Catland - a humorous fantasy

Chapter Eight: Dogland

The path they followed led through the woods, so Greg left his bicycle behind, along with his shovel and every last shred of sanity he possessed. He was now wholly committed to the stark, screaming madness of his new reality, and there was something kind of liberating about that. The bicycle would rust and decay in the leaves beside the pet cemetery, or be found and adopted by some enterprising member of the mansion's household. The bicycle was no longer Greg's problem. Greg's problem was that he was about to be torn apart by wild dogs.

At least, that was how he pictured things going. Leopold and Millicent had been a little stingy with the details, but the long and the short of it was that Dogland lay between them and their objective, and, for the sake of efficiency, they would have to go straight through it, even though it was a hellish place ruled over by savage canines who ate cats for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and probably snacked on them at afternoon tea. This plan seemed a little foolhardy to Greg, and he thought about saying so to his feline companions, but they seemed to have their minds pretty well set on it at this point, and Greg didn't like to be any bother. "Your idiotic plan will almost certainly get us all killed" is not a very nice thing to say, so Greg didn't say it. After all, he did want the cats to like him.

The undergrowth was so thick and thorny that Greg was forced to remain cat-sized, and he proceeded with difficulty over the uneven ground. The roots and pebbles and miniature hillocks that he could so easily have ignored at his normal size became, in his new condition, treacherous obstacles that seemed to sprout from the ground at every step. Their path—if you could call it a path—was lit only by a few meager shafts of moonlight eking their way through the leaves above, and Greg frequently found himself sprawling flat on his face on the forest floor, while Leopold and Millicent bounded gaily and gracefully ahead of him, unaware of the dark, sinister hexes Greg was silently placing on them and anyone they had ever loved.

At last they came to the edge of the wood, where a massive railroad yard stretched out before them into immeasurable distance. The moon was much stronger here, but there was nothing to see but an endless tangle of criss-crossing iron tracks, studded here and there with rusting freight cars and the scarecrow forms of signal-posts. It was a desolate world, especially in the moonlight, and Greg felt a sudden longing for the warmth and comfort of his underfurnished home, and even a strange welling of affection for the office chair that he hated. When Greg found himself thinking fond thoughts about that wretched chair, he knew things had taken a dark turn.

The cats halted at the forest's edge, keeping themselves in the shadow of the trees. Their keen eyes scanned the great flat world ahead of them. Not far from where they stood, the moonlight revealed a circle of corrugated iron that marked the opening of a small drainage tunnel. Here their eyes stopped, and fastened. They conferred in hoarse, hushed voices.

"Moment of decision," breathed Millicent.

"Yes," agreed Leopold. "Brave the open, or take our chances under the ground?"

"Which do you fancy?" inquired Millicent.

At this point, Greg felt compelled to interject. "If we take the tunnel," he pointed out, "I won't be able to take off this necklace—not without being crushed, I mean. If there's any chance you'll need me at human size, we should stay above ground."

Leopold fixed on him a gaze of immense pity. "Tell me, Gregory Tilson," he asked, with fatuous curiosity, "how would you fare, at any size, against a hundred bloodthirsty mongrels?"

Greg gulped, and looked away. "Indeed," said Leopold with satisfaction. "The tunnel it is, then."

* * *

They waited until the moon had passed behind a cloud, and made a mad dash for the tunnel entrance. So far, they had seen no sign or shadow of a single dog, nor heard the telltale barking and baying that would signify the presence of an enormous pack; but the silence was more unnerving than any sound, and the palpable tension of Greg's companions was enough to let him know how real the danger was. As he bolted across the short distance that separated him from the pitch-black circle of the tunnel, Greg was half-certain he could smell the dogs in the chill night air—a rich, mangy, unwholesome smell, with a musky sweetness that made it all the worse. Greg was relieved to reach the shelter of the tunnel's overhang—and here they paused for a moment, while Leopold rummaged in his pack.

The cat emerged from his bag with three torn-off matches from one of his matchbooks, and these he struck deftly against the strip on the matchbook's side. The matches flared to life, and Leopold handed one each to Millicent and Greg.

"Enchanted torches," Leopold explained. "They never burn low or burn out. Only their wielder can douse them—and only if he chooses to. I hate to risk any light, but we're going to need these. This tunnel is as black as Hell itself."

Greg thought the cat might have chosen a more encouraging simile. Then again, he really couldn't think of one. "As black as a cast-iron skillet"? That just sounded silly. And "as black as a black cat" was much too on-the-nose.

Now Leopold dipped into his bag again, and came out with three fresh-looking toothpicks, which he also distributed. At first Greg thought that his cat was simply mocking him—getting his vengeance for Greg's snide remarks about toothpicks—but Leopold's face was quite grave when he said:

"I pray to God we won't need these. But we'd better have them anyway."

To pick the dogs' teeth with? Greg wanted to ask. But he chose a more diplomatic course.

"What do we do with these?" he said, trying to sound neutral and curious and entirely non-sarcastic.

Leopold shot him a dark look. "Hopefully, nothing," he replied. Then he turned and started off down the tunnel. "Let's go."

Greg didn't think this was a great time for the whole coy-and-mysterious act, but there didn't seem to be much he could do about it. With a sigh, he started off after Leopold. He noticed that Millicent waited for him to start off before falling in behind him. She's protecting the rear, he thought, and that was somehow both comforting and deeply worrying at the same time.

The tunnel was just slightly taller than the three cats (well, two cats and Greg), and as they advanced on their hind legs (in Greg's case, his only legs), their ears very nearly brushed its cold, ribbed metal ceiling. There was a residue of stagnant water on the floor of the tunnel, and their feet made gentle splashing sounds as they moved forward. The whole place reeked of mold and dirt, and Greg began to feel more and more lightheaded, but every step forward was a step towards safety, and that thought gave him strength and courage. If he could just keep putting one foot in front of the other—and then the other foot in front of the first foot again—he would soon be back out in the fresh air, and (with any luck) beyond the clutches of ravenous Dogland. Greg had never before in his life had anything against dogs; he had even, if the truth be known, rather preferred them to cats. Now, however, that Greg was a cat (sort of), he felt a deep, primal loathing for all things canine rising up in his soul, and even Lassie and Clifford and Toto and Pluto had begun to assume a demonic aspect in his poor, fear-addled mind. Another step forward. Another step. Dull splash of water under his feet. Pure white fur leading the way ahead of him. Nothing to fear. Nothing. Only forward, ever forward, and the tunnel leading him to a place of safety and peace.

And then he heard it.

As soon as he heard it, he knew that he had been waiting for it all along. He had known it would come, somehow—known it in a deep, dark, unknowable part of his psyche that drew its knowledge from myths and ancient, wordless dreams. That fearful baying—that hungry, unearthly sound that had signaled death for countless generations of cats before him—was now rising up behind him and his companions, echoing fearfully in the narrow confines of the tunnel, and growing louder and closer with astonishing, inhuman speed.

Millicent prodded him painfully from behind. "Run," she hissed.

And Greg ran.

He ran as he had never run before, with a feverish abandon that made him forget his body and the torch he carried, that made him nothing but a terrified soul screaming onward into never-ending darkness, with fire blinding his eyes and ravening death at his heels. His lungs burned, and his mouth tasted like blood, but his pace never slackened, not even for an instant, and he realized, with a sudden shock of joy, that the horrible baying which pursued him had grown no louder, had perhaps even fallen off just slightly, and that if he could just make it to the end of the tunnel he might conceivably be saved.

Then he heard it again. And despair flooded his heart. Because this time the noise was in front of him.