A dark grey shape about the size of a large cat bounded through a bush and stumbled to a stop a few metres away. It cocked its head quizzically to one side and looked up at me. I almost laughed with relief.
‘Hey,’ I said, taking a step closer to the animal, ‘you must be Toto.’
The little terrier pulled back as I approached. A growl rumbled in the back of his throat. It sounded much deeper and more threatening than I expected from a dog that size.
‘It’s OK,’ I said, keeping my voice light, ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’ I took another step towards him. He growled again, but it was a half-hearted effort this time, and I could tell it was all for show.
Two more steps and I was crouching down beside the dog. His fur felt matted and damp as I gently patted him. His little body was radiating heat, and I could feel his breath panting in and out.
‘Been running, boy?’ I said softly. He pulled back slightly at the sound of my voice, but otherwise didn’t react.
I patted him a little more firmly, letting my hand travel across his head and down over his narrow back. As my hand brushed over the fur near his tail, he gave a sharp yelp and leapt backwards.
‘What’s the matter, Toto?’ I asked. ‘Are you…’ In the pale light I saw the streak of blood on my hand. ‘…hurt?’
Toto let out another low growl. I began to say sorry for hurting him, before I realised he wasn’t growling at me. His head was craned back, looking up into the trees. His eyes flicked erratically from treetop to treetop, as if searching for something.
I stood up and followed his gaze, but could see nothing through the gloom other than the occasional swaying branch. Toto’s growling was becoming louder. His tail was between his legs, and the wiry hair on his back was pointing to the sky. Something was scaring him. Badly.
‘It’s OK, boy, there’s nothing there,’ I said. ‘It’s just the wind making the trees move, that’s all. It’s nothing to—’
A black shape swooped down from the treetops. I heard it first – a rustle in the darkness, followed by a faint whoosh as the bird flew past my head. I saw Toto spin on the spot, watched him bare his teeth. He snapped his tiny jaws around thin air, then yelped as the crow pecked sharply at his ear.
The whole attack lasted less than a second. The bird was back up in the trees before I could even react. I peered up into the branches, searching for any sign of it. It wasn’t easy, but eventually I found it – a darker shade against the grey-black of the evening sky. It folded and unfolded its wings a few times as I watched, but otherwise didn’t show any sign of moving.
I turned back to Toto, only to find him flat on his belly. His eyes were open, still staring up into the trees. He was shivering and whining softly, and I could see a deep cut in his ear where the bird had nipped at him.
‘Don’t worry, it’s staying up there,’ I said, glancing back to where I expected to see the bird. But instead of one black shape, I saw two. They sat together on a high limb, so close they were almost touching.
A movement in the branches above them caught my eye. Another crow sat there, glaring down. My eyes moved slowly across the canopy of treetops, finding more and more dark outlines perched on every branch. There were dozens of them, easily fifty or more. A few of them gave hoarse, croaky caws as my gaze swept over them.
‘OK,’ I muttered, steadying myself. ‘It’s nothing. They’re just birds.’
I made a move towards Toto. A few of the crows hopped down on to lower branches. Their eyes shone against their masks of black feathers, flicking from me to the dog and back again.
I hesitated for a moment, watching the birds. They shuffled from foot to foot, but kept their wings folded against their backs. ‘Just birds,’ I repeated below my breath. I turned and took another step towards the terrified Toto.
As if on some secret signal, every one of the birds moved. They leaned forward on the branches and plunged towards the ground, flicking their wings wide at the last possible moment.
The air around me became thick with oily-black feathers. They beat against my cheeks and swished through my hair. Flashes of beaks and of eyes and of sharp, outstretched claws were all I could see. I ducked down, crossing my hands over my face to protect myself. Just a few metres away, I heard Toto break into a frenzied barking.
The sound seemed to draw the birds over. They left me and rounded on the little dog. They hovered around him like a thundercloud, blocking him from view, their throaty cries almost drowning out his barks.
For a few moments they flapped and fluttered wildly around him. Then, without warning, every bird dived at once, attacking in perfect formation. Toto squealed and yelped as the crows’ beaks tore into his flesh.
A surge of electrical energy buzzed across my scalp, and I felt my power surge through my veins. I opened my mouth and a sound like thunder uttered its voice: ‘Leave him alone!’
The tornado of beating wings suddenly swirled around me again. Birds thudded into my back, snapped at my face, dug their claws into my arms. Panic tightened my stomach and made my legs shake. The power crackled behind my eyes, but there were too many of them, flying too fast. I tried to focus, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t fight back.
And then, moving as if it were a single creature, the flock banked up into the trees and vanished back among the branches. I braced myself for the expected pain, but it didn’t come. Amazingly, other than a few scratches on my arms, I was unhurt. The crows may have attacked me, but they hadn’t done any real damage.
The same couldn’t be said for Toto.
Matted balls of bloodied hair lay dotted around the clearing. A slick sheen of red coated the forest floor. It made the ground slippery beneath my feet as I approached the ravaged remains of Marion’s dog.
Bones stuck up at awkward angles from the little mound of flesh and fur. Toto’s ribcage had been picked almost completely clean. It looked artificially white against the dark crimson of the animal’s innards.
The stench was choking. It caught in the back of my throat and made me gag. My saliva turned sour in my mouth and I bent double, splattering the ground with what little there was in my stomach.
In the forest canopy above me, I heard the crows. They called to each other – or to me – a sinister caw-caw-caw that sounded almost like laughter. I looked for them, but the darkness was thicker than ever and I could barely see even the lower limbs of the trees. If I was ever going to find my way back to the house, I had to get moving.
I glanced briefly at what had once been Toto, whispered an apologetic goodbye, then set off hurriedly down the hillside, watched all the way by a hundred black, soulless eyes.
* * *
‘Ah, the wanderer returns!’ laughed Marion, looking up from the newspaper she was reading at the small kitchen table. I smiled sheepishly, and closed the back door behind me. ‘I’d started to think you weren’t coming back,’ she added.
‘Sorry,’ I told her. ‘I started walking up to the big mast thing and… it got dark. I got a bit lost.’
She waved a hand as if dismissing the apology, got up from the table, and crossed to the cooker. ‘Easily done,’ she said. ‘You haven’t been that long. I’ve been keeping dinner warm.’
I stood there, just inside the doorway, shuffling uneasily from foot to foot and watching her turn up the heat on the stove.
‘Did you make it? To the mast?’ she asked.
‘What? No. No, I didn’t.’
‘Good!’ she said, giving her cooking pot a stir. ‘Dangerous brute of a thing. Radioactive, they reckon.’
‘Radioactive?’
‘Something to do with the signals or something,’ she shrugged. She lifted the pot and spooned some of the contents on to two large plates. ‘Don’t know much about them myself, mobile phones. Maybe it’s a load of rubbish about the radiation, but who knows? Keep clear, that’s what I say. Better safe than sorry.’
‘Oh, it’s a mobile phone mast?’ I asked, remembering the phone Mum had given me. I still needed to plug it in and charge it up.
‘It is indeed. Went up about a year and a half ago. Big complaints about it. Lot of fuss.’
I watched her cross back to the table and put the plates on it. She sat on her chair and picked up a fork and knife. ‘Well, come on then,’ she urged. ‘Before it gets cold.’
Marion had fetched another chair from somewhere and placed it across from hers. Its wooden legs squeaked on the floor when I pulled it out from below the table. I sat down and stared at my plate. Chunks of meat sat on it, still attached to spindly white bones. They were stacked up into a kind of pyramid, and surrounded by a dark liquid. Mushrooms, carrots and transparent slices of onion all added substance to the already thick gravy. It looked good. It smelled great.
But all it reminded me of was Toto.
‘It’s lamb casserole,’ Marion explained, noticing my hesitation. ‘I use lamb chops on the bone. Adds to the flavour.’
I felt my mouth filling up with saliva again and had to swallow back another retch. Marion had one of the lamb chops in her hand, and was stripping it with her teeth. I looked away, but heard the meat tear as she bit down.
‘Eat up,’ she said, between mouthfuls. ‘How do you expect to fight him if you don’t keep your strength up?’
I looked across at her. ‘Fight who?’
‘This bully you told me about.’
‘Bully?’
‘The one you’re hiding up here from.’
‘Oh,’ I said, remembering the lie, ‘him.’
I picked up a fork and pronged a mushroom. It tasted good, but squelched unpleasantly as I chewed it. I got through it, though, and my hunger gradually took over from the sick feeling in my stomach. I picked my way through the veg, but couldn’t face tackling the meat.
‘Come across Toto when you were out?’ asked Marion, as I skewered three chunks of carrot and a slice of onion.
‘No,’ I said, before quickly cramming the forkful into my mouth.
‘Oh well, he’ll turn up soon enough,’ she smiled, although I could see she was concerned. ‘When he’s hungry, most probably.’
I nodded, but didn’t say anything. I should have told her what had happened the second I’d come through the door, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I hadn’t known her long, but I was sure she would be heartbroken about the dog. From what I could tell he was her only real companion out here. With him gone she would be utterly alone.
‘He knows where he’s got it easy,’ Marion continued. ‘Never stays away for long. It’s like they say in the film, I suppose. “There’s no place like home”.’
‘What film?’ I asked.
Marion leaned back in her chair a little and blinked several times rapidly. ‘You mean you don’t know?’
I shook my head. ‘Should I?’
‘It’s The Wizard of Oz, of course!’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Never seen it.’
‘What, never?’
I shrugged. ‘Don’t think so.’
Marion looked shocked, but excited at the same time, as if she’d just won the lottery without even buying a ticket. She got up from the table, scraped the remains of her dinner into a little red dog bowl, then placed her plate in the sink. When she turned back to me, a broad smile was spread across her face.
‘When you’re finished come through to the living room,’ she said. ‘Do I have a treat in store for you!’
The old VCR gave a whirr and a clunk when Marion stopped the tape. She adjusted herself in her armchair so she was facing across to the couch where I was sitting, enjoying the warmth of the fire burning in the hearth.
‘Well?’ she breathed. ‘What did you think?’
‘It was all right,’ I said, as enthusiastically as I could manage.
‘All right?’
‘No, I mean, it was good, yeah.’
‘Who was your favourite character?’ she asked, her eyes sparkling even more than usual.
I paused for a moment, trying to remember anything of what I’d just seen. Marion had been really excited about showing me the film, but I found it a bit boring. I also had the all-too-vivid memories of a dead fat man and a dead dog gnawing away at my brain, so I hadn’t really been paying all that much attention.
‘The flying monkey guys were quite cool,’ I said, recalling one of the few moments I’d actually been following what was happening on the small television screen.
Marion rolled her eyes and chuckled. ‘Might have known you’d go for them,’ she said. ‘Typical boy. I like Scarecrow, myself. I still hide behind the cushion when I see him catch fire. Just can’t bear to watch it.’
‘I wondered why you were doing that,’ I told her.
Marion got up from her chair and ejected the video. She carefully slipped it back into its faded case and returned it to a shelf above the old television. ‘I must say, it’s nice to have someone to watch it with,’ she said. ‘Toto just doesn’t appreciate it at all.’
A flicker of concern crossed her face and she glanced towards the window. Like those in the kitchen, it had wooden shutters instead of curtains. They were open now, revealing nothing but darkness beyond the glass. ‘I hope he’s all right,’ she said. ‘He’s never normally gone for this long.’
I gently cleared my throat. ‘Marion,’ I began. ‘Toto’s…’
When I didn’t continue she said, ‘Toto’s what?’
‘Probably just wandering,’ I replied, faking a smile. ‘He’ll come back when he’s hungry. You said so yourself.’
Her expression remained the same for a few seconds, before finally melting into a smile. ‘He does like to go exploring,’ she said. ‘He’ll come back when he’s hungry.’
My lie of a smile stayed fixed on my face, but I couldn’t hold her gaze any longer. I turned away, searching for a way to change the subject.
‘What’s that?’ I asked, spotting a large wooden box like a treasure chest over by the corner of the room.
‘That, young man,’ she said, her blue eyes shimmering with excitement, ‘is my dressing-up box!’
I looked at her. ‘You have a dressing-up box?’
‘It’s from when I was a girl,’ she said, laughing. ‘Of course I don’t use it now.’
I pretended to wipe sweat from my brow. ‘Phew.’
‘Although,’ she said, almost skipping over to the chest, ‘what’s say we have a little look inside?’
‘Um, well, yeah, I suppose,’ I said, ‘but it’s getting quite late.’
‘Oh, come on, it’s been years since I looked in here,’ she said, taking hold of a handle on the side of the chest and dragging it into the middle of the room. ‘A quick peek, that’s all. What harm could it possibly do?’