The light in the café was off when they turned the final corner and could see its frontage. In fact, there was no sign of life at all. Albert skewed his lips to one side in thought; he might have to call Victor. Had the man gone home after his day too tired to remember Hans?
At the entry door, both dogs waited for Albert to push it open, Rex twisting his head around to glance up when they remained outside.
Albert gave the door an experimental push but, as expected, it was locked, the closed sign not there just to tease him. ‘I think we’ll have to go around the back and try there, chaps,’ he said aloud as rain continued to drip from his head down past his collar. The top of his shirt and sweater were already soaked.
He didn’t know how to get around to the back, and when a glance to his left and right revealed no clues, he guessed. Thanking the Lord that he got it right first time, he found a narrow passage that led around to the rear of the parade of shops. It passed between two premises to reach a courtyard behind. Albert hoped to find a sign of life in the back offices, but as he entered the small loading and car park area, his eyes were drawn to the two men putting Victor through the side door of their van.
A pregnant pause ensued where the two men, one holding Victor’s arms, the other his legs, looked at Albert and Albert looked at them. Victor was completely limp and therefore unconscious or possibly dead. Albert hoped for the former over the latter but had no way of knowing which it might be.
The men were dressed very differently to each other. One wore dark combat fatigues but even in the dim light behind the shops where there were no streetlights, Albert could see the other man had on a jacket, shirt, and tie. It was the well-dressed man who spoke first, yelling, ‘Get him!’ as he flung Victor’s limp body into the van. The other man wasn’t as fast to react, failing to throw Victor’s feet so their victim flopped half in and half out of the van and then fell out onto the wet ground as gravity took over.
Rex’s ears were up the moment they came around the corner and he could smell the two humans. ‘It’s them,’ he murmured to himself, sniffing the air and looking with his eyes as he tried to pinpoint their location. The rain was playing havoc with his olfactory system; sniffing deeply meant getting a load of water up his nose which then made him sneeze. He hadn’t been paying attention either; too grumpy to bother until the familiar scent smacked him in the nose.
A car blocked his view, but when Hans started barking and snapping, and Rex’s human shouted, ‘Rex go!’ he didn’t need to know where they were to know that it was time to attack. They had to be ahead of him somewhere, so the moment the tension in his lead came free, he leapt onto the bonnet of the car that blocked his view, and there they were; two humans, with a third human he knew lying on the ground between their feet.
Oh, yeah! It was chase and bite time.
Eugene had just started forward, breaking into a sprint to get the old man because he couldn’t see the dog. He got two paces before the dog jumped onto the front of a BMW and was very suddenly staring right at his face. Eugene swore loudly and reversed direction, his feet slipping on the tarmac as he tried to fight his inertia.
He went down to the ground, landing painfully, but he saw the dog leap and had no time to question if he was hurt. He needed to get into the van right now. He had a knife there, tucked into the cubby hole under the dash. He knew he ought to keep it on his person, but it spoiled the line of his jacket.
‘I’ve got this one, wolf!’ yelled Hans, whipping around the side of the car to find Eugene on the ground. He could see Victor – a human he knew well – lying on the wet ground and he could smell his familiar scent. He didn’t understand what was happening, but a primal instinct told him he needed to attack now.
Francis was getting away. He was still dropping Victor’s feet when the giant dog appeared and got to see Eugene fall. It was clear his colleague wouldn’t be able to get away before the dog got to him, so he used that to his advantage, sacrificed Eugene willingly, and ran. All he had to do was get around the other side of the van and into the driver’s seat. He would drive away, escape the town, and ditch the van in a multi-story carpark somewhere. Eugene would get caught by the police, but he wouldn’t talk.
Rex jumped down to the ground. The human on the ground was helpless now. He could bite and tear but the shout from Hans changed his mind. The tiny dog might be a handbag accessory, but he was still a dog with two rows of teeth and therefore better than any human. He leapt over the stricken Eugene to pursue the other human who had just vanished
