part0017

Between his paws rested a bone, which he gnawed on with his sharp, yellowed-stained teeth. The miniature Australian Shepherd lay on the fenced-in porch of the mobile home. Pausing from the tedious chore of grinding against the bone with his teeth, he licked at the treat in appreciation. It wasn't often that he got to enjoy something that came directly out of a living being, but this ham bone was well worth the wait each year.

Or, maybe, that was just what he was made to believe by owners who would rather keep their dog tame.

Their dog, thought his little doggy mind, as images of wolves played on the box of light through the screen door. Gunny watched as it stalked its prey before grabbing it by the neck and giving it a violent shake.

What would his ancestors think? Somewhere inside his miniature frame was the blood of a wolf. Would a wolf be content to lay on a porch and be thrown scraps from a human family that was disinterested in him most of the time?

One of the human children came over and gave him a scratch between the ears before running his fingers down his back, through his long, soft coat—the orange, black, and gray hair all intermingling as he did so. “Happy Easter, Gunny,” said the little human. Gunny loved the little human. Just as the thoughts about being something more than a pet were beginning to fade, the little human reached between his paws and removed the bone upon which he had been chewing.

“You want this, Gunny?” the young human teased. “Do ya want it, boy?”

Gunny stood from his comfortable lying-down position, and then placed his hindquarters on the wooden planks, orientating himself in a way that he would best be able to attack, should the young male not wish to return what rightfully belonged to him. He was unable to keep his tongue from lolling from his mouth, no matter how hard he tried.

“Go get it, boy!” shouted the little human, gleefully. Gunny began to race down the hallway, but stopped in his tracks after only a few paces. Ears high in the air, he waited to hear where it may have fallen. Perhaps it was the crowd of people causing too much noise, for him to be able to pinpoint the exact location of where it had fallen, or maybe…

The laughter of the small human caused Gunny to turn back around. He was now waving the bone in the air before him, taunting Gunny, as his tongue continued to lick at his flews where a faint taste of the ham still remained.

This is so wrong, Gunny thought. All of this trouble for a bone with naught but the taste of meat. What I need is to get my teeth into some real meat .

Of course, once the human finally threw the bone, instinct took over, and Gunny chased it down—his nub of a tail wiggling back and forth with glee as he did so.

“Are you kids ready for the hunt?” asked the older female that lived in the home. Cheers erupted from the young humans as they all ran out onto the porch, pouring through the front gate before going down the steps.

Not wanting to be away from his pack, Gunny was quick to follow. He playfully jumped his front paws up onto the little humans, only to be pushed away. It wasn't long before they had all dispersed in pursuit of their treasures.

With his animal instincts at full throttle, Gunny began sniffing around for what the others may be seeking. Out toward the far end of the lawn, there was a hint of something in the air that was not supposed to be there. There were other scents in the air—the smells of sugar, chocolate, and the copper disks the little ones seemed to think quite highly of—but what Gunny's nose was leading him to was something new.

The smell was accompanied by a sound. It was a sound he wasn't quite able to place. As he made his way toward the mystery, there was a spot on the grass some other canine had tried to claim for himself. Gunny wasn't about to let that slide, and so covered it with his own fresh batch of urine. There was only time for a quick squirt.

His nose was now full of the smell of whatever may be on the edge of the lawn. Gunny gracefully galloped over to the bushes and began sniffing around the front, and over to the side. Once he got to the reverse side, he found a long-eared creature unlike anything he had ever seen before.

The animal before him had Gunny in a bit of a quandary. Was this an invader? Was it a new member of the pack? It didn't take Gunny long to notice the very large incisors of this creature and took them to be a threat. He let out a growl to test the waters with this new animal. It refused to back down—its whiskers poked him in his left eye as it tried to sniff at him.

This would be its last mistake.

With its face right next to Gunny's mouth, it was nothing for him to open his jaw and clamp it down on the thing's neck, catching its long ears in his maw at the same time. Its hind legs kicked as it tried to get away, but a quick shake ended whatever resistance the thing may have thought to make.

Warm blood trickled down Gunny's jawline and flowed down into his throat. He continued to gnaw at the vertebrae inside the broken neck. The warm flesh and blood felt good on his gums and in his mouth. Proudly, he lifted the dead thing into the air and began to saunter back over to the humans, still chewing on the dead flesh.

As a scream issued forth from the once joyful front yard, Gunny stopped where he was. Because he was expecting praise, the quick kick to the ribs was all the more surprising. The grown human male, who lived in the house, was screaming something at him and slapped his nose, causing him to drop the small, dead thing .

Gunny knew the human's kick was held far back from what it could have been, so there was no serious bodily injury as Gunny whimpered off, back up the steps to the porch and through the still-open screen door. In the dining room, the door to his kennel was open. He walked inside, then got into his bed to think about what had just happened.

With his head resting upon his paws, he turned the events over in his head. The little humans were all happily searching in the yard for something, and he had found ‘something’. There was an intruding creature on the property, and he had prevented it from attacking any of the humans on his watch.

Or maybe the humans wanted to keep the creature?

Maybe, they were looking to replace him.

Gunny's head popped up as the front door opened and the humans began to enter. Several of the little ones were crying. As they looked at Gunny in his kennel, they only started to cry more.

“You’re a bad dog,” said the grown female as she entered, holding the small child of the house in her arms.

When the grown human male of the house entered, he walked straight over to the kennel and grabbed Gunny's collar, then began to drag him toward the door. “Goddamn dog,” he muttered as he jerked on the collar, cutting off his breathing and causing him to hack.

With a final tug, Gunny was thrown in front of the male human and out the door. Once the male was outside with him, the door was shut and the two were on the porch together. The gate that led to the stairs was still open, and a foot forced Gunny down the steps. His paws missed the first step and his lower jaw fell upon the edge of it, before he found his footing and avoided stumbling down the rest.

Bowing his head, Gunny tried to look submissive so the male wouldn't be too angry with him. “Go. Now,” commanded the human as a foot shooed him toward the driveway. Gunny did as he was told, and continued to look back to make sure he was doing what was expected of him.

I'm nothing more than a pet. I have no will of my own. To do as I'm told, that is my lot in life. A wolf would never take this kind of treatment.

“Sit,” the human snarled. Being the obedient pet he was, Gunny did as he was told, and took a seat on the driveway. He watched as the human unwound the hose from the side of the house, then cranked the little wheel above it.

A blast of cold water assaulted his face. The pressure was up much higher than it normally was when he was given a bath. The water hurt as it filled his nose and eyes. When he tried to turn away, the human followed him with it, attacking him ruthlessly with the intense stream of water.

“You killed the fucking bunny on Easter, Gunny,” the man growled angrily. “You just might have ruined this holiday for the rest of these kids' lives!” The human moved closer with the hose, but dropped the stream from Gunny's face to his chest, washing the blood from the white of his coat .

A sneeze sent water flying from his snout, like a double barrel water gun. Despite the warm weather, the cold water in the shade made him start to shiver. The blast from the hose stung wherever it hit him. “Goddamn it! What has gotten into you?” the man asked, furiously. The hose was moved back to Gunny's face, causing him to inhale some of the water through his nose.

He snarled and bit at the water that was being used as a weapon against him. “What's the matter? Don't like that?” the human asked. “Well, I don't appreciate that you ruined the surprise for the kids!” A sustained blast of water was directed at his face once more.

A line had now been crossed. He would be a “g'boy” no more. Gunny lunged at the human, and sunk his teeth into his lower leg. The human let out a scream, before falling to the ground. As he did so, he released the hose, and the water finally stopped spraying.

“Son of a bitch! You are fucking dead!” The human reached for Gunny's collar, but his hand only found the sharp teeth that had penetrated his leg. His flesh was punctured again, as the fangs sunk in, between his metacarpals. Another scream escaped the man, as he reached over with his other hand.

Rather than snapping his jaws shut on the new hand, Gunny lunged toward the human's face. His lower teeth hooked under the human's jaw, as his top teeth came down just below his right eye. The good hand was pinned between the dog and his own chest as he tried to push the animal away .

The human managed to get some distance between himself and Gunny, but that only resulted in the animal’s teeth tearing their way through his cheek. Scrambling to attack further, Gunny went for the throat this time, as he had seen the wolves in the light box do to smaller animals.

His teeth pierced the tube in the human's throat with little resistance before his jaw snapped shut. After a quick twist, Gunny pulled the tube away and watched, snarling, as the human grabbed at the area that had just been utterly decimated.

As he watched the blood drain from the human, who was steadily growing weaker, he heard something from behind him. It was faint at first, but began to increase as he continued to watch the red puddle spread across the driveway.

The sound was a tiny sob, coming from the little girl that lived in the house. Gunny turned his head, feeling the warmth of the blood, now thick in his chest fur, though the rest of his body remained cold from the blasts of water. Gunny began to take steps toward the child but, before he could get near, she let loose a scream of horror, then ran back indoors.

Gunny ran toward the steps, but before he could even get his hind legs up on the first one, more screams erupted from inside the home. He stopped in his tracks, contemplating his next move.

He looked back, behind him. The body was out of sight, around the corner, but the pool of blood was expanding to the edge of the driveway, and spilling into the gutter.

The sound of the door opening again caused him to snap his attention back in front of him. The grown female was bawling as she held the young female in her arms. Once she saw what was waiting in the driveway, she freed one of her hands from the young one, and covered her mouth with it. Her eyes widened and tears silently fell down her cheeks.

This is bad, thought Gunny, as he lowered his head in shame. The thick blood that was on his chest was quickly growing cold. Putting on his best ‘sad puppy’ face, Gunny walked up the steps with his head bowed.

“AHHH!” the grown female shrieked.

Gunny bolted back down the stairs, as the humans turned and headed back inside. After descending the final step, he made a sharp right turn and entered the hole that lead beneath the porch.

In his secret place, he lay down, and placed his head on his paws. He was terrified. All he had wanted to do was to be a good dog and partake in whatever sort of ritual his humans were taking part in.

He had so enjoyed killing the small thing with the long ears. It was so much fun, he couldn't help but get carried away when the human was mistreating him. Gunny thought they had been friends. Whenever the human was upset about something, Gunny was there to bring a smile to his face. Then he was punished for simply being a dog ?

No, there was no excuse for his actions. He had killed his friend and made the other humans sad. He had been a very bad dog.

He wished he could take it all back. He wished he had never found that stupid creature and had, instead, just eaten some of the colorful eggs that the young humans had been seeking out. Sure, he still would have gotten in trouble, but no one would have been crying. No one would have been this upset due to a colorful egg having gone missing.

The door overhead opened, and Gunny could hear the young ones screaming and crying before it was slammed shut. Slow footsteps made their way down the stairs. He lifted his head and listened to the footsteps with his ears raised.

After the stairs, he could still hear her soft footsteps as they continued on in his direction. He could see the shadow as

it approached his secret entryway.

Her ankles were now in plain view. She stopped walking and just stood outside the hole in the siding. There were soft sobs coming from the human outside.

Gunny stood and walked over to his secret door. He poked his head outside and saw the human standing there with an unknown object in her right hand, and tears silently streaming down her cheeks.

She looked down at him and put the object near his head. Gunny closed his eyes and sniffed at it. The object had an unfamiliar smell, but it didn't last .

When he opened his eyes, the woman was gone, and so was the house and everything else he had expected to see. In its place was a beautiful field of grass with several of the creatures from earlier, hopping with their ears flopping around as they did so.

The cold wetness had disappeared from his head and chest. The guilt was no longer on his mind. In fact, the adult male was there beside him, petting the top of Gunny's head.

“You're a good boy,” said the human. Gunny's attention once more went to the creatures in the field. “Go get 'em, boy!”

Gunny took off from the man in a prance—tongue hanging from the side of his mouth. He grabbed the first creature by the neck and gave it a violent shake. He could feel the neck bone snap in his mouth which filled him with a feeling of satisfaction.