Blind Date A Book 2020 – Book #25
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Chapter 1
The damn dog was yapping again at shadows.
Hank Higgins, knee replacement and new glasses, stumbled off the couch and tried to get his bearings.
His wife, Melinda, had gone to bed hours ago. She usually left him in the living room with the sound muted on the TV so when the station cut out for the night, the white on the screen wouldn’t be accompanied by the white noise.
The dog kept yapping. It was Hank’s fault. He’d forgotten to let the damn thing back into the house from the back porch when he was supposed to.
“Shut up,” Hank said. “I’m coming. Damn dog.”
His knee popped and he grimaced. Not the new knee, the old stubborn one he hadn’t told Melinda about yet. She’d not only fret about him but she’d schedule another doctor’s appointment to get it replaced.
He was seventy, not a hundred and seventy. He felt fine.
“It’s my weather-gauge knee,” Hank would tell her. “I can always tell when a big storm is coming. Remember the Nor’easter in ‘79?” He’d felt it and he wasn’t yet sixty-three. “If you take away both of my old knees, how will I know when it’s supposed to rain?”
Hank knew it was a losing battle, and the moment he flinched around Melinda, she’d rush to the kitchen and stand at the wall phone, one hand holding it while the other scanned the long list of phone numbers she’d scribbled onto a yellowed piece of paper and tacked above the phone.
Next thing you knew, Hank would be under the knife and wishing he was watching the damn Mets game and sipping a cold beer instead.
That was his happy go-to place. Watching his Mets and sipping a beer. Melinda only let him have one per game, and it was always the same fight.
The worst part? His Mets had a good team this year. With only a few weeks left in the season, they had an excellent shot at not only the playoffs but maybe the World Series.
They were over eighty wins right now heading into September, and Hank thought they had a shot at a hundred victories on the season. Even with Gary Carter recently injured, the team would keep finding ways to win. Hank was a big fan of Lee Mazzilli, who’d just returned. With Mookie and Darryl in the outfield… who could beat the Amazin’ Mets?
Hank got to the door and put his hand on the knob but stopped.
The damn dog was no longer barking up a storm.
Hank turned the knob and let the door swing wide, expecting the dog to come running past like he was a hundred pounds of canine instead of the three pounds of annoyance he really was.
No dog.
Hank took a step outside. That’s when he smelled it in the air: a combination of wet dog, mildew, and rancid body odor.
He flipped on the light to the porch.
No dog. Nothing that could be making that smell.
The light bulb was one of those new energy-savers Melinda went on and on about. Hank’s argument was simple: for the eight cents they’d save a year, was it worth not being able to see more than ten feet into the yard?
“Get in here, dog,” Hank said, clapping his hands. He’d forgotten the damn dog’s name in his anger. “I’m getting too old for this…”
Something moved off to his right, near the house. When Hank turned, he only saw shadows.
“I’m counting to three and then you can spend the night outside,” Hank said. What was the dog’s name again? Something girlie, even though it was a male. Melinda loved emasculating the animals over the years. She swore she didn’t do it on purpose. It was her gut telling her to name it a certain name.
Hank remembered Trixie, a golden retriever they had for a few years. Great dog. Quiet. Loved to sleep at the foot of the bed. Despite being a male, Melinda gave him a girl name.
The smell was now unbearable.
Hank turned to go back inside. He’d act dumb in the morning when Melinda asked about the dog. Maybe he’d try to wake early and see if the dog had slept on the back porch. It would serve the dog right to spend a night like a real animal, instead of a pampered diva.
The growl was guttural but so quiet at first that Hank thought it was a queer trick of the wind through the trees.
He turned and saw the glowing red eyes.
At least a foot and a half higher than his own stare.
Despite the size of the shadow that detached from the nearby darkness, it was fast.
Hank was grabbed by the shoulder, the grip crushing his bones. He tried to scream but a hairy hand covered his face.
The smell made Hank reel.
He was slammed to the ground with such force that the wind was knocked from his bruised chest. Hank tried to rise but an immense weight fell upon his legs.
The dog, or what was left of him, was a few inches from Hank’s face.
Suzi, Hank remembered. The dog’s name is Suzi.
As Hank stared at the shredded body of the dog, he closed his eyes. The dog’s name was Suzi.
Melinda would find her dog and her husband crushed to bloody slush in her backyard in the morning.
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