But what were they doing? They’d stopped howling. They were lying down on the ground together. Were they mating? Or prostrating, submitting themselves to Dog? Fools! Did they think she would spare them? She growled with joy; her mouth flooded with drool.
They were doing something with the bath: scratching at it, pushing it. And now it lifted and Dog saw their cowardly plan. She put on an extra burst of speed and barked at them, warning them to stand their ground and fight, but they disobeyed and crawled inside the bath then tipped it down again just as she reached it.
She circled it, snarling and shouting, furious at her enemies’ cowardice but also at herself. She pushed at the bath with her snout, but it was solid, impregnable. They were safe inside. She circled it, looking for an opening, listening to the cowardly babble of their voices.
‘Great. We’re trapped inside again.’
‘We’re outside, Steve. We’re just inside the bath.’
‘That’s what I said. We’re inside.’
‘But the bath is outside.’
‘The house was outside. Does that mean that when we were inside the house we were really outside?’
‘That’s stupid.’
‘Stupid? You wouldn’t dare talk to me like that if my shock troops were here. Why, they’d—’ The underling broke off and screamed. Dog had dug a small hole in the mud beneath the bath and forced her snout through it, and now she growled and snapped at his pink terrified face. Both males recoiled, knocking the bath backwards off the hole.
‘Get off me!’
‘Stop kicking, Steve. Calm down. Listen. We don’t have long. That creature will dig its way in, or someone will hear it barking and find us. We need to think our way out of this.’
‘You’re right. What should we do?’
‘We should come up with a plan.’
‘Your plan is that we come up with a plan?’
‘Hush, Steve. I’m trying to think.’
‘Hush? Hush? How dare you.’
Dog ignored them. She had problems of her own. Should she go and get help? There were dozens of people on the other side of the house, and they would come running if she barked loud enough. But then they would take these enemies to the pack leader. Dog wanted the joy and ecstasy of delivering these captives herself: laying them before the pack leader in a bloody, defeated pile.
She sat back on her haunches and panted a little. This sometimes helped her think. Should she go and find the pack leader? She would be in her house at the top of the hill. Dog was not allowed inside this house either, but she could run up to it and bark outside. Maybe even rest her forelegs on the floor inside the door if it was open? Then the pack leader would come and follow her down and see that she’d trapped these enemies and vigorously scratch her ears. But what if they returned to find the enemies gone? No, she’d have to deal with these disgusting creatures herself.
And then Dog broke off her thoughts and leapt to her feet. The males were doing something. They’d been whispering to each other; now the bath lifted an inch or two off the ground. Dog trotted towards it. It moved! She leapt back. She growled as it slowly crawled across the muddy ground, back towards the house. It rounded the corner and headed for the front door.
So that was their plan! They knew Dog wasn’t allowed inside the House and they thought they’d be safe if they made it back inside. Well, they were wrong about that. Why, she would follow them right in and drag them out again! And they had to reach the House first. She pushed her snout at the gap below the bath and tried to push it up to tip it over. She snarled as the stench of fear and weakness grew stronger, and her enemies howled and babbled and the bath moved even faster. But it was too heavy for her to lift with her snout, and she withdrew and danced away again, snuffling at the trail of scent they left behind. Dog could smell the dye in their clothes, the glue in their shoes, the blood in their veins. She could smell their sour bladders and the yeasty contents of their bowels and, in the sweat that now soaked their backs, the components of their last meal. And she could smell the Old Smell. The complex and frightening smell that she had never smelt before she came to this valley.
Dog had arrived in Te Aro ten winters ago. Her memory of life before that was vague: she remembered vast planes of concrete, loud noises that made her bristle and whimper, terrible loneliness. How much happier she was at her new home! She loved the cool shade beneath the trees, the fields of long grass and hidden rabbits, the screams of occasional trespassers when Dog fell upon them, her teeth flashing in the sun. But she didn’t like the Old Smell. How to describe it? Salty and metallic, half-organic, very very old. It came from the old house on top of the hill but it also bubbled up from flooded rabbit warrens when it rained in the spring, and it was strongest outside the culvert at the bottom of the hill, which led into the tunnels beneath the valley.
Dog’s job was to protect the pack leader’s territory. Dog Was Not Allowed inside the crumbling old buildings staggered up the hillside, or inside the tunnel, or inside the pack leader’s house at the top of the slope. She patrolled the territory during the day, and at night she greeted the pack leader when she emerged from the tunnel and escorted her up the hillside to her house.
At first the door to this house was reached by a flight of rotting steps, but shortly after Dog arrived, the pack leader ordered her underlings to tear them down.
The underlings came from the tunnel: a pale, weak-limbed gaggle. They replaced the steps with a scaffolding made of vertical steel poles and horizontal wooden planks. The planks formed a makeshift stairway which the pack leader climbed every evening. Dog would scramble up behind her.
Then the pack leader cooked dinner in the kitchen while Dog waited at the door. Sometimes putting one foot inside the hall, sometimes snuffling. Not trying to be obtrusive, just letting the pack leader know she was still there. Finally the pack leader would finish cooking and would sit on the scaffolding next to Dog, swinging her legs over the side and letting Dog eat bacon or chops or potatoes off her plate.
When the plate was licked clean, Dog rested her muzzle on the pack leader’s knee and sniffed her extensively. She smelled of tunnels and darkness, and books, but beyond that she smelled of the old house and the hill where Dog lived.
The pack leader had been a pup here. She’d lived here a long time, far longer than Dog’s lifetime. She owned the territory, and every night Dog communicated her fealty with a sequence of snout-pushes and eye-rolls. The pack leader understood and scratched Dog’s ears. Then she went inside and slept in her bedroom while Dog slept in the small shelter at the end of the scaffolding, in the snug warmth of her blanket.
For many seasons their days were the same. Then, at the end of last summer, things changed.
It was a baking hot day. Dog spent the morning investigating the mouse and butterfly situation in the lower meadow, then she retreated to the cool shade of a beech tree by the driveway. She dozed—it was hours before the pack leader would return—but woke when she heard voices.
It was a man and a woman. Dog watched as they climbed over the fence. They were wearing backpacks and carrying bags filled with groceries. The wind carried their scents: the usual medley of human smells, but also the Old Smell. Dog was about to charge them, send them running, bite them if they defied her; but then she parsed out the man’s scent. He smelled of this place and the house on the hill. He smelled like the pack leader. He was of her litter. Did that mean he was allowed to be here?
The woman shouted. She’d seen Dog. The man knelt and rummaged in his pack. He brought out a package of sausages, tore it open and whistled at Dog, then clicked his fingers and pointed at them.
Dog was noble and proud and fierce. When newcomers invaded her territory she would fight them or die. But this man was of the pack leader’s kin; this was his territory. Also: sausages. So she trotted forward and greeted them. The man patted Dog and the woman praised Dog’s beauty. Dog accepted these compliments then ate the sausages with quiet dignity. Eventually the woman said
to the man, ‘Let’s get out of sight.’
They set off up the driveway. Dog trotted after them.
The man carried a box filled with paper, and a briefcase. Inside the case was crushed ice. Beneath that, barely detectable to Dog’s nose, were hundreds of glass vials with rubber stoppers. Inside them was a liquid that smelled of the Old Smell.
They picked one of the abandoned houses halfway up the hill. Back then the buildings were all uninhabited, boarded up, but the man and woman circled around and found a loose board hanging from a window. They piled rocks and built a stairway up to it. The man prised the board away, then he and the woman disappeared inside.
They stayed there all day. When the pack leader returned from the tunnels, Dog greeted her and indicated the presence of the newcomers via a sequence of jumps and snorts and tail motions. ‘There are two people living in one of the abandoned buildings,’ Dog explained, bounding along beside the pack leader. ‘A male and a female. They gave me a sausage! The man is of your kin. I’m guessing the female is his mate although she did not carry the stink of his seed in her loins. Maybe they’re going through a tough patch? I think he can do better than her. Anyway, because the male is your kin, I let them stay. Was that cool? If it wasn’t, I can chase them away or take you to them, or we can just sit on the scaffolding outside your house and watch the sunset, and eat bacon. Your call.’
They sat on the scaffolding and ate bacon.
The next day the pack leader went into the tunnel as usual. Dog spent the day waiting below the window of the abandoned townhouse, her tail thumping on the dry grass, wondering if the newcomers had any more sausages. They did! The female emerged in the mid-morning, stinking of the Old Smell. She saw Dog and tossed another sausage at her. She climbed down the pile of bricks and hurried down the driveway, climbed over the gate and disappeared. She returned late in the day with another female, taller than her with ink patterns carved around her ankles, and they went up into the house and spent the night there.
And so Dog’s life went on for several months and many sausages. The days grew shorter. The autumn winds blew up and the shadows of clouds raced across the fields of grass. An owl moved into a tree near the pack leader’s house and defied Dog’s command to move on. But the lives of the pack leader and the male and female went on much the same. Until late one afternoon.
Dog had been sleeping. There was a pile of concrete slabs in the top meadow and they soaked up the heat of the sun. Dog decided to guard these slabs. She lay upon them, her paws outstretched, the rough warmth toasty on her belly, and she dozed. She had a frustrating dream in which she chased large butterflies made of meat across a drowned meadow and her legs got stuck in the mire. She woke snarling, her footpads damp with sweat. The air was contaminated with the scent of an invader.
Dog stood and sniffed deeply. The invader was a human female. She smelled strange: very clean but contaminated in some indefinable way. Dog could tell that she’d entered the development by climbing the gate at the bottom of the hill, then she’d made her way up, searching the derelict townhouses before arriving at the building where the man and the woman slept. That’s when her smell became close enough to wake Dog.
Dog sped towards the townhouse, and as she ran her nose detected movement below. The invader was heading back down the hill. She stank of blood.
The information was in the air but Dog was too excited to make sense of it. She charged down pathways, under bushes and over puddles. By the time she reached the townhouse the invader was halfway to the bottom of the hill. She was fast but Dog was faster. She could reach this invader before the invader reached the gate.
But Dog hesitated. The smell of blood flooding out from the townhouse was overpowering. It came in great drifts, mixed with urine, stress hormones, the Old Smell. Someone had been hurt; hurt badly. It was the man. The pack leader’s kin. Dog concentrated and the sequence of events written in the air became clear to her. The invader had come into the townhouse and attacked the male while he slept.
Should Dog pursue the invader or go inside and help the wounded man? She could lick his face and nuzzle his fingers until he got better. Or—and now that she thought of this, she realised this was what she must do—she could alert the pack leader. Summon her and tell her everything. The pack leader would know what to do.
She raced to the culvert at the bottom of the hill. When she passed the last townhouse she caught a glimpse of the invader. They were a long way away and Dog’s eyes weren’t very good: what she saw was a blur of motion as the invader approached the gate. The invader held a cardboard box under her arm and a club in her free hand, and she tossed them over the gate before clambering over herself. The box carried the wounded male’s scent. Is that why the invader had invaded? To steal the box?
Dog reached the culvert. Beyond it lay the network of tunnels which Dog Was Not Allowed Inside. But she knew the network well. She could smell the stream, teeming with its tiny sightless aquatic life. Beyond that the bookshop, with its acidic aroma of paper, ink and glue. Deeper down was the old quarry. These tunnels were all blocked off, but traces of what lay beyond filtered out through the gaps in the brickwork and wound its way to Dog’s warm, damp, powerful nose, and troubled her brain with incomprehensible sensations. There was something down there, Dog knew. Something deep. Something strange. Something very, very old.
It was the Old Smell in its deepest most pure essence. But closer—much closer—was the warm mixture of the pack leader’s scent. Dog sat at the mouth of the tunnel and barked. She explained what had happened and took full responsibility for the lapse in security. She explained about the sun-warmed blocks and promised not to sleep on them again. She described the invader—bipedal, female, mostly hairless—and her attack on the man in the townhouse and the theft of the box.
And the pack leader was coming! Dog leaped about for joy, jumping and barking. The pack leader! The pack leader! And then she was there! Dog forgot—for a moment—everything that had happened, and continued leaping for joy, until a scream rang out. It came from the townhouse halfway up the slope. The woman had awoken and discovered the man. The pack leader hurried towards the townhouse.
Dog led the way. By the time they arrived, the woman had emerged from the house. She had the man’s blood on her, and she clutched a stick like a club and trembled with fear. She was sobbing and breathing in deep ragged gasps. When she saw the pack leader her terror deepened. She raised the stick and stepped backwards and said, in a voice drowned in fear, ‘Gorgon.’
~
The bath crashed into the edge of the doorway. The males inside it cried out, adjusted direction and tried again.
Dog watched, amused. As soon as they were inside she would follow them. If they tried to stop her or shut the door, or poke any of their limbs out from beneath the bath, Dog would grab them and pull them outdoors and run around them, barking. Fools.
They were halfway through now. Dog scratched at the bath, ready to rush inside. But what was happening? The bath rose to block the doorway. They were shutting her out! They’d tricked Dog! She threw herself against the upturned tub, but it held firm.
She would have to go get help. The pack leader’s house was too far away but her servants were nearby. They would do.
She headed towards the road. Several servants were coming up the hill. They carried strange instruments, all of which reeked of the Old Smell. Dog would get them to follow her.
She was halfway to the road when something struck her flank. She snarled and spun around. A stone! Someone had hit her with a stone! Who dared?
There was a flash of movement from the side of the house. One of the enemy males: the master, the one not chained to the bathtub. It had found another exit. And now it thought it could stand there and toss stones at Dog with impunity! Her head clouded with rage. She charged at him and he fled, his stupid bald arms flying about his soft weak bald body. She rounded the corner of the house and saw him scrabbling up the concrete stacked against the wall—th
e same one the man and the woman once used—leading to an open window. He jumped through and Dog gave chase, racing up the steps.
But just as she reached the top a new smell reached her. There was another person in Threshold. Someone who wasn’t supposed to be here. They were around the other side of the townhouse, coming up the hillside. Someone Dog had smelled before.
The invader.
Dog knew what she had to do. Leave these absurd males. Find the invader and destroy them. But it took a second for Dog’s brain to process these thoughts, and while she thought she continued to run up the steps, carried on by rage and instinct. Beyond the window was a dark room with a long drop to the floor. Once inside, Dog wouldn’t be able to get out. She needed to stop. Turn back!
But she was moving too fast. Dog leapt into the darkness.
38
No!
Danyl ran.
The room was lit by a shaft of light from the window. He was almost at the door when the light vanished, blocked by the head and body of the shaggy wolf-sized dog he’d deliberately enraged.
It bounded into the room. The light returned, casting the dog’s monstrous shadow on the wall. This shadow looked up, growled and leapt. Danyl stumbled backwards then remembered that the actual dog was behind him. He reversed direction and ran for the archway.
This was all his idea. Five minutes ago he’d been trapped beneath the bath with Steve while the dog’s fanged, drooling snout pushed under the rim millimetres from his face. They were screaming at each other until Danyl clutched Steve’s wrist and said, ‘We’re friends, remember? We’re a team. We can beat a dog.’
Mysterious Mysteries of the Aro Valley Page 21