Chapter Three

When I was a young girl, I had a dog. He was a mutt, not anything special. He wasn't purebred, and he sure wasn't a hunting dog or anything. But he was my dog, and I loved him very much. He was sweet, had a huge personality. He hated yelling, so when my father would start yelling at my uncle for some reason (he did this when he was drunk, mainly), my dog would hop onto my bed and keep me company. It made me feel better. Loved. When I would cry during the arguments, he'd lick the tears off my cheeks. I loved that dog to death. He was my best friend until the end, I used to say. My uncle liked him alright too. When he thought I wasn't looking, he'd hug him and kiss the top of that dog's head, making him wag his tail. I named him Clyde. And Clyde was my saving grace many times. He helped me through the toughest times, even when my uncle couldn't. To this day, I'm not sure if my father liked him or not, though I could have sworn I saw him pet him once or twice.

The last time I saw Clyde was the day I was taken away.

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That night, I woke to the smell of smoke. It startled me awake, and I was in full panic mode when I saw the fire across the room. It had started from the fireplace, possibly a spark that landed on the floor, and the rug was engulfed in flames. Without thinking twice, I scurried over to my rifle, and grabbed it, putting it over my shoulder. I then made my way over to the bed, yanking my blanket off of it, and began slamming it down on the fire. It ended up slipping from my hands, though, and landed on the rug. Looking around frantically, my mind running a hundred miles a minute, I didn't know to run or try to put it out with something else. I didn't have much water left-in fact, I was going to make a run to the stream tomorrow morning to get some more, but to try it now would be ridiuclous, the fire would have engulfed everything by then and I would be shit out of luck.

Grabbing my pistol from under my pillow, and any ammo I could find, I hurried out the front door only to be face to face with ten or more of those creeps. They were a good distance away, and outrunning them would be easy, but the sight startled me. I hadn't seen this many up in the mountains before, and I couldn't help but panic even more. One, a man, growled at me and began to lunge and I shot at him without thinking about it. The bullet hit him in the knee, making him buckle. That was when I made a run for it, the growls behind me making me run faster than I ever have before. Even when I used to run away from my foster families, who never adopted me (I usually was there a week), because they were only in it for the money. But even then, as I was saying, I never used to run this fast.

I stopped to rest at a nearby tree, leaning back on it and catching my breath. I checked my pistol, looking to see if I needed to reload it or not. I put in my waistband of my capri, running a hand through my hair. I didn't even bother to check my rifle. I knew it was loaded. I reloaded it right before I had gone to sleep.

I looked over to where the cabin used to be and saw a large smoke cloud in the distance. I bit my lip and shook my head. My father and uncle would kill me if they knew I burnt that place down. Even with all the hell they suffered here, they still loved this place. They had to rebuild after it burnt down when my uncle was a child, and here it is again. Burnt to a crisp.

We Dixons just have amazing luck, don't we?

Sighing, I climbed the tree and got myself situated on a limb, shutting my eyes not too long after.

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I awoke to hear growling underneath me and something tugging on my shoe. I didn't understand it at first, and with my mind being half asleep I thought it was Abigail, a young girl who I had to share a room with at one point when I was in foster care.

"Abi, stop." I snapped. Whatever it was growled in response, and yanked on my foot again. I screamed and opened my eyes as I slid down on the limb a bit. There stood a creep, it's clouded over eyes staring up at me. I screamed again, kicking it in the face and making it more agitated. Its grip tightened on my shoe, yanking me down more. I kicked more, kicking it in the face a few more times (and I'm pretty sure I broke it's nose because I heard a sickly cracking noise the third or fourth tim I did it).

I went for another kick, reaching for my pistol as a gunshot rang through the air and the creep fell, dead.