It was Todd. He took three steps back and pulled out some paper from his pocket and lit it, the fire flickering against his stony blank face. When he tossed the burning papers into the bushes, a blue flame popped up, making an audible noise.
Todd didn’t see me; he was watching the fire. And I never barked, I never growled, I just ran up that sidewalk in silent fury. I leaped for him as if I had been taking down men my whole life, and surging through me was a sense of power, as if I were leading a pack.
Any reluctance I might have felt to attack a human being was overridden by the sense that whatever Todd was doing, it was causing harm to the boy and to the family I was there to protect. There was no stronger purpose than that.
Todd yelled and fell and kicked at my face. I took the foot that the kicking offered, biting into it and holding on while Todd screamed. His pants ripped, his shoe came off, and I tasted blood. He struck at me with his fists, but I kept my grip on his ankle, shaking my head, feeling the flesh tear some more. I was in a fury, completely oblivious to the fact that my mouth was filled with the unique flavor of human skin and blood.
A sudden piercing noise distracted me, and Todd managed to work his foot loose as I turned to look at the house. The indoor tree was totally aflame, and thick, acrid smoke was pouring out the front door and up into the night. The electronic shriek was painfully high and loud, and I instinctively backed away from it.
Todd stood and limped away as fast as he could, and I registered his retreat out of the corner of my eye, no longer caring. I sounded my own alarm, barking, trying to draw attention to the flames, which were spreading quickly through the house and were curling upstairs toward the boy’s room.
I ran around the back of the house but was frustrated to discover that the pile of snow that had assisted me on my escape was on the wrong side of the fence. While I stood there barking, the patio door slid open and Dad and Mom stumbled into view. Mom was coughing.
“Ethan!” she screamed.
Black smoke was coming out the patio door. Mom and Dad ran to the gate, and I met them there. They shoved past me, running through the snow to the front of the house. They stood looking up at the dark window to Ethan’s room.
“Ethan!” they shouted. “Ethan!”
I broke from them and raced around to the now open back gate. I darted through it. Felix was outside on the patio, huddled under a picnic bench, and she yowled at me, but I didn’t stop. I squeezed through the patio door, my eyes and nose filled with smoke. Unable to see, I staggered toward the stairs.
The sound of the flames was as loud as the wind when we went for a car ride with the windows down. The smoke was suffocating, but it was the heat that beat me back. The intensity of the fire burned my nose and ears, and in frustration I lowered my head and ran out the back door, the cold air instantly salving my pain.
Mom and Dad were still yelling. Lights had come on across the street and in the house next door, and I could see one of the neighbors looking out his window, talking on the phone.
There was still no sign of the boy.
“Ethan!” Mom and Dad yelled. “Ethan!”
{ FIFTEEN }
I had never before felt such fear as what was pouring off of Mom and Dad as they shouted at the boy’s window. Mom was sobbing and Dad’s voice was tight, and when I began barking again, frantically, they made no move to tell me to be quiet.
My ears picked up the thin wail of a siren, but mostly I could only hear my barking, Mom and Dad calling Ethan’s name, and, over all of it, the roar of the fire, so loud I could feel it as a vibration through my whole body. The bushes in front of us were still burning, clouds of steam rising as the snow melted with a sizzle.
“Ethan! Please!” Dad shouted, his voice cracking.
Just then, something burst through Ethan’s window, showering glass into the snow. It was the flip!
Frantically I picked it up, to show Ethan that yes, I had it. His head appeared in the hole the flip had made, black smoke framing his face.
“Mom!” he yelled, coughing.
“You’ve got to get out of there, Ethan!” Dad roared.
“I can’t open the window, it’s stuck!”
“Just jump!” Dad responded.
“You’ve got to jump, honey!” Mom shouted at him.
The boy’s head disappeared back inside. “The smoke is going to kill him; what’s he doing?” Dad said.
“Ethan!” Mom screamed.
The boy’s desk chair came through the window, smashing it, and, a second later, the boy plunged out. He appeared to get hung up on the remaining bits of wood and glass, though, so that instead of sailing out over the flaming bushes he dropped directly into them.
“Ethan!” Mom shrieked.
I barked frantically, the flip forgotten. Dad reached into the fire and grabbed Ethan and pulled him out into the snow, rolling him over and over. “Oh God, oh God,” Mom was sobbing.
Ethan lay on his back in the snow, his eyes closed. “Are you okay, son? Are you okay?” Dad asked.
“My leg,” the boy said, coughing.
I could smell his burned flesh. His face was blackened and oozing. I pressed forward, the flip in my mouth,
