Story 6 – They Wait For Us

On the last day of Victor Potts’ life, he woke up alone, just as he had for the past two hundred and thirty eight days. He groaned as he sat upright, old bones aching. He sighed as he swivelled out from under his duvet and slipped his feet into his slippers. Standing up with another unnoticed groan, he smoothed out his bed and walked out of his bedroom, picking up his dressing gown along the way.

He carefully made his way down the stairs, keeping a good hold on the bannister rail for support. Once down he made his way to the kitchen and prepared a cup of tea while the kettle boiled.

Mug of tea in hand he went into his front room and picked up his mobile phone from its charging place by the television.

No messages, no voicemails, no missed calls.

Victor sighed, but it was to be expected. Who would have called him? With Dorothy gone, there was no-one he spoke to. Maybe Jess, his niece, would call at some point, she was trying to keep him interested in he world. He did his best to respond brightly, but there wasn’t much for him to be bright about.

He put the phone back down an sat in his chair to drink his tea.

Victor wished he had talked Dorothy into getting another dog after Scratch had died. She had insisted they were too old to take on a new dog, it wouldn’t be fair to the puppy. Victor had agreed with that but had wanted to get an older dog, a bit of companionship for him while she was working the last months until retirement. Dorothy had promised to think about that after a few months to get used to the idea. 

She hadn’t outlived Scratch by more than a month and a half.

A cold night, icy roads, a young driver who wasn’t experienced enough to correct the skid and that was it. No more Dorothy. Victor couldn’t bring himself to blame the kid. It was bad luck and youthful inexperience, nothing the kid had done deliberately. He’d even extended an invitation to Dorothy’s funeral to show the boy that he harboured no ill will to him. The lad’s father had politely thanked him but said his son wasn’t coping too well with having killed her. Victor had asked the man to pass on his best wishes and let the boy know he did not blame him. That was the last contact he had had with the family.

Maybe he should get himself a rescue dog. An old boy or girl, like him, who could use some last few months or a couple of years of comfort and love. One that would be happy enough with his garden to stroll about in and not need much walking. He still had the bowls Scratch had used, and Kipper before him. In fact, he suspected that if he dug through the understairs cupboard he would find that he still had something useful from each of the dogs he and Dorothy had owned or fostered in the last fifty three years. Some of it would be unusable, obviously, not everything kept could still be used. There should be enough around that all he would need would be food for a new dog. He’d buy it a new collar too, every dog should have that of their own.

Sipping on his tea, Victor felt the loneliness creep back upon him. He should get a new dog, but he wasn’t going to. Doing that would mean going out. Talking to people. Being in the world. He didn’t want to do that yet. Didn’t want questions or sympathetic faces. Couldn’t bear to hear the everyday chit chat of people who hadn’t known Dorothy, hadn’t lost her laugh and her sharp, cutting wit. They didn’t know how unlucky they were to have never known her and how lucky they were to not know what it was like to have a Dorothy shaped hole in their lives.

Tea drunk, he decided to wait to have breakfast until he’d got dressed. A tiny bit of variety in a life that was full of routinethese days. Grey days where nothing changed, no new joys and no new sadness. Just the crushing ache of loss that sucked the colour out of everything.

Halfway up the stairs he felt a twinge of pain in his shoulder and found it hard to catch his breath. He paused and reflected on how age was making even the simplest things hard work these days.

It took him a minute longer than normal to make the rest of the journey up the stairs. Breathing was hard and he wondered how he’d let himself get this out of shape that his stairs, ones that he walked every day, had become a challenge to overcome.

Washing was a chore and getting his clothes on became a battle against his own weariness. Perhaps he should have had breakfast first, to give him the energy to simply go about his day.

Trousers on, shirt tucked in and a nice woollen jumper over the top, slippers back on his feet, Victor felt ready for his day of reading on his kindle and listening to his records.

Two steps down the stairs, he really couldn’t catch his breath. A heaviness lay on his lungs, stopping them from fully inflating. He started to feel light headed. Should he lay down on his bed? It would be easier, but he had no telephone upstairs, he only had his mobile which was still sat by his chair in the lounge. If he did need help, he would have no way to call someone. He should go down, recline in the chair he had sat in for the last thirty years and then, if it didn’t get better, he could call the doctor or an ambulance.

Breathing was getting more difficult as he dithered, his shoulder ached and he felt a pain in his forearm.

Better get downstairs quickly, get comfortable.

Another two steps down and his vision started to constrict. There was something in the corner of his eye, a shape downstairs. He could barely make it out. Something small and dark, waiting for him.

Victor blinked and rubbed at his eyes. The shape was gone, but his breathing was getting harder and harder to control.

He missed the next step.

Grabbing wildly for the bannister rail, he missed. Overbalanced and slipping, Victor tumbled down the stairs.

He heard something snap, more than one something, before he felt anything. Crashing to the ground at the base of the stairs, a sharp pain stabbed at his legs and arms.

Something warm ran down his nose, but he couldn’t see. Were his eyes open? He could no longer tell. His breaths came in occasional, laboured breaths that made him wheeze.

He was alone, for the first time the reality of his situation became clear. Alone, lonely, unconnected. No-one was going to come for him. There was no help heading his way. 

He only had one way to call out for help, his mobile. But that was in the lounge, ten feet and a million miles away.

Every movement was agony, every breath was the hardest thing he had ever had to do. Pain overwhelmed him, fear chased the pain around his mind. This was it, this was how he would die.

Alone.

In pain.

So close to rescue.

So far from hope.

Victor tried to yell out, hoping against hope that someone would hear him through the door. His voice was weak and thin, someone in the kitchen wouldn’t have heard him, anyone outside in the street stood no chance.

Victor tried to rest, to save his strength for a very when the postman came.

If the postman came.

Something moved in the hallway near him. He could hear the skittering of sharp claws clacking on the wood.

Clack clack clack, closer it came.

A huff of air, hot breath.

Victor moaned. The pain was all consuming, his breathing hurt, his eyes didn’t work and now something was in his house.

More sounds.

There wasn’t something in his house, there were some things.

Some trod soft. Barely whispers in the silence. Others clacked along with the first. They surrounded him, the air filled with a smell familiar but a little unpleasant.

Victor started to cry. It hurt. He was alone. Strange creatures were around him. Fear and loneliness filled every part of him that was not already consumed with the pain of his broken bones.

A sob escaped, taking some of his precious, hard fought for breath with him.

This was unfair, unkind. This was evil and wrong and it hurt and it was hard and it hurt and it hurt and it hurt and…

Something hot and wet brushed his cheek while something cold and soft touched his nose.

Victor jumped at the shock and screamed in pain from moving any part of him.

The warm, soft, wet thing brushed his cheek again. It was a tongue, licking him. Was it tasting his blood? His tears?

Another tongue joined the first.

Victor moaned again. What was in his house? All the doors and windows were shut and locked, what could have got in?

The tongues were different sizes, one large, one small. They started to lick his face faster, more intensely.

Another started to lick his eyes, he could feel fur on his face as the heads fought for position to lick him.

What were they?

His pain started to fade away, his breathing became shallower, less air but less of a struggle.

“I’m dying. Dying right now.” Victor thought.

Another tongue started to lick his hand.

Something walked on his back, before settling to lay on him. That felt very familiar. All of this started to feel very familiar, and comforting.

Victor struggled to force his eye open, finding that the licking had brushed away the crusted blood which had held them closed. He needed to see, needed to know what these things were that surrounded him.

He had a brief vision of of big, black nose before a pink tongue flicked out towards his eye and he shut it reflexively.

The weight on his back shifted, making itself comfortable.

“Kipper, settle down would you.” He mumbled. His eyes flickered open again and he knew what surrounded him. “Kipper?”

He got a lick on the back of his head, his long dead dog, who would curl up anywhere she felt comfortable and fall asleep, was lying on his back. 

Now he recognised the nose and brown eyes in front of him “Scratch? Is that you boy?” The tongue licked his cheek again, tenderly.

The pain had receded, he didn’t hurt any more. His breathing was unnoticeable, in fact, his breathing had stopped.

Victor lifted his head up to see his dogs sat around him. 

Scratch, his German Shepherd, who would chase a ball for hours.

Chuckles, the black Lab who was a master of scrounging and puppy eyes.

Kipper, a Jack Russell, stayed on his back.

Daisy, a Collie crossed with a spaniel who liked nothing better than to curl up at his and Dorothy’s feet after a long walk.

Fred, his childhood dog he’d never known the breed of.

Doc and Bugs, the two from Daisy’s litter they had kept. Doc, the explorer who had vanished one sad day. Bugs who jumped like his legs were made of springs.

All of his dogs, all of them, surrounded him, Licking, panting, looking at him with the love you only get from a dog.

Victor pushed himself up, marvelling at how easy it was. He reached behind him to swing Kipper onto the floor with a motion he had used so many times. Reaching out with his other hand, he scratched Scratch behind the ears. His old boy tilted his head and his mouth opened in pleasure.

The floodgates opened then as the others surged forward for petting, Victor felt tears of joy running down his face.

His dogs, his best friends, his constant companions, they had come back for him.

Daisy tugged on his sleeve, looking to the back door.

“You need to go out? Yes, let’s do that.”

Victor stood, ignoring the shell of himself that remained on the floor.

The dogs danced around his legs, weaving in and out, jumping up to be petted as he walked.

Victor laughed, joy he hadn’t felt for two hundred and thirty nine days surged through him.

He opened his back door, but it wasn’t his garden the other side. Instead there was a huge meadow, illuminated by the perfect summer sun.

Dorothy was stood there, smiling.

“Dorothy? The dogs came back for me.”

He stepped out to hold his love, the dogs bounding past him into the grass. Running and playing, forever free in the glorious light.

Dorothy kissed him “They didn’t come back for you, Vic. They waited for you, for us. They wait for us, so we can all run forever.”

The door closed behind him and Victor took Dorothy’s hand.

“Then let’s run with them. Run until the stars burn out.”

Dorothy laughed and together they started to run. 

© Robert Spalding 2020