Chew Toys

1

Toby liked to drag bones home; it was very common to see him chewing on a deer's jaw bone, or gnawing on a rabbit skull. The coyotes inhabiting the mountains often killed something near our house and left the remains, and that's where Toby came in. No matter how many times I took a jawbone or skull from him, he always seemed to have more. He'd get bored and of chewing them and then leave them in the most inconvenient places, like my bed or on the trampoline, and even under the couch.

After almost a year of trying to stop his habit of dragging in parts of dead animals, I just gave up and let Toby chew on them, too tired to really care. It took awhile, but I started to notice the increasing size of the bones, and how familiar they looked. Around the same time, children and adults alike started to go missing. I lived in a relatively small, secluded and widespread town. We lived in the mountains, and it was common to loose sight of a townie for a week or two, but they turned up eventually. Not now. Many people who's faces I was used to seeing, from the old woman who bagged my groceries, to the bus driver I saw picking up small school children, vanished.

It felt unreal. The town started to seem emptier, and by the end of the week when people first started going missing, 6 people had disappeared. 2 children, barely in middle school, a bus driver, a librarian, a bagger at the grocery store and a teacher. The parents of the children were apprehensive, sick with fear. No children had ever gone missing, and our town had prided itself because of it. At first, people thought that a child killer had moved into the neighborhood, but as more adults went missing, that theory was dismissed. The second theory was that a serial killer had dropped by, but no one knew had come to town in two years. There were only tourists, who passed by within a few days. The third, and most believed theory, was that one of the residents in town had finally lost it. We all knew and trusted each other, so much so that almost no one in town locked their doors. They did now. Friends started turning against friends, families started keeping to themselves.

But, in time, even that theory was wiped away. James Curry, I guy I knew rather well and had gone to high school with, was attacked by wild coyotes. Once James and I graduated, we had both decided to stay in the place we grew up, while our more successful peers went on to bigger and better things. I had regretted my decision soon after, getting myself tied down to a dead end job and an unhappy love life. James, on the other hand, was doing a lot better. He had started as a bar tender, but had worked his way up to owner of the bar itself.

To say I was surprised to hear he had ended up in the hospital due to a few scruffy coyotes was an understatement. I went to visit him in the intensive care unit and almost passed out from how he looked. My old friend had half his face missing, the other half stitched like a tapestry, his arms were ripped to hell and he had a nub for a nose. Thankfully, the coyotes hadn't taken his eyes out, but it looked like they had been trying to. I couldn't see the rest of his body, but I was willing to bet it looked much worse.

James was coherent, if not awake. He smiled slightly when he saw me, and raised his beaten arm limply. "Hey Gunner," James mumbled, his mouth tilting downward, giving  the impression that he had had a stroke. I smiled as best I could and nodded my head.

"Hi James. How've you been? I haven't seen you in a while."

James smiled bitterly before gesturing at his mutilated face. "I've been better, if that's what you mean. To be honest, I would have preferred for them to kill me that to leave me like this. I don't want to seem superficial, but I've always sort of relied on my looks to get me through life."

I just nodded, not entirely sure of what to say. I rubbed the back of my neck and took a seat at one of the chairs next to his bed. "You look pretty beaten up, but you'll get better, I'm sure."

Surprisingly, James laughed, not a chuckle or a guffaw, but a deep lunged, body trembling laugh. Shaking his head, Jim said, "It really won't get better, I'm afraid. No matter how many years pass, I'm never going to look at my dog the same. I am never going to forget the smell of their breath, or the instinctive way they tore at my throat. "

We talked for awhile longer, but finally I had to leave and go home to Toby. It was dark by the time I reached my house, and I was terrified to get out of the car. Unlike with a human killer, coyotes didn't care if they left finger prints or forgot to grab a murder weapon. They would attack you no matter what, if you were young or old, rich or poor, sick or healthy.

Sucking in a lung full of air, I unlocked my car, opened the door and darted towards my house. I like to think that there was nothing chasing after me, but the hard slam of a body against the front door once I closed it was alarming. The door rattled in its frame. The sound of claws against the painted wood filled the house. I was just glad I had left it unlocked. I lived in the middle of nowhere, so what could really get in?