by Jackson Lear
Amanda didn’t appear at all fussed by the story. Inside, though, she was doing all she could to not glance over her shoulder. It was already a cold enough night with a wind chill licking the back of her neck. Whenever the lights of a car turned off the street behind them she was sure it was a train leaving its tracks and hurtling towards her. “So why is he still around?”
“The sprite was a trickster. He allowed the old man to come back as a ghost, but as a ghost he could only move one step per appearance and only at midnight. It has taken him more than a hundred and fifty years to walk this far and he still has a long way to go.” Josh pointed into the distance. “He should be just at the end of the road.”
Amanda glanced to the side to make sure Anthony was there and that Patrick wasn’t about to startle her with a shrieking, ‘Boo!’
Josh peered ahead. Something shifted under a streetlight, something dark and low to the ground. “Hold up.”
They all stopped at once. Patrick stepped closer to the wall to hide himself from the adult that must have found them. Josh, Anthony, and Amanda were instead focussed on the dark mass on the ground, nearly blocking the pavement. It moved, though not because of the wind. They all strained to make out what it was.
A thunderous motorbike tore away in the distance.
“It’s breathing,” said Josh.
Patrick pulled himself away from the wall to see what everyone else was looking at.
“It’s alive?” asked Amanda.
Something certainly flicked up and down, like a very long finger circling the air. Then it plopped back onto the ground.
Josh craned his head to the side, then he took a couple of steps forward. “It’s a dog.”
Wet patches of fur glistened under the street light. Its eyes burned with a far away horror that held a world of misery. As Josh grew closer he found it was a splotchy grey coloured mutt, covered in dirt, grease, and blood. Its snout and legs were bound in thick tape. All that was missing was its deranged owner reeling in joy at finally silencing the creature that would never shut up.
“We need scissors. Or a penknife.” He looked back to Anthony and Patrick. “Anyone?”
“I have my penknife,” said Patrick.
Amanda peered around from behind Anthony. “Is it hurt?”
“Yeah. Pretty badly, too,” said Josh.
“Was it hit by a car?”
Josh hesitated over his answer as he drew in every detail from the dying animal. It wheezed under the pain of trying to fill its own lungs, then it exhaled and tried again. Patrick dug the penknife out of his pocket and handed it over.
“Well?” asked Amanda.
“Someone’s taped it up and beaten it pretty badly,” said Josh.
Amanda ran a hand up to her face. “Jesus.”
“Is it still alive?” asked Anthony.
“Only just,” said Josh. He pulled the longest blade out from the penknife and stood next to the dog. “Okay … uh …”
“That thing might bite you,” said Patrick.
“That’s what I’m afraid of. If I cut off the tape at its mouth first it should see that I’m not a threat, right? But if I pull a little too much on the tape around its feet then it might bite me.”
“Paws.”
“Paws, right. But if I cut the tape off there first it might run away. But it will die unless I get the tape off its mouth. But if I hurt it when I take the tape off its mouth it will bite me.” He looked over to see three people nodding at him. “I need some help.”
“Don’t crowd it,” said Patrick.
Josh knelt down beside the dog and began gently cooing, trying to find a soothing tone to build some level of trust. The dog didn’t have the strength to put up any defence. It wheezed through another whimper, then as soon as Josh moved his hand the dog bucked backwards.
“Don’t scare it!” said Amanda.
Anthony stepped forward and crouched down beside Josh. He gently placed his hands over the dog’s front paws and studied the wounds. It hadn’t just been beaten up. Its glistening fur came from several bloodied stab wounds.
“Don’t let it see the knife,” said Anthony.
“I’m trying,” said Josh. He got to work trying to slice open the brown packing tape holding the dog’s front paws together, but they were bound so tightly that it was difficult to avoid the skin. The dog bucked against the ground, causing both boys to whisper to it gently.
The blade wasn’t sharp enough to cut through several layers of tape. Josh turned it over to pierce it with the tip, trying to serrate the tape like it was toilet paper.
“Does anyone know if a vet lives nearby?” asked Josh.
“There’s one near my house,” said Patrick.
“How are we going to get it there?” asked Amanda.
“Can we carry it?”
“There’s a lot of blood,” said Anthony. He counted three puncture wounds across the dog’s chest. There might have been more on the other side.
Headlights from a car appeared in the distance. Josh glanced up, wondering how it would look to the driver if they saw two teenagers with a knife crouching over a dog that had stab wounds along its chest. The car kept driving towards them. Patrick stepped closer to the wall while Amanda turned her body away from the headlights.
“We’re not running,” said Josh.
“If they stop maybe they can help,” said Anthony.
The car drove by. No one looked up to see if the driver was paying them any attention, but how could he or she not? The foursome were standing under a streetlight with a clear view of the road, far from any homes that would excuse their loitering in the deserted part of town.
Anthony checked up and down the road as he slipped into detective-mode. “There aren’t any houses around here so someone dumped the dog here intentionally. Maybe they threw it out the back of a van.”
“Maybe.” Josh finished serrating the first lot of tape. Cutting it open became a lot easier.
“Don’t try to pull the tape off or you’ll get its fur.”
“I know.”
The dog was able to free its front paws, but it made no effort to move. Josh shimmied over to its rear legs and got to work on those. “Someone’s going to have to think of how to get to a vet.”
“If we find a tarp maybe we can carry it between us,” said Patrick.
“How long has the dog been there?” asked Amanda.
“No idea,” said Josh.
“Less than ten minutes?”
“No idea.”
Anthony nodded, following what Amanda was getting at.
Patrick shook his head. “What?”
“Whoever did this might still be nearby,” said Amanda.
“I thought he was dumped from a van.”
“Maybe he was.”
“Then they’ve driven off,” said Patrick.
A wave of cold air crested over them, causing them all to shiver. Amanda’s eyes fell upon the road ahead. She didn’t believe in ghosts but there were certainly enough stories about them to make her wonder. And it was certainly a perfect night for it. The cold bit at her ears, the clouds blacked out the moonlight, and the only source of comfort came from the deserted warehouses surrounding her.
Josh had mentioned something of an anniversary for the aristocrat. Given her luck the curse would end in an hour. He would no longer be limited to one step at a time. The moment midnight struck, the ghost would be able to run at full speed, down this very road, first as nothing but a faint shimmer of incandescent light then as a roar of blood curdling rage, heading straight for the foursome.
“It’s going to rain,” said Anthony.
“Good,” said Josh.
“Not good if we’re going to have to carry this guy to a vet.”
“Yes good if it forces whoever did this to hurry home and not be on the street.”
“Then … yes, good. Not great. Maybe not even good, but better than us getting stabbed as well.”
“Someone is on the look out,
right?” asked Josh.
Amanda and Patrick both searched up and down the street. “I can’t see anyone,” said Amanda. But that wasn’t true. Through every blink she caught something in her peripheral vision. A pair of spectral eyes. Just as she turned to lock in on them they slipped back into hiding.
“We still need a tarp or something,” said Patrick.
Josh was able to cut through the serrated tape holding the dog’s rear ankles together. Next up was the real challenge – the muzzle. The dog whimpered a ‘thank you’, but it wasn’t going to be too grateful the moment Josh began poking its lips with the tip of a knife.
“Maybe this next bit should be done by a vet,” said Anthony.
“I’m going to try cutting outwards first.”
“It won’t like it.”
The first splatter of rain hit their foreheads.
“If it moves too much we’ll get a vet,” said Josh.
Another car appeared in the distance.
“Is that the same one?” asked Patrick, as he squinted at the headlights.
The dog started to struggle against Josh pulling at the tape surrounding its snout.
Amanda peered into the distance to study the shape of the car. It was too far away to make out any defining features. Nor could she exactly remember the first car that drove by.
The next splatter of rain hit their hands. The dog struggled against Josh’s attempts to free it.
Anthony counted the bloodied wounds along its chest. “These are fresh. They haven’t had time to even close over.”
“How long would that take?”
“Maybe an hour?”
“So this guy driving towards us could be the dog’s owner, feeling guilty about stabbing his dog and dumping him?”
Anthony, Amanda, and Patrick glanced at the car as it drove by.
“License plate?” asked Josh.
“Got it,” said Amanda. She recited it back to herself several times before coming up with a mnemonic to fix it into her mind.
The rain increased.
“I can’t do much here,” said Josh. He folded the knife over itself and leaned back from the bleeding dog. “We need a vet.”
“We can go to the one on my street,” said Patrick. “It’s not far.”
“It’s very far if we’re carrying a dying dog,” said Anthony.
“We can’t really leave it on the street,” said Josh.
“Maybe we bring the vet here,” said Patrick.
“We can’t split up,” said Amanda. “Whoever did this might come back and get one of us.” And if that happened they would tie each of them up as well, stuff sweaty socks into their mouths and tape them over, around their heads a dozen times so the packing tape would pull at a thousand little hairs. Then they would slip a burlap sack over each of their faces, snuffing out every sense one by one. Their mouths would be sealed. They could scream as much as they wanted but no one would hear them. The tape would pinch their noses as well, reducing them to a single nostril like they were bunged up with a head cold. Then they would feel themselves rocking about in the back of a van. They would struggle with the tape around their wrists, trying to remember who had the penknife and where it was. Then the van would stop, the doors would open, and they would be hurled off a bridge and fall into a river below.
Midnight was drawing closer.
Josh stepped away from the dog and found his balance again. “The easiest and maybe quickest way is if we all go to the vet and convince them to come here.”
“That’s going to take a while,” said Patrick.
“We’re about ten minutes from your house?”
“Yeah, but waking up a vet, explaining the problem, then getting them to drive out here ... that’s at least half an hour.”
“It would take us half an hour to carry the dog,” said Amanda.
Anthony remained silent as he stared at the bloodied dog.
“We’re wasting time, we need to vote.” Josh raised one hand into the air. “Two options. We bring the dog to the vet or we bring the vet to the dog.”
“Vet to the dog,” said Amanda, as she raised her hand.
“There is a third option,” said Patrick.
“We’re not leaving it to die,” said Josh.
Patrick looked over to Anthony, who had remained crouched by the dog. Amanda slowly lowered her hand as she looked over Anthony. Josh glanced back and lowered his hand as well.
Anthony gave the dog a gentle pat against its neck. “He stopped breathing.” He nudged at the tape surrounding the dog’s mouth. The dog didn’t react.
Josh knelt down to double check. He gave the mutt an easy scratch on the top of its head but there was no response. Josh pulled the penknife out again and got to work on the tape surrounding its mouth. “He might still be trying to breathe.”
“He has a nose.”
“Dogs need to pant through their mouth,” said Josh. He worked furiously to slice through the tape without cutting the dogs’ lips.
The rain started to pick up. Amanda was sure she heard the gentle cackle from the ghost of Luxford. It was standing somewhere in the rain, watching her.
At long last, Josh broke the seal binding the dog’s jaw together. The dog made no effort on its own to open its mouth. Josh dug his fingers between its lips and pried its jaws open. He was met with a wet click from the dog’s lips as they fell open, but there was no other movement.
Anthony laid one hand against the dog’s chest. “His heart isn’t beating and he’s not breathing.”
“Well … fuck,” said Josh, as he leaned back on his haunches.
The road fell into silence again. Somewhere nearby was the person who gagged and bound a dog, stabbed it, and left it to die. Behind them was home with dry beds.
Amanda looked to the sky and pulled her shoulders up to her ears. “We should head back.”
It was a unanimous decision. Half an hour later, Amanda peered at her bedroom window from between Josh and Anthony’s house’s. The light in her mum’s room was on. It had been off when Amanda left the house.
“She can’t catch me.”
“You can come and wait in my room,” said Anthony.
Amanda looked up at of his house. “One of your lights is on.”
“So?”
“If someone sees me my mum will send me to a convent.”
“Everyone’s asleep in my house,” whispered Josh. “You can wait in there.”
“Okay.”
The rain had soaked through everything they wore, drenching them like they had just been plunged into a lake. Amanda’s hair now looked like a wet mop had made itself at home on the top of her head. She looked back to her mum’s window as she weighed the odds of her still being awake.
Anthony crept up to his kitchen door, slid his key inside, and eased into his house. His sneakers squeaked along the linoleum floor, giving himself away. He kicked them off and carried them upstairs. The light in the bathroom was on as usual. The moment he reached the topmost and creakiest of steps, a clap of thunder lifted everyone in the street out of slumber and into a startle.
The bathroom light went off. Anthony froze. He waited a couple of seconds to see if his mum or dad emerged, about to catch him red handed.
Instead, he heard a groan come from his parents’ bedroom. Anthony scampered forward, slipped into his room and dumped his wet clothes in the bottom of his wardrobe.
“The whole street’s gone,” murmured his dad from next door.
Anthony pulled a t-shirt off a hanger and rubbed it through his hair. His pyjama bottoms were … somewhere. He pulled the duvet off the end of the bed, checked the floor, over the back of his chair, and a distant voice from his mother told him that she was going to do the washing that day.
He hurried back to his wardrobe, grabbed a fresh set of pyjama bottoms and threw himself into bed. There was a gentle knock at the door. Anthony pulled the duvet up to his shoulders and turned to face the wall.
“Hey buddy, you okay?” ask
ed his dad.
Anthony rolled over and recoiled against his the brightness of his dad’s torch, which he had pointed at the ground. “I’m okay.”
“I need your help pulling the plugs out.”
Anthony nodded sleepily and was quickly assigned with doing the lounge and dining room, just to ensure that everything electrical didn’t get fried when the power came back on.
In the house behind Anthony’s, Maureen Olsen grumbled at having just fallen asleep when the storm woke her up. She climbed out of bed and went to get a fresh glass of water from the bathroom, and found that none of the lights were working.
Soon enough she poked her head inside Amanda’s bedroom. “Honey?”
She went in closer with the hope of laying a hand on Amanda’s shoulder to give her some comfort. “Amanda?”
She hurried back to the door, instinctively flicked on the bedroom light, then remembered that the power was out. Now completely awake she called out for her daughter.
Back on Fielding Street, Liz was sure she heard the unmistakable sound of a fourteen year old doing his best to sneak upstairs without being heard. She checked the battery powered clock by the side of her bed. Midnight. Well, at least he was home, and the rain would likely stop him from going out again.
Liz closed her eyes and tried to focus on the rain falling against the window pane. Then a girl sneezed in the room next door.
Liz was out of bed and against the wall in a matter of seconds. If Josh had been twelve she wouldn’t have thought twice about a girl being in his room this late at night. Now that he was fourteen …
Josh woke with a start. His mum had her hand on his shoulder. His dad was by the door with a torch.
“Good morning to the both of you.”
Amanda blinked in surprise from the foot of the bed.