Walking Home

Suspense Stories | May 26, 2013 | 6 min read
24 Votes, average: 4 out of 5
I left my mother's at about ten pm after the game had finished. I didn't want to wait around for the pundits to spew their opinions on how the game went…after all I had just watched the damn thing.
I finished my can of lager and headed out the door. My brother said he would see me tomorrow and I bade him farewell. I could have taken a taxi, but the walk seemed a good idea.
The night, which was warm for the time of year-October-gave away to a slight breeze which was welcome. I had a windbreaker on, and it was unzipped. I couldn't be bothered doing it. The walk wasn't a long one (in fact, it was a straight line down to my place) and I enjoyed it. I had done it hundreds of times before.
King Street was always quiet after Ten pm, the odd car would pass, but it was eerie compared to Ten am. I turned off Thorncliffe Avenue and onto King Street. There was an old man waiting for the last bus into Hyde, and I saluted him. He gave a quick nod and resumed smoking his cigarette. I saw him there every Wednesday night. He must have done the late shift at ASDA; he wore the uniform for it. I carried on walking, past the rows of terraced houses, looking at each one to see if people were still awake. Knowing that some were gave me some sort of comfort on my trek home. I always thought something was following me.
That night, I was right.
I was crossing Boyds Walk when I thought I saw something up ahead, near The Angel Inn. It looked like a huge dog, only it was on its hind legs and walking in the opposite directions to me. I stopped at the church, and sat on the wall, ready to dive behind it should this thing see me. The dog was walking on its two back legs and looking around, as if it had lost something and was now trying to retrieve it.
It was hairy, too hairy in fact. It looked like it had a large black mane. A car was heading toward me now, and the dog looked around, saw the car, saw me sat on the wall. It grinned revealing a row of sharp teeth and pointed a paw at me and growled. Then it dived behind a small wall and waited for the car to pass. My heart sank. I thought my bladder had let go, but it hadn't.
I jumped off the wall and headed back toward my mother's, as fast as I could. Then I heard it. It sounded like claws on the pavement, scurrying after me. I looked around and saw the dog, still on its hind legs, sprinting after me, snarling.
This time, my bladder did let go, and I am not ashamed to admit it. The dog-thing gained on me. I reached Thorncliffe and decided that if I carried on to my mother's, the thing was apt to catch me. So I dived over a small wicker fence and into someone's flowerbed, crushing some small shoots. My head caught on a gnome and I seethed.
The dog (I could see the corner of Thorncliffe and King Street from my vantage point) turned the corner and leaned on the wall, panting. Its huge, pink tongue hung out of its mouth and I noticed it had brilliant yellow eyes with no pupils in them. Its hair was matted with a thin layer of what looked like mucous. It breathed heavy and deeply. My own breaths were shallow in comparison, and I felt a charley horse coming on.
The dog-thing sniffed around, trying to pick scent up. I wanted to get up and run, screaming, anything to alert someone to what was happening. Another car passed and the driver didn't seem to notice. The dog had gone onto all fours and now it just looked like a normal stray, sniffing around looking for scraps and leftovers.
My crotch was cold now. The wet had soaked right through the denim and I wanted to cry. The dog remained at the corner of the junction, sniffing. On occasion, it would look up.
If I could divert its attention, I could make a break for Inverness Road, I thought. My mind was playing different scenarios and coming up with the same conclusion: I would be caught.
PHONE! My mind screamed. USE YOUR MOBILE PHONE!
I dug in my windbreaker and pulled my phone out. The battery was at 3 per cent and proclaiming EMERGENCY ONLY. Well, wasn't this a fucking emergency? My mind (acting like a separate entity) said. Dial 999. Tell them a stray is fucking following you, anything!
I looked up to check where the dog-thing was, and I couldn't see it. It had gone.
I slowly got to my knees, being careful not to hit that damn gnome again, and peered over the fence to get a better view. It had truly gone. The paw prints led up Inverness Road, though. It had gone the way I needed to go. I cursed the wretched thing.
I came up from behind the fence and walked onto the road and I could smell death in the air. By now, the hum of traffic I could hear earlier was gone; and all was silent. The wind picked up a little, breaking that silence.
I walked up to Inverness Road, tiptoed actually, as if the dog-thing might hear me, and I heard a loud howling. I ran toward my mother's house, passing an upturned dustbin, its contents spilled into the street, stinking and wet. I reached my mother's house and saw the door was wide open. There was a huge scratch line down the white door, and the carpet in the hallway was drenched with claret. The walls looked like someone had fired paintball guns at it, such was the splattered blood.
I heard screaming coming from upstairs, and realised that the dog-thing had broken in. I ran into the house and straight to the kitchen and got the bread knife from the utensil drawer. My brother had fled out of the back door, it seemed. It was ajar.
I ran upstairs and saw my mother's fiancé lay in a pool of blood, face down. He had been eviscerated; his entrails were across the bed and draped across my mother's severed legs. I screamed. The dog-thing looked at me and smiled. Then it darted past me. I swiped at it with the knife, catching its back. It let out a howl and turned toward me. It grinned, revealing razor sharp teeth. The blood on the knife was a deep crimson colour. It was thick, too.
‘You will know true horror, human,' it muttered and fled, jumping out of the landing window and off into the night. I screamed.

Blue lights flooded the bedroom from the window, and I heard other sirens in the distance. I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. I stood there, feeling relieved. It was the armed response unit; someone must have heard the commotion.
‘DROP THE KNIFE! NOW!' One of the officers screamed at me, pointing his sub-machine gun at me. Another one followed him in and pointed his gun.
‘Drop it, NOW! Get on the floor!' He edged closer.

I was arrested at 12.03am that morning, and when they took me out, I saw my brother stood with a group of officers. The coroner's van was parked askew at the end of the road, and a Crime Scene Investigation Unit van was parked outside, along with a dozen police cars. Some of the neighbours had come out onto the street to watch what was happening. The blue flashing hurt my eyes. I saw a news van pulling up near the end of the street, too.
‘He killed my mother, and her fiance!' My brother shouted, and an officer held him back. ‘Killed them in cold blood!'
The cuffs hurt my hands. They chaffed and burned. But that was ok; I had plenty of time to see the FME at the station, if needed.
As I was put into a ‘meat wagon,' I looked at my brother. He looked away from me in disgust.

As I write this now, from my cell in G Wing, I still think about that dog-thing and what it has done to my life. I have no visitors, no letters from other family members, nothing. I sometimes wish I had taken a taxi that night. I wish I had left when the sun was still in the sky.
I wish.
I wish.
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Musa Jul 18, 2013

Wow, I was making the images in my mind while reading. It was like a movie. That was really good.

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