Interfictions 2

by Delia Sherman

  "Nice doggie,” I said. I held up the sausages so it would know I was willing to try. The Black Dog just smiled and pressed its body against the chain-link fence. The silky midnight of its muzzle pressed through the links, the moist tip sniffing as I got closer. Mum was looking in the other direction, her eyes on the dark clouds that squatted on the horizon. Clouds were worrying things during storm season.

  "Little boy,” the Black Dog whispered, his voice just low enough that mum couldn't hear. “Yum."

  I dropped the sausages and squirmed out of my mother's hands, taking the stairs two at a time as she yelled out my name and demanded I come back. I refused to leave the house, watching her search for the dropped sausages through the wire of the screen door.

  Later that night she told my father what had happened, whispering the story in hushed tones after I went to bed, when they thought I could not hear. She couldn't work out how the sausages had disappeared.

  * * * *

  When I was seven, my parents were transferred, so we moved south to the Gold Coast. I was happy to move. We settled into the suburbs, and the only thing behind the fence in our backyard was another backyard and the neighbor's pool. We envied that pool during the sweltering summer months, but most of the time I was just happy to have something good to watch on television. Having multiple channels seemed like a smorgasbord after Miriwinni's patchy reception.

  I liked our new house. I had friends who lived in the same neighborhood; they could come around and play after school. There were enough people around to play Frisbee or cricket in the backyard, as long as no one threw too hard or hit the ball high enough that it would go over the fence.

  We had a big fence. An old, wooden thing with gray slats and pointed tips that was so tall even my mother couldn't peer over the top. My mother was the tallest person in my family, at least three inches taller than my father. It was her job to look over the tall fences; his job to repair the tall fences if anything went wrong.

  * * * *

  My new bedroom was small, but so was I back then. It came with pictures of Donald Duck drawn into the walls and a built-in reading lamp that meant I could read in bed. I liked reading; my bookshelves were filled with fairy tales and the works of Enid Blyton. Reading was like having imaginary friends who did things on their own. It meant I didn't have to sleep.

  I will tell you something true about the Black Dog. It can breathe fire. It could roast you in seconds, scouring you down to bare bones and ash. You can run away, but it will always come and find you. The Black Dog is persistent. It can smell your dreams in the warm night air as soon as you fall asleep, no matter how far you run. If the Black Dog wants to find you, there is nothing you can do to stop it.

  When I was nine, the Black Dog found me again. I hadn't seen it for two years. First it slunk into my dreams and breathed its fiery breath. My skin crisped and flaked, the muscles and tendons melting away. I became a skeleton, blackened and crumbling, ready to be munched and crunched in the Black Dog's great jaws. I woke up screaming. My mother was sitting by the bed, wearing her pajamas.

  "Shh,” she said, cool hand on my forehead. “It's just a nightmare. It can't hurt you."

  She told me the same thing, night after night, her face growing tight and disappointed. The Black Dog kept coming. I learned not to scream in my sleep.

  * * * *

  People came to the Gold Coast because it had beaches and sun. The Black Dog hated the sun; I don't think it was too fond of sand. That meant it came to the Gold Coast because it was following me. It took up residence behind the fence again, hidden in the shadows of our neighbor's garden. I liked the high fence; it stopped the Black Dog from seeing me play in the backyard. If I was feeling brave, I could climb up and snatch a quick peek, trying to spot it among the delicate fingers of the neighbor's low ferns.

  I didn't feel brave all that often. If we lost a Frisbee over the fence, I'd make one of my friends go and get it. Sometimes they wouldn't come back, and my parents would get concerned calls from their parents. Sometimes, late at night, I would hear the Black Dog swimming. It would splash about in the neighbor's pool, growling and baying at the moon. It didn't like sand, but I think it was starting to like the water.

  * * * *

  When I say the words Black Dog I am not speaking in metaphor. I don't use it as slang or to hide another meaning. There are legends that say you'll die if you see a Black Dog, unless you take the time to tell someone about it before the next dawn. I never said anything about the Black Dog to anyone, not at first, but I kept on living anyway.

  Legends tend to refer to black dogs as capitalized: Black Dog, something singular and dangerous rather than something generic. The Black Dog is not just any black dog; you aren't going to die just because your neighbors have a sooty Labrador in their back yard. The name Black Dog is specific; you'll know it if you see it.

  * * * *

  I lived on the Gold Cost for eight years. The Black Dog lived there with me. Sometimes it would disappear for months; I don't know why. There was never any obvious reason for its absence. It still crept into my dreams, lingering on the edges two or three times a week, breathing its fire-breath and gnashing its jaws and reducing me to a screaming pile of black bones.

  I didn't miss the Black Dog when it went away, but I didn't sleep well, either. I would lie awake, reading in the dim glow of my night light, delaying the moment when I had to close my eyes. Sometimes, if I asked it nicely, the Black Dog would even give me the night off. I guess it had other places to go, other people's dreams to lurk in. Even Black Dogs can be busy.

  * * * *

  I'll be honest: not all of this is true. I'm lying in places. I've left out the dull bits and built on old memories. It happens, in biography; some things are changed for the sake of convenience.

  An example: We moved to Miriwinni when I was three, not five. We moved to the Gold Coast when I was six. I completely skipped the three years we lived elsewhere, hanging out in a country town with too many pubs and even more churches. We lived in more than one house on the Gold Coast; we moved across the suburbs like wandering stars for the first seven years I lived there. And the Black Dog never gave me a break, not even when I asked for it. It sat there, night after night, a malignant blot on the landscape of my dreams. The Black Dog was a bastard; he had no consideration for narrative momentum or character arcs.

  * * * *

  The Black Dog ate my first girlfriend. Her name was Suzanna, and we were both sixteen. We'd met when I was eight, and she taught me how to throw a Frisbee. We were friends, originally, but there isn't much space for friendship when you're sixteen. Things evolve whether you want them to or not.

  I was a much better friend than I was a boyfriend, even before my kissing her got Suzanna eaten. I was a sloppy kisser back then, and I was so nervous about being her boyfriend that I never had much fun when we were together.

  She got eaten while we were hanging out on the balcony at her place. We were drinking instant coffee, trying to get used to the taste so we could go to caf?s and drink lattes without seeming like children. We would boil the kettle, make a cup and then try to keep a straight face while we drank it down. Coffee isn't particularly bitter if you add six teaspoons of sugar, but the sharp kick of the sugar rush was as bad as the Nescaf? bitterness.

  We were on our third cup when Suzanna noticed me watching the fence line. I was a connoisseur of fences by then; I'd been studying them for years, rating them by how well they could keep the Black Dog at bay. I liked the towering fence at Suzanna's because it was made of orange bricks. By now I was afraid the Black Dog would work out that it could simply burn down the wooden fence we had at home.

  "What?” Suzanna said. “Why are you looking at the fence?"

  "Nothing,” I said. The balcony gave us a good angle; I could just make out the Black Dog's hackles rising over the bricks as it hid on the other side. It was a big dog now, bigger than I remembered it.

  "No,” Suzanna said. “You always do it.
It's weird."

  "Maybe I'm just Paranoid,” I said. Suzanna was into metal and had a love affair with Sabbath and Led Zep. I'd learned to weave the names of her favorite songs into conversations; a private joke. Suzanna picked at her black shirt, frown disappearing behind her ragged fringe as she looked down.

  "Don't make jokes,” she said. “I thought you loved me.” I thought I loved her too; she looked so hurt that I told her the truth.

  "There's this dog that follows me,” I said. “A big, black one. It hides behind fences and wants to burn me with its breath."

  Suzanna didn't say anything. Then she said: “My neighbors don't have a dog."

  "It's invisible,” I said. “I'm the only person who can see it. It's been hanging around since I was six. It creeps into my dreams and breathes fire."

  "That's stupid,” Suzanna said. “There's no such thing as invisible dogs that breathe fire."

  "Well, I can see one,” I said.

  Suzanna laughed. I liked it when she laughed; it made her breasts jiggle. At sixteen I was acutely aware that breasts were very important things, and I liked the way Suzanna's moved. She smiled at me, her teeth showing.

  "I get it,” she said, even though she didn't. “You're having me on."

  "Sure,” I said. “If you like."

  Then she leaned over and kissed me, her tongue worming its way past my gums and into my mouth. I closed my eyes. It was the first time she'd ever kissed me with tongue. She tasted like too much sugar and Nescaf?, sweet and bitter all at once. I could feel her lips working against mine, trying to stay locked in the vacuum of the moment. She stopped and leaned back in her chair. I was still leaning forward, my eyes closed, trying not to drool in the aftermath.

  "There,” she said. Then I opened my eyes and the Black Dog was behind her, a massive blot of black fur and open mouth. It breathed in and out with harsh regularity, washing Suzanna in a blast of sulphurous breath. I hadn't been this close to the Black Dog in real life, only in my dreams. I gritted my teeth and waited for the fire to come. Suzanna didn't seem to notice. Not even when the black gums and gleaming white teeth snapped her up and swallowed her whole. She didn't even get a chance to scream.

  "So,” I said. “I guess it's my turn."

  The Black Dog lowered its head and stared into me with its bright, crimson eyes. I closed my eyes and waited, wondering if being eaten would hurt as much as being burned alive in my dreams. I waited for a long time. I could feel my ankles starting to itch under my emerald school socks.

  "Hurry up,” I said. “Let's get this over with."

  Nothing happened. I opened my eyes and the Black Dog had disappeared.

  * * * *

  This is a list of things that have, at one point in my life, frightened me: Daleks; big snakes; Celine Dion; public speaking; that scene in Indiana Jones where they open the ark of the covenant and ghosts come out; nuclear bombs; really small snakes, the kind that can creep in through your window and wiggle up your nose and sting you in your brain. None of these things frightened me more than the Black Dog.

  No one bothered asking questions after Suzanna disappeared. Her parents didn't call. Her friends didn't miss her. I wasn't even questioned by the police. That gave me chills for weeks after it happened.

  * * * *

  I stopped listening to Led Zeppelin after Suzanna. It didn't seem fair to listen to them without her. I did keep her Black Sabbath CDs, though; I listened to Paranoid every night, just before I went to sleep.

  I got another girlfriend when I was seventeen. She was nice, but she thought I was weird, and I thought she was safe. She didn't care about my obsession with fence lines. The Black Dog waited eight months before it ate her.

  When I was nineteen, I moved out of home. I was a uni student, kind of, so I moved in with a bunch of people who actually went to the classes I was ignoring. We had a unit on the waterfront in Southport, across the river from a theme park and the spit of land that separated Southport from the ocean. In the afternoons the water would turn a golden orange, like a slice of ripe mango wedged between a pair of sandy shores.

  Our unit was on the fourth floor. The road behind us was a highway, lots of road noise and moving cars. The unit block didn't have any fences; it barely managed to lay claim to a yard. Our windows looked over the main road; it cost an extra twenty dollars a week to look over the water.

  I figured there was nowhere for the Black Dog to hide. I'd be safe, physically, even if it could still sneak into my dreams.

  The first night after we moved in, we stayed up late, drinking and waiting for the traffic noise to die down on the street below. I went to bed at midnight and looked out the window. The Black Dog was hiding behind the metal bus shelter on the opposite side of the road. It crouched over, trying to make itself small, but the black snout and shaggy tail protruded from either side of the metal bus shelter. I leaned my forehead against the glass and stared at it.

  "Yo, Black Dog,” I said. “I can see you."

  The shaggy head rose up and glared at me. The red eyes were narrow and glowing.

  * * * *

  Southport wasn't a good place to live when I was nineteen. It was an old suburb in a tourist town, one of those places that had had its day sixty or seventy years before. It was full of patched-up holiday units and summer shacks that were no longer rented to holiday makers.

  The hospital on the edge of the suburb had shut down its rehab facilities and psychiatric wing a year before I moved there; we kept a blackboard in our flat that tallied how often we had a run-in with one of the random crazies or the junkies eager to offload their methadone for some quick cash. Every week the person with the fewest close encounters was responsible for buying the Friday night beers. Victoria won more often than not; she was beautiful enough to be worth approaching, even if you were crazy or strung out.

  I lost a lot, but that was okay. I liked buying beer for Victoria.

  * * * *

  This is what the Black Dog looks like: it's big, and it's black, and it looks like a dog. The Black Dog is never big the same way; the Black Dog has always been content to remain six inches taller than I am, growing as I grew. It took years before it was taller than my mother.

  The Black Dog is black the way the night sky is black, a different shade every evening depending on the position of the moon and the stars. And it only looks like a dog because it seems unfair to call it a wolf; it holds onto its doggishness despite its sleek frame and lupine jaws.

  * * * *

  This is what Victoria looked like: she wore black dresses and had hair dyed redder than henna, and her eyes were impossibly green as long as she remembered to wear her contacts. Her boots frequently came over her knees, black leather and shiny, the heels sharpened to a dangerous point.

  I was twenty before Victoria and I got together. I had a thing for long courtships by then; the Black Dog had eaten another two or three girlfriends since it had snapped up Suzanna.

  Victoria studied philosophy and stripped to pay the rent. She was beautiful and consciously sexy and sounded smarter than me when she talked. She smelled of clove cigarettes and patchouli oil; she tasted like aniseed and ashtrays. She liked to talk about the world's greatest minds and, when she'd been drinking, she'd focus on the extensive catalogue of ways they'd killed themselves.

  Sometimes Victoria would take me shopping when she went looking for underwear she could take to work. I'd spend an hour standing in a store, shuffling from foot to foot, trying to pretend I was reading On the Road while Victoria disappeared into change rooms. My job was to offer a guy's opinion. I didn't get to see her wearing the outfits; I just got to see them on the hanger and make comments based on the amount of lace and frills. I spent hours imagining what they'd look like with Victoria inside them. I tried not to think about the stripping.

  Victoria had a streak of self-destruction. I liked that; self-destruction seems inevitable when you're twenty. I had a feeling that the Black Dog approved of that.

  * * *
*

  This is how Victoria and I started going out: We were sitting in the kitchen just at sunset, the window looking out on the crush of the Tuesday night rush hour. Victoria smoked cigarettes, and I drank instant coffee, and the sun turned her hair the color of a cigarette ember. “What's that?” Victoria said. She pointed with her cigarette.

  "It's a bus,” I said.

  "Not the bus,” she said. “Behind the shelter. The black thing.” I looked. Occasionally you'd see crazy folks peeing behind the bus shelter. This time there was nothing there but the Black Dog.

  "Must be the shadows,” I said.

  Victoria frowned. She had a great frown; her pale skin wrinkled like concerned silk. “You're telling me you don't see a wolf?” she said. “A big, fucking wolf?"

  I blinked. “Sure,” I said. “But you're not supposed to. The Black Dog's my thing."

  "What the hell?” Victoria said. “How is a big fucking wolf in the middle of the suburbs supposed to be your thing?"

  I changed the subject and Victoria changed it back, so I told her: Miriwinni, the Gold Coast, Suzanna being eaten and years of bad dreams. I hadn't told anyone the whole story before. It felt weird. Victoria gave me a strange look when I was finished.

  "Shit,” she said. “You're fucked up."

  "I guess,” I said. “But you can see it too."

  "Too much acid,” Victoria said. Then she added: “You know, I always thought you were a little too straight to be interesting."

  I shrugged. I'd gotten used to the Black Dog being around. Then Victoria leaned over and kissed me. I was a better kisser by then, even when caught by surprise. It wasn't bad, as first kisses go. It should have led us toward better things.

  In the end, we didn't have sex. We just made out and slept together, side by side in her bed, still wearing our clothes. Eventually Victoria got up and went to work. “Keep the bed warm,” she said. “I'll be home in the morning, if you're willing to stay up."

  It was strange, watching her get ready, head for the door after the taxi driver started leaning on his horn downstairs. She didn't get to wear her favorite dresses to work, but they insisted she wear the shoes.