Matt Hults - Anything Can Be Dangerous

No. That was ludicrous. Greg had been on good terms with the Jacobsons’ since day one. Besides, he had no motive to kill their dog. Hell, he liked their dog! But something deep down told him that he didn’t want anyone else to see the bag, even if it meant tampering with evidence. If he hid it somewhere, he could discard it himself later, when no one else was around. Better yet, he’d destroy it…

Plastic Bags Can Be Dangerous.

“Gracy!”

Greg flinched, spinning toward the voice.

“Gracy!” Tom Jacobson called from next door. “Come on, girl. Where are you?”

Greg knew it was only a matter of seconds before Tom glanced to his right, through the branches of the hedge separating their properties, and saw his dead pet, forty feet away.

He turned his attention back to the bag, uncertain of what to do—

And found it draped across his foot.

“Jesus!”

He kicked the thing away, hit the button for the automatic door, and dodged under it as it descended. Running from the garage, he went to tell his neighbor about the dog and suggest that they call the police.

The evening with Mia would’ve been as splendid as the last if not for the memory of the bag. Its gory afterimage remained imprinted in his mind, dominating his thoughts and polluting his mood.

He’d met Mia just after six, and they decided on a trip to Valley Fair instead of eating out. It sounded like a great idea at the time. He’d secretly hoped that the excitement of the amusement park’s rides and the noise of the crowds would distract him from his thoughts and help him focus on Mia, but the morning’s experience refused to relinquish its hold and the cheery atmosphere of the park only acted to further expose his dispirited frame of mind.

The bag.

The police never found it. That’s what was truly bothering him.

After seeing his dog, Tom Jacobson indeed called the police. Greg explained to the responding officer how he found Gracy’s remains slumped beside his garage and that he’d also spotted several drops of blood near the door. He never said that he went inside, though. And he never mentioned the bag.

Previously, he’d been uncertain what would happen if the police discovered it in his garage, all full of blood, but by then he wanted them to find it, especially after… after it moved.

He was still having trouble believing it himself, mainly because he hadn’t actually witnessed its advance, but it somehow crossed three feet to his foot. And he knew he hadn’t imagined its proximity to him. He’d felt the weight of its liquid cargo when he booted it away, its warmth on his ankle. There was just no mistaking it; the damn thing had moved! Nevertheless, how could he possibly hope to tell that to the police and expect them to believe it? Answer: he couldn’t.

So he’d kept quiet, waiting for the officer to find the bag and take it away.

Only the officer hadn’t found the bag. He’d done a brief search of the garage, noted the traces of blood in his report, but that was it. Gracy’s remains were taken by animal control to be autopsied for possible contagions, Tom got a case number, and, la-tee-da, life was back to normal.

Or at least it should’ve been. Greg still hadn’t gone back into the garage since the officer left, and he was beginning to wonder if he would ever set foot in there again.

“Is something wrong?”

Greg looked up, stirred from his thoughts by Mia’s soft voice.

“Sorry. What?”

She gave him a sheepish grin. “Well, I don’t mean to be blunt, but you don’t seem to be having a very good time. Last night… I thought we got along great. Tonight feels different. I know we just met, so if you’re uncomfortable or something, please tell me.”

“No,” he answered. “God, no. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you all day.”

She flashed him that fantastic smile.

“I just… I had a rough morning, and I guess it’s still troubling me a bit. I apologize.”

“Is it something you want to talk about?”

He hesitated, but decided to tell her. He felt bad enough making her suffer through the first half hour of their date wondering if she was the source of his distracted behavior, and he wanted to put things right. He didn’t tell her everything , though. He kept the details of his story centered on the shocking discovery of the dog and his surprise at Gracy’s unnatural death.

“That’s terrible,” she agreed. “I hope they catch whoever did it.”

“Me too.”

To his surprise, talking about the ordeal did make him feel better. In fact, it helped put everything in perspective. The bag of blood, the dog’s grotesque carcass; those things still stuck in his mind, but they no longer carried the eerie air that had dampened his spirits since he found them.

By the time they reached the next ride, his attention was once again focused entirely on Mia. She was happy, and that made him happy, and he slipped his arm around her waist as they walked side by side toward the entry gate of the Ferris wheel. It was a risky move, this being only their second time together, but she allowed it and even leaned her body against him.

They’d settled into the end of the line when he noticed an empty plastic bag with the fair’s logo on it go tumbling across the thoroughfare not far away, bounding end over end, propelled by the breeze.

His newfound smile faded.

The wind was blowing in the opposite direction.

“What the hell is going on?”

Greg had asked himself that same question at least a dozen times since dropping Mia off at her apartment, but he had yet to come up with an answer.

After he saw the lone bag whisking across the thoroughfare at the park, he’d begun to see them everywhere.

Not that that’s hard to do , he thought. This is America, after all; plastic is about as commonplace as dirt.

Such an explanation sounded good when applied to the physical aspect of his sudden aversion to plastic, but deep down he knew that the menacing quality he’d begun to associate with such a mundane material was not only unusual, it was pure fucking nuts.

He didn’t let it trouble him around Mia, though. He forced himself to block it out. Now that she was gone, however, he found himself dwelling on the topic once again and genuinely fearing for his sanity.

He turned right, onto Quincy Street, intent on parking in front of the house rather than go up the alley to the garage. Even from a block and a half away, he noticed multiple police cars lined up along the street across from his house, as well as an ambulance parked along the curb. Their red, white, and blue flashers lit up the area like a Fourth of July fireworks show.

Greg parked in front of his own house and got out, pausing on the sidewalk before going to the door. He saw fellow neighbors standing on their doorsteps, watching the scene unfold, and couldn’t help be curious himself.

“It’s a hell of a thing,” a voice said from behind.

Greg flinched and turned around to find Tom standing at his back.

“I heard it was the boy,” his neighbor said, indicating toward the house. “You know, the slow one. I guess they found him in the basement.”

“Damn,” Greg muttered. “You mean… dead?”

Tom frowned, nodding. “Child Protective Services should’ve stuck their nose into that shit-heap years ago. All afternoon I’ve been listening to the kid’s mother calling his name, telling him to come home. Christ, they don’t even keep track of him. Like always, she never actually went out to look for him, either. Just stands there on the steps in her bathrobe, shouting up and down the block. Poor bastard was probably down there the whole time, already gone.”