During the next ten minutes, two news vans with satellite dishes scuttled past along the road, headlights blazing, windscreen wipers working furiously, on their way to get the story.
Another car rolled onto the forecourt. It was a Toyota, full of a family. I was half up, ready to go for it, like a big cat watching the herd. The car was ideal, a normal family saloon. Dad got out and, avoiding the rain, ran straight into the shop. I saw him give Big Hair a few bills, then he came out again and filled up. I decided against. I was looking at the family – two kids in the back, window half steamed up, the kids beating each other up, the mother turning round and shouting at them. There were just too many people in the car. It would be a nightmare to drag two screaming kids from the car.
Ding-ding.
They took the Durham road.
Sarah looked over at me. ‘I thought we were in a hurry?’
Big Hair was walking across to the machine to get herself another bucket of coffee. She went and sat back by the till, next to the window, looking out, wistfully stirring her bucket with a spoon. I was right, it was packet creamer. Perhaps she dreamed that one day Clint Eastwood would drive onto her forecourt, come in to pay for gas, and bang,
The Bridges of Happy Beverage County
. Until then, nice work if you can get it.
A sign to the left of the shop entrance announced, ‘24 Hour Video Surveillance’, together with the fact that they only carried fifty dollars in the register and the rest was slipped into a night safe that the attendant didn’t have access to. I turned to Sarah. ‘When we go to lift the wagon, I want you to get your T-shirt and pull it over your head, so you can only just see out of it.’
Ding-ding
. Another vehicle drove in towards the pumps from our left. This time it was a really old van, late Seventies, early Eighties, the sort of thing Mr T and the A Team used to run around in, but a very tired grey. The windows were half steamed up, so I couldn’t see how many were inside, but as soon as the driver opened the door I knew this was the one. He was in his early forties, and the important thing was that he got out and didn’t take the ignition key with him, but just waved at the woman. He must be a local, because he was trusted enough to fill up and pay afterwards.
We got back into our big-cat positions, and I studied our prey. He was wearing a pair of green overalls that had seen better days, with oil stains and rips in the knees. His baseball cap should have been white but needed burning more than bleaching now. He was skinny and of average height, with about three days’ stubble and four years’ worth of wet or very greasy hair over his shoulders.
The tank was full, the filler cap went back on. I whispered, ‘You ready?’
She nodded. He turned and, with his hands working their way into his overalls for money, jogged towards the shop. I jumped to my feet and started to run. With my left hand I pulled my T-shirt up over my face, and so did she. We must have looked like a couple of sperm. I kept my eyes moving between the van and the shop. I didn’t really bother about what Sarah was doing; the plan was for her to go to the near side of the van, to the passenger door; I was to go round the rear, because I wanted to hide myself as much as possible, then get in the driver’s seat and go for it.
The glass panels had been smashed out of the back doors and were covered with cardboard, and the whole thing was a rust bucket. I turned the corner of the van and moved along the side towards the driver’s door. I had to skip over the loop of the pump lines and slipped on the diesel-stained floor. I recovered without falling and got to the door. Still holding the T-shirt over my head with my left hand, I got hold of the door handle in my right. It was a rickety, rusty old thing, hardly any chrome left on it; I pulled and it all but came away in my hand, hanging on by one edge.
The window on the other side was misted up and I couldn’t see what Sarah was doing. All I knew was that she wasn’t getting in. She must have the same problem; her handle must be busted.
The driver’s window was down about three-quarters of the way. That must be how he got in – just reach in and open up from the inside. I jumped up slightly, got my right hand in… and then chaos. The furious barking from the back of the wagon made me jump back as if I’d been given the full twenty seconds with a Tazer.
I glanced towards the shop. The guy was staring out, mouth wide open. Someone trying to nick his van must have been the last thing he expected. The black thing in the back of the van was leaping up and down, going ballistic. I had to put my hand inside again; it had to be done, I was committed now. I reached in, yelling for Sarah to do something.
I was jumping up and down, trying to find and grab the inside handle, the dog was reacting as if it had had to wait three days for lunch, and to the left of me the distraught owner was coming out of the shop shouting, ‘My dawg! My dawg!’
‘Sarah, fucking do something!’
She did. I heard a loud, quick double tap from Lance’s 9mm.
It couldn’t get worse than this. I jumped away from the window, leaving the dog in the van going apeshit, and ran round to the front of the vehicle. ‘Sarah, fucking stop shooting! Stop!’ Then I realized she wasn’t firing at the driver, she was drawing down on the two German Shepherds that had come out of the treeline and were now about five metres away from giving us the good news. It had just got worse.
She took one down; it fell over itself and kicked around on the ground, yelping. The other one kept coming. Sarah turned to fire but it was too close to me now. My right hand flew down to draw my weapon at the same time as my left went to pull up my bomber jacket so that I could get to the pistol. It was too late for both of us.
It’s pointless trying to evade an attacking dog so close; without a weapon, you can’t do anything about immobilizing the fucker until it’s committed itself to an attack. You’ve got to let the thing sink its teeth into you, and take it from there.
I had to get him onto me. I turned half left, let go of the bottom of my jacket and presented my forearm, still trying to get to my pistol with my right.
He didn’t want to miss this. He leapt up, his jaws opening with a deep growl, his lips pulled back to bare his teeth so he got a good bite first time. I saw his eyes roll back as he launched himself at me.
I stood my ground and braced myself for the hit. I felt his saliva fly onto my face as he opened up and his head flicked back.
There were probably other things going on, but they were lost on me now. I couldn’t hear anything but the snarling of my attacker. I felt the weight of the dog hit me, and then him closing his jaws on my arm. His teeth sank straight through the jacket into the skin of my forearm and I started to shout. ‘Sarah! Sarah!’ I wanted her to come and shoot this fucking thing. ‘Sarah!’
I staggered backwards with his weight, and he came with me. I got my hand around the pistol grip; not completely, but enough to pull it out of my jeans. The dog was jumping up on me, trying to get me to the ground, his hind legs scrambling against my legs and waist. His legs hit my hand and the weapon fell. ‘Sarah!’
There was fearsome pain as his teeth tore into my skin. It was like having multiple injections with pen-sized syringes. I had to let it happen. I had to make sure the dog had confidence in himself, that he sensed an easy victory. If I went with the flow, he’d keep his teeth in one place, thinking he had me, he wouldn’t thrash around all over the place. Forget the old wives’ tales about grabbing a foreleg in each hand and splitting them apart: it only works with chihuahuas – and that’s assuming you can catch the little shit in the first place. In real life dogs are like monkeys, they’re much stronger than they look.
I continued to move back under its weight as the German Shepherd jumped up and snarled. I could smell his raw-meat-eating breath mixed with mud and the shit on his coat from the follow-up. He took a deeper grip on my arm and I screamed out for Sarah again as I felt more flesh being mangled. She was nowhere to be seen.
I heard several gunshots as I staggered back towards the driver’s side of the van. I was trying to look and act submissive; I didn’t want to fight this fucking thing, I just wanted Sarah to come round and hose him down. The dogs’ handler and the police wouldn’t be far behind. We needed to get moving.
The animal’s growl changed tone as he shook his head from side to side like a mad thing, trying to get a deeper grip. His rear legs were now on the floor, with his front pads on my chest, walking back with me like a circus performer, still attempting to join his jaws together, but through my arm. Now the black thing inside the van sparked up again as I heard more gunshots, but there was no instant, miraculous release of the grip on my arm. It wasn’t going to happen. I’d have to do it on my own.
The dog was feeling really confident now; he knew he’d got me. I bent down and, with my right hand, grabbed hold of his left rear leg. The limb twitched as if he was doing an Irish jig as he tried to kick away.
I started to pull the back leg up towards me. The dog was confused and pissed off, biting more and moving his head from left to right. I was grappling to keep hold of his leg. It was dancing away like Michael Flatley on speed.
I got a firmer grip on the spindly bit at the bottom of the dog’s leg and, with my right arm, pulled it up as hard as I could towards my chest, at the same time starting to turn. The dog yelped with surprise, and I started to pirouette, as if I was spinning a child in a game. I did three, four, five turns, and the dog started to rise with the centrifugal force, anchored by its teeth in my arm and my hand on his leg. He had to make a decision, and he did: he let go of my arm. I didn’t reciprocate by letting go of the leg; I kept hold now with both hands and swung him round and round as violently as I could. Still spinning, I managed to take two steps towards one of the concrete pillars supporting the forecourt canopy. On the third step, the dog’s head connected with the pillar. There was a thud and a weak yelp and I let go. My own momentum carried me on round for another one and a half turns. My head was spinning as I tried to get my bearings.
I found the van. Sarah was sitting in the cab, firing out of the window. I screamed at her, ‘The door! The door!’ She leaned across and opened it up. I looked down; my pistol was by the pump line. Bending down to pick it up, and keeping bent to avoid getting hit, I half jumped, half collapsed, into the driver’s seat and slammed the door closed. As I did, the black thing in the back tried to scramble over the driver’s seat.
Sarah shouted, ‘Let’s go. Come on, let’s go!’
I was still in a semi stoop over the steering wheel, trying to present a smaller target, when the police started firing back at us.
All the windows were steamed up, probably from the dog’s panting, which was good for us, because at least it hid us from the video. Just as well, as the T-shirt ploy had gone to ratshit the moment the dogs arrived on the scene.
I hit the ignition and the engine turned over, but it failed to engage. It sparked up on the second go. Sarah fired a few more rounds towards the tree line. The mutt behind me wasn’t biting, but it was making more noise than the weapon reports.
The shots that hit the van reminded me of being in a helicopter under fire; because it’s so loud inside the aircraft, you don’t know you’re being attacked until you see holes suddenly appearing in the airframe, accompanied by a dull
ping
as the rounds penetrate.
The driver was screaming his head off inside the shop, jumping up and down, but no way was he coming out until the shooting stopped. The woman was on the phone, shouting into the useless receiver, and as we rolled off the forecourt the driver started running along inside the shop, keeping up with us, his arms waving in the air as he screamed at the top of his voice. It was wasted on us. He was inside the shop and his fucking dog was making enough noise to drown the roar of a helicopter.
Ping.
Sarah was still screaming, ‘Come on, come on, come on!’ And the dog was adding his tuppence worth. He wanted out. Didn’t we all.
I turned left onto the road. There was a coffee-holder on the dash, with a half-full poly cup of coffee in it, with a cigarette butt floating on the top. As the van lurched, the whole lot went over my jeans. Then, surreally, the radio suddenly came on of its own accord. Sarah fired a few more rounds into the tree line. There was a return.
I looked in the wing mirror. The police were on the road, assuming proper firing positions. I put my foot down.
I jerked my thumb at the dog and shouted at Sarah, ‘Sort that fucking thing out!’
I turned left again and started to drive up the hill. I looked behind me and saw this big black mangy thing. Fuck knows what it was, just a wet, dank dog in the back, jumping up at the newspaper Sarah was trying to hit and distract it with, barking and yelping away at us both.
We started to take the right-hand bend in the road. The moment we were out of sight of the junction and shop I hit the brakes. I yelled, ‘Get that fucking thing out!’
‘How?’
‘Just get it out!’
She opened the door and tried to grab hold of the dog, but it was already scrabbling its way out, its claws tearing against her seat. It clambered over and fucked off. It probably hadn’t been trying to have a go at us at all, it had just been frantic to get back to its owner.