Bruno was digging a hole in the backyard.
Antonia watched the Great Dane through a crack in the gauzy curtains. Every few seconds, she flicked her eyes around the length of the fence. It was large enough that she couldn’t see the corners where it met the side of the house, no matter how she craned her neck, as she did now, pressing her nose against the glass and fogging it. The house was claustrophobically small and cluttered, and yet too large at the same time; too much empty space at her back.
The dog had been digging holes all morning, maybe recalling something of the rambunctious puppy of Antonia’s childhood. At least it gave her something to watch. Besides, going to the door to scold Bruno meant showing herself. If her parents were upset when they got back from wherever they were—Belize, maybe?—she’d fill them in. There were only three or four, and the yard was at least thirty feet long: a huge arena she’d used to persuade the neighbor kids over when she was young.
It was illogical. She knew it. Joe didn’t have her parents’ address. She’d kept her eyes glued to the rearview mirror the whole trip last night—nearly crashing into a semi as rush hour peaked. She’d even phoned up Velma that morning, the gossipy next-door lady, to ask if she’d seen any strangers in the neighborhood—a two-hour waste of time. The suburb was boring as ever. Nor had Antonia heard anything last night—well, she’d only sat up half the night before she finally broke down and took one of her mom’s sleeping pills, but she figured Bruno would’ve woken her up if anything happened. Her parents wouldn’t be back until next week, which was a long time to be here alone. Too long, maybe. At least Bruno was here. She’d missed him since she’d moved out, and despite the fact that he was getting a little older, he was still huge—the perfect size for five-year-old Antonia to ride. Not the sort of thing you’d want to meet in the middle of the night.
Bruno backed out of the hole he’d dug, dirt clinging from his ears to his tail. He trotted behind the red and white doghouse in the back of the yard, and Antonia scanned the skyline again. What if Joe was sitting up on the power lines?
Idiot. She bit her lip. It was just one bad moment. It didn’t mean anything, didn’t mean he was stalking her across two state lines. Maybe his ex had lied to her. Maybe . . .
She pinched the bruise on her forearm, as she’d done the last two days, whenever she tried to excuse Joe. She’d done enough of that and she wouldn’t do it again, not while the marks were still on her body, while the warnings rang in her ears.
Bruno was dragging something across the yard, already most of the way to his hole. He paused and looked toward the window, an intelligent expression on his furry face. Antonia pulled the curtain farther open, peering at the peculiar bundle. It looked like…
She dashed for the back door.
Bruno had his trophy in the hole by the time she made it out, standing barefoot in the damp grass and shivering in her short sleeves.
“Bruno!”
He looked at her proudly, a ferocious light in his huge brown eyes. His muzzle was matted with dried blood.
“Bruno, what the hell?” She started to back away, nausea churning her stomach, fear clenching her throat, and made worse because it was her childhood friend staring back at her, who’d laid in her bed last night as she cried.
Her heel sank into the dirt, into one of the holes Bruno had dug and filled in that morning.
It met something squishy.
She backed up another step, Bruno unmoving, watching her with his tongue lolling out. The chewed-off, chewed-up arm, still in its mangled jacket sleeve, lay by his feet like a prized bone.
Antonia swallowed and swiped her toes through the dirt once, then again. Clumps of brown hair matted with mud swirled under her touch. Flesh started to uncover, cold and damp.
She should’ve gotten a shovel, she should’ve phoned the police, or run inside for the shotgun to aim at Bruno, murderous, murdering Bruno, or to aim at Joe, who haunted the fences of her imagination—and only her imagination—but there was something sickly hypnotic about wiping the dirt away little by little, uncovering the rest of the forehead and the cheeks. When the shape of the face was clear at last, she pressed a hand to her mouth and sobbed, then turned to vomit.
She didn’t move fast enough.
Breakfast splattered Joe’s head.
Bruno brushed her side as she retched again, his back brushing against her fingertips. In a daze, she walked towards the doghouse, spitting in the grass to clear the taste of acid.
The mangled torso stained the grass around it red-brown, blood sprayed on the white paint of the doghouse. Antonia thanked God for high fences, and she was so focused on not being seen that, for a moment, she missed the pistol glittering in the grass, lying where the arm should’ve been.
Bruno whined, licking her palm.
She sat down hard and hugged him, burying her face in his fur.
“Good boy.”
She got the shovel.
MARIA SCHRATER lives in Chicago with two spoiled cats, Stormy and Tempest. Her work may be found in Hair Trigger 40. She has received a Certificate of Merit in Humor from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, and an Honorable Mention in Writers of the Future, 1st Quarter 2018.