The Mistery of Belicena Villca
Discouraged I leaned against the gate , trying to take a determination . The most reasonable thing would be to leave and return during the day , but it was holding me down the assumption that there were peons or perhaps relatives of Uncle Kurt , for whom my presence would be very strange . There remained the possibility of persisting in the night search , entering the farm despite the padlock ; as long as that was really my uncle ' s house ...
I stood undecided , hugging the mesh of the gate , sharpening the gaze towards the driveway , when I seemed to see briefly the glow of a light . It was only a second , but enough for the hope of getting some result that night .
I figured that the House must be quite far away , which is why the light didn ' t reach the gate , intercepted , perhaps , by trees or other obstacles . I didn ' t think about it anymore and climbed up the mesh next to the gate . Except for the setback of a portion of my " Safari " jacket that was left on the barbed wire , that crowned the mesh frame , I was able to enter without problems . A few seconds after , I calmly moved along the inner path , following with the flashlight the marked vehicle tracks that it showed . I had walked about a hundred yards , when the path turned sharply to the right and entered a group of leafy trees . As soon as I turned this curve , I sighted about thirty or forty meters an alpinetype two-story house , with a roof of half-round tiles whose color contrasted with the white of the walls and the black bars of windows and balconies . Against the darkness of the night it was lying ghostly with no apparent lights on .
This vision and the silence only broken by the buzzing of the coyuyos ( giant cicadas ), contributed to demoralize me . I stopped for a moment and gazed at the immense mass of the house , screened by the branches of some giant willows that hammocked to the beat of a gentle breeze . I had inexplicable wishes to run and leave that unreal scenario , but I quickly recovered and advanced with great strides with the intention of knocking on the door to require the presence of Uncle Kurt or Cerino Sanguedolce . It was then that I heard it . I was a few meters from the house when I felt it coming from my back , to the right , a familiar sound ... It was a high-pitched groan . A moan that can only be recognized immediately by those who have had experience in breeding dogs . Well , that groan is the expression of the desire to attack that the dog manifests , when the owner prevents him from doing so .
I remembered that Mom had brought a little cat to the farm and , to prevent Canuto from attacking him , she decided to make him smell it while she challenged him with strong voices and forbade him to touch it . Then Canuto trembled , struggling between the instinct to kill and the obedience he owed to his masters , and he made deceptive groans that did not express pain but the contained desire to attack . This type of groan was the one that had sounded behind my back . Dogs ! – I thought alarmed – how did I not notice the lack of dogs ? God , what a fool ! All farms have dogs . But ... why weren ' t they barking ? Why hadn ' t they barked ?
I turned around slowly . What I saw caused me a sudden terror , paralyzing me where I was . Two pairs of green eyes flashed in the gloom a few steps from me . They were animal eyes , of dogs perhaps ; but I think that my panic was caused by becoming aware of two things ; one , the abnormal size of those beasts , and another , their also abnormal caution . Because it was inconceivable that I could have traveled so much through the farm without the animals emitting a bark and instead following me silently , almost crawling , until they were so close to me that I could touch them with the tip of the foot .
One of the beasts groaned again with the obvious desire to jump on me . At the moment when I was assailed by the certainty that their owner shouldn ' t be far away , a modulated whistle of undoubted human origin sounded . I did not manage to turn this time because the beasts , hearing the whistle , acted as if moved by a spring and with a great leap they threw themselves on their prey .
Despite being almost paralyzed with horror , the instinct for self-preservation and several years of Karate , put me on my guard . But only to confirm that those beasts enjoyed a particular training because , instead of giving teeth and looking for the neck like fighting dogs do , these seemed to know exactly what to do : each one went to an arm and sunk their teeth . I felt the lacerated flesh and saw that the beasts closed their jaws without intentions of releasing . The impact of the attack made me stumble as both dogs seemed to weigh more than my 90 kg ; a second later I fell backwards while I felt the bone of my left arm crack in the mouth of the gigantic dog . I thought , as I fell , of various tactics to get away from the dogs : I would roll , kick their testicles , bite ,.... --Crack-- sounded the blow to my skull and everything went dark .
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