Infected

Barking In The Night

The dog is barking.

The sound of it slowly draws me from my slumber, each bark pulling me closer and closer to consciousness. I try to fight it; I don't want to wake up. I want to slip back into the world of dreams where my wishes rest not in the clouds but in front of me, attainably.

The dog is still barking.

Moaning lowly, still dangling between sleep and wake, I turn over and pull a pillow over my ear.

If I concentrate hard enough, I might be able to tune out my overgrown puppy and sleep long enough to be able to correct this behavior tomorrow. I've wanted a dog for as long as I can remember—the movies make man's best friend seem perfect at all times, but no one ever mentions their periods of noisy excitement in the middle of the night. I feel my eyebrows scrunch together beneath the pressure of my pillow as I try to block out the sound of Scout's relentless yapping, but the subtle action, of course, holds no avail.

The barking stopped.

The sudden realization yanks me out of my suspension between dream and reality, causing my eyes to flutter open and my hand to push away my pillow. I turn over, searching my oddly illuminated room for Scout, and find him standing firmly in front of the door. He's still a juvenile, with paws and ears much too big for his body, and deep chocolate fur still learning what length to grow, though at the moment his body glows orange as it reflects the light coming from my window. The canine cares little for this and is instead more concerned with baying at the empty playful air resting between him and my white-painted door.

I roll my eyes at the unnecessarily noisy dog and purse my lips together preparing to blow out a small sharp whistle to tear his attention away from dancing dust particles, but I pause. It's the middle of the night and there is an orange light casting in from my window.

Ignoring Scout's still relentless noise-making, I slip out from underneath my blankets, letting my socked feet gently hit the wooden floor. It's cool tonight, and my hands find their way into my sweatpants' pockets as I walk towards my window, taking note of the strong smell of smoke and ash coming from its direction. With still tired, squinted eyes, I use my left hand to peel back the curtain and feel my eyelids rip apart, throwing away any reminisce of drowsiness I still held.

The house across the street is engulfed in flames and its residents —people whose names I never bothered to learn— were screaming in a sea of unhinged individuals. The street is littered with bodies, burning and bloody, some are in cars, paving through the road without care, but most are attacking each other aimlessly or fleeing. I watch a man leave his yard two houses down, Mr. Andrews, a shotgun in hand. He cocks it with conviction, aiming it at a woman whose face was buried in another's chest, and he shoots.

The shot rings through the air making me flinch as I back away from my window petrified. He killed her. I move towards my dog, desperate for some form of comfort but freeze in place when a floorboard from down the hallway creaks under pressure. Scout's tail stills as he returns to his original pursuit of the noise behind the door and the comfortable moisture in my mouth recedes as I come to realize the real reason I was woken up tonight.

Dad and Ryan aren't home.

I fight against my lungs, forcing them to take in air as I filter out the sounds from outside to focus on the one in my hallway. The squeaks change pattern in response to my dog's howling, mimicking the rhythm of interested footsteps as they gradually emanate closer. My instincts tell me to run, hide, anything to get away from the source of the footsteps, but a spark of naivety convinces me to forget the scene I bore witness to outside of my window just moments before, and take a hesitant step forwards.