Fiction: Hellhounds

By Chris Brownsword

 

1

 

From Calais, I boarded a train to Paris. My nerves were shot to pieces, but they’d always been that way. 

 

Planting myself on the concourse at Gare du Nord, I caught the eye of a man dressed in a style that made me think he worked in an office. Khaki trousers. Beige jacket. Thick-rimmed glasses. Gold earring. All that type of stuff. 

 

When he waved a greeting, I looked away. Undeterred, he started towards me and in just a few paces closed the gap between us. As he completed his approach, his smile pulled the lips back over his teeth. 

 

Prowling around me, all smiling teeth, he said he’d mistaken me for a relative of his. ‘‘Striking similarity,’’ he remarked, before asking which train I was waiting for. 

 

‘‘None,’’ I told him. 

 

The man looked confused, or made an expression that he intended would convey a semblance of confusion, the shell of it. ‘‘You’re telling me you’re not waiting for a train?’’ 

 

‘‘I’m telling you I haven’t decided yet.’’ 

 

He asked whether I’d come to Paris with family or friends. 

 

‘‘Neither,’’ I said.

 

He asked how old I was. 

 

‘‘Eighteen,’’ adding two years to the age on my passport. 

 

‘‘You look tired.’’

 

‘‘Yeah, I’m pretty tired, I guess.’’ 

 

The man could relate to that. ‘‘This city can get you down.’’ 

 

‘‘Any city can get you down,’’ I said. Figured it was something an older kid might come out with.

 

‘‘That’s the truth,’’ the man agreed. 

 

His accent sounded like a mixture of French and, well, non-French. But for all I knew, it was local. I mean, Parisian. 

 

‘‘You need someone you can trust,’’ he continued, then paused a beat, as if measuring my level of trustworthiness, or lack of the same. ‘‘My name is Romain.’’

 

Romain produced a ticket, crouched down:

 

‘‘Sometimes an error occurs when the ticket is printed. This says Amsterdam, yes?’’

 

Not having slept since leaving England, feeling like my eyelids were made of tree bark, I tried focusing on Romain’s ticket. No good. The print was too tiny and I was too exhausted to make out much at all except a blur of letters that shrivelled beneath my gaze. 

 

‘‘The reason I’m travelling to Amsterdam is for my mum’s funeral,’’ Romain told me, unprompted. ‘‘She died a few days ago.’’ 

 

He’d done his mourning. Now he wanted to have a good time in Amsterdam. 

 

‘‘We all must live before we die,’’ he said. ‘‘This is the truth.’’ 

 

‘‘I guess so,’’ I agreed, then asked Romain how long he’d lived in Paris. 

 

‘‘All my life. Every day.’’ 

 

I asked how his mum had ended up in Amsterdam. 

 

‘‘Just one of those things,’’ he said, as if that explained anything. He got to his feet, glanced around. ‘‘Are you hungry? Stupid question. I’m hungry, too. I’m going to find myself something to eat. What do you want? Don’t worry, it’s on me. I could use the company. Besides, it’s unnatural to eat alone, yes?’’

 

I shrugged, explained how alone, and this feeling natural enough, I’d demolished a few croissants on the train from Calais first thing this morning. ‘‘Decent of you to ask, though,’’ I told him.

 

Romain said he was precisely that kind of guy. Decent. ‘‘Go without food long enough,’’ he warned, ‘‘and your stomach begins to devour itself. But for now you’re not hungry, so let me buy you a drink. How about a milkshake?’’ 

 

‘‘Thanks, but no.’’ 

 

Knees creaking, Romain crouched in front of me again. He had to put his hands on the floor to maintain his balance, and in this posture he resembled an ambush predator waiting for an opportune moment to strike. 

 

He said I looked a little down in the dumps. Said he wanted to help me out:

 

‘‘I offer to buy you something to eat, but you aren’t wanting to eat. I offer to buy you something to drink, but you aren’t wanting to drink. All I’m trying to do is share some of my good fortune, and here you are, throwing it back in my face.’’

 

Maybe Romain was right, I considered, and my attitude towards him had been unfair. Maybe my internal warning system had developed a fault, signalled a false alarm. Maybe he valued trust and generosity as something precious but rare, and that the circumstances of his life hadn’t allowed him to indulge these qualities in the past, though now he could try them out on a stranger, see how they fit. 

 

At the same time, nothing about him held together. Like an equation that allows for only one method of calculation, though when the numbers are added up never gives the same answer twice. It wasn’t his smart-but-casual outfit - the khaki trousers and beige jacket, etc. - but something deep within his core. Or if not integral to him, then something akin to an insect which had flown into his mouth one afternoon when he yawned, and from there proceeded to burrow into his entrails. An insect that maintained its hold through the application of pincers or hooks, or an armour of external teeth. 

 

In the split second the above workings flashed through my brain, less thoughts than sensations or intuitions, I decided on fabricating a plausible excuse to leave, but at the last moment careened instead towards trusting Romain and agreed to a milkshake. 

 

‘‘Name your flavour,’’ he said. ‘‘Vanilla? Chocolate? Banana?’’

 

‘‘I’d prefer strawberry.’’ 

 

Turned out - would you believe it?! - strawberry was Romain’s favourite, too. 

 

‘‘I’ll be right back,’’ he said. ‘‘Look after my rucksack while I’m gone.’’

 

‘‘Best if you take the rucksack with you.’’

 

‘‘What you’re telling me is you think I’ve got contraband or body parts in there,’’ Romain said.

 

“Huh? No, actually.” I paused. “Why, have you?”

 

‘‘Of course not. But I understand your concern. You can’t be too careful these days. It’s all so much madness wherever you look.’’ Romain reached down, put his hand on my shoulder. “We need to assist one another, yes? I’m going to leave my rucksack where it is, and I know it’ll still be here when I get back. Mutual assistance. This is the truth, my friend.’’

 

Truth or not, I liked that he called me ‘friend.’ Still, no sooner had Romain gone than my concerns about him seeped through again. I lifted his rucksack off the floor. It felt light. Too light. I began to worry that upon his return, he’d accuse me of having stolen something from inside it. He’d feign anger, then threaten to alert the authorities unless I gave him back the item or paid the cash equivalent. As for his train ticket, the one I’d caught less than a passing glimpse of, maybe it was from Amsterdam to Paris, rather than Paris to Amsterdam, and he’d got it from a rubbish bin on the concourse. 

 

I didn’t know what to do. 

 

I mean, nothing had gone right these past couple of days. All my luck was flowing backwards, into the gutters and down the drain.

 

*

 

Setting off before dawn, I’d hitched from Sheffield to Dover then boarded the ferry to Calais, arriving into France at that time of day when the sunset makes everything look like rust. Along the way a trucker advised that I carry in the pocket of my jeans a twenty-franc note wrapped around smaller denominations: 

 

‘‘Anyone tries to mug you, take out the roll, with the twenty at the top, and they’ll think you’ve got shedloads more than you really do.’’ 

 

I was to toss the money aside, he said, then run as if a pack of Hellhounds gnashed and flailed at my heels. If lucky, the mugger would rush to gather up the notes, rather than shoot me in the back. 

 

And that was the extent of the trucker’s advice.

 

Without contacts or plans, I spent my first night abroad in a doorway. Although I didn’t speak French, I understood one word of graffiti smeared on the wall next to me. I’m not sure whether there’s a scientific term for this, but maybe specific people recognise specific words regardless of language, as if no matter how the word scans it can be identified by a uniform colour or smell. In my case, however, I recognised the word because it was spelled the same in both English and French:

 

Idiot.

 

*

 

‘‘Can you believe this shit? I tried three different places. None of them will accept a hundred-franc note.’’ Romain had returned with neither milkshake nor food. ‘‘All I’ve got until I collect my inheritance in Amsterdam tomorrow is this hundred-franc note. I hate to ask. You know I do, yes? I’m a decent guy, this is the truth, but the thing is, and I hate to ask, but how much money do you have?’’

 

‘‘Hardly anything,’’ I shrugged. ‘‘I mean, uh, yeah, hardly anything.’’

 

Romain nodded, as if he’d assumed as such but hoped otherwise, like a patient being read a fatal diagnosis which contains all manner of medical terminology but to his ears sounds like the password for a secret passageway, one hidden behind a curtain, one he wishes not to enter but must do so all the same. 

 

He asked, ‘‘How much is ‘not much?’’’

 

‘‘Fifty francs,’’ I lied, unsure of Romain’s intentions.  

 

‘‘And how do you propose to stay in Paris or catch a train out of here with only fifty francs?’’

 

Another lie came spilling out of me: ‘‘I’ve got a friend who lives in the city. He called just now, while you were gone. He’s coming to meet me, and he’ll lend me some cash when he gets here.’’

 

‘‘Earlier you said no family or friends.’’

 

‘‘Wrong,’’ I corrected Romain, ‘‘I said I hadn’t travelled here with family or friends.’’ 

 

‘‘How about you loan me a few francs to get the food and milkshake,’’ Romain suggested, ‘‘and I’ll find somewhere that’ll change my hundred francs and pay you back before I board the train.’’ 

 

Compromising, I told Romain I wouldn’t lend him the money but we could go to a kiosk and purchase some food there instead. 

 

‘‘Forget food,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m losing my appetite. But maybe you’d be friend enough to buy me a packet of cigarettes? I’ve tried to quit. Lord knows I’ve done that much. But I wasn’t raised to be a quitter.’’

 

At the kiosk, I bought Romain his chosen brand. 

 

The moment I received my change, Romain scooped it from my hand. ‘‘This is fifteen francs altogether,’’ informing me of what I already knew. ‘‘If we include the cigarettes, it’s easier for me to take it all now, and later give you back twenty.’’

 

Slumbering neural connections fired up. Subtle as Romain had been, did this constitute a mugging? Should I stand my ground, or, as the trucker had advised, was this the decisive moment to throw down my cash and run? Hellhounds circled at a distance, though for the time being they appeared muzzled and relatively tame. 

 

‘‘What should I do?’’ I asked the vendor, in the brief interval we shared in my head. 

 

‘‘Simple, baby,’’ he told me. ‘‘Ride the falcon.’’ 

 

‘‘What?’’ 

 

‘‘Listen up...’’ 

 

Romain clapped his hands to draw my attention back to him. A single clap. Less like thunder than a round of applause cut short by the shared experience of disbelief, as if a popular TV entertainer renowned for delivering tasteful skits on the travails of shopping with his wife for garden furniture had concluded his routine by extracting his bowels through his mouth. 

 

‘‘Listen up. Didn’t you tell me you had fifty francs, in total?’’ 

 

‘‘I don’t recall.’’ 

 

‘‘Yes, fifty is the amount you said. You’ve spent twenty, so now you have thirty.’’ 

 

‘‘So what?’’

 

‘‘So please loan me the rest.’’

 

I made no move to satisfy Romain. He slapped me on the shoulder a little too hard and said it was just a matter of him finding somewhere he could break into the hundred-franc note. Same note he’d mentioned several times without actually showing it to me. 

 

We were friends, he reassured me, trying to reel me back in. ‘‘Come outside with me while I smoke this cigarette. We’ll get a beer. I know a bar less than five minutes from here.’’ 

 

‘‘But this friend of mine, he’ll be along soon.’’

 

‘‘I’m your friend.’’

 

‘‘Yeah, but my other friend, I mean, the one who said he’d meet me...’’

 

‘‘I’ve told you’’ - Romain’s voice growing loud, then softening - ‘‘it’s a five-minute walk from here. This is a great bar I’m talking about. A fun bar. I know the owner.’’ He massaged the nape of his neck, then struck a eureka-moment pose. ‘‘But of course, why didn’t I think of this earlier?! The owner, he’ll change the hundred-franc note, and then I’ll give you back the money I borrowed.’’ 

 

My thoughts flapped around in all directions. I grabbed one, suggested to Romain that he head to the bar for change while I wait here for him. 

 

Once you’re out of sight, I didn’t say, I’m running. 

 

‘‘We don’t have to go,’’ Romain backed down. ‘‘I’m stepping outside for a cigarette, so keep your eye on my rucksack while I’m gone.’’

 

Watching him slink away, I still couldn’t figure out whether Romain was hustling me with an empty rucksack, some bullshit about a hundred-franc note and an inheritance from a dead mum, plus a ticket he’d fished out from a rubbish bin, or whether fatigue was feeding me all kinds of misconceptions about him. 

 

When he came back, Romain was dabbing his lips with his tongue, as if weighing me up via some primal sense. A blind sense. Like a snake tasting the molecules of its prey in the atmosphere. Again he asked me to go to the bar with him. Again I said no. Losing patience, he reached for my arm. His grip was tight. Fingers pressing down to bone. 

 

Distress signals flared as I saw the Hellhounds charge towards me, and some madman had unmuzzled them. 

 

‘‘My friend called while you were gone,’’ I blurted out. ‘‘He said he’s outside and coming to find me. He’s super-pissed I’ve kept him waiting all this time.’’ 

 

So sure of my position did I sound that I almost convinced myself. Yet seeing the look of despair in Romain’s eyes, I wanted to retract my statement right away and insist he press ahead with whatever torment he’d got planned for me. 

 

Around then, a train must have released its passengers, because seconds before I broke down and admitted my deceit, the concourse became crowded. ‘‘Oh, look,’’ I said, gazing over Romain’s shoulder, ‘‘here comes my friend.’’

 

As Romain loosened his grip, I jerked my knee into his crotch, then merged with the crowd. I could hear the Hellhounds gnashing and flailing behind me, but I’d got the better of them. 

 

Idiot. 

 

Yeah, that was the word all right.

 

2

 

Within an hour of escaping the Hustler of Gare du Nord - Romain or whatever his real name was - I found a cheap room on the Boulevard de la Chapelle. The view looked out upon a viaduct along which trains hissed like metallic anacondas, while beneath them all manner of dark festivities were performed and nefarious pacts struck. During the next few days I kept seeing Romain score for drugs there, waist-deep in the pooled density of his own misdeeds. Is it even necessary to mention I stayed out of his way? 

 

But that first afternoon, the day I arrived in Paris, I paid one month’s rent upfront then headed off to a hand car wash with whose owner the landlord was friends. 

 

‘‘Finally,’’ a voice greeted me as I stepped into the office, ‘‘God sends me an Estonian.’’

 

The owner wore a T-shirt like part of a uniform for a juice bar or something, with bananas and apples and oranges designed around the name of the establishment. The fruit had arms, legs and faces, but no reproductive organs. They resembled escapees from a cartoon universe founded on butchery and held together through atrocious treaties. 

 

When he said Estonians understood the value of hard labour, I made no move to show him my passport and avail him of his error. Estonians understood the value of hard labour, said the owner, and he saw me as proof of this. 

 

An odd claim to make, because I had no intention of labouring harder than necessary. But I nodded and said yes, and I was hired on the spot.

 

My fellow employees were all migrants. None originated from Estonia, and all laboured harder and with more enthusiasm than me. In fact, it was a couple of guys from sub-Saharan Africa who worked harder than anyone and whom the owner, without evidence, claimed belonged to a French-African cult whose assorted deities called for blood sacrifices. I doubted this. Living some distance away in the northern district of Bourges, they spoke perfect French and a few words of English, most relating to Premier League football and their favourite team, Manchester United. 

 

My remaining colleagues hailed from Latin America. Three apiece from Mexico and Argentina, and a couple from Peru. Again, all of them laboured harder than me. 

 

*

 

End of the week, I assumed the owner would let me go but instead he paid me in full and, while praising my work ethic, said he’d see me again Monday morning. Without plans for the weekend, I started towards my room when the two Peruvians caught up with me and, through a series of gestures, since neither spoke English and probably assumed the same of me, invited me back to their apartment. 

 

Among my co-workers, the Peruvians had been the least communicative, ignoring me altogether this past week. Regardless, I followed them to a drab building where in single file we climbed a rickety staircase groaning its age. One of them walked a step in front of me and the other a step behind, and I couldn’t decide whether in keeping to this formation I felt protected or trapped. Perhaps both at the same time.

 

Like myself, they occupied a single unfurnished room with just one window for ventilation. Techno blared from a stereo around which several other residents drank beer and smoked weed from a home-made bong. I settled on the floor and smiled hello to the guy next to me who responded by dropping a magazine in my lap. Inside were photographs of women on their backs with legs pulled up to chins. Poses that looked sure to result in torn ligaments if held for long enough. In some of the pictures, men thrust their hands into the women’s vaginas like clumsy gynecologists. 

 

Magazine Man made semaphores to indicate a private viewing was available in the bathroom down the hall. He laughed, yet looked serious, which is to say, he laughed in a serious manner, or was serious in his laughter. 

 

‘‘Generous of you,’’ I said, ‘‘but I’m okay.’’

 

Seated to my immediate left, meanwhile, another of the men asked whether I wanted to meet Harold. 

 

‘‘Quiet, douchebag,’’ said Magazine Man to his flatmate. ‘‘He didn’t come here to meet Harold.’’ 

 

‘‘There’s only one reason anyone ever comes here,’’ insisted the second man, ‘‘and that’s to meet Harold.’’ 

 

‘‘Maybe Harold doesn’t want to meet him,’’ said Magazine Man in a tone that sounded like the crackling of a radio unable to tune into a station. ‘‘Harold isn’t one to engage in casual chin-wag. Did you consider that, Felix, before opening your stupid mouth?’’ 

 

‘‘What harm can it do?’’ 

 

‘‘All right. But only if Harold consents.’’ 

 

Behind Magazine Man stood a glass tank with a bathrobe draped over it. He peeked under the robe, threw it aside. 

 

Inside the tank dwelled some kind of I-don’t-know-what. Upon its unveiling, Felix and Magazine Man grinned at one another. 

 

‘‘What is it?’’ I asked.

 

‘‘That’s Harold,’’ Felix and Magazine Man answered in unison.

 

Maybe an argument could be made that I should have considered Harold’s appearance a sign and got out right away. But, honestly, who’d bother to argue it? Now and then life forks like the Devil’s tongue, and whichever path you choose leads to ruination. 

 

Peering into the glass, the only part of Harold I could see moving was a leathery throat inflating and deflating over and over again. He expressed a sovereign authority that made me feel inferior. 

 

‘‘Harold is a frog,’’ explained Magazine Man. 

 

I said, ‘‘He doesn’t resemble any type of frog I’ve seen before.’’ 

 

‘‘You know a great deal about frogs, then?’’ Magazine Man being sardonic. 

 

Felix rapped the glass with his knuckles: 

 

‘‘Harold is uncommon. Secretions from his glands contain hallucinogenic properties. If you absorb these secretions into your bloodstream, they’ll take you to other dimensions. They’ll shoot you into space.’’

 

‘‘Yeah,’’ I said, ‘‘that’s an uncommon quality for a frog to possess.’’ 

 

Felix suggested I ask Harold a question. 

 

‘‘Ask Harold a question?’’

 

‘‘That’s what I said. Go ahead.’’

 

I suspected a prank. Playing along, I waved my hand back and forth in front of Harold. ‘‘Will he answer?’’

 

‘‘What do you think?’’

 

‘‘I don’t think he’ll answer.’’

 

Felix snorted, and in the sweat running down his face I saw reflected a fragment of light, like a telescoped segment of desert into which you could wander and die of thirst. 

 

‘‘You’re wasting too much time,’’ said Magazine Man. ‘‘Harold isn’t renowned for his patience. Should you find yourself on the wrong side of him, his retribution will prove unstoppable.’’

 

‘‘So, uh,’’ I began, ‘‘what I’d like to know...’’

 

‘‘Jeez,’’ said Magazine Man. ‘‘Ask Harold, not me.’’

 

‘‘Right, sorry. What I’d like to know, Harold, is...’’

 

Just then, the door creaked open, or opened with a loud bang. Afterwards I could never remember which, though maybe it was already open, so made no sound at all. But however it happened, a woman entered and requested the music be turned down. 

 

One of the occupants choked on the bong. Then Magazine Man started laughing again. And with that, everyone in the room except the woman and myself proceeded to laugh.

 

‘‘I demand an end to this nuisance,’’ the woman said. 

 

Felix replaced the robe over Harold’s tank. ‘‘We don’t respond to demands.’’ 

 

‘‘So chill the fuck out, puta,’’ added Magazine Man.

 

Things moved quickly after that. The music seemed to grow louder and more intense, even after the woman picked up the stereo and hurled it out of the window. And then Magazine Man confronted the woman, who, meeting his challenge, stepped forwards and in one swift move brought her forehead crashing down into his face. If you’ve ever squashed a packet of crisps in your hands, you’ve heard the sound this made.

 

I watched Magazine Man hit the floor, and when I looked back to where the woman had stood, she was gone. 

 

Aside from Magazine Man weeping blood and snot into his hands, nobody spoke until someone accused me of being the one who’d laughed. Not just the first in the room to laugh, the instigator who’d set everyone else off laughing. No, I was accused of being the only one to have laughed; when in fact (as I’ve said), I was the only one among them not to have done so. Still, the accusal stuck and all present clubbed against me and before I could argue my defence, Harold The Hallucinogenic Frog started emitting all these heinous noises which seemed to originate from another planet.

 

That was the moment my Peruvian co-workers asked me to leave. 

 

Or Felix threw me out. 

 

Or everyone just ignored me until I left of my own volition. 

 

All I know for sure: Harold’s gurgles trailed me down the stairs and back out into the street. 

 

Plastic from the stereo lay scattered near the entrance to the apartment. Before heading off, I transferred my wage packet from my jeans into one of my socks. This area was new to me. But all I had to do was retrace my steps back to the car wash then follow the railway line until I reached my own place. 

 

Among shadows growing into night, spreading across the pavement like a contagion, I passed under the viaduct. As I weaved in and out of rough sleepers and prostitutes and drug dealers, I saw a man exit a deli and cross the road towards me. ‘‘Listen up,’’ he called out. When I failed to stop, he quickened his pace. 

 

Next thing, I was on the ground. And as I lay there, my throat full of dust and grit, I brought the man into focus long enough to see Romain boot me so hard it felt like my ribcage had burst inwards and punctured one of my lungs.

 

*

 

The fractures journeyed across several aeons to reach even a partial healing, during which I lost my job at the car wash and found a new one cleaning offices at night. 

 

I couldn’t bathe. Couldn’t wipe properly after bowel movements. Slept upright like someone meditating in the lotus posture. Except the pain was so severe I couldn’t take a full breath, so it was more like drowning (though drowning is meant to be peaceful, so it wasn’t like that, either). 

 

Often I dreamed myself crawling prostrate towards Harold The Hallucinogenic Frog. His mouth a portal into cosmic blackness and from which echoed the last cries of a collapsing star. 

 

Often I think Harold was the one, the only one, to have laughed in that room.

 

 

 

 

 

Chris Brownsword recently completed a novel entitled Paradise Limited - imagine a cross between Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson and Roberto Bolano’s Savage Detectives, then drastically lower your expectations. He avoids social media.