I thought it was just a dying animal dragging trash across four lanes of freezing asphalt on Highway 220.
Back at the house, the atmosphere was heavy with the weight of Gabe’s deception. Sofia had been quiet, her gentle nature struggling to comprehend such a profound betrayal. The four puppies, growing stronger by the day, tumbled playfully at her feet. The mother hound, a watchful shadow, remained near Lucia’s old baby crib.
I called Dr. Eleanor Vance, a retired veterinarian from Pine Ridge who still did house calls for friends. She arrived a few hours later, a kind-faced woman with a shock of white hair. She examined the puppies first, her hands gentle and practiced.
“They’re sturdy little things,” she commented, smiling as one nipped playfully at her finger. “Healthy. Unusual coloring, though. Very striking black.”
Then she turned her attention to the mother hound. The moment Dr. Vance approached, the spectral dog’s amber eyes fixed on her. The temperature in the room dipped perceptibly, a subtle, cold caress on the skin.
Dr. Vance, unfazed, listened carefully with her stethoscope. She pressed it against the hound’s ribs, moved it to its chest, then back to its flank. Her brow furrowed.
“That’s… peculiar,” she murmured, removing the stethoscope. She pressed her fingers against the dog’s neck, then its inner thigh, searching for a pulse. She shook her head, a puzzled expression on her face.
“What is it, Doctor?” Sofia asked, her voice tinged with worry.
“Well, Sofia, Miguel,” Dr. Vance said slowly, “this dog… it has no detectable heartbeat. No pulse. Not that I can find, anyway. Its body temperature is also unnaturally low.” She frowned, looking at the seemingly normal breathing dog. “It’s alive, clearly, but by all biological markers, it shouldn’t be.”
She then collected a few strands of hair from the puppies and the mother hound, carefully placing them in sterile bags. “I’ll run these through my old lab equipment, see if there’s anything unusual in the genetic markers. Just for my own curiosity.”
Two days later, Dr. Vance called me, her voice filled with an almost scientific wonder.
“Miguel, you’re not going to believe this,” she said, her voice crackling over the phone. “The genetic analysis on those puppies. It’s staggering. They carry the exact genetic markers of a canine breed line that’s been extinct in Bedford County for five years.”
“Extinct?” I repeated, my mind trying to make sense of it.
“Yes. A very specific lineage of black shepherd, known for its deep amber eyes. There was only one family that bred them locally, and their last dog died five years ago. Buried up in the north pasture, I recall.”
A cold knot tightened in my stomach. “Whose dog?”
“Gabe Delgado’s,” Dr. Vance replied. “His guard dog. Bane.”
I hung up the phone, my hand shaking. Bane. Gabe’s fiercely loyal, jet-black guard dog, buried five years ago. Yet here were his direct descendants, suckling from a mother hound that defied physical laws, a spectral guardian standing over Lucia’s old crib. The mystery deepened, connecting Gabe not just to betrayal, but to something far more ancient and supernatural.
More Stories
+ There are no comments
Add yours