There is a prison for violent criminals where the prisoners do not remember their lives prior to incarceration.
A new prisoner, known as Dogboy, has befriended the vicious resident dogs or, rather, they have befriended him.
Excerpt
It didn’t even seem out of place. It just sat in the shade of the wall about 100 yards away, just as casual as anything. In fact, the only thing I found odd about it, at first, was it looked more like a wolf than a dog. That’s when Visionary’s words came back to me like a punch in the stomach: dogs with a taste for prisoner.
I picked up my pace a bit and changed my direction slightly away from the wall, toward some buildings. I could see the dog in the corner of my eye as it watched me. Fear began to well up inside of me, but I felt it was somehow fundamentally vital that I don’t allow the dog to sense it. But when I saw the crowd of 12 to 15 dogs rounding a corner of a building in the direction I was heading, there was no concealing my sudden terror as I halted and gasped. I remember glancing at the wolf-looking dog to see it lick its jowls and rise to all fours before I bolted.
Heading for the nearest buildings in the opposite direction, I ran as hard and as fast as I could. The moment I was in motion, a cacophony of loud barking exploded behind me. In the briefest sliver of a moment it occurred to me that there was no way I was going to outrun these dogs, but I pushed it out of my mind and headed up the nearest street. I came to a vacant lot about two blocks up that was surrounded by chain link fence. I could sense the pack was quickly gaining ground, so I decided to drop the turkey and go over it. Leaping, I got a toehold about stomach-high and used it to get my hand onto the top bar. I threw my other arm over the fence, grabbed it and, in one motion, vaulted my legs up over my head, over the fence and onto the ground on the other side.
The dogs crashed into the fence just a moment later. The chain link fence shook violently as the dogs leaned against it with their front paws, barking ferociously at me. I stumbled to my feet and continued running, for I noticed about four or five of the dogs trying, with promising ability, to get over it.
Across the dirt lot that the fence contained, I was approaching an open doorway to a building. Through the door I could see a stairway, and I as I neared it, I could hear the thudding of a few dogs as they landed on this side of the fence. With my right hand, I grabbed the stairway railing and swung myself up into the ascent. It was a stairwell leading up in a rectangle about five or six stairs at a time. Using the rails, I barely touched any of the steps. I just practically went from landing to landing, jumping and pulling. I could hear the barking dogs struggling to make haste on the smooth, painted concrete steps. Their claws slipped and scraped at each turn. The stairwell ended in a hallway about three floors up and I darted down the hall toward a door marked ‘Roof’.
The door would only open the slightest bit, not even enough to see through. I shook it, crazed and terrified. I looked down the hall to see the wolf looking dog leading three others directly toward me. With my eyes closed and all the force I could muster, I slammed my shoulder into the door, busting it open with a loud scraping sound. Pain shot through my arm, but I used both arms to slam the door shut behind me, literally in the face of one of the dogs. It sounded as if I had struck it to the floor. I turned and headed up the narrow metal steps that led to an already open door on the roof. The dogs were jumping at the door, trying to get it open, and as I got into the bright morning sunlight on the tarred roof, they succeeded.
I looked around at the adjacent buildings and chose one I could jump to. I ran right at it, dogs on my heels and leaped. I landed on the next roof in stride and continued running across it. As I approached the far wall, I decided to go onto the next roof as well. Fear and adrenaline were all I felt. I reached the next roof with a stumbling roll. As I rose to my feet I looked back to see that there were now only two dogs in pursuit: a mostly black muscular dog and the wolf-looking dog. Both had stopped at the edge and as the black dog barked at me, the other just looked at me with calm, yellow eyes and panted. Then he trotted away.
I got up and saw that the wolf looking dog was getting a running head start at the leap. Without waiting to see it, I turned and ran as fast as I could in the other direction. As I got up to speed I could hear him land. No matter how hard I ran or scared I got, I could tell he was gaining on me. The roof we were on was long and narrow and we raced across it. With the bright sun in my eyes, I could not be sure what lay beyond the edge of the roof, but it appeared to be another roof about twelve feet away and one story down. I launched, holding my breath and uncertain.
I came crashing down onto the roof, twisting my foot and hitting my head. Before I stopped sliding I felt the dog come crashing down on top of me. I felt its claws scrape across my abdomen as it rolled across me and onto the roof, its jowls sliding forward into the gravel.
The next thing I knew, we were both spinning toward each other on all fours. My fear was gone. This crazy dog was NOT going to win this hunt. I stared into his yellow eyes, preparing for him to bear down on me. But I then saw something I did not expect. His look changed. His panting became a strange smile, a look of understanding came into his eyes and I felt like I knew this beast. I knew what it was. I knew how it lived and how it behaved. And somehow, he knew all this and more of me.
Copyright 2010 Timothy Schwab. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
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