one wheel missing. The barking was coming from inside.
Colin stopped, his boots splashing in a muddy puddle on the floor. “Where are you taking me, Anton?”
Suddenly, as if called by Colin’s question, the door to this new cabin opened up and out stepped an incredibly tall and lean man who Colin hadn’t seen before. A shock of black hair, olive skin, shirtless with green shorts. Tattoos decorated the man’s arms and neck. Something hung from his chest, too. A cord of some kind. He looked over to Colin and Anton without a wave or smile. “About time, Dutchman.”
“Everyone needs purpose, Mr Bolton,” Anton grinned. “We all needs purpose.”
*
“That’s the bitch at the end,” Byron said, pointing to the cage at the far end of the kennels. The place stunk of urine and sawdust and had Anton sneezing and holding his nose. The seven dogs, of which all but two were Huskies, were separated into four cages. Three in one. Two in another. One on its own. And the girl at the furthest end. Not small cages but tall ones. Big enough for humans. Metal bowls filled with water and scraps of food littered the floors along with the big chunky dog beds made from rags and what looked like bed mattresses sawn into thirds. The material stained with yellows and browns. “Her name’s Whisper. She’s mine.”
On the side of the kennels were various coat hooks screwed neatly into the wall. On each one were tangles of ropes, leads, and some kind of harness. Byron took one of the harnesses and attached it around his waist, locking pieces together with large metal clasps, making Colin think of the harnesses he had seen rock climbers wear. He realised then that Byron did look like a rock-climbing sort. The muscles on his calves and forearms were slim but had a sinewy definition, weathered with years of solid use. Through the tattoos of coy carp and chess pieces drawn on his arms, his veins popped out like grizzled black cables.
The barking was loud and unforgiving. Each explosive sound grating Colin’s ears. Anton winced as if each bark gnashed on his ear drums, and yet Byron, this six-foot mountain climber, remained unmoved.
Anton looked at Colin for some sort of reaction, but he gave none. Instead, Colin stepped past the Dutchman and looked in the first cage.
Two black and white border collies, and a red-haired husky. All three of their tails wagging as the jumped over each other at the cage door.
“That’s Logan and Drew, and the husky is Cuddles,” Byron said, his eyes moving to Colin’s. “Henry named that one.”
They moved onto the next cage. In this one were two more Collies pacing in circles, whining, and gnawing at the air between them.
“Flynn and Nelson. Indie stays there too but she’s out training with another of our runners.”
And then the next.
This husky was wholly unlike the others. This one was far back, hiding in the shadows of its cage. Its eyes peeked out from the darkness, thick and blue, staring straight at Colin. It was smaller than the others. Younger, too. A low growl escaped its lips as it bared its teeth, hid them, bared them again. It rose slowly, standing up from its bed.
Go on, I dare you, it seemed to say. Colin felt a prickle rise on the scars from the puncture wounds on his arm from the last dog he’d scrapped with.
“That’s Dylan.”
“Why’s do you keep him alone?” Colin said.
“Because he’s aggressive,” Byron said simply. “We tried keeping him with the others, but he’s got a mean bite on him. It happens sometimes. Especially with the world the way it is. Some creatures are just tougher to socialise.”
They left Dylan growling behind them and approached the last cage. Byron unlocked the latches holding his bitch, Whisper, inside. She wandered out of her cage and licked Byron’s hand before pressing her nose into Colin’s side. She didn’t have the same phrenetic energy of the others and seemed relatively calm. She was older, wiser.
“Dylan is Whisper’s only pup. We had three. One was stillborn. The other caught sickness a week later and didn’t make it through the night. Dylan was the only survivor, but it’s like he knows it. It’s like he’s pissed off about it.” He pulled something from his pocket. Some sort of dog treat – kibble or something – and placed it to Whisper’s mouth. She gobbled it down without chewing.
“She’s my good girl, aren’t you, Whisper?” Byron said, running his hand over her head and walking back towards the leads hooked onto the wall.
“What are you goings to do with him?” Anton said, still hovering outside Dylan’s cage, a knowing sadness in his eyes.
“Nothing. I wouldn’t do anything. But the other runners won’t take him out. No one wants to go near him. One of them tried, just a few days ago, but Dylan chomped on the poor guy’s fingers so hard he saw stars. Even got a visit from Chef yesterday, prying, as per usual.”
“What are you saying?” Colin said suddenly.
“I would never,” Byron said, offended by the implication. “But I can only protect them so much. These are tough times, as you well know. We do what we have to do to survive. And… I’m not here all the time. These people… these ‘Hopefuls’ – is that what we’re calling ourselves? – they don’t get much meat.”
“Fuck that,” Colin said as he stepped back towards Dylan’s cage, as if by placing his body in the way he was somehow protecting him from just the mere mention of Hopefuls cooking him up and serving him for one of their evening dinners.
Dylan responded by erupting into chaos as he barked and snapped at the cage door, aiming for Colin’s hands. Colin pulled away and looked at Dylan’s angry eyes, at the fine trail of gossamer spit running down his chin. He watched for at least a minute before the rabid barking stopped and Dylan, satisfied that he had made his point, once more retreated to his corner in the shadows. His piercing blue eyes never leaving Colin’s own.
Suddenly Byron smiled. Those rocky cliffs that made up his face shifted like tectonic plates and a deep haughty chuckle escaped him. Anton skittishly joined in, unsure what the joke was.
“Yes, Bolton. I think we are on the same page. I love these dogs as much as any man could, and I’d hate to see any kind of harm come to them. I do what I can, but I’m one man with eight needy children. It’s a tough old life.” Byron looked Colin up and down. “Now then… shall we get you on your first run?”
“Huh? What do you mean, ‘run’?”
Byron lifted one of the harnesses from the hook and stepped towards Colin. It was a vibrant yell
ow with black straps.
“If you’re gonna patrol for Hope, you’re going to need to do it our way.”
Colin hesitated as the dogs saw the harness and their excitement grew. Unrelenting yapping growing louder and louder. Patrol? I haven’t agreed to shit.
Sensing his unease, Anton turned and placed his hand on Colin’s shoulder.
“It’s okays, Colin. Remember, you needs a purpose. It’s Henry’s idea. He thought that since you did the morning and evening patrols at the farm with Whea… for the farm, that this would suits you good. Plus we need more patrols now that… well…” he paused, giving Colin a conspiratorial look, “you know why. Especially now.”
Byron continued to fasten his own harness as he unlocked one of the cages. If he did hear any cause for concern in Anton’s voice, he didn’t show it.
“So you want me to take the dogs for a walk? Is that it?” Colin said.
“No no no,” Byron laughed. “It’s not so much that you’ll be taking the dogs for a walk, more so that the dogs will be taking you.”
Whisper wagged her tail, barking with excitement.
Walkies? Her demeanour seemed to say. It’s time for walkies?
*
‘Canicross’. That’s what Byron had called it as he fished out some fresh running shorts and a t-shirt for Colin from a plastic box in his kennels. The sight took Colin back to his school years. The days he’d forget his PE kit and Mr Baker would scoff and shout at him to select some spare rags from the ‘borrow bin’. Giant shorts and tiny t-shirts. Nothing fit quite right. Nothing felt clean – as much as Mr Baker protested it was.
And here he was, at least several decades on, back in some hand-me-downs which had definitely not been washed in some time. The t-shirt itself smelled of stale sweat and had three holes in the neckline that looked like bullet-holes. The shorts were the opposite – dangerously close to falling down and leaving Colin’s bare ass out on show.
“It started in Europe,” Byron explained in his monotonous voice as he strapped Colin up and tied Whisper’s lead to his harness. “A way for off-season training for mushing dogs. But some eggheads in warmer climates obviously saw the use, and turned it into something of a cross-country sport for runners and dog fans – y’know, before the rot hit. They used to encourage the holidayers in the park to do it. Every Sunday morning they’d get people to strap themselves with this harness and a short bungee cord to their dog and go for a quick 5k around the lake.”
He double-checked the harness then. Tugging at Colin’s waist. Whisper waited patiently, tongue darting in and out of her mouth.
“So when we first moved to Hope and found the harnesses, it made sense. The dogs are trained for sniffing out rot anyway. They need exercise, they help our runners do their patrols without wasting fuel, and the best part of it all is: you’ll run for longer and faster with one of my dogs driving you.”
A squirrel scurried up the tree next to the kennels and Whisper spotted it. She remained quiet, letting her tail slap left to right in the dirt.
“You mean to patrol outside the fences?”
Anton smiled. “We gots a few watch-spots within shortwave radio distances. Our patrolmen tends to venture out between them all.”
In this afternoon light the greys in Anton’s wiry beard and hair were showing. Back at Ditton, he’d assumed Anton was in his mid-twenties at the latest, but now he wasn’t so sure. He had deep crows feet and lines of worry permanently etched into his forehead. Those greys had to place him in his late thirties. Either that or years of toughing it out and surviving had had its toll on his appearance. Without thinking, Colin touched his chest and felt the scar there – the permanent reminder of the day he had been torn away from Rachel and Fletcher. Gunfire and riots.
None had gone untouched in these past years. Everyone had taken hits along the road.
“Remember,” Byron said. “This is a test, okay? Take it easy. You may find yourself carried away with the momentum, and we don’t want a torn muscle or for you to be throwing up on the first run. When was the last time you did some proper exercise?”
Colin thought about the week before. Chasing Stephen through the Ditton Factory. Sprinting through the woods with David’s homemade flamethrower after discovering that Stephen was none other than a Miller himself – a terrifying sort of scavvie; family-bound, loyal, willing to do anything for a free meal and a warm bed.
“A while ago,” Colin said, avoiding looking over to Anton. “Don’t worry, though. I think I understand the basic concept. One foot in front of the other, right? But like… quickly?”
“Right,” Byron said, no smile, dry, and stern. “So, follow this road down towards the lake. Don’t worry about looking a fool – we all pretty much made our mind up about you when you arrived anyway. Then, once you get to the lake, turn right on round and come back. Should you survive that, we’ll get you ready for your first real run.”
“Sure. One question, though. How do I get started—”
Byron blew on the whistle tied around his neck and Whisper jumped to her feet. She began pacing forth, pulling the harness. Instantly Colin felt his body yanked forwards.
“Okay then,” Colin said as he picked up into a slow jog, sloshing mud beneath his canvas shoes, leaving Anton and Byron behind.
Within seconds Colin felt himself start to warm up, sweat already cloying at his armpits and back. Whisper didn’t even turn her head as she dug her paws into the mud, doing her damnedest to get Colin moving, trained to propel forward. Taking a deep lungful of the cold air, Colin acquiesced and picked up his speed.
They ran by more child’s play areas and empty cabins. Birds flew overhead but Whisper paid no attention. It seemed she were simply a machine built for running and this was her primary purpose – to move, move, move. Flick the on switch, blow the whistle, and watch her go.
As they picked up into a steady run, Whisper’s breath expelled hot puffs of steam up from her wet nose. She choo-choo-trained Colin onwards and in an instant, he began to understand how effective this method of running was. On his patrols at the LeShard farm with Wheat, they’d taken around three hours each morning and each evening to navigate the several mile perimeter of farmland, stopping now and then to admire the view. But if they had been – what did Byron call it? – Canicrossing, maybe they could’ve completed their lap in half hour at the most, leaving plenty of extra room to help Colin and Kitty around the house.
Waves of regret about the three that he had lost washed over him as his foot slipped into a wet patch of mud and splashed up the backs of his legs which were now starting to burn. His chest too, tight around his bullet-wound scar, thumped loudly and it didn’t seem to matter how much he gasped for air he couldn’t get enough in. He could see them all again, somewhere off in the distance. Jerry sat on a wooden chair at the table, his guitar in his hands as the strings were worked into an invisible thrum. Kitty fussing over a pot of something steamy and sweet, not a few feet away. And Wheat… clumsy, hapless Wheat, with his bold heart and his friendly smile, weaving excitedly between their legs and barking like mad – the pooch’s one downfall which both saved Colin’s life and forced him to sacrifice his own.
A twisting in his gut now. A loose stitch unthreading itself within. Colin’s body was telling him to slow down. To stop. Rest. Yet he’d only been running for ten minutes. Without commanding them to, his legs began to slow, and—
No!
Whisper pulled on the harness, forcing his pace to remain the same. She spoke with her actions. Yer think yer slowing down, mongrel, he heard her say, in a voice uncannily like the disturbing grunts of Stephen Miller. This is just a test. If yer can’t even make this run, then we may as well throw yer over the fence, let the rotters have their way with yer. Or Paddy and Thomas J. Miller. Let them take a blade ter yer throat. Put yer in a stew. I’m sure Chef will be able ter advise with some sweet recipe of his. Could even throw Dylan in there too, eh? Cook you both up. After all, Hopefuls need their meat.
A hot tear pricked his vision. Whisper’s pace remained unaltered. The thoughts trailed away from Colin, and in its place a determination grew. He steeled himself, forced a deep breath in through his nose, and picked up his pace. One foot after the other. That’s what he’d told Byron. It was simultaneously as easy as that and as difficult as that. One foot after the other.
But quickly.
He shook his head at his own stupidity.
Before he knew it, the central lake of Hope came into view. The path dipped downwards, revealing cabins on either side which were occupied. He didn’t recognise many of the faces, but that didn’t stop them from peering out through their windows and taking a gander at the idiot trying to keep pace with the old bitch in front.
Ignoring them, focusing only on his feet, Colin continued and jumped over a puddle. A little further on and the pathways opened up. Through the thinning trees, Colin saw the best view he’d seen of Hope yet. He couldn’t help but glance at the vista before him. Even on a cloudy day, it was breathtaking.
The lake was vast and never-ending. A near-perfect watercolour mirror image of what sat in the sky above. The tall conifers and pines were a green sawtooth biting the sky. The clouds parting just enough to see some of the blue sky hiding behind. Cabins running in a long line along the waterfront, curving slightly as they followed the lake around to a wide bridge on the far end. A painted walkway, still vibrant in its blood-red lacquer, connecting the residential cabins on the left with the holiday village town centre on the right.
He caught sight of two people fishing up the road towards his left, rooted to their spot on deck chairs resting on wooden walkways. Further up from them was an older man and woman hanging various garments on the fence to dry. A canoe boat drifted out into the centre of the lake with a thin woman paddling.
And, just as he was about to reach the point at which he was supposed to turn circle round and head back towards the kennels, he saw a boy. The kid stood at the edge of the lake, amongst the overgrown reeds. Alone. Watching Colin. Alabaster skin and blond hair.