C Fletcher - A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World

I risked a quick look at John Dark and caught her wincing as she moved. Her wound was obviously hurting. Maybe the stitches had torn open. The torches were burning down and we were running out of time.

I knew what we had to do.

There! I shouted, pointing at the red cube cut into the darkness above. We take the horses to the fire!

She stared at me. I pointed at the horses and did my best to mime that we should all go up the steps to the safety of the concrete box and the fire within.

It will be safe, I shouted. There are walls! The fire will last longer than—

She shouted something angrily at me, but she was nodding agreement. I think she was telling me she understood and I should shut up and we should get on with it before the last two sticks of fire began to gutter away and leave us blind and undefended in the darkness.

She stepped quickly across and gave me her torch, then quickly unhobbled the horses. She took the reins of all of them in one hand, slinging the gun over her shoulder before she reached for the torch. Then she nodded up at the square firelit cave.

Al on zee , she said.

Slowly and awkwardly, with the wolves following all the way. John Dark led the horses over the barrier, which they didn’t like, and up the narrow, steep steps between the endless lines of seats, which they liked even less. Jip came with us, doing his own kind of circular patrol around us, keeping close but growling at every wolf who ventured a little nearer than the others. I brought up the rear, walking backwards, trying to keep the wolves in front and to either side of me within the edge of my vision. I had my bow slung on my back, but in my free hand I carried an arrow, ready to stab at anything that leapt at me. Other than the low growling, there was very little noise apart from the scrape of the horses’ progress up the wet steps. I backed into one of the horses as we went and it whinnied and lashed out at me with its hoof. It missed, but the side of its leg made glancing contact and knocked me over, so fast and unexpectedly that I fell awkwardly, face down with one arm tangled in a seat. I heard something snap and for a moment knew for certain it was my arm, then realised it was the arrow. The torch lay on the concrete steps below me, half rolled under one of the plastic seats that was already beginning to catch fire from it, and beyond that two pairs of wolf’s eyes gleamed hungrily, low to the ground and getting closer.

I felt wolf paws on my back, and knew I was done for, and then I heard the wolf on top of me bark warningly at the two pairs of eyes that then slunk back a bit, and I knew it was Jip defending me and not a wolf at all. I scrambled to my feet and darted forward to retrieve the torch.

Jip stayed close to me for the rest of the clumsy retreat up the terrace, as if he didn’t quite trust in my ability to take care of myself, which was probably an accurate assessment of the situation. He kept up a low, almost subsonic growl all the way. I found the rumble of it next to my leg was quite comforting. There was one final spasm of ungainliness as John Dark had to yank and cajole the already very spooked horses into the confined space of the landing, and then we were in—protected on three sides by solid walls with a staircase behind us that we’d have to keep an eye on, and only the open end of the box to defend.

We stood there, panting hard, suddenly immobile and not sure what to do now other than wait.

Mared , she said.

The horses had not liked being led to the back of the landing, past the fire. They were crammed in next to each other, still skittish. John Dark said something else, something I missed but that sounded irritated and worried. I followed her gaze. The fire was not as big as I’d remembered. And there was certainly not enough wood to keep it blazing until dawn.

It’s okay, I said. I’ve got it.

The plastic seat I’d accidentally set fire to was still burning halfway down the terrace. It backlit the wolves who were now arranged in a lumpy half-circle among the lines of seats sloping away below us. The prickling on the back of my neck and the growling that Jip was directing up into the darkness above the mouth of our cave made me sure the circle was a full one and there were wolves up there waiting to leap if we ventured too far.

I pointed out the burning seat to John Dark, then pointed at the seats beyond the mouth of the cave. Then I unslung the bow from my back and put an arrow in, ready. She understood my sign language and nodded.

As she walked out and lit two seats on either side of the steps below, I watched her back by keeping my arrow trained into the gloom above us. No wolf sprang down on us then or later in the night as we made more forays out to light more plastic beacons when the first and then the following pairs guttered out. It might have been that there were no wolves circling above us. It might have been that those that were there were so impressed by my marksmanship that they were too scared to try it. Or, and I think this is the real truth, the noxious chemical smell of the thick black smoke that plumed above the burning plastic made them run somewhere safer, downwind.

We made it through until first light, protected by the fire. Safe, but at the cost of a foul chemical taste and smell that stayed in my mouth and nose for days afterwards. I understand why there’s still so much plastic in the world, still pale fragments of who-knows-what-it-once-was washing up on the beaches, or just junk slowly weathering away like all the seats in the stadium. If you’d tried to burn it all on a rubbish heap, you’d have choked the world to death.

The dawn was accompanied by a complete absence of wolf, except the dead one down on the old playing field.

John Dark and I had taken it in turns to sleep. The light came while I was dozing and I woke to find her poking at me with her boot and nodding towards the field.

Eels on two party , she said. Lay loo. Eels on two party .

I think lay loo means wolves. But whatever that meant, it was good, because it was her younger happier face saying it.

Then a serious look came over her.

Eel foe parlay , she said. Tew nay pars un day Freemen. Okay. May eel foe parlay day Freemen.

She pulled the key from her pocket, looked at it and showed it to me.

Okay? she said. Okay, Griz?

I nodded. At the time I didn’t really know what she meant, but at least she wasn’t trying to tie me up. I sensed things were better between us now. After our shared ordeal, I felt she knew I had saved her and the horses, and that whatever the misunderstanding about the key was, it was at least now agreed to be a misunderstanding, and that we would sort it out.

Maybe it was the sunshine peeking over the edge of the stand opposite, but everything felt more secure. More optimistic. Safer. Trustworthy.

Turned out she wanted to tell me a story.

And we already know how safe those things are.

The story of the Freemen came in fits and starts over the next few days as we travelled. It was told in a mix of mime and pointing at words in the dictionary, and because of that I might still not have it quite right, but I think I have the general idea. I do know I have the specific reason John Dark came to this place looking for the one Freeman in particular. I know what her grudge against him was. He had killed her daughters.

But before we get to who the Freemen were, or maybe even still are, I should put us on the road again. After the night of the wolves, we left the stadium, taking our honey and the horses. The one that had been wolf-bit seemed almost unaware of the damage to its flank until John Dark put a thick wipe of honey across the wound, and then it flinched and whinnied and tried to bite her. I was holding its head and the convulsion nearly pulled me off my feet.