Utopian Circus Read online

Chapter 2

  Ruff was old and his sight was horrid. Entering the subway he took the lead holding his nose close to the ground and evaluating the worry in every scent.

  Where they were was welcome to neither him nor them. This was a realm that no man had dared wander since long before the silence had blackened the ears of mankind. Here, a rule of order was in place; a hierarchy of royalty and every instinct in Ruff’s subconscious being willed him to turn around and run back into whatever they had been running from.

  His two big friends, the boy and the older girl; the untrusting one, stood close to one another with the boy holding her tightly as she crept slow and low, keeping one hand on the scruff of Ruff’s neck. All three crept through the darkness; their backs holding to the rough edges of the wall with the untrustworthy friend stopping every few steps to turn to the boy and shush him; his feet shuffling and scraping against the loose sand and papers that layered the floor making every move less of a secret than they would have liked.

  Although he didn’t think it; as a dog is not buggered with conscious tomfoolery, instinctually he knew, something grander than they, was already aware of their presence. They might be able to hush their way through an orchestra of whispers, but their scent had given them away long before they even ventured past the turnstiles and down into the belly of the station.

  They edged along the wall slowly; Ruff focused on the layering of scents; some dressed in warning, some in calamity and others in rotten invitation. None of them though were reason enough not to stay in a state of alarm. Ruff’s fur rode high on his neck, his ears pinning back and his eyes tuning to the shifts in blackness as things and stuff of which could have been something and anything at all, stuck out from this and lay strewn about that.

  The big friends too; the young boy and the untrustworthy girl, both squinted their eyes and fought to make out the dark from the even darker.

  The three came to a set of stairs and they waited, listening to the low continual murmur of what sounded like the stretching of metal to its breaking point or the squealing of a pig being wound over some device and kept at a point of imminent separation.

  Their hearts beat loud like a tribal drum. Over and over and over and over the sound pounded in their minds and dulled the point of their focus that stretched from their open ears and trained to the blackness somewhere at the nether of the steps before their paralyzed feet.

  The big friends held their breaths, trying to silence the will within them that begged to scream up into the night and vent this dire tepidity and sound the pure cerebral alarm.

  Ruff looked up and saw the untrustworthy friend with her hand over the young boy’s mouth, quieting every breath that he stole and every breath that escaped from the trappings of his fated body.

  The sounds in the distance settled into their hosts and casted not into the conscious burden of the guests; inching their way through the absence of man.

  “Slowly and don’t make a sound. Stay close to me. Go boy” she said, encouraging Ruff to patter slowly down the steps; she, holding firm at his neck to ensure he didn’t run down excitedly like a silly dog; announcing their arrival.

  Silly human.

  Still, Ruff accepted her hand on his neck. He liked the feeling of his skin pulling tight across his face and the touch of a human through the thick of his fur, lightly scratching his dry itchy skin. Even if she was to be untrusted, it didn’t mean that she couldn’t be loved.

  The three inched down the steps; foot slowly and painfully after foot, stopping as each toe touched the cold cement, allowing every muscle to catch up and work quietly towards the next bound. When they reached the bottom of the stairs a loud banging threw them all to the floor.

  The sound came from above, probably at the entrance. The wave of Famined had washed past the entrance to the subway. They didn’t know if the flood had entered or not and they were oblivious as to whether whatever they consciously feared and physically hid from had been wakened by the thunderous crashing that just occurred. The two big friends crouched together; low to the ground and Ruff curled up frightened in between their entwined legs.

  Ruff didn’t like loud unexpected noises and most certainly he was unwelcome to the sound of growling and barking. The sound of the human wave crashing against the concrete wall married with the constant torturous bellow of broken and breaking humans; bleeding and screaming somewhere in the height of the blackness, caused all three to ignore the volume of their dragging breath and the tribal pounding of their hearts, burying their heads low to the ground; their bodies like one molecular being tied to one another.

  For Donal the young friend, this was very much like a repeat of his first night of freedom, clutching to the darkness, fretful of what probably lay just out of his reach and was undoubtedly watching him, sniggering and waiting with its salivated mouth lathering with temptation, holding off until the boy could take no more and then, only when he thought that he was free, catching a claw around his throat, pulling him back into the darker darkness and devouring him whole.

  The three stood still as the sound above them failed to dampen.

  “We have no choice. We have to continue” said the untrustworthy friend.

  She grabbed the hand of the young boy and shoved Ruff with her left hand still clenching the scruff of his neck. Ruff dug his back legs into the ground and threw the full of his weight into his rump like his mother had once done.

  His instincts said ‘Fuck you human, you go first’ and thus he straightened his chest high and cast his weight back and to the floor; his hind legs stretching out to the sides, his nails digging into the soft grout in the tiles that started at the fall of the last step.

  The untrustworthy friend put a gentle foot to Ruff’s bum and he was up, moving through the darkness, their feet now quicker than before.

  The sound above them continued to grow louder. The wave had obviously broken through the entrance and was now washing down towards the platform where they had crouched, having fallen to their knees to lessen the chance of something catching them in flight.

  Ruff shivered in fright as his nose hovered above the tiles; every meter the scent growing more potent, more direct in its message, more frightening in its intent. The bigger friends had no idea what they were walking into, but there was nothing Ruff could do. As much as he had tried to communicate in the past, humans were just too stupid and couldn’t understand a word he said no matter how direct he was or what body language he used.

  So Ruff; feeling the warmth of the untrustworthy friend’s fingers gripping his fur and lightly scratching his dry itchy skin, cautiously edged forwards until the three reached a finite point; the end of the platform.

  “What do we do?” asked the young boy.

  “We jump” responded the untrustworthy friend confidently.

  Ruff had no idea what they just said but as the words pardoned his ears, he felt the hand gripping the scruff of his neck slide under his body and pull him up to the untrustworthy friend’s body, pinning him tight under the fold of her arm.

  In a second, he felt a rush of wind and a sensation of flight as the untrustworthy friend took off over the side of the platform her embrace.

  They landed with a thud, obviously the distance being larger than the untrustworthy friend had expected, catching her legs short and causing her to tumble over; falling on her right shoulder but keeping Ruff safe and secured in her left. When she fell still, she let Ruff gently on the ground.

  Ruff shook himself then looked up to see in the lighter darkness above, the young boy creeping over the edge of the platform; his hands reaching downwards, his fingers opening and closing as if he were trying to grasp some handle or beg for more dessert.

  “Jump” sad the untrustworthy friend, whispering to the tiny shadow creeping over the edge of the platform down to the outstretch of her hands.

  “It’s too high. I’m scared” said the young boy.

  “Trust me,” she said.

  The boy fell forwards over
himself awkwardly and landed on top of the untrustworthy friend. Both crashed to the rubble at their feet, tumbling over one another and cutting themselves on jagged rocks and tiny shards of extruding metal coming out of the tracks. The two big friends moaned in unison, obviously from the pain.

  Ruff moved closer and licked the wound on the young boy’s leg and did the same for the untrustworthy girl. Just because she couldn’t be trusted, it didn’t mean she couldn’t be loved. The sound above of screaming humans continued to accelerate, slipping further upon them.

  “Stay close,” the untrustworthy friend said as she gripped the boy close to her body and the three moved as one into the rounded darkness of the tunnel that carved its way into the belly of the city. As they entered, a horrible whine followed by a chorus of howling shrilled them.

  They had no choice.

  They had to continue.

  And so it was that into The Kingdom of the Hound, they bid their chance.