Dogchild

by Kevin Brooks

  I waited, watching the human.

  He glanced across at the birds, making sure they were still there, and then – after calling out over his shoulder, presumably to someone else in the building – he ran off into the darkness.

  I considered waiting a while to make sure that no one else came out of the house, but I couldnt afford to waste any more time. So I jumped to my feet, ran over to the wall and grabbed the hooked pole, then ran back to the hanging birds, raised the hooked pole high above my head and unhooked the birds from the rope, dropping them to the ground one by one. Then I just picked up the birds and raced off back towards the tunnel.

  There was a lot of commotion going on now – more shouting, more barking, even a few gunshots – but I ignored it all and kept running. At one point I turned a corner and ran straight into a human with a gun. He swore at me first, assuming I was just a clumsy child, but it only took him a moment to realize he was wrong. I dont know how I must have looked to him – a human child of sorts, but naked and filthy and wild, with long matted hair and dirtblack skin, and fingernails and toenails hardened into claws---but whatever he thought I was, he knew I wasnt one of his people. And when he saw the 3 dead birds I was carrying, he knew I was the enemy. He took a step back from me and began raising his rifle. Ive no doubt he would have shot me – human child or not – but I didnt give him the chance. I lunged at him and sank my teeth into his leg, ripping away a chunk of flesh, and even as he screamed in pain and stumbled backwards, dropping the rifle and clutching his savaged leg, I was already running away.

  I kept going, hurtling on through the darkness – slowing only slightly to stoop down and scoop up the severed leg of a towndog – and when I reached the tunnel I didnt stop and wait for the others, I just dived inside and crawled through it as fast as I could. And when I came out at the other end, I still just kept going.

  That was the plan.

  Once youre out, dont wait for the others, just go. Keep running. And dont stop.

  And thats what I did.

  Its midmorning now, and Ime sitting by the window in my downstairs room, writing in the light of a shimmering white sun. Ive been writing all night, stopping every now and then to just sit and think and watch people going by on the sunbaked dirt street outside---

  I know this is all wrong.

  This isnt what Ime supposed to be doing. Gun Sur didnt tell me to write my life story, he told me to write an account of the times and lives of our people, so I know that at some point soon Ime going to have to tear out these pages and start all over again---

  But not just yet.

  Starry was right when he said that I need to know who I am and where I came from before I can begin telling the story of our world. But Ime starting to realize that the need to know who I am and where I came from is the emptiness thats ached inside me for as long as I can remember, and now that Ive begun to fill that emptiness, Ime not sure I can stop.

  I will---

  I have to.

  But not just yet.

  The raid on the town was a success. We all managed to steal some food and get back out through the tunnel, and we were all unhurt apart from one of the young males who took a rifleshot in his shoulder. It was only a flesh wound though, the bullet barely grazing his skin, and it didnt cause him any problems.

  Although we didnt leave town together, it wasnt long before wede all caught up with each other and were running as a pack, and once we were all back together again we just kept on going at the same steady pace, our jaws – and my hands – weighed down with plunder, making our way back into the Deathlands. When we finally stopped, we must have covered at least 20 miles, maybe even more, and wede seen no sign at all of anyone following us.

  We were safe.

  And tired.

  And hungry.

  It was time, at last, to feast on our haul of plundered meat.

  We ate all kinds of wonderful things that night. Dried meat, salted meat, cooked meat, bird meat, various bits of towndog – limbs, a head – fish, cornbread, and all sorts of other things Ide never eaten before. We gorged ourselves until we couldnt eat anymore, and then we lay down – our bellies bursting – and slept. And when we woke again, we ate again, and then once more we slept.

  For the first time in months, our hunger was sated.

  It was a magnificent feeling.

  But it didnt last long.

  The hunting in the Deathlands didnt improve, and within a week or so we were all desperately hungry again, and the decision was taken to carry out another raid on the town. This time though, the decision wasnt unanimous. My mother was against it. She thought it was too early to go back, that it wouldnt be so easy this time because the humans would have learned from their mistake and increased their security. They werent stupid. Theyd know we might try again. And theyd do everything possible to make sure that next time we wouldnt succeed. But the rest of the pack didnt agree with her. The humans might be smart, but we were smarter. Wede outwitted them once, we could do it again.

  My mother did her best to persuade the pack from going, but she couldnt forbid them.

  Dog leadership isnt the same as human leadership. It isnt absolute. Pack leaders – male or female – dont just give orders that have to be followed without question. If the majority of the pack dont agree with the leader, theyre entitled to make their own decisions. And thats what happened in this case. The pack went against my mothers advice and decided to raid the town again.

  Even though she thought it was the wrong decision, my mother still would have come with us under normal circumstances, but on the day of the raid she gave birth, so she had to stay behind to look after her pups.

  I could have stayed behind with her, and part of me wanted nothing more, but if Ide stayed behind I would never have been part of the pack again. I had to go with them.

  We didnt look back at her as we set off that night, and I didnt say goodbye to her either. That wasnt how things were done. But I wish now that I had said goodbye, and I wish wede listened to her advice.

  These words Ime using – saying goodbye, listening to her advice – theyre only very vague approximations of how things actually were. Its impossible to translate the language of dogs into human words. Theyre not just 2 different languages, theyre entirely different things altogether. A dogs sense of communication is as alien and inexplicable to humans as the thoughts of a bird or the feelings of an insect. Dogs know each other rather than talk to each other. We know our bodies, our eyes, our mouths, our lips, our tails, our postures, our movements, our space, our scents, our breath, our hearts. We know who we are and what we want from our world.

  Despite going against my mothers advice, we knew she could be right, and we were all very wary as we approached the town that night. We stopped half a mile away and spent a long time just standing there, looking and listening and smelling the air, searching for any sign that the humans were waiting for us.

  We saw nothing.

  Everything seemed the same as before.

  We moved on, cautiously confident.

  When we reached the entrance to the tunnel, we stopped and waited again – watching, listening, sniffing – making sure everything was safe. There was no sign of any increased security. The tunnel hadnt been filled in or blocked up, and – apart from the faint trace of our own scent – it smelled and looked exactly the same as it had before. And when one of the young males was sent ahead down the tunnel to check the exit, he came back and confirmed that it was perfectly safe. It hadnt been secured, and the thicket of thornbushes hadnt been disturbed.

  Everything seemed fine.

  We entered the tunnel and passed through it as before – in single file, one by one. We all made it through and gathered together in the shelter of the thornbushes. Ime sure that some of us had the feeling then that something wasnt quite right – a hint of an alien scent mixing with the sweetness of thornbush flowers – but there was nothing obviously out of place, and the jetblack male was so confident now that he e
ither forgot, or didnt think it was necessary, to stop and wait again to make absolutely sure it was safe to go ahead. He just gave the signal and the raid began.

  Once again, just as before, we set off together, all 9 of us loping out of the thicket---

  But that was to be the last thing that happened just as it had before.

  Wede only just emerged from the thicket when the jetblack male suddenly stopped, and as the rest of us stopped behind him we could see what the problem was. The way ahead was barred by a high, and impenetrable, wiremesh fence. The male turned to his left in an effort to go round it, but almost immediately he was stopped by another fence, and he knew then – as we all did – that wede walked into a trap.

  We all turned at once and began racing back towards the tunnel, but before wede got anywhere near it a heavy iron grid came crashing down in front of the entrance, blocking our way out, and a moment later the darkness erupted in a blaze of light as dozens of torches burst into flame all around us.

  We could see what had happened now. The humans had been waiting for us, just as my mother had warned. Theyd erected a large wiremesh cage around the tunnel exit – with a cast-iron grid fixed to the top of the open end – and once we were all inside the cage theyd triggered a mechanism to release the grid and it had slid down and blocked the cage shut.

  We were trapped.

  No way out.

  And the cage was surrounded by dozens of torch-wielding humans, all of them carrying weapons – rifles, pistols, clubs, axes---

  We flung ourselves at them, throwing ourselves against the fences, tearing at the wire with our teeth, doing everything in our power to get to the humans and rip them to pieces---but our efforts were futile. The fences were too strong – unbreakable, impenetrable.

  We never stood a chance.

  One of the humans barked out an order, and all I can remember after that is a deafening barrage of gunfire, a continuous roar of crashing guns---a few yelps of pain---the sound of bodies thudding to the ground---and then nothing but a terrible silence filled with the smell of gunpowder and death.

  I cant write anymore.

  Later on – after Ide finished writing and dozed in my chair for a few hours – I went over to Starrys house to see how he was doing. When his revolver had exploded at the beach, it could easily have blown his hand off, but hede been very lucky and all hede lost was the top half of his little finger.

  He lives alone in a ramshackle 3-story house that backs onto the beach, a rambling maze of winding stairs and dusty corridors and dozens of rooms filled to the brim with all kinds of bits and pieces. This vast collection of scavenged scrap includes just about everything and anything – from scraps of leather and coils of rope to iron railings and rusted hulks of machinery. Starry is the master of it all. Its his job, his duty. Hese both our Fisherman and our Scrapkeeper.

  He was trying to repair his beloved old Colt Dragoon when I went to see him that afternoon. The remains of the revolver were laid out on his kitchen table, and he was sitting there poking through a box full of old pistol parts – his hand wrapped up in a grubby bandage – searching for a cylinder to replace the one that had exploded.

  Its a good job you werent using a gun that actually works, I said, sitting down next to him. The only reason youve still got a hand is because that old pistol of yours was virtually falling apart anyway. If it hadnt been such a wreck it would have blown up properly.

  Yeh, well, he replied, when I fix it this time, Ile make sure its strong enough to blow off my whole arm when it explodes.

  Fix what? I said, gazing down at the wreck of the gun. Theres nothing left to fix.

  He picked up the smokeblackened barrel and studied it for a few moments – holding it up to the light and squinting through the sights – and then, with a sigh of defeat, he put it back down on the table.

  Damn it, he said wearily. Ime going to have to start looking for a new one now, arent I?

  Guns are a precious commodity. Fighters have first priority on all available firearms, and any civilian who owns a gun considers it their most valuable possession. People will trade almost anything – food, tools, clothing, their homes – but the one thing everyone holds on to is their gun. Starry was going to have his work cut out to find himself a new pistol.

  As he started picking up the remains of his revolver and putting them in the box full of old pistol parts, I noticed his heavy wooden walking crutch lying on the other side of the table. Hede made the crutch himself, laboriously carving it out of a 5-inch-thick branch of ironwood, and he was forever making modifications to it – adjusting the hand grip, improving the balance, trying different types of padding on the armrest. Hede even added a secret compartment to it. I dont know how he did it, but hede made it so that the armrest could be unscrewed from the main part of the crutch, and hede hollowed out the top 6 inches of the main part to form a hidden compartment that was virtually invisible when the armrest was screwed back on.

  I dont know what he keeps in there, if anything, and Ive never asked. The way I see it, if he wanted me to know hede tell me.

  So, he said to me, hows the account coming along? Have you started it yet?

  I told him what Ide written so far, and that the next thing I was going to write about was my rehumanization.

  Right, he said, nodding thoughtfully. I dont think you need to spend too much time on the rehumanization though---

  He hesitated, looking at me.

  Its up to you, of course, he said. Ime not telling you how to do it. I just think —

  Its all right, I told him. I understand.

  As he held my gaze for a moment, I could tell that he was feeling awkward, so I wasnt surprised when he nodded again, but this time with a sense of finality, as if to say the subject was closed.

  He turned in his chair and pointed across the kitchen at a basket on the floor.

  Do you mind taking that to Van Hesse on your way back? he asked me.

  The basket contained 3 goodsized silver fish and a massive black crab.

  Did you catch all that this morning? I asked him.

  He nodded, his mind elsewhere.

  Van Hesse is our Grocer, the man in charge of all the towns food and drink rations. Everything Starry catches goes to him.

  I left Starry to his thoughts, took the basket to Van Hesse, and went back to my house.

  Although dogchilds arent common, enough of them exist that over the years our people have developed a process for rehumanizing the ones who are brought back from the wild, and after the trapping and killing of my pack that day, I was put through that process.

  I dont remember much about the immediate aftermath of the massacre, but I know that I fought like Ide never fought before. I was wild with rage and grief at the slaughter of my family, and when the humans tried to restrain me I tore at them like a thing of madness. I no longer cared for my own life, I just wanted to kill them, every single one of them---I wanted to rip them apart, tear out their throats---I wanted to butcher them all. But although I fought like a demon, shedding their blood and making them scream, there were simply too many of them, and they had clubs and nets and chains and ropes, and eventually they overcame me and bound me up so tightly – wrapping my head and mouth with strips of leather – that I could barely move a muscle.

  I was taken to a small stone building where they held me down and freed my head and my mouth but left my arms and legs tied, and then they locked me in and left me alone, and I lay on the dirt floor howling into the night.

  The rehumanization process takes a long long time. All dogchilds are savage and fearful of humans at first, so for the first few months – and sometimes more – theyre kept locked up in the stone building, chained securely to a post in the ground, and they stay that way until theyre considered safe to release. Throughout this period – however long it takes – the dogchild is fed and watered and never without human company. At this stage in the process the dogchild is accompanied by a different person every day. Its usually an
Older or a Younger – but never another dogchild – and their only duty is to be there. They dont approach the dogchild, they dont attempt to communicate with it or comfort it in any way, they simply provide it with human company.

  The idea behind this is that eventually the dogchild will learn that it has nothing to fear from humans, and for roughly half of those being rehumanized this is more or less what happens. But there are just as many cases when the dogchild simply fades away and dies. No one knows why. Its just the way it is.

  Those that survive, and lose their fear of humans, are then allocated a mentor who stays with them for the rest of the rehumanizing process.

  My mentor was Starry.

  He knew from the moment I was captured that I was his nephew, partly because I looked so much like my father, but mainly because of my birthmark – a small red crescent-shaped mark just below my right eye – which was impossible for Starry to forget because my mother, his sister, had an almost identical mark below her left eye. There was no question at all that I was Jeet, the 5-year-old son of Pooli and Kesra, and that Starry was therefore my uncle. He claimed that this gave him the right to be my mentor, and no one disagreed with him.

  Ive never doubted Starrys reason for wanting to be my mentor – we were blood relatives, and it was his right to rehumanize and raise me – but Ime fairly sure that wasnt his only reason. Hese never stopped hating himself for running away when the wagon was attacked by the Wild Ones, and hese been eaten up with guilt and shame ever since. I dont think he believed that raising me would make up for his actions and absolve him of what he thought was his terrible sin – hese never going to forgive himself for that – but Ive always thought that as well as genuinely wanting to do his best for me, he also felt that it was his duty, his responsibility, his obligation.