Fluke by James Herbert

Author:James Herbert
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Fiction - Horror
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Part Two

Twelve

How do you feel now? Is your mind still closed to my story, or are you wondering? Let me go on; there’s a few hours before dawn.

My journey to Edenbridge was a long one, but strangely I knew the way as if I’d travelled that route many times before. When the town had been mentioned in the yard it had evidently planted a seed in my mind, and it was a seed that suddenly grew and sprouted. I wasn’t sure what the town meant to me, whether it was where my home was or if it had some other significance, but I knew it was the place to go, the place to start from. What other alternative had I anyway?

I must have run for at least an hour, narrowly avoiding being run down by uncaring traffic more than once, before I reached a piece of waste ground where I was able to grieve for my lost friend in private. Creeping under a dumped sofa, its stuffing more out than in, I sank to the ground, resting my head between my paws. I could still see that trickle of blood running from beneath the rusted metal, forming a pool in a small dip in the earth and creating a miniature whirlpool, a vortex of Rumbo’s life. Animals can feel grief just as deeply as any human, perhaps more so; they have limited ways of expressing their sorrow, though and their natural optimism usually enables recovery more quickly, there’s the difference. Unfortunately, I suffered both as a human and an animal, and it was heavy stuff.

I stayed there until long into the afternoon, afraid and bewildered once again. Only my loyal companion, hunger, roused me into movement. I forget from where I scrounged food, just as I have forgotten a great deal of that long journey, but I know I did eat and was soon moving onwards. I travelled by night through the city, preferring the empty quietness of the streets, the activity of the day making way for the quiet prowlings of night creatures. I met many prowlers - cats, other dogs, spirits (so many in the streets of the city) and strange men who flitted in and out of the shadows as though light or open spaces would harm their bodies - but I avoided communication with any of them. I had a purpose and would allow nothing to distract me from it.

Through Camberwell, through Lewisham, through Bromley I went, resting during the day, hiding in derelict houses, parks or on waste ground - anywhere away from inquisitive eyes. I ate badly, for I took few risks; I didn’t want to be sent back to a home, you see, not now I had an objective. I had become timid again now that Rumbo wasn’t there to spur me on, to chastise me when I cowered, to threaten me when I baulked and to laugh when I surprised him.

Soon I reached open country.

It rolled out before me, green and fresh under the gentle beginnings of spring.

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