Dead Leaves, Dark Corners by Nicki Huntsman Smith

Author:Nicki Huntsman Smith [Smith, Nicki Huntsman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1544640455
Published: 2017-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

***

Three blocks away, a man reached into a box of copy paper, removed the top sheet, and stapled it to a telephone pole. His anguish could be seen even in the fading sunlight. It was etched into the lines between the frowning brows and charcoaled in half-moons under his eyes.

Ten minutes later all the telephone poles on the block displayed newly-stapled flyers.

Twenty minutes later the same was true for the telephone poles on the next block over.

Thirty minutes later the man was shuffling along a cracked sidewalk a half-mile from home, when something caught his eye.

The sun was a glowing half-melon on the western horizon, throwing the cirrus clouds into a frenzy of peach-colored cotton candy. There was just enough daylight to see a red dog collar poking out from under the bottom of a series of wooden steps which led to the front porch of a nondescript house.

It was a miracle he’d seen it. Just a small segment of cherry-colored leather showed. It might have been a piece of plastic or an old watch band.

But it wasn’t. It was a dog collar.

His dog’s collar, he realized the next moment when he held it in a trembling hand and stared at the attached tag. “Milo” and a phone number were engraved on the slightly tarnished metal. His phone number.

He could hear music coming from the house. Dust in the Wind was a favorite of his father’s. He had listened to the album countless times growing up.

He stood there for a moment holding the collar, then climbed the steps and knocked on the front door. He could still hear the music playing inside, but no one answered. He knocked again and waited. Still no answer. He turned, headed back down the steps, and then rounded the corner of the house. The side door was unlocked. It led to a tidy one-car garage furnished with a late-model Prius, tools, a lawn mower, and a small freezer.

The door leading into the house was also unlocked.

The kitchen smelled of grease and garlic and something else. Tangy bottom notes he couldn’t identify.

He heard people in the next room, talking over the loud music which had covered the sound of his entrance.

The sad eyes glanced around the room at the outdated wallpaper, slid over the avocado-colored appliances, then rested on two white enameled rectangular boxes.

Freezers, larger than the one in the garage. There were notes taped to them. He scanned the words on both, then lifted the lid of the one that read HERE THERE BE DRAGONS!

“Oh my lord!” Millie squealed at the man who stood in her dining room. In one hand the stranger held a package from the HERE THERE BE DRAGONS freezer. On the butcher’s paper hand-printed in neat letters: “Milo, Welsh Corgi.” In the other hand he held Thomas’s enormous carving knife, freshly sharpened for tonight’s feast.

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