Dogs Chapter 5

V



  Over the following days I was constantly on edge, stressing over what was going to happen come Wednesday night, what exactly does someone do to train a werewolf? Couldn’t be as easy as training a Collie right? Well I found myself struggling to sleep even more so than usual for the next couple of nights, as pathetic as it sounds I was pretty damn scared of the possibilities.

  It didn’t go unnoticed by my friends either but I am the sort of person who is seemingly on a downer pretty regularly so they didn’t think too much of it. The hours seemed to drag. You know what people say, the waiting is always the worst part, the gradually building apprehension becomes damn near unbearable. My situation wasn’t exactly a common one but all the standard rules apply when it comes to bricking yourself over the unknown. Creeping towards that deadline was agony but finally the time came, all too soon.

  I was stood on exactly the same spot where they left me on that brisk Saturday morning when I was dumped back into reality, the seconds felt like minutes and the minutes like hours as I loitered, waiting for fate to play its hand.

  I stared down at my feet and the new trainers didn’t look so new anymore, they were more grey than white already. To me that seemed like the perfect time to analyse them in agonizing detail, anything to take my mind off my nerves. I counted the lace holes, crouched on the curb and traced the pattern the laces made with my finger, admired the small scuffs and scratches they had picked up in my short time spent wearing them. Interesting things aren’t they trainers? Well no but at the time I would have drank paint to get out of what I had to do, never mind watching it dry. Sadly the world kept on spinning and time continued passing in the same selfish manner it always does, my attempts to avoid the inevitable by admiring my footwear failed miserably as the familiar grubby Range Rover pulled up in front of me. It was in far worse shape than my trainers, cosmetically at least.

  I swallowed hard, you know like they do in the cartoons when they’re momentarily suspended in the air after running clean off of the edge of a cliff. It’s embarrassing to say but I was shaking a little. I had all this adrenaline from nowhere and nothing to use it on, it was a dreadful feeling. My fight or flight response was working overtime and I silently cursed Walter Cannon.

  I saw through the window that there was a passenger; I could immediately tell who it was. Reluctantly I stepped closer to one of the grimy rear doors and with a sweaty palm I tugged it open. The metallic, mechanical clunk was my cue, gingerly I climbed inside. My cocky, sarcastic attitude had evaporated again, dispersed and rejoined the ether.

  I felt just like a little kid, lost somewhere unfamiliar, helpless. It had dawned on me that I was heading back into the world of monsters, a world that continued to exist despite the misleadingly average few days I had experienced since my first brush with it, a world I was a part of whether I liked it or not. What really shifted my unease into overdrive though was that silver haired guy, something about him set my teeth on edge.

  No one breathed a word when I got onboard; it didn’t feel right for me to disturb the soundless air. The silence was harsh and in my head it spoke volumes, bad shit was about to go down I was convinced of it.

  The stranger had silvery-white hair swept back in the way you might imagine a con-man or a member of a crime syndicate to style their own; he turned to look at me. His mouth was nothing more than a stern line upon his face and soft wrinkled skin did nothing to disguise the hard shape of his jaw which was set firmly in place. His clothes looked heavy duty, he had the kind of trousers on you’d expect a tradesman to wear, covered in pockets and all that. A thick leather belt adorned his waist and his long dark coat looked like part of the dress code of a man with something to hide.

  He tugged me forwards, applying the blindfold and binding my wrists again. Matthew in the drivers seat glanced over his shoulder then disappeared from view. I got the feeling I’d be telling everyone I was fine and being treated well via a video message pretty soon. With an AK pressed at my back naturally.

  We set off to no fanfare, just a soundtrack of tyre noise and the rumble of the diesel engine. Silence was normally something I embraced but not then, not when all I could think of were worst case scenarios, perhaps I’m just a negative thinker. What would you have done in my position, how would you have felt? It’s impossible to say until that kind of shit happens to you personally.

  I bet the suspense is killing you, just a little bit. I can tell you this for sure the suspense was doing a pretty good job of trying to kill me, I felt on the verge of having a heart attack but I fought to hide it, bury the fear deep where it couldn’t be seen. For a moment I imagined my heart beating so fast that it exploded, showering the entire interior of the car in crimson blood. I wondered if those arseholes might say something then, just a few words. I doubted it.

  I already felt sure we were going back to the forest, where else could werewolf business possibly go down without being noticed? It brought back all those thoughts of serial killers, monsters and demons from the moments before my attack during that hugely successful camping trip. This time though it was far worse, I knew what these things could do because they had done it to me before, I knew that monsters really existed out there in that organic labyrinth and I was headed straight for the core of it, their territory.

  Silence persisted, soundless moments dog piling on top of one another each more awkward than the last. Does silence exist if there’s no one there to hear it? Is it possible to hear silence anyway? That was the sort of confused shit I was trying to use to keep my mind off my hopeless situation, thinking of anything and everything that didn’t involve me being eviscerated.

  Lacking sight and hearing only my own ragged breathing gave me a feeling of being a part of the surreal, something felt wrong, like all the pieces of reality weren’t quite fitting together. Almost connecting but not quite, I was existing in one of the gaps where the laws of nature could bend or even break. Then the silence was briefly broken by Matthew’s voice.

“We’re almost the-” He said with no expression, the silver haired speech assassin next to him must have cut him off; obviously he wasn’t supposed to be talking. I kept my mouth shut, hearing another human voice did little to ease the ever increasing tension, “He’s on my side, Matthew’s on my side.” I thought to myself. I had no idea what was going on, why no one was speaking or anything, all I knew is I didn’t like that old guy and I wasn’t enjoying the whole experience in the slightest. “He’s on my side.” That became my internal mantra while I just sat waiting; being dragged towards destiny in a diesel wagon “He’s on my side”.





  The 4x4 shuddered to a halt, my blindfold was removed. Matthew and the silver haired man got out of the car in perfect synchronicity; my door was opened for me, how polite of them to do such a thing. I stepped out, hands bound, still poked and prodded by a feeling that something horrific was about to occur. It wasn’t like that feeling you get when you think your being watched it was a completely different sensation, more like the sort of feeling someone stood in the road might get in the moments before a furious drunk driver tore the world out from beneath their feet. Perhaps it is the feeling of meeting fate or maybe it’s just that your instincts know you’re fucked before the rest of you does. It felt like the car was coming, to strip flesh and shatter bone, leaving me as nothing more than an unrecognisable smear on concrete.

  The old timer grabbed the dangling length of rope tying my hands and began to lead me forwards, as he did so I attempted to speak to Matthew

“What the he-” I started but was cut off.

“Please, stay quiet Zack.” He said calmly but with an element of regret, or maybe it was guilt in his voice.  He wouldn’t make eye contact with me; he just beckoned me to follow. It was as if I had done something wrong in breaking the silence, as though there were something sacred about it and I had sullied it with my heathens words.  I did consider tying to run for it but as well as the rope at my wrists there was an invisible tether around my waist, surely you’ve felt it before? Inevitability at work, something you cannot change, something that must happen. Or perhaps it’s just a strong and subconscious curiosity pulling you forwards but either way I was being dragged along by it and I was nothing but its play thing.

  I did as I was ordered, shuffling behind Matt, that old guy was as his side; I couldn’t shake dark thoughts from my mind. I tried desperately not to think of words like murder... execution... but naturally in trying not to bring those words to mind that was all that bounced around in my head as I trudged my metaphorical green mile. I was being led deeper into the woods in a direction unfamiliar to me and I could almost hear the news reports already. “A young boy went missing today... sixteen years old... a student at... human remains discovered suspected to be that of the missing boy...”

  Something finally broke the pattern of brown and green; it was a cage that revealed itself through the veil of bark and branches, yet another fucking cage. This one was bigger than the one I had been in before though, the same height but bigger in every other dimension, it looked to have identical features, the matching weighty, thick bars all waiting obediently just as they had been during my last incarceration. What stood out the most though was what was inside it, there was a deer, shackled and chained within. Its restraints were cruelly short so it had almost no ability to move, it seemed incredibly distressed. It shook its head violently and struggled to separate fragile looking legs from its bonds but its efforts were fruitless.

  I wanted to ask questions but I knew they wouldn’t be answered; I wanted to at least look into Matthews eyes hoping for a glimpse into his soul, to see if good or evil lay behind them but all I was faced with was his shirt covered back. You can’t tell a lot about a man from his shirt, no matter what Gok-Wan tells you. Then there was the other guy, I trusted my instincts on that one. He was an asshole no question as far as I was concerned, I could just tell he hated me, resented me or something. Maybe it was a sense I didn’t know I had that told me so, maybe it was the expressions or lack thereof on his face, it could have been that I was just plucking my impressions from thin air but no matter how I knew it I knew it for sure, that guy detested me.

  We reached the cage; its door was wide open already. I could tell what they wanted me to do. I looked up at Matthew who was positioned next to the deer’s prison.

“Are you serious?” I asked him with a little anger as my hands were cut free, although my usual fire was far from returning.

“Just go in Zack.” He said in that same way, it was tinged with sadness or even surrender and he still wouldn’t look me in the eye, staring into the distance, no focus whatsoever. I hesitated at the threshold not wanting to move any further, then I was met by some gentle persuasion as the stranger planted a hand like a concrete slab between my shoulder blades and pushed me forwards taking the choice out of my grasp.

  The sight of the distressed deer made me uneasy to say the least. It stomped and shook, obviously it wasn’t enjoying itself in there but who would, I know I wasn’t. I felt really quite bad for it and I empathized with its position, both of us were trapped against our will, it was bound by chains and I was forced into place by the two guys stood at my back. It made pained noises, sounds of desperation in its own tongue; we were both helpless animals when it came down to it.

  What happened next I wasn’t expecting, that silver haired guy stepped into the cage with me and closed the door, Matthew locked it hastily with a large metal key. The old-timer took off his belt, that formidable looking belt that I had noticed earlier.

“Wait what the fuck?!” That was all I could say before a huge brass buckle struck the side of my face with a deafening crack and I dropped to the ground with no resistance at all. Light spots flashed, blinding me. Dazed and in shock lying face down on the sticky floor I coughed a little, choking on my own spit and blood. Gross I know. I writhed around and attempted to turn over, the belt came down on me again this time striking me in the side. I wailed as it painfully connected with my ribs. This cleared my head somewhat and I scrambled as fast as I could away from my attacker and towards my fellow captive. What a fucking surreal scene that must have been to an outsider looking in.

  “Matthew what the hell’s going on!?” I bellowed, fear apparent across my features. He didn’t say a word though; he just stood by the door, key in hand and stared at his feet. My side stung like a bitch and I found it hard to breathe as though the air were coming in solid lumps. I can’t be sure that the guy had cracked a rib or anything but it sure as hell felt like he had. I was ready to run, poised to make an escape but there was no way out.

  So there I was stood next to the deer that looked if anything even more stressed out by the whole state of affairs than I did when the guy stepped forward and swung the belt again. All I could do was crouch down and cover my head, trying to go into defence mode and ending up in the foetal position on the icy metal surface, how pathetic right?

  The silver haired man kept raining blows down upon me with that belt; it slashed its way through the air with sickening force. The way he did so was almost clinical. This wasn’t movie violence, this was real. A slow and sustained attack, genuine flesh and bone being twisted, distorted in unnatural ways, there was nothing glamorous or cinematic about it and the pain was a close second to my Lycan attack, it lasted far longer though.

  Wrapped in weak, tender tissue and begging for it to end I lay there, I had even given up covering my head, all energy had disappeared from my body. It was total and utter surrender on my part but finally it stopped. Tears were streaming down my face and what I could taste was a mixture of salt and copper. Limply I rolled over to see that guy still stood there. I hated that man with every fibre of my being as my eyes met his dead glassy orbs, he passed his belt through the bars and it dropped into the rustling leaves that carpeted the ground around my torture chamber. He turned back to face me.

“Looks like its game over kid.” He stated coldly, reaching into his long coat and removing a gun from an inside pocket. I don’t know much about guns right, but it was a handgun, it was jet black and it was pointed right at me, what else did I need to know? It was then that my rage boiled up, I was going to die, shot like a dog out in the woods by some cunt I didn’t even know. Something deep inside me stirred, it felt like it was alive in and of its self, it sat behind my ribs but felt like it was trying to claw its way free, an immense heat began to build in my chest. I slowly began to raise myself to my feet, battered and bruised limbs being lifted from the cold hard ground. Every inch of my skin burned white hot, some unknown force was tearing away at me from the inside but I didn’t care about either.

  Rage consumed me, eliminating all pain and fear, in those moments it was like I was a completely different person. Gone was the feeling of weakness, replaced by the sensation of power, it was intoxicating.

“You better pray the first shot kills me.” I spoke words that were not entirely my own. Suddenly it felt like invisible claws from within had burst from my chest, pain returned at lightning speed and I screamed in agony but the anger consumed it all.

“Shit! Open the do-” was all I heard before I was lost to the darkness.