AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Cried myself into some much-needed sleep.
—
It was a noise that woke me up, something unfamiliar that immediately had me shooting up in bed, heart slamming against my ribcage, as the sick sensation of fear rose up my throat.
The cabin was pitch black, and a cold wind was whipping in through the…
Oh, God.
The open door.
What the hell was I thinking?
Anything or anyone could have wandered in.
Disoriented, I stood in the dark, and nearly fell on my face when I shrieked and jerked backward from something on the floor that hadn’t been there when I’d gone to sleep.
Something… fluffy.
My mind raced with half a dozen critters that it could be, going from a harmless opossum to a rabid raccoon and a dangerous skunk in a blink.
My arm shot out, grabbing the little camping lantern I bought, one that I could charge with a crank or the solar panel attached to it, and flicked it on.
Just in time to see the furry thing rush to the door, looking back at me, before fleeing into the night.
But it wasn’t an opossum, raccoon, or skunk.
No… it had been… a dog?
A puppy, really.
Looking like maybe a mix of an Australian Shepherd, judging by the splashes of color, and something more like a German Shepherd.
Out here.
In the middle of the woods.
I realized as my heart slowed back down that the noise that had woken me up had been him crying.
Crying.
Was he cold? Hungry? Scared?
All three?
Before I could talk sense into myself, I was shoving my feet back into my shoes, grabbing the stick of beef jerky I’d grabbed on a whim at the last convenience store, took my lantern, and ran outside after him.
There was a rumble up above us. A storm was rolling in.
I had to try to find the poor guy before the sky opened up.
“Hey, buddy,” I called into the vast, empty woods, hearing nothing in response but the crunch of the underbrush under my shoes. “Sweet puppy,” I tried again. “Come here. I have food and a warm fire,” I called as I bit open the long jerky stick, hoping his nose was as good as all the stories said.
I’d never had a dog of my own.
My father claimed he had one good dog growing up and didn’t have room in his heart for another.
I’d railed against him for years about how I had room in my heart for one. I even pored over dog breed books, to the point where I had the breed standards of every type of dog memorized, showing him the best breeds for our lifestyle, but to no avail.
