Gingerbread Man

You find this dog a home in one week."
No way in hell is anyone else getting this dog in a week
. "Got it?"
    She smiled at me, and I realized I hadn’t been close to understanding what a "shit-eating grin" looked like until right then. Bitch knew me too well.

    Amy left. Myrtle did not. Amy had efficiently left a royalty check’s worth of dog supplies in the garage. I had no idea where they’d been before, but they were all over the place now.
    I decided not to let this momentary digression distract me from doing exactly what I had planned to do. I walked through my house, taking it in visually, loving it more than I ever had before but making a mental list of things I wanted to change. To brighten up. To decorate differently, or decorate at all. My bedroom and office were all but barren.
    I did all of this with the tired old dog plodding along beside me. I’d tried doing it alone, but once everyone was gone, and the house silent, and I shut the garage door on the beast, she took to howling like a Halloween soundtrack. So we wound up making the rounds together. She walked with her side touching my leg, so she wouldn’t lose track of me.
    I understood that. Being in a new place without being able to see it, you liked some kind of touch. I usually inspected new places by staying close to the walls to get the layout, so I did that with her, circling each room, letting her feel all the boundaries and locate all the doorways.
    When we finished our tour of the house, which seemed to meet with the dog’s approval, we went outside and walked around the wrought-iron-fenced yard. Five acres of it, with woods, a stream, lush green grass. I knew the dog must be tired, but she never slowed, never complained, just plodded along beside me, tongue lolling.
    When the sun started to set over the reservoir I sat down in the grass and just watched it. Myrtle plopped down, too, and without even asking first, she lowered her big head onto my lap, her sightless brown eyes falling closed.
    The sun was a giant orange-yellow ball, and as it sank, I saw a bald eagle soar right in front of it. "Wow," I whispered.
    I realized I was stroking the dog’s head when she released an enormous sigh. I think she was smiling. It was a perfectly serene moment. It was my
last
serene moment, now that I think back on it.
    * * *
    FIVE HOURS LATER, give or take, the first nightmare came. I was standing in a dark room, and there was something sticky all over my face, and I felt…
alive
. More alive than I had
ever
felt. My pulse was pounding, and every cell, every nerve ending, seemed to tingle with delicious sensations of arousal and pleasure. Like a full body orgasm. I was breathing fast and couldn’t seem to stop smiling.
    But that stickiness…
    I wiped at my cheek with one hand, pulled it away to look. Red.
Blood.
    The pleasure tingles started to change into shivers of fear as I looked down at my body and saw more of it. I was
covered
in it.
    I staggered backwards, trying to wipe the stuff off and realizing there was a hammer in my other hand. And it, too, wore a sticky red coating. I dropped it, but it took its time pulling free from my palm, then landing on the floor with a clear, heavy thud.
    Turning in a slow circle, I tried to figure out where I was, what was happening to me. There was just enough light in the room to let me see the dead man on the floor. His head was broken like a melon dropped from a roof, his hair so matted with blood and bone and brain that I couldn’t even tell what color it was. His face was more hamburger than human.
    I opened my mouth to scream, but instead of screaming I spoke, and I don’t even know who I was talking to. "I don’t want to see this, I don’t want to. Make it go away, make it go, make it
go
! I’d rather be blind!"
    And then I was awake.
    I sat up in bed, blinking, but everything was dark. For one horrifying moment I thought my terrified wish had been granted and I’d gone blind again.
    No. I didn’t mean it. With all my heart, I didn’t mean it!
    A sob got stuck in my throat, and I pressed a hand to my chest to try to catch the panic that was trying to gallop away with me.
    And then a wet nose touched my cheek. It had the same effect as when the hero slapped the hysterical heroine in one those old movies from back when that was a good enough excuse to hit a woman. I snapped out of it.
    I wasn’t blind.
    I could sort of see Myrtle, standing beside the bed, hind legs on the floor, front ones on