Lucy A. McLaren

The dog stretched out of the cramped hole in the base of the great tree, yawning deeply. It had been a cool spring night and he sniffed at the fresh morning breeze that brought with it an undercurrent of death and decay from the surrounding forest.

His pointed ears pricked up at the sounds of the birds chirping in the trees. He had already discovered he wasn’t fast enough to catch them; he was old and had not eaten for several days. Stomach grumbling, he set off towards a nearby river.

The dog wasn’t used to or built for hunting. For many years, he had lived in a fishing village, now miles behind him. Life had been slow and peaceful. He’d chased the children around as they laughed and played. They’d named him Sturdy, for his stocky, barrel-like body, but these days his belly had shrunk and the bones of his ribs and spine were clearly visible beneath his skin.  Despite his hunger, his tail wagged back and forth as he recalled laying in the sun being fed plentiful scraps of fish. His mouth salivated.

A rustling noise amongst the bushes behind him caused his tail to pin between his legs. His ears pinned back against his head and he licked his lips nervously. Images of the day he’d left the village flashed across his mind and he whimpered. He’d learned to be wary, but that wariness intermingled with his desperation to find food. Sniffing the air, he found no immediate danger. He continued on to the river, short legs carrying him as quickly as they could.

On the other side of the riverbank, the corpse of a man had come to rest, several arrows protruding from his back. The dog smelt the rot emanating from the body, skin pulled tight across bloated purple flesh. Nevertheless, he would have feasted had he been able to reach it. As it was, the river flowed too fast and he was too weak to even attempt to swim across.

He drank his fill of water until the gnaw of hunger felt less urgent. A duck paddled by, three chicks in tow, and the dog followed them with his clouded brown eyes, knowing they were out of reach.

As he walked, he caught the scent of burning and smoke throughout the forest. There seemed to be areas which other animals were actively moving away from. He trusted their instincts and followed their trails.

He found an abandoned cart with a collapsed wheel and rummaged through the meagre contents, hoping to find some morsel of food. There were bloodied rags which he sniffed at; the wound had been inflicted days ago and the victim, dead or alive, was long gone. Beside this was a gnawed thigh bone from some unfortunate creature, picked clean.  

Having established that the cart yielded nothing warranting further investigation, he followed the sun westward through the canopy of the trees. As he did so, a new scent overcame him; burning flesh. He sped up and followed his nose to the outskirts of the forest.

As he approached the source of the smell, he slowed. There was a central structure, half collapsed, surrounded by fencing and piles of burned wood, still smouldering. He had seen such destruction and wreckage at the fishing village.

He remembered men in strange metal outfits, shouting, the stench of terror. His instincts had told him to hide. He concealed himself beneath the fishing pier and, as the hours passed and the shouts grew quiet, smelled blood and burning. He had shivered and whimpered and kept himself curled away. When he had eventually emerged many hours later, there had been no one left. The bodies of the children with whom he had played were in a pile, nothing more than smouldering ash and bone.  

He had run.

His tired heart thrummed in his chest, stirred by the memory, as he continued his search for the source of his salivation. He sniffed his way around the building wreckage and soon found what he was looking for.

The cow had been burned and blackened by the fire. Beneath the creature’s head, blood pooled from a gaping wound in its neck. Overcome with hunger and desperation, and no longer thinking of any potential danger, the dog approached and greedily lapped up the blood.

He was so absorbed in his meal that he did not hear the young boy approach behind. He was easily snatched up, his wriggling only forcing the boy’s hands to tighten. Blood flicked from his face and chest, splashing onto the boy’s hands and face, staining his skin red. The dog looked longingly back at the cow carcass.

“Shh, there, there,” the young boy said, attempting to pet the dog’s head with his bony hand. “Look, ma! Poor thing. Can we help ‘im?” The boy turned around to a stern-faced woman, who was attempting to salvage anything she could from the building rubble.

“We ‘aven’t got food enough for ourselves, let alone a starvin’ mutt. The King’s soldiers saw to that,” she spat. She studied the dog for a moment. “Scrawny enough, but there might still be some meat on his bones. ‘ere, bring him to me, son. ”

The boy looked from his mother to the dog. He had purple smudges under his eyes and his cheeks were sunken; the skin on his faced seemed taut against his skull, his lips were cracked and raw. The dog’s head tilted to one side, trying to understand the undercurrent of anger and sadness he sensed here.

“Come on, boy, I ain’t got all day,” the woman said sternly.

“But… we ‘ave the cow,” the boy said weakly.

“And ‘ow long do you s’pose that’ll last us?” The woman sighed. “Come, I’ll do it. We need all the supplies we can get.”

The dog felt the boy take a deep, shuddering breath before he was handed over to the woman. He looked up at her inquisitively, tail twitching. Like her son, she appeared exhausted; her eyes were rimmed red, cheekbones protruding from a gaunt, serious face. She did not look the dog in the eye but walked away from the boy, drawing something from a belt at her waist.

The dog, sensing danger, writhed and growled, startling the woman and causing her to lose her grip slightly. Nevertheless, she held steadfastly to the knife. He was hanging from her arm, front end dangling down, but he was so light that this caused little concern to the woman.

“It’ll be over afore you know it,” she muttered gently, some weak attempt at comfort.

Determined to survive, the dog snarled and turned to bite the hand that held him. His teeth sunk into the skin between her thumb and forefinger. The woman yelped and pulled her hand away, dropping him as she did so.  At the same time, the hand wielding the knife slashed towards him.  

As soon as he landed, he ran as fast as his legs would carry him away from the people, the ruined home, back to the safety of the forest. He ran until he was near collapse and stood panting. Saliva, pink from the cow’s blood, dripped onto the forest floor.

Something was wrong.

He suddenly became aware of a terrible burning sensation; he sniffed delicately at the long, deep wound running along his lower right side and down his thigh. The skin hung loose, bright pink muscle visible beneath the tattered flesh. His entire back half was stained red, the smell of his own blood overwhelming.

No longer fuelled by adrenaline, the strength drained from him. Limping and whimpering, he sought shelter before the smell of his blood attracted larger, far more dangerous predators. By the time he found a bush under which to hide, he trembled with weakness. He dragged himself into the undergrowth and collapsed, desperate to rest his weary bones.

As the birds continued to sing around him, the dog laid his head upon his front paws. As he slowly faded, images of laying in the sun and eating fresh fish filled his mind. His tail twitched back and forth before falling still.

He let out one last contented breath as his eyes gently closed.