“Clancy! Clancy!” The young girl’s voice rose and fell on the breeze blowing in from the sea. “Come here boy.”
Sandra walked to the wooden fence bordering her garden, holding on, standing on tip-toe, peering over the top.
Her dad had bought her the puppy for Christmas and she’d promise that she’d look after it. Now, six months later, it had disappeared.
The lynx stopped as the shouts drifted across the field towards it, yellow eyes searching through the darkness.
Sandra kicked the fence in temper. She knew she’d be grounded for months if the stupid puppy had run away.
Knowing that she shouldn’t, yet feeling a tingle of suppressed excitement that she was, Sandra opened the gate and walked out onto the road.
Not a sign of the stupid thing!
Crossing over to the wire fence surrounding Mr Shinlock’s field, she tried calling again.
“Clancy, come here boy!”
The lynx turned, slinking forward.
“Clancy!”
Sandra heard a short bark from the far side of the field, followed by a series of high-pitched yelps.
* * *
Sandra was nine years old, slim for her age, which helped as she lay on her back and wriggled her way under the fence, holding the sharp barbs away from her body with both hands.
Standing, she looked over her shoulder. The TV was flickering behind the half-drawn curtains. Dad would be watching the News and mum would be busy getting tea in the kitchen.
Sandra ran across the wet grass, the darkness engulfing her.
Reaching the middle of the field, she stopped, confused. Which way had the barks come from?
“Clancy?”
The lynx bared its teeth, sharp canines glinting in the dim moon-light.
The clouds broke and Sandra set off again, her small feet making little noise in the soft grass.
“Where are you, you stupid pup,” she muttered.
The lynx continued to watch her.
Sandra stopped running, out of breath, fear buzzing in her mind.
“Clancy?”
Had she seen something? A movement just beyond the wire fence, in the undergrowth? Was that a pair of eyes in the shadows?
“That you Clancy?”
Then she spotted her puppy lying on its side, head thrown back, a large black patch on its chest.
Taking a tentative step forward, Sandra bit her lower lip.
“Clancy?” she whispered, kneeling beside the small body, touching the blackness with trembling fingers.
It was warm and wet.
Jerking her hand away, Sandra realised it was blood.
Her puppy’s throat had a big hole in it!
She gagged, scrubbing her hand on the grass, trying to rub the guilt away.
She felt giddy, hardly able to breathe.
A cloud drifted across the moon, blanketing the field in darkness again.
Sandra took a deep breath and began staggering her way back across the field, her eyes set on the dim glow from her house.
A noise behind her —
Trying to push aside the fear threatening to close her throat, she turned her head centimetre by jerking centimetre.
Behind her stood an enormous wild cat, its teeth bared. As big as a pony, with canines the size of the sabre-toothed tiger’s she’d seen at a museum.
Driving herself to move, Sandra turned and fled, screaming for her dad.
Distracted by the noise the lynx took a moment to react before setting off after her.
Sandra’s fear lent her speed, the adrenaline pumping through her small body moving her legs like she’d never run before.
She could see her house now, the wires of the fence black lines across the light escaping through the gap in the curtains.
Grabbing the top wire, she tumbled over, ignoring the sharp barbs digging into her palms.
“Dad! Dad!” she cried, falling onto the hard surface of the road.
Looking back she could see the lynx close behind.
Scrambling forward on all fours, the rough surface of the road tore through her jeans, jabbing painful bits of stone into her skin.
The lynx leapt at the fence.
Sandra scrambled upright, slipped on a patch of oil, lost her footing. Her leg slipped under the bottom wire of the fence, snagging her jeans.
Screaming at the top of her voice, she tried to free herself, looking back at the house, praying that her dad would come.
“No,” she wailed, tears streaming down her face, her bloody hands tugging at the stubborn material in desperation.
“No! No! No!”
The lynx slunk nearer.
Sandra gave one last frantic tug, freeing herself.
Needle sharp teeth tore at her throat.
Barbed wire bit into her back.
* * *
“Sandra, Sandra. Where are you?”
Running feet on the road, the bright lights of a car’s headlights, the lynx fading into the darkness as a black stain spread its slow way across Sandra’s chest, frothing her life away.
The small girl’s head fell sideways, neck torn open into a welcoming, bloody grin.