"Shit, man!" The brushscrapeslide of Ziggy's sneakers across the sandy, crumbling pavement momentarily fills my heart with an irrational terror. He's trying to run, but he can't get any traction with the worn-down soles of his shoes. I can only assume that this and nothing else is the cause of his irritation, although it gives me a terrible feeling. I have to look. I have to turn my head, as I leap onto the hood of a car to get past my hulking friend who takes up the entire sidewalk as he falters. I hear first the w-wump of my own heels on the car's steel hood, which gives more than I expect when my weight comes down on it, and then the,

"Stop, police!" The blood shoots through my veins, the accelerated beat of my heart pump, pump, pumping me forward over the car and down the street. Behind me, I have seen the two enforcers charging up to nab my so-called friend, whom I have by now left completely behind. The streets are tired and lonely as I fly down first one, and then another; they tell me that somebody does not live here, and that all the nobodies who do are fast asleep, having long ago traded in their conscious existences for various artificially-induced stupors. I run, I hear footsteps... my own or someone else's, running, faster, tripskidright, over under around... between, two.. fences, cars, glass, brick... pavement and plastered tree pulpSTOP. I have rounded one too many bends, apparently, because I now find myself face to immovable stone face with a wall that, from three inches away, seems to go on forever. The Great Wall of 2nd Street. I wouldn't be surprised, this instant, to hear that there are astronauts orbiting the Earth, marveling at the shape and size of this structure. I look up, curious as to where it ends, if, indeed, it does, but I never find out. Before my brain can register what it is my eyes have taken in, I hear the snarling behind me. It's a hollow, wet gurgling noise... A furious rolling of r's which seems an appropriate part of the horrific last rites from serial killer to victim. Everclear sadism. I try to whirl around, to pivot, to be facing my monster, but suddenly time is slow and lazy, and all I can do is flow around in a gentle, heavy turn. As my stance begins to open up toward the lurking evil that awaits my full 180, the stench hits me like a slap in the face, and almost instantly I have fallen the three inches backward and am leaning, coughing, against the Wall. The beast snarls at me, shows its dripping, rotting kanines, and all I can do is shrink further back, try to become a poster on the slimy brick. Its poisonous, rabid saliva drips and drips and drips. I stare and stare and stare. It begins to shift footing, picking up first one dirty, blood caked paw and replacing it, then another. It bears down on me, as the shock and detachment of before steps out of line, to be slowly replaced by a panicless sort of terror... the terror of knowing what is happening and of realizing one's own powerlessness -- not only in the situation at hand, but in the scheme of things. Time stands still for an instant and I am free to observe, knowing that nothing I can do could possibly save me. There is a gash on the hound's left shoulder, an open wound oozing with thick, half-dried blood and yellow pus. It has been there a long time, and it conjures up fantasies of a man being bitten by a rabid street dog and stumbling around the city, a dripping, gaping hole in his shoulder, drooling and making obsessive, though unsuccessful, attempts to swallow his own saliva. He dies in the end. Everything dies. I am familiar enough with fantasy legend to think of this creature as a hellhound and to expect it breathe out and engulf me in a pillar of flame at any second. RALPH. RALPHRALPH, it calls me. Errrrrrrr, RALPH. Its hollow, yellow eyes burn through me like heated cartoon arrows, pinning me to the brick behind. There is pain, even before the thing is upon me, snarling, ripping, cutting with jagged, unclipped nails. Flesh comes away like barbeque meat out of a 12 hour oven, and I leave two fingernails on the pavement as I try first to crawl away, and then to claw through the ground -- to China, perhaps. Don't they hunt dogs in China? Blood, so much blood. Mine, his, ours. The pain, oh bob, the pain. Like no pain before. One one one track track track track mind. Pain pain pain pain. It's mine, it's me, it's everything. I'm on my stomach now, in a half fetal position, concentrating on protecting my naked neck and not passing out. I lose two fingers. Suddenly, there is a deeper, whiter, hotter SENSATION than any so far... I remember... my poor spine..................................................................................... .................................... .......................................................... . . . . . . . . .. .. ...................................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. ... . . . . . . . .