Deadly Encounters

by Wycherley, Jeannie

  The trees here were widely spaced, mainly silver birch and ash, with the occasional large beech. Jane pulled her walking boots on and zipped her jacket up, savouring the smell of damp earth and must. The sky above, the colour of spoiled milk, promised that the remainder of the day would only grow colder, and provided a stark relief for the skeletal branches dancing on a frigid breeze.

  Jane tramped through the deep carpet of leaves, relishing kicking them with each step. The leaves were crisp, freshly fallen, in various shades of crimson, orange, and yellow. Underneath these, older leaves mouldered and decayed, scenting the woodland with a subtle and natural putrescence.

  The climb to the crest of the hill was steeper than Jane had imagined. About halfway, she rested, noticing how the trees were now packed more densely than they had been lower down the hill. The trunks of the beech trees here were covered in spongey moss, and the branches above her head entwined, tapping against each other nervously.

  Jane started off again, hauling herself up the last hundred yards with some difficulty. The trees congregated thickly, and brambles tore at her clothes and hair. The vicious undergrowth caused a problem. Tree roots stuck out of the earth at abrupt angles, ensuring the going was slow and treacherous. Several times Jane sucked her breath in when a thorn sliced into her naked hands, and once she slipped and wrenched her ankle. She almost considered giving the whole stupid venture up, until finally, the vegetation thinned out, and she found herself standing under the canopy of an enormous oak tree.

  Jane marvelled at the sight before her. The oak’s great knotted trunk must have been twenty feet in diameter at least. The lowest branches hung six feet above her head, the copious foliage a luscious, verdant green. Jane inhaled the fresh, healthy scent, feeling it tingle in her nose, and felt suddenly compelled to place her hands on the gnarled surface and run her fingers through the deep grooves. As her hands connected with the rough bark, the tree gave a distinct hum, powered by its own vibrant internal electricity.

  From the other side of the trunk came a shushing noise. Someone had suddenly kicked up a pile of dry leaves. Startled, Jane pulled away from the tree, and watched as a woman walked into view.

  “You made me jump!” Jane gasped, but not wanting to appear rude she pulled herself together and smiled.

  The woman gawped back at her, her mouth a toothless cavern, dark and hot. She was old. Very old. The creases carved into her face were as deep as the wrinkles in the bark of the tree, and the green of her long dress exactly matched the colour of the oak’s leaves. Silver hair flowed down her back, rippling in the muted light. In spite of the freezing cold air out here, she had no shoes on.

  “Greetings to you, my dear. You’ve come to meet Old Duir, have you?”

  “Dew-ra?”

  “Duir. He’s mighty pleased to meet you, aren’t you, old man?” The woman wheezed out a laugh and patted the tree.

  Jane was perplexed. The woman had a name for the tree? Figuring discretion was the better part of valour in this case, given that the woman was obviously unsound, Jane decided to extricate herself from the situation as quickly as she courteously could.

  “I’m surprised this tree has all its leaves this far into winter,” she said, and began to step away.

  “Duir never loses his leaves, pet.”

  Ridiculous. “How is that possible?” Jane frowned.

  The woman looked seriously at Jane. “Well, see, like all trees, Duir keeps his leaves when he is able to draw the energy he needs from the earth. And the earth is good hereabouts, so Duir is blessed.”

  Jane had always assumed trees absorbed energy from light, using chlorophyll or something. She racked her brain, thinking back to school and her biology classes, but couldn’t remember quite how it all worked. Perhaps the woman was right and the tree absorbed extra nutrients from the ground, but that didn’t account for the fact that the leaves had remained on the tree far longer than would be considered normal.

  “I keep the earth well fertilized especially for Duir, and then he sees to the rest of his needs himself.”

  Jane examined the ground around them. The area had been swept free of fallen leaves, and the soil had been exposed. It had not been turned over, but it appeared strangely dark and oddly rich looking.

  “How?” asked Jane, unsure whether she wished to continue this conversation. Something touched the back of her neck, and irritated, she swatted it away. A moth or spider perhaps.

  The woman smiled again but now she said nothing, distracted by something behind Jane, unnerving the younger woman completely. The touch came again, and Jane lifted her hand to ward off the insect but recoiled when she connected with something hard and cool. She ducked, but the thing twisted itself around her neck. Jane shouted in alarm and squirmed in its grasp, but the more she struggled, the tighter it held her. She only stopped wriggling once her feet left the ground. She found herself hoisted into the air in a hangman’s grip.

  With horror, Jane realized she was being held captive by a branch. The tree swung her effortlessly around itself. In a flash, she took in a man lying crumpled against Duir’s enormous roots, splayed out and dead for some time by the look of it, while another female was sprawled against the trunk, her face devoid of colour, her neck at an awkward angle, but still making small movements with her mouth, seeming still alive. Just.

  The branch dropped Jane next to the woman. She fell heavily, and pain flared in her knee, bright and orange. Nonetheless, she tried to scramble to her feet, rending the silence of the forest with her terrified screams. The tree was faster though. A branch shot down from above her head, sharp as an arrow, entering her right shoulder, ripping through her lung, before exiting her right buttock, impaling her against the ground.

  The shock was intense, abruptly silencing Jane, who shuddered and twitched, aware that the agony had not yet fully formed but certainly would. She breathed shallowly, praying for release.

  The old woman scampered like a child, delightedly clapping her hands. “Clever Duir! Clever, clever Duir!” she sang.

  The tree bowed towards the women, branches waving softly, the foliage caressing Jane’s cheek. She watched the veins in the leaves. They pulled away from the membrane, attracted to her skin—as leeches are drawn towards warmth. Duir began to draw Jane’s life blood from her, with the lightest of touches, and Jane she finally understood the source of the nutrients he used to retain his energy and bounteous greenery. And as the light faded from Jane’s reality, she focused only on her heartbeat, pulsing in time with Old Duir’s humming energy and the percussive orchestration of the natural world.

  SINK OR SWIM

  Sitting on the rocky shoreline, I watched as bubbles burst on the surface of the deep water, not twenty feet from me. I smiled into the salty breeze, dropping my shoulders, relaxing my neck. My skin prickled as it air-dried.

  The sky shimmered, a glorious cloudless blue. Perfect for a day at the beach.

  He had told me he was a merman. Did he seriously imagine I’d been born yesterday?

  “Prove it,” I’d said and invited him in for a swim. The anchor had just been there. I’d hooked it to his trunks.

  The truth will out, one way or another.

  DOG EARED

  I trod lightly, slipping up the rain-soaked alley towards the main road, clutching my trophy in a little leather pouch in my left hand. I ignored the whimpering and rustling from the dumpster behind me. The noise faded the further I moved away anyhow. I headed instead towards the sound of sanity. The shoosh of tyres on the damp streets; music drifting out of jazz bars; young men calling to short skirted, barelegged whores. I moved easily among these people of the night. They recognised me for what I was: self-contained, self-aware, unafraid, malevolent.

  Home was a few short blocks away. I climbed the rambling staircase to my apartment and let myself in. It smelt clean after the streets.

  Removing my boots, I stowed them neatly away before moving into the bathroom. I had redecorated this myself. I loved th
is pristine space. A deep, white enamel bath with stainless steel taps that glittered in the light; white marble tiles on the floor threaded with blue and bright white panelling around the lower half of the walls. The mirrors were polished until the light refracted from them like diamonds. My idea of domestic bliss.

  I pulled open one part of the panelling, exposing a small cupboard, and shook two pairs of dogs’ ears from my leather pouch, positioning them gently in a porcelain bowl. I covered them in salt and disinfectant, a curing bath, and left them to sit—like good little doggies. Perfect.

  I stripped and showered, enjoying the feeling of being cleansed. After a night on the town I liked to pamper myself with expensive products. I liked to smell good. I inspected my clothes carefully and cleaned what may have been a patch of blood on my leather jacket. My jeans were spattered with mud, blood, and rubbish so I stowed them away with the rest of the laundry.

  Finally, I could relax. I slumped on my sofa and put my feet up with a glass of good Pinot Noir. I gently caressed the nap of the leather on the sofa and reflected on a good night’s work. It was late, and I was tired. I finished the wine, and my head rolled back.

  I dozed.

  In my dream… was it a dream? Was it a buried memory? I see a small boy. Too old for a diaper but wearing one anyway, along with a soiled t-shirt and a dirty face. The boy smells bad. He is uncomfortable. He is standing at the end of a long dank hallway. The sun is setting and throws long shadows through the dust hovering in the stagnant air. At the far end of the hallway is the living room. The woman he calls mother sits on the sofa. He walks towards her slowly, calling for her. She pays no mind. She pets a pair of cocker spaniels. They fight to be the centre of attention, pushing their way onto her lap and licking her face. She laughs delightedly and feeds them titbits. The boy stands next to her now, reaching out to touch her arm, wanting the contact, needing the attention. She turns towards him, her heavily painted face snarling at the interruption.

  The dogs protect her. They leap towards him, snapping and growling, their ears whipping at his face. He opens his mouth to scream.

  I sat up with a start. My heart beating hard in my chest. I had to shake off the remnants of the dream. Nearly 3 a.m., and I needed to get some proper sleep in order to be fit for work the following morning. I stretched, moving forwards on the sofa, and suddenly heard a scratching at the front door. How peculiar. The sound of a dog asking to go out. Nails on wood, gentle scratching.

  Frowning in annoyance, I moved out into the hallway and flicked the light switch. Not working. In the dim light spilling out from the living room, I could see there were no dogs at the door.

  Just as well for them.

  Turning away, I halted when I heard a rustling noise coming from the store cupboard. For Pete’s sake! Sighing in exasperation, I moved through the dimly lit hall and grasped the cupboard handle. The noise stopped. Holding my breath, I listened closely.

  Nothing.

  But as soon as I dropped my hand, the rustling began again. I clasped the door handle firmly and started to turn it, but even as I did so the door was pushed open by a force inside and a large bird whipped at my face. The wings fluttered furiously, beating frantically, and dust flew around me. Choking on feathers, I tried to rip the bird away from my face, but as abruptly as it had arrived, it had gone again. I stood alone in the hallway, shaking with exertion.

  Just a solitary white feather on my black t-shirt.

  Okay, this seemed odd, but I couldn’t let it worry me. I had too much to do. Busy, busy, busy. Over the next few days a major work project kept me occupied until late every evening. I didn’t even have time to get out on to the streets and work on my trophy collection. Occasionally on my way to and from work I would catch sight of a stray dog and I would feel my bile rise. I would watch contemptuously. It scrabbled around the bins looking for food, or darted in and out of the traffic, and then conversely I would gaze longingly at it when it skipped away from me, heading off to do whatever stray dogs do during the day.

  The thing about stray dogs is that they are always hungry. They may not trust you of course, not enough to come to you at first, but eventually when they are hungry enough, they will. Dogs are stupid. They’re loyal. If you make friends with one you can never get rid of the damn thing. I’m not a friendly kind of guy. Not where dogs are concerned anyway. But even I can get a dog to come to me eventually. And then of course when they do, well it’s a case of ‘so long Fido’.

  Okay, I don’t know whether they all die. Maybe they don’t. But there’s a lot of dogs in this city that are minus their ears. I reckon it helps with their hearing if they don’t have those great hairy flaps covering their ear holes. Possibly I’m doing them a favour. Who knows? And who cares? Lately, there’s been some media coverage about dead dogs in dumpsters mutilated by a madman, but no-one is actually doing that much about it. Too many stray dogs for anyone to bother with.

  It had been an exhausting week, so my spirits lifted when Friday rolled around. I pottered in my kitchen, produced a lasagne and a magnificent fruit salad. I cleaned up and disinfected the worktops, set the dishwasher going and then I popped a film in the DVD player and lay stomach-down on the sofa, just chilling.

  The Matrix—a great twentieth century classic. While I certainly admired Keanu’s styling, I would have preferred to live in the world the agents inhabited; sterile, no nonsense. At about the point that Neo started to learn to fight, my stomach began to itch. I scratched at it absent-mindedly for a while. Five minutes later I started to scratch myself raw. I stood up and went into the bathroom and examined myself in a mirror. Small red spots covered my stomach. I had scratched the heads off a few of them and they were bleeding or weeping. I hurriedly threw off my clothes and looked myself over. The spots weren’t mosquito bite sized. I wondered about measles or some strange disease. The rash appeared localized to my stomach. I hurriedly fired up my laptop and sat down naked on the sofa. I searched for photos of a red rash. Not measles. Wait. There! Flea bites. Flea bites?

  I slowly looked down at the sofa. I don’t have pets. I have never had pets. I don’t like cats. I abhor dogs. There could be no possibility that I had fleas in the carpet, after all I had replaced every carpet in the apartment myself. That left only one possibility. The sofa.

  I stood and examined it from a distance. How I loved the sofa. What a work of art. It had been designed to last me a lifetime. I had started creating it when I first moved into the apartment four years ago. I had taken an ordinary sofa, fairly expensive and very well made, and I had covered it myself. The covers had taken hours and hours of painstaking work. I had foraged, made countless trips onto the backstreets of the city under cover of the night. I bribed the neighbourhood dogs with the best steak they would ever eat, and then when they were comfortable with me I had cut off their ears; brought them home; and cured, scudded, de-limed, and tanned them. In the early days it had all been a bit hit and miss, but I was an expert tanner these days and knew exactly how to get the best results. I finally stitched the little pieces of leather together, with a resulting patchwork sofa of varying colours; a veritable kaleidoscope of dog ears. A victory of man over beast.

  Did my sofa have fleas? How could that be possible after all the processes involved in producing the leather? I picked up one of the cushions. These were my pride and joy. Every cushion was completely unique, because of course no two animals are the same, and so the mix of ears became my choice, and I opted for chaotic perfection. I stuffed them with the best goose feathers I could find, freshly plucked and sent from Canada. I didn’t scrimp on my home comforts.

  I plumped the cushion and bent down to return it to its place. As I did so, a low growl emitted from under the sofa. I cocked my head and started to move away, and something abruptly clamped its jaws around my left ankle. I screamed and twisted, but the thing wouldn’t let go. I fell backwards, knocking my coffee table and laptop flying. My foot started to disappear under the sofa, something absurdly strong dr
agging me. I pulled myself backwards on my elbows, the pain in my ankle unbearable as the thing that had me, clenched its grip ever tighter. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel the teeth stabbing through my skin and blood oozing around the wound. I lashed out hard with my right leg to try to dislodge it and connected with … nothing.

  As suddenly as it had started, the attack was over. I scurried backwards, staring down at my foot. There were no marks. No tearing, no bruising, no blood.

  Shivering slightly, I stood up. I pulled the sofa forwards and then tipped it back. Nothing underneath. There were no gaps in the upholstery. Nothing hiding anywhere. I appeared to be completely alone in the apartment.

  Perplexed and angry, and in spite of the late hour, I decided to take my anger out to the streets. I donned my long leather jacket and dark jeans and shades and walked with lengthy strides, full of rage. The night people moved instinctively out of my way. I covered my usual route but there were no stray dogs around. I moved farther away from home. Still nothing. I walked for hours until my fury had mellowed into a weary resentment.

  Why did the dogs make me do it?

  I turned my face to home, my mind full of tired memories of my mother, and all of the foster homes, along with all of the pets in those homes so lavished in love and affection.

  As I unlocked my front door, my stomach contracted with a sense of unease. I flashed back to the evening before and frowned. The apartment felt strangely alien. I shook my head, tired. I decided to forgo my shower and simply get some shut eye, but first I headed into the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth.

  I pushed the door behind me but must have pushed a little harder than I had thought. The door swung out of my grasp and slammed shut, startling me. The bathroom light started to flicker and shimmer. The light dimmed and flashed and then went out altogether. I fumbled around in the dark trying to find the door handle so that I could let myself into the hall and turn the light on there. I couldn’t find the handle.