Night Crawlers

by Ron L. Carter

Jed had been thinking about the money Johnny Jackson said he would pay them if they would let Mister breed his female. He figured it would be an easy way to make a thousand dollars and they could use the money. He talked to Joshua about it and he agreed to let Mister do it.

  Jed waited until the two weeks was up and then called Johnny to see if his female was in heat and if he still wanted to breed his dog to Mister. Johnny told him that she was just coming into heat and that it would be about a week before she was ready. Jed asked him if he was still willing to pay them a thousand dollars to breed her to Mister. He very excitedly, said, “Yes, I sure am. Call me the following week, and if you don’t mind, would you bring Mister down to my house in Palmdale? You can stay overnight while Mister and my girl mate.” Jed liked that idea because he didn’t want Johnny bringing his dog to their house.

  Jed told Joshua what the plan was, but told him Johnny’s female wouldn’t be ready for another week. Joshua was really excited. He liked the idea of Mister having some puppies. Jed told him, “Now Joshua, you do know that because Johnny is paying us to breed his dog to Mister we don’t get to keep any of the puppies? They’ll belong to Johnny.” Joshua asked, “Is he going to drown them?” He had remembered what happened to Mister’s brothers and sisters a few days after they were born. Jed laughed and said, “No, he’s going to keep all of them for himself. We get a thousand dollars and he get the puppies.” Joshua was just happy to hear Johnny wasn’t going to drown them in a gunny sack.

  The week of waiting must’ve seemed like a month to Joshua as he kept coming up to Jed every day and asking him if it was time to go yet. Jed would always tell him, “No, it isn’t time yet, Joshua. I’ll let you know when it’s time.” That didn’t stop him, he kept asking right up to the day it was time to go.

  On the day they were leaving, Jed called Johnny and made sure he had the right address, then he, Justin, Joshua and Mister piled into the truck and headed to Palmdale. Joshua was like a kid that was going to get a new bicycle for Christmas. He couldn’t wait to get there as they drove through Mohave and on down to Johnny’s house. His place was at the end of a road and back away from any other houses. As they drove up to the house, Jed could tell he was a man that liked his privacy. The house was set back, off the road about thirty yards and it looked like an older home that was built during the 1950’s. It had a nice paint job and looked like it had been kept in good condition. The front yard had only a few large trees and there was no grass or plants out front. It appeared to Jed, that people were using the front yard as a parking area, because it was almost all dirt.

  As soon as they arrived, Johnny came bounding out of the house to greet them. He had a big smile on his face as he went up and shook Jed’s hand. He said, “Did you have any trouble finding the place?” Jed answered, “No, It was pretty easy to find.” Johnny looked down at Mister and said, “Hello big guy, you ready to get it on?” Joshua piped up and said, “He’s ready.”

  Johnny told Jed he had cleared out one of the bedrooms in his house where the three of them could spend the night. After they put their things away in the bedrooms Johnny had them come outside. He was excited to show them what he had in his metal building about thirty yards behind the house. He told Joshua, “You’ll have to keep Mister outside because I have a lot of dogs in there and I don’t want them getting all riled up.” Justin knew Joshua was anxious to also see what was going on inside so he told Joshua, “I’ll stay out here with Mister while you go in and take a look around.” Joshua was a little apprehensive about leaving Mister outside, but knew Justin would keep a good eye on him.

  When they walked inside the building, some of the dogs began to bark and growl when they saw all the strange faces. There were fourteen cages inside the building where Johnny housed all his dogs. Each cage had an area that was six feet wide and ten feet long and there were a row of seven on each side of the building. Each stall had total privacy from the other one so the dogs couldn’t see out into the walking area or each other. At the end of each pen was an “Igloo” dog house for the dogs to sleep in. Each dog also had dog door where they could go outside whenever they wanted. It was about the same size on the outside as it was on the inside pen. The entire building had heating and air conditioning, just like most houses.

  There was a worker inside who looked like he was taking care of some of the dogs as he was moving from place to place. He wasn’t paying much attention to them when they came in and he didn’t appear to be too friendly. He didn’t even look over at them as he went about his business. Johnny said, “That’s Carlos over there and he takes care of the dogs for me.” He was a Hispanic male, thirty one years of age, and about five foot seven inches tall. He had his hair in a ponytail just like Johnny.

  As they walked along and looked in the pens, Jed soon found they were all Pit Bull Terriers and they all had their ears trimmed back. He instantly realized what Johnny was up to. He was using his dogs in a ring, as fighting dogs. He looked over at Johnny and said, “Hey Johnny, can we talk outside for just a minute?” He told Joshua to stay inside and look around at the dogs while he talked to Johnny. When he said that Johnny replied, “Sure, no problem,” and headed outside as Jed followed.

  Once outside, Jed confronted Johnny and told him he now knew that he was one of those people that raised his dogs to fight in a ring. He told Johnny, “I’m not sure Joshua is going to be okay knowing that Mister’s puppies would be raised to fight and possibly end up dead.” Johnny laughed and said, “I don’t fight my girl in the ring. She’s my pride and joy and I’d never let that happen to her or her puppies. I just believe she and Mister would make some awesome, quality dogs. Maybe show dogs.”

  Jed and Johnny continued to talk outside as Joshua made his way around the building looking at all the dogs one by one. Johnny had eleven males and two females. One of the females looked like she was getting ready to have puppies and the other one already had five she was nursing. Carlos was moving some of her bedding around and taking care of her and the puppies when Joshua went up next to the cage and said, “Hi, I’m Joshua.” At first Carlos didn’t say anything to Joshua, he just gave him an irritated look. Joshua wondered what that was all about and then Carlos walked up close to the gate and almost right in his face, and said, “I know who you are, you stupid little freak, your dog killed Sam. I don’t like you and I don’t like your dog. You’re both nothing but freaks to me.” It hurt Joshua’s feelings when he called him a freak and he immediately backed away from the pen. He hadn’t felt that kind of jabbing, hurting pain since he had first tried to go to school with the other kids in kindergarten. He stood there for a minute, just staring deeply into Carlos’s eyes, until Carlos turned away and starting working again.

  Johnny and Jed came back into the room a few minutes later and it looked like they had everything worked out because they were laughing and talking. Joshua went up to Johnny and asked him, “Why do all your dogs have short ears?” Johnny laughed out loud and said, “If they get in a fight with another dog with long ears, sometimes the dogs will hold onto the other dog ears they’re fighting and pull their ears off. We cut our dogs ears short so that won’t happen.” Joshua didn’t ask him any other questions, he just walked around the building looking at all the dogs. He would occasionally looking over at Carlos to see if he was looking back at him.

  Johnny told Jed he wanted to leave Mister and Princess together for at least one entire day to make sure she “would take” and would be pregnant. He showed them to their room and then brought Princess into the house and introduced her to Mister. They first acted like they wanted to fight each other, but Joshua gave Mister the signal to retreat and he started wagging his tail. They sniffed around on each other for several minutes until they were comfortable. Princess started to lay down on her back in a submissive posture and they started to play like they were puppies again. Johnny looked over and said, “They’re going to get along fine.” At t
hat point, Mister wasn’t paying too much attention to Joshua or anyone else, he had something else on his mind. It wasn’t much longer after that when they hooked up. Johnny let out a big laugh and said, “I think we’re going to have some puppies, boys.” Joshua clapped his hands and said, “Yippee!”

  Johnny had them make themselves at home as he barbequed a couple of big tri-tips and put together a huge dinner for them. Carlos had a place where he stayed and slept out in the corner of the metal building where the dogs were kept. Johnny went and got him and had him join them for dinner. He wasn’t very friendly, as he quickly ate dinner, and then headed back to the building. Joshua looked over at him a few times and he could still see the anger in his face. Johnny told Jed, “He’s an illegal, but I’ve had him working with me for several years and he takes really good care of the dogs. There are a couple of the dogs that don’t like him and he has to be especially careful around them. Sam was one of his favorites so, if he isn’t very friendly, that’s the reason.” Jed didn’t know that Carlos had called Joshua a freak or he wouldn’t have been very happy about it. They probably wouldn’t have stayed the night if Joshua had told him about the encounter..

  That night, they left Mister and Princess together in a porch room in back of the house, as everyone went to bed. It was just after midnight, while everyone was sleeping, that Joshua snuck into the porch room where Mister and Princess were and got Mister. He made sure Princess laid back down as he took Mister out of the room and headed for the dog building. He was angry with Carlos for calling him a Freak. Before he opened the door to the dog building, he gave Mister the signal to not bark and to not growl as they went in. He very slowly and quietly opened the door, making sure he didn’t wake the other dogs. They crept over to the corner of the building where Carlos was sleeping in his single bed. He was lying on his back and had his head turned toward the wall, with his neck exposed. As they got very close to the bed, Joshua said to himself, I’m not a freak. You’re the freak. He gave Mister the signal to kill and Mister instantly grabbed Carlos by the neck and gave it a few quick jerks before Carlos knew what had happened. Mister had snapped his neck just like he had done with the dogs he had already killed. Carlos didn’t even have time to try and fight or scream out for help.

  Joshua had kept most of his meat from the BBQ and he threw it on Carlos’s dead body before he turned and said to Carlos before he walked away, “You won’t call me a freak anymore.” He slowly took Mister outside and told him to stay, as he patted him on the back and said, “Good Boy!” He then crept slowly back inside the building unlatched the doors to the pens of all the dogs. He opened them so they would be free to roam the building and find the meat on Carlos’s body. He figured the dogs would fight over the meat and it would look like they killed him. He then took Mister and put him back in the room with Princess and then he went back to his sleeping area. He was very satisfied with himself and Mister as he lay there thinking about what they had done. He wasn’t going to let anyone call him names ever again, especially as long as he had Mister as his protector.

  It was in the early morning hours when Johnny and the boys heard a lot of commotion coming from the dog kennel. It sounded like there were a lot of dogs fighting with each other as Johnny grabbed his “breakstick” and headed to the building. Jed, Justin and Joshua were right behind him and he told Jed to keep everyone back as he entered the building. When Johnny first looked inside the room, there were two dead dogs, near the back of the building where Carlos slept and a few other dogs still fighting with each other. Johnny yelled out, “Holy crap! I got dead dogs in here!” After several minutes, he was finally able to put the dogs back in their cages and then go over and check on Carlos, who was on the floor. When he found Carlos, he was pretty badly mangled, lying next to his bed. Johnny yelled out, “Christ, what the hell happened here, Carlos?” He went over to see if Carlos was still breathing. He checked for his pulse and soon found out that he was dead.

  After several minutes, Johnny came out of the building. He looked haggard and tired as he said, “Somehow, the dogs got out in the middle of the night and two of them are dead. While they were out, they killed Carlos.” Jed really didn’t know what to say as he went over to Johnny and put his hand on his shoulder. He said, “Man that is sick! What are you going to do?” He told Jed, “I have no idea. I’m totally devastated right now. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.” He looked like he was dazed and confused as he continued, “I can’t call the police or they’ll come and get me then throw me in jail for raising fighting dogs, especially now that they’ve killed a man.” Jed told him, “Maybe you ought to think about it for a while before you make any rash decisions. Does Carlos have any family that live around here?” Johnny said, “No. All of his family still live in Mexico and he just sends them money each month.” Jed said, “If you don’t want to get in trouble with the police, then maybe you should think about burying him out back here someplace where no one will ever know he was killed by your dogs. If that’s what you decide to do, we’ll all help you dig the holes to bury him and your two dogs.”

  Johnny had his dogs fight illegally all over the state and he had buried a few of the dogs on his property that were killed in the ring, but he felt he had never been in this kind of trouble before. He’d never had any of his dogs attack a person before. The more he thought about it, the more he felt Jed was right. He knew he didn’t have any choice in the matter, unless he wanted to spend several years locked up behind bars. He told Jed, “If we do this, you guys will have to keep this our secret. If anyone finds out about it, I’ll be in big trouble. I might even have to spend the rest of my life in jail.” As he looked over at Joshua and Justin, Jed said, “Don’t worry Johnny, we’re good at keeping secrets. He looked over at Joshua and Justin and winked as he said, “We have a few secrets of our own,” They looked back at Jed with somewhat of an embarrassed grin on their faces because they knew exactly what he was talking about.

  Jed and the boys spent the entire day helping Johnny dig the holes for the body of Carlos’ and the two dogs. They waited until dark, so no one would see what they were doing. They carefully carried Carlos’ body out of the building and buried it. They also did the same thing with the two dogs. When they finished they had to spend time trying to calm Johnny down before Jed told him they had to head back to Red Mountain before it got too late. Johnny thanked them for all their help and gave them the thousand dollars he had promised them plus, an extra two hundred dollars for all their help. As they were leaving, he still looked totally overwhelmed and defeated as they got in their truck. Jed said, “I’ll call you in about nine weeks from now to see how many puppies you have. Try to forget about what happened last night.” Johnny waved good-bye as he said, “Okay. I’ll try.”

  On the way home, Jed had a funny feeling something just wasn’t “quite right” about the dogs and how they had gotten out of their cages. Everything about the incident with the dogs just didn’t make a lot of sense to him. Johnny had been raising and fighting dogs for years and he had never had any problems with his dogs getting out of their cages. As Joshua sat in the back seat with Mister, he seemed extra ordinarily happy with himself for some unknown reason. Jed had both hands on the wheel as he looked over his right shoulder and said to Joshua, “Did you have anything to do with what happened back there to Carlos?” Joshua looked back at Jed as he smiled and said, “He deserved it. He called me a freak.” Jed instantly screamed out in anger, “I knew it! I knew you had something to do with it, I just didn’t know what. So what did you do? Did you turn the dogs loose inside the building!?” Joshua said, “Yes, I let Mister kill him.” Jed was in shock that he admitted it so willingly. Usually he had to keep pushing Joshua to get a straight answer out of him when he did something wrong. When Joshua said that, Jed said, “Christ Joshua! You can’t just kill people for calling you a name. You should’ve told me and we would’ve ta
ken Mister and gone home.” Joshua smiled and replied, “It’s okay Jed, I took care of him.” All the way back to Red Mountain Jed was wondering, what is going on in Joshua’s head? Joshua had now turned into a vengeful killer with a deadly weapon. Jed also wondered, will he kill someone again if they call him a name, and if they do, how can I stop him? Jed’s body shivered at just the thought of the way Joshua had taken out his anger on Carlos.

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  Chapter 19 – The follower