Monsters

by Peter Cawdron

  If the beast turned to face him, he'd have to use his sword, so he laid it on the ground beside him, readying himself for battle.

  Not seeing where Jane had gone, Bruce settled on the second option as even a poor shot should see the animal react by running away from him, not towards him, and that would give him the opportunity to take more shots if needed.

  Peering over the chaotic pile of bricks, he watched as the mongrel moved through the far side of the intersection, its head down, its ears pricked. It was surprisingly quiet for such a large animal, sniffing at the ground as it sought to pick up Jane's trail.

  As the beast turned away from him, Bruce pulled back silently on the bow string, feeling the tension build under his fingers. Mentally, he equated that to the rate of fall over what he figured was roughly forty yards to give him an offset of about three feet.

  He breathed in as he brought his aim down on the animal, sitting slightly above its shoulder blade, allowing for the natural fall of the arrow to guide it down, under the rib cage. He was shooting into the wind and needed to account for more fall than usual. Exhaling, Bruce prepared to release, steadying his body, allowing his aim to drop naturally into position, timing the shot, going for accuracy over power. The release had to be smooth, barely a conscious thought, just a natural outflow at the bottom of his breath.

  A low growl, deep and resonant, caused his blood to run cold.

  Bruce froze.

  Bricks shifted under the weight of another wild dog approaching from behind, and from the crisp sound Bruce realized the beast was almost on top of him.

  In that moment, Bruce flinched, his muscles clenched. If he fired now, he'd miss the dog tracking Jane. Just the slightest twitch at this distance would send the arrow several feet off target.

  His mind raced.

  Should he fire on the beast stalking her, or turn and try to fend off the brute bearing down on him?

  In his heart, he wanted to be valiant, to protect Jane, but his head told him the moment was gone, to fire now would be to waste the opportunity and miss.

  The muscles in his arm quivered. He had neither the time nor the nerve to fire with precision at the dog stalking Jane before the monster behind him was upon him.

  Bruce spun around, the burning oil on the end of his arrow flared as he turned. There, barely five feet away, was another wild dog, its teeth bared. Bruce fired. He missed. The arrow sailed off over the shoulder of the massive beast, soaring high and clipping a tree. How could he miss? The wild dog was so close, and yet his trembling arms had failed him.

  The dog crouched low, the muscles on its broad shoulders twitching, ready to pounce. Saliva dripped from its white canine teeth. With dark eyes locked on Bruce it swayed with him, reacting to his slightest move.

  Bruce stepped back slowly, his feet catching on the loose bricks. The dog growled, shifting its weight. Shattered bricks crunched beneath its paws. His heart raced. With his arms out in front of him, Bruce crept backwards, bending down slowly and reaching for his sword.

  The dog snarled.

  Bruce dared not break eye contact with the beast. As much as he instinctively wanted to turn and run, he knew the monster would be upon him in a heartbeat. With its lips pulled back and its teeth bared it inched closer, growling at him. The dog's breath stank of rotten meat.

  Bringing his sword up, Bruce backed away as the dog pressed slowly forward. It was being overly cautious. Why hadn't it attacked? The massive beast could have ripped him to shreds, tearing him apart like a rag doll, but it hadn't. Why was it herding him? His foot knocked one of the smoldering arrows. He picked it up, using the arrow head to snag the larger, oiled cloth which caught fire as he raised it up.

  Bruce was so focused on the vicious dog in front of him he was barely aware of the others.

  Another dog joined from the left, while out of the corner of his eye he realized a third dog was pacing toward him from the right, snarling as saliva dripped from its jaw.

  All three dogs had their ears pulled back, almost flat with the side of their heads as they moved in for the kill. They stepped with deliberate precision, coordinating their attack so he couldn't anticipate which would lunge first.

  Waving the arrow with the burning rag to the left, and the sword to the right, Bruce made a show to keep the monsters at bay, trying to appear larger and more dangerous than he was. With dark eyes, the beasts poised, ready to strike.

  “Back, back,” he cried, not knowing what to do next.

  The massive dog immediately before him responded by barking savagely, deafening him with a wall of sound. Bruce waited for the end, hoping it would be quick, hoping he'd at least bought Jane some time to flee. That was when he saw her. Jane was standing on the roof of the crumbling restaurant on the other side of the intersection.

  She called out, yelling, “No.”

  “Run,” he cried, seeing her. “Get out of here while you still can.”

  Jane dropped from the roof into the long grass as Bruce found his back press hard against a concrete wall. There was nowhere left to go. The dogs were growing in confidence. The last remnants of the burning cloth fluttered from the arrowhead, drifting on the breeze. The dog to his right lashed out, snapping at him, knocking the sword from his hand, and Bruce sank to his knees, waiting for the inevitable.

  He could see Jane running through the weeds, but she was running toward him.

  “Run away,” he cried, but she was running hard in toward the dogs, yelling at the top of her lungs.

  Suddenly, the dogs backed away, for some reason responding to her call. Leaping over the mound of bricks and sliding on the loose gravel, she came flying in toward him, almost knocking him over. Jane was saying something, but he couldn't make it out over the shock resonating in his mind. She turned away from him, shielding him from the dogs.

  To his surprise, the massive beasts lowered themselves, crouching down before her. Their demeanor changed.

  “I'm sorry,” she said. “I should have warned you, but I didn't want to scare you. I thought I would find them in their den and bring them to meet you. Please forgive me. I wanted to impress you.”

  “I … I don't understand,” Bruce stuttered.

  “Dogs have not always been wild,” she began. “For tens of thousands of years they lived with mankind as companions, as pets and workers. Although they have reverted to the wild, something of their former instinct still remains and they can be subdued.”

  “I ...” Bruce was speechless.

  “We use the dogs to guard the library.”

  “But how?”

  Jane stepped forward, scratching one of the huge beasts behind the ear. The dog responded, rolling its head to one side and lifting slightly, encouraging her to scratch a little lower. Jane was surprisingly rough, using her fingernails to get below the dense fur as she scrubbed back and forth.

  The dog Bruce had first seen stalking Jane came running over, panting as it approached. Jane moved over to one of the other dogs, a scruffy mongrel lying on its side, exposing its belly. She ran her hand up and down the dog's broad chest.

  “They particularly like a belly rub,” she said, running her hands roughly back and forth.

  Jane had moved away from him, so Bruce stepped toward her, and the giant dog she was patting rolled into a crouched position and growled.

  “Stop that,” Jane said, striking the animal on the snout.

  Bruce had never seen anything like this in his life. The dog could have torn her to shreds. Its jaws were large enough to take her upper torso in a single bite, but the monster dropped its head, lowering its snout.

  “Behave,” she cried sternly, and she reached up and gave the animal an affectionate rub on the top of its head, between its ears. The dog sniffed at the bandaging on her wounded arm, its tongue touching the bloodied strips of cloth, but Jane didn't seem bothered by the beast's attention.

  She turned toward Bruce, holding out her hand, saying, “Come.”

  Bruce looked at his sword
lying there on the pavement.

  “You really think that will make any difference?” she asked. “Come. Let them smell you. It's how they get to know you. Groom them and they will trust you.”

  Against his better judgment, Bruce edged forward.

  Jane held out her hand, taking his hand and pulling him toward her. She pulled his hand up to the monster's mouth. Bruce tried to pull away, but she would have none of that and dragged him forward, surprising him with her strength. She held his hand there as the dog sniffed. Bruce could feel the animal's hot breath on the back of his hand.

  “It's OK,” she said. “She won't bite.”

  “She?” Bruce asked.

  “What? Did you think all the dogs were male? The best fighters are the girls. The males tend to run when wounded, but the bitches will fight on to the death.”

  “Ah, that's not quite what I wanted to hear,” Bruce replied, as she put his hand on the neck of the monster.

  Bruce could feel blood pulsing through the animal's arteries. She rubbed his hand back and forth, mimicking what he should do.

  “They need to get to know you,” she said. “So they'll let you through next time.”

  “So, in the village?” Bruce asked, wondering about the rabid dog that had attacked her.

  “That was Nero,” Jane said. “He didn't understand. Even with the virus destroying his brain, inducing madness, I think he wanted help. He didn't mean to hurt me. He couldn't help himself.”

  Jane was sad, Bruce could see that. She tried to shrug it off, giving the dog before her a good hard rub. One of the other dogs came up, nudging her gently, wanting to be patted.

  “For Nero to abandon the pack and track me to the village shows he knew something was wrong. He must have been bitten by another rabid animal in a fight. Nero must have sensed the change, the slow degradation eating away at his brain. But there was nothing I could do. He was frustrated, angry. I think he knew he was dying.”

  She changed the subject.

  “A couple of the other readers are hunters. Occasionally, they'll take a stag, drag it into town and give it to the dogs. But, for the most part, I think it’s the desire for companionship that keeps the dogs friendly. They seemed genuinely pleased to see me each time I visit. Even though I'm only here every couple of months they miss me between times.”

  “How did you tame them?” Bruce asked, his hand running over the massive brute before him, feeling the coarse texture of lean muscle beneath its fur coat.

  “I didn't. They were tamed years ago, long before I was taught to read, probably several generations ago, but how, I know not. Each litter has been introduced to the readers ever since, continuing the association since birth. And they're loyal, incredibly protective.”

  “You're not kidding,” Bruce said.

  Jane led him between the dogs, making sure they each got to smell him. One of the dogs licked his hand, covering it with saliva, its tongue pulled against his skin like wet sandpaper.

  “They probably thought you were coming after me, and were trying to protect me,” she said.

  One of the dogs came up to her, towering over her, its head bending down to within a few inches of her face. Saliva dripped from its mouth. Jane grabbed the dog's cheeks with both hands. She moved her head to one side, so the dog's jaw rested on her shoulder as she shook its head playfully, talking to it in soft, warm tones. The dog responded fondly, enjoying the rough play.

  “We've got less than an hour of natural light,” she added, turning back to Bruce. “We'd best get inside and get settled before nightfall.”

  As they walked down toward the library, one of the dogs paced beside them, its back rose just above Bruce's head. It was unnerving for Bruce, but Jane held her hand out, keeping contact with the beast, and it seemed to reciprocate a feeling of friendship.

  The library had been built from large sandstone blocks and so had withstood the worst of the weather over the past few centuries. The outer glass doors had been smashed, with one of the doors ripped half off its hinges and hanging to one side, but the inner doors were intact.

  The dog made itself comfortable, sitting down in the portico as they walked inside. A steel bar was pushed through the handles of the inner door, preventing any animals from wandering within the building, although if they wanted to, Bruce thought, they could rip the inner doors open. Jane removed the bar, opened the door, and put the bar back through the inside handles, explaining it was always good to avoid surprises, even with the dogs around.

  Once inside, they headed up a broad, dark stairwell to the top floor, where skylights allowed the gloomy half-light to filter through. Several of the skylights were broken. Water damage marred the floors. Broken bottles and rusting cans of food lay up against the walls. The roof had collapsed in one area, crushing desks and chairs and breaking through to the floor below.

  The shelves were bare, having been stripped of their books. A few torn fragments of paper lay on the ground, but nothing larger than a few inches.

  Jane led Bruce past row upon row of empty bookshelves to the back of the building. Sheets of plastic had been hung from the ceiling, sectioning off a small corner of the library.

  “This is where we keep the books and newspapers,” she said triumphantly, a sense of pride carrying in her voice. Jane pulled back the plastic and they slipped inside.

  Bruce looked around. To one side, newspapers had been stacked in clear plastic boxes, sealed against the elements. There were books as well, in groups of ten to twenty in each plastic container. In the center of the room lay the back seat of an old truck, bolted to the ground. Jane tossed her bag to one side and sat down, patting the seat beside her with childlike enthusiasm.

  “Sit. Sit.”

  Bruce sat down and she rested her hand on his knee. The look in her eyes filled him with joy, something he hadn't felt since long before Jonathan died. The dark clouds that had hung so heavy over his heart lifted.

  “This is one of four libraries scattered throughout this town. Actually, this is the only library as such, but we've split the contents into three other safe houses, so if one of them is discovered by the ignorant, we won't lose everything. There are five readers in this part of the state, along with two apprentices, not counting you.”

  “Oh, so now I'm an apprentice?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. He hadn't thought about any designation as official as that, but it made sense that readers had some means of covertly spreading their craft, handing it on from one generation to the next.

  “Who are they?” he asked.

  “I don't know. We don't use names, or talk about where we're from. It's too dangerous. We use pseudonyms, pretend names, either the name of a famous author or a name picked from a book.”

  “What's yours?”

  “Elizabeth Bennet, after one of the characters in the novel Pride and Prejudice.”

  “It must be hard,” Bruce said. “You can't trust anyone, even those that share your passion for knowledge.”

  “What would you like to read?” she asked, switching the subject, clearly not wanting to go into it any further, and Bruce wondered if he'd touched on a sore point. What had happened to Helena? Had she been betrayed by someone she trusted? He wanted to ask, but he doubted Jane would go into it with him.

  “What is there to read?” he asked.

  “Oh, we have Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen, Rudyard Kipling, Mary Shelley,” she began, but the look on his face must have spoken of his ignorance. “The names are not important, but you will come to love their writing, as they reveal the heart of men and women in the most remarkable of ways.”

  “Read something you like,” Bruce said. “And I'll listen.”

  “OK,” Jane replied, and she slipped on a pair of cloth gloves. The gloves were dainty, not the sort of gloves that would be worn by a farmer, as they would have torn too easily. Small details like this fascinated Bruce, and he got the impression that there were particular protocols followed by readers, protocols he'd have to
learn.

  Jane got up and picked a plastic box with three older books visible within. Their covers were worn and ragged, the pages yellow with age. Jane handled both the box and the books with reverence, carefully picking out one book in particular. As she sat beside him, he noticed how she handled the book, opening it slowly and allowing it to fall open where it may. From there, she used the lightest of touches to turn just a handful of pages at a time, slowly turning back to the start of the book.

  “This is A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens,” she said rather formally. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

  His furrowed brow must have told her he didn't understand Dickens. She smiled, excited.

  “Don't you see,” she said. “This is true for all time. All we have is now, for better or for worse. Ours is a time of wisdom and foolishness, of light and darkness. Dickens is telling us that the way we see ourselves defines reality. We have everything before us and we have nothing, the choice is ours.”

  Bruce appreciated her passion. Slowly, he became intoxicated by her presence.

  “Would you like me to read on?”

  “Yes,” he replied, and she did, reading for almost an hour before the light faded.

  Jane pulled a kerosene lamp from her pack and primed it, pumping a small lever to build up the pressure within the base before the silk mantle cast out its radiant light. Bruce had seen lanterns like these before, but only in the hands of the wealthy. Jane explained that her father traded for kerosene, mined from the shale to the north.