I open the basement door. I breathe deep and move quickly down the stairwell, feeling the coolness seep into my skin. The air down here feels thicker. It’s like being in a crypt. Or an aquarium.
The baseball bat gives me a little courage. The thought of what I have to do with it, however, makes me sick.
He’s not your friend anymore. He’s something else.
“Brock?” I call out. I’m surprised at how cheery it sounds.
I don’t hear anything, not his loveable gallop or the clanging of his tags. Nothing.
I walk down the hall, past the closed door to my room and stop. He wouldn’t be in there, but I put my ear to the door anyway. I hear nothing, so I try the knob. It doesn’t budge. It seems like it’s locked from the inside. Someone is locking me out of my own room. I step back from the door and feel coldness run the length of my spine.
It’s not until I check the utility room that I see the broken glass. Five feet off the ground is a small window, maybe one foot by two feet wide. Below the window, tiny shards reflect up at me, creating a small constellation on the concrete floor. Blood shines off the jagged edges that remain framed in the window. Blood and fur. I double-check the height and size of the window and try to figure the physics of Brock running and jumping through it. It’s unlikely that he’d do it, but not impossible. Whatever Brock saw outside, he wanted it bad.
I rush back down the hallway, past my locked door and up the stairs, out of my house and into my yard with the bat.
“Brock!” I call out. I’m about to whistle again, but I stop. I see him, a big furry clump, lying in the flowerbeds. He didn’t make it far. Even from far away, I know he’s dead.
I float over to his body. He resembles one of his victims strewn across our backyard: more blood than hair. I feel sick but it’s not from the gore. There’s pressure building in my chest, and it burns all the way up into my throat. I drop to my knees, next to the pile that used to be Brock. Despite the damage to his body, his head is still intact. Smiling and dumb as ever. Whatever evil was inside him is gone now, and his big eyes reflect my efforts not to cry.
“I’m sorry, boy,” I choke out, petting his head.
My hand comes away bloody. I can’t even rub the tears off my face. I bend my arm and the let the blood run down my wrist and into the crook of my elbow. It drips like oil and leaves trails down my arm. I watch as it darkens to black. The trails begin to sting—a vile infection excited by contact with human skin. I need to get this festering blood off my hand as fast as possible. The grass is the only sensible answer so I cross to the other side of my lawn to wipe my hands there.
A car drives by but doesn’t even slow down to look at the mangled dog. Grass keeps sticking to my hands, making them hard to clean. I look away, embarrassed to find myself literally washing my hands of my best friend. I notice the red specks on the sidewalk.
I probably wouldn’t have noticed them if I wasn’t already so sensitive to the color. Forgetting the task at hand, I scramble across the grass to look at the dots. They’re arranged in a way that reminds me of machine gun bullet holes. They’re scattered and careless, but there’s a general order to them. A trail. I follow the trail back to Brock, mentally connecting the dots, but I don’t waste time wondering why a trail of blood would lead away from him.
Instead, I think of the only person evil enough, dumb enough, and careless enough to leave evidence all over the murder scene. Brock was cut apart.
Again, the tears burn in my eyes, but this time I don’t have the sense to keep my grassy, sticky hands from rubbing them.