Chapter Five
In the Doghouse

Diane didn't know how long she sat there crying, but it had been a long time – hours probably. Her throat burned and her eyes felt raw. Her whole face ached. She couldn't really breathe. Her nose was clogged up and she was sobbing so hard her breath was coming in short, rapid-fire bursts that left her limbs heavy and limp and made her vision blur over with dark spots. Mae had been pacing around her, whining and keening and trying to bury her head in Diane's lap. It wasn't any comfort, but she didn't have the voice left to tell her poor dog to back off.

There was still a candle burning in the room, a faint flickering glow that cast long wavering silhouettes. It was enough to make it look like her dad was just sleeping, the dancing shadows tricking her blurry eyes with their illusions. The flame made it look like he was still breathing, like his fingers were flexing in the way they always did when he fell asleep in his chair. But the awful truth was that it was all fake, a trick of the light. He was dead, had been for hours – he'd burned up with fever and just stopped breathing.

She cried harder at that, kneeling over so she was doubled up, her head pressed into the floor next to his creaky chair and she could hear the dog getting anxious and pacing again, her paws clacking against the hard-wood floor. The single, loud bark was enough to make Diane jump, but she didn't try to get up. She couldn't, not just yet. She was still getting her breathing under control.

A pack of vegetables slid off her dad, landing on the floor with a wet, mushy splat and she could do little more that tilt her head to the side to stare at it. Another one tumbled after it.

Mae was growling then, the low deep growl that only ever came out for strangers. It kept on for long, drawn out seconds and erupted into thunderous, agitated barking that made her ears throb and the floor shake.

"Enough!" Diane croaked out, pushing herself up off the floor and trying again in a more stern voice. "Enough!"

The Rottweiler was frantic, hackles raised, half-crouched and vicious. She was barking madly at the recliner where her dad was still splayed out just outside of Diane's view because she couldn't bear to turn her head back to look at him.

"Will you fucking stop it!" She stumbled to her feet, intent on snatching her unruly mutt up by the scruff of the neck and dragging her outside. She had to brace herself on the arm of the recliner, still purposefully not looking down at him when something clamped around her wrist.

She shrieked, loud and sudden and was forced to look down at the prone man she'd been trying not to look at. The chorus of barking reached its crescendo and in the flickering candle-light she could clearly make out her dad leaning forward, mouth open wide enough that she could see every toothless millimeter of his gums. He wrenched her clasped arm forward, his mouth closing around the outside of her hand with so much force it was like that time her sister had accidently slammed the car door on it. She felt something crack in her hand and the pain was like a snapped rubber-band, loose and bitter and radiating up her arm and she could only scream and finally try to wrench away.

Mae charged then, launching herself forward in a flurry of snapping jaws and Diane was able to back up, cradling her hand to her chest and mouth still open around a dying scream as she watched her father get mauled by her dog.

Her father that was jerking and moving and thrashing and grabbing, getting handfuls of whatever part of the dog he could get, iron grip latching on to folds of skin and suddenly he was lurching forward out of the chair, falling over on top of Mae and her snarling was mixing with that high-pitched, squealing yelp, just like the time she'd gotten into a vicious, snarling fight with some stray mutt that had come wondering in.

Her dad was leaning over the writhing dog, didn't notice that he was getting ripped up by the Rottweiler and suddenly there was no more barking or growling, it was just endless shrill yelping, that hiccupping, pained dog cry and he was using his hands to dig deep into her flesh, the skin tearing with a disgusting, wet smack and Diane was screaming again, louder than the dog was because her dad was shoveling whatever flesh he could tear loose up to his face and into his mouth.

Diane stumbled backwards, gasping and pressing herself up against the table as he kneeled over, forgoing hands altogether and burying his face into the dogs torso, coming back up with a trailing, stringing heaps of flesh dangling over his chin. He was groaning, chewing with a wet, smacking slurp that sucked some of the dog bits up like spaghetti and she couldn't hold it in anymore. She heaved, gagging and retching. Burning acid squeezed up her throat, up her nose and spewed out of her mouth, splattering on the floor.

Her dad was staring at her, still smacking and chewing but staggering upwards, arms reaching for her and she ran. She bolted through the kitchen, slamming so hard through the laundry-room door that some of the glass panes shattered. Out the back door, she tripped over the lip of the porch and scraped across rough wood, scrambling to her feet just as fast as she went down. She was halfway across their long stretch of yard, the tree line looming ahead of her nothing more than a darker smear and she stopped, bracing her hands on her knees and gasping, mouth stretched so wide it hurt as she tried to breathe.

She had to go back.

Turning around, she went as fast as adrenaline let her go as she tore back into the house, slamming into the dryer and skidding across the broken glass in the laundry room, stumbling into the kitchen and blinking in the barely there glow from a single candle that only just lit up the doorway back to the living room. She couldn't hear anything over her own heartbeat, couldn't see anything but shapes and silhouettes that were darker than the general darkness of the room. Blindly, she felt along the refrigerator to the counter, pawing open drawers until she found the knife drawer. Her injured hand was throbbing, but she took out the biggest knife she could get her hands on in the dark and crept forwards, crept back towards the living room and towards the groaning and shuffling she could hear, back towards the wet, slurping, smacking that threatened to have her vomiting again.

He was back eating the dog and Diane kept half her attention on him as she squinted through the dark to try and figure out where her mom was. She wasn't in the hallway anymore and Diane for the life of her couldn't remember her leaving.

"Mom?" She called quietly, not really expecting an answer because if her mom hadn't come out at all the noise from before, there was no reason to think Diane's subdued voice was going to drag her out then.

It got her dad's attention – if he could really still be considered her dad after all this – the father she knew would never try to hurt her, would never be sitting there like some sort of starving animal eating their family pet. He was looking at her, or at least that's what it seemed because he'd stopped feasting and was sitting up straight, turned towards her.

"It's not him." She tried to tell herself. "It's not. H-h-he's not there. It's not him."

Her grip on the knife was tight, too tight because it was getting harder and harder to keep a hold of it and she had to switch it out of her injured hand, into her less strong left hand. She couldn't help but shrink back when he got up, staggering towards her like a drunk and snarling like an animal and she let him come, backing up surely and steadily and backtracking through the kitchen, crunching over the glass on the floor in the laundry room and he kept following, intent and his limbs were awkward and jerking.

She almost didn't notice the second set of shuffling feet at the back door, whipping around as identical, jittering limbs brought a much smaller person in through the door she'd left open. Tiny, petite – it was much too small to be her mom and it was reaching for her just the same as her dad was as he lumbered through the kitchen door. She was trapped, backing away from them both and there was only one place left to go.

She scuttled backward into the bathroom at the far end of the laundry room, slamming the door closed and clicking the lock. A few seconds later the door thudded loudly, like something heavy had knocked into it and then there was nothing but growling and thuds on the other side, scratches against the wood like something was clawing at it.

Diane covered her mouth harshly, pressing her hand as tight as she could to try and stifle the sobs that were threatening to overwhelm her again. She couldn't. She didn't have time to break down and she forced herself to stay standing, gasping and she was still crying, her chest still heaving but she was still up, was still thinking because she was trapped and her mom was still out there somewhere, sick and defenseless and Diane was going to be damned if she lost another parent that night.

It wasn't going to end like that.

There was a window, a big gaping thing and she was already pushing it open, peeking through the screen even as she tried to hoist herself up on the wide, tiled window sill that set as high as her chest.

The screen twanged loudly, a hand batting against it and suddenly there was a face pressing against the mesh, gnawing teeth and snapping jaw trying to chew through the fine metal weave. It was someone tall, tall and lanky and also not her mom, which was both a relief and terrifying because where were these things coming from? She slid the window closed, trying to think of something else she could do – some other way out as she backed into the corner between the shower stall and the wall. There was banging on the window now and it was only a matter of time before they were tearing their way in. One way or another, she had to get out.

"Think. Think, think, think." Diane stared around at what little she could make out in the bathroom from the very slim light coming in through the frosted window. One door, one window. One closet that housed the water heater and electric panel and maybe just maybe she could try climbing up through there, but she knew she'd only get stuck because there was less than a foot of space left between the ceiling and the floor above.

"Fuck." Just the idea of getting stuck in that cramped space was enough to make her panic, breathing coming short. Her sister had tried to talk her into working through her claustrophobia before, had offered to sit under the house with her for small amounts of time, had offered to help her work up to not being as bothered and traumatized as she got. They'd never gotten anywhere with it, really. A couple ventures under the house when a pipe was broke, when the air-conditioner needed maintenance and the three-foot space down there had almost gotten the best of her then.

"That's it." Diane forced a deep breath. She didn't need to go up, she needed to go down. The shower was leaky, the floor mushy and soft in places. If she could make a hole big enough to get her stocky frame through she could get out under there.

There was something satisfying about using nothing but force to pry the walls of the shower down, aluminum framing bending easily and the glass panels coming free without much fuss. It took longer to pry up the fiberglass that made up the shower floor, but it was dark and the only tool she had was a kitchen knife. All the while, the pawing at the door kept up and the banging on the window led to that ominous 'clink, clink' that meant the glass was starting to crack.

Eventually, she was able to work the fiberglass loose enough to lever the whole thing up like a trap-door, the subfloor underneath soggy and limp and it was far too easy to scrape it away. It crumpled and the floor had been much worse off than anyone had suspected so she didn't even need the knife to cut through most of it. She had no light to guide her, the only way she knew she was making a hole all the way through was because she could feel the damp, cool air rising up, could smell the earthy, moldy, wetness and then she was lowering herself, one hand holding up the fiberglass shell as she squeezed past a floor joist that was just solid enough to explain why the whole shower hadn't gone crashing through the subfloor on anyone. Her feet landed in packed dirt and it took some squirming but she was able to crouch down underneath the level of the floor, letting the shower bottom down over the top of her head and closing herself in complete utter blackness and still, closed air that smelled of dirt and moss and the faintest hint of toilet.

Diane didn't know which direction she needed to go to find the access door because she couldn't remember what direction she'd been facing when she'd lowered herself down. Her knees were already aching from the crouch, one hand bracing against one of the joists above her head while the other was loosely clutching the knife.

There was going to be a retaining wall in every direction, three of them were going to be outside walls, with no gaps that led deeper into the crawlspace. Her breath was coming too fast, her chest was too tight and the sweat was trickling down like a waterfall, but she forced herself to start crawling, clenching the knife in her teeth so she could use both hands and she didn't feel the pain anymore as she scuttled forward as fast as she could, until she scraped face-first into rough concrete. She kept it too her right, keeping her injured hand stretched out to feel for the door as she kept crawling along the edge. Her knees were aching, and her back was pinching uncontrollably from compensating for trying to crawl with one arm outstretched to the side.

She reached a corner, following the edge to the left as she continued trailing along the retaining wall and she just kept moving, refusing to let herself stop because if she stopped she was going to panic at the pitch black space that was trapping her. Her lungs were burning, her palm was raw and her knees felt like they were being stabbed with every movement but she kept going, sucking in air through her nose, her jaw aching because she was clenching her teeth so tightly around the plastic handle of the knife.

Another turn, and then she was scrambling as fast as she could on her knees as she felt along with both hands and finally found the wooden door that was inset in the concrete. The access door that was latched from the outside and for a long moment she just had to lean against it, breathing in as deep as she could with her face pressed up against the vent set in the door. She was suffocating and needed fresh air from outside so she could actually breathe.

For ages she sat there doing nothing gasping, trying to get her breathing under control. Diane had no idea how much time had passed and that spurred her, made her back off the door so she had room to work. She needed to get out, needed to find her mom.

Without any better ideas to move with, she took the kitchen knife to the vent, sticking it through the metal slats so she could pry them apart. With no light, it was slow going, she got first one finger through and then kept wrenching and prying. The floor creaked above her and she paused, listening. It might have been her mom or it might have been something else.

Through the grate she could just make out the silhouette of the giant wood stove and the fence that marked the pasture that ran down the hill. The gap was wider, big enough to stick her hand through but she couldn't get her arm out enough to reach the hook-latch on the door. Everything was turning grey instead of black and Diane didn't know whether to be relieved that it might be getting close to dawn or dreading the fact that so much time had passed and she still didn't know where her mom was.

It was probably both. The light outside was subtle, not enough to give her any more visibility under the house but she could see the axe leaning up against the wood box.

Bracing herself, she threw all her weight into wrenching against the metal of the vent. The whole door groaned and cracked, a sudden looseness in the wood let her stick her arm all the way through the hole. It was a stretch, but her fingers found the latch and she managed to unhook it and swing the door inward.

A gunshot cracked out, loud and clear. Diane smacked the top of her head against the concrete frame as she scrambled out of the crawlspace. Another shot echoed from the other side of the house.

She dropped the bent kitchen knife, snatching up the two-sided axe from where it was leaning against the wood stove and sprinted off around the house. Her mom was leaning against the truck, a pistol clenched in shaking hands as a ragged woman limped towards her. Diane froze as she watched her mom lift the gun and fire, watched as the woman kept loping forward.

Diane roared as she charged forward, swinging the axe as hard as she could at the woman. It jarred her elbows when it made contact, the flat of the axe slamming against a skull with matted hair. The woman tumbled forward, but was still moving so she brought the axe down again and that time the blade went deep into the junction of the woman's neck.

She was still writhing, still moving and Diane had to plant her foot on the woman's shoulder to pry the axe free. It took another good swing to bury the blade in the woman's head and only then did she stop moving.

She jumped when another shot fired, close and loud enough to make her ears ring. Martha was still braced against the truck, aiming towards the door of the house and Diane didn't stop to think before she was snatching the 9mm out of her mother's hands and whipping around to take aim at the thing that used to be her dad. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her mom slump towards the ground.