I pause beside a chain link kennel, eyes caught on something that doesn't immediately make sense. "What is that?"
An animal sits inside the kennel, a passive posture as if it's waiting for something. It watches us, my new coworkers and I, with an unblinking, unreadable stare.
"Ah, our little security system, as it were," one of them answers. The taller one whose name I can't remember. "Keeps visitors in line, and off the property when time comes. I'd tell you it don't bite, but it does."
"Wouldn't be any good if it didn't," the shorter one grunts. "Horrible thing."
I glance at him long enough to note that he's fingering a scar on his arm, a ragged thing, then back to the animal in the cage. It has a pulling collar around its neck and a thick cable tether clipped to that; the anchor is somewhere toward the back of the kennel, I can't see it. The hair on my arms raises. It's redundant, isn't it? The collar bites if it pulls, why would it need such a thick tether? Why would it need a tether at all? It's already in a cage. Why would they need multiple failsafes for one creature?
"Don't feel bad for it," the tall one says, elbowing my arm. He misread my expression. "Last lady who took pity on it lost a couple fingers for her kindness. Don't worry, though, it's trained well enough and you won't have to look at it while you're working."
Somehow, I don't find that comforting.
Despite his assurance that I wouldn't have to look at it, I do. Because my new coworkers are not precisely the kind of people I like, to put it mildly, I take my lunches outside. The only place to sit is directly across from the kennel. The animal watches me, silent and still, and I watch it in return. It does not make sounds, it does not fidget. I can barely see its flanks move as it breathes. I've never seen it move, I always leave long before it's alleged working hours after the site has closed.
It isn't territorial. Approaching the kennel doesn't produce a response. I even put my hand on the gate, and it remains unmoved. It watches.
"I used to think it was lonely."
A woman's voice makes me jump. When I turn, she's watching the animal with a guarded expression. I've never met her before, but there are a lot of people on the site that I haven't met yet.
"When they first brought it in, I wondered where it came from. It wasn't a baby, y'know? So I wondered what kind of life it had before. I thought maybe it used to be some kind of pet, since it sits so still all the time. Since it isn't interested in people, I thought maybe it had already met and lost its person. Maybe it was loved, right, and it lost that person and that's why it's like this now." Her mouth twists. "I don't think it knows what love is. I don't think anyone could love that thing."
It's not until she starts back toward the facility at a brisk pace that I notice, though the scars are shiny and pale, that she's missing two fingers and part of her right hand.
I am moved to a later shift. There isn't anyone else on shift during my lunch anymore, but I eat outside anyway. I watch the animal, and it watches me. Usually when my shift is over the kennel is empty, but I never see it on the grounds as I return to my car.
I stare at the collar, at the tether, and my fingers curl around the chain link. It's starting to rust. It watches me as I move to the gate. It watches as I put my hand on the latch. It watches as the gate slowly swings open.
And it does not move.
There is an unnerving intelligence in its eyes, a sort of cognition that I must be projecting onto it. It's an animal, it can't be clever.
Three paces into the kennel brings me just shy of the faint, round rut that marks the far reach of the tether. Still, it does not move. Only watches.
I've heard its handlers give it verbal commands before.
"Come closer."
It stands very slowly, not in a way that it seems in pain but almost like the way I've seen people move around a spooked horse.
It takes one step closer, then sits again.
I sputter, unsure if I should be impressed or insulted. Is it mocking me? Is it even smart enough to do that? It had to have some level of awareness in order to gauge technical compliance, but...
I hear a car door shut in the distance, and I hurry out of the kennel and close the gate again. The animal watches from the same spot, and I start to wonder where it came from, too.
I share some of my lunch with it, sometimes. A little chunk of bread, a small piece of meat that I packed for lunch but don't want by the time lunch rolls around. I never see it take what I offer, I sneak into the kennel and leave it on the ground within reach and it just watches me the entire time, but when I come back out for a brief break later on, the food is gone. I don't know if it enjoys it, or if it's even really eating what I leave there. But I try. Even if it's never been loved, does that mean it can't be?
"You can come closer," I say softly.
I don't expect it to move. Or if it does, I expect it to be another tiny step, a fraction of technical compliance. I stare, dumbfounded, as it sits at my feet. My hand moves unthinking, and I touch the side of its face. It leans into my palm and for a moment, I think its eyes look wounded. Desperate. But it blinks and the expression is gone, the watchful consideration back where I expect it to be.
It doesn't follow me when I take my hand back and move away. It stays incredibly still, the way it always does, and watches as I close the gate behind me and return to my work.
Every day from then on, it sits in the same spot as when I touched it. Nothing else seems different, only its location. I seem to be the only one who notices.
It makes my fingers itch.
What kind of animal must it be, that everyone avoids looking at it? Talking about it? What had it done to earn a collar, a tether, and a cage? What would happen if all of those containments failed? Was I insane? I had seen what it did to that woman, and it watched me fidget with my fingers as I stared through the chain link again. I wasn't sure I believed her opinion on whether or not it was a monster, but I couldn't very well deny that she was missing half her hand. She had every right to be suspicious.
"Why keep it?" I ask my tall coworker. "If it hurt someone, why not put it down?"
He made a face. "Seems unfair to me, don't it? Nobody ever said it wasn't scary." He thinks for a moment. "Just doesn't seem worth the fuss. It still does its job, it's still useful."
Not that it wasn't dangerous, or that it deserved to live anyway. Just that it would be a hassle. An animal, caged and chained, kept tightly and carefully. Useful, but not loved or appreciated. A thing that would be inconvenient to replace. But when I had touched it, it had leaned into me like it ached for it.
The next time I look into the kennel, I can't help but think of that conversation again. My heart squeezes, and the animal stands from its customary spot and growls. It snarls at me, then turns and retreats further into the kennel.
Right. The woman from before had pitied it, hadn't she? And it had bitten her, torn off a piece of her.
What, then, was anyone supposed to do with it? If I couldn't pity it, but didn't want to hate it, what was I supposed to do?
It pulls at its tether. The collar bites into its neck and it bleeds, but either it doesn't notice or it doesn't care. Despite this, it's almost as still as it ever is ā it breathes heavily, but stands just outside of the outer range of the tether. It watches me.
"Is it okay?" I ask, unthinkingly tucking my coffee closer to my chest, as if that will help.
My tall coworker, who has taken to changing his name every other week and I can no longer tell if he's serious, grunts. "Gets like that sometimes. Found some stupid kid trying to sneak onto the property last night, probably just riled up from catchin' him. They get a little weird when they get blood in their mouth."
I stare at him. "Blood?" He nods like this should be obvious. "Isā is he okay?"
He watches the animal, his expression morbid. "He'll live," he says eventually.
I shouldn't have looked back at the animal, but I follow his gaze without thinking about it. It stares and bleeds. My eyes dart between its face and the runnel of blood down the side of its neck. Is that expression the same as it usually wears? Why does it look almost like it's pleading? Why aren't they concerned about the bleeding, what if it pulls too hard and hits an artery? No, when I look back at its face it's the same stony expression as always.
My coworker herds me back inside, back to work.
I don't wait for my lunch hour, this time. I wait half an hour after everyone else in my department has left, then slip outside to the kennel. It's still in the same spot, dried blood spattered in the dust beneath its feet. It watches as I slip through the gate, and its flanks aren't heaving as much as they were earlier.
It doesn't seem to be bleeding anymore, the wounds clotted shut around the spikes of the collar, but when I get close, I can see that it's shaking minutely. A very fine, all-over tremble.
Good God. My heart squeezes and I lift my hand to touch its face without thinking. When my fingers enter my field of vision, though, I hesitate. It doesn't want pity, seems to resent it, and I still have my fingers. I don't want that to change. While my coworker had not been descriptive, it had savaged someone overnight. The trembling may be poorly contained blood lust, not fear or trauma. Am I projecting?
The trembling stops. Its sides stop moving, even, and it seems to will itself to complete stillness. Its eyes are definitely pleading, now, I can't be imagining that.
I touch its face, tentatively, gently, and its head sags into my palm. I can just barely feel its breath against my wrist, a warm tickle that only draws my attention back to its maw. Is that blood between its lips, or am I imagining it? Is it real? Who does it belong to, boy or beast? Is that ache in its eyes from some sort of mental torture ā what wouldn't feel tortured, kept this way? ā or is it the pain of the collar digging into its neck?
My hand drifts lower, brushes the metal, and I startle away from it when I find the blood is still tacky. It sticks to my skin, does it feel electric or am I imagining that? I stare at my fingers, and the animal flinches. I tell myself I should wipe my fingers clean, scrub the blood off onto my pants, but the animal moves and my body freezes in fear.
It retreats to the back of the kennel, under a canopy lazily tacked to the roof of the kennel. Shitty old tarps, an afterthought that maybe the animal should have somewhere out of the sun to wait. It doesn't bother, usually, but now it seems almost to huddle near the back where its feed dishes are. It doesn't have a bed, I realize, just the same dusty concrete pad it has everywhere else.
It watches me, eyes pleading. That has to be real. But what does it want me to do? Get closer?
I stare at my fingers, still firmly attached to my hand. Whole, unmarred.
I go back to work.
There's blood everywhere.
Less, now, and there's someone in the kennel scrubbing foaming blood off the concrete pad with a push broom and a bucket. Thick absorbent pads have been slapped down in a couple of spots, and the whole area reeks of hydrogen peroxide.
"What happened?" I ask numbly. I hadn't even heard anything, tucked away in the office.
A man who I've only ever seen and not spoken to takes a drag from his cigarette. "Brother of that kid from last night snuck on and tried to take out our li'l security detail." He scoffs. We're not supposed to smoke on-site. "Not sure what he thought a knife was gonna do, but maybe the hospital will put his bed next to his brother."
In the far back of the kennel, a thick-barred cage sits in a pool of cooling, dark blood. The animal lies inside in a heap of itself, flanks heaving. It stares blankly ahead, breathing labored as a gash in its side oozes slowly.
"You doin' okay?" He asks. He looks tired, his chin covered in stubble. His hands are worn and ragged. "Must be scary for you, bein' all alone in there when someone snuck in"
I shake my head. "I didn't even realize," I murmur. "Are youā is anyone going to close that wound?"
He looks baffled that I asked. "No? You think anyone wants to go near that thing when it's hurtin'? Scared the boys bad enough just gettin' it into that cage so we could clean up."
"What? You're just going to leave it like that?"
"It don't want help, bub. It'll pull through on its own, or it won't." He takes another drag, eyes on the cage, calculating. "Would be nice if it would decide sooner rather than later. If I gotta bump security during the day, too, then I need to know if it's usable."
Usable. God. "Is itā is it in pain?"
He snorts. "You think gettin' stabbed feels good?"
"Nobody gave it anything for pain?"
"Don't keep pain meds for animals. We got tranqs, but they're expensive. Hardly work right on it anyway. Not about to waste one on this. It's fine."
I hate him. I hate him, and I hate this place, and I ache when I look at the cage in the kennel. The man scrubbing the pad keeps glancing at it, too, as if he's afraid it will decide to break free and devour him. It doesn't even look like it can move.
Not worth the expense of medication, not worth the risk of care. Of course a wounded animal might lash out, but did it deserve to suffer for that? Even if they couldn't safely handle it now, if they had the ability to sedate it, they could do that before they close the wound. What was wrong with these people?
"You ain't gonna find someone on my team that doesn't have scars from that thing," he says flatly, like he knows what I'm thinking. "Even other teams. You met Marian? Missin' half a hand because she thought it was somethin' it ain't. Don't make the same mistake."
He leaves, and I watch the cage as the jumpy man inside the kennel finishes scrubbing the pad and soaking up the foaming, diluted blood. He claps a padlock in place over the gate latch, then wipes his gloves on his coveralls, as if the lock and kennel are the things he needs to clean his hands of.
"What's that for?" I ask.
"Can't have anyone else sneakin' in there. Never know how stupid people are gonna be."
