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I had a lot of experience with dead bodies. But all of them had been human. Somehow, this seemed worse.
If there was one thing I knew about the nameless bodies I packed up, buried, sank, or melted, it was that they weren’t innocent. They wouldn’t have wound up murdered by the mob if they were. So I didn’t feel much about the fact that their lives had been snuffed out.
Kind of that old adage about playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes.
If you didn’t want to end up dead, don’t fuck over the mob. Simple enough.
But animals, especially baby animals?
They were as innocent as you got.
Their deaths felt worse somehow.
Maybe especially so because they’d clearly been dumped here by someone, someone who didn’t give them food or water, who left them to starve or be hunted down by larger prey.
That was fucked up beyond measure.
“I thought I could do it,” she said, casting another sad look toward the puppies. “But I feel like I’m gonna be sick when I touch them.”
“Let me,” I said, even though I knew that showing my face for longer than absolutely necessary was a really stupid fucking move. It increased her chances of picking me out of a line-up if the bodies were ever uncovered.
But something was making me step forward toward her, reaching into the pocket of my hideous fucking windbreaker-style jacket to produce a pair of lightweight work gloves, and slipping them on.
The woman backed away from me, making her way over toward the living puppy who was jerking against the makeshift leash and collar she had wrapped around his neck. Made of rope.
The dead puppies looked a lot like him, the same sort of coloring, but in different patterns.
I felt an unexpected stab of grief, followed by a slightly more familiar sensation of rage flow through my system as I carefully picked them each up, and set them in the grave.
“Here,” I said, motioning for the shovel as I pulled off my gloves, tucking them back in my pocket.
The woman stepped closer, but held out the shovel as far as she could, so she didn’t need to get within arm’s reach.
Smart girl.
I couldn’t even be offended, not with how many stories you heard about women doing all the right things. Running on well-lit, busy paths, telling their friends where they were, having their location turned on on their phones. And still getting snatched, raped, and murdered.
The world was scary for even the most cautious woman.
I couldn’t imagine what this one was thinking, given her clear disadvantage if I had ulterior motivations.
I took the shovel, pretending to focus on the task at hand, but keeping her in my line of sight as she slunk back toward the puppy, carefully untying him from the tree, keeping his rope wrapped around her hand, likely ready to run at the slightest unsafe feeling.
“Are you keeping him?” I asked, glancing toward the puppy with his head turned up toward the woman as she sniffled.
“I know I probably shouldn’t,” she said. “But I think I am.”
“Why shouldn’t you?” I asked, patting the dirt flat once the grave was filled.
“Oh, ah, a lot of reasons,” she said.
Hedging.
She was being vague.
I was trying to figure out if it was simply because I was a stranger, or because she was hiding something.
“He seems to have picked you,” I said as the puppy started to lick her hand that was hanging at her side.
