Bewere the Night (37 page)

“I wouldn’t touch one,” Gina said.

“Really? Is that a vision you had?”

“No, they just look nasty,” and we shared a small laugh. We often shared moments like that, even at Joe’s bedside.

Gina stumbled on a tree root the size of a man’s thigh.

“You need to keep your eyes down,” I said. “Downcast. Modest. Can you do that?”

“Can you?”

“Not really.”

“Joe always liked ’em feisty.”

Gina’s breath came heavy now and her cheeks reddened.

“It’s going to be tough walking back up.”

“It always is. I don’t even know why you’re dragging me along. You could manage this alone.”

“You know I need you to gauge the mood. That’s why.”

“Still. I’d rather not be here.”

“I’ll pay you well. You know that.”

“It’s not the money, Rosie. It’s what we’re doing. Every time I come out with you it feels like we’re going against nature. Like we’re siding with the wrong people.”

“You didn’t meet the client. He’s a nice guy. Wants to save his kid.”

“Of course he does, Rosie. You keep telling yourself that.”

I didn’t like that; I’ve been able to read people since I was twelve and it became necessary. Gina’s sarcasm always confused me, though.

At the fourth waterfall, we found huge, stinking mushrooms, which seemed to turn to face us.

Vines hung from the trees, thick enough we had to push them aside to walk through. They were covered with a sticky substance. I’d seen this stuff before, used as rope, to tie bundles. You needed a bush knife to cut it. I’d realized within a day of being here you should never be without a bush knife and I’d bought one at the local shop. I cut a dozen vines, then coiled them around my waist.

Gina nodded. “Very practical.” She was over her moment, which was good. Hard to work as a team with someone who didn’t want to be there.

What did we see at the fifth waterfall? The path here was very narrow. We had to walk one foot in front of the other, fashion models showing off.

There were no vines here. The water was taken by one huge fish, the size of a Shetland pony. The surface of the water was covered with roe and I wondered where the mate was. Another underground channel? It would have to be a big one. It would be big but confining. My husband is confined. I’m happy with him that way. He can’t interfere with my business. Tell me how to do things.

At the sixth waterfall, we saw our first dog. It was very small and had no legs. Born that way? It lay in the pathway unmoving, and when I nudged it, I realized it was dead.

Gina clutched my arm. Her icy fingers hurt and I could feel the cold through my layers of clothing.

“Graveyard,” she said. “This is their graveyard.”

The surface of the sixth pool was thick with belly-up fish. At the base of the trees, dead insects like autumn leaves raked into a pile.

And one dead dog. I wondered why there weren’t more.

“He has passed through the veil,” Gina said, as if she were saying a prayer. “We should bury him.”

“We could take him home to the client. He already has a hole dug in his backyard. He’s kind of excited at the idea of keeping dogs there.”

Is there a name for a person who takes pleasure in the confinement of others?

We reached the seventh waterfall.

We heard yapping, and I stiffened. I opened my bag and put my hand on a dog collar, ready. Gina stopped, closed her eyes.

“Puppies,” she said. “Hungry.”

“What sort?”

Gina shook her head. We walked on, through a dense short tunnel of wet leaves.

At the edge of the seventh waterfall there was a cluster of small brown dogs. Their tongues lapped the water (small fish, I thought) and when we approached, the dogs lifted their heads, widened their eyes, and stared.

“Gaze dogs,” I said.

These were gaze dogs like I’d never seen before. Huge eyes. Reminded me of the spaniel with the brain too big.

“Let’s rest here, let them get used to us,” Gina said.

I glanced at my watch. We were making good time; assuming we caught a vampire dog with little trouble, we could easily make it back up by the sunfall.

“Five minutes.”

We leaned against a moss-covered rock. Very soft, damp, with a smell of underground.

The gaze dogs came over and sniffled at us. One of the puppies had deep red furrows on its back; dragging teeth marks. I had seen this sort of thing after dog fights, dog attacks. Another had a deep dent in its side, filled with dark red scab and small yellow pustules. Close up, we could see most of the dogs were damaged in some way.

“Food supply?” Gina said.

I shuddered. Not much worried me, but these dogs were awful to look at.

One very small dog nuzzled my shoe, whimpering. I picked it up; it was light, weak. I tucked it into my jacket front. Gina smiled at me. “You’re not so tough!”

“Study purposes.” I put four more in there; they snuggled up and went to sleep.

She seemed blurry to me; it was darker than before. Surely the sun wasn’t further away. We hadn’t walked that far. My legs ached as if I had been hiking for days.

At the eighth waterfall we found the vampire dogs. Big, gazing eyes, unblinking, watching every move we made. The dogs looked hungry, ribs showing, stomachs concave.

“They move fast,” Gina whispered, her eyes closed. “They move like the waterfall.”

The dogs swarmed forward and knocked me down. Had their teeth into me in a second, maybe two.

The feeling of them on me, their cold, wet paws heavy into my flesh, but the heat of them, the fiery touch of their skin, their sharp teeth, was so shocking I couldn’t think for a moment, then I pulled a puppy from my jacket and threw it.

Their teeth already at work, the dogs saw the brown flash and followed it.

They moved so fast I could still see fur when they were gone.

I threw another puppy and another vampire dog peeled off with a howl. The first puppy was almost drained, its flatter, as if the vampires sucked out muscle, too.

“Quick,” Gina said. “Quick.” She had tears in her eyes, feeling the pain of the puppies, their deaths, in her veins.

I threw a third puppy and we ran down, away from them. We should have run up, but they filled the path that way.

I needed a place to unpack my bag, pull out the things I’d need to drop three of them. Or four.

We heard a huffing noise; an old man coughing up a lifetime. We were close to the base and the air was so hard to breathe we both panted. Gina looked at me.

“It must be the alpha. The yellow dog.”

It seemed to me she stopped breathing for a moment.

“We could try to take a piece of him. We’d never be lonely again, if we did that.”

The vampire dogs growled at us, wanting more puppies. The last two were right against my belly; I couldn’t reach them easily and I didn’t want to.

“I don’t want to see the ninth waterfall,” Gina said. I shook my head. If the vampire dogs were this powerful, how strong would he be?

“It’s okay. I’m ready now. I’ll take three of them down quietly; the others won’t even notice. Then we’ll have to kick our way out.”

She nodded.

We turned around and he was waiting. That dog.

He was crippled and pitiful but still powerful. His tail, his ears and his toes had been cut off by somebrave. Chunks of flesh were gone from his side. People using him as sacrifice for gain.

Gina was impressive; I could see she was in pain. Was she feeling the dog’s pain? She was quiet with it, small grunts. She walked towards him.

The closer she got to the dog the worse it seemed to get. “I want to lay hands on him, give him comfort,” Gina said.

The dog was the ugliest I’ve ever seen. Of all the strays who’ve crossed my path here, this one was the most aggressive. This dog would make a frightening man, I thought. A man I couldn’t control. Drool streamed down his chin.

He sat slouched, rolled against his lower back. Even sitting he reached to my waist.

All four legs were sprawled. He reminded me of an almost-drunk young man, wanting a woman for the night and willing to forgo that last drink, those last ten drinks, to achieve one. Sprawled against the bar, legs wide, making the kind of display men can.

His fur was the color of piss, that golden color you don’t want to look at too hard, and splotched with mud, grease, and something darker.

One ear was half bitten off. The other seemed to stand straight up, unmoving, like a badly made wooden prosthetic.

One lip was split, I think; it seemed blurry at this distance.

He licked his balls. And his dog’s lipstick stuck out, fully twelve centimeters long, pink and waving.

Thousands of unwanted puppies in there.

He wasn’t threatening; I felt sorry for him. He was like a big boy with the reputation of being a bully, who has never hurt anyone.

But when we got close to the yellow dog I realized he was perfect, no bits missing. An illusion to seduce us to come closer. Gina stepped right up to him.

“Gina! Come back!” but she wouldn’t.

“If I comfort him, he will send me a companion. A lifetime companion,” she said.

“Come live with me!” I said. “We’ll take some gaze dogs, rescue them. We’ll live okay.”

He reared back on his hind legs and his huge skull seemed to reach the trees. He lifted his great paw high.

Around our feet, the vampire dogs swarmed. I grabbed one. Another. I sedated them and shoved them in my carry bag.

The yellow dog pinned Gina with his paws. The vampire dogs surrounded him, a thick blue snarling band around him.

I threw my last two gaze dogs at them but they snapped at them too quickly. I had no gun. I picked up three rocks and threw one, hard. Pretended it was a baseball and it was three balls two strikes.

The vampire dogs swatted the rock away as if it were a dandelion. I threw another, and the last, stepping closer each time.

The yellow dog had his teeth at Gina’s throat and I ran forward, thinking only to tear her away, at least drag her away from his teeth.

The vampire dogs, though, all over me, biting my eyes, my ears, my lips.

I managed to throw them off, though perhaps they let me.

The yellow dog sat crouched, his mouth covered with blood. At his paws, I thought I saw hair, but I wondered:
What human has been down here? Who else but me would come this far?

I backed away. Two sleeping vampire dogs in my bag made no noise and emitted no odor; I was getting away with it. They watched me go, their tongues pink and wet. The yellow dog; again, from afar he looked kindly. A dear old faithful dog. I took two more vampire dogs down, simple knock out stuff in a needle, and I put them in my bag. A soft blanket waited there; no need to damage the goods.

I picked up another gaze dog as I walked. This one had a gouge in his back, but his fur was pale brown, the color of milk chocolate. He licked me. I put him down my jacket, then picked up another for a companion.

It took me hours to reach the top. Time did not seem to pass, though. Unless I’d lost a whole day. When I reached second waterfall, there were the same fishermen. And the families at first waterfall, swimming, cooking and eating as if there was no horror below them. They all waved at me but none offered me food or drink.

The souvenir salesmen were there at the top. “Shells?” they said. “Buy a shell. No sale for a week, you know. No sale. You will be the first.” I didn’t want a shell; they came from the insects I’d seen below and didn’t want to be reminded of them.

I called a cabbie to take me to my hotel. I spent another day, finalizing arrangements for getting the dogs home (you just need to know who to call) then I checked out of my room.

The doctor was happier than I’d thought he’d be. Only two dogs had survived, but they were fit and healthy and happily sucked the blood out of the live chicken he provided them.

“You were right; you work well alone,” he said. “You should dump that husband of yours. You can manage alone.”

I’d just come from visiting Joe and his dry-eyed gaze, his flaccid fingers, seemed deader than ever. The nurses praised me up, glad there was somefor him. “Oh, you’re so good,” they said. “So patient and loyal. He has no one else.” Neither do I, I told them.

A month or so later, the doctor called me. He wanted to show me the dogs; prove he was looking after them properly.

A young woman dressed in crisp, white clothes answered the door.

“Come in!” she said.

“You know who I am?”

Leading me through the house, she gave me a small wink. “Of course.”

I wasn’t sure I liked that.

She led me outside to the backyard; it was different. He’d tiled the hole and it was now a fish pond. The yard was neater, and lounge chairs and what looked like a bar were placed in a circle. Six people sat in the armchairs, reading magazines, sipping long drinks.

“He didn’t tell me there was a party.”

“Take a seat. Doctor will be with you shortly,” the young woman said. Three of the guests looked at their watches as if waiting for an appointment.

I studied them. They were not a well group. Quiet and pale, all of them spoke slowly and lifted their glasses gently as if in pain or lacking strength. They all had good, expensive shoes. Gold jewelry worn with ease. The doctor had some wealthy friends.

They made me want to leap up, jump around, show off my health.

The young woman came back and called a name. An elderly woman stood up.

“Thank you, nurse,” she said. It all clicked in then; I’d been right. The doctor was charging these people for treatment.

It was an hour before he dealt with his patients and called me in.

The vampire dogs rested on soft blankets. They were bloated, their eyes rolling. They could barely lift their heads.

“You see my dogs are doing well.”

“And so are you, I take it. How’s your son?”

He laughed. “You know there’s no son.”

He gave me another drink. His head didn’t bobble. We drank vodka together, watching the vampire dogs prowl his yard, and a therapist would say my self-loathing led me to sleep with him.

I crawled out of the client’s bed at two or three a.m., home to my gaze dogs. They were healing well and liked to chew my couch. They jumped up at me, licking and yapping, and the three of us sat on the floor, waiting for the next call to come in.