Ever Dundas - Goblin

It’s a beautiful photograph.

London, 6 September 1939

I was about to snatch the camera away from Mac, but instead I was sick. It was mostly bile. Devil sniffed at my sick and I pushed him away.

‘It’s been happening all over,’ said Mac.

‘What?’

‘This,’ he gestured to the mound of dead bodies. ‘It’s been happening all over.’

‘Who’s doing it?’

‘We are. Freddy from next door took his pup to the vet yesterday and the pup just followed him all excited like it was an adventure. Freddy said it was for her own good. That she’d be afraid of the bombs, that she’d go crazy. Freddy said they’d have enough to worry about without this pup causing them trouble and being another mouth to feed.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘It’s right there,’ Mac said, pointing to the bodies. ‘What’s there to believe?’

‘People won’t just go and kill their family for no reason.’

‘They’re pets, you idiot. They’re just pets.’

‘Don’t you think Devil’s family?’

I punched him on the arm, he punched me back and we ended up in a scrap. He gave me a bloody nose but I pinned him down, pulling his arm behind his back and sitting on him. Devil yapped and nipped at me.

‘See,’ I said. ‘Devil loves you. Devil matters.’

‘I love the little bastard too, just get off me.’

We sat in silence for a while, staring at the bodies. Mac rubbed his arm and I wiped at the blood dribbling onto my lips. Devil nuzzled into me, trying to lick me clean of blood. I took his face in both hands and snuffled just behind his ear, breathing him in, smearing blood on his fur. I kissed his head.

‘I wasn’t saying he doesn’t matter, I was just saying how it is. Yesterday I found Charlie from across the road sat in the gutter snotting all over himself and I flicked his ear and called him a cry-baby. He cried even harder so I shoved him and he fell and lay there in the road. I didn’t know what to do, he was shaking and making this godawful noise. I dragged him out the gutter and put him in his garden and just left him there. Turned out his dad had taken all three cats to the vet to be killed. You know Charlie, won’t speak to anyone except those cats, and he had that one he put on a lead, the one that would sit on his shoulder like some parrot. All the adults say it’s for the best. All the adults say, “There’s a war on.”’

‘People won’t kill all the animals just because there’s a war on.’

‘But they have.’

Devil wandered over to the mound of bodies, sniffing round them, whining. I called him but he ignored me. He got down, flat on his belly, burrowing into the mound and pulling at something. I called again but he just pulled, dragging out a cat, causing the mound to collapse. The bodies fell on top of him and we ran to the rescue. The bodies shuddered as he struggled beneath them; a monster of heads and limbs shaking and lolling, paws reaching out to us, glacial eyes staring as we scrambled through the bodies searching for him. When we found him he had the cat held firm in his mouth and he growled at me when I tried to take it from him. He jumped clear, knocking Mac, leaving us in the pile of bodies. Mac was sprawled in a cushion of fur, cat and dog legs sticking out, giving him new limbs, heads sprouting from his shoulders.

‘You look like a monster,’ I said. ‘A three headed catdogboy with belly paws like an insect.’

‘A woodpig,’ he said, kicking his legs in the air, taking two paws in his hands and waving them, ‘a woodpig on its back.’

I laughed at him and he said, ‘You have feathers.’ I looked down and saw a dirty parrot by my knee. I picked it up, stroking it. It felt soft. Devil whined and I looked over. He’d let go of the cat and was sat flat in front of it, whining, scraping at the ground, pawing at its head. He circled it, got down flat again, pawed it, circled.

‘We should get away from here,’ I said.

I pushed myself up, feeling a crunch beneath my hand. I’d cracked a dog’s skull. I looked over at monster-woodpig-Mac and it wasn’t funny anymore. I felt sick again, drowning in bodies, no breath, no breath, trying to move, trying to get to Devil, my hands and feet crushing bodies. I couldn’t get free of them, they cracked and groaned and burst beneath me, tumbling after me as I tried to move away. I was sick again, sick onto the animals.

When I reached Devil I recognised the cat. Ruby was a year old ginger that belonged to my neighbour Mrs Summers. Devil had wanted to be friends with her, but she’d only hissed and scratched at him, until one hot summer’s day Devil was lying in our garden and Ruby came along and sat on top of him like they were best friends. Devil lay there like it was all normal, letting Ruby lick his ear.

I picked her up and Devil barked at me. She was damp and smelled of pee. She must have wet herself when she was killed.

‘It’s Ruby,’ I said to Mac. ‘I’m taking her home, giving her a proper burial.’

‘Who’s Ruby?’

‘Mrs Summers’ cat. She was friends with Devil.’

Devil stood on his hind legs and licked her dangling tail.

‘I don’t believe it,’ I said. ‘I bet it’s Nazi spies infiltrating us, telling everyone to kill the pets, telling everyone it’s for the best.’

‘Maybe.’

‘It is.’

‘Probably.’

‘It’s Nazis.’

‘Oi, you! Get out!’

I turned, spitting out of the side of my mouth. A man stomped towards us, carrying a shovel, sweat dripping.

‘What’re you up to, eh?’

I squinted up at him.

‘The Nazis have come,’ I said.

‘Get lost, boy. And you. That your dog? It’ll end up in here soon enough.’

I kicked his shin and spat at him, my saliva still mixed with sick. He took a swipe at me, but we ran, Mac swearing at him, calling him a fat German bastard. He just stood there, rubbing his leg, watching us run off.

‘The Germans have come.’

That’s what we told Stevie.

‘They’re spies. They’ll kill all our animals. You heard what he said about Devil, Mac. They’ll burn and bury them. They’ll release millions of rats and there won’t be any cats to eat the rats and they’ll spread a plague, like before, like back in the olden times.’

Stevie looked frightened.

‘I’m sick of your stories,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I’m just sick of them.’

‘It’s not a story,’ I said. ‘Look,’ I said.

I held out Ruby. I shook her, as if that proved something. Stevie backed off.

‘Get it away from me!’

‘It’s Ruby,’ I said. ‘The Nazis killed Ruby and all the other pets. It’s real, we saw. Eh, Mackenzie?’

Mac shrugged and said, ‘He looked like an ugly German but he didn’t sound it.’

‘I know, he’s a spy. He’ll have practiced our accent.’

‘Yeah, probably a spy.’

‘We’ll go back and we’ll take pictures and show everyone the Germans have come.’

‘I dunno,’ said Stevie.

‘They have our den. We can’t just let them kill animals and have our den and bring plague rats.’

‘Yeah,’ said Mac, ‘but who wants pictures, Goblin? We’ll capture him instead. How about that? We’ll go in and we’ll capture him!’

‘Ayaiaiaaaai!’ I yelled.

‘He sure looked a fat German bastard, a stupid rubbish German spy and we’ll get medals for finding him out, eh Goblin?’

‘For definite, Mac. Come on, Stevie, you gotta come. We’ll get medals, the three of us, and we’ll meet the king and eat in the palace, a huge feast for capturing the Germans and stopping the rat plague.’

Stevie still looked uncertain, but smiled. He joined in our war cries and bowed down before me as I laid a stick on each shoulder.