by A. K. Meek
“There’s a fence,” Clive stated, shifting onto his stomach to bypass some thick bushes. “Looks like they built their own wall around the pound.”
“You think they have any traps, like flares?” Telly asked then spat. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
“Guards,” Sandy said. She pointed to the left with her M-16. Just beyond the lumpy shadow of a sixty-foot oak tree that hunched over like an old man worn with age, a ghostly silhouette. “Looks pretty sporadic, though, except for the posts,” she added after a minute of studying them.
They waited five more minutes to see.
It appeared the sentries were few. The Dog Pound believed themselves secure behind their wall of barbed wire and fencing. But the wall wasn’t complete.
When Kurt asked Janelle how she escaped the pound, she mentioned one section of fence, near a driveway.
The band traced along the fence line looking for the spot she had mentioned. When she was able to sneak away at night, Janelle skirted the edges until she found one area with a gap between the chain link and the ground. And with a little more digging she was able to wiggle her body through the narrow opening. She had piled brush over the gap, that way when they discovered she was gone they wouldn’t immediately know how she got out and maybe that would give her some extra time to get away.
So Kurt and his band went around the perimeter, hunkering down periodically to avoid any guards until they found it.
After several cautious minutes of waiting to make sure the coast was clear, Telly, the smallest of the group and the quickest, sprinted to the fence from the woods
Up against the threat of being caught at any moment, he quickly pushed the rotting leaves aside. After a couple of quick tugs on the fence he gave a thumbs up. It was okay for them to come follow after him.
Kurt’s heart beat rapidly. This was it, there was no turning back once they went inside the wire. He couldn’t turn back now, even if he wanted to. He had to see if what Janelle said about his brother was true.
Once inside, they darted through the shadows until they found an out of the way spot behind a building where an air conditioning unit was running. Hot air blew from it onto Kurt, intensifying the oppressive humidity and heat. Close to the air conditioner was some type of unfamiliar power unit. Kurt crouch-ran to it and peered over to see if he could spot anyone.
He heard more laughing, a party in one of the buildings. Bottles clanked. Bursts of loud, raucous laughter. And plenty of cursing. Kurt hoped everybody was partying and too drunk to notice they were there.
And as he crouched there staring, a guy staggered from one of the buildings then moseyed around a corner to disappear into darkness. Kurt considered what to do.
Then he decided this mission shouldn’t be about him finding his brother. It should be about freeing those that were kidnapped, being sold into slavery.
That was what he used to sell the idea to the others. He believed that too, but that was only part of why he was here. His brother the reason he decided on this foolish undertaking.
From his vantage point, Kurt saw a string of kennels, but he couldn’t make out all the residents. The barking unmistakable, though. As he kicked ideas around, he figured the barking would help because the continuous noise mask any sound they made.
During Bartel’s town hall meetings, there were many arguments over where to build the new animal shelter. Posters and diagrams had been submitted to the city for building approval, for council review.
Those endless, boring meetings with HOAs whining about noise pollution from the pound had proved useful, they gave Kurt and his people excellent strategic information: number of buildings, proposed utility routes, and more. For the last two days, the time since Janelle regained her senses, they had been studying these same building proposals. Their first step now was to kill the power.
He started to back away into the dark so they could implement Operation Puppy Rescue, as Telly had started calling it. Then, something on the unit Kurt crouched behind caught his eye.
The feeble moonlight and sickly utility lights illuminated panels just enough for him to see foreign writing on its casing. It appeared to be Asian. On closer examination, he noticed how different it was from a typical air conditioning unit. Or a generator. The whole thing was enclosed in some type of smooth, polished metal. The corners were rounded as well, so there was no possibility of snagging or catching. Hand holds and lift eyelets were of high-polished metal, smooth and cold to the touch. Something foreign.
“Sheriff.” He broke his focus and turned to Telly. “We ready to go, boss?” snuff can safely in his back jeans pocket.
The moment he’d been dreading was upon him. “Let’s do this,” he said and hoped he didn’t live to regret saying it.
Telly motioned for Clive, who had been carrying one of the sets of bolt cutters. He had already slipped off his backpack and pulled on a black, long sleeve shirt and black sweats.
Clive ran for the nearest kennel. The rest of them waited in shadows, rifles and handguns pointing out to the main courtyard, waiting to see if anyone would notice him.
Janelle had described the shock collars clamped onto the prisoners’ necks. This was a great way to enforce compliance.
Bob’s motto seemed to be ‘who wants to pay for damaged goods’ and he repeated it often. By that he meant who’d want to pay for someone with bruises and cracked ribs and arms. He had a strict ‘hands off’ policy for his merchandise, as he put it. This is where the shock collars came in.
Occasionally, though, she heard screaming people who ended up being not good merchandise and could be spared for more horrible things. She had caught wind of a dog fighting ring somewhere behind the second set of kennels. Thankfully, she’d never seen that awful place, but she’d heard it on many nights. The worst was when Bob decided someone was no longer merchandise and could be spared for fun.
Clive was to tell of the captives to stay in place until all the kennels were open, then they’d be led out through the fence. It seemed simple enough.
A small, surprised shriek marked where Clive’ late night rescue startled some of the occupants. Kurt’s heart rose in his throat as he scanned the other buildings, searching the doorways, waiting for someone inside to come and investigate the odd sound. But no one did.
Dogs barked with renewed energy. Kurt hoped they would be the only ones to notice Clive.
His deputy darted from one kennel to the next. Then the next. The minutes dragged. As Clive neared the end of the first length of kennels, Kurt was relieved it had gone so well.
Then one of the prisoners, too impatient to wait for the command, bolted from the kennel that Clive had just unlocked. The man knocked Clive aside and tore through the common area, screaming wildly.
That was the end of everything going well.
Kurt clutched his shotgun helplessly watching the scene unfold. Perspiration trickled down his ribs and back.
With a renewed urgency, Clive picked himself up and darted to the next kennel.
Another gate opened and the occupants scattered. Then another. The promise of release had taken hold and all the kennel gates clanged open, the kidnapped no longer willing to wait another second to grab freedom. They bailed in a frenzy, each one terrified and grasping at the one chance to escape the hell on Earth that was the Dog Pound.
“Hey! They’re getting away!” A pot-bellied biker with a flowing white beard, a Santa Claus from the wrong side of the tracks, came into the light. He raced toward the kennels, chains looped on his belt and around his kick boots clinking. From somewhere he produced a billy club.
Dogs snarled and barked, agitated at the fear and emotion.
Clive fled from the last kennel and raced for safety behind the building, where the rest waited for him.
Trailer doors exploded open and Bob’s dogs poured out. Many men held flashlights. Many more held guns.
It was on.
They yelled and scattered, chasing after prisoners. Four or five men ra
n to the poles staked in the ground that held the shock collar controls. They grabbed handfuls and started mashing the buttons. Through the din louder shrieks of pain cut the air. A man, no, a teenager hiding in the shadow of an overhang, dropped to the ground, thrashing, clutching his neck. He let out a bloodcurdling screech desperately to tear off the shock collar taped to his neck.
A black man of unbelievable size —one of Bob’s ‘dogs’—spotted Kurt behind the generator-thing. He pointed and reached to the small of his back. Kurt didn’t wait to see what he reached for. A shot rang out and the man instinctively ducked. More yelling. Another crack broke through the barking and screams. Kurt’s people were firing on Bob’s dogs.
Scampering backward to find better cover, Kurt tripped and his shotgun slipped from his sweaty grasp. He fumbled to catch it before it hit the ground but it slipped through his fingers. It discharged into the generator-thing he had ducked behind. The shotgun slug punched a hole in the side of the unit, causing the hum to turn sickly, almost a sputter. All the utility poles and porch lights flickered. But what startled Kurt was the flashlights doing the same.
Quickly he pumped and fired two more slugs into the unit. Blue sparks fizzled from the wounds in the side of the unit, then the sputter died.
Everything plunged into darkness. The shock collars no longer worked. A couple prisoners, realizing it took the opportunity to turn on their captors.
He’s found the power source.
Bob’s dogs scrambled for cover and started returning fire. It was a full-on gun battle.
“Come on,” he yelled as gunfire erupted off to their right. Some of the dogs were circling around the back of the kennels. He knew they were trying to catch them in crossfire.
His people went left, around a smallish building that looked like some a tool shed. Voices yelled that the counter unit had been knocked offline. Kurt bet that was the mysterious generator-thing he took out. It wasn’t part on the original pound diagrams or on any schematic.
They ran into a parking lot, a wide expanse of dirt and pot holes. Several cars, trucks, and a semi were parked haphazardly in the lot.
“Let’s grab some rides and split,” Sandy said as she raced to the nearest car, a sleek muscle car.
“No, they won’t work.” Kurt turned and fired his 9 mm toward the chatter of someone squeezing off a semi-auto rifle. “The thing I shot, it controlled everything, gave it power.”
Just then a truck fired up at the other end of the parking lot. Wheels dug into dirt as the driver stomped on the gas. The CV joints squealed as the steering wheel was cranked too hard. Lurching forward, the truck made a wide arc before slamming into the side of the semi. The engine whined but it didn’t budge, jammed in where it had collided with the semi.
The door opened and the driver tumbled to the ground, leaped to their feet and scrambled away in the opposite direction.
“There’s one truck running,” Telly said as he dropped an empty magazine from his AR-15 and slammed another in its place, all while keeping his head to the stock. He fired three more shots into the night. Standing from his firing position, he darted toward the still-running truck.
Kurt didn’t need any more incentive to run than the much-too-close whizzing of bullets overhead. One plinked into the muscle car nearby while another deflated a tire. He followed Telly, as did the rest.
Clive and Sandy inspected the front of the truck, where it had crashed into the semi. “Hold on,” Clive said and leaped up onto the hood. “The bumper’s stuck.” He hopped up and down, and Sandy joined. A loud scrape of metal and a sharp snap indicated they had broken it free.
They climbed in the bed of the truck and used it as a makeshift foxhole, firing back at the rapidly approaching dogs.
Telly swung his rifle and aimed for the car next to him. He started taking shots.
“What’re you doing?” Sandy yelled as she worked to clear a jammed round from her M-16. “The bad guys are that way.” She pointed.
“If this truck works,” Telly spit over the side of the truck bed, “then the others might work too. Hit the tires.”
Sandy got the message and started shooting tires of other vehicles parked nearby.
Clive kept suppressive fire, short auto bursts, from his M-16, spreading it whenever he caught sight of movement.
As Kurt was getting ready to slide into the truck’s driver seat, he caught a glimpse of the figure that had attempted to drive away, hobbling from shadow to shadow. Even though it was a silhouette and yards from him, the movements were familiar enough.
Johnny.
What hurt Kurt the most in Janelle’s story was the day she was given to Johnny as a reward. And he accepted.
Two bikers took her to a garden hose near watering troughs and stripped her down, telling her to clean up. They gave her a semi-clean dress from a pile of clothing and rags. She was led to a room in one of the trailers. Johnny’s room.
There wasn’t much in his room besides the stained mattress he casually reclined on, arms behind his head of greasy hair. The rest of the room was littered with beer bottles.
He’d told her to sit on a chair. She did. He stood on shaky legs and stumbled to her. And as he bent to her he almost fell on top of her.
He whispered in her ear with an alcohol-drenched voice that he’d done a terrible thing to LaTonya, her best friend, and if she didn’t cooperate, or if she screamed, he’d do terrible things to her too.
That’s how Kurt knew Janelle wasn’t making this up.
She said once Johnny sat back on the bed, he told her to dance for him, and as she stood and just shifted in place he promptly closed his eyes then fell asleep. Passed out.
After five minutes of watching his drink-fueled sleep, she wanted to slice his throat but decided to climb out the bedroom window instead.
Once outside his room, all she could think of were the last words her husband mouthed to her as he was loaded in a U-Tow with many other men, destined for the west to work in oil fields. He told her to run. Run and run and run some more.
Those were the last words he ever said to her.
And she ran. And ran. Through the night into morning. Through orchards and cotton fields she ran until she forgot who she was or what had happened to her. That was when Kurt found her in the ditch.
“Kurt!”
“Kurt!” Sandy repeated as she slid into the passenger seat of the truck.
He snapped his mind into the present and found himself behind the truck’s steering wheel. On the bench seat between the two he noticed a box, reminiscent of the generator that he destroyed in the camp. “Let’s go,” Sandy yelled.
The truck went into reverse and lurched away from the semi. Then he slammed it into gear and barreled forward. As he came around the other cars, he saw a gate at the end of the parking lot, and stomping his foot on the gas, barreled through the flimsy chain link. With a sharp crack the chain broke and the gate flung open.
Kurt steered Roscoe’s truck away from the Dog Pound and gunfire into the humid Georgia night.
The whole time he thought of his younger brother scurrying away from the truck, and what he had become. A criminal. A murderer. It was like a part of him had become corrupted with the evil of the Dog Pound.
04.03
DEAR JOHNNY
When Johnny plunged the knife into his arm, it hurt worse than he imagined. But that was the price he had to pay in order to throw the dogs off the trail, so to speak.
He decided this course of action in a mad panic, when he was sure at any moment Bob would find out and send him to the dog fighting ring. Anything but that.
He didn’t mean to pass out—he never did, it just happened after drinking insane amounts of alcohol—but he did.
And Janelle got away.
Once he woke from his stupor with a splitting headache, it took only seconds to see his new girlfriend had flown the coop. From there it went downhill. After agonizing minutes of debating his options, which consisted of confessing to Bob,
running away, or making it appear she overpowered him, he chose the third. Better to make it appear she shanked him and split. That almost sounded cool, and would minimize the embarrassment. He hoped everyone would buy it.
He took his hunting knife and after deciding on the portion of his arm that would probably hurt least, he downed half a bottle of Jack, poured the rest over his arm and knife blade to sterilize them, then jammed it into his forearm. He ended up wetting himself. Also, he didn’t expect it to bleed so much and was terrified he hit something important and would bleed out. He scrambled for rags to compress the wound and it finally tapered off after a couple minutes, enough for him to race out into the pound screaming for someone to help him before he died.
A few nights later, Johnny sat in his room, resting on the mattress with new dried blood stains, his arm in a makeshift sling. His good hand loosely grasped the neck of a Jose Jimenez Southern Tequila bottle between his legs. The rest of the dogs were in the next building over, drinking and partying. A normal night. For once in his life, he didn’t feel like partying and sat in his room, contemplating his lousy existence—as far as tequila would allow you to contemplate.
When he stood before Bob and told him the elaborate story he’d dreamed up on the way to his office, and showed him the grim result of his stabbing, Bob didn’t yell too long. He didn’t call him an idiot more than Johnny expected. But he didn’t send him to the dog fighting ring, either. With a sigh, Bob shook his head and said, “get out of my sight.”
Johnny took that as a good sign and left Bob’s sight. On his way back to his room, word of his incident spread like wildfire. Several dogs had already come up with clever jokes, all of them featuring Johnny as the butt. A small price to pay for not being killed by mauling.
As he started to nod off on his filthy mattress, thankfulness still resting at the back of his mind he’d managed to pull it off, a sound jostled him awake.
It sounded like a scream of terror, maybe gunfire. Or both. He wasn’t sure what was dream and what was reality. At the Dog Pound, both of those sounds were commonplace.