New Dawn

Chapter 7 | A road to the past

An uncanny feeling hovered over him as he left the acacia tree behind. Juniper was still on edge, the hair on her neck shooting towards the roof as she stood with her front paws against the door. Her gaze was fixated through the car window, her amber eyes peering out into the dark.

This was not the first time that she had acted this way. Sometimes, during the day, he would wake up to find her staring through the window with every muscle in her body on high alert. She knew that someone was coming, and whoever it was, they had been here tonight. They knew where he was, and they were watching him. They wanted him to know that they were watching him.

If it weren't for the dog's strange behaviour he might have thought it to be his own mind playing him tricks and that he was just being paranoid. And perhaps he was, but if there was one thing in this world that seemed more real than anything, it was the black Labrador Retriever.

As he continued to drive down the deserted road, and the ghastly silhouettes of buildings were painted by the headlights, the feeling in his gut grew ever stronger. Without even realising it, he had driven South. As if by a magnetic pull he had been drawn to the one place that he would have liked to forget about more than anything. Suddenly, every rational instinct told him to turn around and never look back. But even if he was scared to look, he was even more frightened of what might happen if he turned away.

It was over a year since he had last been here. Over a year since he had returned to find the entire city in shambles, and the people that he had once known along with it.

He thought of Audrey. Her face was still so vividly memorised that it felt as if he just reached out a hand he could touch her. But most of the time she seemed like nothing more but a dream. Someone who had only existed in his mind. He turned to look at Juniper, and with a sharp sting of heartfelt sorrow, he realised that he thought of someone else just the way he did with Audrey. If not even more.

Once again he had been proven that life was far too short to give any room for his cowardliness. If he only had been brave enough to tell her that he had loved her with all his heart. That he would have wanted to take her far away from this part of the world, to keep her safe from all the terror and pain that had been inflicted upon them all.

If he only would have been brave enough.

The road could take him no further. The streets were flooded with debris from a thousand storms, shattered concrete and cars that were parked in every direction but the right one. He looked at his gas meter. It was almost empty.

Swiftly, he did a u turn before he pulled the handbrake and turned off the ignition. If he needed to leave in a hurry he would at least make sure that his escape could be made as quickly as possible. He left the car with the keys dangling in his hand, followed by Juniper who took the first opportunity she got to flee the pick up. She jumped out onto the street and took in her new surroundings by sniffing in the air.
He opened the door to the back seat, grabbed the black backpack and swung it over his shoulder. Then, he closed the car door as quietly as possible before he took out the flashlight easily accessible from the backpack's side compartment.

The small keychain in the shape of a paw print swayed ominously as he began to walk down the deserted street. As he let the beam from the flashlight run over the cars plagued by dust he thought himself to be able to hint the silhouettes of what once had been people. Squeezed behind the wheel and clenched between metal they had fallen victims for the storms... Or worse.

He drew short breaths, reluctantly inhaling the sickening stench that flooded him. It reeked of disease - the very spores hung in the air and clung to his lungs. Juniper felt it too. She continued to sneeze as she scouted ahead, trying to clear her nose from old scent molecules.

It had started to rain again. Thin, silvery drops that flowed through the air like a veil moved by the wind. He had promised himself to never shun the rain again, but now, as the air turned moist it only further enhanced the smells that plagued his senses.

Suddenly, the darkness felt imposing, the beam from the flashlight no longer enough to fend off the shadows. He shuddered, pulling the denim jacket closer around his chest. The cold surface of the gun pressed against the arch of his back, a small comfort and a wishful promise of protection against whatever lurked at the corners of the city.

White walls appeared in front of him, like arcs of paper turned into incandescent light they broke the dark and gloomy scenery of destruction. He stood before an old military checkpoint. The white tents reluctantly brought back memories from the lab. The lab where had been used as an experiment for weeks. He might be immune to the world's deadliest disease, but he had not been immune to the poison that they had given him. The loss of his hair was inevitable and he had struggled to maintain weight ever since.

As he walked through the checkpoint, temporarily shielded from the rain beneath the tent roof, the word Quadrex flashed in his face. The logo was printed upon the tent walls and on the equipment on the tables. Equipment for testing blood for virus cells. He moved the flashlight, its weakening beam casting a dirty glow over the broken machines. All while the rain tap-danced above his head.

Quadrex BioTech. Founders of revolutionary cellular cancer treatments and destroyers of the Homo sapiens. There was too much in this world that was far too ironic to be able to keep a straight face, and so, when he stepped out from the protection of the tent, smothered by thick formations of rain, he laughed uncontrollably out into the night.

The rain pounded against the ground and thunder played the great tribal drums of the sky. It was as if even the weather was against him. It soaked his clothes, lashed his face and froze him to the bone. But the more the wind blew and the more the rain tried to wash him away, the more he laughed.

He continued to laugh when Juniper walked into the light and stopped before him. Her dark figure was barely visible thanks to the thick curtain of rain that broke off the light. She stood but a metre away from him, her paws at a stance as if she was in an old western movie ready to make a draw. She stared him down, refusing to break eye contact until his laughter turned into nothing more but a tormented sobbing. He dropped to his knees, shivering uncontrollably.

It was the look of disappointment in her eyes that had broke him. She had given him a look that was unlike any dog that he had ever seen before. Now, she walked up to him and pressed her wet muzzle against his hand. She nudged it before she gently sniffed his neck and teasingly licked him behind his left ear. It was as if she tried to tell him that everything was going to be alright.

He laughed, but this time it was out of the joyful connection he felt with the dog.

"I'm sorry", he whispered. "You're right."

She took a step back and cocked her head. But it wasn't in the way that any dog would. Instead, she observed him with a deep, intelligible gaze and if she would have been a human she would have raised an eyebrow as if to tell him: I know.

After having rubbed Juniper behind the ears for a while, he began to feel slightly better. Yet, he couldn't stop shivering. His clothes were drenched and it was freezing. They both needed to find somewhere warm and dry to wait out the storm.

When he was just about to get up, one of Juniper's ears moved. She turned her head and listened, making Owen pinpoint his own ears. Slowly, the hair on Juniper's neck rose and after a while she turned around, broadening her chest. After having listened for a while, she shook and sneezed as if she dismissed whatever she had heard.

She began to walk down what had once been the main street with little worry. Just like any dog, he told himself before he began to follow her. But as they passed dark alleyways and rundown buildings, he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching them, and that the dog's clear signals had been a conscious choice as to not worry him.