An old lady down the street used to take care of me when I was young. My parents used to tell me about how dangerous it was to leave me alone, but I always thought it odd. The lady, Mrs. Berry, always brought butterscotch candies, which is usual for those of her age, and I enjoyed her company.

Her family, opposite of my own, always seemed odder still, and though I never like to judge too much, her son was an odd duck. A mortician by trade. A bit older than myself, and he seemed of a mean temper, but she always defended him saying he’d never hurt anyone. I put up with him until his mother passed.

Her body was supposedly incinerated, but something about it always seemed odd. I let the feeling pass and went on.

I stayed home as my family always told me I was sick. They said I needed the assistance of others. They said I saw things. I saw nothing but what was before my eyes. The streetlight at the turn by our house always bothered me though they never seemed to bother anyone else. The lights blinked out of time. My father told me I imagined it, but no. It was clearly a message in timing. I wrote the message in morse code.

It read: hidden hidden blood hidden bone bark bite. I told my mother. She told my doctors. That’s when they upped my medications.

And my parents always worried for me despite my age. They said that I had a way about me. That I’d get myself hurt. I told them nothing could hurt me. Dinners were tense, especially around the holidays. I took to walks after dinner, one of the few times they let me out of their sight. And one particular night, the streets lay damp with darkness and covered in snow.

Passing Mrs. Berry’s house, I stopped to stare and remember the old lady. And that’s when a beast set upon me. A big gray dog with the body of a quarterback and face of a hound, it’s canine jaw jagged with curved daggers. It lunged. I back into the street, dodging the beast, my feet nearly slipping upon ice.

“Trunk doesn’t like strangers.” I saw Mrs. Berry’s son. “He doesn’t know you.”

“Call off your dog,” I said.

He whistled to call it back. “My mother’s dead, and I never liked you much. Stay away. Next time I won’t call him off.”

Going home, I remembered the light, and went to watch it again. This time, the Morse spelt: murder murder grind grind chomp.

And I felt the need to do something dangerous. Nothing chomps and grinds on bones but a dog. And dogs like nothing as much as meat. My parents sat in the living room, watching The creature of the Black Lagoon. I took bacon from the fridge. Outside, the tool shed held a crowbar. And I realized that I had the motive and means to see if I was right. I waited until 2 AM, then made my way to Mrs. Berry’s old house.

As my crowbar made shards of glass fly to the carpet as I cleared a window near the front door, I cleared a path to pass my body. The glass cracked underneath my boots. That’s when I heard the beast awaken, a horrid lurching behind it, as if the floor boards shrieked at his steps. The evil stood before me with his shotgun, cloaked by the shadows of night. “You’re in the wrong house.”

“Wrong indeed.” I threw the crowbar. It found a path to his head. He fell, and as he did, the gun fired into the nearby wall. His head bled out a red pool.

The dog growled as though hell commanded him, but then turned to his master. He began licking the blood. My God, what the hell!?

I rushed through the house, the dog at his master’s body—my mind telling me to search for another oddity, with no place more off than the bedroom. A gloomy mess of old newspapers amd coffee stains upon the bed. His wall poorly plastered. With the impulse still in my heart, I took my fist and beat the plastered wall. I beat the walls until my knuckles tore to bleed, and when the plaster started to come, I pulled chunks off the wall, one after another. The lady, Mrs. Berry—her body deceased from mangled tears—missing limbs in the wall frame.

I turned to puke, and as I did, I heard the clicking of a hand gun and a voice.

“Kneel and put your hands on your head.”

My head came and I took a breath. “I will, but first, know I claim his death, but not her’s.”