Chapter Dog

[The following chapter contains strong language. Reader caution is advised.]

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Friday 4th February 2000

 

 

Seven days of living with Zahid. You’d probably think that I would’ve learnt a load of things about him that I never knew, but honestly, at least at this stage, he’s not been any more of an open book than he usually is… which is to say not very open at all. You could probably already imagine what living in the same house as him is like. Just take into account him complaining about his parents at random moments (I’ve made a game out of trying to figure out what’s made him think of them, it’s pretty challenging and more fun than listening to his rants).

 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like it’s been bad having him here! Him showing up on Elliott’s birthday kept Dakota from dwelling on it too much – which is her prerogative, of course, but I’m glad she wasn’t upset because it hurts seeing her like that – and him being around has been cool. He’s spent time gaming with Kitty (exclusively violent shooter games, mind, so she’s had an interesting experience), and we’ve had a couple of jam sessions. He even cooled off on the “getting to bed late” thing, which I’m grateful for, because I was worried Dakota would wind up pulling an all-nighter if it meant beating him.

 

All that said, Bao and Kendal were over as frequently as ever, so there wasn’t a whole load of time spent with just the four of us. Mornings and evenings, and even then Sunday was the only morning not a rush of dressing, eating and heading off to school. Fleeting hours where there were four of us instead of three. Little moments made unique by Zahid’s presence.

 

Kendal was still insistent on her and Bao joining us too.

“It’s so simple! Kitty and I share a bed, Bao and Zahid share a bed-”

 

“I’m not sleeping with Bao,” Zahid interrupted firmly as the six of us reached the end of a street.

 

“Why not? Why are guys so weird about sleeping in the same bed?”

 

“Why are girls okay with it?” Bao countered, and after half a second’s thought added, “actually, don’t explain it, it’ll ruin the mystique.”

 

“Y’hear that, Kitty?” Kendal turned to the younger girl, sporting one of her familiar grins. “Don’t tell him what we get up to!”

 

“M-Mhm…” Kitty nodded, face quickly growing red. Sometimes, I wonder how she copes with us…

 

“Anyway,” I began, “it’s just something we’re not comfortable with. Maybe it’d be fine with pillows in between or something…”

 

“Please don’t put ideas in her head, Alex…” I was scolded from behind. “I can sleep on the sofa. Or Bao can sleep on the sofa, since the bed’s already mine…”

 

“It’s not strictly yours, but for the sake of argument…” Dakota pointed out with typical chipper tone. I could hear the smile on her lips without even looking at her.

 

“Okay, how’s this: Bao sleeps on the sofa, except in my head, where there’s no pillows and probably no clothes either?”

 

“You couldn’t have kept that in your head?!”

I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard Zahid sound so unsettled.

 

“Like I’m the only one who’s had fantasies like that! I bet all three of you guys have had lesbian fantasies before, and don’t even try to deny it!” Kendal accused us, and looked at me specifically as though she imagined I was the worst culprit.

 

“Not involving you or Dakota,” Bao claimed flippantly.

 

“Exactly,” Zahid followed. “There are lines you don’t cross…”

 

“I don’t believe you!”

Then, Kendal clicked her fingers in realisation.

“But anyway, the staying-over plan!”

 

“Expert subject-change,” I quipped (in no small part to further seal us moving on from the fantasy talk, because I really didn’t want to find out why I was her prime suspect).

 

It was at that point that a dog – a border collie – came strolling around the corner, not a care in the world, occasionally sniffing at the ground on its way along the path.

 

Whatever Kendal may have intended to say about her developing plans, it went out of the window as soon as the dog appeared. With an excited gasp, she squatted down and held out her arms.

“Come here! Come here!”

 

The dog saw us, and ran towards Kendal with just as much excitement, stopping in front of her and receiving a thorough patting as reward.

 

“Good booooy!” Kendal cooed affectionately.

 

“How d’you know it’s a boy…?” Dakota asked her. I had a hunch it was a futile question…

 

“I just know!” came the response.

 

“I used to think all dogs were male and all cats were female when I was little,” Bao mentioned. “I guess because that’s usually how it is in cartoons and stuff.”

 

“Yeah…” Kitty concurred with some kind of breathless tension. When I looked to her, she had her eyes locked on the dog, almost chomping at the bit to approach.

 

Bao had turned to her at the same time I had, and I saw his shoulders twitch a little, stifling a laugh.

“What’re you waiting for, Kitty?”

 

“She’s worried he doesn’t like cats, I guess,” I suggested teasingly. A little smile broke out on her face, and she promptly stepped forward, joining Kendal and happily scratching the dog behind his ear. In turn, he panted gratefully, looking between the two girls.

 

“I don’t see any sign of the owners…” Dakota observed – figuratively and literally, as she scanned the path ahead of us. Nobody had followed the dog. At the least, he had a collar, so he wasn’t a stray.

 

“Where are your owners?” Kendal asked him while giving his back a thorough rubbing. “Huh? Huuuh?”

 

“Hey, what’s up, Zahid?” Bao asked behind me.

 

I span to face my new housemate, and found him several feet away from us, looking incredibly nervy, as though he wanted to be anywhere in the world but here and it was only his general composure that was keeping him from bolting.

 

“I’m fine,” he began, “it’s the dog that’s the problem…”

 

I glanced back at the dog, who was now lying on his back as Dakota, Kendal and Kitty all made a fuss over him.

 

“The dog who’s getting his belly rubbed?”

 

“Yes, that one, Alex,” he growled at me.

 

“You’re afraid of dogs…?” Bao asked, chiefly inquisitive but a little tickled too.

 

“I’m not afraid, I don’t trust it!”

 

“Yeah, any second now he’s gonna turn and start licking our faces off-”

 

“Don’t fucking mock me, Bao!”

 

“Boys, quit it,” Dakota warned them from her spot next to the dog. “Zahid, however you feel about dogs, we need to try and find his owner.”

 

“Brush,” Kendal declared while rubbing the dog’s side.

 

“Does he have a name-tag?” I asked her.

 

“No, Brush the Painter Dog!” she sang. “He’s even got a load of black like our costumes!”

 

“Also, he’s definitely a boy…” Kitty murmured uncomfortably next to Brush’s belly, eyes averted.

 

“Hang on…”

I looked to Dakota as she rose upright and swept her hair back.

“You’re postponing homework for this?”

 

“We have to help reunite him with his owners,” she answered indirectly. Kendal and Kitty stood up at that (Kendal taking just a little longer to part from Brush).

 

“Wow… I’m gonna have to buy a dog whistle,” Bao commented; Zahid audibly groaned.

 

“Come on, Brush!” Kendal coaxed our new canine charge, leading him along as we set off in the direction he’d come from. I glanced back to see Zahid trailing behind, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, brow furrowed, and still sticking with us all the same.

 

We quickly reached the end of the street, and were greeted by a complete lack of any potential owners down the path Brush had come from.

 

“Let’s keep an eye out for any open doors he might’ve ran out of,” Dakota proposed, the seven of us continuing along at the same pace as before (a little slower than our usual walking speed as Brush was investigating his surroundings).

 

“Are we just going to walk around town?” Kitty asked while watching Brush. “We don’t know how far he’s come, this could take a long time…”

 

Bao put his hand to his chin, tapping his cheek contemplatively.

“Maybe we should make a big symbol- like a Bat-signal but 3D and shaped like Brush, and walk around with it so they find us?”

 

“That could work,” I nodded. “Searching town with a big dog-shaped Lokon balloon.”

 

“I’ll do it,” Zahid grunted, his axe in his hand in moments and Painter gear blasted on not a second later.

 

“Okay, just don’t stray too far away,” Dakota advised him, which earned her a sneer.

 

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He raised his weapon above his head, a bolt of red surging out of it and reaching way above our heads before erupting out into the general shape of a dog (at least what I assumed to be one from directly below it).

 

“The rest of us should get our gear on too,” I looked between my friends. “Otherwise people will see one of the Painters and five Grandoak students, and that might be a bit of a giveaway.”

 

“Good point…!” Kendal grinned approvingly. We followed Zahid’s lead in summoning our weapons, and donned our costumes. Brush watched on curiously, well-behaved enough to not react badly to it. That, or Lokonessence was quelling his reaction…

“Now, let’s see where Brush leads us!”

 

Zahid started grumbling something, but between him being several feet away and the rest of us beginning to move on, I couldn’t really make it out.

 

For over an hour, we strolled around town, mostly sticking to suburbia, letting Brush explore around in his innocent fashion. I’ve never had a dog, so actually getting to watch him go about things was kind of enlightening. Everything was of interest, and everybody was a friend. He brought us a stick, sniffed around in hedges, excitedly greeted strangers who universally asked us why we were walking around with a dog without a leash.

 

He peed against a lamppost. I’m glad that’s all he did or else somebody would’ve had to have generated a Lokon pooper-scooper.

 

I hadn’t really thought about it before, but creatures like Brush had no idea what was going on with the world. He didn’t know who we were, or the threat Melody was posing. He didn’t know about the issues that plagued us, didn’t treat us any differently to anybody else. It was a simpler way of living. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to go back to being a monkey or anything like that… I appreciate what makes us humans special. I’d be a hypocrite of a pianist to want to throw that away, for one. But imagine living without worrying about any of that. Just you and other people and the world around you.

 

The whole time, Zahid kept his distance, separated off from us, keeping up his role of holding the Dog-signal above us (switching arms now and then, I noticed), glowering, huffing. There were a couple of times when Brush tried to approach him, at which point he would back further away with hurried steps until one of us caught Brush’s attention.

 

(Speaking of which, I’m impressed by this dog’s responsiveness to a name which isn’t even his. Unless Kendal’s either a telepath or really intuitive and his name is actually Brush…)

 

By about 4:30pm, we’d reached the park, and decided that staying in one place was probably the best idea. We’d covered a lot of ground, after all, so hopefully the owners or somebody who knew them had seen the Dog-signal… keeping to one spot, with it still visible, would give them the opportunity to reach us and retrieve Brush.

 

So as the sunlight steadily faded away, amplified by lampposts dotted around the park, Kendal, Kitty and some children engaged Brush in a game of Lokon-generated frisbee while a group of kids chatted with the rest of us at the benches.

 

“So is it like in Power Rangers when they morph?” one boy asked eagerly while swivelling his thumb with his other hand.

 

“Kind of, except we don’t get a flashy background!” Bao answered. He’d already done most of the explaining on how we “morph”, so he was fully invested now. “But Green’s the leader, rather than Red!”

 

Dakota waved at that, and one of the girls in the group jumped excitedly.

 

“Imagine if there was a Purple Ranger,” another of the children mused with a look of wonder.

 

“Maybe some day!”

 

“If Brush’s owners don’t come, will you keep him?” a girl questioned, sounding a little concerned for the dog’s fate.

 

Dakota leant forward.

“Only for as long as we have to. We’ll make sure he gets to go home.”

That earned a chorus of impressed “aww”s from the kids.

 

“Wait, wait,” I turned to her, “you mean we might have to look after him overnight?”

 

“If we have to. What other choice do we have?”

 

Zahid let out a loud groan which reached its crescendo as a yell of frustration. A couple of the kids were spooked enough to back away a little.

 

He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. The massive Dog-signal dropping from half a mile high to maybe ten feet in front of us, animated and snarling, spoke far louder than any words could.

 

Understandably, the group of children were far more freaked out by that than by Zahid’s yell: Dakota, Bao and I leapt between them and the Dog-signal without even thinking.

 

“Get to safety!” Dakota ordered them, and I heard them scarper while my vision remained fixed on the giant red canine ahead. It turned to us, the cord connecting it to Zahid’s axe dissipating; he stood by, thrown if not stunned, as though this was a bucket of cold water over his fury.

“Zahid, try to control it!”

 

The construct snarled at us, baring neon-red fangs as long as steak-knives and looking every bit as sharp.

 

“What’s happening!?” I heard Kendal call out to us, accompanied by defensive barks from Brush, but the Dog-signal was so large that it was blocking our view of her.

 

“Your guess is as good as ours!” I shouted back to her, although I already had a decent hunch.

 

“Are the kids with you gone?” Dakota followed up, while generating a green barrier from the tip of her spear.

 

“Yeah, they ran straight away! What’s the plan? Think a giant frisbee would work?”

 

“Zahid,” my girlfriend looked to him, “is there anything you can do?”

 

“I’m trying…” he uttered, still sounding shaken, temper simmering too. “It won’t respond. It’s out of my control.”

 

“But it’s still your subconscious so stop freaking out or whatever!” Bao pressed him tensely.

 

“I don’t think it’s that easy, Bao…”

As the giant dog barked at us confrontationally, Dakota raised the barrier, expanded it, keeping the three of us sheltered. Our opponent attempted to bite through it, but the circular green shield was wide enough and flat enough that the dog couldn’t gain any purchase.

 

A moment later, the beast howled out, and turned in the direction of Kendal, Kitty and Brush, allowing us to see them too. Kendal had her bow raised, so I put two and two together and figured she’d unleashed a barrage of arrows upon it.

“Kitty, get Brush out of here,” she instructed our younger friend; Kitty did her best to draw the dog along with her while Kendal continued firing at the monster.

 

“I’ll try and tie its legs!” Bao announced as he sprinted off, bands of yellow emerging from his blades. Thank goodness he was fast, because with the Dog-signal moving around to face Kendal, its legs weren’t guaranteed to be staying in the same spot for long.

 

I enlarged the blade of my sword, but realised quickly that that alone wouldn’t be enough… after all, I barely reached halfway up the beast’s legs standing straight, so I would only be waving a giant sword around from below an advantageous height. The best plan – like with the sabre-beast – seemed to be attacking its belly, so I headed beneath it (leaping over Bao’s bands) and began stabbing upwards.

 

It shouldn’t surprise you to hear that the Dog-signal really didn’t like that.

 

Somehow, the monster redirected Kendal’s arrows through its body, raining them down upon me: I was so taken aback (and busy being pierced by numerous arrows) that I didn’t even think to try and convert the blade-extension into a shield, taking the fire until it stopped. I keeled over, trying to urge my own Lokonessence to force the projectiles out of my body, managing it only slowly. From where I lay, I could see Kendal now bound in Bao’s yellow… apparently, the Dog-signal was absorbing and redirecting our attacks.

 

Unless we could overwhelm it, there didn’t seem like an obvious way to defeat it…

 

“Damn it…!” I heard Bao cry out, and then watched him unleash another band of yellow, aiming for the monster’s neck. As soon as the band left Bao’s blades, it retracted into its body.

 

I heaved my still-healing body upright, fearing what was coming next, but I wasn’t fast enough to avoid it: the strip of yellow shot out of the Dog-signal’s open stomach wounds, wrapping around my body lightning-fast and causing me to lose my balance. I toppled back over, hitting the ground hard.

 

“No more bands please, Bao!” I snapped at him (angered more with the circumstances than him).

 

Looking over in the direction of Dakota and Zahid, our leader was amassing a larger green replica of her spear around the original weapon, while the progenitor of the beast continued to do nothing but watch and stew in whatever concoction of emotions had gotten the better of him. With something not unlike a javelinist’s throw, Dakota launched the spear construct right through the Dog-signal’s side… very much “right through”, as I turned to see it continue on its slightly-upwards trajectory above Bao and Kendal, the former freeing the latter from her wrapping.

 

Even with what I could only assume was a gaping hole straight through its body, the Dog-signal seemed utterly unaffected.

 

“Nothing we do can hurt it!” Dakota confirmed my suspicions, backing up a step with a face tense with frustration.

 

My bonds loosened and then disappeared, as Bao approached me, dragging me to my feet and out from beneath the monster all in one movement.

“Yeah, well I’m running out of ideas fast!” he told Dakota in what felt like the early embers of panic.

 

Even as he and I emerged from below the Dog-signal, Kitty dashed over from nowhere, leaping at the creature’s leg and digging her claw in. She let her bodyweight pull the blades of the weapon down, raking through red, until her feet returned to the ground and she withdrew, backstepping away.

 

For what it was worth, when our opponent turned to face us, it was limping. That was a little spark of hope in our desperate situation.

 

Brush hurried over to us, stopping all of two feet away from Zahid – wherever Kitty had attempted to hide the dog away, it hadn’t been of any use – and barked at his giant counterpart boldly. As soon as he realised how close Brush was, Zahid stumbled away from him, eyes wide.

 

“We need to…” Dakota started, but words failed her. It didn’t seem like any of us could think of a good plan of action, and the beast took its opportunity to snap towards us with its huge jaws. All of us scattered to avoid, except for Zahid, who was too focused on Brush to care.

 

“This way, damn it, this way!” Kendal screamed across to the Dog-signal from her part of the park, firing arrows over its head and succeeding in drawing its attention. It began prowling towards her, and she turned, running, presumably in the hope of drawing it further away from the benches and into the open field.

 

“Any ideas?” Kitty asked the rest of us uneasily.

 

“Yeah, how about Zahid stops freaking out!” Bao yelled out, which was enough to get our friend’s attention.

 

“I’m not freaking out-!”

 

“This is all because you don’t like dogs or because you don’t like people thinking you don’t like dogs or whatever! Brush isn’t as scary as this thing! He’s literally trying to help us!”

 

“He’s right!”

Dakota turned her focus to Zahid too, suddenly empowered by Bao’s words.

“There’s nothing we can do to stop it because it’s your own construct! This is your irrational fear! So stop freaking out and pat the dog!”

 

“Pat the dog!” Bao echoed, and that was enough for me to join the chorus.

 

“It’ll be fine, Zahid! Do it!”

 

“Damn it, I hate this shiiiiit!” Zahid roared out, and then fought his way over to Brush with heavy steps.

 

Across the field, Kendal had reached the far end, the Dog-signal still in hot pursuit (and very nearly caught up to her).

 

Zahid winced, arm reached out, a foot away from Brush, the dog still stood alert and barking at the red construct. Achingly-long seconds passed as Zahid’s fear and his desire to help clashed, and then, finally, his hand reached Brush’s head, nestling into his fur.

 

The stomping of the Dog-signal’s massive paws stopped.

 

“It’s okay…” Zahid said with faint relief. His hand hesitantly stroked at Brush’s fur, and the dog relaxed a little in kind, still attentive but no longer in attack-mode.

 

When I tore my eyes away to check on Kendal, the monster had dissipated into red mist. Kendal whooped cheerfully.

 

We took a moment to recover, as Zahid continued patting Brush until he seemed content that the threat was over. When he withdrew his hand, the collie turned to him, panting contentedly.

“We did it…” Zahid sighed.

 

And then all of the kids from before came barrelling back over in excitement and awe, and we spent the next ten minutes dealing with them.

 

…

 

“Thank you, so much!”

The young lady who owned Brush – better known as Rye – was smiling so brightly, it could’ve blinded us.

 

“You’re welcome!” Dakota beamed back at her (no doubt past a Lokon smear). “We’re glad you found us!”

 

“It was hard to miss the giant red dog you made!” the owner chuckled.

 

“Definitely…” Bao tittered to himself.

 

“When I saw it, I had this gut feeling you’d found him… I hope he was a good boy!”

 

“Absolutely, didn’t misbehave once,” I assured her warmly while sat on the arm of the bench.

 

“Gooood!” she cooed, more to Rye than to us. “Now, no running away like that again!”

He panted away happily at that. I’m not sure the message got through.

 

We said our farewells to Brush the Painter Dog, watching him leave with his owner under the artificial lights. Back to his ordinary life.

 

“I’m gonna miss him…” Kitty mentioned sombrely.

 

“Yeah…”

A lightbulb very nearly pinged into existence above Kendal’s head.

“We should get our own Painter Dog!”

 

Like clockwork, we all looked to Zahid: he looked back at us through narrowed eyes, and exhaled audibly through his nostrils.

 

“Is that a no, or…?”

 

He sighed lowly with a light shake of the head.

“Maybe someday.”

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