A Bedtime Walk

My dog and I walked along a dark street, our way lit by streetlamps and the flickering light from the windows of late-night TV watchers. It was November. Nights were long, days were short and the leaves from the old wood over the road blocked gutters and covered driveways.

We made our way, taking alternate turns to pull each other forward or back along the pavement. The dog, always convinced that she knew best and eager to be in the woods, lunged forward every few steps, jerking my arm and upper body forward. I tugged back, bringing her back to my side for a good three steps before she lunged forward again. In this ‘pull-me-pull-you-fuck sake Buffy!’ manner, we eventually reached the pedestrian crossing at the corner.

As we reached the crossing, our attention was caught by banging and muttered conversation drifting from the flat roof of the local corner shop which squatted on the like a pillbox, steel shuttered and crowned with rolls of barbed wire. We paused to watch and listen, Buffy sitting and tilting her head from side to side, the better to triangulate the source of the sound. After a few seconds, the noises stopped, and a hooded head popped up from behind a boxy air conditioning unit, looked around before spotting us, then ducked back. There was a brief muffled conversation, then the hooded head reappeared.

“Whit?”

I looked at Buffy, Buffy looked at me, then we both looked back at the figure peering from the roof.

“What…what are you doing?” I asked, unable to keep the surprise and confusion from my voice.

“Breakin intae the shop. How?”

Taken further by surprise by such forthright honesty, I struggled momentarily for a response.

What the fuck?

What do I do?

Am I meant to do something?

There’s more than one of them.

They’re probably armed.

But I do have Buffy with me, she might help.

I looked at Buffy, who had chosen the perfect moment to give her arse a good clean.

Maybe not.

I better say something. Put the fear in them.

“Well…don’t.”

Nice one. Really rose to the occasion there.

Hoodie and I stared at each other. Signals of mutual embarrassment flashed in the space between us. Then, as suddenly as he appeared, he disappeared. Banging sounds resumed and muffled, mocking laughter drifted down from the roof.

Buffy and I looked at each other again. “Do you think they know whats in there?” I asked. She tilted her head quizzically.

“Doubt it. Humans only see what their eyes let them. I can hear and smell that thing a mile away.”

I looked pensively back up at the roof.

“Should we do something?”

“Nah, what could we do? Anyway, they’ll keep it quiet for a while. Better them than us.”

Buffy stood and lunged for the road, pulling at my arm, “come on then, unless you want me to shite on the pavement again, let’s go for this walk.”

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