Red - Jack Ketchum [29]
“You better cut that out, bitch,” he said. “You want the hose? You want the fuckin’ hose?”
She didn’t. The dog blinked and the fight went out of her eyes. The moment passed. He’d won again, he thought. He always won. Agnes went back to her own dish and started slobbering away. Brian bent down low and peered inside the doghouse. This one he hardly ever saw. Probably scared of Agnes too.
“Where’s the baby?” he said. “Where’s the baby? She sleepin’?”
It was dark in there but he could just see the outline of her and saw the old checkered blanket move a bit. He could hear her panting.
He figured she’d either come out when he left to get her food or else she wouldn’t. Didn’t matter to him either way. He’d give it one last try though. He liked watching her eat.
“C’mon, girl. You gonna have some food, baby?”
He thought later that the low growl should have warned him off but it didn’t. So that when the lunge came and the teeth snapped just inches from his goddamn face he fell back onto his ass and scraped his hands against rough concrete and something else — something hard at first and then crumbling soft against his left palm.
Dogshit. Jeezus.
“You little son of a bitch!” he said.
He’d like to have beat the shit out of her. But he was pretty damn quick to get out of there instead.
~ * ~
Belle watched him get out of his dress shirt and slacks and handed him some cutoffs and a work shirt.
“Signed and sealed,” he said. “Not another resident within three miles now.”
“Well, you finally have your own little country, don’t you?”
She was remembering that slap last night. Still the sarcasm wasn’t like her. Not with him. But he didn’t seem to notice.
“My question is, can we really afford it, Chris?”
“Of course we can. Everything quiet around here today?
“I haven’t heard a thing.”
“You look in on her?”
“No. Why would I?”
He ignored that too. Slipped into his work shirt.
“Go down and boil some water for those buckets, Belle, okay? Let’s get to it.”
~ * ~
By the time Cleek got his shoes on and came downstairs she was already at the gas stove firing up two big chili-pots full of water. Darlin’ was at the kitchen table, a plate of cookies shaped like little men in front of her. She was messing with two of them — walking them around, making them jump, flip, zoom across the table. He considered telling her not to play with her food but decided to hell with it, let it go. Peg sat across from her reading a magazine. He could hear something tinny from her iPod. Which meant it was turned up loud.
Brian walked in looking kind of flustered.
“You feed the dogs?”
“Yeah.”
“I need you to go out there again. Get the pooper-scooper off the beam and bring it in here. Brian? I smell something.”
Brian looked down at his hand.
“I thought I had it hosed all off of me. I slipped and fell into some dog turds.”
“Well, go wash your hands for godsakes. Then get me that scooper.”
~ * ~
Darlin’ made believe that she was the animal woman. She was the animal woman and the men were all running away from her but she was bigger and faster and rawr! she said and grabbed one up and the little man looked at her and said noooooo! Noooooo! Don’t eat meeeeeee!
She bit his head off anyway.
~ * ~
He pulled the scoop off the beam and noticed on the shelf beside it his father’s old hand-crank drill. His father had an electric drill now of course but it was his habit to save everything whether it was going to be used again or not.
Brian thought he might have a very good use for it indeed.
He popped a stick of Wrigley’s in his mouth.
He worked fast and hard too because it was more difficult than he might have guessed to get the thing through three-quarters of an inch of weathered wood and he was nervous as hell because if somebody glanced out the window and saw him out here doing this there was going to be big trouble. But in a while that seemed like a long while he had a hole drilled at the bottom left-hand corner of the door about two feet above the base. He brushed off the shavings and got down and had a look.