My feet hurt. They haven’t stopped hurting the last 50 miles.
Sweat drips down my brow as heavy as a Sunday shower. The soles of my shoes are strings of torn rubber letting puddles of rain inside to soak my socks. My bunions ache. My calves sting. Every inch of me begs and screams to stop, to not take that next step, to find a park bench or a restaurant somewhere or better yet a hotel so we could finally get some well earned rest.
But I won’t. I can’t.
The thing behind me won’t allow it.
I hear its heavy paws padding along the pavement, feel the heat of its breath crawling up my neck. I sense its empty eyes burrowing into my back, egging me on, forcing me to continue my march to nowhere.
I was just headed home when it found me. Wasn’t hurting anyone, wasn’t bothering nobody, just minding my own business, looking forward to running a nice hot bath after a long shift at the factory.
As I strolled across the park, tugging my hood over my head while the rain beat down on me, there it emerged, appearing like some lonely shadow in the grass, hungry and drooling; a predator out on the hunt after a day spent napping in Hell.
The beast’s features weren’t clear in the nighttime. It seemed smallish, no bigger than your average Husky and a hell of a lot skinnier. At first I thought it was just some local stray looking for scraps. Without anything to hand, I smiled sympathetically and carried on my way. The mutt could find food somewhere else.
To think, I actually felt sorry for the damned thing.
I never once turned around to check if it was following. Turns out, I didn’t need to. As I walked up the steps to my front door, what should I find but that same bloody dog waiting for me on my porch.
My first reaction was annoyance. The thing had followed me all the way home to scrounge some loose morsels out of me, not to mention it had probably left a dirty mound on my doormat.
Then I looked closer.
Its features were clearer under a nearby streetlamp. It seemed bigger than before. Its whitish-grey fur was thick, wet and tangled. A string of scars ran along its body, deep, bloody, jagged and ugly. Claws stuck out from its paws and dug into the mat like raw bits of broken bone.
But the most striking aspect were its eyes. Most dogs, even the most brutally trained ones, held some feeling of familiarity in their gaze, something almost approaching human. Not here. There wasn’t anything in this creature’s unwavering stare.
I’d half-expect those eyes to glow with some dark ominous energy, a viscus green or a burning red, some indication of the hound’s hellish origin. But I didn’t even get that much. There was nothing there, no colour or feeling, no indication it even had eyes; just two empty black marbles in its skull looking over its prey.
And it was staring at me. Even without an iris, I knew this about the beast. Its gaze pierced right through me, needle-sharp and without mercy.
Acting on instinct, I took a step backwards, feeling suddenly unwelcome in my own home.
‘No,’ I said dumbly to myself. ‘Come on. You’re seeing things. There’s no way that thing’s real.’
Almost in response, the hound stood on all fours and growled, a deep primal noise that made the earth tremble.
I stepped back again.
The hound came towards me, drool falling eagerly from its gnarled jaws. Third step.
Still it came closer.
Then I noticed something else: the beast was getting bigger. The change was subtle, almost imperceptible at first, maybe only half an inch taller. All the same, the closer it moved, the larger it became. Its filth-covered fur shivered as it crept out of its skin. Its legs telescoped spider-like to accommodate the dog’s new size. Its jagged teeth grew to sharkish proportions and I noticed at least one extra row reveal themselves behind the first.
Behind all those changes, those black eyes kept staring me down.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t call for help. Some primal part of me knew I was fated to be this monster’s dinner. I was dead already. My body just hadn’t caught on yet. Fight-or-flight kicked in. Given I was facing a literal hell-beast with no chance of fighting it off, my body went for the latter option. I dropped my workbag, spun around and legged it away from my house and its new impromptu guard dog.
I sprinted as fast as my muscles could take me past parked cars, streetlamps, rows of flats and their sleepy occupants too engrossed in the latest thing on Netflix to notice the hellhound stalking their neighbourhood.
God, how I wish I was them.
I didn’t dare turn around, but I heard the beast’s paws beating the wet tarmac behind me, heard its grunting exertions as it became excited by the hunt.
I’d ran a lot at school. I was never Usain Bolt or anything, but the endurance those sweaty days gave me along my frequent football playing was my only saving grace in those first few minutes.
‘Leave me alone!’ I yelled furiously as if the dog could understand me. I didn’t care that it was bigger than me, stronger than me, and more than likely faster than me. I just wanted it to go away. Failing that, I wanted it to know just how pissed off I was.
Why did it have to choose me of all people? Was it just because I hadn’t stopped to feed it? I had nothing to give! It’s not like anyone else stops to feed every random flea-bitten mutt on the way home! Why was it picking on me?!
I clung to my frustration, the indignant rage spurring me on. It didn’t matter why the dog was after me. All that mattered was that I escape. Surely if I outran or outwitted the beast, I could survive. I could go back home, walk through my front door and get myself that bath after all.
‘I can do this,’ I told myself. ‘I just have to keep going and I can beat this thing.’ Hope clung to me stubborn as a tumour. I told myself that if I wasn’t dead, that somehow meant I was faster than my pursuer. I never stopped to wonder why, if it was able to keep up with me, it didn’t just go in for the kill. From the sounds of its sprinting paws and the still-eager pace of its breathing as we reached the edge of town, the dog didn’t seem anywhere like as tired as myself. So why didn’t it just finish me off and get its meal?
Then I slowed down.
Worn to the bone and sweating, my legs finally gave way. I fell into a slow jog and waited, waited for the inevitable. Even as my body stubbornly continued its doomed pilgrimage, I shut my eyes, waiting for the beast to leap forward, clamp its jaws down on my head and tear.
But it didn’t.
As the thumping heartbeat in my ears cleared, I heard the rhythmic paws prints steady out behind me, matching my pace. The dog was slowing down too. Why? Why would thing purposefully delay its feast? Was it showing mercy? Did it believe in giving its prey a fighting chance? Was it a bizarre show of respect for an adversary who’d kept going despite overwhelming odds?
The questions stirred in my brain as we crossed out of the city. There wasn’t another person in sight as we paced along the deserted waterfront, listening to the lapping ocean waves. They had a way of calming me down. For a moment, I wondered if my pursuer felt the same.
Was it as tired as me and needed a break too? Was it considering giving up and finding its food somewhere else?
Then it hit me. The penny dropped with a sickening clamour. It might’ve dropped sooner if I hadn’t let that damned blind optimism cover my eyes, if I hadn’t suckered myself into believing I could actually survive.
The beast was playing a game, toying with its food. It knew as well as I did that I couldn’t outrun my fate. It was leading me on to prolong the satisfaction of finally tasting its meal.
I slowed even more at the realisation. I didn’t quite stop, but my pace went from a light jog to a slow ponderous walk. This thing, this sadistic demon dog had been playing me the whole time, and now its sick game was over.
I swear I heard a laugh in the beast’s low growl, as if it knew that I knew.
I don’t know how long I’ve been walking now. I don’t even know why I’m still going. My body’s gotten the message. It, like the rest of me, knows its over.
‘What’s the point?’ I say as I bring my feet to a gradual stop. ‘You’ll get me eventually.’
I listen as the dog stops in its tracks and my hair blows in the wake of the beast’s breath. It’s so heavy and rancid now. Even without looking, I know its only gotten bigger during our run.
Fear washes over me, not the hot-blooded terror back on my porch. Something colder, denser, a hopeless empty fear, a fear that carves rather than pierces. I’m too tired to be terrified, but I’m afraid all the same.
I turn, sweat pouring, hands trembling. The movement takes longer than I can fathom. Ice ages come and go. Galaxies form and die in the time I take to face my stalker. Then, as my head reaches a full 180, my petrified eyes find themselves looking on… Nothing. Nothing at all.
No wet grey fur. No multiple rows of teeth. No black empty eyes. Just a blank pavement.
Could it be? Had the beast run off ? Had it slinked back to whatever hell it crawled out of ? Or was it all just a figment of my imagination? Have I dreamt up this whole thing and I’m about to wake safe and happy in my bed?
I’m almost apprehensive as the optimism works its way back into my brain. I was so sure, so absolutely certain I was dead.
Then I turn back around, and there it is. Standing right in front of me. The beast is larger than I can comprehend now. Its fur stretches out like branches on a dying tree. Its jaws open wide as a broken cathedral window letting puddles of drool out onto the pavement and revealing row after row of angry blood-soaked teeth. Those black eyes are there again, staring at me and through me.
I don’t scream. I can’t. What would be the point? I’m so tired, so damned tired. My entire being, every cell and fibre in my body, is ready to surrender. I can’t even register the fear. I just want this all to stop.
I stare up at the monstrosity. It stares back, eyes dead as ever. I’m still as a statue as it opens its gargantuan jaws with its countless razor teeth and lurches forward, ending its hunt and satiating itself on its meal.
Word count: 1916
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