Strangers Among Us

by Kelley Armstrong

  Woof stopped and Ruby hunkered low, hiding herself as best she could in his long fur. Woof watched the man who stared back at them with a blank, wild look. A low growl rumbled in Woof’s throat. Sometimes that worked to scare people off. Not this time.

  The man didn’t say anything, didn’t try to win Woof over with gentle words or placating gestures. Instead he approached slowly, arms extended, knees bent and poised for action. Predatory.

  Woof bolted, nearly sending Ruby flying. She yanked his fur to right herself and Woof yiked. Distracted by that momentary pain, Woof caught a vicious kick from the man, square in the ribs. He crashed to the ground, sending Ruby sprawling on the pavement.

  The man bent slightly and stared in her direction, squinting as though he didn’t understand what he was seeing. Woof snarled and sprang back to his feet, lunging at the man and sinking his teeth into his calf. The man swore and jerked his leg. Woof maintained his grip until the man landed a solid punch to his back. Woof stumbled. Ruby dragged herself underneath the dumpster, the skin of her inner thighs tearing on the rough ground. The man stomped on Woof’s paw and Woof yowled in pain. The man drew his foot back for another kick. Before it landed, Ruby heard, “What the fuck! Leave him the fuck alone!” Aaron’s voice.

  Instead of replying, the man made a sort of grunting, growling noise that Ruby had never heard a human make.

  Then the sound of running, grunts and a scuffle, fists landing on flesh. All Ruby could see from beneath the dumpster were feet jockeying for position. Then the man fell and Aaron was on top of him, pummelling his face until it was a bloody mess.

  “Stop!” yelled Ruby in her loudest voice.

  Aaron held his next blow and rolled off the man. He walked over to the dumpster, got down on hands and knees, and peered at her. Then he stood, kicked at the wheels to unlock them, and rolled the dumpster a few feet until she was exposed. “Oh my god. Are you okay?”

  “Yes. Please check on Woof.”

  The dog lay panting. As Aaron approached, he made as though to stand but yelped and collapsed. He whined softly.

  “Shit, I think that fucker broke his leg or something.”

  Aaron crouched down beside Woof. The dog raised his head and snarled, drawing his injured paw in to his belly.

  “Come on, boy. Let me help you.” Woof continued to pant, drool wetting the fur around his lips, but finally turned his head away in a gesture of acquiescence.

  Aaron threaded one arm between Woof’s front legs and scooped up his hind-end with the other. With some effort he rose to standing, her friend in his arms. “God damn, you’re heavy.”

  “I’ll get him to the Humane Society and come back for you.” He shifted Woof’s weight, then shuffled off, disappearing around the corner.

  But he’d neglected to reposition the dumpster, leaving her out in the open. The sounds of the city reverberated off the towering buildings, seeming to grow louder by the moment. Her wounds burned. Though the dumpster was the closest cover, the man would look for her there when he woke up—if he woke up. So far he hadn’t moved. Using all her strength, she hauled herself over to Aaron’s scant pile of belongings and covered herself with a filthy, stinking sleeping bag. Once again she found herself waiting, tried not to think about what might happen if Aaron didn’t come back.

  Several hours later, Aaron finally returned. The man was gone. Ruby had watched him get up and stumble off, either forgetting she was there or hurting too much to care. Aaron staggered a bit but had the presence of mind to check around the dumpster.

  “Over here,” Ruby called.

  Aaron spun and when he spotted her, relief washed over his face. He plopped down heavily beside her.

  “Where’s Woof?”

  “Foot’s broken. They’re going to patch him up. He’ll be okay.”

  “Why did that man attack him?”

  Aaron shrugged. “Meth, probably. That shit wrecks people. He probably didn’t used to be such an asshole.”

  “When will Woof come back?”

  Aaron stayed quiet. Then, “Shit, how are you?” Gently, he pulled the sleeping bag back. “Wow. Okay I . . . I can’t take you to the vet, or, er, the hospital. But. . . . How about I take you home, huh?” He emptied the contents of a cloth bag. “Can you . . . climb in? Or should I . . .”

  “Where is Woof?”

  Aaron sighed. “They won’t let me take him, okay? You should have seen the way they looked at me. They thought I did it. Like I would ever! They think I can’t even take care of myself, let alone a dog.” Then, more softly. “He’s gone, Ruby. I’m sorry.”

  Again he invited her into the bag, positioning it beside her and opening it wide, but she ignored him, curling in a little ball. It was like this when Rainbow disappeared. A heaviness pressing the air from her lungs, only then it had built over time. This felt like someone had dumped a load of rocks on her all at once.

  She didn’t resist when Aaron gently scooped her up and settled her in the bag. Nor when he mostly zipped it closed. In other circumstances the swaying movements of his walk might have been soothing, but instead every step jarred her raw insides until she thought she’d be sick.

  At some point the movement stopped, and fresh air gusted in as Aaron unzipped the bag, setting it down carefully at the water’s edge.

  “Here we go. You’re home.”

  Ruby didn’t have to look to know there were more floaters. She crawled from the bag into the first few inches of water.

  “Say something, Ruby.”

  A chorus of amphibious voices clamoured for her attention, but she didn’t answer, just watched as the dried blood from her leg wounds formed a little cloud around her.

  “How about that plan? My plan? Maybe we can get started.” Aaron patted his bag, seemed to locate what he was looking for. He pulled a shiny metal rectangle from a pocket and brought it to his lips. As he exhaled, a long, reedy note sounded. He played a short tune unlike anything Ruby had ever heard. Unnatural, but slow and melancholic.

  He stopped and shook his head. “Nah. Funeral song,” he muttered.

  And then another tune, completely different from the first. Fast and staccato. Cheery. An off-note sounded and Aaron stopped. He turned the instrument over in his hands, examining it.

  When he didn’t go back to playing, Ruby said, “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to play ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’. But I’m out of practice. Anyway, it’s pretty hokey.” He tapped the instrument on his knee. “Ha! I wonder if I can still even do it.”

  He began a new song, trying and failing a few times before seeming to catch the rhythm. The notes alternated back and forth from high to low yet a discernable tune soon emerged as he picked up the speed. As he continued to blow through the combs, Ruby could see the light of a smile in his eyes.

  “Woo! Still got it. I think we should use that one. The opening riff’s perfect. It’s called ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’.”

  A nice enough song with a nice enough name. But she still didn’t understand how this had anything to do with his plan.

  Aaron must’ve guessed her thoughts, because he said, “So, this is a totally whacked idea, but I though I could teach you and your . . . friends . . . a song. Like, the tune. Do you think they can learn?”

  Ruby pondered the strange notion for a moment. “They are desperate. So . . . I think they will try. But what good will it do?” She gestured in the direction of the leaking barrels, the ever-expanding slick on the surface.

  “We’ll put on a show! I’ll invite people . . .” He thought for a moment. “My sister. She’ll come. And maybe I can convince her to bring her husband and her friends. It’ll blow their minds to hear frogs—frogs!—singing Guns ‘N Roses! They’ll have to do something. It’d be, like, a miracle!”

  Ruby failed to understand why a song, a “miracle,” would be more compelling than the bloated, stinking bodies spiralling on the surface. But Aaron seemed so sure.

  “Okay,” she said. “What
do you need me to do?”

  “Translate. Explain.”

  At first the frogs were confused. What sort of help was this? Why was this human shattering the pond’s tranquility with this awful noise? Why wouldn’t she listen to tales of their suffering? Of lives lost since she’d be gone? Where was her furry friend?

  Patiently and gently, Ruby answered their questions. She would listen, but later; she was so very sorry for their losses. If they hoped to survive, they needed to sing for him, with him. Woof was gone. Over and over she said these things until the eldest frog, an eight-year-old male—Papa—who’d recently lost the use of his right front limb, called for silence. With difficulty he swam near to where Aaron was sitting on the bank, and waited before him. A few others followed suit, until an army of ten male frogs grouped in front of him.

  “Whoa,” Aaron said. He clutched at the ground as though he wanted to get up and leave.

  “It’s okay. They will listen. They will try. Please, show them your song.”

  He played his metal box for about a minute before seeming to realize he’d have to go slower. Starting again and exaggerating each breath, he sounded the first eight notes and then stopped.

  “Copy those sounds,” Ruby instructed.

  The frogs all tried to comply at once, resulting in a cacophony. Also, it was clear to Ruby that they couldn’t hear the higher notes.

  She asked whether Aaron could lower the pitch. He said he could but needed a different harmonica. When he returned the next day, Ruby explained to the frogs that they would have to coordinate; that each would be responsible for only select notes. When singing their own songs, they were accustomed to taking turns, so caught onto that concept quickly. Getting the key just right was harder. The larger individuals with deeper pitched songs took the lower notes, and smaller ones took the higher. After a couple of hours, the slightest hint of a tune emerged. A human tune, anyway. The females hummed in confusion at the garbled and disorderly din emanating from their male counterparts.

  “Yes!” Aaron clapped and laughed. Ruby had never seen him so animated.

  She was more than a little surprised when he showed up the next day to continue practice, and the day after that, though his notes weren’t as careful as they had been on the first day, nor his speech as clear.

  But after about a week he proclaimed them ready. “Becky isn’t going to fucking believe this. I’m going to try to get her to come on Saturday—that’s two days from now. So tell your friends to practice! They can’t screw this up for me.”

  Ruby promised they’d be ready.

  The atmosphere over the slough on Saturday morning was heavy with nervous energy, as the frogs and later Aaron waited in anticipation—and some fear—of their human audience arriving. It was mid-morning before a woman appeared at the top of the hill, face expressionless beneath a hand used to shield her eyes from the sun. She had the same dark brown, curly hair as Aaron.

  “Hey, Becks!” called Aaron.

  “Hi,” she replied after a moment, tone clipped.

  More people emerged at the top of the hill; seven or eight maybe.

  “Wow! You brought everyone! How’s it going, Chuck?”

  Chuck and the others murmured subdued greetings.

  “Oh, hey. I don’t think we’ve met.” Aaron extended a hand to a man in a pale blue, button-up shirt and crisp dress pants. The man shook Aaron’s hand.

  “Edward Burke,” he said, still grasping Aaron’s palm and placing his other hand over-top.

  Aaron pulled away. “Okay, so, I’ve got something amazing to show you all. Seriously. You guys won’t believe this. Gather around.”

  The assembled crowd glanced at each other uneasily but moved a little closer.

  From her position in the reeds, Ruby hummed to the frogs. Told them to be ready.

  Aaron gave the pre-arranged signal. “One, two, three, four!”

  The chorus began. But the frogs were nervous. Making noise around humans went against their every instinct. Some came in too early, and others too late. Notes were missed. It sounded bad, not like what they’d practiced, or even a song at all.

  Aaron’s triumphant smile faded to incredulity. Becky’s head drooped and she crossed her arms.

  He turned toward the slough. “You guys! Come on! You have to show them!”

  “Jesus,” one of the men muttered.

  “Aaron,” said Edward Burke, “I don’t know what you think’s going on here today or what you expect to show us, but your friends and family have their own reasons for coming. They’re concerned and they love you and they’re here to help. I’m an addictions counsellor at the Willowbrook Recovery Center. We’d like to talk to you today about your addiction to alcohol and how it’s affected these people who care about you very much.”

  “No, no, no.” Aaron’s face blanched and he put up his hands. “Ruby! Get them to try again!”

  Ruby complied, soothing the frogs, encouraging them. After a shaky start they began to hit the proper notes and in the proper time, even picking up speed as they gained confidence. The unmistakable strains of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” rang out over the slough.

  But the humans weren’t listening. Instead, one after the other, they pulled scraps of paper from their pockets and read to Aaron, while others looked on and cried . . . Nicola waited for two hours for you to pick her up from school. . . . Do you want to end up back in jail? . . . and you didn’t even come to the hospital to say goodbye, didn’t even come to his funeral. . . . One sullen looking teen boy, almost a younger version of Aaron, stormed off.

  When the song ended, Ruby surveyed their audience to gauge the impact; saw none. She told them to start yet again, louder, as loud as they could. They stretched their vocal sacs to bursting, amplifying their singing for these humans to hear, really hear, this song that would mean so much.

  Then, silence descended. All eyes, both human and amphibian, remained on Aaron.

  “Didn’t you hear that?” he said.

  “Don’t you hear us, Aaron?” Becky shouted back. “This is it for you! We’re not doing this again. Mom took money out of her RRSPs to pay for this. She didn’t even want to come because she doesn’t believe you’ll change. Don’t you care what you’re doing to her? Even after dad died? To us? Just thirty days. You can give us thirty days, can’t you? After all we’ve put up with?”

  Aaron looked at the ground and everything was still.

  Then Becky approached and hugged him, which seemed to take Aaron by surprise, as for a moment he didn’t move. And then he did, folding himself over her and breaking down in sobs.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, over and over. She held him and stroked his hair, tears also running down her cheeks.

  “Okay,” he whispered. “Okay.”

  The release of tension in the group was palpable; a few people even smiled. They turned to leave, Becky’s hand on Aaron’s back.

  “Wait!” Ruby called. “Please! Come back!” But her voice was too soft, carried away by the breeze rustling through the leaves.

  Ruby lay on a log in the shade, as she did most days now, trying to stay out of the poisoned water as much as her semi-permeable skin would allow, ignoring the nausea and headaches that plagued her most of the time. A duck flapped weakly in the shallows, finally exhausting itself and becoming still for a time.

  Two weeks after Aaron had gone, after many more creatures had perished, including Papa, she’d told the frogs to go. They could hop. Try to find a better place; a puddle in a ditch, or a farmer’s dugout. Somewhere to rest in torpor until things got better. A new pond, if they were lucky, clean and pure. Ruby tried not to imagine them as dried-out corpses, run over by cars or landlocked in the middle of a dry, barren field.

  Leaving hadn’t been an option for the minnows, of course. A few still darted beneath the water’s surface, but not many. Leaving hadn’t been an option for her, either, not without Woof.

  For a while the water birds had helped to keep the loneliness at bay, but
save for the dying duck, even they had gone, replaced by scavengers—gulls, magpies, and ravens, hurting her ears with their grating cries. She wished they’d just go, but that wouldn’t happen until everything was dead, her included. Every day they watched her with shining, beady eyes, venturing closer and closer as though to test whether she still had strength to move. She swatted them away, but more often now wondered why she bothered.

  At first when she heard the footsteps, she didn’t look up. Moving made her head swim. But then came a familiar voice, calling, “Ruby? Ruby, are you there?”

  Aaron.

  She opened her eyelid membranes but otherwise didn’t move. He spotted her and swore, running around the bank and taking a few steps into the water near where she lay.

  “Ruby,” he said softly, “are you okay?”

  Not knowing how to respond, she just said, “I’m glad to see you.”

  “God, I’m so glad to see you too.”

  He looked different. Clean-shaven and like he’d slept and eaten well. Definitely smelled a lot better, no trace of the sickly-sweet stink on his breath or sour, unwashed stench on his body.

  “Is it okay if I help you? Pick you up?

  Ruby nodded.

  He scooped her off the log and set her down on the grassy shore. From his bag he pulled a bottle of water and poured it over her, cool liquid washing toxic residue from her skin.

  “Wait here. I’ve got a surprise.” He sprinted off like he was being chased.

  Ruby propped herself on an elbow.

  When a huge sheepdog appeared at the top of the hill, she sat bolt upright, heart pounding, almost unable to believe it could be real. Woof.

  There was no mistaking him, in spite of his strikingly clean and fluffy coat, gleaming in the sun. He sniffed this way and that, then came bounding down to her side with only a slight limp, big goofy grin stretching from ear to ear. Knowing better than to lick her bitter skin, he instead nudged her with a wet nose. Had Ruby been capable of crying tears of joy, she would have done it in that moment. Instead she reached out and pulled herself onto his back, hugging him and burying her face in his fur.