The Dolocher

by European P. Douglas

  Chapter 12

  Superstition and rumour combined make one of the most powerful and persuasive concoctions known to man. After the two killings at the Black Dog, people started to talk, and assumptions and gossip were repeated as facts throughout the markets, coffee houses, and taverns. What was said was fanciful and outrageous, but on these dark, cold evenings, the words began to gain traction, and the fears of the people were given solid form.

  It was said that the two guards who had been killed—the second one completely devoured, his body never found—had been particularly cruel to Thomas Olocher on the night he was in that prison. It was said that he cursed them and swore revenge (this information apparently came from one of the soldiers who had been on duty that night) and that now his spirit was back and roaming the streets at night, meting out revenge to those whom Olocher felt deserved it.

  Someone remembered the pigs that made way for Olocher’s cart to get to the prison gates; others still could recall that night when hundreds of pigs gathered outside the gates of the prison and squealed as he killed himself, and how they tried to force their way through the gates. When rumour spread of the hoof-like marks on the chest of the first guard to be killed, it was thought that Olocher’s demonic spirit had entered the body of some feral, mutant pig and was now out to kill who it could. Others said his evil was ingested by the very pigs that had feasted on his body when it was found by the soldiers.

  Sightings began to be recorded of large, unidentifiable animals darting in the shadows and through the dark alleyways at night. Women called the beast the Olocher, which was then shortened in the Dublin way to D’Olocher and then finally metamorphosed into the Dolocher. They used the name to scare their children, to make them go to bed at night or stop being bold.

  It was said that the Dolocher was a huge black pig that could walk on its hind legs like a man when it wanted. It could climb walls and get in through doors and windows. It had the massive teeth of a wolf. It would lie asleep in some lair by day and set forth at night to sate its evil appetites.

  Of course, these rumours were rubbish, but there was no stopping them for the week after the second guard was killed. The streets were noticeably quieter at night now, especially in the area of Cornmarket and the streets that adjoined it.

  People would scoff at this as mindless superstition and say that it was clearly the work of a madman, that there was no such thing as evil spirits inhabiting animal bodies and other such nonsense. But even these people felt the chill wind of fear of the Dolocher if they were unfortunate enough to be alone in the city after dark, even if only for a few moments. They too would see the great black pig in the shadows of the large buildings; they would hear his growling, deep into black alleys, further than their eyes could penetrate.

  Mullins sat and listened to the talk around him in his favourite whisky cabin in Cook Street. He had always been fascinated by the way simple phrases and drunken comments in these places suddenly became gossip and fact the very next night—in some cases, the same night. A few nights in a row now, he had watched as the stories gathered and changed and coagulated into this new narrative of “the Dolocher.”

  Cleaves came in and sat down beside him; Mullins could feel the cold from outside on him.

  “Another glass,” Mullins called to the bar, and a woman brought one over and put it in front of him. Mullins poured a big drink for Cleaves.

  “Full house tonight,” Cleaves said, looking around and raising his glass to Mullins.

  “It gets fuller as the colder nights come in,” Mullins said. “People’s homes are not as warm as these places, and the whisky has its own warmth as well.” He smiled, his own cheeks feeling the heat he had just spoken of.

  “No sign of the Dolocher out there tonight,” Cleaves joked. Mullins felt that Cleaves shared his own scepticism of the tall tales that were doing the rounds. A few angry eyes looked his way, but no one said anything.

  “Too cold out there for him,” Mullins laughed.

  As they made their way through another jug, they spoke for a while about customers and work they had done the last few days. Cleaves worked unloading the ships that came to Temple Bar every day, and he often saw things that Mullins found fascinating. He also did early-morning deliveries for businesses some days.

  “Who is that ugly fellow who has been eyeballin’ this way all night?” Mullins asked Cleaves later on.

  “He’s Lord Muc,” Cleaves said, not having to look; he had noticed him watching them as well.

  “The leader of the Liberty Boys?”

  “The very same.”

  “That explains the state of his face so.”

  “He’s probably spent half his life bleeding at this stage.”

  “Why do you suppose he’s been watching us tonight?”

  “No idea,” Cleaves said, “and I won’t be asking him to find out.” He smiled before adding, “You shouldn’t, either.”

  As they spoke, Lord Muc stood up and went to leave the cabin; he was tall, almost six feet, his frame was thick with well defined muscles, and he was covered in scars. His left ear was mangled, as though some animal had been chewing on it, and his nose was bent many times in both directions and covered with pockmarks. As he got to the door, he leaned over to Mullins and said, “I’ll come and see you sometime this week.”

  “For what?” Mullins asked, but Lord Muc didn’t answer and went out the door. Mullins looked at Cleaves. “What do you suppose he wants?”

  “Probably wants you to fix weapons for him, or maybe make new ones.”

  “Well, he will be disappointed if he does.”

  “You should be careful with them, Mullins. You’ve seen yourself, I’m sure, what they are capable of.”

  “Fuck them,” Mullins said. At that moment he would relish the chance to pop Lord Muc one in his ugly, grizzled face. When he had his first violent thought of the evening, he knew that it was time to stop drinking and go home.

  He leaned to the table and poured the rest of his glass back into the jar. “I’m off home,” he said to Cleaves, who he was sure already knew the drill when he saw Mullins fail to finish his drink.

  “Be careful out there, Mullins.”

  “I will be.”

  “And go straight home,” he said with a mocking mother’s tone. Mullins smiled at him and stood up. He was a little uneasy on his feet, and he stumbled against the door frame. Cleaves laughed, and Mullins joined him.

  From his standing position, he could see that it was raining outside now and heavy. “Shit, it’s pissing out,” he said out loud.

  “Here, use this since you brought it,” Cleaves said, laughing and holding something out to him. Mullins looked at it and for a moment he didn’t recognise it out of context, not in the place where it always was. It was his big, black leather apron that he wore while he worked. He had run out of his smithy earlier that day to deliver a finished job to a gentleman he’d arranged to meet in Hell, and he had come straight from there to the whisky cabin with the cash he had been paid. He took the heavy garment from Cleaves and arranged it over his head as he stepped out into the night with not another word said.

  The rain was freezing as it hit his body, driving down at an angle that rendered his apron almost useless except for keeping the top of his head dry. It slapped against his face and body; he instantly lost the inner whisky glow, and he cursed the sky. He was tempted to turn back, but he was already wet through now; the idea of his clothes hardening to dryness on him changed his mind, and he hurried on towards home.

  When he got to his door, he fumbled to open it. He could see in the moonlight that there were red stains forming on the ground around his feet; he looked up but could see nothing, and then he realised that it was rusted metal fragments running down from his encrusted apron and turning the groundwater that same rust red. He finally got inside and out of the cold.