I didn’t bother grabbing my coat. I sprinted out the back door of the clinic, jumped into my car, and slammed my foot on the gas pedal.
The drive out to the crossroads was a blur. My mind was racing a mile a minute, cycling through every single thing that could possibly go wrong.
What if Brenda had called a neighbor to check on the house? What if the garage was heavily padlocked? What if Barnaby was already dead?
I pushed the dark thoughts out of my head as I pulled onto the dirt shoulder off Highway 9.
Marcus was already there. He was driving his personal vehicle, a massive, beat-up black pickup truck equipped with heavy-duty dog crates in the back.
He was standing outside the driver’s side door, wearing dark jeans, heavy boots, and a thick canvas jacket. He had a heavy-duty bolt cutter resting against the back tire of his truck.
I threw my car into park, jumped out, and ran over to his truck.
Marcus didn’t say hello. He just gave me a grim, determined look.
“Get in,” he instructed, grabbing the bolt cutters and throwing them into the truck bed.
I climbed into the passenger seat. The inside of the truck smelled strongly of dog treats and old coffee.
Marcus got in, slammed the door, and immediately threw the truck into drive.
We sped down the rural two-lane highway, surrounded by miles and miles of empty, frozen farm fields. The bare trees looked like skeletal fingers reaching up toward the gray, depressing sky.
“Here is the plan,” Marcus said, keeping his eyes entirely focused on the winding road. “We pull up to the property. We do not park in the driveway. We park on the shoulder of the road, behind the treeline, so the truck is completely hidden from the street.”
I nodded, gripping the door handle tightly as we took a sharp turn.
“I will approach the garage first,” Marcus continued, his voice entirely calm and tactical. “I need to make sure the dog isn’t aggressive out of fear. A scared, hurting dog will bite, even a Golden Retriever. You stay exactly five feet behind me. If I tell you to run back to the truck, you run back to the truck. Do not argue with me.”
“Got it,” I agreed.
“Once the dog is secured, we load him into the back crate,” Marcus said. “And then we get the hell out of there. We do not go near the main house. We do not look in the windows. We leave zero evidence that we were ever on that property.”
Ten minutes later, Marcus slowed the heavy truck to a crawl.
“There it is,” he pointed through the dirty windshield.
Up ahead, sitting at the end of a long, unpaved driveway, was a large, dilapidated farmhouse. It had peeling white paint and a rusted red metal roof.
It looked entirely isolated. There wasn’t another house for at least two miles in either direction.
It was the perfect place to hide a nightmare.
Marcus pulled the truck off the road, driving through a shallow ditch and parking it entirely out of sight behind a thick cluster of dead evergreen trees.
He turned the engine off. The sudden silence in the cab of the truck was deafening.
“Alright,” Marcus whispered, pulling a heavy tactical flashlight from his center console. “Let’s go get Barnaby.”
We quietly stepped out of the truck, the frozen grass crunching loudly beneath our boots.
We moved quickly and silently through the thick brush, keeping our heads down as we approached the back of the property.
The detached garage sat about fifty yards away from the main house. It was an old, rotting wooden structure with a single, dirty window on the side.
As we got closer, I could see that the large wooden sliding doors were pulled shut.
Securing the two doors together was a massive, heavy-duty steel padlock.
Marcus stopped a few feet away from the garage doors. He held his hand up, signaling for me to stop as well.
He stood perfectly still, tilting his head, listening intently.
The wind howled through the bare trees, making the loose tin on the garage roof rattle loudly.
“Do you hear that?” Marcus whispered, looking back at me.
I strained my ears, trying to listen past the sound of the freezing wind.
And then, I heard it.
It was a low, weak, rhythmic sound coming from inside the locked wooden structure.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It was the sound of a dog’s tail, feebly hitting the concrete floor. Barnaby had heard our footsteps approaching.
He was alive.
Marcus didn’t hesitate. He turned and sprinted back toward the truck to grab the heavy bolt cutters.
I ran up to the dirty side window and tried to look inside. The glass was entirely coated in years of grime and dust. I couldn’t see a single thing in the pitch-black interior.
“Barnaby?” I called out softly, pressing my hands against the freezing wood. “It’s okay, buddy. We’re here.”
A pathetic, high-pitched whine answered me from the darkness. It sounded like a dog that had completely given up hope.
Marcus reappeared a few seconds later, holding the massive steel bolt cutters.
“Stand back,” he ordered, wedging the heavy metal jaws around the thick shackle of the padlock.
He planted his boots firmly on the frozen dirt, took a deep breath, and squeezed the long handles together with all of his incredible strength.
A loud, sharp SNAP echoed across the empty property.
The heavy steel padlock broke in half and fell into the dirt.
Marcus tossed the bolt cutters aside and grabbed the heavy wooden handle of the sliding garage door.
He yanked it to the side.
The heavy wooden door screeched loudly on its rusted metal tracks, sliding open and exposing the pitch-black interior of the freezing garage.
The smell hit me instantly. It was a suffocating wave of ammonia, old feces, and damp, rotting concrete.
Marcus clicked on his high-powered tactical flashlight, cutting a bright white beam through the dusty darkness.
He swept the light across the empty concrete floor, past piles of old cardboard boxes and rusted tools, until the beam finally settled on the far back corner.
My heart completely shattered into a million pieces.
