u/Opposite-Action-9994

I’m exhausted, but I can’t just not tell anybody about this. And since I’m not talking with my folks, you guys will just have to do.

I’ll start from the top—when I first realized something wasn’t right. It was Saturday, around two a.m. I couldn’t sleep.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, pulling at the loose, dark skin that forms the bags under my eyes, and that’s when I saw another red, rust-colored scab on my lower eyelid.

Either this rash is weakening my skin to the point where it’s tearing, or I’m scratching myself bloody in my sleep.
I looked down at my left hand, the place where it all started. You’d think I’d put it between two feral cats having it out, judging by all the small red, crusty spots and lines running up from my knuckles to my shoulder.

It’s been two weeks, and the rash has only gotten worse. I’ve tried everything—chamomile lotion, aloe vera, hot water, cold water, even this weird suggestion I got from a buddy online about banana peels, though I think he was just pulling my exceedingly desperate leg.

I went to my doctor, and they said I must be having an allergic reaction to something. But what? I haven’t changed a thing. Same old laundry detergent, same old body wash, even the same old scratchy bedsheets. They set me up with an appointment with a specialist, but it’ll take a month to get in.

I tried a few other doctors, and at this point I’ve had so many doses of Benadryl forced into me that I’m surprised I haven’t overdosed.

Thankfully, I’ve got some sick days and vacation time saved up to wait this out until my dermatologist appointment.

My boss nearly fainted when she saw me.

Can’t exactly serve food with a smile while looking like a rashy leper.

Between the itching and the medication, my head’s swimming. I’m so out of it that I keep remembering scabs that aren’t there, or I’ll go to scratch a spot only to find a massive scab I swear wasn’t there an hour ago—like they’re moving when I’m not looking.

I leaned on the bathroom sink, pulling my eyelid down to get a better look at the scab. A nasty thing—small, but gnarly-looking, brownish red, like an old water-soaked wound. There was even a hair poking out of it, which was strange, because as far as I knew, hairs don’t grow on eyelids.

It must’ve gotten stuck during the healing process. A loose eyelash, maybe. Still, it bothered me. It was bad enough looking like some kind of burn victim—now this thing was just sitting there.

Mocking me.

I know you’re not supposed to pick at scabs, but I couldn’t help myself. I slid my finger up and rubbed at the small black line—

and OW! Jesus Christ!

Okay. Not a hair. It was stiff, and whatever it was felt attached deep. When I poked it, the entire scab shifted.

This was going to hurt.

I knew I shouldn’t pick. But just staring at that black line was unbearable.

I just had to be careful. Slow and delicate. After all, a foreign object in a healing wound couldn’t be good, right?
I grabbed a pair of tweezers, some rubbing alcohol, and a bandage to deal with the inevitable blood.

Slowly… slowly, I reached out with the tweezers and tried to grip the tip of the black line, but it kept slipping free—like it had a mind of its own.

Finally, on the fourth attempt, my patience wore thin. I grabbed it at the base, clamped down, and yanked.
It came free along with the scab and a small trickle of blood.

I dropped the tweezers and cupped the bleeding spot under my eye, cursing myself.

I splashed alcohol on the wound, hissing at the burn, then slapped a bandage over it. When I turned back to the sink to grab the tweezers, I froze.

My scab was twitching.

I stared in horror as I realized the black line wasn’t a hair.

It was a leg.

One of many.
I stood there, watching the little legs kick as the scab—which I now realized wasn’t a scab at all but some grotesque little beetle latched to my skin—flailed, trying to right itself.

Maybe it was the medicine. My head wasn’t right. It had to be some bug I just hadn’t noticed. I flipped it over with the tweezers.

Its underside—no, what made up its back—was a rusty brownish-red shell that looked exactly like a scab. The moment it landed on its legs, it took off, scrambling uselessly against the ceramic sink.

I turned on the faucet and washed it down the drain.

I stood there shaking, skin crawling. I’d mistaken some giant bed bug for a scab on my eye—and it had latched on so tightly it hadn’t even moved when I woke.

That’s what bed bugs do, right? They’re supposed to be sneaky.

Maybe that explained the rash.

The realization made my stomach turn.

I had to check my bed.

I walked from the bathroom to my cheap mattress, scratching my arm as I went. I flipped it.

Nothing.

I stripped the sheets, the pillowcases. No shells. No stains.

They had to be coming from somewhere.

I got down on my hands and knees and checked the wooden frame.

There it was.

Another red bug, lying on its back beside a dust bunny. I scooped it up with my slipper to get a closer look.
It was bigger than the first. Its shell was lumpy, edged in white.

That same rusty reddish-brown.

It looked exactly like a scab.

Not camouflage. Not resemblance.

Exact.

No.

No no no no no—oh God, no.

The thought finally clicked.

I looked down at my arms. Scabs lined them.

Under my arms. On my hands. My elbows.

Rusty reddish-brown.

And on one or two—

Thin black lines.

Moving.

I scratched.

I couldn’t help it.

The sensation, the sight—knowing they were all over me. I raked my nails down my arm and felt something rip free. One fell onto its back, flailing. Another vanished into some crevice.

I kept scratching. Pain burned through me, but the sight of a third barely hanging on sent me into a frenzy. Scabs and blood dropped to the floor.

Some ran when they hit the ground. Others bolted toward my feet, trying to crawl up my legs. I stomped and jerked around, half-hysterical. When one made it into my shirt, I tore the stained thing off.

I couldn’t tell where it went. Every scab felt like it was moving.

I slapped and rubbed at my skin until I stumbled back into the bathroom, desperate for the mirror.

I grabbed the alcohol, tore the cap off, and dumped it across my stomach.

The burn was immediate. Wounds bubbled. Two of the things fell free, writhing on the tile.

After that, everything blurred.

The 911 operator must’ve thought I was insane. Who would believe me?

But when the police arrived and saw me, they labeled my apartment hazardous immediately.

I don’t know what happened to my neighbors. I don’t know if they evacuated the building.

They brought me to some kind of medical facility.
Chemical wash. Observation.

They grabbed my phone and charger on the way out.

Thank God.

I overheard one of the staff mention Dermestus scabiformis while they were taking notes.

So I guess this isn’t their first rodeo.

It’s been two days and I guess i'm healing well.

The wounds have scabbed over again.

They keep telling me not to pick.

But… wouldn’t you?

It's hurting again.

I can still feel it. Tightening. Coiling.

That cold slimy grip.

My friends tell me to talk about it but honestly they all look at me like I'm crazy.

I'm not crazy.

It happened three days ago. I work at a local chicken plant as a maintenance worker. They process tons of meat every day, from start to end. Usually these kinds of places break up the processes into smaller factories, but not here.

From live hang, de-boning, dicing, prepping and even a few lines cooking chicken that you yourself might have eaten at some local fast food joint. They did it all. But see, it's not all clean efficiency.

There's dirty jobs too.

Most giblets, bits and other scraps get turned into dog chow but that doesn't mean there isn't still loads of wasted meat that gets flushed into the company drainage system. A series of interwoven grates, pipes and channels that feed out into a large wastewater pond.

Yeah I hear ya, can't be great for the local environment but I guess by the time the stuff reaches the drainage pipes it's mostly sterile and diluted enough to release out into the world.

It's a nightmare in the summer. The entire town hates it. But that doesn't stop them from letting their teenagers, friends and family work there. After all, there's almost nothing else around.

That's why I'm here after all. It pays better than working the lines and it's mostly basic handyman work.

A loose bolt here, a replaced power cord there. Really all you had to do was pay attention to what the older guys did and maybe watch a few YouTube videos here or there on lunch breaks. However there was one job you'd never catch any of the old hands doing.

Pipe clearing. Every once in a blue moon some big glob of skin, fat and maybe a plastic bag or two will get caught somewhere and cause some backflow or start clumping near one of the tunnels that fed out into the drainage pond. It's usually pretty simple work.

And you always come back smelling like rotten meat. That's why they make the newer guys do it. Guys like me and Mikey, who did it the last time there was an issue, so apparently it was my turn. Great.

I elected to have lunch before going down into the pit, figuring I wouldn't really be in the mood after. The report talked about slower drainage, a few of the grates taking an hour to fully drain when they should take minutes, and a lingering odor of rot coming up from tunnel B.

That meant checking every grate and channel from the factory floor all the way out to the concrete outfall that jutted over the pond by a good six or seven feet.

So I set to work. Grabbed a radio, some of the large rubber gloves we used for cleanouts, and a three-pronged garden cultivator maintenance had started using to dredge stubborn clumps out of the grease-filled waters.

Checking the grates they reported, I found no obvious signs of blockage aside from the backflow. Still, I pulled the metal covers off and tried to sift through the red-brown liquid. The tip of the cultivator scraped against concrete and only managed to pull up a few scraps of fat and a half-shredded feather.

I followed the line down and repeated this process a couple of times before figuring it would just be easier to find where the water wasn't backing up.

So down the maintenance stairways, into tunnel B, I walked. The further down I went, the deeper the water got. Not anything dangerous. Well, aside from the risk of losing my lunch to the smell. Just an inch or two of dirty water.

The splash of my steps turned to sloshing as the water got up to ankle height. I was never so thankful for those ugly uncomfortable rubber boots they made us all wear as I dragged my feet through the stuff.

Then finally shin height. By then I was starting to get nervous. My boots went up pretty high but if the water got any deeper I'd end up needing to turn back and get a pair of waders or something. Thankfully it seemed to stay pretty consistent as I reached the last stretch of the drainage tunnel. I wish I could say the same for the smell.

The stench was quickly ramping up, no longer the stale smell of sterilized but rotting poultry.

This was almost akin to sewage or like that time I had to pull a dead possum out from the neighbor's shed.

Sweet but wrong, like rotting fruit up until the point where that greasy musk hits you and lingers in the back of your throat.

The walk had taken me to the outflow. A square culvert that led directly to the outfall. They kept the tunnels pretty decently lit but I could still see the reflection of sunlight coming through the large grate that separated the tunnel from the outside world.

I could tell even from a distance that the water wasn't moving right.

The usual even flow out was something more of a slow lazy spiral, like it was choked off and just barely draining from some hole near the bottom of the grate. The sound of a steady flow of water was now a trickle followed by an occasional splash as the waste occasionally flowed over whatever the stoppage was.

And the sound of buzzing.

God the flies must be having a field day with this.

I walked along the edges where the walkway stayed level despite the drainage tunnel itself sloping down. That meant whatever was causing the blockage was big enough to cover up several feet of grate.

This was gonna suck. No way it wasn't some big glob of skin, fat and feathers that had somehow slipped through processing. It happened. Maybe not this bad but it did happen from time to time.

The pool here had begun to murk, looking more like the pond outside than the usual brown-red liquid I was used to seeing flow out these grates. It was thick enough that I couldn't even make out the bottom.

So naturally I took the cultivator and pressed the head deep into the water, dragging the tip from as low as I could get it and starting to scrape upwards.

And there was definitely something there, a rubbery sort of resistance between the cultivator and the metal grate. Whatever it was, I couldn't get purchase on it. When I pulled the head back it was trailed by a glob of green algae-like slime.

I nearly gagged. The stench got worse when I pulled the mass out from the water. A smell like pond muck mixed with putrid meat.

It was enough to distract me from the fact that the water around my feet wasn't just shifting with my own motions.

The fact I threw up, that sudden jerk as I felt the cheap company-provided chicken meal leave me and join with the water below, made me close my eyes just long enough.

Something clamped down.

Hard.

It wasn't painful yet. Like somebody had reached up from the murky muck to try and pull me down. A grip tight enough that in all my flailing I couldn't even pull out of my boot to get away.

A grip that found itself on my other foot, causing me to fall back onto the grate.

The whole thing shook with the impact. The sound of shaking metal bouncing through the tunnels.

I would say that I took a deep breath, calmed down and tried my radio.

But I didn't do that. No, instead I screamed, thrashed and dug my fingers into the grate behind me. I desperately tried to leverage myself up and out of the water, away from whatever was touching me, pushing me back against the grate.

The more I pulled, the tighter the feeling got. Every time I'd get pulled back down while frantically yanking my legs, whatever it was would shift up maybe another inch or so.

I didn't stop thrashing until it wasn't just holding my boots, but in them, pouring into them and rubbing against my feet.

You ever held raw chicken skin? Felt the cold, rubbery texture? That's all I could picture at the time, my boots filling with wriggling loose skin.

The smell. I will never forget that smell. No matter how hard I scrub my legs I swear.

Sometimes when I'm alone. When there's nothing going on.

I smell that waterlogged, sickly sweet scent of rot.

Somewhere in my panic the cheap clip of the radio must've snapped, or maybe it just got pushed the wrong way when I hit the grate. Don't know. They never recovered it.

So there I was, hyperventilating and gripping onto greasy metal for dear life while something slowly inched its way up my legs. It seemed like the less I struggled the slower the thing moved.

That's when I got a look at it, or at least part of it. The patch that was working its way up me was mostly a clear slime with flecks of yellow-white blobs in it that I eventually pegged as bits of fat alongside some patches of bubbling discolored liquid held in its form.

As it met the water below I saw a mix of rust-red patches that lazily shifted, suspended in whatever was holding this thing together.

And deeper in the water, just barely visible under the surface, were more concentrated black blobs that occasionally bobbed up close enough to see as it shifted its way up my body.

I screamed, cried, shouted. This deep in the tunnels nobody would probably hear me. Sure maybe if they went into the maintenance stairwell but like I said.

Nobody came down here unless they had to.

Worst part of it? I could see the town. Through the grate, there in the distance I could just barely see the road leading away from the factory and into the town proper.

None of my shouting mattered. The cars kept driving, town kept moving while I got to stand there and wait for this thing to finish me off.

I think it was an hour in when I threw up again. It wasn't exactly in any hurry after I'd stopped struggling. At that point I was hoping somebody would just notice I'd been gone and come get me. The ooze had worked its way up slowly to my stomach and was still squeezing. That, coupled with the fact I could make out what looked a lot like mosquito larvae twitching in those little pockets of yellowed water trapped inside the ooze, made the urge hard to resist.

That was a mistake.

I couldn't exactly lurch forward so a good bit of it just ran down my work suit.

And when it made contact with the thing, I could see the shifting stop. The whole thing seemed to freeze up.

It started drinking. That's the only way I could describe it. It sucked the trickle of vomit into itself. I could see the bits of white and brown from the breaded chicken meal getting sucked down into one of the darker parts of the stinking mass.

It moved in contractions, like a throat swallowing over and over again.

I still see it. Still see the moment where it began to trace up the vomit trail.

Still remember the sticky feeling between my fingers as I ripped at it, threw chunks of goo off and away only for it to react by binding my fingers so tight I heard something pop.

It was pinning me to the grate. Not creeping up anymore but moving in short pulsing bursts, tightening, squeezing.

I felt my head getting light. I tried to move my leg again but the thing responded by gripping down on my right leg with a crushing force. I felt something give followed by a blinding pain that made me cry out.

The last thing I remember is something cold, wet and slimy trailing up my chin and the taste of mildew and mold poking into my mouth.

And then nothing. According to the doctors I must have fallen into the water while trying to clear a blockage which apparently I did because by the time somebody got around to checking on me the water was draining normally.

With me laid splayed out, propped up against the grate.

I don't know why it let me live.

What I do know is when I came to I tried to vomit. Could still taste that stale rot in my mouth, smell it in my nose, feel it in my skin. It was too much.

Water. Mostly anyway, thick and warm with a stench that was too familiar.

The doctors sent me home with a cast and some antibiotics, told me to call if I feel any flu like symptoms.

Now I'm stuck sitting here, wondering as I try to forget the painful throb in my leg and that taste that won't go away no matter what I eat.

Did it stop at my mouth?

Just Ollie and I.

That's how it's been for years. Ever since I retired from my job at the bank.

I got him as a pup just before my retirement party. He keeps me company. I never bothered with getting married.

Had a few flings over the years, but in the end nothing ever stuck.

This morning Ollie had some big plans apparently. When I woke up, he'd already made his way into the yard to do his morning sniff around. I could just see him trotting along the little fence we put up for him.

He came in just before I got his breakfast ready. Normally he waited for me to shake the bag or for the sound of the sink turning on as I got his "gravy" ready, but today it's almost like he knew.

I wasn't complaining. The company was always welcome.

I gave my best boy a pat on the head and settled into my chair after putting his bowl on the ground by my feet.

A bit rougher and more wiry than the soft fur I remember, but then again, he's getting old and I can't say my hair's exactly any softer nowadays.

It was part of our routine, a good breakfast and a chance to sit down and take it all in.

A good dog, hot coffee, some warm eggs and a nice view. Things I'd worked for years to get.

Well, it used to be a nice view.

There in the corner of the window, breaking up the view of that luscious green.

That dirty yellow-brown of one of my ex-neighbor's trailers, like a smear on clean glass that you can't ignore.

The Johnsons were a nice family. Their kid was always a little off, but when he moved out Mary and Joe kept on being good neighbors. Kept to themselves, kept a tidy little garden that brought a little color to the place.

Then when Joe passed, Mary's health wouldn't let her stay, so when she moved into the home, their son moved back in..

Jackie ruined that place. What used to be a nice little trailer and yard quickly got overgrown with junk and weeds. Beer cans, broken glass, the usual trailer-park trash behavior.

Then he started moving in his "friends".

One nice little trailer with hand-print paint from the boy's childhood turned into a field of half-baked car

projects and odd visitors late at night.

It didn't surprise me or the local cops when one of the trailers exploded. The fire from the meth lab burned hot and violent, consuming most of the other mobile homes that'd been crammed into the lot.

Jackie claimed to not know anything. I didn't bother to look into the story much past that. All I know is it's been abandoned ever since the cops cleared out the equipment and remains.

The morning glories that Mary used to keep so well pruned have now formed dead vines that coat the burned-out cars. Her hostas which had been beautiful at one point were now just untidy clumps of green and brown.

Right there in my window was just another reminder of why I hated neighbors. Why I just preferred living alone.

Just me and Ollie.

Speaking of, the spoiled brat was nudging my leg and tapping his paws in place. This was his own way of saying "hurry up Dad! I gotta go!".

Draining the last of my coffee, I gave the guy a quick pat on the back. "Alright buddy, let's go." This set him off to spinning in excited circles as I pulled myself up, using the table as a brace.

I clipped the old leather leash to the blue collar around his neck. My rule of thumb was to always keep it one finger loose. I don't want to choke the little guy, but he did have a tendency to pull when some new scent caught his nose, and it seemed a little loose that morning.

Normally he drifted towards the little patch of forest behind us. There was a feral cat colony or something out there that I think a little old lady down the road was feeding. Not a big deal and it gave Ollie something to check out, I guess.

Today, though, he was pulling me the other way.

Down the gravel driveway. Maybe a stray had marked the mailbox or there was some roadkill up the road. I don't know what about today made Ollie wanna walk out there, but he was digging his little paws in. Dragging me away.

Away from the house, towards the long stretch of nothing road that led from the loose collection of houses that made up my "neighborhood" and into the larger parts of town.

I wasn't really paying attention.

I guess that's how the Doberman snuck up on me.

There was a moment where I noticed him. Where the ears started to flatten and a low growl rumbled up from its throat.

I know not all of them are violent, but the way this thing was growling.. The way it limped towards me with its ears drawn back and teeth bared.

It looked hurt. My first instinct wasn't to run. I knew better. I kept Ollie behind me and tried to calm the thing, hoping if I just kept my back straight and didn't flinch that it'd back off enough for us to get back inside.

This wasn't the first angry stray I'd dealt with in my life.

But it was the first I'd dealt with while walking Ollie.

"Easy boy.."

Then a bark from behind followed by a yank of the leash.

Ollie had pulled away from me and was now barking and lunging towards what looked like a German shepherd mix with half an ear torn away and bald patches on its rear that had managed to circle around behind me.

It all happened so fast. I was so busy trying to keep an eye on the other dogs that I didn't realize Ollie had slipped the leash.

Snapping, biting, and a white furry body along with a brown one tussling in the street.

I cried out, desperate to call him back, when my call turned into a shout of pain as something clamped down on my leg. I turned, kicked and scrambled back, landing on something hard with a loud thunk and the feeling of something giving beneath my weight..

My car. I'd parked it at the end of the drive a few days ago after hearing about a storm moving in. The driveway always

turned to mush during the rain and I didn't want to get stuck in case things got bad.

I won't say I was relieved. I wasn't. The only thing running through my mind was getting away.

Getting Ollie.

The mutt came free with a chunk of my house pants and more than a little skin, foaming mouth shaking and thrashing the cloth, not yet realizing it had lost me as I scrambled to the top of the beige old thing I called a van.

I'd never been so thankful for how rounded the corners were on this thing. Scrambling up it was hard for me with hands and feet.

The dogs couldn't find traction with their nails and paws.

A sharp yelp of pain followed by more snarls forced me to look away from the Doberman and two other mutts that'd joined in the chaos and were now jumping and snapping as my body curled into a ball on the top of the hail-damaged roof.

I saw a flash of white go behind the hostas, followed by that brown mutt crashing through the green.

The sounds I heard after..

I knew he wouldn't make it.

My leg throbbed painfully as I brought it to my chest. The torn edge of thin blue cloth turned a darker shade as the wound on my leg pulsed.

I'm not ashamed. I cried. I curled together and sobbed like when my mother died.

Maybe some of you will judge me, but he was my baby boy.

I was only pulled out of it when one of the bastards managed a lucky nip at my back that had apparently been just a little too close to the edge.

I pulled myself away from one edge only to see a dog jumping higher to try to reach me on the other.

Something cracked beneath me.

Sunroofs aren't really made to support a full-grown man.

It wasn't exactly clean. The glass panel shattered into dozens of small tinted glass pebbles.

I scrambled to grab the edges of the roof as my left leg painfully fell down, causing my hip to jerk.

When I felt the warm breath and spittle from one of the leaping dogs, the decision was made for me.

I adjusted, pulled myself up just enough to get my other leg in and slid awkwardly into the now glass-covered driver's seat.

The sound of claws digging at glass windows, the repetitive assault to my ears that was the bark of several mutts that now circled my car, looking for entry.

It wasn't exactly comforting, but knowing there was at least -something- between us at least gave me a chance to breathe.

Somewhere in the back of my mind a part of me was still trying to figure out a way to Ollie.

But the saner parts of me, the ones that had kept me alive working the oilfields, knew that wasn't going to happen. Knew I had to call for help and maybe find a way back home.

Back to the shotgun I kept leaned up in the corner of my doorway.

My initial thoughts were animal control, maybe the police department. In the end it didn't really matter.

Hard to make a call on a shattered phone. I guess somewhere between me falling onto the car and my scramble onto the roof, I'd managed to land on my phone. I tried, I really did, but the thing wouldn't even let me get past the lock screen.

I'd only learned later that I could've used the voice assistant to make the call for me. Sue me, I'm old.

A paw slamming into the window next to me, followed by a series of short deafening barks, made me jerk away from the driver's side window. I'd unconsciously started to lean into the door.

My face fell into my hands, elbows resting on the dash as the aches I'd previously been ignoring started to come back into focus. The bite wound throbbed, my hip and back twitched painfully with every shift.

My eye went to the blanket I kept in the passenger seat for Ollie. It didn't feel right, getting it dirty.. But my leg was still bleeding and he wouldn't be needing it anymore.

The barking was trailing off. The hope that maybe they'd lose interest died when two of the pack took to laying down in the middle of my driveway, panting and looking all the world like normal dogs.

Nothing like the picture of the snarling monsters that had forced me in here.

Somewhere to my right something slid across one of the fenders. In the passenger side wing mirror I could see a gray dog with a more pit-bull-like build digging and sniffing at one of my back tires before sitting down.

They were settling in.

No phone, no car keys, no gun.

Stuck.

I'd probably have panicked if I wasn't so drained from the experience. The makeshift bandage seemed to be helping, so bleeding out wasn't really something that worried me.

What worried me was how long they could wait.

Have you ever thought about what a dog does when they run a squirrel up a tree? You hear about it, but how many of you have actually seen it?

The squirrel probably just hops to a different tree, up and away..

But what if the squirrel didn't? What if the thing the dog wanted was just there? Just out of reach?

At one point I tried to poke my head out the sunroof to get a peek down the road, partly out of desperation to just do something, partly out of hope I'd see a car I could flag down.

Apparently that was enough noise to set the mutts off again. The one by my wheel well let off a bark and that got the attention of the others, brought them back to circling my car and making half-hearted leaps towards me.

Any time I made a major move in the car, it'd seem to set them off.

Looking down to my cup holder, I could just barely make out the time from the ruined screen of my phone.

One hour.

Just as the thought of reclining back and trying to sleep crossed my mind, though I doubt I could've managed it, a loud "Honk" forced both me and the dogs to look towards the road.

A truck, dented and green, was slowly creeping down the road. Maybe one or two of the pack had been loitering in the road? Maybe they were guard dogs that this guy was rounding up. Never did find out.

The thing that mattered was it drew them away from me.

I gave it a solid minute before working up the courage to try and make a break for the house.

The first step out of the car felt unreal, like I'd open the door and they'd suddenly turn around or come out from behind the bush.

But the most I saw was the hint of something furry running down the road in the direction the truck went.

The hobble I managed wasn't fast, but it got me down the driveway, to the door and into the little hall that served as the entryway to my house.

No phone meant no ambulance. I needed to get to a hospital to get my leg looked at.. But my keys weren't hanging in their usual spot on the keyring by the door.

Cursing myself for leaving them on the nightstand, I started the awkward hobble to my bedroom, down the hall, past the living area..

In through an open door where something sucked the breath out of my lungs.

Ollie was on the bed.

Splayed out on my pillow like he owned the place, tail giving one slow wag when he saw me.

He crawled his way over to me, dragging his belly across the bed and messing up the sheets..

My hand was shaking as I reached out, still not believing what I was seeing..

My thumb brushed the red leather at his neck, the same one he always wore. His fur felt soft in my hand and I almost lost it when the wag picked up speed.

I sat on the bed, dragging the old dog into my lap, and just rocked back and forth.

My baby boy was alive.

But..

Ollie was here.

Ollie had been here.

So who had I taken outside?

Just Ollie and I.

That's how it's been for years. Ever since I retired from my job at the bank.

I got him as a pup just before my retirement party. He keeps me company. I never bothered with getting married.

Had a few flings over the years, but in the end nothing ever stuck.

This morning Ollie had some big plans apparently. When I woke up, he'd already made his way into the yard to do his morning sniff around. I could just see him trotting along the little fence we put up for him.

He came in just before I got his breakfast ready. Normally he waited for me to shake the bag or for the sound of the sink turning on as I got his "gravy" ready, but today it's almost like he knew.

I wasn't complaining. The company was always welcome.

I gave my best boy a pat on the head and settled into my chair after putting his bowl on the ground by my feet.

A bit rougher and more wiry than the soft fur I remember, but then again, he's getting old and I can't say my hair's exactly any softer nowadays.

It was part of our routine, a good breakfast and a chance to sit down and take it all in.

A good dog, hot coffee, some warm eggs and a nice view. Things I'd worked for years to get.

Well, it used to be a nice view.

There in the corner of the window, breaking up the view of that luscious green.

That dirty yellow-brown of one of my ex-neighbor's trailers, like a smear on clean glass that you can't ignore.

The Johnsons were a nice family. Their kid was always a little off, but when he moved out Mary and Joe kept on being good neighbors. Kept to themselves, kept a tidy little garden that brought a little color to the place.

Then when Joe passed, Mary's health wouldn't let her stay, so when she moved into the home, their son moved back in..

Jackie ruined that place. What used to be a nice little trailer and yard quickly got overgrown with junk and weeds. Beer cans, broken glass, the usual trailer-park trash behavior.

Then he started moving in his "friends".

One nice little trailer with hand-print paint from the boy's childhood turned into a field of half-baked car

projects and odd visitors late at night.

It didn't surprise me or the local cops when one of the trailers exploded. The fire from the meth lab burned hot and violent, consuming most of the other mobile homes that'd been crammed into the lot.

Jackie claimed to not know anything. I didn't bother to look into the story much past that. All I know is it's been abandoned ever since the cops cleared out the equipment and remains.

The morning glories that Mary used to keep so well pruned have now formed dead vines that coat the burned-out cars. Her hostas which had been beautiful at one point were now just untidy clumps of green and brown.

Right there in my window was just another reminder of why I hated neighbors. Why I just preferred living alone.

Just me and Ollie.

Speaking of, the spoiled brat was nudging my leg and tapping his paws in place. This was his own way of saying "hurry up Dad! I gotta go!".

Draining the last of my coffee, I gave the guy a quick pat on the back. "Alright buddy, let's go." This set him off to spinning in excited circles as I pulled myself up, using the table as a brace.

I clipped the old leather leash to the blue collar around his neck. My rule of thumb was to always keep it one finger loose. I don't want to choke the little guy, but he did have a tendency to pull when some new scent caught his nose, and it seemed a little loose that morning.

Normally he drifted towards the little patch of forest behind us. There was a feral cat colony or something out there that I think a little old lady down the road was feeding. Not a big deal and it gave Ollie something to check out, I guess.

Today, though, he was pulling me the other way.

Down the gravel driveway. Maybe a stray had marked the mailbox or there was some roadkill up the road. I don't know what about today made Ollie wanna walk out there, but he was digging his little paws in. Dragging me away.

Away from the house, towards the long stretch of nothing road that led from the loose collection of houses that made up my "neighborhood" and into the larger parts of town.

I wasn't really paying attention.

I guess that's how the Doberman snuck up on me.

There was a moment where I noticed him. Where the ears started to flatten and a low growl rumbled up from its throat.

I know not all of them are violent, but the way this thing was growling.. The way it limped towards me with its ears drawn back and teeth bared.

It looked hurt. My first instinct wasn't to run. I knew better. I kept Ollie behind me and tried to calm the thing, hoping if I just kept my back straight and didn't flinch that it'd back off enough for us to get back inside.

This wasn't the first angry stray I'd dealt with in my life.

But it was the first I'd dealt with while walking Ollie.

"Easy boy.."

Then a bark from behind followed by a yank of the leash.

Ollie had pulled away from me and was now barking and lunging towards what looked like a German shepherd mix with half an ear torn away and bald patches on its rear that had managed to circle around behind me.

It all happened so fast. I was so busy trying to keep an eye on the other dogs that I didn't realize Ollie had slipped the leash.

Snapping, biting, and a white furry body along with a brown one tussling in the street.

I cried out, desperate to call him back, when my call turned into a shout of pain as something clamped down on my leg. I turned, kicked and scrambled back, landing on something hard with a loud thunk and the feeling of something giving beneath my weight..

My car. I'd parked it at the end of the drive a few days ago after hearing about a storm moving in. The driveway always

turned to mush during the rain and I didn't want to get stuck in case things got bad.

I won't say I was relieved. I wasn't. The only thing running through my mind was getting away.

Getting Ollie.

The mutt came free with a chunk of my house pants and more than a little skin, foaming mouth shaking and thrashing the cloth, not yet realizing it had lost me as I scrambled to the top of the beige old thing I called a van.

I'd never been so thankful for how rounded the corners were on this thing. Scrambling up it was hard for me with hands and feet.

The dogs couldn't find traction with their nails and paws.

A sharp yelp of pain followed by more snarls forced me to look away from the Doberman and two other mutts that'd joined in the chaos and were now jumping and snapping as my body curled into a ball on the top of the hail-damaged roof.

I saw a flash of white go behind the hostas, followed by that brown mutt crashing through the green.

The sounds I heard after..

I knew he wouldn't make it.

My leg throbbed painfully as I brought it to my chest. The torn edge of thin blue cloth turned a darker shade as the wound on my leg pulsed.

I'm not ashamed. I cried. I curled together and sobbed like when my mother died.

Maybe some of you will judge me, but he was my baby boy.

I was only pulled out of it when one of the bastards managed a lucky nip at my back that had apparently been just a little too close to the edge.

I pulled myself away from one edge only to see a dog jumping higher to try to reach me on the other.

Something cracked beneath me.

Sunroofs aren't really made to support a full-grown man.

It wasn't exactly clean. The glass panel shattered into dozens of small tinted glass pebbles.

I scrambled to grab the edges of the roof as my left leg painfully fell down, causing my hip to jerk.

When I felt the warm breath and spittle from one of the leaping dogs, the decision was made for me.

I adjusted, pulled myself up just enough to get my other leg in and slid awkwardly into the now glass-covered driver's seat.

The sound of claws digging at glass windows, the repetitive assault to my ears that was the bark of several mutts that now circled my car, looking for entry.

It wasn't exactly comforting, but knowing there was at least -something- between us at least gave me a chance to breathe.

Somewhere in the back of my mind a part of me was still trying to figure out a way to Ollie.

But the saner parts of me, the ones that had kept me alive working the oilfields, knew that wasn't going to happen. Knew I had to call for help and maybe find a way back home.

Back to the shotgun I kept leaned up in the corner of my doorway.

My initial thoughts were animal control, maybe the police department. In the end it didn't really matter.

Hard to make a call on a shattered phone. I guess somewhere between me falling onto the car and my scramble onto the roof, I'd managed to land on my phone. I tried, I really did, but the thing wouldn't even let me get past the lock screen.

I'd only learned later that I could've used the voice assistant to make the call for me. Sue me, I'm old.

A paw slamming into the window next to me, followed by a series of short deafening barks, made me jerk away from the driver's side window. I'd unconsciously started to lean into the door.

My face fell into my hands, elbows resting on the dash as the aches I'd previously been ignoring started to come back into focus. The bite wound throbbed, my hip and back twitched painfully with every shift.

My eye went to the blanket I kept in the passenger seat for Ollie. It didn't feel right, getting it dirty.. But my leg was still bleeding and he wouldn't be needing it anymore.

The barking was trailing off. The hope that maybe they'd lose interest died when two of the pack took to laying down in the middle of my driveway, panting and looking all the world like normal dogs.

Nothing like the picture of the snarling monsters that had forced me in here.

Somewhere to my right something slid across one of the fenders. In the passenger side wing mirror I could see a gray dog with a more pit-bull-like build digging and sniffing at one of my back tires before sitting down.

They were settling in.

No phone, no car keys, no gun.

Stuck.

I'd probably have panicked if I wasn't so drained from the experience. The makeshift bandage seemed to be helping, so bleeding out wasn't really something that worried me.

What worried me was how long they could wait.

Have you ever thought about what a dog does when they run a squirrel up a tree? You hear about it, but how many of you have actually seen it?

The squirrel probably just hops to a different tree, up and away..

But what if the squirrel didn't? What if the thing the dog wanted was just there? Just out of reach?

At one point I tried to poke my head out the sunroof to get a peek down the road, partly out of desperation to just do something, partly out of hope I'd see a car I could flag down.

Apparently that was enough noise to set the mutts off again. The one by my wheel well let off a bark and that got the attention of the others, brought them back to circling my car and making half-hearted leaps towards me.

Any time I made a major move in the car, it'd seem to set them off.

Looking down to my cup holder, I could just barely make out the time from the ruined screen of my phone.

One hour.

Just as the thought of reclining back and trying to sleep crossed my mind, though I doubt I could've managed it, a loud "Honk" forced both me and the dogs to look towards the road.

A truck, dented and green, was slowly creeping down the road. Maybe one or two of the pack had been loitering in the road? Maybe they were guard dogs that this guy was rounding up. Never did find out.

The thing that mattered was it drew them away from me.

I gave it a solid minute before working up the courage to try and make a break for the house.

The first step out of the car felt unreal, like I'd open the door and they'd suddenly turn around or come out from behind the bush.

But the most I saw was the hint of something furry running down the road in the direction the truck went.

The hobble I managed wasn't fast, but it got me down the driveway, to the door and into the little hall that served as the entryway to my house.

No phone meant no ambulance. I needed to get to a hospital to get my leg looked at.. But my keys weren't hanging in their usual spot on the keyring by the door.

Cursing myself for leaving them on the nightstand, I started the awkward hobble to my bedroom, down the hall, past the living area..

In through an open door where something sucked the breath out of my lungs.

Ollie was on the bed.

Splayed out on my pillow like he owned the place, tail giving one slow wag when he saw me.

He crawled his way over to me, dragging his belly across the bed and messing up the sheets..

My hand was shaking as I reached out, still not believing what I was seeing..

My thumb brushed the red leather at his neck, the same one he always wore. His fur felt soft in my hand and I almost lost it when the wag picked up speed.

I sat on the bed, dragging the old dog into my lap, and just rocked back and forth.

My baby boy was alive.

But..

Ollie was here.

Ollie had been here.

So who had I taken outside?