1983
Methos felt his head swimming, and everything was dark. It took him a few minutes to figure out his eyes were shut. But he was able to hear perfectly, and what he heard sounded like his wife Billie, half sobbing hysterically, halfway to losing her voice. He knew something had happened, but he couldn't remember what. He tried to remember, he did remember it was painful, whatever it was. He tried to say something but only some garbled sounds came out of his mouth, something was wrong with his mouth. He worked his eyes open and found himself in the bathtub, an empty bathtub, back at their house, he recognized the tacky wallpaper that was working loose at the corners and edges, nobody else was colorblind enough to still have that hanging on their walls.
And hovering over him beside the cast iron tub was his beautiful wife, who right now looked like she'd seen plenty of better days. She was speckled with blood, he was just guessing it wasn't all her own. Her long blonde hair was dirty, matted and dark with dry blood in it as well. Her clothes had large tear marks on them and she looked like she'd been mauled by a puma. No. Not a puma. He was starting to remember. It wasn't any cat that had done this, it was…a pair of dogs. And now he was starting to remember what had happened to him. He looked down and saw his entire body was intact but he was spattered with his own blood that was still in the process of drying, and like his wife, his clothes had also been torn but his were just about shredded off of his body entirely. Turning his head to the side, he saw his entire right arm was coated in blood, he could just make out where the flesh had restored itself and closed up. No, he hadn't died in that attack, he'd merely been mauled to near death, and his body had slowly been recovering this whole time, however long it was. Suddenly realizing something, he raised his hand to his mouth and felt along it…uh huh, just as he suspected, his whole bottom lip had just about been ripped off when the dog bit him. No wonder Billie was hysterical.
"What in the hell were those things?" she wanted to know.
He tried to remember, tried to picture the beasts that had attacked them. They were big, certainly, they were riled up, they were out for blood.
"Presa Canario," he said, feeling his lip surge itself back into place.
"What?" Billie asked him.
He turned to her and told her, "They're called canary dogs."
Billie cocked her head to the side and blinked, and asked him, "Is that supposed to be like the 500 pound canary?"
A small whisper of a laugh escaped Methos, and he told her, "No, they're named for the Canary Islands where they were bred a hundred years ago. If they're trained, they're very good guard dogs."
"And evidently they can be trained as very good killers as well," Billie replied.
"They can do that without training, that's the problem," Methos said as he grabbed the edges of the tub and pulled himself up, "Idiotic people get them and then don't know what to do with them. They don't train them, they don't muzzle them, they don't leash them, why wouldn't they become a pack of 130 pound vicious killers? But the worst of it is when they're used for dog fighting, that especially is going to guarantee they'll kill somebody."
"They put those things in dog fights?" Billie asked in disbelief, "How can they lose?"
Methos grabbed her wrists and held her arms out wide so he could get a good look at her and asked, "How bad did they get you?"
"I'm alright," she insisted as she pulled out of his grasp, "But they tore you apart, I thought for sure that…"
Methos traced a finger around his neck and told her, "As long as this is intact, everything's going to be fine."
"But they could've done a lot worse, Methos," Billie said.
He wrapped his fingers around her hand and raised it to his mouth and kissed her still bloody knuckles and told her, "I know it. If they'd been around in our time, my brother Silas would've fed Caspian to them, more than once."
"Where the hell did they come from?" she asked him.
"I don't know," he shook his head, "Some stupid imbecile in the town who didn't think…"
"Methos," Billie grabbed him by what was left of the neck of his shirt and said to him, "Is it possible that somebody could train those dogs to actually kill Immortals, I mean completely dismember them?"
"Of course it's possible," Methos said as he walked out of the bathroom and headed into the bedroom to change, "Now there are some rogue Immortals who train dogs to attack other Immortals, it's enough of a distraction that they can't fight and they're an easy head to take. But this would be a new one even by my standards. No…I think it's more likely these are just the hellhound pets of some bloody moron out there who thought they'd make interesting pets and never saw any point to have them trained."
"How are we going to find out where they came from?" Billie asked.
"Why would we want to know that is a better question," Methos replied as he peeled off what was left of his clothes and went through the closet to find something more suiting.
"Methos, do you have any idea how many little kids there are in this neighborhood?" Billie asked, "None of them would last two minutes with those beasts."
"Well, that's true," Methos said as he took a hangar off the rack and held the shirt up against himself, "And since they've already sunk their teeth into us once, they might come back looking for another taste. We'll figure it out tomorrow, tonight, wherever the hell they are, they can't get in here."
He looked over at his wife and saw her like he was looking at her reflection in a full length mirror; torn clothes, head to toe spattered in blood here and there, looking like she was in shock, all that was missing was a pink dress with a little pillbox hat.
"You want to get cleaned up?" he asked.
She stiffly shook her head, "I'm too tired."
He heard that.
"Alright, let's go to bed," Methos said.
"I'm not going to get any sleep tonight," Billie told him.
He did a double take, "Why not?"
"I'm too nervous after what happened today," she said.
"Alright then," he said, "We'll just get into bed and watch TV."
"Now you're talking," Billie said.
Exhaustedly, they climbed into bed, dug under the covers, Methos pulled up a spare blanket they kept folded at the foot of the bed and they wrapped it around themselves and burrowed together like a couple of Eskimos. Methos found the remote control and turned on the TV, irony of ironies they tuned in just in time to see a TV promo for the upcoming movie, 'Cujo', of which both Methos and Billie had read the book when it first came out two years ago and knew perfectly well what the plot was.
"No!" Billie groaned as she pulled the blanket up over her face.
"Maybe something else," Methos changed the channel quickly.
The next thing on the TV was an all night marathon of 'The Andy Griffith Show', at any other time they would've switched to the next channel, but for now they huddled together and within a surprisingly short amount of time, fell asleep.
In the moments between awakening, and actually opening your eyes, Methos lay in bed recalling more events from the previous day, remembered how it had all happened. It had all been so damn sudden.
They were in their own yard minding their own business. Wasn't that the way every horrible thing that ever happened started out? A couple people minding their own business, keeping to themselves. Horrible things tended not to happen so often to the miserable sons of bitches who actually went out to inflict terror on unsuspecting victims.
Their own backyard, of their normal, decent sized property, didn't take up too much room, didn't cut into other people's property, nor did they cut into their neighbors' lives, never played their music too loud, never got too drunk and caused a disturbance, kept to themselves over the holidays, never gave anybody living around them a single reason to hate them. They'd been out in the back discussing the idea of having a pool put in, walking around the yard, measuring off how much room it would take. They'd heard a dog barking, didn't think too much of it, the neighborhood was lousy with them: German shepherds, retrievers, Jack Russell terriers, even a couple beagles that would howl all night, perfectly tolerable if you kept your windows closed or slept with your TV on with the volume cranked up. Billie had turned around and noticed the dogs first. Methos turned and for a moment, it looked like two horses were charging at them, those hounds were so big it was unbelievable. They'd gone around in circles a couple of times, and neither one of the Immortals had thought much of it, figured they were just running loose and having a good time. Then one of them came back and jumped on Billie, on its hind legs it was as tall as she was and very possibly heavier than her.
It didn't matter how old you were, how much things changed over the centuries, some things just stayed with you, and at any time you could lapse back into it. Long ago, a lot of Methos' friends, some of his wives, their children, had been ripped to pieces by vicious animals before he could reach them to stop it. Instinct kicked in and he pulled the dog off of Billie, and when both of them jumped up to attack, he put himself in the line of fire and took the brunt of the punishment. They bit him, they hung onto him, they clawed him with their massive nails; he tried to shield his eyes, and also tried punching one of the dogs in the nose, and tried kicking the other in the ribs. But there were two of them, and one of him, and the more he fought with them, the more he realized that even he barely weighed the same as one of these dogs.
Things started to blur after that because he couldn't see what was going on, but he felt his flesh being ripped off the bone, the blood running down his body, and heard his wife's panicked screams somewhere in the background. He didn't know what happened after that, he didn't know what finally made the dogs leave. He had no solid recollection of it but he knew, he instinctively knew what had happened after that. Billie, in the midst of her shock and hysteria, all maybe 130 pounds of her, spread out through nearly six feet of lank muscles and bone, had grabbed him, lifted him to his feet, pulled him, dragged him, carried him to the house, in through the back door, and up the stairs, half out of her mind with terror, dragging him to the bathroom, setting him in the tub so the blood that was still flowing out of him was very limited in where it scattered.
And then…it occurred to him that while his body was repairing itself, she must've left momentarily to clean up the blood that had already spilled over the stairs, on the floors, before it set in and dried. To not wash up herself after the attack, that was one thing, but to leave the blood to dry and stain around the house, no, Billie wasn't a particularly neat person, she certainly wasn't the best housekeeper, but she'd never have that.
He opened his eyes, and saw that Billie was already awake, and showered, and changed in a fresh set of clothes, and seated by the window where the morning sun shone in.
"I've always liked dogs, Methos," she said, "You know that."
"I know," he nodded, "That was always one of your better qualities." A little bit of home. They hadn't kept many pets over the years but it did remind him of Silas. He always was the only other person Methos knew who had such a soft spot for animals.
Billie shook her head, "But those things."
"Yeah," he agreed as he sat up in the bed, "Something else altogether."
"What exactly are we going to do?" she asked.
"Only one thing to do," Methos said, "We have to talk to the neighbors and see if anyone knows where they came from, and once we find that out…"
"Can't reason with dumb animals," Billie said grimly, "And you sure as hell can't reason with dangerous ones. Only one thing to do."
It didn't take long of speaking with the neighbors to find out where the hounds from hell had come from. Not very long ago a husband and wife moved in on the block behind them, all the neighbors had complaints about the damn animals. Usually they were kept in the house all day and everyone could hear them barking all hours of the day until the owners came home in the evening. And nobody had much to say about the neighbors themselves either. They weren't around much and when they were, they weren't friendly, pleasant, social, or even tolerable. Apparently they thought themselves high and mighty over everyone else, and anything they had an inkling to do was their God given right and to hell with how it affected anyone else around them.
"Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?" Billie asked her husband.
"Oh yeah," Methos replied.
"Guess we know where to go now," she said.
"Yep," he agreed.
Billie sucked in a sharp inhale and looked like she was about to step into a barrel and go over Niagara Falls, and truth be known she probably would've preferred doing that to going down to the next street and chance encountering those things again, even worse, their owners. For a second she didn't even think she could get her legs to move. For no more than she'd actually been alive, she'd seen her own fair share of horrifying things that nobody should have to see, enough in her mortal life and damn more since she'd become Immortal. But she really couldn't remember if she'd witnessed anything as terrible as what had happened yesterday. She'd seen people attacked by dogs, bitten by dogs, but what those two beasts had done to her own husband…her mind felt like a machine grinding to a halt, the gears stuck, 'does not compute', if she never remembered that bloodbath it would be too soon.
"You okay?" Methos asked.
She sucked in another breath, unaware she'd let go of the first one, nodded once and said, "Yeah…fine…let's go find them." She just had to keep reminding herself, no matter what they found, no matter who they found, they were ready, whatever the threat was, they would meet it.
As they neared the back of their own block and where it cut off from the next one, Billie's eyes roamed around every which way watching for the dogs, remembering that they didn't make any noise until they were practically on top of the two Immortals. So far so good, no sign of them, no sign of any dogs, no sign of anybody for that matter, strange, but she didn't give it much thought. No witnesses would work in their favor.
"No car in the driveway," she observed, "None at the curb, you think they're home?"
"I'm sure somebody is," Methos replied as they walked up the sidewalk to the porch of the house where the new neighbors were supposed to be living.
So far all was quiet. Once again Billie looked around to make sure the dogs weren't running loose in the yard. Methos rang the doorbell and they got their answer of where the dogs were, right inside.
"They don't sound happy," Methos observed.
"Can they get out?" Billie asked.
Methos opened the screen door and tried the main door, "Locked."
And it didn't mean one damn thing, because they next thing they heard was glass shattering as a window broke when one of the dogs charged through it. Billie took a step back and impulsively screamed at the top of her lungs; a few seconds later the second dog also bolted out through the broken glass and they hit the ground charging for whoever was intruding at their home.
Billie felt driven right out of her mind. She suddenly became very calm and very nonresponsive. Passively, she reached down into her coat and pulled out a gun and took aim at one of the dogs and fired point blank without even flinching. Without blinking, she turned and pulled the trigger a second time and shot the second dog. Both savage beasts collapsed against the ground whimpering, and shortly after, there was only silence.
"Are you alright?" Methos asked as he moved towards her.
Billie slowly nodded her head and pocketed her gun again, "Let's get out of here."
It should've made her sick. Ordinarily Billie liked animals, all kinds, even dogs, even large dogs, but these weren't animals, weren't pets, they were just a couple of vicious, brutal, untrained, bloodthirsty beasts who had already gotten one taste and had come back for more. And for this reason, Billie couldn't bring herself to truly feel any remorse for what she'd done; as far as she was concerned, she'd had to do it.
"It's alright," Methos told her, "It's over."
"Yeah," she replied lowly, "Until they come home and find them. Then what?"
"They'll be easier to deal with," Methos assured her.
"How can you be sure of that?" she asked.
"Because they can't run as fast," he answered, "They'll be easier to meet head on."
"I sure hope so," Billie remarked.
Passing the hours waiting for the people who lived at the house to return home required lots of straight whiskey, more so for Billie than her husband. Methos knew very well what they were going to have to do, and he was ready for it, but now that the imminent threat was over, Billie seemed to have trouble holding herself together.
"Maybe you should go back inside and let me handle this," Methos said, "I've had plenty of experience with dumb animals of the human variety."
"Are you kidding?" Billie asked him, "After what their pets just did, you think I'd leave you alone with those nuts? Who knows what kind of sickos they are?"
"I doubt they could be half the trouble their pets were," Methos told her.
"Well, I still don't trust them," she said, "I'm staying right here with you."
"Suit yourself," he replied.
It was almost dark by the time they saw two cars pull up in the driveway. Time to face the music. Billie started to move but Methos pulled her back and told her, "Give them a minute. It'll be soon enough."
Anxiously, they waited, and as Methos said, it didn't take long. They could hear the woman shrieking at the top of her lungs from clear across the street.
"Showtime," Methos said.
The two Immortals quickly crossed across the street and saw the 30-something couple standing in the middle of their yard in disarray at the sight of their beloved dogs laying slain in the front yard.
"Pity what can happen to dumb animals when their owners are twice as dumb as they are," Methos said as they came upon the couple.
The woman pulled her head up off of the bloody breast of one of the dead dogs and shrieked like a banshee, "You! You bastard! You killed our babies!"
"Yeah, funny how karma works," Methos replied nonchalantly, "Of course it was too much for you to comprehend if you're going to have dangerous animals to train them so they don't tear people to shreds."
The husband was more pulled together than his wife and he looked at their neighbors and said defiantly, "If they attacked you then you did something to provoke them."
"Only the gatekeeper is responsible for the demons of hell escaping through the open gateway," Billie said as she closed the gap between herself and the wife, "You let those hellhounds run around free knowing there were innocent people around here who would be hurt, and you didn't care, you stupid bitch."
The wife lunged at Billie to attack her, but Billie foresaw it and grabbed the woman by her throat and choked her. The husband tried to ambush her but Methos got to him first and put him in a painful restraint hold and forced him to the ground. Billie maintained a grip on the woman's neck and jerked her whole body from side to side and told her, "After what those dogs did to us, I ought to choke you unconscious!" and on the last word she let go of the woman's throat and instead punched her in the face.
The next thing Billie knew, she was clotheslined and knocked on the ground, and then she felt somebody trying to kick her head in. She was starting to figure out where those dogs learned their behavior from; this crazy woman was plenty animal herself. Behind her, she could hear that something had obviously gone wrong for Methos too, she could hear the two men grunting and struggling, but she couldn't turn and see what had happened. Finally, she spotted an opportunity when the woman drew her leg back to kick her again, Billie sprawled out and swung her leg around and knocked the woman off balance and onto the ground as well; then she jumped on the woman and knocked her head against the ground beneath her. Billie proceeded to do this a few times until she heard a loud noise akin to splitting open a pumpkin, and saw the woman beneath her fall flat back, her eyes went all but shut and a small gurgling noise escaped her mouth, otherwise she was completely unresponsive. Finally, Billie looked over and saw that Methos had likewise subdued the husband; evidently the man had pulled a knife and tried to stab Methos and the two had been grappling to each get the blade away from the other, but now he was unconscious to match his wife.
"You okay?" Methos asked as he got to his feet and came over to help her.
"Never better," Billie replied as she got off the woman and stood up.
She looked at their work and asked of the two dumb bastards laying sprawled on the ground like their slaughtered pets, "Are they dead?"
Methos shook his head, "Only unconscious."
"So now what?" Billie asked her husband.
"Now," Methos said, "We go home. Somebody will be along eventually and find them, call the paramedics, and if it turns out to be too late, that's no skin off our nose."
"And if they live?" Billie asked, "Will they remember what happened?"
"They'll remember," Methos told her, "But they won't do anything about it."
"How can you be sure?" she asked her husband.
He looked at her and replied, "Because even they aren't that stupid."
"I wonder," Billie replied as she looked down at the unconscious woman one last time before heading back the way they came with her husband.