Breeds (12 page)

The wolf before Ross now, lying on its belly in the shadows of the cabin, had to be three to four times that. It was a monster. Its size and the sound of its ragged breathing rooted the Newfoundland man to the spot. The beast’s wounds added to the thick designs splashed upon the floor.

“Holy shit.” Ross exhaled, pressing himself against the wreck of the doorframe, with the wind blowing past. He stood there and simply stared at the giant on the floor for seconds. Gathering the nerve he never suspected he possessed, he edged inside, smelling that sharp tang of blood and gastronomic juices. He brought his sleeve to his nose and winced at the stink, but proceeded along the wall, distancing himself as far as possible from that motionless horror on the floor. The knife sticking out of Borland captured his attention and he focused on that for a moment, before seeing the old man’s face.

And
that
almost cut loose the drawstring of his asshole to shit-spray himself.

Borland was and wasn’t Borland. He had…
fangs
. A huge chunk of meat had been torn from the old man’s throat, and the fleshy matter remaining appeared to be a boneless pulp. Ross looked away just as his stomach lurched. Terror energized his calves, urging him to burn a path back to the main road. Outside, the wind nailed a pitched crescendo. Then the interior of the cabin spun like a child’s top and Ross’s legs gave out. His ass thumped the floor. Borland not only had his throat ripped out and a blade in his chest, but his stomach lay all around him in a gruesome tablecloth.

Ross had skinned and gutted enough animals in his time to be used to the sight and smell of blood, even stumbled across the carcasses of dead moose being picked apart by crows and bald eagles. Once in his younger years, he’d even slashed his leg with a chainsaw while cutting up junks of wood. That episode would have killed him if he hadn’t had the presence of mind to use his scarf to tourniquet the wound. But he learned an important lesson about himself then––the sight of blood didn’t bother him, and if things got bad, he could function with clarity of mind and do what needed to be done.

But this…

He closed his eyes, felt the panic assault his private dark, and strove to hold on, just hold onto his marbles long enough to get a handle on things.

“Hey.”

Ross cracked opened his eyes.

The guy in the fucked-up denim coat fixed him with dark eyes. “Don’t… do anything.”

“Wha?” the Cove man whispered.

“Just… hold on. Wait.” Blood matted the dude’s hair and thick beard and his skin tone appeared fish-belly white. “Please.”

Then he said no more.

Across the way, the wolf let out a weak whine. Ross’s eyes bulged to the size of cue balls at the sound. Composing himself, he stood and cautiously regarded it. The thing’s right paw had been shot off, and its body had absorbed some wicked blasts. The animal had to be suffering. Swamped with horrified awe, Ross remembered the shotgun out front. His fear nearly took the steering wheel.

But instead of fleeing the scene, he left the cabin on stronger legs than he’d gone in on. Snow lashed his face and, for once, Ross did nothing to stop it, appreciating its grounding effect. The freezing cold whipped reality back into focus, and his strength, physical and mental, returned. A memory came to him, of driving home from Bonavista one night. His headlights had revealed a furry lump in the middle of the road. It was a rabbit, staring straight into his headlights, insane with fear and trying to pull itself out of the way of the oncoming car. Both of the animal’s hind legs had been crushed by a car earlier that night, the limbs resembling old socks trailing a dark stain. There had been no hesitation that night and he ended the rabbit as humanely as he could at the time, by running over it and making sure it was dead afterwards. He could still remember the impact as his car rolled over the wounded animal like a speed bump.

The red patch of snow and ruined clothing lay a short distance from the front door. Ross trudged over and located the stumpy shotgun. Knowing it was a bad idea, he picked up the weapon and brushed it off. His brow arched at the sawed-off nature of the firearm, but only for a moment before he proceeded back inside, the weapon giving him fresh courage.

The cabin floor felt sticky under his boots when he stopped just beyond the threshold. The bloody aroma left him near senseless and he wondered how the hell first responders ever got used to the horrors they routinely encountered. The wolf’s breathing had slowed, its eyes still closed, while the tip of a red tongue poked out its long, broad snout. Shaking his head and knowing it was the humane thing to do, Ross pumped the shotgun and aimed it at the animal’s skull. His finger tightened on the trigger, and before he squeezed with that final bit of pressure needed, he let the barrel of the weapon drop and simply gawked at the beast.

After a moment he found his resolve and pointed the gun at the wolf’s face once again.

“Sorry buddy,” Ross whispered and started squeezing the trigger.

The creature’s eye cracked open. Its lips unzipped with a low, defiant growl.

“Hey,” croaked the sliced up guy. “Don’t do it.”

Against better judgment, Ross eased off on the trigger, his brow creased in thought. “The thing’s in agony, man. A sin to leave it like it is.”

“That’s… that’s my animal.” The chin rose and a pallid face stared at him. “Don’t shoot him. We’ll have words if you do.”

“Y’want to let the thing suffer?”

The man smiled weakly. “Yeah.”

“Y’got a phone on ya?”

A moment before answering. “No… phone. Listen. Listen to me. You wait. Watch. Don’t call the cops. Don’t… call no one for––” he drew in a deep, shuddering breath “––for the next few hours. Or so. Give ya five hundred bucks.”

Ross frowned at the offer.
What the hell?
Flashed through his mind before his attention was drawn back to the mess of Borland’s neck, as if someone had taken a huge bite out of a strawberry muffin. Borland’s lips were drawn back, frozen in a snarl.

The stranger’s chin drooped onto his chest. Ross watched, struggling with his inaction, but resigned not to shoot the wolf.

Feeling nauseous, he stepped back into the blizzard, holding the shotgun at his thigh.

Fucked up
, he thought in a daze and glanced back at the horror scene inside the cabin. The speaker looked to be out for the count. The darkening heavens spoke of an aging afternoon, and the storm wasn’t about to let any cop or ambulance here anytime soon. Ross scratched at his head in wonder, unable to piece together what had happened here.

Then he heard the barking.

The trench went to a store behind the cabin. The barking intensified the closer he got, prickling his skin, making him wonder how the hell they knew he was outside. The vicious sounds got so bad that he stopped right in front of the door, believing the wood itself trembled from the noise.

“Jesus H. Christ and Savior,” Ross muttered. He wondered if he should just go back to the cabin, like
that
was a solution. A strong feeling of apprehension grabbed him, as if he was about to see something else that would give him nightmares. That wouldn’t do. Not for Ross. The best trick the devil ever did was convince the world he didn’t exist, and Ross wasn’t one to back down from a situation or turn his back on anyone––or any
thing
–– needing help. He took a breath, twisted the piece of wood keeping the door in place, and pulled on the strip of leather.

The door swung out and the breath of the monster itself smacked him in the face. If the cabin had been bad, the store was worse, smelling of rot, blood and shit. His eyes watered despite being outside in the storm. The light revealed rows of pens constructed of heavy wood and chicken wire, and inside each stifling little cage was a dog, eyeing him madly. Desperately. The very sight of the animals nearly broke Ross’s heart.

The dogs didn’t stop barking. If anything, they went crazy.

A powerful gust slammed into him from behind, hurrying him to make up his mind. Ross rubbed his chin, hefted the shotgun and went inside. He’d heard reports and seen the missing dog posters decorating telephone poles and the windows of local businesses from here to Bonavista. He now believed he’d discovered what had happened to the entire works. Borland had started collecting other people’s pets for some unknown reason, and he’d taken that secret with him to his grave.

Jesus, Jesus,
Ross repeated, standing between the rows of pens. The dogs yipped, snapped, barked and pulled at the chicken wire, frantic to be released. He’d never seen such a fury to get out. And here he was, gawking instead of doing. No wonder the dogs were damned near crazy.

“All right, relax, willya? Relax!” But the dogs drowned him out. He went to the nearest pen, which imprisoned a trio of those pretty little white puffs he didn’t know the names of. Black masks colored the area around the triplets’ eyes, lending them the look of bandits with needle teeth. They freaked out the closer he got, rattling their cage. “I’m gonna let you out, okay? Just stay near the store or the cabin, ‘cause there’s a storm on. I’ll see if I can find some water for ya.”

His fingers hovered over the bolt of the cage. Little paws dug at chicken wire. Tiny puffs of dog breath grazed his hand. He paused and the dogs went ballistic at being so close to release, actually grating their dark noses against the wire like bad blocks of cheese. Their reaction startled Ross so much that he almost backed away.

But then he thought of how damn long these animals might have been penned here, starving, in the icy grasp of a winter’s night, and these days, the nights were very, very long. Lord only knew what Borland had done to them. No one would be claiming them anytime soon, not with the blizzard on, and he couldn’t bear thinking they’d be imprisoned for another day at the very least. He thought of evidence and disturbing crime scenes, but he couldn’t keep the dogs in the pens for the hours it would take for the cops to get here, not in this weather. And taking in the interior of the store, there was plenty to see how the dogs had lived. Just keeping them caged up in their own excrement seemed a health hazard.

No, Ross reasoned, it might be a mistake, but the poor animals had suffered enough already. If anything, he could call them back to the house after he’d released them. They probably wouldn’t go far in the storm and would certainly come running to the sound of a friendly voice. Or even food, if Borland had something in his kitchen.

Shaking his head, Ross stood to one side and slid back the bolt. The door sprung open with a clatter and three white dogs, barely the length of his forearm, exploded from their cage. Their paws scraped at the old flooring in their rush for purchase and all three soon vanished into the storm, their excited yaps swallowed up by the wind.

Seeing the littlest of them freed, the others doubled their own demands and efforts to be released. Feeling three-quarters pity and the rest fear, Ross got to work freeing the remainder of the pack.

A Siberian husky burst forth when its cage door open, bolting for the open door.

A black terrier blasted out and actually slipped and skidded on the old linoleum as he bounded for the great wild.

All other manner of mongrels and half-breeds went insane upon being released, racing past Ross who drew back and watched in stunned fascination, wearing half a stupid smile.

When he opened the cage of the Rottweiler, the unexpected happened. Definitely one of the largest of the collected animals, the black-and-orange dog walked out, arched its back and forelegs in a majestic stretch, then regarded Ross with a look that almost appeared to ask, ‘Oh, you’re still here?’

Ross smiled at the dog, which the animal ignored. The Rottweiler showed him its ass as it plodded towards the framed gray light.

For some odd reason, Ross felt the sensation of just being spared.

But then the remaining dogs barked, yapped, pulled and clawed at the chicken wire, shaking him from his thoughts. He released the rest in short time, each one of them fleeing into the white fury of the blizzard.

The very last dog to be freed was a disheveled German Shepherd. The great animal struggled out of its pen, its legs cramped from its time in captivity. It whined at Ross, its huge, black eyes excessively watery.

“You okay, buddy?” Ross asked and got another mournful groan, as the dog felt nothing would ever be okay again.

Then, the Shepherd’s strength returned and it padded outside.

“Fuckin’ weird,” Ross muttered, watching the animal disappear into the stormy light.

All told, he figured he’d let loose nearly two dozen dogs.

“…And this low pressure system, well, it’s going to make a mess of things for the next twenty-four hours, centering around the upper Avalon and affecting St. John’s, Clarenville, and, ah, the Bonavista peninsula before slowly moving out to sea. Folks in those areas, well, you’re going to experience sustained winds around eighty, eighty-five kilometers an hour, with blowing and drifting snow, significantly reduced visibility, and a total accumulation of around seventy centimeters. You heard right—seventy centimeters. A little over
two feet
of the white stuff. Temperatures look to be dropping to minus fourteen, but the wind chill is going to make this feel much, much lower. Say around minus twenty-five. So if you have Fido outside, it’s probably best to bring the little guy in before you batten down the hatches. It’s not quite the shit storm of—oh, excuse me. I’m sorry. Ahh––”

The weatherman fumbled for poise after his very public breach of etiquette as a dirty grin spread across Harry Shea’s face.

“Stupid fucker.” He smirked. “Actually said ‘shit storm’ on television.
Ha
.” He shook a fist at the flat screen. “Wait ‘til I gets you home. Wicked.”

He hoped Sammy saw that. Or, if anything, maybe some kind soul recorded the segment and would take the time to upload it up to YouTube. He’d search later. Along with celebrity nip slips.

The wind battered the house, splashing snow against the windows and churning up a cloud of blowing powder that distracted the senior. Harry stirred in a brown sofa recliner, a veritable island of comfort in his modest living room, and felt for the remote. He aimed the device between his raised feet and muted the broadcast, wondering if the weather guy had Tourette's. Another gust, stronger than the previous one, leaned into the picture window and made it flex, hard enough for Harry to notice. She was coming on, this one. The sky beyond the glass was a low-hanging opaque gray. On a clear day, he could see the other side of the bay. Today, Harry would be lucky to see the mailboxes some fifty feet from his front door.