Chapter 9
Kate woke from yet another nightmare. She could smell immediately that she was still in the dungeon of the Black Dog. She leaned up a little and, as was her habit after these nightmares of the last few nights, she looked out the window, expecting to see something evil wanting to get in, something menacing and glowering that wanted only her. Her eyes saw nothing, and she glanced at the black spaces in the room. The syrupy residue of the nightmare, screaming pigs and the screaming guard, was thick on her forehead and temples, and she could smell the pungent sweat that soaked her clothes and the smell of the damp hay they lay on.
She lay looking at the ceiling, which was alive with reflections from the water covering the floor; it looked so clean and beautiful that she couldn’t believe it. She followed the patterns that it made as she tried to rid herself of the uneasy feelings that were inside of her. This place was getting to her; there was no doubt of that. She hadn’t thought she’d be here so long, but obviously no one was willing to pay for her to get out.
The uneasiness refused to lift, and a half hour later she was still a bag of nerves and almost sick to her emptier-than-usual stomach. None of the others were awake, and they seemed to be coping with things here much better than she—but then, they had been here many times before. Some of the women in the brothel talked of this place with bravado and joked about their times in here, but for Kate, it was never going to be anything but a living nightmare. She would live in constant fear now of ever being put back in here. She heard a low grumble and wondered, of the sleeping others, whose belly it was. It wasn’t hers because she didn’t feel anything.
She was looking at the ceiling when the grumble went again, only it was louder this time and more like a growl. Kate smiled at this; it was one those things that just seemed funny when you were the only one awake at three in the morning or whatever time it was.
When she heard it again, she was no longer smiling, and a sense of terror sprang up through her entire body. It wasn’t one of the others’ hungry stomachs; it was coming from outside. She stayed still and as silent as possible. She watched the window from her prone position, and then she heard it again: a low growl, and much closer this time. She was petrified, and she began to cry, slapping her hand over her mouth to stop any noise that might involuntarily emit from her.
She wanted to wake the others, as was natural, to share her fear, but she forced herself not to. That would cause a disturbance and perhaps draw the creature towards them. She was rocking a little now from crying, and she tensed up to try to stop herself; some of the others were beginning to stir.
Tears were streaming over her fingers now, and the next growl was so close that it had to becoming from just outside the window, just outside what she was able to see. She could hear it as it sniffed the air, and she was sure that it would catch hold of the smells emanating from her that she had herself smelled. There was another low growl, and then the true horror happened for her. She saw the dark shape move past the window; she couldn’t help but yelp a little in fear, but the creature didn’t stop. Instead, it just passed on towards Back Lane.
When she could no longer hear it, she got up quietly and went to the door of the Nunnery. She was almost hysterical with tears now as she said to the guard in a forced whisper, “It’s outside again!”
He startled awake from a sleep she didn’t even know he had been having. “What?” he said in confusion
“The thing that attacked the guard the other night,” she said more loudly. “It’s outside now!”
He jumped up and called softly to the guard on the inside of the gates. “Any sign of anything outside?”
The other guard looked out and then back, shaking his head. “Nothing I can see.”
“Can you see Jeremiah?” the first asked, and the second looked out again.
“No.”
The first guard then called up the stairs, “Watch out for Jeremiah outside. Can you see him?”
A few seconds later, a voice came back. “No sign!”
Kate watched as the first guard went to the gate and said to the guard there, “Open up, and we’ll have a quick look out.” The gate creaked open a little, and the first guard stuck his head out far enough to see both ways. “No sign,” he said, looking back inside. He stepped outside and called the missing guard’s name—quietly, but enough to be heard in the silent streets.
Then she heard the one now outside say, “I think I see something. Wait here a moment,” and she heard him walking a little way from the gates and in the direction the beast had gone.
“Don’t go out there alone!” she called out, and now the other women did stir and sat up with sleepy heads and imbecilic visages.
“Quiet in there,” the one on the gate called over.
“That creature is out there. Don’t let him go out alone! He’ll be killed!”
“What are you saying, Kitty?” the women asked her.
“I saw it pass the window. It was growling outside, and then it went off up the laneway.”
“What was it?” they asked.
“I don’t know, but it was all black, and it growled and sniffed the air right at that window.”
Just then, there was a call from outside: “At the walls, at the walls outside, Back Lane!” Some guards came running down the stairs and out through the gate. Somebody was shouting directions from the tower, and the women grew afraid of what was going on.
In a few minutes, with guards coming and going all the while, the first guard came in with a white face. He was carrying an extra halberd and something else in his arms, which he placed on the ground.
Brick arrived again in his now-usual manner, agitated and barely dressed. “Can’t I get one night’s decent sleep in this fuckin’ place?” he thundered. “What is it now?” He came into the opening, and he saw, as Kate did now, what had been brought from outside: a pile of bloody and torn clothes.
“What’s this?” Brick asked.
“This is all there was left of him, sir.”
“Who?”
“Jeremiah, sir,” said the guard. “He was on outside duty tonight. There’s blood all over the ground just up the lane, and this is all that was left.”