Until very recently, Nathaniel Barnaby could not abide small dogs. Yappy, bitey, abhorrent little monsters, scarcely worth the time and energy required to kick when underfoot. His wife’s mutt had been one such. He could not recall when or where she’d first acquired the dirty little terrier, but she had doted on the damn thing right up until she died. Ribbons in its hair, perched in her lap, greedily devouring scraps from her bony fingers while giving him the evil-eye. Not that the eyes were visible, what with those damn bangs. Like a polluted grey waterfall, frozen in time. He hated those bangs most of all. That was why, after returning home from his wife’s interment to be belligerently rushed by a ridiculous mass of quivering fur, he decided to take the damn thing out back and shoot it.
It bit him, of course, when he reached for it, so he got out the plunger. After a brief struggle he managed to pin it to the kitchen floor. He bent down and confronted those bangs. No. This would not do. He wanted this demon to see the unadulterated contempt, the pure hatred, the absence of all quarter in his eyes. One hand pressing down on the plunger, the other rummaged through a kitchen drawer. He found the scissors and was bit again. Swearing, he hardened his resolve and, using his entire body and the plunger to pin the dog, somehow managed to crudely trim those bangs. Leaning over the dog’s newly exposed face, eyes inverted to his, he gazed into the shimmering black pools. He had completely misunderstood this poor creature. Abandoning his tools, he unmounted the soft fur and carefully lifted the precious animal to his favorite chair. He sat on the floor, and stared into the shining darkness of its eyes. Like little black holes, once past the event horizon, there was no turning back.
Since then the dog no longer barked or bit. It mostly just sat there, staring off into space, turning its head slowly to follow him. Despite Nathaniel’s tiny pension, he stacked the refrigerator with the finest cuts of steak, to be served raw at regular intervals. Tonight while chopping he had cut his finger. He offered the warm blood to the dog. It licked, and then sucked. He didn’t know dogs could suck. It began to nibble and worry at the broken flesh, which hurt like hell, but Nathaniel was glad to offer a taste. It chewed into the knuckle bone and pulled. When the dog proved unable to tear free the final strands of flesh, Nathaniel brought the cleaver down and freed the finger. He stood there, bloody tea-towel over the stump. The widow next door was coming by later with some peach cobbler, and he wondered if she would be willing to donate some fingers. Looking into the dog’s black eyes as it crunched and slobbered over its prize, he knew that she would not mind at all.
Submitted September 11, 2015 at 09:42PM by tenebris_spiritus http://ift.tt/1L6ADp9 shortscarystories
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