Days later, walking down the marble stairs of his family’s five-thousand square-foot holiday home overlooking the white sand beaches leading into the Gulf of Mexico, he heard his father talking into the phone in a hushed belittling tone.
“So, you’re saying that an aggressive vicious dog can take my son’s face off… have you seen him?” The judge’s voice growled. “He is maimed for the rest of his life. It’s hard to look at him.”
“I will not stop until that dog is put down,” the judge jeered the person on the other end of the line. “So, let me get this straight…the other kids are swearing that my son goaded the dog? Are you saying Mike caused this to happen to his face? I’ll tell you what…either the dog is euthanized by the end of the week...or you’re going to lose everything you own.”
The senator sat looking at the occupied sign on the locked bathroom door. He was wringing the paper towel in his hands. Maybe he would just sit on the toilet for a while longer and try to settle his nerves and upset tummy.
32 Betsy Love
Clarabelle started to open her eyes, letting out a “coo.”
Her perfect lips forming circles and then relaxing into smiles.
Betsy was concerned the baby would cry, so she opened the side flap of her breastfeeding shirt, pulling out her plump milk-filled teat in a familiar swipe to offer the groggy infant. She was scared to move. All Betsy could do was concentrate on keeping her baby from crying and alerting the dog.
The beast had passed her row again, before returning to guard its owner, several rows behind them. It appeared to have retreated after being hurt by a brown-haired woman, who had made a ballsy attempt for safety, by running for the front of the airplane. It seemed the young woman had fended the dog off with something sharp but had been blocked by a barrier in the divide. She had watched the woman finally worm her way into the safety of the separate section after injuring the gruesome animal.
The bloodied Pitbull’s right eye had been gouged nearly out. Betsy could see the upper lid area had turned pink from being sliced open, leaving an empty socket, with a bloody ocular mass of eyeball protruding below.
The dog was a monster.
She took comfort thinking about her own good dog. When she adopted him, she thought of all her favorite things and decided to name the pup Salty; like the salty air and the salty ocean, the salty food, and the fucking salty language she loved.
After moving to Alaska from the Keys everyone would ask her, “Did you name him after the Salty Dog Saloon on the Homer Spit?”
She hadn’t named him after either an old drunken sailor nor a lighthouse bar covered in dollar bills and women's undergarments.
“It was a funny coincidence,” she told them.
She smiled at the memory of moving to Alaska with her dog having the same name as the iconic northern saloon.
One day she heard a song playing on her local NPR radio bluegrass hour.
It was an old recording with a woman belting out a hearty twang: “Let me be your salty dog, or I won't be your gal at all.”
What the heck? She thought.
After researching “salty dog,” she found that in the olden days people barely had enough money to afford salt for preserving meats, let alone salt for their dogs. When dogs were infested with fleas, people could only spare enough salt for their favorite dog. Rubbing its fur with the white granules to help rid the animal of the pesky insect.
Salty dog meant favorite dog. And as sure as shit, he had been her favorite dog.
Some time had passed before the baby started to pull away from her breast. Milk was shooting out at all angles from her swollen nipple. Clarabelle should have been hungrier after sleeping for hours. Betsy wondered if the baby had sensed her own anxiety.
Betsy knew Blake was dead. There was no point in thinking she could save him. She couldn’t place these emotions she felt. The grief had been overtaken by survival instinct. She had her entire life to grieve for her small boy. Pulling her right arm out from under the baby, she glanced at her watch; thirty more minutes before they landed. She had thirty more minutes to keep her baby alive.
Betsy could hear the little dog whining and crying in its tipped over kennel that had become lodged under a seat a few rows in front of her. Besides the sounds coming from the small crying dog, the airplane was silent under the drone of the engine.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have just been informed by our flight attendant, Carmen, the coach cabin is currently under duress. It appears the unfortunate situation does involve a dog. I have been made aware the incident is still underway and not yet contained,” the captain’s voice blared over the intercom.
“Please do not panic…the seatbelt sign is on…stay in your seats. We are currently flying over the Gulf of Mexico. It will be nearly twenty-eight-minutes before we land in Miami. Ground crews, the proper authorities, and ambulances have been notified of the emergency. They have been dispatched and will be waiting for us upon landing.”
The dog started to bay. His low howling drowned out the captain’s voice.
“Arh-woooooooooo,” the beast bellowed. “Arh-wooooooooo.”
Betsy could hear the people’s nervous movement and the shushing throughout the cabin. The dog had spooked the passengers. It had spooked the baby. She watched Clarabelle’s arms splay out—a frightened reaction to the loud howling sound.
Then the baby took her deepest breath, scrunching her face into a bright pink chubby ball, and released a gut-clenching wail.
SICK AS A DOG
33 Max Martin
Max froze when the red headed son-of-a-bitch, Nick, reached across the aisle and grabbed Bruno’s kennel, tossing it with his macho strength out of sight and out of reach.
He had heard the kennel bang, landing hard near the front of the plane.
“Don’t move, Max,” Maxine voice made a high-pitched nasally sound from the snot filling her nose.
No need to worry yourself, Max thought.
Max hadn’t moved a muscle when the big dog gruesomely attacked Bruno’s redheaded assaulter from the seat next to him. He became mesmerized by Nick’s shirt changed colors like a mood ring, from its original bright red to opaque blood black. Max’s feet sat motionless in a deep puddle of Nick’s juices. Max hadn’t moved a muscle when the savage dog shook little Bruno’s cage. Even as his own little dog whimpered in pain. Max didn’t twitch a fiber of his being, as the attractive young woman fought off the repulsive dog, before disappearing behind the safety of the curtain.
Maxine was crying next to him.
“Don’t move Max,” she breathed through her mouth. “Why is this happening? Is Bruno okay? Can you see him?”
“Shhhhhhh,” he held up his pointer finger to quiet her.
He peered down the aisle behind them. Max was strapped to his seat, sitting in the heart center of a wolf’s den. His redheaded neighbor’s brawny body covered part of the dead child; both lay on the floor next to Max. The mad dog was panting through its pain from the eye injury. He sat in the aisle, only two seats behind them, guarding his person.
“If no one moves, and no one makes a sound, we can make it through this,” he whispered to Maxine. “There is only half an hour of flight time remaining.”
Yip…yip…yip! Bruno chirped out. Yip…yip…yip!
“Thank God he’s alive!” Maxine exhaled the breath she had been holding.
Max would often find himself weighing out his many options for dying. What would be a worse way to die than by cancer? Would it be easier to have no legs with the chance of a future? Would he rather be blind? Or die in a car accident quickly… or an elephant stampede…by snakebite...slowly with no water in the desert…fast and unexpectedly jumping out of a plane with no chute? What is worse…living with depression and not living...losing a child or a lover to suicide...by carbon monoxide in a vehicle watching the final sunset...a bullet to the head?
“Anything seems better than knowing you will die in a couple of years,” Maxine had cried. “Nob
ody should know their own future.”
“We do know our future...we all die, little bird. How I look at it, is at least we have a few years to prepare and check off items on our bucket list.” He had comforted her by brushing back her baby soft hair with his big dry hand.
Their newly purchased home was waiting for them in the Castle Valley community, nestled in an ancient red sand bowl, with the Colorado River weaving its way past the green valley, down the enormous red walled canyon, leading to the Grand Canyon below. Freshwater flowed from the La Sal mountain range. The underground aquifers were not yet empty. The long warm months would allow the growing season to be extended as long as ten months.
The replacement home was a sienna colored adobe house surrounded by a mixture of apricot and peach trees from an earlier orchard that had been subdivided. The property came with irrigation rights; every other day a gushing stream of water would flow through a small manmade creek weaving through their yard. They had planned to return to Utah with their belongings after the house closing.
He had so much to do before he died. He still needed to get the water filter systems put in place on the desert property. This way they could always collect rainwater in the barrels that were connected to the house gutters, or if worse came to worse they could collect water from the Colorado River. He was going to start keeping bees. Utah was the Bee State; honey would be great for trade and general survival. He needed to build a chicken coop. He needed seeds for the garden. He wanted to start building a cellar to keep potatoes and other root vegetables, along with canned and jarred items. He could also keep his preppers’ stash of MREs and fifty-pound bags of beans and rice in the cellar.
He needed to purchase a large safe to keep all his guns and ammo locked. He had already acquired massive amounts of ammo at a Florida gun auction for future trade and possible defense. He planned to invest in bottles of whiskey, because they lasted for a long period of time...and were great for trade.
With the missing jawbone, he had lost a substantial amount of weight and muscle mass. He was weak and appeared hunched over. Max had always been a strong provider, endlessly moving, and always working. Maxine didn’t look at him the same anymore.
“Now, it’s like when we were raising Robby,” she had said while making Max his pureed dinner. “Of course, the blender is much better than that old-fashioned food mill I used to make his baby food with.”
Now when Max would eat, he would asphyxiate, gasping for air, as he choked on the soft food. After each bite he would clean the mess from his face with a handkerchief. Digging into his manmade mouth, with his big fingers, to locate any food that might have been stuck in the hairy cheek pockets. He would never take Maxine out for dinner again. He could no longer perform pleasure on her with his mostly missing tongue. It would be impossible to kiss her passionately ever again. Now, when he spoke sweet nothings into her ear, the whispers reverberated like the babble of a drunken sailor.
Yip…yip…yip! Bruno kept barking from up the aisle.
He heard the loudspeaker vibrate the cabin. It was the shrill sound of the captain’s calm and collected voice speaking from behind his secure cockpit door.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have just been informed by the flight attendant the coach cabin is currently under duress.”
His report felt like an understatement. The captain’s voice dominated the cabin, which caused the big dog to become more agitated. It was probably from the screeching volume from the speaker that had interrupted the dead air silence, subsequent to the initial killings.
“Please do not panic…the seatbelt sign is on…stay in your seats,” he heard the captain’s voice calmly command. The massive hulk started to pace next to his seat, stepping on the bodies as it passed.
The dog was panting, with its tongue hanging from the side of its mouth. Its eyeball dangled by an optic nerve, like a swinging tetherball, while it guarded the aisle. The dog stopped to perch its front red stained paws on top of Nick’s red-shirted broad back that lay dead on the floor next to Max. Nick’s neck appeared to be nearly severed. The dog had ripped the muscle, bone, and skin from his neck revealing his spinal cord. Blood was splattered through the cabin when it ripped at the man. Chicken pox red spots dotted Max’s face and arms.
The dog released a tiger’s roar in response to the loudspeaker.
“Arh-woooooooo,” it bellowed and then again, “Arh-woooooooo.”
Max heard the baby let out and heart-thumping wail.
“Waah,” she yowled. “Waah!”
The big dog released a low rumbling growl. Its hackle went on end—each hair tingling and erect. It crept slowly off the man’s dead body. Advancing towards the baby’s angry cries, coming from only a few seats in front of Max.
“Waah!”
Max thought about leaving his little bird, Maxine—all alone in the bullseye of a hurricane—no one to save her.
“I love you, Maxine,” he reached out to grab her slender hand tightly in his own.
He looked into her pale blue eyes, wrapped in a murder of dainty crow’s feet, decorating her soft skin. Her smooth laugh lines, narrating her pink silky lips, that he used to kiss with total abandonment.
He wondered if this was going to hurt. He wondered if this would be a better way to die; better than the emasculating, drawn out cancer route, that before this flight was his predetermined fate. He didn’t want to succumb to the dog, but this day was as good as any.
Pulling his hands from her grasp, he reached out and took hold of the knitting needles she had placed in the middle seat pocket. Holding one needle in each hand, he heaved his frail body into the aisle. Taking one large step over both the redheaded man and the small boy. His foot clumsily crashed onto the aisle floor directly behind the dog. The animal had already stopped next to row 10. It had been staring menacingly at the woman and her small infant. The loud bang made the beast cock its head to assess the sound behind it, directing its full attention on Max.
Max looked into row 10 and locked eyes with the quivering young mother. Her hand was covering the baby’s mouth—smothering the infant—to keep her from crying out.
“Hey, Dog!” Max yelled, tempting his own destiny.
It needed to turn its body from its position aimed at the terrified mother and child in order to attack Max. Max decided to take the opportune moment to take the offensive. Striking the dog from behind, he jabbed the knitting needles into each of its tender sides, like an ice climber picking his route. However, the dull needles didn’t puncture the skin.
Instead, the enraged dog cried out from the prodding thrust.
“Aarp.” In one acrobatic motion, the irate dog flipped its body, a full rotation from its standing position. It landed like a hammer, immediately aiming for Max’s jugular. Max shoved one of the needles out towards the dog in an attempt to slow it down, taking aim at its one good eye with the other needle. The first needle pushed into the dog’s stomach, causing the animal to lurch forward from the pointed pressure to its gut. The pain precipitated the dog dropping to the ground, causing Max to miss with the second needle that he had aimed at the dog’s good eye.
He heard the baby scream out in anger, accusing her mother of fowl harm.
“Waah…Waah!”
The dog took a moment to observe Max and the needles he still gripped in his large hands. It attacked Max again. Max dropped the needle. He balled up his fist and punched at the dog’s massive box head. Making contact with the dog's face felt like punching a brick wall. It didn’t even flinch. It grabbed Max’s ankle and pulled his feet out from under him. He landed on the redheaded man and the small child. Buster landed on Max and proceeded to rip his throat out.
“Maxie!!!” He heard his little bird caw.
34 Carmen Fuentes
The captain’s announcement might have been a mistake. Prior to the loudspeaker interruption, the passengers had a moment of peace, with the dog taking a break next to its deceased owner.
Carmen decided to take advantag
e of the resting dog. She checked to make sure the cart’s wheels were locked in place in case the dog shoved against it, and to support Nicco’s body. Carmen was not naive; the pit breed could easily jump over the cart at any time, if it so desired. Her friend Annette kept her Pitbull on a cable runner in the backyard. A six-foot fence surrounded it that the dog could easily jump over had it not been tethered to the cord. The dog could actually climb walls.
Carmen slipped off her high-heeled shoes and quietly began crawling on her hands and knees towards the back of the aircraft. As she progressed down the aisle, she made eye contact with the terrified passengers on each side of the aisle. She tried to soothe their concerns by acknowledging their distress, before she realized her own creased brows were registering the same alarm as the passengers. She could hardly console people while crawling on the ground, cowering beneath them.
An old man, his skin the texture of an elephant, wearing a neck pillow covered in brightly colored fishing lures, leaned his head into the aisle to asked with a shaky voice, from age or trepidation, “Can I help you, ma'am?”
“Please stay in your seat sir…it’s safer,” she whispered to him. “I’ll let you know if I need help.”
Carmen assumed Nancy, the first-class flight attendant, would have called in the emergency situation to the captain by now, but all the same she needed to make contact with the cockpit. Once she made it past the lavatories at the back of the plane, Carmen pulled herself around the corner of the kitchen galley. She stood on her bare feet and clutched the phone from the wall receptacle, before dialing the cockpit.
“Captain! Has Nancy alerted you to what is happening?” She asked as soon as he answered.
Beware of Flight Attendant Page 16