The
Lovely Dog
Sneak
Peek
By
LM Langley
Copyright
2013 © LM LANGLEY & DARK NEXUS FICTION
Chapter
1
The
blonde girl tilted her head, mirroring the dog’s expression. She
smiled. “Stupid dog. Come here.”
The
dog wagged her tail as she approached the girl’s outstretched arms.
The girl stroked the black fur on the dog’s head, still smiling.
“Who’s the best puppy? Who’s the best puppy?”
“Are
you still playing with that stupid dog, Angie?” Ellen said as she
walked in the room.
“She’s
not a stupid dog,” sniggered the blonde, “And I don’t
understand why we can’t keep her.”
Ellen
rolled her eyes. “It’s in our lease agreement. We can’t have
pets. Not even birds. You should know, you did read it, right?”
“It
can be our little secret. Isn’t that right, Tulip?” She was
addressing the dog instead of her roommate. Ellen cleared her throat.
“Come on, even a stuck-up like you has to admit that she’s
beautiful.”
Ellen
sighed, smiling. “Okay. She’s pretty gorgeous. But you can’t
just keep a dog off the street. She may have… I don’t know,
rabies. Or fleas. She probably has fleas. Now we have fleas.”
“Don’t
listen to Ellen, Tulip,” Angie said, stroking behind the dog’s
floppy ears.
“And
that’s another thing. You can’t just name the dog! You have to
like, take her to a shelter, see if she has been microchipped or
something. Someone is missing their dog, you know.” Ellen sat down
on the floor next to Angie, holding a mug in her hands. “Although I
do wonder why she doesn’t have a collar. She’s too well-kept to
be a street dog.”
“You
think so? Hm.” Angie stopped stroking the dog, performing a
thorough examination. Her fur and nails had been trimmed. She pushed
the dog’s mouth back and looked at her teeth. “Yeah. I think you
have a point. I think I’ll post her photos on craigslist or
something.”
“When?”
“Soon.
Stop looking at me like that, I will!” Angie’s phone alarm rang.
She closed her eyes and sighed. “Fuck.”
“What’s
up?”
“I
have an appointment with a client that I completely forgot about,”
Angie said, as she checked her phone to make sure that she was right.
“And I need to go, pretty much now. Can you look after Tulip until
I come back?”
“I
–“
“Come
on, Helena! You can do it! Pretty please?!”
Ellen
rolled her eyes at her roommate. “Okay, but if you call me Helena
again, I will sic her on you. Kill, Tulip, kill!”
Tulip
barked, spinning around in a circle and happy at the attention she
was receiving. The girls laughed while they watched her. Angie
cleared her throat. “See? You love her, too.”
“Shut
up. Don’t you have to go?”
Angie
made a face at her as she picked herself up from the floor and
brushed the fur off her clothes. She walked towards the door, picking
her keys off the counter and said one last good-bye before opening
and closing the door behind her. Ellen groaned, lying back on the
floor. What was she going to do with a dog? It seemed to want to
play, and she had things to do. Ellen stared at her for a few
seconds. “Okay, dog. I have a dissertation to work on, and I need
you to behave, got it?”
The
dog wagged her tail and looked at Ellen. “You can come with me, but
you have to be quiet, okay?”
She
wagged her tail again. Ellen put her mug on the carpeted floor,
running her hands over the dog’s fur and sitting up slowly. A
hissing noise came out of the air vent near the lamp, next to the
television. The dog glanced that way uncertainly, and then looked
back at Ellen. “It’s just the air conditioning. You know, to make
the place livable so that no one suffocates. It is so hot outside.”
The
dog stuck her tongue out. Ellen rolled her eyes. “Right,” She got
up and walked towards her bedroom. The dog followed her closely, and
Ellen couldn’t help but crack a smile. The dog walk alongside her
and watched as she pulled out her notes and her books, opening her
laptop. The wagging tail was starting to distract the girl. “Okay,
sit.”
The
dog did as she was told. Ellen’s smile widened. “Good girl.”
She reached behind her computer screen and grabbed a half open
granola bar. “I guess you can have this.”
After
watching her eat, she turned her back and opened up her first draft.
Who knew a dissertation could sound that stupid, she thought, as she
reread the last chapter. All her words looked wrong. The dog circled
around herself a few times, before lying down on the floor. Ellen
sighed, sitting back. “What do you want?”
She
looked at the book next to her, glancing at the small words on the
yellowed paper. Grimacing, she started to stack some papers together.
She yelped as the paper made a small mark in the webbing between her
fingers and her thumb. She instantly brought her hand to her mouth,
swearing as she did so. Her words echoed inside the walls. Ellen
tried not to shudder, giving in to the urge once she heard a creak
below her. “New house noises,” She told the dog. The dog tilted
her head. “They’re horrible, right? You obviously agree.”
She
sat back up and started to type something. C-H-A-P-T-
“Did
you hear that?” She said, turning to the dog. A loud noise came
from beneath. This time, it wasn’t creaking, it was something else.
Like a boiler settling. A boiler? She didn’t remember seeing a
boiler when they had first toured around the place, a young guy in a
white shirt and black trousers showing them every nook and cranny of
the home. He had made them sound lovely, of course, saying that the
home had a really charming and rustic feel to it. He hadn’t been
wrong. And he hadn’t mentioned a boiler – but she had taken hot
showers in the house, so there had to be one. Ellen brushed her long
brown hair back. “I think we have to go find the boiler, doggy.
Screw this dissertation shit. I have a mystery to solve.”
She
stretched before she got up, and enjoyed the smell of mango and
candle wax that permeated every area around her. Behind the kitchen,
there was a small door leading to a utility room with a set of stairs
that went down to the basement. “I guess the boiler is in here,”
Ellen said, stepping onto the pile of dirty clothes that had already
accumulated behind the closed door. She looked around, setting her
eyes on the shiny fuse box.
Ellen
opened the door, peaking into the downstairs. It smelled like
bleacher and stale lime, like their cleaning had not gotten rid of
the dust that permeated the space. She covered her nose, trying not
to cough. Her eyes filled with water. “Should have taken an
anti-allergen,” She muttered under her breath. She flicked the
light and started to descend the stairs. They creaked under her
weight. The dog went further ahead of her, her tail in the air,
wiggling so fast Ellen could hardly see it. Ellen spoke with the back
of her hand pressed against her face, her eyes still full of tears.
“Calm down, Jesus. It’s just a basement.”
As if
on cue, the dog started to leap down the stairs instead of walking.
“If you want to shred my ninth grade journal, you are more than
welcome to,” Ellen groaned. “Fuck, why is it so dusty in here?”
The
dog was running around the corner of the room. Ellen walked up to it,
glancing around to see if she could find a small door or even an
indication that the house shared the boiler with the home next door.
“Maybe the noise wasn’t anything.”
A
creaking response bounced off the concrete basement walls. This time,
she could feel the floor vibrating under her. She mumbled something
and got down on her knees. The dog towered over her. Ellen could see
her unmoving paws, her tail sweeping the dust from side to side. The
girl swallowed; her saliva heavy and speckled scratching against the
walls of her neck. She held back a cough, holding her breath. Maybe
it wasn’t anything. She started to kneel up when she heard it
again. One of her arms still on the floor; she tried to crawl to
where the noise was coming from. She had dragged herself about two
inches before she heard a softer noise behind her. It sounded like
somebody gently closing a door when they didn’t want to wake up a
toddler. Ellen started to turn her head around, suddenly realizing
that the dog had stay put where she was before. She had barely turned
her face to look behind her when she saw a shadow on the wall from
the corner of her eye. Something towered over her. Ellen tried to
turn around, putting her weight on her elbows and barely managing to
get up, hearing her heartbeat behind her ears. A loud noise, a tingle
that turned into pain that shot down from the top of her head to the
bottom of her spine, and she tumbled over like a ragdoll onto the
concrete floor, tasting the dust and the blood from biting her
tongue. One last flash of light, the dog in front of her. And a happy
bark.
Ellen’s
eyelids felt like heavy curtains as she battled to open them. The
light shining through her eyelashes was blinding. She felt wet
sandpaper stroking her limp hand, her fingers twitching. Against her
dry tongue, she felt thick cloth, her mouth propped open with
something downy. The sides of her lips had little cracks in it from
the way her mouth was positioned. She swirled her tongue around the
material – was it a sock? Was there a sock in her mouth? – trying
to spit it out. She brought up her hand to her face, her shoulder
being pulled back by the restraints that were enveloping her. Her
eyebrows furrowed, she looked back. There was nothing but darkness.
She was tied to one of the beams. Her shoulders burned. Her muffled
groan echoed in her ears.
The
basement’s dim yellow light bounced off the bright white balls and
the concrete ceiling. Ellen saw an elongated shadow standing behind
her. The dog was sitting in front of her, wagging her tail back and
forth, dust particles climbing to her dark fur.
Ellen
tried to keep her breathing in check. All she could hear was the
swish swish swish from the tail on the concrete. She tried to slow
down her breathing.
She
heard a noise from behind her and tried to turn her head, her
restrains making it impossible.
It
sounded like slow steps. His voice was raspy, too slow, once he
finally spoke. “Hello, beautiful.”
Chapter
2
Ellen
tried to move. Her restraints were burning against her skin. She
tried to say something, but the sock – it was definitely a sock,
she thought – prevented her from being able to articulate her
thoughts. A searing pain shot through her spine. Ellen looked down,
noticing that she was kneeling. Her legs were positioned on each side
of the beam she was tied to.
“What
do you want?” She tried to say. She heard her words,
incomprehensible.
“Calm
down,” The voice demanded. He was still behind her. He was now
sitting. She could see his shadow, cross legged, his arms dangling in
front of him. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk.”
Ellen
focused on the noise the dog was making with her tail.
“You
shouldn’t scream, you know. We are in a basement and the door is
closed. Nobody is going to hear you if you do, but I may have to take
– precautionary measures.”
Ellen
blinked. Her eyes, still filled with water from the dust, stung. The
feeling of salty water sliding slowly down her cheeks and winding up
in the cracks of her lips made her want to squirm. She stayed put.
Blinking. Waiting.
The
male cleared his throat. “I’m going to take off the gag now,
okay, Ellen?”
The
girl nodded, staring at his shadow and attempting to lick her teeth,
meeting her tongue with the dry sock instead. The man reached over
and yanked the sock out of her mouth. Ellen coughed, spitting out
dust and fluff from the material. Her cough made her entire body
shake. The dog lied down at her feet, her tail still moving from side
to side. She licked the sides of her lips, shuddering at the coppery
taste of her blood. She took a deep breath and bit her lower lip.
“Good.
You know how to follow directions. I like that in a woman.”
Ellen
looked at the dog. Her eyes were closed and her ears were perked up.
The girl tried not to groan.
“To
be honest, I was kind of looking forward to seeing your roommate,
Angie. You’re not too bad yourself, though. I wouldn’t want you
to get jealous.” He laughed, throwing his head back. She watched
the shadow shake. Her knees hurt. “Tell me, how do you know each
other?”
Ellen
opened her mouth, trying to speak. Instead of being able to form
words, she heard herself croak, far away. The man shook his head.
“Are you thirsty?”
“Yeah,”
Ellen said.
“Here
you go.” The man handed her a bottle of water. She stared at it.
He
laughed again. “Of course. What an idiot I am.” He twisted the
lid off and placed it on her mouth. She swallowed, streams of water
falling down the sides of her mouth and onto her red top. She closed
her eyes as the man spoke again, holding the bottle against firmly
against her lips. “You see, I have a thing for blondes. I mean, I
like pretty girls, but call me boring – there is something about a
blonde bombshell looks that drives me wild.”
The
water burned a hole in her chest. She turned her face away from the
bottle, coughing.
“Huh.
I thought you were a polite girl. Maybe I was wrong about you.”
Ellen
sighed. Her words felt like metal whips on her throat. “I’m
sorry. Thank you for the water.”
He
laughed again. “I knew you were polite. I really hate disrespectful
women. I was worried I couldn’t be nice to you anymore, Ellen. I
know you must be a little confused right now, but I assure you, I
only have the best intentions.”
Ellen
closed her eyes.
“I
am going to ask you a series of questions. Some of them, I will know
the answer to. Some of them, I won’t. You won’t know which ones I
know about and which ones I don’t. If you are going to lie to me, I
will be a lot less pleasant than I am being right now. You’re a
smart girl, right? So you know what I’m talking about?”
Ellen
nodded. The man cleared his throat. “You need to use your words,
Ellen.”
“Yes,”
Ellen replied.
“Good.
So how long have you known Angie for?”
Ellen
cleared her throat. “Like, two years.”
“Do
you remember when you met?” The man said.
“At
school. Through a friend.” She said, staring ahead, trying to make
out his features. She thought he was wearing a hat, although she
couldn’t be sure. The woman cleared her throat before she spoke
again. “Why don’t you come and talk to me face to face?”
He
laughed. It sent a jilt down her spine. It was so ordinary, it was
almost like she had heard it before when she was walking down the
street or shopping for groceries. She might have even smiled to
herself. She might have even called it infectious. “How stupid do
you think I am?”
Ellen
rolled her eyes. “Well, you said you were being nice. I’m
terrible at talking to people I’m not looking at. I don’t even
know your name.”
“My
name?”
“Yes.
You know me. You know Angie. You just said you know stuff about us
and that you will know when I’m lying to you, but how am I supposed
to know you are telling the truth? Am I just supposed to trust you?”
He
grabbed a strand of her long hair, twirled it around his finger and
gave it a pull. There was a hint of a smile in his voice when he
spoke. “I guess I underestimated just how smart you actually are.”
Ellen
licked the undersides of her teeth, twirling her tongue and jamming
it inside the space between her teeth. She tried to move her fingers,
still bound behind her. She focused on her breathing, leaving her
head steady on her neck, staring straight ahead. He sighed. “You
can call me Kay.”
“Okay,”
Ellen replied.
“So
you’re studying to get your master’s in Fine Arts?”
“No,”
Ellen said. “It’s a Bachelor’s. It’s not an MFA. I’m
getting a Bachelor of Arts in English.”
You
twat, she added mentally.
“Right.
Smart. Like I thought. And Angie has an event planning company?”
“Yeah,”
Ellen said, trying to put her index finger through the rope. “She
is an event planner. It’s not just weddings, though.”
“Yeah.
Why don’t you tell me about Angie, Ellen?”
“What
do you want to know?” A bit of her nail got caught on the rope. It
stung like hell. Ellen bit her lip, taking in a sharp intake of
breath, trying not to wince. “She’s nice. We’ve been roommates
since last year.”
“Okay.
What shampoo does she use?”
Ellen
swallowed. Her saliva felt like tiny pebbles. “I don’t know.
Suave, I think. We’ve never shared a bathroom.”
Kay
tilted his head. He tapped on the floor and let out some air through
his nose. “I don’t like being lied to, Ellen.”
“Why
would I lie about something like that? When we lived in the other
apartment, she had an en-suite and I didn’t,” Ellen tilted her
head, unable to brush the hair off her face. One strand of thin
reddish brown hair tickled her nostril. “So we have never had to,
no.”
The
man was quiet for a few seconds. Ellen stared at his shadow, at the
tapping of his fingers on the floor. “Tell me, Ellen,” He finally
spoke up, pressing one stubby finger to her face and using it to
trace her features. “What good are you if you can’t answer my
questions?”
The
outlines out of his fingers made white marks on her skin. She
groaned, jerking her head back and hitting the beam she was sitting
on with the back of her head. She swore as the pain spread from the
back of her head down to her spine.
The
man chuckled again. It made her nauseous. “I guess you’re good
for some comic relief,” He said, putting his hand on the back of
her head, where she had hit her head. “But that won’t do. I have
gone through all this effort and I certainly expect – well,
something – to come from it. I’m sure that you understand.”
Ellen
blinked. He snapped his fingers in front of her face, close to her
nose. Ellen shut her eyes. “I fucking hate being ignored,” Kay
said. “It’s one of my least favorite things.”
The
girl swallowed. “Sorry. Yes, I understand.”
“Good.
Good,” He added, his foot now tapping the floor. He had spread out
a bit, and she could see the bottom of his leg from where she was
now. He was wearing tall black boots and denim trousers. The bottoms
of his jeans were scuffed. The laces of his boots were brown. The
laces were worn away too, jagged around the edges, the bit at the end
hanging off by a thread. The hair at the back of her neck stood up at
the sound of his voice. “So is there anything you can tell me about
her that is useful?”
Ellen
tried to think. The swish swish swish sound, kicking dust up in the
air, along with the slow tapping from the man, filled up her mind.
Images flashed of the worst things that could happen to her in the
situation. He had been remarkably polite so far, but what did that
mean when he had her tied up? Ellen licked her lips, feeling tiny
specs of dry skin on her taste buds. “She likes flowers.”
“Flowers?”
“Yes,
flowers. She loves – not just flowers, plants, too.”
The
man cleared his throat. “I didn’t see any flowers in your house.”
Her
eyes were closed so tightly the space next to her eyebrows hurt.
“Right. I’m incredibly allergic to most things. Including dust
and pollen. She doesn’t think fake flowers look nice, so we don’t
have any.”
“Right,”
Kay replied. “I didn’t know about this. Why should I believe
you?”
“There
are plants. Outside. They weren’t there before, they are all
Angie’s. She was looking into buying an indoor wall garden until I
talked her out of it,” Ellen replied. “That – there are all
sorts of them. It’s her favorite part of event planning, picking
out the flowers.”
“Flowers.
Huh.” Kay replied. Ellen nodded, barely able to feel her legs,
still pinned under her. “What are her favorite flowers?”
“I
don’t know. Orchids, I think.”
He
grabbed her by the hair, pulling her face close to him. Her head felt
like it was about to snap from her neck. “Do you think I’m
stupid?”
“N-no,”
She answered in a thin voice. “I just, I don’t know which type of
orchid. She has told me before, but flowers really aren’t my
thing.”
He let
her hair go, letting her bounce back to her starting position. Every
one of her limbs stung. Her feet protested for air, pins and needles
spreading up to her ankles and all through her leg. She could see the
man’s shadow look at his hand, strands of thin hair poking out
through the webbing between his fingers. He brushed it off with his
other hand. She watched as strands of her long hair fell to the
floor. The dog perked her face up, her eyes following the man’s
hand motions. Ellen tried to motion to the dog with her, tilting her
head slightly towards Kay. The dog looked at her for a few seconds,
putting her paws on the floor in front of her snout as if she was
about to get up and glancing at Kay. Ellen saw his shadow hold out
his arm. The dog lied back down, curling onto herself.
Kay
turned to look at Ellen. She could feel his breathing on her neck.
“What else can you tell me about her?”
“I
don’t –“
A
noise from upstairs made them both look up. “Be quiet,” He said,
getting close to her and whispering in her ear, holding her shoulder
down and digging his short wide fingers into her skinny elbow.
Angie
put her bag and the cups on the kitchen counter, throwing her keys on
as an afterthought. She took her phone out of her pocket, removed her
headphones from her ears and started to wrap them up around her palm.
“Are you studying? I brought you a pumpkin latte. That meeting was
a bust.”
She
walked towards Ellen’s room and tapped on the half-open door.
“Ellen? This is going to get cold! Are you in the bathroom?”
Angie
rolled her eyes, then frowned. “Huh. Tulip! Tulip! Dog! Street
Dog!” She called out. She didn’t hear anything. Shrugging her
shoulders, she went back to the kitchen and grabbed her drink from
the counter.
“Angie!”
She heard Ellen say. Her voice sounded strained. “Angie!”
“Ellen?”
“Angieee!”
Her roommate said in a singsongy voice. “I’m kind of stuck down
here. I need your help.”
The
man chuckled, his hands still around her Ellen’s neck. “Nice
touch, Ellen. I like you. You’re funny.”
1
