Christmas Spirit (Angel Paws Holiday)

by Jordan Taylor

  Christmas Spirit

  an Angel Paws Holiday short story

  Jordan Taylor

  * * *

  Copyright © 2013 by Jordan Taylor. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons or dogs, living or dead, is coincidental.

  No trees were harmed in the creation or publication of this work.

  Short Stuff Press

  * * *

  Christmas Spirit

  Thump.

  Spirit jumps.

  Crash, screeech!

  He whirls around, pinning down his ears.

  Bang.

  Under the kitchen table isn’t safe anymore. Spirit bursts from between two chairs, claws slipping on the wood floor, past Mom and Olivia, around the corner, another turn, then up carpeted stairs to bedroom safety. Flattening himself, he squirms below the bed, then twists to face the world: eyes wide, heart racing.

  “Aidan, you scared the dog!” Olivia calls from the floor below.

  “I’m getting our bags together.”

  “You don’t need to drag and drop them across the floor, dear.” That’s Mom. “I don’t blame him for being scared.”

  “Everything scares Spirit. It’s not my fault.”

  “Maybe he would calm down if he didn’t think someone was about to drop a suitcase on him,” Olivia says.

  Spirit hears the door into the garage bang open. Dad’s voice: “Ready? We should have been on the road half an hour ago.”

  Spirit sighs, resting his chin on his forepaws. So much happening yesterday and today—bags out, everyone packing, all excited about the Big Autumn Trip.

  He does not enjoy hiding from his family: they’re always there for him, protecting him, ever since they brought him home as a half-grown pup from a place of cages and other dogs—so many sounds and smells, so many terrors.

  “Hello, sweetheart.”

  Spirit looks up.

  Mom smiles at him, crouching on hands and knees to peer under the bed. “I thought you might be there. Come on, Spirit.”

  He wriggles out, wagging his tail, licking her face.

  Mom carries him downstairs, rubbing his chin as she tells him how much fun they’re going to have: “Coast, mountains, you’ll meet Uncle Chris way up in Prince George. Then we’ll be home before you know it. What do you think?”

  “Is Spirit ready to leave Surrey for the first time?” Aidan meets them at the bottom of the stairs, no longer dropping bags.

  “He’s been out of Surrey,” Olivia says as she pulls on her heavy coat in the foyer. “We got him at the Vancouver shelter.”

  “Well, the area anyway,” Aidan says.

  “He’s ready for a visit to the backyard before we start driving,” Mom says, setting Spirit down. “Take him outside.”

  Aidan calls and beckons him out back.

  The lawn is deep green with recent rain. Orange, red, gold leaves have fallen fast to scatter across grass like the patchwork quilt on the couch.

  Spirit eases down deck steps, sniffing, listening, as Aidan calls for him to hurry up. All is still. He picks his way through leaves, breathing familiar smells, watching robins take flight in early morning sun.

  Snap, click-click-click.

  Spirit jumps, glancing toward the neighbor’s deck in time to see a tiny, white missile fly from a swinging cat door, claws clicking over boards, launching itself off the steps.

  “Rar-rar-rar!” the little dog screams, streaking toward him.

  Spirit bolts. Over grass, up his steps, across the wet deck, through the door, past Aidan’s legs. The boy slides the glass door shut with the white horror yapping outside.

  “Spirit, really. He’s a Poodle. Don’t you think a Shetland Sheepdog can handle a tiny Poodle?”

  Spirit trembles under the kitchen table. This just hasn’t been his morning.

  “All ready, eh?” Dad calls inside.

  “Spirit’s not,” Aidan says. “He’s scared to go out. Dino’s in the yard again.”

  “He’ll have to hold it. We’ve got to get on the road.”

  Olivia clips Spirit’s leash to his collar, then leads him to the garage. Spirit stays close against her, relieved finally to be lifted into his own crate in the back of the SUV. Here, he discovers a bone full of peanut butter and flops down as they move off, leaving Dino far behind.

  ~ ~ ~

  Never has Spirit spent so long riding in a car. After the rush of the past day and morning, he finds it easy to doze in his safe, warm crate. They travel north and west, up the coast, then east through forests vivid with blinding bright color and darting wildlife.

  Spirit races along gray beaches, curls into blankets with Olivia at night in a strange bedroom he has never smelled before, chases squirrels and birds, barking all the time, through endless forests. There are no loud noises out here, unless he makes them himself. No savage dogs, speeding cars, or skateboarding people.

  Onward east, spending more hours on the road, staying with Uncle Chris—a quiet person living on a quiet street in a quiet house.

  Now, the family is again packed and Spirit smells peanut butter. Uncle Chris says goodbye. Mom says he should come down to see them at Christmas, six weeks away. Spirit is lifted into his crate. In a few moments more, they’re off.

  He has just finished the peanut butter and settled down to sleep when he feels his crate come to a stop.

  “Only a few snacks, okay?” Mom says. “We’re not buying bags of cookies and junk food. Aidan, will you get Spirit out?”

  “I want to pick something to eat,” Aidan howls.

  “I can take him out,” Dad says. “I’ll fill the tank, then park at the side of the grocery store and walk him around at the back until you all come out. How about some cheese crackers?”

  Soon, Spirit finds Dad opening the back and clipping on his leash. He hops out, but hesitates to see traffic and commotion in the chilly parking lot. The day is sunny, air crisp.

  He trots with Dad around the building, sniffing nervously while Dad keeps glancing to the north, saying it looks like snow and they had better get on the road.

  “Ready for a long day in the saddle?” he asks Spirit as they round the corner of the building. “There’s Mom and the kids coming out. Let’s go.”

  A car zooms around the corner. Another car is just coming along the straightaway. A horn blares. Spirit jumps. Even Dad jumps. Another blast on a horn, feet away. Spirit reels backward, thrashing against his collar, heart pounding, wide-eyed.

  “Spirit, no. It’s okay.” Dad reaches to grab him, pulling the leash—pulling him toward that horrible sound.

  Spirit fights as if someone threw a firecracker in his face. Something pops against his head, rips at his ears, then he crashes over backward. In the next moment he’s running as he has never run: across the street, between buildings, along a sidewalk, dodging people and holiday displays, half blind with panic.

  Behind him, Dad shouts his name, chasing. Over that, Mom and the kids, all of them calling him. Their voices radiate with as much terror as he feels, confirming the worst: the awful danger of this place. They must all get out—run. And they do, the whole family following as he leads them away.

  Through a parking lot, brakes shrieking, horns blasting, people shouting. A dog barks. A woman calls, “Here dog!” Then chain link fence, highway beyond, rushing cars, roaring trucks, cold wind blasting into his face.

  Spirit races along the fence, mouth wide, ears pinned flat, ta
il tucked, a thousand noises beating at him. Across pavement, up a bank, climbing through weeds and scrub to leafless trees, down the other side, he finds himself popping onto another paved road. He darts across to a sidewalk and green lawn of a silent house. Past that to another. A neighborhood, not unlike his own. Still, he runs, though his pace has slowed.

  His tongue hangs out, lungs aching, heart hammering in his throat. He glances back. Did his family get out of there? They had been right behind him, yet … now.…

  Spirit stops in the middle of a lawn, looking around uneasily. He can no longer hear or smell them. Should he go back? Try to find them?

  “Rwoof-raarf!”

  Spirit spins around. A huge dog scratches window glass in the front room of the house he stands before. He runs. Down the street, across more lawns, avoiding two children and a car backing from its driveway, through a park: roar. A man walks down the street with a machine blasting air and bellowing, sending clouds of leaves before him. Into another neighborhood: more barking. Across another street: screech, honk! “Get out of the road, dog!”

  Spirit runs until his paws sting. His lungs feel as if they will tear. His dripping tongue dangles from the side of his mouth. He slows to a trot, head low, shaking from fear and adrenaline and exhaustion.

  What happened to his family? Why don’t they come to pick him up and carry him to his crate? No smells of them. No sight of them. No feel of their nearness.

  If he gets to a safe place, a quiet place, he can wait for Mom to find him and carry him home. She finds him under the bed or behind the couch or crouching by the bathtub. She’s always there to say he just needs a little patience and understanding.

  Another road. He trots across, slips under a barbed wire fence, then finds himself in a vast field bordered by woods in the distance. Ribs heaving, legs trembling, he makes his way to that sparse, golden wood. Limping as he reaches trees, he finally sinks to his chest, gasping and dazed.

  They’ll come. Any minute, Mom will find him. She’ll scoop him into her arms, kiss his ear, tell him he’s her good boy. Any minute.

  ~ ~ ~

  Spirit shivers as a fresh blast of northern wind strikes him. He squints, head low, nostrils quivering. Ice burns his nose. Screaming air deafens him. He trudges on, each step forced through drifts piled to the matted fur of his chest.

  He cannot remember how long he has walked, sunrises and sunsets slipping together, since he first spent a day and night waiting, roaming the countryside around a nightmare of cars, shouts, barks.

  By the next morning, with snow falling and a bitter bite to the air, he started south. He knew home was south. If Mom and Dad, Olivia and Aidan did not come to collect him, they must be home—if they had escaped the city. So Spirit would also go home.

  He crossed miles of fields and countryside, woods, narrow creeks, silent, gravel roads. Then dense forest, now apparently lifeless under blankets of snow. Nights found him curled into rotting hollows of logs, only the trapped heat of his body in a tiny space keeping him alive as he shivered through darkness.

  Snow stopped for a day or two, leaving sunlight and crisp crust on the surface of the snow which Spirit could run across. Then wind struck, whipping out of the north like nothing he had ever felt before, leaving Spirit cowering into any natural shelter he found.

  A full day and night of this wind now, fur standing up in ridges across his sides and spine, moving with his back to the gale. And he is still not home. The farther he goes, the wilder the world becomes. First he smelled cattle and squirrels. Now he smells wild, terrifying creatures which make him tremble, though he has no idea what they might be.

  His paws feel numb or stinging by turns. He cannot feel his ears or the end of his muzzle. His eyes burn and water. His lungs are flattened by wind. Far worse than anything else, his stomach roars with hunger. He stole cat food on farms two separate days. The rich, fatty meals sped his trip. But how long ago? Food has begun to occupy his mind as much as reaching home.

  He gulps mouthfuls of snow as he goes, feeling his insides chill, shivering more violently.

  Fresh, wild smells on the wind. He descends a low bank, moving into thicker trees and rough ground providing some protection, even patches almost bare of snow. Some inner draw pulls him close along the embankment, though strong, musky smells warn him away. Warmth. Faint, emanating from the slope itself. He sniffs, creeping closer.

  The ragged hole in the earth is partly concealed by branches snapped off with the weight of snow. And warm. As he slips inside the den, it feels almost like stepping into his own crate—dark, sheltering. Except for that smell. A horrible smell which sets his teeth chattering. He wants to run, hide, but feels far too tired. He slinks in as far as he dares, sensing a great presence, rumble of breath, stink of wild creature.

  Nothing growls or barks or attacks. Spirit digs, curls around, then drops into a coma-like sleep.

  He wakes with a soft yelp, aware of sunlight streaking his filthy coat. Something breathes, reeking, in this warm space beside him. Wind has died. The sun is rising. He slept through the last afternoon and night, paws, ears, and nose warm and alert once more. He looks around, then up. And up.

  Glowing with a faint outline in the narrow rays of sun piercing through the shallow den, a vast, black, furry mound lies curled in a ball. Each breath heaves thick, stinking hide up and down with rhythmic snores.

  Spirit’s hackles rise. A strangled growl nearly chokes him as he scrambles, with quick glances over his shoulder, out of the warm shelter. He darts around a stand of trees before looking back. The huge animal has not followed.

  He shakes himself. The grove he stumbled into the day before looks bright with sun below a brilliantly clear sky. The air feels sharp, stinging nose and eyes. Spirit stretches, shakes himself again, glances back at the hidden den, then jogs south.

  By midday he has come to a wide river sharing his course. He follows this, along the bank where the going is easy for many miles. At nightfall, he has left the river, finding himself in another forest without food or shelter, walking through the night over a frozen crust.

  He tries twice to curl up in a snow bed, both times being driven again to activity as he shivers, finding no relief. Uneasy as he moves on, he looks back, feeling something watch him, though he detects neither sound nor smell. He eats snow, chews a piece of frozen bark, swallowing several pieces, tries chewing pine needles. The sound of a mouse below snow sends him digging. He unearths only frozen leaves. He eats these and goes on through the forest.

  Many times he glances around, feeling unseen eyes on him. Moonlight filters through trees to light snow in a silver glow. As he pauses, only the sound of his own breath reaches him. There’s a frozen hush to the air which makes him pin back his ears, half cowering as he slinks on, as if something sinister looms above him.

  Crunch. Snap of ice, hushed yet close.

  Spirit spins to face—nothing. Nothing there. Only the dead, frozen forest. Trembling, he walks on. In that moment, something strikes him across the flank with such force he is thrown off his feet, crashing through snow with terrified yelps. He rolls to his paws, scrambling away from unseen danger. An animal, all legs and claws, lands on top of him, knocking him again to his side. This time he lunges upward, biting, thrashing his head as he half yelps and half snarls. His teeth make sharp contact with thick fur over a round skull. There’s a yowl, as if from a cat, and the animal springs away.

  In the instant of freedom, Spirit runs, tearing across upper snow crust as if no fatigue or hunger hampers him. Through vast trees, darting this way and that, scrambling under brush, skirting fallen logs.

  A massive paw, larger than his head, swipes across his hind legs, tripping him, sending him sprawling once more. He whirls, snapping his long jaws as fast as he can, lips drawn back, ears flat, hunched low to the ground. The creature springs past him, then approaches from the front, fur tufted ears pricked, sliding over snow like a shadow, silent, intent.

  The log. He ran along a
fallen tree and now finds himself against the end, rotted and eaten by termites underneath, leaving an overhang and hollowed center.

  Spirit gives a final snarl, then dashes into the darkness of that hole. Huge claws catch at his hind leg, ripping away a chunk of long, tangled fur. Yelping and growling, Spirit twists with a bark to snap at the paw, then backs himself as far as he can into the hollow space. Claws slash almost across his nose. He snaps, misses, backing until his rump and hind legs are pressed into icy, rotted wood. Another swipe of the paw and snap of his teeth.

  Through moonlight, he watches the animal crouch, chest over forepaws, to study him. Silent and watchful, it licks its whiskers.

  A cat. It looks like a cat. It even smells rather like a cat. But cats are small and live in houses and neighborhoods like dogs. Cats are not larger than himself with long legs and massive paws like plates.

  After a moment, it vanishes. He hears it hop on and off the log, circling, checking accessibility. A giant arm reaches in at him once more and he snaps. It could fit itself in with him by flattening its body as Spirit does to hide under the bed, but perhaps his snapping teeth and savage snarls keep it at bay. After some time, it disappears, though Spirit can still smell it crouching above, waiting for him to slip out.

  Spirit pressing himself back in a ball, making his body as small as possible, pressed on all sides by rotting wood besides the front. Again and again his chin nods to the ground, then up, blinking, watching. Eyes close, ears twitch, stomach rumbles. He licks his paws, bites ice from the pads, curls up with his tail across his face.

  The first lavender light shows outside before the smell of the predator fades and Spirit finally falls asleep.

  ~ ~ ~

  More snow falls. More wild sights and smells send him jumping, running, hiding until his strength is nearly gone. He crosses frozen streams and ponds, climbs uphill and down, walks miles through dense forest or empty, narrow roads with no sign of any human or car passing since the snow began. Always south.