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My brain glitches, momentarily.
Parker doesn’t have a dog.
Does he?
I’m too busy trying to smooth that brain-wrinkle to register the movement of a curtain in one of the trailer’s back windows. But my survival instincts kick in when a flappy strip of rubber on the back door pushes out, and a big, boxy dog head barrels through.
The head seems to fill the doggy door, it’s so big.
The body that follows is even bigger.
I’ve never seen a dog this big. He has black, pointy ears and a black nose, and the rest of him is tan. He’s muscular, too. Something about my survival instincts puts his bounding forward movement into slow motion. I can see every ripple of his fur as he barrels toward me, like I’m watching a nature show.
Everyone knows that nature shows are violent when you least expect it.The videographer pans over a herd of antelope, and you think:isn’t that sweet, all those antelope, so peacefully grazing.Then,bam! Lion attack.
Right now, I’m the antelope.
A lion’s flying through the air, drool glistening in long strings on either side of his face. His barks fill the air around us. I do what any good antelope would do. I run.
My legs are sore from my jog earlier, and the fact that I’m petrified doesn’t help my coordination either.
I curse at myself as I fumble with the gate’s latch in the front yard. My hands are numb and feel clunky and it takes me three tries to get the gate to open. I’d try to close the thing behind me, if it wasn’t for the fact that I somehow managed to get my long-sleeve shirt snagged on the hook-mechanism.
I frantically tug the fabric of my shirt. It stretches and rips, but not enough to be free of the hook.
In my periphery, I can see the dog closing in on me, no longer slo-mo. He’s in real-time now, which means that even as I tug my outer layer up over my head and then leave it hanging on the gate, I know it’s too late.
I’m screwed.
Even more screwed when my sneaker makes contact with a rock I definitely didn’t see, and I fly through the air.
The heels of my palms dig into the dirt as I land, and start burning instantly. Same is true of my knees, which probably made actual dents in this hard-packed ground.
I manage to roll to my back in time to see the dog bound through the gate, a big grin on his slobbery face. He’s probably thrilled to be free of the gated yard, about to attack an actual intruder.
Which I am, I suppose.
I trespassed. This is my punishment. The impending attack is fair, and also brutal.
I register the fact that he’s a Great Dane as he nears. From somewhere behind him, I hear a man’s voice. “Mopsey? Mopsey, girl!”
The dog—Mopsey?—ignores the call.
She continues flying through space, until she reaches me and sticks her nose down toward my face.
This is it.
I’m about to find out what it feels like to have my face chomped by a slobbery Great Dane.
I throw my arms up over my face to try to protect myself. A warm, wet tongue slurps up the salty layer on my skin, thanks to my run.
This dog is licking me like I’m a popsicle.
“Mopsey, girl! Would you quit it already? You’re embarrassing me and yourself. When I call you, you should come!”
I pry one eye open and peer through the space between my forearms. A man’s face appears, wreathed by the partly-cloudy sky.
“Hey there,” he says. A hand appears as he extends it out to me. “Sorry if this girl scared ya. She’s a big goof. Need a hand?”
