No.
Not now. Do this alone. No feathers.
I brought myself down.
A lone dog girl was lying on a black carpet, her long tongue licking down between her split legs.
The room smelt like porn. Dogporn. Porn for the nose.
The bitchgirl looked up at me.
She had eyes of the brightest human blue, set amidst a face of fur.
I couldn't look into those eyes.
I closed the door gently, and then turned to the door on the left. Mandy was no longer with me. Where was that girl? No matter. Do it alone. Check every room. Keep looking - A tiny noise. There! Listen! A tiny noise just coming in, almost lost in the howling from the kitchen. I pressed my ear against the left side door. There it was. The sound of alien flesh rubbing up the wrong way against planet Earth.
I pushed the door open.
Slowly.
Do this slowly, holding the breath, keeping cool.
I went into the room.
There was a smell of bad meat, a rancid haze that clogged at the senses, bringing thoughts of death.
The Thing was in the room.
I could hear him calling me, in that strange tongue.
The room was dark, dark as all the rest, but I could just make him out there, his fat bulk. The curtains were closed, just a glimmer of a streetlamp filtering in. In the shadows I saw a thin shape moving. It was bent over near the Thing. A dull glint came from its fingers. The shape moved slightly as I stepped inside, lifting its head up towards me, and I saw the snout dribbling, a slow turn of its thin long face.
The shape howled, high pitched.
My eyes adjusted to the darkness. It was a young dogboy and he was crouched over a bed. The Thing was tied down to the bed with old dogleads. Dogboy had a breadknife in his paws, and he was cutting chunks from the Thing's stomach. Beside the bed lay a bowl. Some meat was in there already. My mind jumped back to the kitchen, what I saw there as we passed - the dogs eating and the sweet aroma of the meat.
Sudden flash of me arriving back down in the real, the Thing pressed up on top of me, that sweet aroma rising from his skin.
Those dogs were eating the Thing! Bit by bit. Letting him regenerate between meals. And then cutting some more muscle off, taking that featherless flight into Vurt, direct to the flesh.
Something snapped just then. Something happened.
Not sure what. But during it I felt the cut of the breadknife on my arm, up just past the elbow. Didn't hurt. Even though I saw the red spurting onto my jacket sleeve. The dogboy was howling as I picked him up.
Go take a flying fuck, dogshit!
Dogboy made a fat sound against the wallpaper, and then slid and crumpled. He lay there, broken, whimpering.
I went over to the Thing. My arm just starting to hurt now, but I managed the straps alright, cutting them with the breadknife. The Thing didn't move. Didn't even make a noise. He just lay there, weak-hearted. He'd lost a ton of weight over the lost weeks, eaten away; his alien metabolism battling hard against the cuttings, but not quite keeping up. I unwound the leads from the bed, and then wrapped them around his soft body a few times, making a harness. The Thing was muttering now, in that thick tongue of his. I tickled him on the stomach, where he liked it. Maybe it did some good. He was so thin I almost felt that I could carry him alone. So I slipped the leads around one shoulder, and then around the other, took a deep breath, and pulled him up.
I had him up there, aloft and free, his alien voice calling to me. Couldn't make out a word but it sounded like comfort anyway, like he was glad to be carried.
I walked back to the landing to fetch Twinkle and Karli.
Up the next flight to the top floor. Another two doors waiting. The floor had been cleaned recently, and it made a nice change, to be stepping lightly, free of the shit. I was covered enough already. A note pinned to the stairwell read "No dirty paws beyond this point. That includes you, Slobba!" It was written in Bridget's hand. Both doors were closed, but the one straight ahead had a flicker of blue light around the jamb. And the slightest hint of dog smell coming through, mixed in with flowers.
The Thing was weighing down on my shoulders.
I heard Dingo's latest love ballad - Venus in Fur - playing softly.
And then the voice, "Is that you, Scribble?"
Bridget's voice from behind the door.
I had the Thing. I had Curious Yellow. I could have just ridden out of there.
Instead I went on through.
"How could you do this, Bridget?"
She raised her sleepy head from the bed to look at me. Her eyes were loaded with dreams, and a red flush coloured her usually pale flesh. She was lying on a ruffled bed, wearing just a man's white shirt and a lace of shadow-smoke. The room was dark except for the play of light coming from the candle on the window ledge. It had an azure flame; the palest blue light gently shining over the room.
"The candle's there for you, Scribb," she said. "I knew you'd find me."
"I guess it took me too long," I answered.
There was a man lying in the bed, covered by sheets. He had a handsome face on him, long brown hair; maybe just a trace of dog. One hand lovingly stroked Bridget's neck, whilst the other held open a book. I could see the title in gold, embossed, the sonnets of John Donne.
The bedroom looked clean and human in the candle's glow, full of the smell of flowers and incense. I guess this was more of Bridget's work; an attempt to mask the smell of dog. The flowers did a good job, but only just; the aroma of dog lingered like one of Dingo's bass notes.
And I got the picture of Bridget gardening this small human space, in the middle of Turdsville. What was that girl on? What was the motivation?
And why am I the last person to ask this?
Karli was on the bed with the young couple. She was trying to nudge the sheets back, getting her nose under there, her pink arse on display, raised up. Twinkle was sitting in an armchair, watching Karli's game.
I was watching all this from out on the landing, through the now wide-open door, with the breadknife still clutched, tight, in my right hand.
Bridget lit a cigarette in the blue shadows.
"We've come to take you out of here," I said.
Bridget turned back to me, her mouth full of smoke, giving me that old-time sleepy smile. "Look at the Thing," I cried. "Look what they're doing to him!"
"Yeah?" she answered, her voice a slow drawl.
"They've been eating him!"
"Eating who?"
I took a breath. "Bridget…"
"How's the Beetle these days, Scribble? He still pushing you around?"
"Beetle's doing fine."
So what was I supposed to say? Beetle's on his last moments.
He desperately wants to see you again, before he dies of the colours, so why don't you just come easy?
Would that have worked?
And where the hell was that guy anyway?
"This is my friend, Uber," she said to the man beside her. "Scribble."
"Good morning, sir," his voice lightly dog-touched. "May I say how pleased I am to be in your company."
"Scribble, this is Uber," Bridget told me.
"How could you do this, Brid?" I cried. "Tell me!" Bridget turned her sleeping eyes full on to me, and in the blue light, they looked like jewels.
"Uber is so very good. He takes me places."
"Yeah. To a dogshit hole like this."
Uber threw the blankets back.
Karli was thrown with them, but he caught her in his human hands as he rolled out of the bed. He was a strong, young man, and he lifted the dog without struggle. Karli didn't mind. That robobitch was in love! She let herself be tumbled over onto his lap.
Uber was a beautiful creature.
A perfect split, straight across the middle. Sometimes it happens like that, once in a thousand matings. He was human from the waist up, dog from the waist down. He placed his fur-covered legs down on the floor, sitting on the bed, with the Karli in his strong arms. She was nuzzling up close to him, licking his face with a pink tongue. Uber moved his head away from her, giving me a slow look.