They Called Them Dog Killers - Part 1

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The kennel is a sad, miserable place, whoever passes by it on accident, more rarely on purpose can feel the suffering emmiting from this place, it's rotten deep beneath the grey graffiti covered walls of the shelter.

It fits on a small patch of bare ground in the outskirts of town, once it thrived in the center but it soon was relocated. People say it was because of how wrong and out of place it felt, but if you look under the surface of the urban legends you will find the truth.

They are dog killers.

That is the only purpose of the center, take the unwanted, the lost, the ones left with no hope of finding a new family and bring them into a better place, one that doesn't reek of dampness.

On more occasions that the local government would like to admit, the center was the leading cause of missing dog posters hanging around the electric pools, maybe that was the real reason why it had to be hidden away from the collar wearing nuclear families of the town.

It's employees aren't so diffrent from the dogs they keep, lost in life, more often than not unwanted, a bunch of strays who created their own little pack. There were four of them.

The oldest of them was Pete a St. Bernard of a man who's job was guarding the place, scaring away anyone who wanted to add yet another graffiti to the already large collection of insults and slurs marking the outside walls.

Then was Eva who worked behind the front desk, she was the best suit for it with her unusually chipper personality matching one of a Golden Retriver.

The old man with a thick Ukrainian accent was Maksym, who would get extremely heated whenever someone called him Max for short, he was the one behind putting the dogs down, and the only person there with even the slightest idea about working as a vet.

The newest and the least experienced member of the team was Martin, a skinny collage drop-out, looking for a place to stay like a stray, his job was to keep the place clean enough for it to not get the tittle of a health hazard, and that included getting rid of the limp bodies.

Some places like this throw the bodies into a freezer waiting for the owner to pick them up, and make the finnal decision of what will happen with it, but here they didn't have time or money for such measures, all the fresh bodies went up in flames and then rose into heaven with grey thick smoke.

Mistakes happened even if tho they weren't responsible for catching the dogs only putting them down, the responsibility more often than not landed on them, this case was no other.

"I KNOW YOU HAVE MY FUCKING DOG"

The high pitched frantic scream of the woman filled the lobby, interrupted only by the rhythmic tapping of the metal pen against the edge of the deck, occasionally switching between Eves fingers.

"Again Ma'am we didn't receive any new dogs this week, so it's impossible that we have yours" The blond woman behind the computer screen explained calmly, with a forced smile on her lips.

"So what you are just sitting on your ass all day then?"

Pete silently observed the situation from the corner of the room, his obese body barely fitting the plastic chair he was sitting on, waiting for a signal to drag the woman out of the door if it was necessary.

"Again, we don't have your dog in our system" She explained slowly yet again, her gaze moving behind the woman as the ring by the door chirped, it was Martin coming in for his shift.

"Martin can you check if we have any poodles gathering dust in the back?" Head full of blonde hair peeked from behind the angry woman, to ask.

"Yeah sure absolutely" he replied without a second thought, passing a nod of the head to their guard before moving behind the deck, his slim frame disappearing behind the creeking door, drowning in the darkness of the domain of strays.

Walls of thick metal mesh seemed to stretch out infinity illuminated by the dim industrial light overhead, the corridor was deadly quiet, something that here was unusual, even unsettling. On most days at least two or three cages were occupied, but now all of them seemed to be empty.

Beam of the phone flashlight moved from one cage to another, filling the vast emptiness behind the cage doors, sweaping through the once white floors, moving over something that shimmered in the bright light.

A poddle of what at first glance looked like dirty water, created a wet trail of thick mucous leading to one of the cages in the back, the door slightly cracked open.

The light of the flashlight moved over the trail, gently and slowly as if something was about to jump out from the darkness, then it hit the spot where the gray wall of the cage was supposed to be, but instead it glimmered, a red uneven wall of pillars stood shoulder to shoulder, the texture like dense skinned muscle.

All of the light in the corridor suddenly gave out for just a brief moment like if God himself blinked flooding everything in pure undefeated darkness.

When it returned, pillars of the unholy temple vanished, like they never were there in the first place.

Martin stood there a long moment, his heart slamming against his ribs, the flashlight beam shaking now in his unsteady hand. He turned and walked back the way he came, faster than he meant to, telling himself it was nothing, a combination of some trick of the light and his exhausted mind.

By the time he reached the front, the woman was gone.

“Yeah, Pete had to walk her out,” Eva said, not looking up from her screen, like she could read minds.

“No poodles back there, right?”

“No,” Martin said. His voice came out shaker than he wanted it to. “No, we’re empty.”

“Awesome.” Eva finally glanced up, smiling that same chipper smile. “Max wants you to take some stuff up the oven if you aren't busy"

He wasn't, but the mere thought of having to pass through that corridor again was enough to make him rethink the answer.

"Yeah sure" He replied blankly before yet again he slipped away into the row of cages, just like before it was oddly quiet, his feet kicked into a small jog just to reach Maksym as soon as it was possible, the open cage was still vastly empty.

The man who's enjoyment from the craft at hand was questionable at best, resided in the only room that looked remotely professional white tiles linned the floors and reached halfway up the walls, always scrubbed clean to maintain the doubtful sterility. Maksym was sitting on a uncomfortably small metal chair, flickering a needle still wrapped in thin plastic between his fingers, when the knock to the door came.

"Come in" He replied loudly, his eyes glittering as they landed on a familiar person moving through the open doorframe, Martyns courage to deal with the dead was something he applaused.

"Ah a fellow man in arms" A low chuckle escaped from somewhere in his throat.

"Eva told me there was something you need help with" The grey eyes of the man squinted, before he answered.

"She says many things but yes she's correct." He shrugged, before pushing a box from under the chair he was sitting on, it looked soggy on the bottom.

"What's that?" It didn't look like a box that could hold a body, not if it anything bigger than a poorly feed York.

The grey eyes shoot up like some kind of predatory bird.

"Just drop it in, I don't have the heart to do it myself" The instruction was clear enough and he wasn't getting paid enough to ask too many questions, the box soon was in his arms, tips of his fingers melding into the damp cold paper.

It felt light almost like if It was filled up with just air, but something rattled inside with his every move.

He quietly slipped inside of the crematorium, the Room looked rough around the edges but it served it's function. In the middle of it stood the furnace, it's lid like a gigant gaping mouth waiting to be feed, just above it a long rusting pipe connected to the celling which lead outside. He pulled out the flat metal tongue out from between the jaws of the industrial beast, and quietly placed the box upon it.

His eyes looked over the box yet again, like if merely observing it would give up all the answers about what was inside of it.

Was his lust for knowledge really this bad, to betray the trust of his friend? At the same time, it was about to be destroyed, once it goes up in flames the "What ifs" will consume him too.

After the long session consisting of starring at the it the curiosity won the battle, in a quick move the flaps of the box jumped open, revealing it's secrets.

A yellowish layer of small uneven objects lined the sagging bottom, some sharper and more pronounced than others.

Dog teeth.

He was too used to them by now, sometimes they didn't burn fully, the more expensive chips, or rarer still, the silver bullets of BB gun ammo, buried in the ash he had to sift through after.

A wave of disappointment washed over him, replacing the flicker of excitement he'd felt for a second, as the box slid inside the machine, soon to be swallowed by the raging heat and fire.

The box was still burning when chaos erupted from the lobby, Eva's scream, high and sudden, and beneath it Pete's voice, cursing loud enough to carry through two doors. Martin ran for the corridor, Maksym close behind him, and together they kicked the door to the lobby open.

"What happened?" Maksym shouted.

Eva answered with something between a sob and a cry.

"THE WINDOWS - THEY'RE GONE."

Where the windows and door had been, there was only concrete now, smooth and unbroken. Pete was already throwing himself against it, beating his fists raw.

They were trapped. There was no way out.