“Noooooooo!” I wailed as he took one massive step and simply walked out the bloody window. As if he was on stilts. I rushed over and looked out. He was standing in the middle of the road now. Looking at me. Challenging me!
“Stay there!” I yelled. But Harun didn’t stay. He started trotting down the road like a Lipizzaner horse. I ran for the front door just as a sleepy-looking Samirah emerged from her bedroom.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“He’s got my phone in his mouth!” I explained. “He climbed out the window and is now trotting down the flipping road.”
“Better go and get him,” she yawned and then started walking back to bed. “He shouldn’t be moving around so much.”
“I will!” I half-shouted as I rushed out the door and onto the empty road. Harun was sitting in the middle, about twenty meters from the house. The phone was glowing and the name Satan’s Little Helper could not have been more apt in this moment. He really did look like some demon dog from hell with his glowing toothy mouth, and that one yellow eye that shone paranormally in the light of the phone.
“Harun.” I walked towards him and held my hand out. “Give it back.” But the more I moved closer to him, the more he moved away. As soon as I got close, he would simply rise up and trot to another spot, sit back down and glare at me over his luminous mouth. This went on five times before I realized that I was not going to get the phone from him this way. I threw my hands in the air, tired and frustrated and fed up with this strange game.
“Whhhhyyyy?” I wailed loudly. “Why are you torturing me?” He stood up and trotted off again. I watched and waited for him to repeat the same pattern of stopping after a few meters and then sitting back down, but this time, he didn’t. He just kept on trotting.
“Harun! Wait!” I started jogging after him as he began to disappear over the curve of the road.
“You’re not supposed to be moving around so much!” I shouted after him, concerned now for his health and the stitches. I tried to pick up pace, but I was too slow for his massive legs. He got further and further away, the light from the phone getting lost in the dark.
“Shit!” I gave up my foot chase and ran back to the house. I grabbed my car keys, fired up the blue cheese, and caught up with him.
“Please give it to me.” I held my hand out the window, matching his speed. He ignored me and carried on walking. At some point he would stop walking, he couldn’t walk forever, so I sat back in the car and made myself comfortable.
“I can do this all night, boy!” I said casually. But after another five minutes of walking, I started bringing out the big guns. Promises of Wagyu beef strips smeared in duck liver pâté. Pleas involving barbecue brisket . . . funny how he seemed to understand everything I said to him, except this. After another few minutes I looked around and took in my surroundings. I knew where I was! The road curved around a familiar bend, then a familiar old rusty windmill and then . . . Shit.
I knew where we were going. And this was the last place in the world I wanted to be.
CHAPTER 48
I stopped my car and watched as Harun trotted all the way up to Mark’s porch. And then he dropped the phone to the floor, and simply lay down next to it.
“You have got to be kidding,” I hissed. I looked around to see if there were any signs of life, but all was quiet and dark at the house and surrounds. I knew Mark slept on the veranda sometimes, but from here I couldn’t see if he was there or not.
Probably not, I reasoned. I’m sure the loud, ridiculous rumble of my car would have woken him up. God knows this car was enough to wake entire villages on the other side of the world. Unless Mark was a seriously deep sleeper. I hoped not, because the last thing I wanted to do right now was find him on that porch.
What would he think of me? That I was some kind of creepy stalker. Like that guy from the Netflix show,YOU, narrating his inner monologue in that scary, monotone voice while he watched her naked through her window. I shuddered just thinking about it, and we all know how that show ended . . .
Harun stretched his paws out, then rolled onto his bloody back and closed his eyes to go to sleep, like this was a day spa and he was about to have a massage. The sheer cheek of it all!
“Un. Be. Lie. Va. Ble!” I crept up to the patio, walking as quietly as I could, but when my foot hit some gravel and it made a soft noise, Harun opened his eye and looked at me again. He wasn’t sleeping. In fact, far from it. I could see by looking into that sly, yellow eye that he was up to something. I could almost hear it ticking away in that doggy brain of his—a brain that I’d clearly underestimated. Well, I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. I waggled my finger at him and then mouthed the words, “Don’t you dare!” I crept up the wooden stairs that led to the veranda and then, much like I’d done when I’d seen the snake, I froze.
Oh. My. God.
I shook my head; my eyes were as wide as saucers. I was completely unable to close them, even though this would have been a very appropriate time to do so. I put my hands over my mouth to stop noises coming from it. Again, I should have put them over my eyes, but didn’t. Why wasn’t I covering my eyes? If my eyes were covered then I wouldn’t be seeing . . .that!
It’s just a naked butt, I told myself, in a very cool and calm way. It’s just a naked man’s butt. Not like I’ve never seen one before. Not like I’d never touched one before. But no amount of cool and calm talking to myself was working. Because it wasn’t just anyone’s naked butt, it was Mark’s naked one. It was attached to the man who had kissed me likethat. . .
My knees felt weak just thinking about it. But then they turned to cement when I thought about what had happened next.Close your eyes, I told myself again. But just, simply, couldn’t.
I was staring at it now. And it seemed to stare back at me, if that’s possible to imagine. It was staring at me and mocking me.
You’re getting none of this, it seemed to taunt.
A citronella candle was burning next to him. I could smell it, and the flame was dancing in the breeze, causing a little flicker of light to fall across it, making the whole thing so much more obvious.
I looked over at Harun again, very unimpressed by his actions. Very unimpressed that he’d brought me here to Mark and his sleeping behind. I mentally calculated the distance between me and the phone and realized that a few more steps would do it. I held my breath and took another small step. And another one, and another. It dawned on me, though, that if I carried on standing, it would be easier to see me. So, carefully and quietly, I crouched on my hands and knees and started shuffling across the floor towards my phone.
“Hey, Harun. You cute little precious doggy,” I whispered with a forced smile. He rolled over again and cocked his head to the side, as if he was objecting to what I’d just said. “You’re right,” I whispered. “You are not cute and little, what was I thinking . . .! Give me back my phone!” I reached out. My fingertips were so close now, I could feel the phone within my reach and I was going to get it and . . .
