“Ready! On three! One! Two! Three!” He let go of the door and ran for all he was worth for his neighbor’s sycamore tree. He didn’t dare look back. Like a kid pulling his blanket over his head after a nightmare, he didn’t want to see the monster bounding toward him, blood dripping from its jaws...
Jeremiah almost flew. He hit the tree and scampered up like a chipmunk before finally looking back. The dog was nowhere in sight.
He took a while calming down. Eventually, he looked over to his house and noticed all three of the kids looking at him from where they stood by the backyard fence. Jeff called, “Are you okay, Dad? Did it chase you?”
“I’m fine, and, uh, no. It didn’t chase me,” He didn’t quite meet their eyes as he replied. “The rug was lodged pretty hard under the front door. It probably can’t get the door open.” He waited several minutes. Long enough to feel silly for being so scared. Then he climbed down from the tree and headed toward his kids, wondering how to get the dog out now that it was back inside the house.
“Dad!” Suzy screamed.
He half turned back even as he started to run. The dog was rounding the corner of the house, coming at him like a racehorse. The kids yanked open the gate ahead of him and piled through. Jeremiah hurtled after them.
The kids tried to slam the gate shut behind him, but they were too slow; the dogs’ heads were already through, and the gate smashed against one neck. All three kids were pushing on the gate and screaming, and the dog was roaring and heaving forward.
Jeremiah scrambled around for something to use to shove it back. The only thing nearby was Suzy’s soccer ball. He grabbed it and hurled it at the dog. Incredibly, it hit squarely in one face, and the dog recoiled. Jeff slammed a shoulder into the gate, the snarling dog pulled back further, and the gate slammed shut and latched.
Jeremiah stood there panting with the others, looking back and forth at each of them, none of them knowing what to say. Jeff started to laugh. It was slightly hysterical and very infectious.
Jeremiah saw the smiles on his kids’ faces, and he began to relax. He let out a long breath. They had gotten the dog out of their house.
“We need to close the front door,” he began.
Then a dark form came sailing over the fence, landing in a heap in the middle of their loose circle.
The dog landed facing Suzy, scrambled to its feet, and lunged for her. Jeremiah had been terrified a minute earlier when he was running, but now, seeing the monster going for his daughter, something shifted in his brain.
It’s trying to hurt Suzy.
He attacked.
Jeremiah dove onto the dog’s back and flattened it to the ground, wrapping his arms around its middle and squeezing. The dog thrashed wildly, both heads craning around, trying to bite Jeremiah’s face.
“Get inside, now!” he shouted at the kids, craning his head back from the dog’s snapping jaws. Nacho was already running, but Jeff and Suzy had been standing, immobile, wanting to help him somehow.
Jeremiah gave them a few seconds; then he rolled back onto his knees, hefting the dog off the ground. It was very heavy, and it writhed, kicked, and snapped in a frenzy.
He almost lost it. But squeezing for all he was worth, not caring if he broke some of its ribs or worse, he lurched to his feet and staggered toward the back door.
Jeremiah could barely make out where he was going, looking between the thrashing heads. His forearms were being slashed viciously by the dog’s hind feet, and he felt suffocated by the reek of curry coming from the dog’s fur, but he moved forward, step by step, until he reached the back door. He could see the kids inside.
Jeff started opening the door, unsure what his dad intended. Jeremiah yelled, “On three! I’m going to throw it as far as I can. You open the door for me!”
His arms, legs, and back were on fire with the effort of holding the dog. “One! Two! THREE!”
He twisted from the waist and heaved like a fireman. The dog flew all of about five feet and immediately launched itself back toward Jeremiah. Jeremiah leapt backward for the door as soon as he threw, but he tripped on the single step and fell, knocking Jeff over and making it only halfway into the house.
One pair of jaws sank into Jeremiah’s shoe, the teeth just penetrating through to his flesh. He cried out, trying to kick the other head with his free leg.
Nacho yelled something and tried to slam the door shut; Jeremiah cried out as the door dug into his leg. Suzy grabbed her dad under the armpits and hauled him – and the dog – farther into the house.
Jeremiah registered that he was being dragged over Jeff, who was yelling something incoherent. As his feet crossed over the threshold of the house, he twisted, and his foot came out of the shoe. The dog fell back, the shoe in one mouth, and before it could recover, Nacho drove the door shut with a brutal shove. It missed Jeremiah’s foot by an inch.
The dog crashed into the door and roared out its fury, then raked at the glass with its claws, then its teeth. Nacho snapped the lock closed.
Jeremiah rolled off Jeff onto his knees and forearms, his head resting on the floor. “That,” he panted, “was AWFUL.”
“Yeah,” said Jeff, wiping sweat off his forehead. “But now that it’s trapped in the backyard, do
