Two Dogs & Other Tales

Two Dogs

&

Other Tales

By

PAUL S. HUGGINS

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Paul S. Huggins

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

DEDICATION

To Justine, Rachel and Alyssa, my ever suffering family.

I love you.

CONTENTS

1 TWO DOGS

2 DRAKES BLITZ

3 AFFECTED INSIDE

4 THE DARE

5 THE LAST BLOODHUNTER

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Diana Norman, my own personal editor.

Thanks also to Beeston’s Coaches, Hadleigh, whose journeys on the bus made most of the stories available so quickly.

1 TWO DOGS

ONE

The cavernous room inside the mid-town solicitor’s office was a bustle of activity. The walls were panelled with mahogany wood that reached up to a highly decorated stucco ceiling. In a prominent position at the far end sat a large antique desk of similar colour and style. Several rows of heavy wooden seats were facing the desk. The carpet was a plush, but hard wearing, buff weave. The entire room was co-ordinated. In complete contrast to the people seated on the chairs. All manner of Sunday best was on display. Men wore well-made suits of varying styles and the women were in fine dresses of various colours some even wearing subtle hats.

There was just one exception. Jake really couldn’t be bothered to be there, he only made an appearance because it was probably one of the last times he would hear about his grandmother, and he had loved her. He was a stark contrast to the smart colourful people around him. His slim legs were encased in tight well-worn denims; the trainers he wore were filthy and scuffed all around. His hair was unwashed and very untidy. He did manage to have a shave that morning, which was the total of his efforts to smarten up.

Two solicitors breezed into the room and took up their positions behind the desk. Now the focal point had become them, a hush fell over the room.

They introduced themselves as agents for Luck and Brewster Solicitors, and their task on that particular day was to execute the will of Mrs Genevieve Hatcher.

Genevieve had been Jake’s grandmother. She had been a strange old woman but the only member of his family left that was able to look after both him and his sister following the sudden death of their parents. The children had been so young they barely remembered their parents anymore. Grandmother had loved him and his sister dearly and had the means and ability to look after them. They had never known their grandfather; he had passed away long before their birth. Despite her love of all things in nature, Genevieve had not pushed her own strange beliefs onto them. She had taught them to use their own inner power to make their way in the world. Lessons which Jake had long forgotten, his sister on the other hand had flourished.

The house had been a prominent one, set back from the road within a substantial orchard. They had wonderful summers there as children. When Jake hit his teens, he was always the renegade. Like all teenagers he had thought he knew better and went out to make his fortune, only to fail and fall into a life of crime and excess.

He knew none of the people sitting in that room, apart from one, his sister Samantha.

The solicitors rifled through numerous names he did not recognise. The people nodded solemnly and accepted the items they had been left. His sister took the lions share, including property and land.

And to my grandson Jake Hatcher I bequeath my beloved pair of porcelain dogs, if he looks after them they will protect him and bring him good fortune. The solicitor announced.

Jake sat in an open defiant manner. He was slouched back with his legs spread out in front of him and his arms tightly crossed over his blouson hoody. He clicked his tongue with disgust at how little his supposed loving grandmother had left him. As always his prissy little sister, who had listened devoutly to their grandmother and succeeded in life, got the lot.

Jake had been a serious disappointment to his family from day one. It was a complicated birth and his mother had always held it against him, blaming him for destroying her uterus. It got worse after his sister came along, whereas Jake could never do right, Samantha could never do wrong. At the age of eight, he was left to his own devices. He became a small lodger in his own family home. Jake had not shed a tear when his moaning mother and shadow of a father had died so suddenly.

Samantha had graduated University with honours. She had trained hard and secured a good job in finance, he never worked anywhere for more than a few weeks. Jake flunked out of University preferring to hang about smoking, drinking and occasionally doing drugs. She ate healthily and was in the gym early every other morning. Jake had not seen a morning for years.

The only person who he could always rely on was his gran. Although he started to think his admiration had been misplaced, she could have changed his life with even half of the money she had. What in god’s name was he to do with two china dogs; he lived in a mouldy damp bedsit.

They looked in place when sitting next to his grandmothers’ fireplace, albeit out of place. She had very little in the way of decorative pieces; all her possessions usually had a purpose. Most of them were books. He remembered the dogs well they had always been there.

He glanced to the side to see his sister smiling and looking down her nose at him, where had the love gone, they had been inseparable for a while after their parents had died, despite their differences. He shook his head in disgust. He noisily pushed the chair back, stood up and slouching forward towards the large mahogany desk he took the proffered large shoebox.

He turned around and headed past the disapproving audience including his gloating sibling and onward towards the large double doors, freedom from the stuffy interior was just beyond. He did not mean to be so brash and abrupt. He had spent all of his adult life on the street. It had become his reaction to any disagreement. Bravado was his nervous response, and one of regret.

TWO

The street outside the offices was a bustling chaotic melee; rarely did he stray into this business district part of town, paranoia was a side effect of his drug use and as such, he avoided crowds. Despite it being so close to his home, what need did he have for bankers or marketing executives? Solicitors would be handy, although he normally dealt with the court appointed variety.

He was still upset he had expected so much more from his gran. She had always been so nice to him and in return, he always gave her the respect that she deserved.

After a twenty-minute walk, he arrived home, if that was what you call it. Forty years earlier, it would have been a very middle class abode. Unfortunately, time had not been kind. The paint was peeling on all the outside woodwork and the gutters were blocked up and overflowing with many years’ worth of decomposed leaves. All the windows were grubby with mildew on the inside and lichen on the outside.

The conversion of the building into individual bedsits had happened a few years earlier, although that had only comprised of putting locks on all the room doors and installing sinks in every room. Jake resided in the downstairs back room. At one time, it would have been the dining room of the household.

As usual, the front door was standing ajar. It looked as if it had been broken down yet again. It could have been a junkie resident forgetting his keys or a police raid. Either had happened numerous times in the past.

On a plus note, it was cheap. It barely cost him the price of a carton of cigarettes a week to live there.

He pushed through and gave a disgruntled sniff at the leaves and rubbish that had gathered in the hallway. When his footfalls were not crunching, they were thumping on the hollow floorboards through the threadbare carpet. Decades earlier, it had been the immaculate carpet runner in a family home, probably handmade and expensive. Now it was down to a few rotting threads.

He put the cardboard box containing the ornaments on the floor while he searched his inside pocket for his key. He plucked his key out and leant on the grubby doorframe as he inserted it in the lock and twisted, with a click he pushed open the door whisked up the box and entered. He slammed the door shut with a backward kick.

The room was much the same as he left it about three hours earlier. The unmade bed with stained duvet, the grease mark of where his head lays on the pillow was an almost a permanent fixture. From the top of the two external walls mildew crept down from the ceiling for almost a foot which gave it a damp musty smell. An old tube type television with manual clunky buttons sat on a small coffee table at the end of the bed.

The sink that doubled as washbasin and kitchen sink had edges of plates poking out of the dirty water like icebergs. He kicked away a couple of empty pizza boxes and takeaway cartons as he sat on the bed placing the box beside him.

There was a knock at the door, Jake sighed.

What now? He said exaggeratedly as he pushed himself up to answer it. He opened the door to find Errol, his neighbour from the room above.

He was of similar age to Jake but leaner and had a gaunt face, the sunken dark eyes showing a lifetime of drug misuse and abuse.

Errol pushed passed into the room saying Hey bro, how you doing?

What the fuck do you want? Jake said angrily.

Just being neighbourly, I came to say hi. He said, his eyes tracking around the room, taking in everything, trying to spot anything