Mitch’s wife abandoned him after the accident. They had never had children, and she didn’t want one now. That’s what Mitch had become, essentially, an absent-minded child. He hasn’t seen his wife in two years, but he talks about her as though she’s waiting, impatient for him to get home and fix a gutter, mow the lawn.
“That’s what we’ll do,” Juniper says. “Ride her out. Together.”
“Yep.”
“Let’s see what the box has to say about all this.” Juniper picks up the remote and powers up the TV hanging from the wall, flipping through the stations until he settles on KGW, the local NBC affiliate. A reporter—a woman in a blue-and-gray North Face jacket—stands in the rain next to a tree that snapped in half and crunched through a minivan. Glass and leaves litter the street. She signs off, reporting live from Tigard, and the camera cuts to Matt Zafino, in a charcoal suit, standing before a radar map. He uses his hands to pantomime the swirling force of the storm. He talks about changing pressure systems, dew points, supercells.
“We’re in for it,” Juniper says.
That’s when the rain arrives. It doesn’t begin gradually—it comes all at once—as if someone slashed the belly of the sky, lashing the windows, pounding the roof, filling the shelter with a roar they can feel. They can barely hear each other, but that doesn’t stop Mitch from muttering the occasional “Boy” and “Damn” and “Would you look at that.” A steady stream pours off the roof, like a silvery beaded curtain that obscures the view and distorts and refracts the headlights of the pickup that approaches the building.
“Who’s that?” Mitch says.
“That’s Sammy’s truck.”
“Sammy,” Mitch says. “Who’s that?”
Mitch knows him, even if he can’t remember. Sammy is a regular. Most nights he sleeps in his truck, a rusted-out Ford with no muffler and spent shocks. He siphons fuel out of luxury cars with a garden hose, so his breath often smells like gasoline. He collects scrap metal around the city and visits the shelter for meals and clothes and showers.
The truck careens toward them, approaching so quickly that Mitch flinches, as though the grille might crash through the window. Then the pickup comes to a rocking halt, parked diagonally across two spots, its nose right up against the entrance. The engine clanks and squeals and dies. The driver’s door kicks open, and Sammy jumps out and hunches down and splashes his way through a puddle.
“Christ, is this guy drunk?” Mitch says.
Sammy pushes his way inside and pauses on the bristle mat. His sweatshirt is soaked through, clinging to him. Water puddles the floor where he stands. His eyes are already big, but they appear now to bulge from their sockets.
“Are you drunk, buddy?” Mitch says.
“What’s the matter?” Juniper says. “Sammy?”
Sammy opens and closes his mouth several times before saying, “I . . . I hit something.”
“Hit something?” Juniper says.
“A horse?” Mitch says. “Did you hit a horse? I once treated a horse that got hit by a semi. Never thought she would make it, but by god, she pulled through.”
“What’d you hit, Sammy?”
Mitch finishes his coffee and sets it down with a hard clink. “Let me fetch my med kit and we’ll see about that horse.”
Sammy shakes his head hard enough for the water to spin off him. Then he wipes his face, dries his palm on his sweatshirt. He glances back at his pickup, and though it already looks like something salvaged from a junkyard, Juniper homes in on the dented bumper, the broken grille.
“Not a person?” Juniper says.
Sammy is still looking at his pickup. “No. Not a person. I’m not sure what I hit.” The thunder snarls. “But it’s in the back of my truck. I put it there, in the back of my truck.”
?
Juniper and Mitch follow Sammy outside to the back end of the truck. The rain stings and the puddles soak their shoes and the wind shoves them off-balance. Sammy drops the tailgate. A smell hits them. A sulfuric urine. Juniper snaps on a key chain penlight to cut through the darkness.
“See.” Sammy motions at the thing. “Told you.”
For a moment no one speaks. Then Mitch says, “What in the hell is that?”
“You’re the veterinarian,” Sammy says, his voice desperate. “Was hoping you could tell me.”
“How’d you know I was a veterinarian?” Mitch says.
It looks like a dog. Only hairless. And pale. And huge, bigger than a mastiff. The tongue, which hangs from its open mouth, is tar black. Beyond the animal lies a tangle of copper wire, three hubcaps, and some sheet metal.
Juniper says, “How’d you get that thing up in here by yourself?”
“Wasn’t easy.”
When Juniper says, “Help me get it inside,” the other two men swing their faces to study him. He knows his fear shows in his expression, clench-jawed enough to crack a tooth.
“Inside? Inside the shelter?”
“Why would you want this thing inside?”
Anything Juniper says, they’ll ask more questions, so he says nothing. He leans forward, the tailgate biting his belly, and grabs the animal by the ankle. Cold, clammy, the muscle rolling around beneath the skin, the sensation like handling an uncooked turkey. He leans back, and the leg unfolds, and he leans back farther, and the body drags a few inches. “Help me out, would you?”
Mitch takes the front two legs, Juniper the back, and when they heft the dog off the tailgate, they can’t manage the sudden weight and it thuds to the ground. Maybe one hundred fifty pounds, maybe more.
“Can I help?” Sammy says.
“You just get the door.” Juniper readjusts his grip and so does Mitch, and they hoist the dog up. Its head lolls as they stutter-step toward the shelter with the rain battering them.
Sammy holds the door, the wind gusting, bullying a mist inside. They scrape their shoes on the mat, but not enough, the floor still slick when they negotiate the dog past reception and into the lounge. “Where do you want it?” Mitch says through gritted teeth, and Juniper says, “Up on the coffee table.”
Sammy squats and hooks a hand under the dog’s belly, hoisting it up. A checkerboard knocks to the floor, the pieces clinking and rolling under the couches and chairs. The dog is too big, its long legs spidering over the edge of the table, but with some nudging, it balances there. All their eyes are fixed on the animal. The dog’s snout is wrinkled, a nest for needled teeth. Its skin is bald except for a white bristling along the hump of its back.
“I suppose we ought to call somebody?” Sammy says.
Mitch lays a hand tentatively along the animal’s ribs, which press through its pale skin, as if to ascertain no breath stirs inside it. Then he smells his palm and wrinkles his nose.
Sammy says, “Maybe we should call the police department?”
“I’m a veterinarian, and I’ve never seen an animal like this one.”
“Maybe some local breeder is up to something funny?”
“I’ve never seen an animal like this. Not like this. Not that I’ve seen.”
“What do you think, Mike?” Sammy only now notices that his friend has left them, gone to stand by the window, where he stares out at the rain, the streaming designs it makes on the glass.
Juniper takes his time responding. “Help me carry it to the walk-in freezer, and I’ll take care of it from there.” His voice matches the strained feeling inside him.