Fenrir's Piper

## **Fenrir's Piper** *by BloodySpaghetti*

Well, a new guy came to town, and everyone around here has been treating him like shit, including myself. It’s not because he’s new or because we’re a bunch of assholes by nature, most of us aren’t. Of course, every place has its fair share of assholes that are like that by choice, this isn’t our case. You see, it might sound stupid, but we behave this way because he owns a dog. Now, this is obviously an asinine reason to be a dick to someone, but this town… Well, we have a bad history with dogs… Honestly, I’d like to believe everyone here is like me, and that we all behave this way because we’re grieving, and not because we as a commune, hate dogs.

Allow me to explain, a few years back, this town was like any other in regards to dogs, we love em’, we cared for em’ and we obviously owned a few of these beautiful four-legged creatures. However, someone, or should I say something came, and everything went to shit in regards to dogs here. I won’t ever be able to forget what happened here, because my limping will always remind me of what had happened here eight odd years ago.

I’ve moved here a decade ago, I was twenty-eight at the time, post-divorce with the perceived love of my life, it was a horrible process, honestly, I left Portland as a result; couldn’t stand the idea of living in the same city as this wretched snake that took everything from me. She took any and everything she could but one thing, hell, it wasn’t even a thing, it was our dog. Jess was her name, she was a black Labrador mix with something, no idea what, never cared. The bitch didn’t care for Jess, back then I couldn’t figure out how that was even possible to not like a lively all-around happy dog. Now, now, I am a different person and I can certainly see that if a woman is able to stop loving her high school sweetheart, after spending eleven years with him, she is clearly capable of not liking a dog.  I digress, anyhow, I was tired of everything in Portland, and moved here, with the only living being that visibly care about me, Jess the black Lab mix. Everything here was A-OK in the beginning, got a fine-paying job, a nice house, found new friends, and so on and so forth. Life was good once more.

One evening, on the thirteenth of November two thousand and nine, while I was watching movies at the turn of the weekend, don’t judge me, I was a broken man fresh out of wedlock, I didn’t see myself seeing other people back then. It was a quiet winter evening, there was no snowing nor raining, it was a quiet evening.

I was already losing my senses to a blissful sleep when the silence of my sanctuary was broken by a bark.

Jess was standing in my kitchen, barking at the window, now it was common for her to bark outside whenever other dogs would be passing by or barking amongst themselves, but whenever I told her to stop, she would stop and return to her activities.

Jess’ bark jolted me out of my sleep and back into reality, I called out to her, but she kept barking, I told her to keep quiet, but this time, she didn’t listen. I got up from the couch and went for the kitchen, she didn’t pay attention to me like she usually did once I entered, instead she kept on barking at the window. I thought was odd and approached her, only when I knelt down and began petting her she stopped barking for a moment, wiggled her tail a bit, but then she resumed her barking once more.

I’ve decided to open the window and look at what was upsetting my dog. Once Jess noticed me reaching for the window, she flattened herself on the floor, gave me a “fearful” look and began whimpering softly. Smart girl got me. If only I had listened to her.

If only I had listened to you, Jess… You’d still…

God, this is getting tense to write, I apologize ahead if I end up becoming a little too emotional or incoherent.

Anyways, once she began whimpering I left the window and began petting her, trying to find out what was bothering her verbally, like that ever worked with dogs, heh, but we still do that, don’t we? Jess stopped whimpering immediately, wiggled the tip of her tail and licked my hand gently; I petted her for a few more moments before walking her to the living room and lying down with her. All of this should’ve ended there. Should have…

I dozed off again, only to be woken up by the sound of my dog barking once more, I placed my arm around Jess out of instinct and told her to keep quiet, she pulled herself out of my embrace and went towards the kitchen, prompting me to sit up and wonder what was causing her all this distress.

Before I could get my mind straight, I heard loud barking outside followed by what sounded like three gunshots, that made me jump to my feet and run towards the closest window, I needed to see what was going on. I raced to the nearest window, wrapping my hand around the handle, for some reason, maybe a sign from above, or I don’t even know, I shot a look into the kitchen, in its entrance stood Jess with the utmost terrified look in her eyes. I kind of ignored it and went on to open the window, shoved my head outside and was about to yell out, but I couldn’t let form any words in my mind; the sight before me, illuminated by the yellow lights of the street lamps had paralyzed me with shock. Before me stood Austin Cole, one of my neighbors with his gun in hand, and before him laid the lifeless corpse of his Mastiff, Pete.

My mind began racing, I couldn’t wrap my thoughts around a reason for Austin to kill Pete, in contrast to Mastiff reputation, Pete was a great dog, friendly and easy to handle, even to people who weren’t his owners. I couldn’t think of anything, the sight was too much, I was about to shut the window and try to make myself as scarce as possible, in the case that Austin had lost his mind. Before I could come to do so, I was snapped out of my little mental world by the sound of some sort of a flute coming from the outside, followed by the sound of really angry canine growling from behind me.

I turned around slowly, surprised at the fact that my dog is so pissed, only to see her bearing her teeth like she’s about to tear something to shreds, with the angriest look a dog's eyes can possibly have. Her deep hazel colored eyes were almost literally burning with hatred. Before I could even call her name, she charged at me, I called out to her as she ran, couldn’t even complete her name once before I was tackled to the ground by my very own dog.

She tried to maul me. That was the first time in my life I was scared of a dog. Instinctively placing my hands over my face and neck, she began biting at them only to grab a handful of nothing but sleeves. I tried shoving her off myself, but she wouldn’t budge, I didn’t know until this very moment how dangerous a domestic dog can be. I didn’t get the chance to process what was happening, the adrenaline had kicked in way too fast for me to even emotionally react to my dog trying to get a bite full of my neck.

I kept pushing from beneath her, but she wouldn’t relent, eventually, she began tearing my sweater off me and that gave me the chance to escape her vise-like grip. I pulled myself out of the sweater and shoved Jess to the side, scrambling to my feet. She thrashed her head for about a second before realizing I escaped her clutches and then she began charging at me again. I didn’t want to accept the fact that it was my beloved little girl, I still don’t want to accept that… it wasn’t her, it was never her… no…

I tried calling out to her, but she just growled at me as she prepared to charge at me full speed once more, this time I knew I had no chance to escape if she manages to tackle me, so I began running, I’ve run upstairs with Jess running mere inches behind me, jaws wide open. I ran into a bedroom on the second door and was about to shut the door, Jess slammed her body into the door and prevented me from locking it. The force pushed me a few steps back, I didn’t have time to think and thus I tried shutting the door once more, only for it to be slammed by the dog once more. She shoved her head through the opening, her face, it looked like was formed from pure rage, her jaws were fully exposed, wide open, full of murderous intent, aimed for my head. I pushed her out. Managed to lock the door, and fell down to the floor, the adrenaline wasn’t even close to wearing off, didn’t get time to think, didn’t get time to question anything, I began listening to what was going on at the other side of the door, utter silence.

All I could hear was a hasty heartbeat, there was no barking, no howling and now growling outside of the room, however, there was a sound of a flute filling my ears, I kept on listening, unsure of what to do and what to think. A few moments later, I began hearing nails scraping the floor, but the sound was getting further and further from the door until it had completely stopped. I waited for a few more moments, and then rose to my feet slowly, clutching carefully at the doorknob, I unlocked the door and opened it just slightly, and then I carefully peeked outside.

She didn’t give me any nanosecond to react, the next thing I knew, the door was rammed in my face, sending me flying, on my way to the floor I’ve knocked my arm into a pencil holder full of various objects. Once I felt the cold floor connect with my back, the sounds of a roaring monster filled my ears and a sharp pain shot through my leg.

I screamed, it hurt so fucking bad.

Jess locked her jaw around my right leg, tearing through my pants and skin, sinking her jaw full of canines few layers deep into my leg muscles. It felt as if I’m having a bad Charlie horse and being cut along with having my leg pressed on by two cinder blocks at the same time altogether. I felt warm liquid flow down my leg; the sensation of my blood forced the Adrenaline kicked in once more. It was over flooding my system. I began trying to kick Jess off myself, but with every successful kick that made her budge backward, she sunk her teeth further down my leg, causing more and more waves of searing pain to surge through my body. Eventually, I kicked her off and began crawling backward swinging my good leg back and forth at her; during my crawling, I’ve sensed something metallic touch the palm of my hand, a pair of scissors.

Jess pounced on me once more, I lifted one of my arms for her to bite, and oh, boy she did, hurt like a son of a bitch, but not as bad as my leg. With my other arm, the one holding the scissors… I… I… I… stabbed...

I stabbed at her, hitting right between two ribs, probably straight into a lung.

She yelped and fell down to the floor, the rage had faded away from her face. Jess was once again my good little girl…. Her eyes were channeling fear and confusion… I realized what I had done at that moment, and moved in to embrace her, and she licked me softly, she was whimpering quietly, her voice slowly fading, she was dying.

I killed my fucking dog!

Fuck!

God… she was bleeding badly, and I knew I couldn’t save her, I didn’t have the time to, so I’ve decided to end her misery quickly, as painlessly as possible. Tears were streaming down my face, as they are now, I begged for her forgiveness as I yanked out the scissors from her chest cavity, she quietly yelped, giving me a scared, and confused look, I dragged my body behind her, petted her head and lied to her, I fucking lied to her that everything will be alright… I fucking lied before stabbing her in the base of her neck… she didn’t even utter a sound, her head just bobbed to the side and her breathing stopped. I began wailing in agony as I caressed her now lifeless body. I didn’t care I was injured, I didn’t care about the bloody flute that was playing outside. All I cared about was the fact that I had butchered my beloved pet.

That was not the end of it, oh no, it was not the end of it, as if to add insult to injury. I don’t know by what force of nature he, it did this, but soon after, I began feeling Jess’ body rise upwards, at first, I have rejoiced at the fact that I might’ve not killed her after all, but that was just a flitting moment of foolish joy. Before I could fully comprehend what was happening, Jess was standing all fours, underneath me with a pair of scissors stuck in the base of her neck, her head hanging awkwardly, she just walked from underneath me.

The sight, it threw a surge of terror through me, I fell down and stared at the lifeless body of my dog leaving the room.

The rhythm of the flute had changed, and gotten louder, a lot louder.

That damned flute...

I began following Jess, not of my own accord, probably permanently damaging my leg in the process, I was driven by the music produced by this flute, and my body was overrun with pure and utter fear. I tried stopping, but my body just kept on walking, I tried grabbing at objects to stop my body, but my hands wouldn’t respond to my brain. My body wasn’t my own for that moment. I tried screaming for help, but nothing came out, I was definitely screaming in my mind, but not in reality. The only thing I could feel that was my own was the pain from the wounds, most notably the pain in my destroyed right leg. It was so bad, like having a truck hit your leg over and over with each step you make.

The combination of stress, fear, blood loss, and sensory overload must’ve finally taken its toll by that point. The last thing I remember from this evening was seeing myself leaving the house to find that all the townsfolk were standing, frozen in place, as every last dog living in this small town, including the recently deceased Jess and Pete, going towards some figure dressed in all black playing the flute in the distance.

I woke up the next day at the local hospital, next to me was my ex, apparently, she heard about this whole thing and decided to show up after coming across an article about the whole ordeal the next morning after it happened, seems like the mayor didn’t like losing his dog. We tried to start anew, but that didn’t really work out, four years ago I’ve met my current wife, she just recently got pregnant. Life is perfect again, or so it would seem to someone who wasn’t here that faithful night eight years ago.

Nothing was ever found about this flute player, nor were the dogs ever found, nobody knows what had happened here even today. The official case was dropped because they couldn’t find anything. They ended up deeming this a bad case of a Rabies outbreak. Austin, a few others, and me we’ve all tried telling people about walking dog corpses, but we usually ended up getting dismissed as victims of nervous breakdowns.  Maybe this is for the better, I do not know, I don’t even know why this person, this thing did what it did, I can’t wrap my head around any possible motive, no one knows.

What I do know though, is that this flute player is like the bringer of doomsday to our lives, so we’ve named him Fenrir’s Piper, after Fenrir, a key component in the Ragnarok who is a wolf…  Another piece of information I hold is that I've got a permanent damage to the nerves in my right leg and I would never be able to walk again unaided.  I also know that I suffer from many nightmares in which Jess’ lifeless body, with an awkwardly bobbing head, is roaming about accompanied by a strange figure wearing all black playing the flute, the thing that freaks me out the most about this fiendish figure is that I can never quite make out its face.

Now here’s a drink to Fenrir’s Piper, and I hope he never comes back to torture any poor soul as he did us.

I know I’d sound like a dick if I said it out loud, but I hope this new guy doesn’t stick around for long, I can’t stand the sight of another dog without having an emotional shitstorm blowing through the mazes of my mind.

Thi… I guess I should’ve written this down in a sober state.