Dannika Dark: Six Months

Trevor held my hand up to his mouth and kissed it. “I’ll be gone a day or two—tops. And then we’re roomies.”

“My trailer won’t fit all your stuff.”

“Stuff?” he scoffed. “I won’t have much to move because none of the furniture was mine except the couch, and he can keep it. I don’t want anything his ass was on.”

“The very ass you talked about endlessly when you first met?”

“The very fucking one.”

Later that evening, after a long walk home from work, I freshened up with a quick shower and went to bed in my bra and panties . I only ran the air conditioner for an hour or two and usually shut it off before bedtime. Despite the humidity, the days were beginning to get cooler. Thank God.

Trevor was right. The trailer park was creepy. It’s something I tried not to think about, but late at night when I heard rustling noises outside, it made me curl up and pull the sheets over my head. I never thought about stuff like that when Rose lived at home. Things had quieted down since the drug raid last year that took out some big dealer. Now there wasn’t as much traffic at all hours of the night, not to mention loud parties.

The third time I heard a high-pitched noise outside, I sat up with adrenaline pumping through my veins. The intensity of my heartbeat couldn’t be matched as I tiptoed to the front door and grabbed a long knife from the kitchen drawer. I drew the curtain back and peered outside.

The orange light from the lamppost illuminated the area around the barbecue grill and I spotted a shadow moving.

“Oh, no,” I whined. The shadow wasn’t a man-eating alien but a wounded animal. A stray dog limped a few steps before lying down on the muddy gravel.

I threw on a silk robe and slippers, careful not to make any sudden movements as I stepped outside. I crouched down and placed my fingertips on the ground, avoiding direct eye contact.

“Hi there. Did someone hurt you?”

I shuffled forward and he lifted his head, his snout wrinkling as he bared his sharp canines. As soon as I spoke in a calming voice, his savage expression vanished. If it’s one thing I knew about, it was how to placate an agitated animal. Years of practice.

“I’m not going to hurt you, sweetie. Can I just see? Bet I can help, and I have some leftovers inside you might like.” I kept my voice confident and soothing, knowing animals responded to tone and body language.

He was an intimidating creature. His breed resembled a Husky, but fierce, like what I imagined a wolf might look like. From what I could tell, his thick coat looked earthy brown and his face had all kinds of dark markings on it. It was an unusual pattern for a dog, but boy, was he a looker. He was also well fed, which led me to believe someone cared for him and he was domesticated.

“Come inside?” I clicked my tongue three times.

He wasn’t going to be a submissive fella, so I slowly backed up and walked inside my brightly lit trailer. It looked welcoming from the outside, and I’m sure he could smell the cheeseburgers I’d cooked up earlier.

“Come on, tough boy.”

My grandma used to say I was crazy for letting wild animals in the trailer.

Bat crazy.

She’d made me keep them outside, which is why some of them had died. I’d been a fearless child who had a penchant for helping injured animals. Every wild thing deserves tenderness even if it doesn’t want it. The thing is, I’d always been good about reading animals. My dad used to say I was Doctor Dolittle in a past life—that some people were born with more compassion for all of God’s creatures. I felt more connected to animals than I did to people because I understood their basic emotions. I’d once saved a jackrabbit from a feral cat with a voracious appetite, but because I was forced to keep it outside, a red-tailed hawk had dined on him for breakfast the next morning. That had upset me, even though I couldn’t blame the hawk for having survival instincts.

I kicked off my slippers and left the door ajar, breaking off a few pieces of meat and placing them near the door. Either he’d come in or he wouldn’t. The choice was his.

Ten minutes later, a noise startled me. I turned my paperback facedown on the tiny kitchen table to the right of the sink. A steady growl rumbled in the quiet room. Not a menacing one, just the kind that told me he was hurt and too stubborn to admit it. Coming inside the trailer proved he wasn’t aggressive; animals acted violently out of fear, and feral ones stayed away from humans. If he walked up those steps on his own, he had a fearless heart. He wouldn’t be the first dog I had let inside the house. Trevor once suggested that I get a job working in a zoo.

I laughed and told him I already worked in one.

The dog’s toenails clicked on the floor and I got an eyeful of his enormous size. I briefly entertained the thought of locking myself in the bathroom, but decided it wouldn’t be in my best interest to show fear and run. After polishing off every morsel on the floor, he lifted his nose and sniffed in my direction, his tail wagging lightly. I kept my eyes glued to the table so he wouldn’t perceive me as a threat.

“Change your mind?” I asked softly. “ Good boy.”

His wet nose glided across my left arm and I shivered. I sat motionless, allowing him to check me out even though a small voice in my head was whispering, You’re a certifiable idiot. You just let the Big Bad Wolf in, whetted his appetite with hamburger meat, and now you’re going to become the main course .

The poor thing limped in a circle and collapsed on his right side. He looked barely conscious, panting the way an animal does when it’s in pain. I circled around him and locked the door.

“Oh, baby. What happened?”

I knelt down and ran my long fingers through his silky fur. His face relaxed at my touch and while I couldn’t see any blood, his front leg was curled in a peculiar position. When I gently lifted his heavy paw and peered underneath, I saw why.

Instinctively, I began humming a made-up melody to keep him calm. Lodged deep in his upper leg was a screwdriver. It made me steaming mad to imagine that someone could have impaled him intentionally; we had sickos in the area notorious for animal cruelty. The brown handle protruded from the inside of his leg and the spike angled toward the back. I bent over to make sure it hadn’t gone into his chest cavity, but it looked clear. His dense fur made a close examination difficult. I couldn’t call animal control because they would only put him down.

My hands trembled and I took a deep breath. I had to pull it out, and that would snap him out of his placid state of semiconsciousness, and he’d be looking for someone to bite.

“How did this happen?”

He refused to answer the question.

I slipped out of my robe and decided the best thing to do was cover his head so he wouldn’t see me when I pulled it out.

Kneeling before him in my bra and panties, I draped my silky robe across his back, sliding it over his face until it obscured his view. I wrapped my fingers around the handle, ready to pull it out with lightning speed. At least I had medical insurance, even though the deductible was outrageous.

“Here we go,” I whispered. Then I did a mental countdown. One… two… three!

In a clean motion, I yanked the handle and pulled the screwdriver free.

He yelped and growled all at once. The wolf flipped onto his feet and the robe fell away, revealing one pissed-off animal. I scrambled backward, holding the bloody screwdriver in self-defense.

He limped forward, tracking blood with each step as his brown eyes locked on mine like a target.