Bewere the Night

do was nod, nod, nod. Bobble head, I’d call him if I were a cruel person. I had him in an old people’s home where people called him young man and used his tight fists to hold playing cards. When I visit, his eyes follow me adoringly, as if he were a puppy.

My real hunting partner was my sister-in-law Gina. She’s an animal psychologist. An animal psychic, too, but we don’t talk about that much. I pretend I don’t believe in it, but I rely on the woman’s instincts.

The job wouldn’t be easy, but it never is in the world of the rare breed.

My bank account full, our husband and brother safe with a good stock of peppermints, Gina and I boarded a flight for Nadi, Fiji. Ten hours from L.A., long enough to read a book, snooze, maybe meet a dog-lover or two. We transferred to the Suva flight, a plane so small I thought a child could fly it. They gave us fake orange juice and then the flight was done. I listened to people talk, about local politics, gossip. I listened for clues, because you never know when you’ll hear the right word.

Gina rested. She was keen to come to Fiji, thinking of deserted islands, sands, fruit juice with vodka.

The heat as we stepped off the plane was like a blanket had been thrown over our heads. I couldn’t breathe in it and my whole steamed sweat. It was busy but not crazy, and you weren’t attacked by cabbies looking for business, porters, jewelry sellers. I got a lot of smiles and nods.

We took a cab which would not have passed inspection in New York and he drove us to our hotel, on Suva Bay. There were stray dogs everywhere, flaccid, unhealthy looking things. The females had teats to the ground, the pups mangy and unsteady. They didn’t seem aggressive, though. Too hot, perhaps. I bought some cut pineapple from a man at the side of the road and I ate it standing there, the juice dripping off my chin and pooling at my feet. I bought another piece, and another, and then he didn’t have any change so I gave him twenty dollars. Gina couldn’t eat; she said the dogs put her off. That there was too much sickness.

I didn’t sleep well. I felt slick with all the coconut milk I’d had with dinner; with the fish, with the greens, with the dessert. And new noises in a place keep me awake, or they entered my dreams in strange ways.

I got up as the sun rose and swam some laps. The water was warm, almost like bath water, and I had the pool to myself.

After breakfast, Gina and I took a taxi out to the latest sighting of vampire dogs, a farm two hours drive inland. I like to let the locals drive. They know where they’re going and I can absorb the landscape and listen while they tell me stories.

The foliage thickened as we drove, dark leaves waving heavily in what seemed to me a still day. The road was muddy so I had to be patient; driving through puddles at speed can get you bogged. A couple of trucks passed us. Smallish covered vehicles with the stoutest workers in the back. They waved and smiled at me and I knew that four of them could lift our car out of the mud if we got stuck.

The trucks swerved and tilted and I thought that only faith was keeping them on the road.

The farm fielded dairy cows and taro. It seemed prosperous; there was a letter box rather than an old juice bottle, and white painted rocks lined the path.

There was no phone here, so I hadn’t been able to call ahead. Usually I’d gain permission to enter, but that could take weeks, and I wanted to get on with the job.

I told the taxi driver to wait. A fetid smell filled the car; rotting flesh.

“Oh, Jesus,” Gina said. “I think I’ll wait, too.” I saw a pile of dead animals at the side of a dilapidated shed; a cow, a cat, two mongooses. They could’ve been there since the attack a week ago.

“Wait there,” I told Gina. “I’ll call you if I need you”

Breathing through my mouth, I walked to the pile. I could see bite marks on the cow and all the animals appeared to be bloodless, sunken.

“You are who?” I heard. An old Fijian woman, wearing a faded green T-shirt that said Nurses Know Better pointed at me. She looked startled. They didn’t see many white people out here.

“Are you from the Fiji Times?” she said. “We already talked to them.”

I considered for a moment how best to get the information. She seemed suspicious of the newsmakers, tired of them.

“No, I’m from the SPCA. I’m here to inspect the animals and see if we can help you with some money. If there is a person hurting the animals, we need to find that person and punish them.”

“It’s not a person. It is the vampire dogs. I saw them with my own eyes.”

“This was done by dogs?”

She nodded. “A pack of them. They come out of there barking and yelping with hunger and they run here and there sucking their food out of any creature they find. They travel a long way sometimes, for new blood.”

“So they live in the hills?” I thought she’d pointed at the mountains in the background. When she nodded, I realized my mistake. I should have said, “Where do they live?”

It was too late now; she knew what she thought I wanted to hear.

“They live in the hills.”

“Doesn’t anyone try to stop them?”

“They don’t stop good. They are hot to the touch and if you get too near you might burn up.”

“Shooting?”

“No guns. Who has a gun these days?”

“What about a club, or a spear? What about a cane knife? What I mean is, can they be killed?”

“Of course they can be killed. They’re dogs, not ghosts.”

“Do they bite people?”

She nodded. “If they can get close enough.”

“Have they killed anyone? Or turned anyone into a vampire?”

She laughed, a big, belching laugh which brought tears to her eyes. “A person can’t turn into a vampire dog! If they bite you, you clean out the wound so it doesn’t go nasty. That’s all. If they suck for long enough you’ll die. But you clean it out and it’s okay.”

“So what did they look like?”

She stared at me.

“Were they big dogs or small?” I measured with my hand, up and down until she grunted; knee high.

“Fur? What color fur?”

“No fur. Just skin. Blue skin. Loose and wrinkly.”

“Ears? What were their ears like?”

She held her fingers up to her head. “Like this.”

“And they latched onto your animals and sucked their blood?”

“Yes. I didn’t know at first. I thought they were just biting. I tried to shoo them. I took a big stick and poked them. Their bellies. I could hear something sloshing away in there.”

She shivered. “Then one of them lifted its head and I saw how red its teeth were. And the teeth were sharp, two rows atop and bottom, so many teeth. I ran inside to get my husband but he had too much kava. He wouldn’t even sit up.”

“Can I see what they did?” I said. The woman looked at me.

“You want to see the dead ones? The bokola?”

“I do. It might help your claim.”

“My claim?”

“You know, the SPCA.” I walked back to the shed.

Their bellies had been ripped out and devoured and the blood drained, she said.

There were bite marks, purplish, all over their backs and legs, as if the attacking dogs were seeking a good spot.

The insects and the birds had worked on the ears and other soft bits.

I took a stick to shift them around a bit.

“The dogs will come for those bokola. You leave them alone.” She waved at the pile of corpses.

“The dogs?”

“Clean-up dogs. First the vampires, then the clean-up. Their yellow master sends them.”

“Yellow master?” She shook her head, squeezed her eyes shut. Taboo subject.

“You wouldn’t eat this meat? It seems a waste.”