How Many Dogs Have Human Faces?
By atfirstdawn

(C) Keira Morrison/atfirstdawn 2014


My younger brother had always been odd; as a baby he'd sleep with his eyes open, as a toddler he'd laugh during a thunderstorm and as an eight year old child he'd see things that weren't there...

I used to hate travelling with him. We, my father, my mother, myself and my brother lived on the rural coast between two cities, if we needed anything we had to drive for miles along coastal roads and motorways. My father, never one to leave anyone out, would always make a day of it, a drive into town would always be a family day out, we'd pack our lunches with plenty of water and snacks for the trip there and back.
Before my brother was born I'd always be able to lose myself in the scenery, I'd look out of the car window towards the glistening ocean and when the ocean fell out of sight I'd turn my attention to the rolling green meadows that would pass us by before the world turned grey with endless asphalt motorways and towering concrete buildings...

With my brother though, things were different.

It was something I noticed immediately, and it sounds silly, but whenever we traveled together, he'd look out of the backseat window and it'd be as if he could see something that wasn't there. His head would always follow something, as if he had caught sight of something that was travelling alongside us, faster than we were moving. With a twitch of his head, from left to right as he peered out of the window of the car, he'd watch as something would quickly pass us by.

He'd never say anything, he'd just watch and wait. Sometimes his head never twitched, and when it didn't he'd become despondent and distant for the rest of the day.

For me, his behaviour was unnerving. He was so quiet, so focused on seeing whatever it was that'd pass us by on the way to the city that I'd not be able to take my eyes off him. I could no longer look out towards the ocean or stare out over the rolling meadows that'd pass us by because I was so intrigued and uneasy. It quickly came to the point where I'd spend the entire trip just staring at him, watching him watching through the window while he waited. And whenever his head did twitch I'd feel a pang of worry, of shock and an air of danger. I'd wait for the twitch of his head and quickly look out of his window and through the windshield between my parents and out into the distance in front of us in a desperate search to see what he could see.

I never saw anything.

I'd often ask him what he was looking out for, or, after his head had twitched, I'd ask him what he saw. He'd never answer, but it wasn't that he didn't have one, it was that he was always so invested that he'd never hear me ask. My mother began to make a joke out of it as the months and years passed by. Whenever I would ask my brother what he saw or what he was looking out for, my mother would always laugh and point out that he was too caught up in the world to hear me.

I often wondered if she was unnerved by him too...

There was one day though, when everything changed, I was only twelve years old. We were on our way to town and he, like always, was staring out through the window, waiting. As always, my attention was entirely focused on him, watching him watching for something that couldn't be seen. Suddenly, his head twitched, by this point I had given up asking him what he could see and I'd also given up with trying to see it with my own eyes. After his head had twitched and my heart had skipped a beat, my brother tore his attention away from the window and sat back, which was something he never did.

I watched him stare a hole into the driver's seat with an expression of deep thought and increasing confusion across his face... eventually, he spoke.

"Mummy, how many dogs have human faces?"

I felt an icy hand grip my heart upon hearing his question. As ludicrous as it was, as impossible as it was, I suddenly knew what he had been watching all those years. In my mind I imagined it; a dog running down the motorway, faster than any moving car, a dog with a human face... I felt my eyes tear up at the idea of such a surreal being, I was scared, I didn't know what to do. I had watched my brother for years watch something from outside of the car window, and his question had revealed to me what it had been, what he had been watching all of those years. He'd been watching something that couldn't exist, something that shouldn't exist... but something that did.

My parents didn't know how to respond, there was a silence between us all; my father and my mother who exchanged a quick confused glance to one another, my brother who patiently waited for the answer to his question, and myself who was too scared to speak.

"Don't be silly darling, dogs don't have human faces." replied my mother in a tone that was hard for me to define.

Even though her words were ones spoken with logic, with fact and certainty, I knew she was wrong. She had never seen it, not once had her head ever twitched, not once had she seen something out of the corner of her eye. She couldn't know for sure...  how could she?

For the rest of that day I was as despondent and as distant as I had known my younger brother to be. I was lost in thought, lost in fear, I was challenging everything I knew, every fact that I once thought a certainty, everything that I thought existed, everything I thought that was possible in this world now made little sense to me.
Despite my parents' best attempts at cheering me up with ice cream and toys, I just couldn't bring myself to accept the world as I now knew it to be; a one with dogs with human faces which ran faster than cars on motorways...

For hours as we walked through the city together, and as we did my mind conjured images as to what a dog with a human face might look like. Would it still have a black dog nose? Would it be more of a human head than a face? Would it be furry? Would it be able to talk?

The images in my head became increasingly vivid, increasingly surreal and increasingly frightening and it wasn't until my mind had settled on an image vivid enough, surreal enough and frightening enough that I heard my mother scream...

She was running about in circles, looking through the crowd of the city, looking across the nearby road, glancing into shop windows while shouting my brother's name. He'd been separated from us in the crowd. Endless minutes turned into unbearable hours as my parents searched the city for my eight year old brother.

It wasn't until another scream tore over the crowd that we found him. A teenage girl, only a few years older than myself had found something in an alleyway. She was crying, she was unable to talk because whatever she had seen had frightened her so much. All she could do was point into the near distance with a shaky finger.

I remember staring up at the girl, she was tall for her age. She was crying so hard that in my mind only one thing could cause such distress; a dog with a human face.

Lost in panic my father lead my mother and I into the alley and around its tight corner. That's when we saw it.

We saw the body of my younger brother lying on his back in a pool of blood with his head facing away from us. His clothes were torn and the skin on his legs and arms had been ripped open.

With a few heartbroken steps my father walked towards the body of my brother. The clothes on the body matched with what my brother had been wearing, the body was the same height, it was definitely him, but with his head facing away from us my father had wanted to be certain. With a caring and gentle hand my father turned my brother's head to face us. My father screamed and my mother fainted.

I couldn't do anything but stare, again I was lost in fear, a fear more real than before. My brother's head had no face.

His nose, his mouth, his eyes and his ears were all gone, replaced by black holes, torn flesh and the white of his skull...





Months later and it was assumed by the police that my brother had been the victim of a rabid dog attack. Apparently a breeder in the city had released his dogs just days before our visit. The breeder had had a nervous breakdown over the death of his wife, as such the neglected dogs had become vicious, hungry and rabid. It had been one of these dogs that had seemingly attacked and killed my brother.

To the police and to my psychiatrist I accepted the story as truth even though I knew what had really happened...

We never went back to that city, instead my father and mother would always agree on going to the second city, the one just a little further away. It'd cost more in petrol but it'd save on the heartache and bad memories.

It was odd not travelling with my brother, after so many years of watching him it felt odd looking out at the scenery again.

We went as a family to the second city every other week. It was as if driving further away from where my brother had been killed made my parents feel more at peace. I liked travelling further away too, not because it was as if I was leaving the pain behind, but because I could see him again and know that he was okay...

Sometimes my mother asks me what I'm looking at outside of the window, she asks me what I saw when my head twitches slightly when I follow something that passes us by faster than we're moving. I think, in an odd way, it comforts her to be able to ask me those questions. I never answer her though, and I know she prefers it that way.

I won't ever tell her what I can see. I won't ever tell her that I can see a dog with a human face pass us by whenever we go to town. I won't ever tell her that my brother is always there with us, running beside us, faster than we're moving. I won't ever tell her that I've found the dog that took my brother's face...