Until The Very End
“Quit it Molly…I’m trying to sleep” my boy grumbles, tugging his blanket over his head. I stop my growls, but I don’t take my eyes off it.
It lingers there, looming in the corner nearest my boy’s bed. Its hungry eyes never move from him.
Every night is the same. My boy gets in his pyjamas, brushes his teeth, and crawls into his bed. It waits and watches. If I leave my boy’s side, even for a second, I know it’ll do something horrible. I just know it. I feel it.
Will it tear the meat from his bones? The second I look away, will it drive its claws into his gut, tearing the sweet tender organs from his fragile little body? It hurts to think of the things this beast could do to my boy if I were to let my guard down.
I keep it away. My teeth are a silent promise of the violence that I will rain upon it if it dares to touch a hair on his head. I don’t know exactly what it wants but it smells… wrong.
My boy’s hand rubs my ears as he drifts off to sleep. I will stay awake, ever vigilant, for him. Always.
***
He grows, so slowly. My litter mates and I found independence after a few weeks, but my boy is dependent on me and the woman for years. Every day, I walk with him to the large yellow beast, spewing dark foul smelling smoke and filled with other boys and girls. Every morning, he pats my head, tells me to be a good girl, and departs into the safety of the daylight.
That is when I sleep, curled up on the rug, conserving my energy for my nightly vigil.
It only comes in the silence of the night.
It moves silently, sliding across the floor like a particularly venomous snake. It grins, and flashes dozens of teeth crowded together like shards of shattered glass, just as sharp. A dribble of saliva slides down its milk-white skin as it contemplates my boy.
My bark crashes through the silence. I must warn him. I cannot let this monster get to him. I am his guardian. His loyal protector. He groans and rolls, “Shhhh…Molly….” he yawns.
The creature glides backwards into the corner, grimacing in frustration at my interruption.
I will bark every night. It will never get my boy.
I will protect him until the very end.
***
The nights fly by. My boy continues to grow taller, his voice dropping deeper. Still, every night I am his sentinel, a guardian against the shadows that wait for him.
As he mumbles in his sleep, its pale face is ageless and patient, waiting to consume him like a cat waits for a mouse.
I am not as fast as I once was, and my hips ache in the cold and the wet. That won’t stop me. My teeth are still sharp, and my bark is still strong. I will drag that pale monster into the fires of hell with me before I let it touch my boy.
It leers at me, anger evident in the dark pool of its eyes. It is hungry and it wants him, but it won’t cross me. It knows that I will lay down my life to protect my boy. Forever.
***
The stairs to my boy’s room are getting more and more difficult to climb. My hips ache constantly, a sharp pain cutting through me at every move. My muzzle is grey and I am slow, so slow now.
I sleep longer and longer throughout the day, my nightly ritual is becoming more and more difficult. I am so afraid. I know I cannot stay much longer, but my boy is not yet a man. Who will protect him from this demon and its razor teeth when I am gone?
I picture it all so clearly. His eyes wide with terror, his screams turning into gurgles as he expires. I can almost smell the blood on the air as the thing devours my boy, my whole world.
These thoughts make me sit up at attention. I won’t allow it. I sit up, ignoring the dull throb of my hips and my exhaustion.
I let a low warning growl slip from my throat, warning it. I am not gone and I will not be distracted. I will stop it. I will protect my boy.
***
Tangled in his sheets, sweating and shaking with fear, tears sliding down his cheeks, Noah desperately wishes the barking would stop. In all his twelve years, he has never felt such raw terror.
He’d found Molly curled up on the end of his bed, having crossed that rainbow bridge peacefully, eight months ago. It had broken his heart, but his mom had told him it would happen sooner rather than later. She was eleven years old and had started to struggle to walk. Still, he hadn’t been ready, maybe you were never ready for your best friend to leave you. He missed her terribly. Until he went to bed.
Every night since they had buried her in the backyard, he had been startled awake by echoed barks. Snarls and growls would erupt from the dark of his bedroom. He had never known real fear before then.
Surely it was Molly, he thought, but why was she doing this? Why was she lingering here and scaring him? His sweet, even tempered Molly sounded so angry, so threatening.
He would clutch his blanket between pale knuckles, silently crying with his head shoved into the pillow. Praying for the noises to stop, praying for Molly to move on, to let him sleep.
***
She had been awakened in the night, a shining rainbow light ahead of her, she’d known it was time. She refused. She couldn’t go. That creature was slobbering and staring at her boy, its glee obvious. It had been patient and at last, he was alone, vulnerable.
It had underestimated her love. Molly stood where she had stood for the last hundreds of nights, at the foot of her boy’s bed, warning it to stay away, protecting him. Until the very end and beyond.