The Hound of Henderson
by Patrick Maher

Light drizzle sheeted in from the Indian Ocean. The fourteen year old splashed through little puddles as he sped along the cycle ways. Out past Rottnest Island the pale sun was toying with the horizon deciding whether or not it had put in a full day’s work. Chancing a quick glance at his watch he knew that he had just enough time to post the letter to his older sister before the meeting with the publisher. 

He wished that daylight saving hadn’t ended so soon. Late April and early May meant he had to leave home in the twilight of evening and go back in the dark. He checked the bicycle light on his handlebars for the third time, feeling a bit silly. However, as he had said to his sister, even though he knew all the shortcuts and all the cycle ways through all the parks and empty school-grounds by heart, he still was a bit apprehensive about the strange sound of padding footsteps that ran just behind him when he came back from the first meeting.

He had written every word of the event in The Hound of Henderson. It was his first ghost story.

The meeting with the publishers seemed to go well. They hadn’t said “no” but then they hadn’t said “yes” either. The chairwoman of the panel walked him to the door. As they went outside into the great quadrangle where he had left his bike and helmet, she looked up at the darkening sky and asked, “Will you be ok?”

“Fine,” he said in as manly a voice as he could manage, which left her completely unconvinced; but she had to respect his crazy idea of saving money on bus fares so he could buy a computer. Writing stories using long hand was far too slow.

She had given him a bus timetable. “The 825 runs all the way to Fremantle,” she said, and it was only a short walk to the Children’s Literature Centre from the bus stop near the Markets. Riding a bike all the way back to Rockingham in the dark was sheer folly as far as she could see.

“For what it’s worth,” she said, leaning in a little and sounding a lot like his mother when she wanted to praise him and give him a bit of confidence. “Your story about the Hound of Henderson sounded completely real. The panel felt it was the best of the entire collection. I’m sure they will use it.” She reached out and shook his hand and told him to take care.

He smiled quietly to himself and thanked her and as he was putting his helmet on he thought to himself that fourteen was a really good age to start a career as a writer. Now he really knew exactly what he wanted to do for the rest of his life, after all he was nearly a published author. He clicked his light on and was aware of her watching him as he rode off across the quadrangle to the little iron gate that opened onto the street.

The drizzle was a little more determined now and cast yellow haloes around the street lights and gently pinged into droplets as he rode his bike across the puddles that had formed in the last hour. He hadn’t gone far when he came upon a large vehicle in the middle of the road with yellow lights flashing and the words Traffic Light Maintenance written boldly across its side.

He couldn’t see what was beyond the truck so he hopped off his bike at the kerb and carefully picked his way between the traffic, pushing his bike as he went. He got to the middle of the road just in front of the truck and he saw two policemen on the other side of the road. They spotted him at the same moment. One of them beckoned him over. Polly dodged a few more cars and made it safely to the kerb and the taller of the two cops pulled out his notebook.

“Right son, your booked.” He was going to enjoy this.

“Sorry, officer, what did I do?”

“You were about to collide with government property while recklessly in control of a moving vehicle.” A smirk spread across his face. Here was a cat with a mouse; juicy captive prey.

“But, I was walking my bike across the road. I wasn’t riding it. I don’t ride on roads.”

“Yeah. Pull the other one. I saw you riding down the road swerving from side to side causing a traffic hazard. Watched you all the way from the top of the hill.”

“Couldn’t have. I just came from a publisher’s meeting across the park at the Children’s Literature Centre. Check if you don’t believe me.”

The other policemen was now taking an interest. “You telling us a kid like you is a writer or something? What’s yer name?”

“Polly Ester,” the boy replied.

Both cops broke up laughing and the bigger one said, “I see, we’ve got us a smart aleck. For that we get to confiscate your bike. Polyester! That’s the best one I’ve heard all day.”

“No, it really is Ester. E-S-T-E-R, like the chemical stuff. My surname is Ester. And I’ve heard all the jokes about having low molecular weight and being a plastic pipe.” He was getting annoyed now and the cops were starting to see their game was going nowhere.

The second cop said, “Ok, what’s the Polly bit? That a nickname? It’s an offence to give a policeman a false name.”

He answered slowly and deliberately. The thought of losing his bike to these two clowns brought out the Irish in him. “My dad was a fan of Polly Farmer, the great aboriginal footballer and he named me after him. It’s a great name and I’m proud of it. One day I will be a famous writer and then you will see my name in print. In case you don’t know it’s spelled P-o-l-l-y. If you think that’s a joke, my sister’s name is Esther. She gets more pain than me. That’s what grown-ups like you two do to kids.”

Suddenly the cops’ resolve melted away. They had picked the wrong kid to harass. They told him to get on his way and turn his light on. He looked over and realised his bicycle lamp had failed. He thanked them and walked off making out he was turning on the light. “Damn,” he thought. “How did that happen?”

He cautiously put half a kilometre between him and the two policemen walking under the shop awnings out of the rain. Then when he felt it was safe he hopped on his bike and struck out south toward Rockingham. The temperature had dropped and the wind started to pick up coming at him off the ocean from the Southwest. Cold, damp darkness wrapped around him and every turn of the pedals was a test of strength and willpower. He had done this before. He could do it again. That new computer was within his grasp. He’d read somewhere that if you wanted to succeed you just have to stick at it.

He was determined to succeed.

He located the cycle paths down past Coogee and made pretty good time until he reached the Henderson Industrial area where they build boats. All the premises were guarded by huge electrical fences and enormous Dobermans, Alsatians, Rottweilers and Giant Neapolitan Mastiffs with their skin hanging all over their ugly faces like Zombie skin. He hated dogs and they hated him. But, he had to go through Henderson to get home. That was that. They were all locked behind security fences. He had looked up Giant Neapolitan Mastiffs on the internet at school and it had said that the dog’s head was the largest part of its body and its black colour made it the most frightening of all dogs in the day and made it almost impossible to see at night.

Impossible that is until you happen on to one in the dark. The internet said that Mastiffs were a giant breed of really messy eaters and they had enormous strength.

“Messy eaters with enormous strength,” kept running through his mind and the pain in his legs grew as paths and parkways slipped away under his wheels. He was making good time in spite of the weather and the darkness. His faulty light turned on and off with every bump of the footpath. The icy drizzle had turned to light persistent rain.

Then he heard it!

The loping, padding sound was tracking him. Following about three or four metres behind him.

He figured it had to be his writer’s imagination. If it was a real dog it had to breath and he couldn’t hear any breathing, just a steady sound of something very large padding along somewhere in the dark behind him. 

Close to exhaustion, he pumped harder and harder and went faster and faster. He was drawing closer to Cockburn Road and the street lights. He chanced a hurried glance behind him in the dark and he could just make out the shape of something about the size of a Shetland pony cantering along behind him. It was the biggest Giant Neapolitan Mastiff he had ever seen in his life and it was a messy eater. Slobber and drool and bits of left-over meat congealed around its enormous mouth.  It was getting closer by the second.    

Why hadn’t the cops confiscated his bike? He could have got the 825 bus. They ran through Henderson. He would have been safe and dry and warm on the 825 bus.   

His faulty bike light flashed off and when it flashed back on a huge rock that had never been there before magically jumped up from the path. Polly crashed into the rock with a resounding thud. He lay on his back on the ground. His bike light was shining directly in front of him.

Then suddenly, all he could see was a massive mouth opening and taking hold of his arm. The iron teeth clamped down but he felt nothing. His hand grasped the dog’s slimy tongue and it slipped away. Then he desperately tried to grasp at its ears. Nothing! He grabbed at its tail and only felt air, but its breath was real enough and smelled like a week old rubbish bin full of rotting fish heads and sticky drool sprayed him in the face. Just when he thought he would suffocate he kicked out and his boot connected with the dog’s black rubbery snout. That felt real! There was dog snot on his boot. He quickly wriggled out from under its massive belly and ran like hell toward the lights on Cockburn Road. He kept looking back trying to figure out if the monster that was chasing him was real or not.

His sister stood frozen to the spot when she opened the letter next morning. The letter began, “Dear Esther, I feel I can trust you. People think you’re crazy if you tell them you can see ghosts, but I’m sure I saw a ghost last time I came back from Fremantle. It’s a huge ugly dog and it scares the living daylights out of me. You know how I hate dogs. It was in the big park near Henderson. Some of the kids at school called it the Hound of Henderson. I know it’s after me. I have to go through the park again tonight because I can’t ride my bike on the main road. So if you are reading this it is because I could not ring you and explain it all and I’m probably dead. Love always, Polly.”

The 825 still runs that route every night except Sunday. The driver still flinches at the same spot where that crazy kid followed by the big ugly dog burst out onto the road in front of him.

There have been reports from drivers who have seen a monster dog sitting at the road side watching as the 825 goes by, just watching. The drivers can’t see the fourteen year old boy who sits on the window seat at the back of the bus writing stories, safe and dry and warm. The dog can…