Chapter Twelve: Into the Darkness

  We said goodbye to our friends and walked toward the sounds of crashing waves. The Darkness felt like a veil, and as soon as we crossed through it, we were lost. We couldn’t see anything, and if it wasn’t for the fact that we were standing shoulder to shoulder we wouldn’t even know the others were there. I turned to look behind me to see that I couldn’t even tell where the veil was—it was all dark. The sound of the water against the shore was nearly deafening. 

    We awkwardly walked forward. Each dog carefully placing one paw and then feeling the ground to make sure it was safe before moving the other paw. We did this one at a time, with Atrix on my back. It was very slow moving. We tried moving away from the sound of the water, but it didn’t matter if we went left or right, the sound of the water grew louder, as if we were walking on a bridge, zig zagging from one side to the other in a vain attempt to escape the water that surrounded us on either side. 

    After walking so long I thought my paws would fall off. We realized the sound of the water was getting further and further away.

“I can hear myself think!” Dagney said with a booming voice. 

    I laughed, “It’s not thinking if everyone else can hear it too!” 

    We laughed together and laid down for a quick rest. 

“I’m so tired,” Bailey said while yawning. Dagney and Atrix murmured in agreement. 

    ‘One of us should stay up and watch out’ Atrix said softly. I could hear the tiredness in his voice, even if all he did was ride on my back it seemed to sap all the energy he had left. 

    “I’ll stay up for a while and wake one of you when I get tired,” I said. I’m not sure if they heard me or not as I quickly heard the snoring of Dagney and Bailey.

    I couldn’t tell if I could see for a few feet or miles at this point. Maybe there was nothing but darkness and ground and water. Maybe it was true there were no creatures here. At that idea, a chilling thought popped into my head, what if there were creatures here. I spun around quickly looking to see if anyone or anything was there and strained my ears to hear past Dagney’s loud snoring. What if something was following us that entire time? My hackles began to creep up as I kept swinging around trying to see something different than the blackness which seemed to stretch for forever. 

    I heard rustling beside me and nearly pounced on poor Atrix as he was stretching by me.

“What are you doing Storm?” he asked while shaking out his coat. 

    “I was just looking around.” I responded without looking at him; I just couldn’t shake the feeling we were being watched. 

    “Don’t be silly,” he said as he scrambled up my back to stand on my shoulders, “There’s no way something could have been following us!”

Just then we felt the ground rumble and shake. Both Dagney and Bailey woke up and frantically got to their feet. We were huddled tightly together with our backs toward each other. 

Bailey turned her head, “What was that? An Elephant?”

    “No,” I hurriedly whispered, “It’s bigger than that.”

Dagney gasped, “What do you mean it’s bigger than that?” I could feel her quivering with fear, “What’s bigger than that?” she asked as we felt the ground shake again and heard a massive roar coming from the sea. 

Dagney took off so fast I thought she left her coat behind. Bailey was frozen still and Atrix was yelling to hurry and get Dagney before we lost her. I picked Bailey up by her scruff and began running after Dagney as Atrix was calling out to her. Another rumble and roar came from behind us, closer this time. The ground around us became softer as followed after the mastiff bowling her way through the darkness with no regard for her own safety, much less the three of us chasing after her. 

The time between the rumbles and roars grew shorter and shorter. I swore I thought I felt the warmth from it’s breath on my tail and the smacking of jaws as I saw Dagney collapse just a few feet ahead of us. I scrambled to her dropping Bailey beside her and Atrix on top of them. I rose up to stand on my hind legs, reached my snout toward the sky and pointed my tail straight toward the ground and took a deep breath before I began my song, but was knocked down before I could start it. 

Bailey sat on top of me and quickly whispered, “What do you think you’re doing?! Our songs don’t work out here. There is no moon, no Sanctuary, no Oak or Elm nor anything else to help us. If you call, the only response you will get is drawing whatever that creature was toward us. Then what?” 

We sat in silence for just a moment waiting for the next rumble and roar. We felt it right next to us but couldn’t see anything. Then we felt it growing further and further away, and before we knew it, the creature was gone. Or at least far enough away we considered it to be gone. 

“Good job Bailey,” I muttered, “I didn’t even consider there wouldn’t be a friendly response to my call.” 

Bailey shrugged her shoulders. “It’s hard for an old dog to learn new tricks,” she said with a wink and a playful growl. 

I chuckled and laid down. “That may very well be true, but it’s time for this old dog to get some rest.” I paused as Dagney’s snore broke the silence, “Sounds like you’re on watch Bailey.” 

Bailey looked longingly at Dagney as we were all exhausted. “She just passed out didn’t she?” Bailey asked as I began to doze off.

“Looks like it.” I said trying to stifle a large yawn; I was unsuccessful. 

I don’t know how long I was asleep, but I know when I awoke, Bailey was gone and Atrix was shaking more than a leaf on a windy day. 

“What happened?” I whispered to Atrix. Dagney was still snoring but woke up as I accidentally stepped on her to get to the fox pup. 

“Hey!” She called out to me and I turned around to shush her. 

“Where’s Bailey?” Dagney asked as she began to get up and I shushed her again. Finally getting close enough to Atrix to hear his teeth chattering in fear. 

“Did you see it?” I asked. 

Atrix slowly shook his head, “I stayed up to keep her company  but dozed off before too long. Next thing I remember is feeling another rumble, but it felt far away. I didn’t hear a roar or anything else, other than Dagney’s snoring of course.” I glanced toward Dagney who was blushing and began to hang her head and Atrix continued still staring off into the Darkness. “I began to get up and she gave me this look. It was like a ‘you better not move’ kind of look, you know? The kind that makes you rethink everything that’s going on kind of look. She got really low to the ground like she was going to pounce on something. Then she just ran off into the Darkness.” 

“Ran off into the Darkness? In that direction?” I pointed with my muzzle toward the spot Atrix had been staring. He gave a dejected nod and I began walking. 

“What are you doing?” Dagney demanded as she briskly began walking to catch up to me

“What do you think I’m doing?” I asked with a questioning eye, “I’m going to go look for her.” 

Dagney looked around with the hackles on her back raised, “What if it comes back?” she asked with a quivering voice. 

“Staying here won’t help anything now will it?” I shot back. I could feel a fire rising up in me and my voice cracked with annoyance. 

“Well it could keep us alive,” Dagney pointed out. “The thing hasn’t come back yet!” 

“We don’t know that.” I reminded her, “We don’t know why Bailey left, she could have been drawing that thing away from us.” 

Dagney gave a big huff before picking Atrix up and swinging the fox pup onto her shoulders, “Fine but I’m not going to like it.”

I chuckled and shook my head, “You’ve spent too much time with Charles.” Charles was one of the dogs who trained Dagney and his sarcastic attitude seemed to rub off on all of his students. Dagney was no exception. 

We walked for what seemed like hours in silence. The only sound I could hear was Dagney’s panting just behind me. As we continued to walk, I found myself focusing on the rhythmic panting. I thought at any moment someone would break out in a song, and then we would wake up back at the Oak and everything would be ok. Instead, what I heard was the breathing of someone else and I stopped. Dagney, who’s mind was anywhere else but with her, bumped into me and opened her mouth to say something when she heard it as well.

 “Hello?” She said softly, “Bailey is that you?” I shot her a look that asked what she thought she was doing. She clearly caught the message as she shrugged her shoulders and mouthed, “What?” 

The breathing stopped. My hackles stood up on my back and I could feel my heart racing I strained my eyes and ears to hear or see something and after a moment of blaring silence and darkness I closed my eyes and began to sniff. A familiar scent wandered into my nostrils. It wasn’t Bailey, but it was definitely a dog. 

Just then I heard Dagney gasp. I opened my eyes and saw we were surrounded by a half dozen black labs.