WeeklyStoryContests              ... Theme 5 ... "Destroyable Builder" ... (1000 words max.)

The cool night air was filled with the heavy and putrid scent of rotten eggs. I gagged several times until it occurred to me I should pinch my nose shut and breath through my mouth. The stench grew stronger as I neared the old colonial burial grounds. I groaned to myself because I had to pass through the graveyard in order to get home. 

As I entered the grounds, the smell of sulfur burned my nostrils and made my eyes water incessantly. Afraid I was going to be overcome with fumes, I tried to rush through the graveyard to the far end where my new apartment was situated. However, an unexpected flash of bright red light caught my eye and I hesitated.

Some indescribable need in me compelled me to take a second look at that peculiar red light even though my mind was telling me this was a bad idea.

The burial grounds were lit quite well by antique street lamps but there were eerie black shadows wherever the light did not reach. And it was those deep, dark spaces that held my attention now.

A low, soft growl came from one of the impenetrable shadows. I stiffened with fright. I hated dogs and would take a ghost or a zombie over a dog any day. The growl continued and I backed away from the sound while being sure to keep to the path that ran diagonally through the grounds.

When the the growling suddenly stopped, I decided to make a run for it. Just as I turned in the direction of my apartment I saw the flash of red again. Only this time, it was directly in front of me. Two brightly burning red eyes peered at me from the long narrow grizzly face of a large black dog, who was now baring vicious looking canines.

Terrified that this rabid dog would leap at me and rip my throat out in a rabies induced fit of madness, I stumbled back to put some much needed distance between us. I had fully intended on running away from the creature but I was suddenly overcome with a terrible fit of coughing and gagging.

The air was so thick with sulfur that I could hardly breath and it burned my eyes and nostrils so badly that I wasn't sure what I was seeing. I wiped furiously at my eyes trying to clear them but they just burned and watered more. 

Choking on noxious air and burning putrid snot, I found myself stumbling around the burial grounds trying to keep away from the dark thing with the bright red eyes. At some point I collapsed on the ground though from all the excessive hacking and choking.

A masculine voice, both soothing and also frightening in some strange way, spoke over my coughing fit and said, "Why are you troubling this woman? She is not a necromancer or a lost soul."

In reply there was only a low growl.

I cringed and braced myself for the creature to leap at me and rip me to shreds.

"Release her at once," the eerily peaceful voice commanded.

The moment the command was given I could breath again. The sulfur rich air that was choking me to death only a second ago was gone. There was not a trace of it left.

Icy cold fingers rolled me over on my back and gently brushed my hair from my face. I took in several deep, sulfur-free breaths and exhaled them joyously. It was wonderful to be able to breath again.

Letting out a shaky laugh, I wiped at my eyes, blinked a few times and then tried to focus on the person leaning over me. My rescuer's face was obscured by dark shadows but I didn't mind. I wasn't afraid.

I smiled up at him all the same and said, "Thank you!"

My voice was just a rough whisper. It sounded to me like I'd been suffering with laryngitis. I cleared my throat and tried again. "Is that your dog?"

My rescuer let out a hearty laugh and I relaxed a little more into the wet grass.

"I don't like dogs," I said in my sickly sounding voice. "Got bit once when I was a kid," I explained.

My rescuer was still chuckling when I decided to finally sit up.

"Did you hear that?" he said to someone behind him as he half turned away from me. "She thinks the Hound of the Dead is a mere mortal dog gone astray from its master!" That same calm but slightly unsettling voice was brimming with amusement.

I looked from my rescuer, whose face was now partly in the light, to the creature behind him who stood on one of the well lit paved paths. The light from the century old lamps poured through them. Man and beast were nothing more than form and shadow.

It was like looking at black ink that had been poured into a glass of water. I could clearly make out their shape - a tall, lean man and a large wiry haired dog. However, they had no substance - no flesh, no bones. They were nothing more than inky shadows. 

                                                                ----------

I sat anxiously bouncing one knee and nibbling at the nail stubs on my left hand while I faced my old psychiatrist.

"You are in the right place," she said reassuringly. "Therapy, medication and self-care will go a long way to dismantling this frightening world of scepters and red-eyed hounds your imagination has built up."

I nodded at her dutifully, swallowed the anti-psychotic pill she'd prescribed for me and with Herculean effort ignored the Hound of the Dead and his dark companion, who were both waiting for me by her office door. Thy had been my constant companions since  that night in the old burial grounds.

I frowned deeply as I closed my eyes for a moment and prayed that the pills would work this time.

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