This story is posted over at the goodreads group (you can only read it there if you're a member) and eventually I'll put it up at Amazon, with the profits going to an animal rescue organization.
In the meantime, here it is on my blog!!
STORY LETTER:
Dear Author,
This
is me, the adorable one in the picture, yes the one on the left. You
won't believe what I had to go through with the two cuties next to me!
And what will lie ahead of us? Please help telling our story!
Thank You!
Anke
Word Count: 10,583
Warning: This is cute and contains no sex.
THE TAIL OF A DOG
by Summer Devon
Copyright © 2013 Summer Devon
I’m not saying that I hated people, but I came within a whisker of loathing
each and every one of them. After I got dumped, I learned fear. When I saw one
of those two-legger assless creatures, I’d take off running.
I’d ended up in a place that stank of any number of creatures’ misery. I’m an
upbeat sort of a dog, so when I think of that place, I try to remember the very
last time the unbearable need hit me and how I ran with a sweet-loving dog
named Growler. When I buried my nose in his flanks, his smell could block the
sharpest notes of desolation.
Thinking of Growler is pleasant though it does remind me of how I’d longed to
be part of a pack. No other dogs came near my patch filled with broken
machines, shade-less plants, and worse, those oil-stinky cars that raced past
one side of my territory.
The dangerous car-filled side killed my Growler. He bit the big tire over
there. Smashed flat by one of those huge cars, his body was hauled away before
I had a chance to say a proper goodbye. Two-leggers— what nuisances.
After him, I ran alone. Times got hard. There weren’t nearly enough rats in my
acrid territory. They got smart about me, and I began losing out on more dinners.
The two-legger idiots who came to my territory ignored me unless they threw
things at me, and they rarely threw anything that tasted good, sad to say. I
know because I’d go back and check after they left. Sometimes they’d leave
behind scraps, but usually they’d leave horrible chewy things or objects that
reeked of poison even a hungry dog would reject.
The nights got cold. And then the days and nights got cold, and I slept in a
little spot under a truck that never moved, next to a wall.
The very day I figured out my time was near, I met the two-legger, Shorty. I
first spotted him behind an old oil barrel. He held a big chunk of something
delicious-smelling and came toward me, slowly and in a submissive position. I
called him Shorty because the moment our eyes met, he got down low, pretending
his arms were legs too. He crawled in my direction. I couldn’t imagine what he
thought he was doing but then I didn’t care because I could smell what he
carried. Grease, and heated red meat, and oh, my dog, I still drool and get all
stomach rumbly thinking about it.
As he tossed bits of the best food, ever, he murmured at me in a croaky little
voice that didn’t scare me, much. Not the angry snarl most people used when
they saw me.
I ignored the nonsense about what a good dog I was and how sweet I looked. I
put my ears back telling him I didn’t care about how good I was, I just wanted
that good food.
He put down a really yummy big chunk. Perfect. Even better, he backed away from
it.
“All mine?” I asked with a questioning tail-wag.
He told me I was a good dog, and I took that as a yes the food’s all yours.
I was about to eat it when a rope thunked on my head; he’d tried to throw
something around my neck. I ran off, annoyed as crap, because that food he’d
put on the ground smelled delicious, hot meat, warm rolls, and I wasn’t going
to get it.
“Horrible assless creature,” I barked over my shoulder. “Don’t you bother
coming back here. I’m not going to fall for that act again, Shorty.” I said
that to me as well as him; because his food filled my nose with perfection and
he hadn’t been scary until that thing he threw hit my head.
Sometimes I needed to remind myself that people are treacherous. I’m a
person-dog. I’d just naturally liked them until I’d ended up in that territory.
Shorty got up and showed he could be two-legged and tall like any other person.
He no longer hunched.
“Oh, and now I see you’re a big jerk, liar,” I barked. He ignored my insults
and walked after me, whistling and calling. He almost fell over a broken brick
wall— he paid too much attention to me and not enough where his spindly two
legs were going.
I trotted off, winding my way through the trash, hurt by his treachery.
Ungainly as I was, I still managed to leave him far behind.
But then, as I got near my nest, I heard a deep bay of a shout. It didn’t come
from Shorty. The next unhappy sound came from him, though, and I turned around
and headed back toward the voices.
Curiosity. It might kill cats on a regular basis, but it doesn’t do dogs any
favors either.
