This was a short story I submitted for a competition where the theme was “Breaking the Bond“. And what stronger and more loving bond is there than the one between a dog and his master?
FINALLY!
I was weary, hungry and my joints ached with damp and chill, yet I felt a giant looking down into the valley to behold that glorious little hamlet I knew so well.
HOME!
The main road meandered southwards, following the line of the river. On the north end of town sat the village hall, the inn, the church and the post office. Drystone walls lined the roads, behind which lay houses where my friends were no doubt rising to meet the dawn. Yet it was the house on the southernmost tip of the village, with a big white caravan on the front lawn, that truly sent my heart soaring.
BECKY!
I galloped downhill, vaulting over rivulets and tussocks, not stopping for anything, even to scratch the burdock seeds out of my fur.
I could see it all now. I’d bound up the path as the smell of breakfast cooking on the stove washed over me. I’d bark until the family heard me and opened the door. Gerald and Tessa would be over the moon. They’d stroke and tickle me endlessly while I planted kisses all over their tear-stained cheeks. And wouldn’t little Becky jump for joy when she saw me? Her delighted shriek resounded in my imagination…
“CHESTER!”
With single-minded purpose, I raced at top speed past McCrae’s Farm.
“Hey, Chester!”
Hearing my name called in Canine snapped me out of my daydreaming and I scrabbled to a halt. It was Zephyr, the McCraes’ rough collie, peeking through the slats in the farm’s five-bar gate.
“’Morning, Zephyr,” I replied. “Am I glad to see you again, and the valley!”
I was bounding back and forth excitably at this point, still anxious to get going. Zephyr, on the other hand, didn’t seem her usual bright self. There was a host of strong, strange smells clinging to her; silage, rust and an ominous smell of decay.
“Yes, welcome back,” she said flatly. “Could you come into the farmyard a moment, Chester? Just squeeze through the slats. I’m too big to fit but you’re a Springer; you should be small enough.”
She was right. Tessa’s always been amused at my ability to sneak through tight spaces; under gates or table legs, through cracks in walls and gaps in wire fences. The McCraes’ gate was no challenge.
“Oh Zephyr, I’m so pleased to be back!” I gushed. “I’ve just been through the most horrible experience of my life. Two days ago, three horrible people in white plastic suits and masks dognapped me while I was chewing my rubber bone in Gerald and Tessa’s front garden. They shoved me into a little plastic box inside a big white van, alongside a few other dogs. But later the van crashed, which smashed a lot of the cages open. I managed to escape and find my way back. It wasn’t easy but I found the way by…”
“CHESTER!”
Zephyr’s harsh bark shocked me into silence.
Oh my! I hadn’t realised until then just how still everything seemed. I couldn’t hear any motor vehicles nearby. Even the birds overhead and the sheep on the moors could scarcely be heard. Why was that?
“Chester, something very bad has happened.”
“What?” I said, more sharply than I intended to. “To who? My family?”
“No,” Zephyr said heavily. “To mine. Come and see.”
Zephyr led me over to the farmhouse, nosing open the front door which for some reason wasn’t closed. I gagged as the vile decaying smell I had sensed on Zephyr hit me 100 times harder. Zephyr urged me on through the hall, past the kitchen and the stairs, to the silent, shady lounge where…
“AAAAAGH!”
I couldn’t help yelping in terror. The smell of putrefaction was almost unbearable in here, and for good reason. Mr and Mrs McCrae were dead; he collapsed on the sofa and she slumped in an armchair. And I could see why with nauseating clarity.
Both Mr and Mrs McCrae’s corpses bore the marks of a most hideous disease. Their skin was pale, papery, and covered with raised black lesions. Their sightless eyes were swollen and bloodshot and their mouths hung open, with lips and tongues swollen and distended.
“How could this have happened?” I whined.
“I think I know how,” Zephyr replied, in leaden tones. “Oh, thank goodness their kids live in Bradford now.”
“I’d better head down the valley and see if Becky and her parents are affected.”
“NO!”
Zephyr’s bark cut me short even as I wheeled around.
“…Chester,” she continued, controlling herself. “I’m afraid that may put both them and you in danger.”
“But they’re missing me,” I protested. “They’ll be sick with worry.”
“That’s not all that might make them sick, Chester,” sighed Zephyr. “You need to see something else.”
Zephyr led me out of the house, then the farm. (She was able to jump the gate.) She then led me along the road to Foster’s Farm, although she leapt with fright when an engine started some distance away. Another mystery. Even country dogs are used to the sound of tractors and Land Rovers.
“Remember Teddy, the Fosters’ border collie?” said Zephyr as we peered through the gate. “A van just like the one you described took him as well, two days ago. I haven’t seen the Fosters since then. But if you look closely in the kitchen window…”
I strained my eyes and I saw, to my horror, an emaciated figure covered in black lesions, slumped over the wooden table in the farmhouse kitchen. The wind was in our faces so even from here, I could catch the same loathsome rotting smell that had struck me at McCrae’s Farm. I hunched my shoulders and my tail drooped.
“The McCraes hid me in the silage store when the vans came, because they were suspicious of them,” Zephyr explained. “That stank, I can tell you. But I’ve travelled round all the local farms and the pattern is always the same. In every household that owned a dog, the dog is gone and the owners are either dead or vanished.”
“WHOA!”
We spun round as a great reverberating tattoo began overhead. Our fur was blown back as a huge dual-rotor helicopter flew past less than fifty feet above us. It swooped down into the valley, in the direction of the village.
Zephyr and I ran back across the road, so that we could look down upon the village and see what was going on. Other such helicopters were now already down there, landing in fields behind the houses. Meanwhile, soldiers were piling out of trucks near the village hall.
Worst of all though, men just like the one who dognapped me were walking up and down the high street. Even at a distance their dreaded white plastic suits and face masks were unmistakeable. Several of their despicable white vans followed them down the road as they patrolled it.
“Chester, I think those men took you away for a reason,” Zephyr said gravely. “This disease that killed my family, and everyone else, must be carried by dogs. Those men wanted to study you to find a cure, or quarantine you until the threat was over. Or possibly just to…”
She couldn’t finish, but she didn’t need to. I understood what she implied.
“I wouldn’t even be surprised if the van crashed because the driver was infected,” continued Zephyr. “Chester, if you go down into the valley, you’d be putting your family at risk, if they’re not sick or dead already.”
“ARRROOOOOO!”
I howled in anguish, still refusing to give up hope.
“This can’t be right,” I protested. “If we carried this disease, why aren’t we dying?”
“Maybe it affects humans quicker,” Zephyr shrugged, “Or simply passes us over. Either way, we can’t take any chances. Chester… you can’t go home.”
“NOOOOO!”
It wasn’t fair. Had I trekked over the moor for two nights and days, through mist, rain and perishing cold, only to find I couldn’t go back to Gerald and Tessa? Or Becky? This just couldn’t be real.
“Every good dog is loyal to his family, Chester,” Zephyr said sadly. “But right now, that means you must stay away from them. Completely. We need to go out onto the moors and stay well away from any human until this dies down. Or better yet, we need to find one of those vans so they can take us back and study us so…”
“NO WAY!”
My heart burned with fiery anger. How dare Zephyr suggest that I put myself back into captivity! I was so close to home now, so close, and yet…
And yet Zephyr looked at me so earnestly I couldn’t contradict her. And however hard it wrenched at my soul, I knew deep within she was talking sense.
I hung my head.
“What now, Zephyr?”
rpatersonwriting 