Evan rounded the table, hearing a chair flip over with his passage, but it sounded dim and distant as he pressed his face against the window like a child peering into an exhibit at a zoo. The dog looked like a golden lab, its fur almost orange in the afternoon light. Its head drooped below its shoulders as it moved, its concentration held on the edge of the woods. Its hips swayed back and forth, the bleeding nubs twitching with effort to move legs that were no longer there.
“Holy shit,” Evan gasped, his breath fogging up the window and obscuring his view.
He wiped the moisture away, leaving a streaky haze at eye level. The dog stilted its way over a hump in the lawn and then, after one baleful look at the house, slid itself behind a large pine tree.
“What are you looking at?”
He jerked, his stomach constricted so he couldn’t get out the moan that ached to be free of his lungs.
“Dog,” he said, his mouth forming the word without conscious effort.
“What?” Selena asked, coming to his side.
“There’s a dog outside. Shit, it needs help, it’s injured.”
Evan moved around Selena, to the counter, where he knew more towels lay neatly tucked inside the lowermost drawer. He pulled three or four out and dashed through the living room to the outside door, not bothering with his shoes before plunging outside.
The air was warmer than earlier, and the sun looked too bright in the now-cloudless sky. A small stick cracked under his foot as he ran around the side of the house, but other than that he heard no sound. How the hell had a dog gotten onto the island, much less one without rear legs? A collage of images including spinning boat propellers and glistening bone shot through his mind. Evan ran to where the dog had vanished from view, trying to decide what action to take when he found the poor creature. Could he stanch the flow enough to get the animal across the water and into town? Was there a veterinarian in Mill River that would be open now?
An oily patch of blood glistened on several blades of grass, and the sight made his scalp pull tight, halting all other thoughts. He slowed his pace and traced the two drag marks with his eyes. The faint sound of the house door swinging shut echoed across the yard. He walked in a straight line, stepping around a few globs of coagulated blood, all the while searching the trees ahead for the golden fur he knew couldn’t be too far away. The tracks led down through the quiet trees, never deviating left or right. His throat tightened against the thick smell of blood. There was a lot of it, pools of black here and there, reflecting the thick canopy of branches overhead in monochrome flashes. The ground leveled off, and he could hear the slow beat of waves against the shoreline. If the dog got confused and waded into the water, it would certainly perish. Evan picked up his pace and then slid to a stop, turning back the way he’d come.
The drag lines curved a little and then stopped beside a towering pine tree. A few specks of blood dotted the ground and then disappeared, as if the dog had paused here and then ... what? Evan hurried around the base of the tree, sure that he would find the hump of matted fur barely breathing on the other side—but there was nothing. A sound drew his attention back the way he’d come, and he saw Selena making her way toward him, her face full of questions.
A horrifying thought came to him, and he froze, watching Selena approach.
“Do you see it? The blood?”
She frowned and looked at the ground, then returned his gaze. “Yes, how could I miss it?”
He nodded.
“What the hell happened to it?” she asked, stepping beside him.
“I don’t know, but its back legs were gone.” He heard her surprised intake of breath.
“But where is it?”
They moved out in an expanding circle, keeping the last sign of blood at the center. Evan walked all the way down to the lake before coming back to the pine. He stared at the ground and knelt, touching the blood with one finger. It was sticky, and a bit of sand came up with it. He rubbed his finger against his pants legs and looked at Selena, who appeared shaken. Her hair hung in damp strands next to her face, and her cheeks, normally full of color, were slack and pale.
“Maybe it made it all the way to the lake,” she said.
Evan shook his head, still staring at the bare spot of ground on which the last drops of blood lay. “There would’ve been something, blood on the rocks, and if it drowned, it should still float.” He tore his gaze away from the earth and looked at Selena. “Was Shaun still sleeping when you left the house?”
“Yeah, I checked on him before I followed you.”
“Let’s go back, and I’ll call animal control in town, maybe they have a list of missing pets.”
She nodded and turned toward the house. Evan stood a moment longer, listening to waves lap on the shore, the smell of blood no longer strong but still in the air, before following her through the trees.
22
“Thanks very much, I appreciate your help.”
Evan ended the call and looked to Selena and Shaun at the kitchen table. Shaun sucked on a glass of orange juice through a straw, while Selena cupped a mug of tea she hadn’t took a drink from yet.
“Well?” she asked, as he sat in a seat opposite them.
“Nothing. No golden labs, or any dogs for that matter, have been reported missing in the last week. They said if we saw it again to call them and they’d send someone out to take care of it,” Evan said, rubbing a dark stain on the table with his finger.
“Someone must have dumped it here then,” Selena said. “Threw it out of a boat as they were passing by.” She made a disgusted face and cupped her tea tighter.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Horrible.”
“Do you think it’s still alive?”
Evan recalled the amount of the blood on the ground and how the animal had moved, jerking and lunging forward as though determined to get into the woods. It was on its last legs. He closed his eyes and forced the black humor away.
“No, I don’t think so.”
No one said anything until Shaun finished his orange juice with a loud sucking sound as the straw vacuumed up the last vestiges of liquid. Shaun sat back, belched, and looked at Evan.
“More!”
Evan glanced at Selena, and they both burst out laughing. Shaun smiled, delighted at having caused the outburst. He signed with his hands and yelled again.