The place plunged into darkness without so much as a warning. "Shit" he cussed, as the road in front of him disappeared. He was late already and now this. He brought out his cell phone, and shone it on the ground. It was not much light, but it would have to do for now. The dim cellphone light showed the road riddled with potholes and strewn with garbage. Stepping lightly over the mess, he made his way slowly along the road. He could hear dogs in the street and his blood involuntarily froze. Slowly he exhaled. "Easy now", he whipered to himself as he almost tripped over a black bag, whose contents he didn't want to know.
He'd heard about the gruesome deaths of the kids. Toddlers mauled and eaten by rabid dogs. "Still, there hasn't been an incident in this part of town", he reassured himself. Nevertheless, he incrased his speed. He kept the cell phone light on, using tensed fingers, and his eyes darted sideways every ten seconds, ears alert for any peculiar canine sound. He was almost at the end of the road when he thought he saw something dart through the sliver of light coming from a nearby derelict building. He stopped dead in his tracks. He heard growling, not menacing, but terrifying anyway. Suddenly, he decided to make a run for it and took two huge strides forward. He was about to take the third one, but was stopped again by a brown mongrel right in front of him. He could just make out its shape in the darkness, and he swiftly moved sideways to escape the beast. It so happened that the beast also moved to the same side. Now, both man and beast moved to the other side simultaneaously. This happened for some more time. If he had not been so terrified, he'd have found this particular situation extremely funny. "This is just like what happens in those romantic movies when the hero and heroine meet for the first time" he'd have said.
Finally, he gave up and stopped swaying from side to side. At this moment, in the same thin light of the building, he saw the animal's full face. Its eyes depicted utter fear. "Why," he thought. "The dog is just as scared of me as I'm of it! Oh, this is so foolish of me!". He confidently took a few steps forward, thinking "How true it is that what we're actually afraid of is fear itself. Most of times we just seem to be scared of each other." And in his relief and wise contemplations, he did not notice the brown thing that lunged at him.
It happened so fast. He was still finishing his thoughts on fear when he felt the sharp teeth sinking into his thigh.
-Anamika Anyone
Labels: story
