Nightmare Ballad

by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

  “What for?” replied Cockface.

  “They might make the dogs sick, homey.”

  “Will you stop about the dogs? They aren’t our concern right now. There’s a fuck of a lotta work to get done today. This is already taking too long, and we got other guys, like this fatso here, showing up. Could be more, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So we need to get those trailers loaded.”

  “I’ll help you guys,” Johnny chimed in.

  “Shut up,” Cockface warned.

  Johnny took a risk. “Okay. I was here to help Lou and Jimmy—they told me this was their friend’s yard. I didn’t know about the copper until I got here. Look guys, it doesn’t matter who I help. Shit, I’ll help you load for nothing. Give me a chance.”

  “You said you were looking for your uncle’s—”

  “Lied, yeah. Yes, I did. I was scared. You’d do the same.”

  Cockface got close to his ear. His breath reeked of dehydration. “I wouldn’t do the same. That’s why I’m standing here, and you’re about to have your dick pulled up through your throat.”

  Asshole Shitwad chuckled.

  “What are you laughing about?” Cockface snapped. “Go up and release the locks on the cages.”

  “All of them?”

  “Just Matrix and Sexy Man. No wait a minute—fuck it, let them all out.”

  “All of them? The Count, too?”

  “Yeah, he’ll enjoy tubby here.”

  “How do we get them back in their cages before the Count kills them all?”

  “Let the Count’s will be done.” Cockface laughed. “Just make sure we bolt the plant doors so he doesn’t come up into the yard while we’re loading. That dog needs to live out the rest of its life down here.”

  “Naw—really? Come on, we’ve invested so much time in these fighters,” Asshole Shitwad complained. “Can’t we just light this guy up here? Over in a second, gives us more time, and we can move the animals to another location?”

  “No more shots fired,” Cockface said firmly. “We got lucky outside.”

  “Fine,” Asshole Shitwad sighed. “But…all the dogs? Really?”

  “Yeah. The world’s full of fucking dogs, if you hadn’t noticed. Now get going. I want to catch Round One at least before heading up to the yard.”

  “You guys need an extra set of hands,” Johnny said. “I can lift two of those crates at a time.”

  Cockface walked around to the cages, giving Johnny a gimme a fuckin’ break look. He kicked the first cage and evoked a growling, snapping discord from inside. One after another, he kicked the other cages, producing like results. At the last and largest cage, he stopped short and grinned. “We never disturb the Count.”

  The shapes in the cages twisted in the darkness, caged tornados of razors and hooks. The song wants out. Johnny had always figured he would die from a heart attack or maybe an accident on his bike. Getting shot outside a bar was up in the top ten. He’d been in some bar scuffles with several wiry son of a bitches who hadn’t been all that impressed by his size. The song wants free. He’d still won, though. Except for a few childhood fights in the very fields that surrounded this old building, Johnny had always won his fights. That’s freedom, shitbird. It was the only thing he could be proud about, besides doing right by Beltran and staying out of his life. He didn’t know if it had been a big mistake. How did that damn song go? Doing the right thing was always harder, and as he kneeled there, awaiting execution, death by dog, he knew it must have been right, because he missed his kid right now.

  “Can I call my boy? Say goodbye?” he asked.

  Cockface dropped down on the top seat of the bleachers. Johnny could only see the points of his cheap-ass cowboy boots. “Even if I was that sentimental and drooling-retarded, I can’t even get a signal from Verizon down here. You’re SOL. Unless they got phones in hell for your three-ton ass.”

  The song was at the tip of his tongue (mind). How had it gone? Bah-dee-bah-bah. Bah-dee-dee-bah-bah. Bah-dee-dee-bah-bah. Bah-dee-bah-bah. It was a whisper and a shout, all at once. It was a coiled fist and an inviting palm, all together. Simultaneously, concurrently, in tandem, yes with no, it was a whip-crack in a slaughterhouse and a soundless buzz in empty space. The two contradictions would pull apart, just as Johnny got a grasp on the song, and then when he’d lose it, they would marry again, becoming a tangle of disorder stuck fast in his mind. He knew this wasn’t the time to be thinking about the song. This was the time to form a plan.... As soon as those cages opened, he’d have to rush the bleachers. It was the only way. So what if he got shot? It was better than being torn apart…or at least, to be alive and feel the process. How could he haul himself over the block wall, though? He’d have to be quick enough to do that before the dogs even came out. That would mean…doing it right now.

  Johnny turned around, and Cockface cleared his throat. “Na-ah, put your back to me.”

  He growled in frustration. “Give me a chance. I still got time left.”

  “Your time’s up. Your chances are gone. You had one earlier, when you decided to come here.” Cockface pulled a gun from the back of his pants. “The moment when you said, Hey! I know what! I’m gonna steal someone else’s shit today.”

  “That stuff isn’t yours.”

  “That’s a fine argument, from a five year old.”

  A creaking sound came from the wall. A bar turning over. Something releasing.

  The locks.

  “About fucking time,” muttered Cockface.

  Several of the cages rattled. Flicking sounds discharged in succession, seven for every cage. A spotted white-and-brown pit bull was the first dog out. It moved bowlegged to the perimeter of the ring, appearing almost to sulk, nub tail wagging friendly (no). A pair of Rottweillers padded out next, sniffing the ground, snickering and growling at each other. Another pit bull, solid brown, and wearing a padlock-chain necklace, trotted into the concrete circle, its red tongue hanging joyfully from its slobbery mug. One of its eyes was missing, and Johnny wondered if by some strike of fate this had been the dog to take Lou’s eye. After that came a skittish German Shepherd with its fur cut from head to tail in a body-length Mohawk, and then behind it came a limping gray Doberman Pinscher. Most of the animals gravitated to the dead bodies, playfully snapping at flies and nuzzling the dead meat they’d created.

  Johnny stared into the last cage. He could see the Count’s hanging jowls and white eyes rimmed in orange-red. The droopy ears rested at the sides of those eyes, batwings not committed yet to flight. The music peeked through Johnny’s mind once more, and one of the dog’s ear fluttered. The Count cocked its head. Its eyes had a different fear in them, separate from the conditioned torture of these other animals. In a way, the concentrated look of apprehension reminded Johnny of how he’d felt at the bar, waiting for Dara to show up. Storm’s coming. A nightmare storm….

  “You like him?” asked Cockface. “He’s a Tosa Inu. I looked it up. Japanese Mastiff. Black’s a rare color for them, I guess. When we first picked him up from some rich bitch’s backyard, he weighed like a buck-o-five, only half what he is now. Some of the dummies here used him as a bait dog. Filed his claws, taped his teeth—” Cockface grasped Johnny’s wrist violently. “In only minutes the Count took the other dogs down and fucking choked them. You believe that? Shit. Fangs taped and he still found a way. Looked like he was sucking their blood. It’s why we named him that—hey, Count, come on out buddy. Chop, chop. I gotta get to work. Fresh oinker out here.”

  The eyes waited there, unblinking.

  Johnny swallowed, but there was no spit in his mouth. “Sounds like he’s a good fighter. You should keep him.”

  “You’re talking like my partner…anyway, I’m tired of going through trainers with him. Well, goddamn, I didn’t waste all this time to talk dogs with you. Shit. You mutts are friggin’ lazy. Motivation time.” Cockface leaned over to something cone-shaped strapped to a beam.

  Johnny jumped at the b
last of an air horn. Four dogs collided in a tussle, and he backed away, careful not to make eye contact. Two pit bulls squared off at the side of the melee. The size of the ring shrank as the dogs spread out. They weren’t coming after Johnny.

  Yet.

  The main mass of twisting brutality, wide eyes gleaming, jaws open, paws scraping the air, tumbled closer to him—Johnny moved sideways, and something sharp (a fang?)(a claw?) broke the skin on his left arm. He worked around the group. The brown-and-white pit bull lunged out of the pack. He put up his foot and pushed it back. The dog fell onto its haunches, consumed by the thrashing scrum.

  Johnny moved to the other side of the ring. The Doberman’s body rested near Jimmy’s. In all his life, Johnny hadn’t particularly liked dogs, but he’d never understood the barbarism of watching the animals tear each other up. Seeing it, being a part of it, made him hate Cockface more than he already did.

  The mohawked German Shepherd limped out of the fight, heading toward him, gnashing its jaws. “Go away!” Johnny warned. “Back inside. Get!”

  He gestured to the cages, thinking maybe the dog, knowing it was injured, would return. His pounding heart turned into a fist of ice.

  The Count’s cage was empty.

  Johnny moved laterally past the German Shepherd and the growling horde, which had lost some of its energy but still looked like a viable murder machine. His eyes crossed as he attempted to make out individual animals. Where is that Count?

  He would have seen him, a dog that big. No doubt.

  Johnny peered into the stands.

  Cockface wasn’t sitting there anymore.

  Johnny jumped onto the concrete rim of the fighting ring and awkwardly climbed over the chain link fence. One of the tines ripped a torso-long wound on his right side, and for a moment he thought one of the dogs had gotten him. Holding the stinging sensation in his side, Johnny struggled to catch his breath. He hadn’t hopped a fence since he was a teenager. His vision went to dark spots and his head spun for a minute.

  When his sight cleared the frenzy had died down some. More than a few dogs lay on the floor, bleeding. Johnny looked away and tried to find an exit from this hell hole. He noticed an open door in the chain link fence, the metal clasp broken in half. He shook his head at his own impulsiveness.

  Wish I knew about that door before climbing that damn fence.

  Johnny shut the door, though the dogs could easily get through if they tried. That was okay, as long as he was far gone by that time.

  He walked down a dark stretch behind the bleachers and screwed his eyes shut for a second. Didn’t stop to think how that door got broken, did you dumbass?

  Cockface lay there, toes of his cowboy boots sticking up, his throat torn out, nearly decapitated. Johnny approached the body, too frightened to feel relief that his captor was dead. He bent down and retrieved the gun near the hand, which was shredded to the bone from defense wounds. The gun’s handle still felt warm and sweaty.

  Johnny glanced around. The music in his mind had grown in volume since he had left the ring. He was thinking about it more, dwelling on the melody, when he should have been concentrating on keeping his throat from being ripped out.

  There were too many dark pockets in this place. Several dog fights continued on the other side of the bleachers, so he couldn’t listen for movement. He inspected the gun. Safety was off. It was ready to fire. He didn’t want to have to shoot anybody or anything, but he wasn’t in a hurry to end up swimming in a blood puddle like the one at his feet. Across from the death scene, the floor rose into a cluttered hallway that was only made visible by a thin bar of light from an opening at the end. The light flickered, as though the door had recently been opened and shut.

  Drawing a tremendous breath, Johnny raced up the ramp, gun pressed forward. Large formations emerged from the indistinct areas along the wall. Some were stacks of crates like those outside, and others were bundles of baled cardboard and plastic, stored there for ages. Between them, chasms of gloom broadened. Hiding places. Even a two-hundred-pound dog could hunker down between them. And Count, as Johnny recalled him, menacing and quiet in his cage, knew how to lie in wait.

  Something cold and wet brushed his knuckles, and Johnny stepped back, gun pointed out, trembling in hand. He saw two eyes.

  At first—but it was feeble light having fun with him, reflecting off the surface of two crushed soda cans.

  Johnny quickened his pace. The door there was the swivel type he’d seen in restaurant kitchens. He hadn’t noticed before, but it had a small glassine window. The window looked smudged, with a rusty-colored fluid in the shape of two oval nostrils. Johnny pushed the door open with his foot. The subtle florescent light of the small warehouse detailed the brown-red paw prints painting the sleek surface.

  “Oh fuck…,” Johnny whispered. The music jangled in his head. So close to being. A tickling whisper on his earlobe.

  Across the warehouse teeming with crates, he saw a lift door with a chain just begging to be pulled. The air hung with the humid reek of fertilizer, of fresh soil and shit, a far from welcoming smell. Johnny moved out into the miserable enclosure, his lungs, already asthmatic, snapping shut like clam shells. He checked the ground for blood spatters, anything that would indicate where that dog had gone. He didn’t see any signs.

  Outside, he could hear the whirling sound of a forklift, and a subsequent banging as something heavy dropped into a truck. Asshole Shitwad, you got no idea, do you?

  Johnny went to the chain and tugged at the lift gate.

  A loud snort made his body lock in place.

  Johnny turned and saw the Count, about ten feet away. Sitting, the dog came to the level of his chest. Its buggy, quietly insane eyes fixed on him…but there was something else. It was waiting for him to move. Johnny couldn’t make out blood on its dark face, but the large jowls and snout were obscenely soaked with it.

  “What do you want big boy?” Johnny asked.

  The Count looked past him.

  “You want out?” Johnny tugged at the gate and pulled it up halfway.

  With a grunt, the Count took a few steps closer and sat again.

  “Go on….” Freedom. After all this abuse, you’ve earned it, fucker. I know how that is. For life to make you into something other people hate. Johnny stepped up onto a crate and pointed the gun. “Get going,” he ordered. “Don’t want to shoot.”

  A door slammed outside, followed by the distant sound of cursing. Gravel crunched under approaching footsteps.

  “What are you waiting for?” Johnny wiped sweat from his eyes. “Stupid! Go!”

  The Count began to pant with a pseudo dog-smile.

  His tail wagged fiercely.

  It happened with a force that made Johnny’s teeth grind. The dream song erupted inside his mind and burst into a series of falling notes, pounding beats, and swelling lyrics. It spilled into his ears. Into his heart. It reached out with all its invisible tendrils and leeched into reality. The violence of it made him drop the gun—he dipped to catch it and batted to the floor where it skidded to a stop near the dog’s left paw.

  “Aw fuck,” Johnny whispered and jumped as an office door swung open. Two rows of sleek, powerful bull dogs ushered a naked man toward the lift door. He was bound at the hands by a tether that both dog’s gripped in their jaws. The man writhed, in pain and full of hate. On its own, the lift door flew open, and sunlight washed out everything for a moment.

  As Johnny’s eyes adjusted to the light, he recognized the naked man’s pasty face. It was Asshole Shitwad. Or a version of him beaten mercilessly for years and now turned completely feral. Outside, rather than a dumpy storage yard, a stone coliseum stretched, mostly empty, except for in the center, a mass of naked people tearing and clawing at each other. He saw a bloody hand lift up a detached jawbone, and he forced his eyes away.

  The rows of bull dogs led their captive down the steps, toward the bloody chaos.

  Johnny wanted to scream, but another scream quickly
doubled over on it, rendering him silent. The Count took two strides, going up on his back legs, not quite standing erect, but walking like no dog should ever walk. His front paws also changed, became more humanlike. He held a scepter of human bones, a child’s skull fixed to the top, and used it like a cane to support his demented gait. Johnny quaked so much he couldn’t form a coherent thought.

  The side of the Count’s jowl lifted at Johnny, like a smirk of gratitude, and then he plodded into the arena, in a hurry to watch the next fighter enter the fray, canine eyes wide in delight, an emperor returned to his country.

  Johnny jumped down from the crate and sidled up to the door. He checked behind him on the floor for the gun but it was nowhere to be found. Grinding his teeth, he turned back. The new arena had broken through the surrounding chain-link fence and had thrust many of the crates into the surrounding field, as well as tipping over the semi-truck the two men had arrived in. A frenzied maze of crates stood between him and his U-Haul, which he could see beyond a heap of crumbling stone and open containers of fertilizer. Johnny’s vision blurred. He took off his glasses and at once saw everything clearly. Far beyond that, possibly miles away, he could see a great black curtain falling from the clouds to the ground.

  “Holy shit.” He stuffed the glasses into the pocket of his cargo shorts.

  The Count would make him the next contestant down there. That had to be the point of this place. It might have been an odd thing to think otherwise, but he wagered that dogs in power could not be trusted. Another small intuition told Johnny he was too familiar with this area, with this neighborhood, and as long as he treaded in this land, the dogs would have their way. So he had to get to that U-Haul. He was certain that was the answer.

  If he reached that big curtain, all this madness would end.

  Chapter 12