In the Season of Killing Bolts

Chapter 8

He lay spreadeagled like a ragdoll—like he’d been making a snow-angel—his tongue fat and blue; as if he’d been eating pomegranates—his entrails unspooled. The cumbersome poncho rustled as I dialed my cellphone and waited for it to ring—and ring.

Dammit, Bennet, pick up ...

“Hello, you’ve reached the personal number of Bennet ‘Benny’ Firth—Deputy; Sandy Chain Police Department; Badge Number—well, Badge Number 2, I mean, it’s a small department—winner of the 2017—”

I hung up and looked at the body—at its bloody hands, as though Donovan had been trying to shield his face; at the grass and dirt-turning-to-mud, which—

Well, wasn’t that odd.

I knelt and examined the ground—which was soaked in blood and rain. It was almost like—yuh, there; and there. Anterior and lateral support impressions. Nude; no shoes. And toeprints: one, two ... three—just three, with no evidence of a heel, no posterior support at all. Not human, obviously. Not dog. Not bear. More like a f*****g ostrich; or—

Ka-crack! Karoom!

I jumped as lightning struck a nearby tree—my heartbeat surely stopping, if only for an instant, my bladder feeling as though it might void right then and there. Then I was up; I was standing, looking at the split trunk and the tree’s glowing pulp; looking at the burning branches, which crisped and fell away.

Fire extinguisher ... Dammit, get the fire extinguisher!

And then I was hustling, running for the truck as fast as I could, pausing at Cynthia’s grave—or at least where her grave should have been—feeling dazed and disoriented; spying the patrol truck where I’d left it—at Wilber’s—sprinting for it only to skid to a stop next to the fence and lean on my knees, panting.

Only to wait there where Oreo would have normally greeted me—just as he greeted everyone—with a hail of yaps and spit—but didn’t. Holding and looking at all the blood—then following that blood directly to his doghouse ... to where the poor thing had died half in and half out of its door. Where the poor thing had retreated to lick its mortal wounds and curl up in the cold, familiar straw; to wonder if it had protected its people and its property; to bleed out and die.

There was a crashing sound and I froze—the sound of wood splintering and glass breaking. A sound which had come from behind Wilber’s house.

I listened carefully, intently—heard only the wind and the rain, the thunder of lightning, dogs barking in the distance. At last it came again, only muffled somewhat, more muted: another splintering, another breaking of glass. This time, however, it hadn’t come from outside. No, this time it had born a kind of echo, a kind of interiority—as though it had originated from an interior space. As though it had originated from inside Wilber’s house.

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