The large mutant looking hounds glanced back to me from the direction of the distant roar and their snarls of interest resumed. I had no choice. I pulled the trigger.
At least I would've pulled the trigger if I hadn't had to duck out of the way as one of the hounds from the side lunged for me. In the process of evading the snapping jaws I stumbled and fell. The gun went off.
The percussion of the shot was loud and the hounds instead of diving in for a bite shied off a bit from me. I stumbled back up to my feet clutching the pistol. I bit my lip hard in anxiety. I'd lost my glasses!
I slowly twisted about trying to focus on the blurry shapes that circled around me. I couldn't really discern the bodies of the hounds clear enough to get a shot or I would've taken it.
They were getting braver again and I saw a fast-moving blur off to my right and I fired the pistol. I missed it, but at least the hound broke off from the attack.
I only had four bullets left and I couldn't see anything!
I'd never been so helpless in my life since the time as a kid when my uncle had extinguished his cigarettes on me, if I hadn't pleased him well enough.
My uncle had been a piece of living crud. So had my two cousins, who used to beat Koke up, when he stood up for me and asked for more food, because we were hardly ever given any.
My uncle had always sneered at our request for food and thrown us out of the house for a few days. It had been one of those times when we'd been thrown out that we were picked up and taken to the orphanage.
We'd been seven at the time and for as long as I lived, which wouldn't be much longer, I would never forget the missionary who had placed a bowl of rice in my hands and asked for nothing in return. Up to that point I'd had a picture of what men were like.
They were loud, bad tempered and liked to be pleasured. The missionary and his wife had completely altered what I knew of life.
Sheltered in the city I'd forgotten what it was like to be without security once again. Without a safety net of protection there was very little separating the me of the present from the girl of the past.
One word came to my lips, "Colt?"
He wasn't my uncle. He'd made two beds, when he could have done anything that he'd wanted to me.