by Tim Curran
In practice, this strategy has met with considerable success within the inner cities and other highly populated urban areas where the ratio of people to animals is particularly biased in favour of humans. However, the plan quickly breaks down when employed in the more rural areas of the country, where the scales are decidedly more biased in the opposite direction.
Having reached the end of the article, Lionel neatly folded up the paper and replaced it carefully on the edge of the coffee table. He had heard all of this several times before of course, choosing as always to take everything he read in the papers with a large pinch of salt. With no new deliveries having come through the door for several days and television reception down here in the valley being as poor as it is was, he had no other current providers of information with regards to the national crisis and so had read and re-read the same newspapers over several times.
Usually, his primary source of knowledge was via word of mouth; more specifically via Mrs Garrett next door. At the grand old age of eighty-five, Lionel’s elderly neighbour had only two main interests in her life; namely caring for her inordinately spoiled miniature poodle, FiFi, and the relentless acquisition of village gossip from anyone who would spare her the time of day. Visitors to the house were encouraged to stay for afternoon tea and often a cucumber sandwich or two, whilst being subjected to intense interrogation ordeals that would have given even the most sadistic SS officers the willies. Throughout the conversation, Mrs Garrett would sit eagerly hunched forward on the couch, surreptitiously feeding the occasional morsel of Ferrero Rocher to Fifi, whilst she herself hungrily devoured the tasty titbits of information on offer from her guests.
Yes, on any normal day, it would have been safe to say that whatever goings-on related to the dreadful Occold virus had transpired in the village of late, Mrs Garrett would have been able to give Lionel a detailed and precise breakdown of it all, possibly over coffee and custard creams.
Unfortunately, the usually placid Fifi had become infected three days previous and helped herself to a large chunky titbit of Mrs Garrett’s right hand before escaping into the garden and disappearing through a gap in the hedgerow.
At the sound of the first scream, Lionel had come running out into his backyard, just in time to clumsily leapfrog over the fence and catch his blood-soaked neighbour as she feinted clean away onto the patio. The emergency services had been called almost immediately and by the time the ambulance arrived to take her away, Mrs Garrett had regained consciousness and begun chatting with the local constabulary, who had decided to put in an appearance.
The first line of business had of course been to ascertain how the poodle had managed to avoid being culled as a precautionary measure during the compulsory domestic cleansing policy instigated nationwide well over a month ago. Mrs Garrett had managed to remain remarkably elusive on this subject, partly due to her being a little disorientated from the attack and claiming to be suffering from mild shock. It was also partly due to her being a wily old battleaxe, who was as practiced in the retention of information as she was in its acquirement.
During this rather official conversation, Lionel had chosen to keep very quiet on the periphery of the scene, hoping to God that Mrs Garrett would not choose to mention his own particular infidelities. Thankfully she had seemed far more concerned as to the fate of her escaped pet than with placing him beneath the same public scrutiny as she now found herself uncomfortably squirming.
A thorough search had been made of the immediate area, but no trace of Fifi could be found. Mrs. Garrett had seemed quite beside herself at this, desperately unhappy at the thought of her ‘poor little baby’ being forced to spend the night out in the dark all alone. But when informed that she would soon be en route to the district hospital for a series of blood tests, the old dear had actually perked up a little (presumably buoyed by the thought of adding more new faces to her dense network of informants).
Once the paramedics had finally managed to shut Mrs Garrett up long enough to bundle her into the back of the ambulance and depart the scene, the remainder of the clean-up operation had proceeded with merciful swiftness. Lionel had given a short statement to the attending constable whilst the crime scene (if one could call it that) had been carefully screened for any relevant items, which were then carefully bagged and tagged for removal to the station.
Being himself an intensely neat sort of fellow, Lionel had been heartily impressed with the general speed and efficiency of the forensic officers, who having checked and rechecked the scene several times, had also had the presence of mind to secure the house before they left. One rather pleasant young man, kitted out in clean white overalls and face-mask, had even been so good as to hose the rather unsightly blood stains from the patio flags, so that if you ignored the yellow and black tape hung about the place like webbing, it was almost as if the whole incident had never happened.
Finding himself eventually alone once more, Lionel had returned indoors and immediately headed to his kitchen pantry, knowing that Saxon would almost certainly need to answer the call of nature, having been kooked up inside for so long a period of time. He had opened up the pantry door to find the twelve year old Alsatian sitting patiently in the corner waiting for him.
Due to his ageing years, Saxon’s coarse fur was a mixture of mottled browns graced with sporadic patches of faded grey. This patchwork of bland colours contrasted noticeably with the bright blue bandana which Lionel had recently substituted around his neck upon discovering that Saxon’s collar was beginning to cause a mild skin irritation beneath his thinning fur. Upon seeing his master, Lionel’s only true friend in the world had let out a single solitary bark of annoyance and then sidled past him in the direction of the front door.
Of course, Lionel always had to be his usual cautious self before letting Saxon out into the garden; performing a cursory inspection from every vantage point in the house to make sure that no-one was in the immediate vicinity to observe what he had now come to think of as nothing more than a harmless minor legal transgression. Whilst he did so, Saxon would follow at his heels, nuzzling his warm nose affectionately against the palm of Lionel’s hand as he peeked out through the net curtains.
As he stood in the porch that evening, leaning casually against the doorframe and watching Saxon evacuate his ageing bowels onto the grass, Lionel mused to himself that it really wasn’t as if they were a pair of dangerous master criminals or anything. One read in the papers all the time these days of foolish city types who, having chosen to keep their 150 lb Rottweiler hidden from the authorities and letting the animal out unsupervised under cover of darkness, were then somehow remarkably surprised when their once cuddly canine companion returned home later that same night with two gleaming red eyes and a new-found penchant for human flesh.
It was different with Saxon of course. For starters Lionel always made sure that at every instance, he kept a very close watch on his faithful companion and at the merest hint of any approaching wildlife, he would immediately call Saxon inside so as to avoid even the remotest possibility of contamination.
Never once during the last few months had Lionel even so much as once contemplated turning Saxon in to the local authorities. In his opinion, the bond between a man and his dog was sacrosanct and in the case of this dog, he was entirely sure that if the roles were somehow reversed one day, then Saxon would choose to stick by him as well. Sure, the both of them were becoming more than a little irritable in their waning years, but at the end of each day, Saxon was always to be found contentedly curled up across Lionel’s feet as he dozed in his armchair before the hearth.
As he watched, Saxon padded slowly round the edge of the lawn, pausing momentarily to sniff at movement in the rhododendron bushes before deciding to push his snout in amongst the large pink flowers for a closer inspection. Lionel sighed at this, rolling his eyes in the manner of an exasperated parent, for if he’d told the dog once, he’d told him a hundred times to leave the damn bees alone unless he wanted to get himse
lf stung. Of course the silly animal never listened and more than once Lionel recalled having to gently apply ointment to a swollen nose as Saxon lay whining pitifully in his lap like a baby.
‘Serves you right!’ he muttered under his breath as he observed Saxon yelp and withdraw his now pollen-covered muzzle sharply from the bushes, shaking his head repeatedly as he did so. The Alsatian turned and came skulking back across the lawn with a rather sheepish expression on his face and having no sympathy for him, Lionel merely stood to one side and watched his old friend slink back into the house, presumably in search of some quiet corner to hide himself away in whilst he licked his wounds.
Lionel sat motionless in his armchair now, his eyes once again lingering on Saxon’s collar on the coffee table as he recalled that same scene from three days ago as though it had just occurred. ‘It wasn’t my fault’ cried an indignant voice in his head. ‘How was I to know that Saxon discovered something other than a bee in the bushes that day?’ But beneath the tarnished sheen of his supremely righteous ego, Lionel found himself unable to ignore the thick grimy layer of shameful guilt deposited by the young postman’s death.
Up until the moment the lad had come calling the morning after all the commotion, he had honestly thought nothing of the fact that Saxon had been keeping a low profile all night. He had assumed, incorrectly, that his four-legged friend was merely skulking about upstairs in order to hide his embarrassment at once again coming off worst from an encounter with an insect only a fraction of his size.
The familiar sound of a cheerful whistle meandering through the chorus of ‘Moon River’ had signalled the arrival of the post at around eight-thirty and being already up and dressed, Lionel had headed to the front door, intent on saying a brief hello as he collected the mail. The postman had waved in recognition, a handful of letters already in his hands as Lionel unfastened the door chain and grappled clumsily with the dead bolts. But as the door swung open, Lionel had seen the youth’s cheery expression rapidly turn to one of confusion and then abject terror as he stared past Lionel into the house.
The next thing Lionel knew, he was being thrown roughly against the now fully open door as a bedraggled mass of blood and fur barrelled past him towards the open-mouthed postman. Lionel’s first thought had been that some wild animal had somehow managed to force its way into the house during the night, such was the difference in appearance between the hellish creature that blurred past him and the beloved friend he knew so well. Every inch of Saxon’s body dripped in copious amounts of a sticky fluid, which appeared to be a syrupy mixture of blood, saliva and pus. In places, the dog’s fur was matted into thick clumps of hair, clustered together in groups across his back like angry carbuncles. Amongst these congealed dark knots, patches of fur were missing, apparently ripped out by Saxon himself, the skin beneath ragged and bloody where the distressed animal had bitten deep into his own flesh.
The postman was already beginning to back away, but had hardly moved in the direction of the gate when the thing that used to be Saxon was upon him. He managed a brief yell of panic before the Alsatian leapt up at him, hitting the terrified man square in the chest and knocking him to the ground with its considerable weight.
Lionel knew now that he should have done something at that point. He should have darted forward and tried to pull Saxon away, or perhaps even tried to drag the postman inside and away from the dog before it was too late. But he hadn’t done either of those things. In fact to his shame, he hadn’t moved at all. Instead he had remained motionless in the doorway, paralysed with a mixture of shock and fear as the now feral blood-crazed creature that used to be Saxon had wrapped its wide jaws around the flailing postman’s exposed neck flesh and torn out the screaming man’s oesophagus in one great bloody chunk.
Lionel had felt his mouth drop open and the ineffectual words “down boy” weakly escape his lips, but the sound could have reached no further than the doorway as he watched a fountain of blood erupt from the postman’s body, coating the Saxon-Thing in a fine crimson mist. The sight of four rapidly twitching limbs and the low gurgling sound coming from the body made Lionel realise in horror that the poor man was still alive as the creature bent its maw and began to lap voraciously at the exposed hole in his neck. Lionel felt faint and lurched sideways, grabbing hold of the door jamb just in time to stop himself from tumbling out of the porch. His stomach convulsed repeatedly as he fought back the urge to retch and he felt sure he would have passed out had it not been for what had happened next.
At the sound of Lionel slumping against the door, the Saxon-Thing had lifted its blood-soaked head and turned to gaze in his direction. In that moment, Lionel had felt his whole world implode as he found himself staring with disbelief into the two red unblinking eyes which looked out at him hungrily from the centre of the face he had raised from a pup and loved so unconditionally over the last twelve years.
With no evidence of recognition, the Saxon-Thing had uttered a low growl and taken one meaningful step back towards the house. The creature had bared its teeth as behind, the still moving postman flopped over onto his side and began to crawl desperately in the direction of the pond, leaving a trail of fresh blood and entrails in his wake.
At that point, Lionel’s underlying survival instinct had finally taken over. Having slammed the door shut, he was instinctively crouching into a protective foetal position on the floor when he felt the Saxon-Thing’s full weight slam into the outer wood of the door. The blow almost flung the door back open, but instead it caught Lionel full in the side of his ribs, knocking the wind from him and causing him to collapse flat onto the ground. As he fought for breath, a nose appeared through the crack in the door, followed by twin rows of teeth foaming with blood and fresh sputum. Operating solely on instinct, Lionel desperately threw his weight back against the door just as one malevolent red eye appeared through the gap. As the edge of the door slammed back hard against the Saxon-Thing’s face, the wood cut a deep groove into the exposed flesh of the dog’s face and it let out a loud yelp. Lionel’s heart wrenched at the sound of his best friend in such pain, but still he found himself desperately kicking at the dog’s face and then fumbling with the lower dead bolt as the lacerated snout withdrew and the door slotted back into its frame.
Lionel reached up and pulled himself into a kneeling position by the handle just as a second loud thud shook the door and this was followed by the sound of scratching and gnawing as the infuriated creature tried to force its way back in. Once the chain was slid securely back in place, Lionel slumped defeated onto the floor, his trembling body finally letting go of any remaining composure as he both soiled himself and puked his guts out onto the rubber welcome mat.
Unable to force the door, the Saxon-Thing remained outside, pacing angrily back and forth and as Lionel lay there weeping into a pool of his own urine, an unearthly howl which no longer sounded anything like a dog filled the air. He covered his ears, attempting to block out the agonising sound, but as the Saxon-Thing turned and raced away into the nearby woods in search of an easier kill, Lionel could do nothing but lie in a desperate heap and sob.
It was nearly nine-thirty now and finding his body stiff and unwieldy, Lionel realised that he had been sitting motionless in his armchair for the entire afternoon. He looked down to find that Saxon’s collar had somehow found its way back into his hands. He reached out as if to place it back on the coffee table, but then stopped. Taking the collar in both hands, he wrapped it slowly and painstakingly around the palm of his right hand with grim determination, pulling it tight before threading the clasp through the last hole to secure it in place. For a reason he could not fathom, the symbolic act gave him some kind of new-found courage. He stood up, letting his hands drop to his sides and as he did so, the tiny silver disc bearing Saxon’s name tinkled slightly against the metal clasp. The sound was somehow reassuring to him and noting that there was very little daylight left out there, Lionel swallowed loudly and headed into the kitchen.
Despite
everything being in its proper place as always, it took him several minutes to locate what he was looking for, his over-wrought mind struggling to perform even simple tasks. With a trembling hand he carefully withdrew the nine inch kitchen blade from the utensils drawer and held it up to the fading light. The warped reflection of a scared old man, who had cried far too much that day, stared back at him from the unblemished metal of the blade.
Returning to the front door, he turned the dead bolts and removed the chain as quietly as he possibly could. A little voice inside kept telling him that it might be ok, that maybe the virus would have worn off by now and that good old Saxon would be fine (“…eight is a wish”), but in his heart he didn’t really believe it.
Lionel had not set foot outside the house since the encounter with the Saxon-Thing two days ago and the door had evidently become slightly wedged into its frame since then, for he had to take hold of the handle in both hands and yank firmly several times before it finally juddered open. Immediately the sickly sweet smell of death wafted through on the in-draft and he reflexively gagged at the appalling stench.
The pond was easily fifteen yards away at the other end of the garden but even at this distance, the smell emanating from the postman’s remains was almost overpowering. Lionel’s eyes watered slightly as he pulled the door fully open. Taking the knife firmly by the hilt in his left hand and gripping tightly onto Saxon’s collar with his right, he stepped gingerly out into the porch.
The outer door was not shut, instead hanging precariously from its hinges and it seemed evident that the Saxon-Thing had vented its frustration at not being able to get into the house. The garden was eerily quiet, the majority of the birds thankfully having already gone to roost for the night. A barn owl screeched somewhere off in the distance and Lionel shuddered at the thought of a winged carnivorous predator that could turn its sharp jaws through 360 degrees.
