Page 79 of Keep You Close

Beds needed to be stripped, the covers thrown into the wash with some of the toys, then each run needed to be swept and mopped.

After that, I restocked the treat jars, found and put all the leashes back, hauled some boxes out from the stockroom to restock soaps, detergents, and paper towels. God, we went through so many paper towels. But even well-trained dogs sometimes had accidents or forgot that they weren’t supposed to mark things.

After that, I checked our three boarders, changing out their water, taking them out for one last potty, then giving them some love before putting on their white noise machine, so they could drift off peacefully.

When I finished all of that and figured out only two hours had passed, I sighed and took myself into the break room, brewing a pot of coffee I had a feeling I was going to need to drink all of.

I smelled it brewing as I turned to look at the schedule pinned to the board on the wall, excited to find that, so far, there were no overnight boarders for my next two scheduled overnight shifts. Surprising, considering the holidays were usually our busiest time.

I reached for my phone, checking my most recent text—a picture from Atlas of the Christmas decoration that just came in, a moose made of sticks whose head moved back and forth that he must have put together since I left for work.

My finger was swiping to text back as I reached for my cup of coffee when, suddenly, I heard something that had my heart flying into my throat.

Footsteps.

Footsteps inside of the closed, locked, and alarmed building.

For reasons I didn’t understand, I immediately tried to tell myself I was hearing things, that it was my wild imagination, or simply just one of the dogs knocking around in their rooms.

It wasn’t uncommon, especially back when I first started doing overnights, to jump at every shadow, and imagine masked intruders with each building noise. I once nearly jumped out of my skin when the air conditioning kicked on one night.

But this wasn’t the beginning of my career here.

I knew all the sounds of this place intimately. The way the fridge buzzed. How the heat hissed. The jingling noise the dryer made.

Nothing sounded even remotely like footsteps.

Sure, Samson was free in the building.

But there was no telltale tap of nails on the hard floor. Or the jangle of the tags on his collar.

This wasn’t Samson who, just two minutes ago, was belly-up on his bed, his little jowls jiggling as he woofed at something in his dreams.

Holding my breath, I tried to hear past the whooshing of my heartbeat in my ears.

Then there it was.

Step. Step. Pause. Turning into the big dog playroom. Step. Step.

Panic spread through my system, making my heartbeat trip into overdrive, and a cold sweat to bead on my brow and in my hairline.

I remembered to release my breath, only to have them start coming in shallow huffs that had my head feeling light, and scrambling my thoughts.

The break room had one exit.

And the footsteps were steadily approaching.

This made no sense, damnit.

The alarm was set.

I was sure of it.

I even noticed the telltale blinking of it each time I passed the front door. It was engaged.

How was someone in here?

I tried to rationalize with myself.

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