Hide and Seek by Jack Ketchum Page B

what and disgorging itself on Dead River.
     
    Kim was only a little girl at the time, she said.
     
    There was a family living next door to her who had a teenage daughter.
    An only child. Not a pretty girl or terribly smart either. Sort of ordinary. A little unfriendly and sullen.
     
    Anyway, for her birthday-her seventeenth-her parents gave her two presents, a car and a Doberman puppy. Probably, Kim said, she was unpopular at school, and the one gift-the car-was to

make her more popular, while the other gift was to console her if it
    di~ glitllove,hepupp,
     
    Both her parents had jobs, so the dog was home alone most of the time during the day, and Kim remembered the girl's car roaring into the driveway each afternoon at three-thirty and the girl racing up the steps while the dog barked loudly and scratched at the screen door.
    Then there would be a lot of jumping and squealing and hugging, which even as a kid Kim found pretty disgusting. And finally there would be a very big puppy tearing crazily around their own and
    This happened every day.
     
    Then one day there was none of it. The girl came home and there was no barking and no scratching at the door. Just silence. Kim was playing in the yard as usual and noticed that something was wrong. They'd gotten pretty used to the dog by then. So she watched. The girl went inside.
     
    A few minutes later the girl came out holding the puppy and raced for the car. She put the dog inside and quickly drove away. That was all Kim saw. The rest she heard about later.
     
    When the girl got home the puppy was in the kitchen, choking. There was something caught in the throat. So she bundled it up and drove to the vet. The vet took a look at the dog and told her to wait outside.
    She did, for a while. But then the waiting started to get to her so she decided to drive on home, and asked the nurse to call her when the doctor was through.
     
    She was only in the house a few minutes when the phone rang. It was the vet. He said the dog was all right and asked her if she was home alone. She said she was. He told her to get out of the house right away, to go stand on the lawn or on the street. The police, he said would be over right away.
     
    She was not to ask questions. She was just to leave as fast as possible.
     
    They found her waiting on the front lawn, walking in circles, confused and worried. Two squad cars emptied four officers into her house.
     

Upstairs, hiding in her father's closet, they found a man with ashirt wrapped tight around a bleeding index finger. Or what was left of it.
    I guess the dog had proven itself a good watchdog but a clumsy eater.
    He'd taken the intruder's finger off at the knuckle and swallowed it whole. And that was what was lodged there in his throat.
     
    "I'm supposed to believe that?"
     
    "Absolutely."
     
    Two finger stories in one week, I thought.
     
    "If you don't believe me, ask Casey. The girl used to babysit for her brother."
     
    "Her brother."
     
    I guess I jumped on that one a little.
     
    "Sure. You ... you knew about her brother, didn't you?"
     
    "Yes and no."
     
    She knew she'd made a mistake. I watched her get more and more uncomfortable, trying to figure how to handle it. Finally she said, "Well, you can ask Casey about Jean Drummond. She'll tell you."
     
    "-r , I,
     
    Talk to me about her brother, Kim.
     
    She considered it. I had the feeling that there was something there she thought I ought to know. I knew she liked me. I remembered her warning about Casey over Cokes that day. Loyalties, though. They die hard.
     
    "I'd ... rather not. That's Casey's business."
     
    "Not mine? Not even a little?"
     
    "I didn't say that."
     
    "So? Should I ask her about it, Kimberley?"
     
    She paused. "Maybe you should. I don't know. It depends.
     
    "On what?"
     
    "On how well you need to know her, I guess."
     
    "Suppose that's a lot?"
     
    She sighed. "Then ask. Ask her for god's sake. Jesus! I can't hold your goddamn hand for