SPOILER ALERT! CONTENT WARNINGS!
Animal Death, Blood, Child Abuse (implied), Abduction
Ginny Flamburger was haunted by the ghost of her dead dog. The dog in question, a large German Shephard-mix thing with constant drool and paws the size of catcher’s mitts, was omnipresent in life.
He wasn’t an obtrusive ghost, no, he didn’t make a ruckus when there was company or romantic partners over, but he did make his presence known when she was alone.
The water dish by the island in the kitchen slightly spilled when she walked by.
The kibble in a bowl by the laundry room, changing color with the mold, seems shifted somehow.
His favorite blanket, still scrunched on the floor by the foot of her bed, smelled of him and gave her a bit of comfort when she entered the room.
Ginny would look for her ghost dog daily, but only sometimes would he share evidence of his existence.
A light on in this room that she didn’t remember turning on.
Some dirt left on the carpet in the other that she was sure she didn’t track in.
The new claw marks on the door of the room that would not open.
She didn’t tell a soul about her ghost dog, knowing full well what they’d say about her, but she knew he was there.
She had gotten the dog full grown on her son’s fifth birthday. The son, Arnold, was an awkward child, tough at making friends, and spent a lot of time alone. Sometimes Ginny would find him sitting with blocks in his room, crying, and wishing she could take away his loneliness.
She wished Arnold’s father, Tyler, were still around. He always seemed to know what to say in these moments:
“I didn’t get any friends until I was well into my twenties,” he’d say when he found her peering sadly through the crack in the door of her son playing alone.
“Not everyone gets it at the same time.”
“Hey, at least he has the dog.”
“It’s not your fault.”
How she longed for his words.
But Tyler was not here. He was upstate in a minimum security work camp. Something about images found or whatever the police uncovered on his work computer.
He didn’t tell her anything. Just gone one day.
Tyler and Arnold loved that dog.
There was an anger still about being left alone, an anger that the ghost’s scant evidence soothed, if only temporarily. She noticed the rug in the guest room with new teeth marks on the corner and pieces of hair casually left on the corners of cabinets and end tables.
Each of these reminders let her know that even if there wasn’t a physical presence now, there was one once.
She missed the days where Arnold would come home from preschool and throw his bag in the corner and run to give her a hug. She missed the days when Tyler would come home and lift Arnold high in the air and say, “Look at this boy fly.”
The blood on the wall, about waist height, in the entry way had begun to flake away, dried as it was. The dent, dog-shaped, made an odd shadow on the wall, as if it were meant to be there.
The door was still there, mostly, but the latch had some damage, from when they busted through, with their loud yelling, and the shoving to the ground.
There wasn’t much other evidence that something major had happened.
Yes, there were still some shards from the broken plate she dropped when they broke in.
And yes, the spot where the dog died still smells a bit like urine and vacated bowels.
And yes, the computer wires still stuck out of the wall, like the remnants of a plant ripped shoot from root.
But overall, the house had gone back to normal, save a ghost dog.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. There’s nothing we can do,” the woman at the door said. Her gold badge shone brightly in the sun in the doorway. No other uniform, not even a jacket, just a clipboard.
“You can reach the judge’s clerk at this email.”
She was short and had tight hair.
Her eyes moved over Ginny and then settled on Arnold past Ginny’s shoulder.
“Ma’am, you need to step aside.”
They were swifter than the police.
They snatched up Arnold and left within ten minutes.
Not even a siren to declare the gravity of what was happening.
Three weeks.
It had been three weeks.
Three weeks since the police took Tyler.
Three weeks, well two and a half, since DCFS took Arnold and left nothing but a judge’s clerk’s email.
The ghost dog had been particularly active that last night.
The bottles that were neatly stacked in the kitchen recycling were now splayed across the floor.
The food, noodles, that had been in a bowl on the table were now on the floor in the kitchen.
There was a smell of urine in the front room.
Ginny picked herself off the floor in the computer room and changed her clothes. The ones she had on were so dirty, smelled so strongly, that she sent them straight to the trash.
New clothes, then a step out the door.
The sunlight was blinding.
But Ginny set off to the liquor store, knowing full well the house would be well guarded by the ghost.
N. R. Schmidt is a writer originally from America’s West Coast.
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