In trade for the fun Bifrost writing prompt, @yourheartonfire had a great one for me:
The local animal rescue gets a report of three stray dogs trapped in a construction site. But when they get there they find a single animal: Cerebus, the three headed hound of Hades.
Here we go; 1324 words!
~~~
When Sherry and Lou arrived in the animal control van, all they’d been told was that there had been a report of three dogs trapped at the construction site behind one of the tackier casinos. The place was Greek god themed, with an emphasis on Zeus, a terrible idea as far as Sherry was concerned. She was explaining this to Lou for the second time when they pulled in to park.
“Zeus is the reason for half the problems in Greek mythology,” she said, undoing her seatbelt. “Couldn’t keep it in his pants, wouldn’t take no for an answer, and terrible judgement. It’s amazing there’s no legend of Hera finally murdering him and taking over the pantheon.”
Lou nodded as he pocketed the keys. “That wouldn’t even be out of place. Didn’t he kill his own dad?”
“I thought so too, but it sounds like he just imprisoned him.” Sherry opened the door and hopped out. “After a bloody revolution, of course. Zeus has two approaches to problem-solving: give it a good stabbing, or give it a good stabbing, if you know what I mean.”
They chuckled over that while they grabbed catch-poles and headed in the direction of voices. This place was pretty empty as casino property went. The guard at the gate was the only person they’d seen yet among the various stones, boards, and heavy machinery.
“Hello?” Sherry called. “Animal control!”
Exclamations and scrambling sounded from behind a stack of concrete blocks, and three men appeared. They were wearing hard hats and panicked expressions. The tall one hung back to keep an eye on something out of sight. The oldest one stepped forward to greet them.
“Hey, thanks for coming,” he said, speaking quickly. “I’m Ted. These are Dorian and Kyle. Did you bring any tranquilizer darts with you?”
“Are the dogs suffering?” Sherry demanded, “Or dangerous?”
Ted got as far as “D—” before the most godawful bellowing filled the air. It could have come from a dog, if the dog was built like a tank and half that size. The three construction workers flinched.
The animal control experts just stared. “Is that one of them?” Sherry asked, pointing in the direction of the noise.
Ted nodded.
The lookout, Kyle, announced, “It’s still in there, but the block is tipping. I think he’s gonna push his way out.” He edged to the side, hiding as much of his body as possible from whatever was around the corner.
“How big are we talking?” Sherry asked.
“Are all three of them that size?” Lou said at the same time.
Ted shook his head. “One dog, three heads,” he said. “I only said three dogs because the person on the phone wouldn’t have believed me if I said a monster.”
“Conjoined twins aren’t monsters,” Sherry said reflexively. Another roar shook the air. “I’ve never heard of a three-headed dog surviving past infancy, much less something big and strong.” She moved to look around the corner.
A large pipe lay bracketed by concrete blocks, which had clearly been set there by the crane nearby. The block at one end was indeed wobbling like something was pushing from inside the pipe.
“You know that prank calls come with a fine, right?” Sherry asked, glancing back at Ted. “If that’s some of your buddies in there, no one’s going to be laughing.”
Ted stepped back at a renewed surge of deep-voiced barking. “No prank. You’ll see in a second, I think. Got those darts handy?”
Before Sherry could answer, a thunderous crack sounded and everyone jumped. She looked back to see the pipe crumble as something that truly deserved the name monster fought its way out.
It was huge, black, and just as three-headed as promised. Long-necked and serpentine, and Sherry wasn’t imagining the red glow in its eyes. A thin tail lashed behind it, more snakelike than any dog Sherry knew. The central head lifted in a howl. The other two joined in. Unearthly and primal, the sound made Sherry’s knees weaken in a way they never did.
Someone was talking. Ted’s voice.
“We lured it in there with food, then dropped the last block behind it,” he said. “It just appeared out of the dig site, where the casino’s excavating for their Hades wing.”
Sherry’s head whipped around. “A three-headed dog appeared in the Hades wing? Are you kidding me?”
“No, really! It just walked out of the hole, the one with the stones from the real Greek temple!”
Sherry waved her arms, nearly hitting Lou with the catch-pole. “Did it occur to anyone that you’ve somehow called up Cerberus into the heart of Las Vegas??”
It hadn’t. The three men shuffled a bit, glancing nervously back to where Cerberus was currently sniffing around for more food. “We were busy throwing our lunches at it so it didn’t eat us,” Ted said.
“Okay, okay, let’s think this through,” Sherry said with a look at Lou. “He’s not trapped, he’s not hurt, and he might actually know the way home. We should see if we can lure him back into that hole. Where can we get lots of meat quickly?”
Five minutes later, the hotel buffet was significantly emptier, and someone would be coming for answers soon. But that was a problem for later. Sherry and Ted coordinated the operation: Sherry tossed hamburger patties with Lou while the construction workers laid a trail toward the portal to hell. It was as good a plan as any.
“Peegain speeti,” Lou recited, mispronouncing the phrase from his phone’s translator. Sherry hoped that it sounded at least something like “go home.”
Thankfully — oh so thankfully — Cerberus played along. Despite the hellfire eyes and the jaws that could snap any of them into pieces, the giant hound behaved like a dog. A hungry one.
Sherry ran out of hamburger patties and moved on to hot dogs, skipping backward while the three heads squabbled over which got which piece. Lou was throwing handfuls of taco meat and bacon bits. Cerberus ate that too.
He followed them to the entrance of the dig site, which the trio had hurriedly vacated. A trail of meatloaf chunks and ribeye steak led into the depths. With his three heads vacuuming the ground and his tail waving happily, Cerberus disappeared into the hole.
Sherry did a headcount. She found all present, and two filming the scene.
“Really, Lou?” Sherry asked.
“No one will believe us otherwise,” he replied levelly, phone still trained on the hole. “And if this is how I die today, then I want there to be a record of it.”
“Fair enough.” Sherry wiped her hands on her pants and stepped forward, listening hard. “I think he’s still eating,” she said.
Then the chewing stopped. Sherry held her breath. She could just picture the heads sniffing around for anything they’d missed. Would they turn back towards the sunlight, or return home? Was half the buffet enough?
Something rumbled: a grinding sound like rocks moving. Silence. Then grinding again, followed by a thud. Sherry had seen enough movies to interpret that as a magical door opening and closing. She went limp with relief.
“I think he’s gone!” she announced. The others cheered and congratulated each other. “Who wants to go down and check?” she continued. “Not it.”
There was a hearty round of disagreement.
Ted laughed. “I heard that door shut. I’ll look if you want to be the one to explain to the casino owners why they should fill this basement with cement, and ship the stones back to Greece.”
“Ooh, good point,” Sherry said.
Lou was reviewing his footage. “You know there’s a strong chance they’ll try to lure him back again so they can sell tickets, right?” he asked.
Sherry looked over at the broken pipe, whose scattered fragments held deep clawmarks. “If they do,” she announced, “I’m calling out sick that day.”
