Who’s a Good Boy: Dog in This Fight #1 Read online

  I dried off, got dressed and left the bathroom with steam billowing around me. The instant I stepped into the hallway, I felt cold metal pressed against my head just behind my ear. It felt freezing after the heat of the water, but it was more than temperature that chilled me to the bone.

  “Thought I told you to stay the fuck outta my town, boy,” said Sheriff Greg Poppleton. “Move.”

  He jabbed me in the head with his gun and ushered me in the direction of the living room. The heat of anger fought back against the chilling effect of the gun held to my head when I saw James sitting in my dad’s favorite spot.

  “Man, you sure grew up in a toilet,” he gestured around the room. “I should have known, given what a piece of shit you are.”

  “Take a seat,” said Greg.

  I sat down in a chair and Greg stood behind me, moving the barrel of his gun from the side to the back of my head.

  “Thought you were out of town,” I said to James.

  “I was, until I got an interesting call this afternoon that brought me back,” he said.

  “I had an interesting conversation myself,” said Sheriff Poppleton. “Lady came into the station today to lay a complaint. Seems some asshole in a playground threatened to rape her in front of her son today.”

  “That’s fuckin’ bullshit!”

  “I dunno, she seemed like a very level-headed woman, very credible,” said Greg sarcastically. “In any case, when she started describing the perpetrator, I knew it was you, all the tattoos and shit.”

  “What? Like the one that says ‘dumb cunt’ on his forehead?” asked James.

  Sheriff Poppleton chuckled. “I told you there’d be penalties for coming back. Seems we let you off too light last time.”

  “Oh yeah,” said James. “I sure have been enjoying myself with Hazel these last five years.”

  “No you haven’t,” I said.

  James laughed. “Alright, so I guess you know Sienna is yours now. Her being mine has been a fun rumor ever since a reporter from the Shippensburg Post backed Stan Rivera into a corner and he had to give some name. A Rivera birth is big news for this town, after all. Hey, maybe you might have even pieced together that I knew what Hazel likes to say when she fucks because she told Ella and Ella told me, but let me tell you, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been enjoying myself.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked.

  “I head on over to her place whenever I need a little pick-me-up. I’m not gonna lie, I do enjoy grabbing those titties, but what I like best of all is the hate in her eyes when she lets me do it, the fucking defeat. I was gonna save the actual fucking for after we got married, to see that stupid bitch with my ring on her finger, my cock in her pussy, and all the fight taken out of her eyes when she used to think she was too good for me… that’s the real hot stuff right there.”

  “I’ll fuckin’ kill you,” I said.

  Greg Poppleton pistol-whipped me and I saw stars for a moment, reeling before I could bring my head up and see straight again.

  “Ehhh, I don’t think so,” said James. “But on that topic, we’ve had time to come up with a plan while you took the world’s longest shower. See, in that trash can is a sloppy fuckin’ glow-in-the-dark condom. Now, we already know from that lady’s report today that you’re in town with rape on the mind, probably lookin’ for revenge for all that shit that happened five years ago. Seems to me that when the police arrive on the scene and see Hazel all beat up, well-fucked and killed, your dead body next to her and a condom with her DNA on the outside and your DNA on the inside, the police will probably find it an open and shut case of rape-muder-suicide. Isn’t that right, Greg?”

  “Open and shut.”

  I braced myself to make a grab for the Sherriff’s gun, but he must have seen me tense up because he pistol-whipped me again so hard I collapsed off the chair to the floor and felt something warm trickling down the back of my head. James walked over and knelt down on his haunches over me.

  “And you better believe she’s gonna be well-fucked for the first time in her life. You know, I first started to contaminate the Rivera Vineyards so we could buy a failing business cheap. Then while you were gone I thought I’d just inherit it after my loving cum-dumpster wife Hazel died and collect some insurance too. Now that all seems like too much hassle, I think we’ll combine the two plans. Negotiating the sale of Rivera Vineyards should be easy to do with a man grieving the untimely death of his daughter, since he’ll have nobody to pass it on to anymore. Pinning it on you is just the icing on the cake, you fuckin’ cocksucker.”

  James stood up and I groggily rolled on to my back, reaching out for his leg. With two of them and a gun trained on me, I had no chance… but I had to hurt him. He stepped away before I could lay a finger on him though, and headed towards the kitchen.

  “Give me a couple hours,” he said. “Hey, cunt, you think your daughter might grow up to be as hot as Hazel one day?”

  I growled and started coming to my feet, but Sheriff Poppleton stomped my ribs and sent me back down in a hurry. James walked back through the living room on his way to the front door with a big knife I recognized from the set on the kitchen counter.

  Hurt Her So Bad

  Hazel - After

  I thought Jeff was crazy for expecting me to pack up Sienna and my life in a couple of hours, but when it came right down to it, it turned out there wasn’t a lot in this house that I couldn’t bear to be without. For myself, all I really needed was my clothes. For Sienna, it was a little more difficult.

  While she was dozing in her La-Z-Boy made of dogs, I packed up all her clothes and filled another suitcase with her favorite toys and books, the kinds of things that would result in tears if they were left behind.

  As the sun got closer to the horizon, I poured out some food for the dogs into some bowls and took them into the backyard, clinking them together. Sienna was rudely awoken by her resting spot disintegrating around her as the dogs raced across the yard for their dinner. She clambered out after them and went inside to the toilet.

  “Mommy, why are bags by the door?” she asked when she returned.

  I knelt down at her level. “Baby, we’re going on a trip.”

  “A trip? Tonight?”

  “Yup.”

  “What about bedtime?”

  “Well, you had a little nap after dinner, so that should keep you going until we’re in the car. Or truck, actually, we’re going in a pickup truck.”

  “A pickup? Wait.”

  Sienna raced out the back door, then back inside with a little blue toy truck I didn’t remember ever seeing before.

  “Like this?” she asked.

  I took it from her and looked at it from a few angles before handing it back. “Yes… pretty much exactly like that, actually. Did Jeff give you that?”

  “Yeah.”

  I smiled, thinking about how it would feel to introduce Jeff as her daddy. A real-life daddy like she deserved, who taught her things, made her laugh and kept her safe.

  “OK, great. See by the front door, there’s one more suitcase open? Put the truck in, and then I want you to go around the house and I want you to find five things you would want to take with you on a long trip OK? I’ve already packed most of your toys and books I think you like the most, so you choose five more things from what’s left.”

  She held up the truck. “Does this count?”

  “Put it in and then start counting other things. Five more things. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “High five?” I held my hand up.

  She slapped it. “High five for five more things!”

  Sienna dropped the truck in the open suitcase. “Molly doesn’t count, right?”

  “No baby, Molly doesn’t count.”

  “Staying up late!” Sienna skipped off to find her five things and I headed upstairs to the bathroom to pack our toiletries.

  I hadn’t been in there for more than a few minutes when I heard Sienna s
cream from downstairs. The kind of scream that turns a mother’s blood to ice.

  “Mommy!”

  I flew out of the bathroom and down the stairs, fast enough that I’d probably have killed myself if I missed a step. A thousand possibilities flashed through my mind, had she stepped on a thumbtack? Dropped something on her foot? Fallen and broken her arm? I hadn’t heard a thump…

  The reality was so much worse.

  At the front door, James was holding Sienna off the ground from behind with one arm around her chest and the other holding a knife to her throat. She had blood flowing from one hand.

  “No, no, no, don’t hurt her!”

  Pain stabbed my chest, I felt like I had to consciously beg my heart to keep pumping against the cramp. I held one hand out, begging him to hand her to me, clutching the other against my chest as if to hold myself together.

  Behind me I heard the clack of dog claws on the kitchen linoleum as Chopper and Molly ran in from outside. A growl unlike anything I’d ever heard before made my skin crawl with terror.

  I would have sworn a demon right out of hell had come crawling out of a pit of fire behind me, but I couldn’t take my eyes of Sienna. James jerked his chin up, gesturing behind me.

  “Get those fuckin’ dogs outta here,” he said.

  “OK! OK! Just don’t hurt her!”

  “Move!” James yelled.

  I turned around and saw the demon making the sound. It vaguely resembled Chopper, but not like I’d ever seen him before. All teeth, scars, fur standing on end and the eyes of a death machine, he was back in the fighting pits Jeff had rescued him from so many years ago. He was terrifying, salivating for blood.

  I grabbed him and dragged him backwards into the kitchen by the collar with all my strength, half expecting carpet and curls of the wood flooring underneath to be pulled up by his claws. Under the cacophony of his growling and Sienna crying, the fingernails-on-chalkboard sound of his claws on the ground said louder than words how much he wanted to rush forward, not back.

  Glancing around me, I saw Molly, huddled with her tail between her legs in her spot under the kitchen table and on my other side, I saw my only option for containing Chopper, the walk-in pantry. I opened it with one hand and bundled Chopper inside, pushing him back with my knees.

  “The other one too!” called James.

  “Molly! Here girl, good girl, come on!” I patted my thigh, blocking Chopper from coming back out with the back of my legs and a mostly-closed door.

  Molly tentatively crawled out, her belly dragging on the ground as she hugged the floor so close you would have thought she wanted to melt through it. I couldn’t blame her.

  The instant she was close enough, I grabbed her collar and she slid across the linoleum like the head of a mop as I flung her between my legs and closed the door to the pantry. The door shook with Chopper jumping up against it, barking and clawing at the wood.

  “OK! Let her go!” I approached James and Sienna again, holding my hands out to her.

  James slowly lowered Sienna to the ground and let her go. Instead of running to me, she blew my mind by turning on James and screaming at him.

  “You don’t hit my mommy anymore!”

  She let loose what would have been an apocalyptic kick to the nuts, blood splashing everywhere from her swinging hand keeping her balance, if her range of motion hadn’t stopped a few inches before her foot made contact between his legs. Her leg came to the ground and she set herself up for another try but James grabbed her by the throat and cocked his arm holding the knife back.

  “Fucking bitch! Get back!” He glanced up at me. “Just like your mother. Listen to me. You love your mommy?”

  Sienna nodded gurgling through tears and the hand on her throat.

  “Then you better listen to what she tells you next, otherwise I’m going to hurt her so bad, and it’s going to be all your fault, you understand?” Sienna made no response, but James took it as a rhetorical question and looked up at me. “Tell her to go to her room and not come out until you come get her. We’re going to have some fun.”

  “Come here, baby,” I held my arms out to her and Sienna rushed over.

  With each step she took, she seemed to lose access to whatever source of strength she’d been drawing on to take that swing at James. When she arrived in my arms, she was all child again, seeking comfort for her fear and pain.

  “Mommy! Ow, ow, ow!” She held out her hand, with the clear hope that I could wave a magic wand and fix it as quickly as I had kissed away the pain of other cuts and bruises in her life.

  “Let me see,” I said, holding her wrist.

  “It hurts!”

  “I know Sienna-bear, but it doesn’t look so bad,” I lied, I could barely make out the actual cut under the seeping blood. She was wiggling all her fingers though, so I prayed that was a good sign. “We’ll get you patched up good as n-”

  “Leave it!” growled James.

  “She’s bleeding!”

  “Well, only dumb cunts grab a fucking knife by the blade. She’ll live. Now get her the fuck out of here or we do this in front of her.” James took a couple steps towards us.

  “OK, baby, listen to Mommy.” I held her by the shoulders so she faced me head-on. “You need to go to your room, close your door, and I’ll come get you as soon as I can. I want you to grab a fistful of your sheet like this… and then wrap the sheet around the outside of your fist, and keep holding it. It’ll stop the bleeding.”

  “But-”

  “No time for arguments, Sienna. I love you and I’ll see you soon, now go!”

  Sienna’s bottom lip curled down for a moment before her mouth compressed to a tight line and she scampered off up the stairs. I watched her go, wondering if I really would see her again. Was the sight of her running away bleeding going to be my last memory of motherhood?

  I rose to my feet again and turned to James with dread as he slowly closed the distance between us. Upstairs, Sienna’s bedroom door clicked shut as I watched the knife with her blood on it approach me one step at a time.

  James placed the point of it right at the base of my ribs as if he was getting ready to drive it straight up into my heart. With his other hand, he grabbed my right breast and gave it a squeeze, sucking air in through his teeth. My jaw quivered, making my teeth chatter, and a sickly coldness froze me in place.

  “You could have been so much more than that fucking peasant’s whore, Hazel, but you made your choice. We’re gonna have some fun first, but while we do all that… I want you to know, I want you to think about the fact that there is no way you get out of this alive.”

  Tears formed in my eyes and cascaded down my cheeks, but I still didn’t move.

  James continued, “Jeff is gonna die tonight too. But you’re gonna be a good girl anyway, because if you’re not, then things are going to be a lot worse for Sienna. So… you want to be a good girl for me, don’t you, you fucking worthless bitch?”

  My insides clenched, squeezing more tears out of me, but I nodded, clinging to the hope that there was one last thing I could do for Sienna.

  Chopper’s Last Ride

  Jeff - After

  I struggled to push myself up, but slumped back down as the world split into double-vision. Greg chuckled.

  Rolling onto my back, I stared up at him and groaned. “This what you always thought being a cop would be like?”

  “Fuck this job, you know what it pays? Fuck all. Once we get the Rivera Vineyard, I’ll be back in the wine business making the real money. My dad never should have signed his inheritance over to my uncle. He thought he knew better though.”

  “That’s what it’s all about? Money isn’t everything?”

  “That’s something a poor cunt who doesn’t know any better would say.”

  I closed my eyes, desperately trying to think of a way out of this, something that would get me back to Hazel’s to take care of James before he did anything to Hazel and Sienna. Rolling my head to the side, something
caught my eye under my dad’s chair. The glint of metal.

  Sheriff Poppleton walked over to the mantelpiece and leaned over to look at a dusty picture there. “How about this then? You know how many times I had to deal with your drunk-ass dad back when I was a rookie? He was a fucking asshole, and the apple never falls too far from the tree, so it does my heart good to see you two motherfuckers get what you d-”

  With every scrap of willpower I had, I demanded the world hold its fucking self together as I shot my hand out to grab what turned out to be a screwdriver. My dad had probably been tinkering with something one day and didn’t notice it get kicked under there.

  Sheriff Poppleton spun on his heel at my sudden movement as I bounced to my feet, my muscle-memory of those high school wrestling classes apparently somewhat intact even after a couple solid pistol-whippings. I swung the screwdriver in a wild upward arc as he brought his gun to bear on me, knowing that if it got to the point where I was staring directly down the barrel, it would be the last thing I ever saw.

  The narrow point of the tool slipped into the police officer’s body with barely any resistance, missing bones as inch after inch of metal disappeared into the side of his belly. In an instant it was buried up to the handle and he grunted in pain as I tried to fend off his gun with my other hand.

  I jerked the handle to the side, trying to twist and swing the length of the screwdriver inside him. Suddenly, Greg gasped and crumpled in front of me like a puppet that had its strings cut. A flash of relief washed over me, before the panic set in again and I abandoned the screwdriver to scramble for his gun.

  It came out of his hand without a fight and I fell backwards with it, turning it to point at him in case he sprang to his feet and came at me again. He wasn’t moving. His eyes stared at some point a million miles behind me. My chest may have been thundering at a rate of a thousand times a second, but when I saw the angle of the screwdriver sticking out of him, I wondered if the business end had torn this bastard’s heart wide open.