Baad Dog

by Sal Conte

  “It’s okay, Mommy. We’re safe now,” Ariel said, her hands clutching the poker, her eyes frantic and pleading.

  Pam stopped mid-swing, blinking wildly as if waking from a bad dream. She looked from her children to the pile of rubble in front of her that had once been their dog, and nodded wearily. She let go of the fireplace poker. It fell to the ground with a benign thud. Then she sat down on the snow covered earth, put her scorched hands to her eyes, and wept.

  Epilogue

  Catherine was calling Harry for the third time that day. She’d tried him twice the day before and was surprised he hadn’t called her back. That man loves spending time with his family, she thought. Glad he took the time when he did.

  Barry Anger from the network had called her the previous morning with renewed enthusiasm for the show. Harry’s little talk with him had done its job—ten full episodes would be starting production next week with a back order of four more if the show did well. Catherine was certain that the show was going to be a hit.

  The only drawback—and you couldn’t actually call it a drawback. It was a compromise—was the network wanted to make one small change. To soften the pirate captain character’s image, they wanted Captain Smythe to have a dog—a happy, lovable Golden Retriever.

  On the sixth ring the phone went to voicemail again. Catherine didn’t leave a message this time. Maybe I should drive up there, Catherine thought, chuckling as she considered the look on Harry’s face when he heard the good news.

  By the time Catherine had disconnected, she’d made the decision. She was going. His cabin was only a few hours away. She’d have dinner with Harry and the family, and she’d bring a bottle of wine to celebrate.

  “Gail, I’m going to be out of the office for the rest of the day,” she called to her assistant.

  Catherine grabbed her purse and car keys and started out. As far as the new addition dog went, she didn’t think Harry would mind the compromise one bit. A dog was a small price to pay for saving the show. Besides, Harry always struck her as a dog person. Who doesn’t love a dog? Man’s best friend. Right?

  *

  Six weeks later

  Mommy was coming home from the hospital today, and Ariel couldn’t wait to see her. Mommy had almost died saving them, but she was all better now. Ariel had been warned that Mommy wouldn’t look the same, but she didn’t care. Mommy being in the hospital had taken a lot out of them, especially Jackson.

  From the moment they began staying with Aunt Sherry, he was different. He’d become mean, and she knew he’d stolen her Fluttershy My Little Pony doll even though he said he didn’t.

  Ariel was sure that when Mommy got home Jackson would go back to being his old self. She looked forward to it. She missed her little brother. She decided to pass the afternoon as she waited for her mother’s return with a tea party. Jackson used to love her tea parties, but now he liked spending all his time alone in the laundry room.

  Ariel entered the room she was forced to share with her baby brother and began setting up for the tea party. That’s when she noticed the guest of honor was missing. Her Rarity My Little Pony Doll was gone.

  *

  In another part of the house, Jackson was having a tea party of his own. He sat on the laundry room floor amidst a scattered load of soiled whites. Ariel’s missing dolls rested in the laundry basket in front of him. Fluttershy had Harry’s missing cell phone resting comfortably against her side. Rarity had Pam’s phone.

  Jackson regarded the purloined dolls with a satisfied yet distant look in his eye. He gently stroked Fluttershy’s silky hair. “She’s coming home today,” he said in a low, scratchy whisper. “Don’t worry. Ah phrotect you,” he said. “Ah phrotect the babies.”

  THE END

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  Hey thriller lovers, want to keep the chills coming? Read the opening (yes, it’s thrilling) of Sal Conte’s latest psychological thriller (try saying that fast three times) Dream Escape.

  Dream Escape

  “Parting is such

  sweet sorrow.”

  You always hurt the one you love.

  Isn’t that what they say?

  One minute I’m fine, talking about the law, laying out our futures together, and the next, I’m doubled over feeling as though I just swallowed a bucket of hot, molten lava.

  My stomach hurts, no it more than hurts. I wish it was just a stomachache because this feels as though I’m being burned alive from the inside. I can literally feel my stomach lining melting from the heat of the lava flow in my belly. It hurts so much…

  I’m screaming.

  It’s the kind of top of the lung scream you’d expect from a person who just got a hot poker in the eye.

  And I’m praying. I’ve never been a child of God, but I fall to my knees and I pray. I’m actually praying for that hot poker in the eye.

  Something tells me it would be a lot kinder than this. You can live with one eye. No matter how painful it might be when the eye burned out, no matter how sorry you might look, in the end… you get to live. I can tell as the poison eats holes in my stomach walls and begins corroding my intestines that what’s happening inside of me is the type of thing a person does not survive.

  I’m crawling.

  Okay, it’s not really crawling. A baby crawls. I’m slugging along the floor, totally prone, my fingers digging into the carpet, my nails clawing the rough under layer as I struggle to propel myself forward.

  I have to get to my phone. If I can get to my phone I can stop screaming long enough to hit the button and holler one word.

  Help.

  My shirt is getting wet. It’s getting wet from the inside, from my belly side. I believe the poison has punched its way through, and my entrails are spilling out of me, seeping onto the floor, creating a trail of disgust as a drag myself forward.

  I am dying.

  I push harder. I’m not going out like this, I tell myself. That’s what the good guy in a movie would say, and then he’d find the strength to make it to the phone, push the button and make the call before he passed out. When he’d come to he’d be in the arms of his lover, surrounded by paramedics who’d be bringing him back to life. The lover would look down at him and smile.

  We got to you just in time, she’d say.

  But this isn’t a movie, and I am not the good guy. I’m the victim who’s been poisoned by the woman who should be holding me in her arms.

  Why?

  The question fires through, but what difference does it make? Why doesn’t matter when the outcome is surely death. The only thing that matters is not dying, and the chance of that has just rolled past longshot, and landed squarely on sure thing. Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

  I can feel hot bile rising into my throat. I roll to my side so that I don’t drown in it, and begin puking like I’m that girl in “The Exorcist.” This bile isn’t green, though. It’s red, and contains tiny bits of my stomach lining.

  “Relax,” she says. “It’ll be over soon.” She’s standing over me now, her voice is soothing.

  I listen to her. Against my own wishes, I listen to her, and every muscle in my body begins to relax. And it doesn’t hurt so bad anymore. It’ll be over soon. Good.

  As I lay there waiting for death to relieve me of my mortal coil, I think: I may not have recognized that she was a monster, but I sure as hell hope somebody else does before it’s too late.

  I want to be her only victim, or at least her last victim.

  “Something good will come of this,” she says. “I promise your death will not be in vain.”

  Big whoop, I think as death rushes up on me. Big…friggen…whoop.


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  DREAM ESCAPE

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  Sal Conte is the horror-thriller writing alter ego of Amazon #1 Teen Horror author, E. Van Lowe. As Sal Conte the author turns his talents to thriller writing with stunning results. Sal Conte is the author of 80s pulp horror classics “Child’s Play” and “The Power,” as well as winner of the 2016 Indiefab Silver Medal (awarded to the best indie published books of the year), for the novel The Secrets of Love and Death, written with E. Van Lowe. You can visit him at http://evanlowe.com/sal-contes-page/

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  Twitter: @SalConte1