Chris eased the door open, hoping that the normally loud hinges would maintain their silence and not give away his intentions. When the door was three quarters open, he slipped out into the night fearing that the dog would be waiting at the bottom of the porch stairs. He let his eyes adjust to the dim streetlights for a moment.

   His heart was racing as he neared the edge of the porch. He peered down into the front yard. No dog. He descended the stairs slowly and quietly looking in all directions as he went. Still no dog. This was a good sign. Chris was suddenly aware of the pain in his right hand. He gawked down at it and realized that the hand was clenched so tightly that his nails had ripped his palm open.

    Chris slowly crept to the front gate and leaned out far enough to see up and down the street. His eyes examined every shadow, every parked car, and every yard. Still, no sign of the dog. His heartbeat started to slow and become more regular, yet the eerie feeling that something was terribly wrong got stronger every second. There were no lights on in any of the houses. No porchlights burned, no floodlights shined on the grounds around them. The only light came from the streetlamps. Even the moon seemed to take the night off.

   Chris stood on the sidewalk for several moments trying to decide which direction Stasia would have gone in search of him. The only reasonable answer was toward downtown. To the bars. Where he'd encountered that damned dog to begin with. He turned right and started briskly in that direction.

   He'd only gone about half a block when the hairs on his arm and the back of his neck started to stand on end. He stopped abruptly and turned in a circle. Nothing. No one. All was still. Chris was filled with a feeling of dread. He found himself wishing the dog had just killed him in that alley. He didn't like the idea of being the only living thing in motion.

   His footsteps echoed loudly in the still night. As he approached downtown, Chris noticed that instead of getting brighter, the light seemed to be getting dimmer. He stopped to look around again. There had to be someone else around. He couldn't possibly be the only person in town awake. He raised his hands to his face and cupped them around his mouth.

    "Hello! Anyone around?"

   He was answered by his own voice echoing in the distance. A disturbing thought occurred to Chris then. What if IT heard? What if that **** dog was still out there looking for him, trying to pick up his scent? If that was the case, he'd just given it a solid lock on his location. He started walking again but after a few seconds, the walk became a jog. Then a trot. Then he broke into a full out sprint. 

   He kept throwing glances over his shoulder, half expecting the dog to be two steps behind and ready to lunge on him. When he got to the door of The Roadhouse, his regular watering hole, he came to a stop so fast that he lost his balance and crashed to the ground. He picked himself up and threw the doors open.

    The place was deserted. It looked as if no one had been in the building for decades. Chairs lay toppled next to broken tables. The floor was littered with broken bottles and drinking glasses. The mirror behind the bar was nothing more than two large, jagged triangles. The bar itself sagged in the center and was buried beneath a thick layer of dust. 

   Chris sat down in the dorrway, confused. He HAD been in here just a few hours ago. He knew he had, that's what had started the fight. Not only that, but when he had been in here earlier the place was so clean you could have eaten from the floor. Darrion, the bar's owner, had just had the whole place remodeled a few months back. He had told Chris that the remodel job had cost him well over forty grand. Wouldn't he be pissed to see that someone trashed his joint like this?

    Chris laughed a nervous little laugh. Maybe he had gone insane afterall. Maybe he was really locked away in a rubber room somewhere where all the people in white spoke to you as if you were three years old. Or, maybe he did get something slipped into his drink and all of this was simply one hell of a **** hallucination. 

   That had to be it. None of this was real, so it didn't matter what happened. Even if the dog got hold of him. Eventually reality would have to return. One way or another. Chris stood up and walked around to examine the bar. He looked at all the dark stains on the floor, musing over the fact that they looked like giant pools of blood.

    "Hell, my imagination must be in overdrive," he mumbled. "This **** just keeps getting freakier and freakier."

   He walked around the bar and looked around. Lying amongst a large pile of broken glass was a single unbroken, unopened bottle of rum.

    "What the hell," Chris chuckled as bent to grab it. "I really don't think Darrion will mind if I help myself just this once."

   He cracked it open and took a long gulp before spitting it out all over the bar. The rum had a thick consistancey and tasted like copper. He looked at the bottle again and instead of a clear alcohol, he saw a thick red liquid.

    "What the ****?" he screamed as he threw the bottle across the bar. "When I wake from this nightmare I'm gonna give up the drink for good, that's for damn sure."

   Chris strolled back out into the main body of the bar to examine things a little more closely. A loud snarl sounded from the doorway. Chris looked up to see the dog standing there baring his teeth. Chris thought the dog looked bigger but just chalked it up to his imagination.

    "Come on you ugly son of a bitch. Come get me. I'm ready for ya."

   Chris picked up a table leg and got ready for the dog to lunge. The dog stalked slowly forward, drool dripping from its bottom jaw. The snarl became a deep, gutteral growl. As the dog moved forward, its body seemed to ripple. The confidence  that Chris had had drained quickly and he started to shake uncontrollably. He was no longer convinced that this was all in his head.

    The dog leapt at him without warning. Chris closed his eyes and threw his hand out to try to shield himself. Pain instantly engulfed his entire arm. Chris opened his eyes. The dog was gone, but so were three of the fingers on his right hand. Panic took over and Chris began to scream. He tore off his shirt and wrapped it around what was left of his hand. He wished that he had some alcohol. At this point, he really needed it.

   He went back behind the bar to search for a weapon. He knew that Darrion kept a bat back there, but if he was lucky, there would be a gun of some sort as well. He could only hope. He was rummaging around among the debris when his hand happened across the buttstock of a shotgun. He pulled it out of the rubble, half expecting that it would be rusted and inoperable. To his delight, it appeared to be perfectly functional.

   He searched around some more until he came up with a dozen and a half shells and then exited the bar. He was going to find that **** dog and get a little payback. He smiled at the thought of the dog's vile head exploding from a shot right between its disgusting, colorless eyes.