Golden Hour (Part 6)
The decal on the back of the van read Longside Vets. If this was our perpetrator, he’d brought her here in that. I approached, branches rustled above me and droplets fell from the branches - not rain but condensation. An exhalation of moisture across the landscape from the greenery surrounding the city. I pressed my face against the windscreen, peering into the murk. Debris lay scattered along the dashboard, used cups, wrappers. A cluster of parking tickets obscured part of my view, curled and dangling from their adhesive backs like fungus. Joe flipped out his phone, “Give me a second,” he said. “Time to call in the cavalry.” I took a step back, flicked on the flash of my camera and took a photo of the van. The strobe from the xenon flash stretched out into the darkness, illuminating the hard packed surface. Weeds picked out, flared and faded, their colour reluctantly relinquished from the night in that brief instant. Next the contours of the trees revealed themselves, the harsh light accentuating the bark’s roughness with shadows. As the last of the light, I saw a pack of dogs rousing themselves, assembled around torn plastic bags. Muzzles turned towards me, frozen in motion, their eyes the last to vanish. Joe was around the back of the van, I could hear him talking. “Hello, look, I don’t have much time, look can trace this call? It’s important. You can? Great. When you get through to the police, tell them this. Tell them that the girl who was abducted this evening, is here. Tell them that Charlotte is nearby… No, not found her yet. No, I don’t know the coordinating officer, Amanda Headly is involved. Send police, ambulance and…” Joe turned, looking behind me, “…dog wardens. Lots of them.” I could hear something approach, footfalls as heavy as mine, the crunch of loose stones beneath paws and harsh rasping breath. Slowly turning, in case any sharp movement triggered its predator response. It was the biggest ugliest dog I’d even seen. “Christ,” I whispered. The mastiff scraped along the side of the van, using it as support as it approached. It snorted, thick mucus expelled from its nose, its rheumy eyes fixed on me. One side of the beast hung down so it listed against the van, growths protruding from its back, swinging in time to its movement. It sniffed the air, lip curled back into a snarl. I heard the rear door of the van open, “quick in here.” I scrabbled around, Joe pulling me in and closing the door behind me. I found myself next to a metal cage, which filled the left side. It was split into compartments, each with a bolted gate. I’d clambered onto a pile of black heavy duty liners. My palm slid, pushing the plastic over whatever was inside. The air smelt of stale shit, piss and, if I was honest, fear. My heart was in my mouth. I could hear the bear-sized dog lumber around to the back, huffing and clacking its teeth together. I could feel the uneven surface that I was sitting on, misshapen contents, carcasses and limbs. My knee sank into the yielding surface to the sound of wet snapping. Joe was rifling through medical box behind the cage. He had a fist full of sterile syringes, and ampules which he passed to me. “Fill ‘em up.” When he turned next, he had a small scalpel in one hand, and motioned to the bags. “Let’s hope our search isn’t over so soon,” he said. The first slice revealed russet-red fur. Another and the hindquarters of an animal came into view. “This is going to get messy,” he said. “Help me move these back, so that we can make some room near the door.” He tipped the dog out of the bag, its body slid lubricated by decay; legs thudding against the door. “What are we doing?” “Injecting them with this, Pentobarbitol. If the dogs haven’t already had their fill, it might kill them, or slow them down. Looks like our perp has already been doing something similar. If they were roused by us, then he must have been here for a while.” I watched Joe work like a butcher, severing tendons and sinew so that the legs flopped loose, then parted when he teased the joints out of their sockets.. “Fill a syringe and use one vial for each leg and chest.” He wiped his blood slicked hands on his trousers, then started on the next bag. Opening the door, just wide enough to throw chunks through without allowing any of the pack to jump in. The first body was snatched out of the air as it fell, caught in two snarling jaws that twisted pulled at the meat. The large dog wasn’t fast enough, and all it could do was watch as the carcass was carried off into the trees by a German Shepard. “How many do you think are out there?” I asked. “A dozen? More maybe, I can’t see into the tunnel, there could be more in there.” He glanced up as claws scraped against the back door. The dogs swirling around, yapping and whimpering. “What are they doing?” Joe said, as he cut open another bag. This one was also fresh, a terrier, someone’s beloved pet. “Waiting to be fed.” A scuffled broke out for the next body, and again the monster was too slow. It huffed in anticipation, planting one paw on the rear side, the van rocked on its suspension. “It’s a fucking monster isn’t it.” Joe said, “just glad that it’s patient.” “Almost as they they are used to it,” I said. “They could be, initially used to deter people from coming here, or guard dogs perhaps. Makes sense in a way, it’s not busy an area to chance an encounter with the public.” The next bag that I reached for didn’t have the same texture; I pulled carefully. From beneath the next bag was a small coat, someone had stuffed it in there, hiding it amongst the bags. I turned it in my hands, stopping at the stitched unicorn on the pocket. “That’s hers,” Joe said, looking up. Joe built a wall of flesh, using macabre uneven bricks. “Move up front,” Joe said. “Carefully, I don’t want you to be seen if you can help it.” I did as was told, crawling over the back into the front of the van. “If it’s clear on that side, unlock the door, wait sixty seconds and tell me.” After the latch clicked, I held the door closed, counting silently to about thirty, when I lost track and risked a glance over the window. “Clear.” I whispered. “When I say go, head to the tunnel entrance. Don’t look back, but stop before you get too far. I’ll be right behind you.” “Go!” I heard the back of the van open and the frenzied yapping of the dogs. My feet flew over the ground to the opening. Cool air washed over me as I entered the darkness, slamming my back against the large stone block wall. Joe spun around a moment later, “That should keep them busy for a while, come on before one of them hears us before the drugs kick in.” “Do you have your phone with you? I left mine in the van.” I passed it to him. Using the glow from the lock screen, we used it to pick our way alongside the track into the tunnel. The screen case a faint bubble of light, only bright enough to define edges of what was immediately in front of us. For the next two hundred and fifty feet, our world was no larger than the edge of a train track, sharp granite ballast, and a couple of bricks below knee height, slick with moss and lichen. Looming, ghostlike in the darkness was a platform, faint light spilling onto it, setting it adrift in the darkness. There were bones here, more bags scattered across the tracks. They looked as through they had been torn open with teeth. “How long has he been doing this?” I asked. “Too long. Sshh.” Water dripped down from above, splashing into a puddle. There was a metal grill up there, probably close to the flyover where I’d parked. I reached the edge of the stone platform. There was a light coming form a tunnel, a weak electric hue, flickering and humming. “Let me,” Joe whispered. The level of the floor was about chest height. Joe grasped the edge and put his chest against it, lifting his legs up behind him and rolling onto the new level. I followed scraping my shin painfully in the process. There was an opening in the tunnel wall, Joe carefully stuck his head around the edge and looked down. He slipped in. A black door was at the end set into the smooth surface of the walls. There was light coming from the other side, illuminating a single strip of concrete beneath the door. Mouth dry, nerves jangling like firecrackers, I was a step behind Joe. He reached out, turned the handle and pushed open the door. I tried to see past him, into the room beyond. There was an almighty crack, and I felt my face splattered with splinters and blood. A huge chunk of broken wood clipped my ear. Joe had taken the full force of the blow. The makeshift club breaking on his forehead. He dropped to the floor, becoming tangled in my feet. The wielder of the club, dropped the rest, and I felt strong hands grab my shirt. I drop the camera, try to break free of the vice like grip, but my view is inverted. I’m spinning end over end. Crash down is painful and sudden, as the wind is knocked out of me, I can feel the vertebrae in my back crash against one another. My arms are up, covering my head, and a blow with the power of a sledge hammer pounds against my chest; once, twice and two ribs explode. It feels as though I’ve been hit by a car. Instinctively, I drop my elbow over the wound, which was what my attacker wanted me to do. The next blow hits the side of my head so hard, I lose focus. I can feel my upped lip mashed against my teeth, some broken and chipped. I heave, trying to curl into as tight a ball as possible, but I can’t bring my legs up, my stomach feels full of broken crockery, and there’s an immense weight pinning me to the ground. I heard a soft pop, and something clatters to the floor. A shard of ice pierces my neck, as a needle slides into my throat...
