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  Chapter three: The house

  The cloud slowly mixed with the air.

  I found myself in the café again, sitting at the very same table with my arms crossed and head down as if I had been asleep awhile. I sat up looking around in search of Malcolm, but instead I found the rude woman behind the bar.

  I yawned. “How long was I out?” I asked her.

  “A while,” she grimaced, avoiding looking directly at me.

  “An hour?”

  “There are no hours here, no days. Just a while,” she grumbled. No hours, no days, rang in my head. She really was a weird woman.

  “Where is Malcolm?” I asked.

  “He’s gone.”

  I put my hand on my head. “What kind of drink did you give me? Ugh! My head.” I had an agonizing headache.

  “You’ll feel better soon,” she said.

  I stood up and made my way to the door, feeling giddy. “Where can I find Malcolm? Do you know where he lives? I need to talk to him.”

  “I don’t know. Just get out of here,” the woman spat. Then she wheeled around curtly and left through the door behind the bar. I watched the door close behind her.

  There was obviously no reason for me to stay in that unwelcoming café anymore. I headed out, my head still aching. The street remained ghostly silent just like before. Everything was the same as it had been in my vague dream, everything except the girl. Again, there wasn’t any living soul.

  Reaching the street, I looked to the right where the girl had been running to in my dream. Maybe that was a sign, a thought crossed my mind.

  I stuffed my hands into my jeans’ pockets and walked hastily down the street to figure out whether the house Melissa had shown me even existed.

  Who was the man running in the dark alley? He’d been running away from someone. Who?

  I was pretty sure that one hadn’t been a dream, but a glimpse of one of my memories. I had heard a gunshot. Probably that man was trying to flee from someone who had the desire to kill him. Although I hadn’t seen his face, I could feel he’d been scared to death.

  Had I killed him?

  With those thoughts in my head, I reached the place where the girl from my dream had been standing. Strangely the same house stood there–dark brown wooden walls and a white door, but no longer vibrant. Instead it was as dusty as the car parked in front of the path. I maneuvered around the car and closed in the gates.

  I didn’t dare to walk in the yard straight away. Standing at the fence I surveyed the garden and the windows, and like the previous houses, this house seemed to have also been abandoned. I doubted anyone lived inside, however I opened the gates anyway and cautiously entered.

  The path was unstable, and surely nobody had passed along it for a very long time. What had the girl wanted me to find here?

  I had barely taken two steps when an angry snarl of a beast filled my ears. I stopped in my tracks, my stomach turning to water.

  Should I run back?

  Definitely yes, but at that moment I stood firmly rooted to the spot, straining my ears to better hear that sound. A second later it came again. I looked towards the left of the house, astounded.

  I know what a dog looks like, but believe me, what I saw was surreal: a dog-size animal without any fur, radiant green eyes, like two torches pinned to its face, and two sharp teeth grew from its muzzle. I wasn’t mistaken, they did grow.

  Who lived in that house and kept such a hellish looking guard dog? Though at that moment I was so focused on the beast growling in front of me that I didn’t give much thought as to who might have lived there.

  My eyes found the beasts legs. It had much longer paws than the average dog, and its nails were like knives as sharp and shiny. Nothing would remain of my face if that monstrous animal swiped at me. My head would definitely be torn into five pieces.

  “Good dog,” I stretched out my hand trying to calm the aggravated beast. Instead, it snarled again, lowering its body into an attack position.

  A voice within told me that there was no chance of working things out civilly. I quickly looked around seeking anything with which to defend myself, but found only dried leaves and grass. There was a rake in the garden, but before I could reach it, the beast would’ve surely torn me apart.

  Running back out of the yard wasn’t an option either; the fence was short, and the dog would jump over it with ease. I didn’t come up with any plan; everything happened too fast.

  Holy crap! The beast roared and began tearing up the ground with its nails and rushed towards me.

  Completely frozen, I lingered for a moment just staring at it. The white door was the only salvation, but it was too late now to run towards it.

  I waited for the animal to attack. There were two or three steps between us when it pushed itself off the ground and jumped onto me with its nails outstretched. If they pierced into my chest, the sharp edges would’ve been seen on my back. That’s how long they appeared to be.

  I ducked and threw myself to the side. The dog flew above me. After the powerful jump it landed on the metal fence that clattered to the ground completely ruined.

  I looked back in horror at the sheer might that that hellish animal bore. Fear flooded over me. There was no way to pin that beast down, not even with a knife in my hand. So using bare hands made me a victim.

  My heart hammering, I jumped to my feet promptly and sprinted towards the door faster than I had probably ever run. Within a second I was already on the steps. I didn’t glance back, but I felt that beast hounding me.

  My salvation was the white door.

  Please, don’t be locked, I prayed in my mind.

  I was almost at the door when my eyes locked onto another beast already in mid-air to my right. I hadn’t noticed it deviously hunting me from the other side of the house.

  I had no idea what I was doing; instinctively I punched it right in its face. The dog flew down the steps and onto the other one behind me, and together they both tumbled down.

  I stood there flabbergasted. Who was I? Where had such mighty power popped into me from? With one foul strike I had hurled a heavy beast several meters away. Probably the rush of adrenalin pumping through my veins had made me momentarily stronger than the average man, but I didn’t have time to work it out. The first attacking dog jumped on its legs and bit the other angrily, and then, with its arching eyebrows, it stared directly at me.

  I placed my hand on the door handle. Fortunately, it was unlocked. Faster than the wind I flew inside the house and locked the door before the beast could reach it. Leaning against the door, I held it strongly, the beast’s strikes from the other side vibrating my body. I didn’t look around, just kept the door closed, then locked it and stepped back. Malicious knocks went on, one of the dogs wailed and then all of a sudden quiet fell. Shocked I stood rooted and stared at the white door for another minute. Finally, sighing in relief, I reached the door and put my ear against it expecting to hear the beasts’ hoarse breaths. Nothing.

  I pulled myself off the door and turned around to see a gloomy and narrow passage. Trying to catch my breath, I regarded my surroundings–gray walls, no pictures hung on them, nor did lamps light the way. The daylight never reached it, although it wasn’t so dark that it prevented me from seeing to the end of the hallway.

  I sighed, my fingers trembled nervously. My brain started processing the picture of the monsters outside. Where was I? What kind of town this was? A place for mutants? I recalled the ugly woman from the café and Malcolm, his half of the face wrapped with a black rag. The only reasonable idea I had was that this was a place of experiments on humans and animals. Other than that I didn’t know what to think.

  Now I was locked in this house and didn’t know what to expect. Quiet fell in the gloomy passage where I stood by the door and stared at the end of it. At first I didn’t dare to move. Then I balled my hands and tiptoed slowly so as not to make a noise, but the wooden floorboards were old and creaked with my every step. The
only door was at the very end. It had tinted opaque glass, and I could not make out anything on the other side. The door stood slightly ajar and the room it was keeping behind it was lit by daylight.

  I didn’t dare to open the door. I was too scared of meeting more beasts, or maybe of meeting the owner of those beasts. But there was no going back. Reluctantly, I pulled the door open. A large and surprisingly comfortable room lay before me. There in the center, a table stood with a vase of fresh roses on it, a sofa and two armchairs to the left. The TV mounted on the wall was off, and the floor was clean, but still there was no sign of any living soul.

  As I crept in, I noted a staircase on my right side leading up to the first floor. In the far corner to my left was a small corridor leading to the kitchen, and I stole a glimpse of the gas stove and dishwashing machine.

  My heart was still hammering.

  I spotted an album lying on the table, opened, a large black and white photo pinned to the page. I saw a man of perhaps thirty, clearly of Spanish descent with frizzy black hair, holding a girl in his arms, “his daughter,” I thought. They both smiled at me.

  Reluctantly I reached down for the album. All the other pages were blank, so I flipped back to the one with the man and his daughter and lowered it back onto the table. Both their faces were unfamiliar to me. At least, I didn’t remember either of them and my mind didn’t allow for any pictures of my past to return. No sense of familiarity flirted inside me at the sight of them. I didn’t feel the same as I had with the little blue-eyed girl, who, by the way, had trapped me in this house with two savage beasts on my tail.

  The people in the photograph still stared at me. Where else could they look? I was about to turn away when a red drop slid out from the girl’s left eye. I bent forward. The drop balled up and rolled down the page and dripped onto the table leaving a spindly stream on the paper. Then another one slid from her other eye like the girl was crying red tears. They turned into two shallow streams washing over her face.

  I shook my head in disbelief. I was imagining this. Something was going on with my mind. I was in a wrong place, in a surreal place. Nothing like this could really happen.

  I thought about picking the album up again and checking what was on its back, but I was jolted as a loud squawk sounded from upstairs. I wheeled around, trembling with adrenalin running through my veins. The squawking followed again, sound of a woman, a crazed woman, yelling and screaming.

  You can lose your memories, but the loss won’t make your identity change.

  I wasn’t a coward, though I had just run away from the beasts. I had assessed the situation right. That’s why, without thinking of my next move, I bolted up the stairs. The staircase was much wider than the corridor. On the next floor I found myself surrounded by four doors, the woman’s voice coming from the one directly in front of me. My hands trembled as I opened it.

  It was a study, not very large, and the yelling woman was lying on her back on the desk with white and ripped shirt, revealing her lacy bra. Her blue shoes were strewn on the floor, and the papers off the desk were scattered all over the place. With one hand she was trying to push back a man who had his back to me and with the other she clasped onto her black skirt that the man was about to rip off her body. I didn’t know what kind of man I had been before, but I can assure you raping a woman wasn’t in my character at all.

  “Hey, you, fuckin’ asshole,” I yelled louder than the woman’s voice. “Let her go.” And with those words I boldly stepped inside the room.

  The man let her out of his hold and turned to face me–the fool who had dared to interrupt. I guess I regretted that I had challenged him.

  Though I wasn’t sure that the person standing before me was a he or an it. It looked like a man, as tall as me with human hair on his head (it was black), bloodshot eyes, the skin of his face dark-gray and scarred. I had a feeling that its face had been burned, but the ashes still hung from the remaining muscles of its chin.

  I thought it could be a human, but the obvious tumors that jutted out from under its gray skin led me to believe otherwise.

  Dressed in human clothes–blue jeans and a green T-shirt–the creature scowled at me and took a step towards me with open palms as if he was going to grab me and wring my neck.

  “What the hell?” I spluttered. I stood appalled, out of the corner of my eye I seeing his hands–as gray as his face.

  As it reached for me and stretched its hands out, I jerked aside. The humanoid monster angrily kicked the door closed, and as it shut, it cracked and shattered sending the pieces fly up into the air and then come crashing down. My hands shielded my face instinctively so I wouldn’t be hit by the flying shards of wood.

  He came on me, gripping onto my shoulder, and then I found my feet uselessly dangling in the air. The monster was inhumanly strong and had seized me by one hand, lifting me into the air.

  I was watching him from above. It drooled at the corners of its mouth as though I was a prey, fresh meat for dinner.

  I grasped the arm holding me, trying desperately to release myself, but its long fingers were tightly wrapped around my shoulder. It clenched its grip tighter, and I let out a shriek in pain.

  “What the fuck?” I cried out then with a painful voice. “What is this? Get over me!”

  On hearing me beg, a wide and cheerless grin spread across the monster’s face showing its yellow teeth, just like a man’s who had been chewing tobacco all his life.

  “I’m dreaming,” I assured myself. “I’m still dreaming.”

  But I wasn’t. I was far from dreaming.

  I looked right into the monster’s bloodied eyes then peered over its shoulder. To my surprise, the woman hadn’t run away. She had taken a chair and swung it across the monster’s back. The chair smashed into pieces, but the monster appeared unfazed and unharmed. The pain in my shoulder lessened, and suddenly I found myself on the floor again. The monster had loosened its hold of me and had turned once again to the woman.

  It is fair to say the monster was finally enraged. As it snarled, the walls shuddered, and both the woman and I covered our ears trying to block out the deafening rumbling noise.

  Sitting on the floor, surrounded by papers and the broken shards of the door, as the monster grasped the woman by her neck and violently slammed her against the wall leaving her breathless, I spotted a sharp piece of wood lying at my feet. Grasping the weapon the next moment, I sprang to my feet. No time to think, only to act.

  Determinedly, I stabbed it into the monster’s back. It growled in pain, tossing the woman to the floor and turning its body towards me. On impulse, I punched it in its stomach sending the monster onto the desk.

  Perplexed and astounded, I looked down at my palms. Blood was pulsing in them rapidly. I had a power, a mighty one. I spent too much time contemplating it. The monster jolted its body upright and leaped at me, together we smashed into the wall destroying it completely.

  I found myself lying on the floor at the top of the stairs, the pieces of the torn wall raining over my face. The next moment the monster was on me grabbing my neck. I punched it in the face with all my might, and as I did so, a black liquid seeped from its face, splashing all over me. It was probably what passed for its blood.

  I kicked the monster backwards trying to free myself. It glided through the air and fell with a thump onto the wooden floor.

  We stood up simultaneously. I held my hands before me ready to defend myself. The monster attacked. It was so close. I squeezed it by its shoulders and tossed it back towards the study as if it was a light box. It seemed as light as a cat. At that very moment, I was in awe of my realized strength–superhuman powers, and I realized why I had been sent to this town. There was something wrong with me either, like with the barwoman, the dogs and Malcolm, and this monster.

  The monster fell back thrashing into the desk with a loud crash that sent shockwaves through the floor.

  The woman let out a scream. She continued to cower in the nearest cor
ner watching us fight, her eyes wide and in utter shock at the unusual performance. If I had been in her position, I would have been exactly the same. But when you’re in a precarious situation, you don’t give much thought to a lot of things, you just fight to survive.

  “Get up,” I told her taking her hand grimly. “Run, now!” She snatched her shoes, and I shoved her towards the stairs, leading her down before the monster could come to its senses.