Howling

"Oh my god, isn't she precious?" Jeannie cooed. Marcus had to admit she was right. The dog was awfully cute. She was tiny, couldn't have been more than a couple of months old. Dark brown fur and ears way too big for her body. There was a little sheet of laminated paper taped to the window with the pet store logo and some basic information, a kind of doggy dossier.

NAME: Chomp

AGE: 3 mo

BREED: N/A

INFO: My name is Chomp and I LOVE to play tug of war! I'm a cuddler and a total sweetheart. Kids and other pets love me as much as I love them. I like a lot of exercise, so a house with a big yard is a plus. Will you be my forever family?

Beneath the sales pitch someone had written "I'M A TALKER" in a thick permanent marker. As if to punctuate it, Chomp sat and barked at an improbable volume. Just one short, piercing yawp. Even in the din of the pet store it was loud and sudden enough to make Marcus jump. Chomp pawed at the plastic window of her (enclosure? Cell? Marcus wasn't sure what to call it) and fixed Jeannie with a near-lethal dose of puppy dog eyes, eliciting a gasp of adoration: a technique that she now turned on her husband. "Babe," Jeannie reached for his hand as she spoke, "what if we got Siren a little sister? Don't you think she's lonely in that house while we're at work?"

"Honey I don't know..." Marcus scratched the back of his head with his free hand, "we just dropped all that money on the house and we only came here to get Siren's litter. Do we really need to add on more expenses?"

Siren already had siblings: three fish, a tortoise named Billy, and a cockatiel named Sir Reginald. Both he and Jeannie had good jobs. None of the pets were lacking food or attention, but they had just bought a house and the thought of spending a few hundred dollars on a brand new furry bundle of responsibility caused an unsteady feeling in Marcus' innards. In a prophetic vision he saw months of blisteringly early mornings, cleaning up accidents, being glued to the house they'd just purchased... it didn't sound all that attractive.

###

"Okay, Christ, we're going. Calm down." Marcus fumbled with Chomp's leash and harness (it had been determined that a collar would be too cruel) in the three-quarters-dark of the living room. He could have turned on a light and made it easier, but something about the idea of being fully and totally awake at five a.m. sharp felt unjust. As it was, he made do with the subtle glow of a power strip and the lamp in the other room, which was now left on overnight in case Chomp was afraid of the dark.

The two of them were almost out the door when Marcus remembered through the haze of waking: bags. He needed bags. All the old grocery bags were stuffed into this weird little plastic receptacle on the wall of the basement stairs, he'd need to grab a fistful to jam into his pocket before they left. Chomp usually only went once a walk, but you could never be too careful.

Whoever had written "I'M A TALKER" on that little sheet of paper hadn't been joking. The only times Chomp stopped making noise were when her mouth was full or her eyes were shut. The whole day was one long playlist of barks, whines and grumbles. After four months of dog-rearing Marcus and Jeannie considered themselves experienced in her repertoire; which sounds meant "I'm hungry" which ones meant "I need to go out" and which meant "there's someone outside and I don't like it". As such, the noise that Chomp began to make as Marcus approached the basement door was that much more of a shock.

It was a high, keening wail that steadily increased in volume until it became a throat-ripping scream, hammering ruthlessly at Marcus' eardrums. It sounded like the poor animal was in agony, like something was horribly wrong with the way Marcus had put on the harness. He knew he should have just turned on the fucking lights. Marcus cursed himself for his laziness as he scrambled to attend to Chomp, ignoring Jeannie's inquiries from the bedroom as he fumbled with the harness. His fingers, still blunt with sleep, searched desperately for the source of Chomp's discomfort. Could one of the buckles have pinched her skin? Could it be choking her somehow? Just as he determined that there was in fact nothing wrong with the harness, Chomp fell silent.

"Marcus, what the fuck is going on? Is she okay?" Jeannie now stood at the entrance to the living room, a new mother's anxiety written plainly on her face. "I think so..." Marcus continued to inspect the dog, who had now busied herself with licking his hands. "I was about to grab bags for her and she just started making that sound." He wiped some dog slobber on the leg of his pants as he stood and faced his wife. "Thought the harness might have been pinching her or something but I don't have a clue. She seems better now, right girl?" Chomp grunted an affirmation.

"Baby are you sure?" Jeannie half-chastised as she knelt to stroke Chomp's ears. "I've never heard her make a noise like that before. It sounded like she was really hurt! Did you check her paws? Maybe she stepped on a nail or something."

"I didn't, honey, but she stopped yelling as soon as I came and looked her over. Maybe she was just fussy?"

"I don't think 'fussy' quite covers it. You really ought to have checked her paws, babe."

"You're right, I should have checked them. I'll take her for her walk and if she's limping or she makes that sound again we can set an appointment with the vet." This seemed to quell Jeannie's anxieties, but as soon as Marcus moved towards the basement door there it was again: that desperate, piercing scream. Now finding herself closer to the source of the sound, Jeannie covered her ears and recoiled. Marcus rushed back to Chomp's side, bags in hand and once again the dog quieted.

###

So began a new routine. Each morning Marcus would grab the bags, each morning Chomp would wake the house with her new signature yell. Rinse and repeat. Jeannie suggested they start to keep the bags under the sink instead. It made Chomp's performances less frequent, but nothing could remove the need to use the basement entirely. Clothes still had to be washed.

The laundry was Marcus' responsibility. Jeannie didn't like going down to the basement (something he teased her for relentlessly). She didn't like the closet. In the opposite corner from the washing machine was a closet. At least, that's what they thought it was. The door had been locked sometime in the distant past, and the key had been misplaced long before Jeannie and Marcus had bought the house. Marcus had pledged several times to hire a locksmith and discover what had been left in that accidental time capsule, but some expense always seemed to get in the way. Jeannie didn't like having to face away from it as she deposited the dirty clothes and it was easier for Marcus to lift the laundry basket, so the chore had naturally fallen to him when they moved in together.

Every week when he would deposit the clothes in the washing machine, he would listen as Chomp screeched and bodily flung herself against the basement door. In the name of protecting the door they tried putting Chomp in her kennel during laundry runs, but she chewed on the bars until her mouth bled. They tried training her but it didn't take. They tried weighted jackets, but she hated wearing them. They tried anxiety medication, but the pills made her sick.

The final straw came one day in the March of that year.

Marcus was carrying a load of dirty clothes to the basement door when he heard Chomp begin gearing up for her yell. He sighed, bracing himself for the sonic assault that was about to be visited on his ears, but it didn't come. Instead, he heard the sound of her nails on the hardwood floor as she ran towards him at full tilt. He had just enough time to utter a curse before seventy-something pounds of dog crashed into his bad knee, sending both him and the clothes to the floor. He lay there, stunned from the impact, in the process of working up the will to roll onto his knees and start putting the clothes back in the hamper when he heard Chomp start to run at him again. "What the fuck its wrong with you?" Marcus shouted, anger rising in his chest. His only answer was a snarl as he felt her teeth sink into his calf.

Marcus screamed as she dragged him across the floor, her trademark screech muffled as it escaped, bubbling, between bloody flesh and torn denim. Thrumming with adrenaline, he pushed himself into a sitting position and began to beat desperately at her face and torso, cursing her and begging her to release his leg.

Finally, once she had dragged him fully into the living room, she simply let go. She trotted to her usual corner of the room and sat on her bed as though nothing had happened.

###

It was mostly soft tissue damage, though she'd managed to graze a tendon and that would need some time to heal. Marcus and Jeannie had to put Chomp up for adoption. A new dossier tacked up on the door of her kennel: "CAUTION, AGGRESSION ISSUES." In spite of what she'd done, Marcus couldn't help but feel sad as they drove away from the adoption agency. The way she'd been looking at him. She almost looked worried, like she understood what was happening somehow.

They returned home to a quiet house. Marcus couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not.

###

The next Saturday, Marcus limped down the stairs with the hamper in his arms. He had decided that he should take three smaller loads of laundry, instead of his usual one-and-done, in the name of sparing his injured leg. Jeannie may have to get over her fears for the day, he thought as pain shot up to his hip. He wasn't sure how capable he would be of carrying it all back upstairs.

As he stood there at the foot of the basement stairs with the week's collection of dirty underwear and t-shirts in his arms, he found that he was tensing up his shoulders: bracing himself for a noise that he knew wasn't coming anymore. A feeling that wasn't quite relief or sadness washed over him as he carried the hamper to its designated spot. The first time in a long time without his dog's accompanying screams. He was still thinking of Chomp as his dog.

A cold draft hit the back of Marcus' neck as he dumped the first batch of clothes into the washing machine, causing a breakout of goose pimples. For a moment, he felt a bit bad for how he had teased Jeannie about her fear of the basement. It was a bit spooky down there.

It was less like fear and more like guilt that Marcus felt as he turned to face the closet door and watched it creeping open.

The dog had been warning him.