Page 86 of Mia Amata

Allen, bleeding heavily from the neck, rolled over, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees. He looked at me, starting to crawl toward me. “Fucking bitch,” he spit out, blood pouring out of his throat.

Lucky had almost ripped his throat completely out.

I grabbed the gun in both hands, aiming it at Allen. He raised the knife, bringing it down to my thigh. I screamed, pulling the trigger. Allen’s head flew backward, blood, and brain matter flying everywhere. Allen fell on my legs, and I dropped the gun.

I lay there breathing hard, unable to catch my breath. “Lucky,” I whispered. I heard Lucky whimper. “I’m so sorry boy,” I started crying.

A few moments later, Lucky was at my side, licking my face.

“Oh, Lucky,” I said, hugging him. I looked at him, it appeared as if the stab wound was in his upper hind leg area. He limped, but he seemed OK otherwise. He was bleeding pretty well though. “We need help boy. Can you try to get help?” I scratched his head briefly, feeling really faint. I don’t know what I expected, but as I started to fall into unconsciousness, I saw Lucky head to the basement door.

***

Lucky struggled as he nosed open the door, then went down the basement stairs. His back leg hurt, and he was bleeding, but he knew his human needed help. So he went down the stairs, heading to the basement doors. He pawed at the doors, Allen had left them open just a little, just enough that Lucky was able to work on getting his paw in between them. He kept struggling was finally able to fit out through the gap in between the doors.

He headed outside, into the storm. He knew he had to get help, or his person would die. Lucky went through the snow, managing to find the path that led to Randy and Josh’s house. It seemed to Lucky to take forever, but he finally got to his destination. Making his way up the steps to the back door, he scratched at the door, letting out a couple of feeble barks, nothing happened at first, then Lady showed up at the door checking out what was going on.

When Lady realized it was Lucky at the door she started barking, running back to the bedroom and then back to the door. Lucky lay down in the snow on the deck, worn out by his efforts and the amount of blood he lost.

The lights came on in the house, and soon, the light on the back deck turned on. Josh opened the door, “Lucky?” he said. He picked Lucky up, carried him into the house, and lay him on the kitchen floor. Randy shut the door, following close behind. “Look,” Josh said, pointing to his hind leg. “He has been injured.”

“Another animal?” Randy asked.

“Doesn’t look like it,” Josh said. “It looks like a stab wound from a knife.”

“What do you think happened?” Randy asked. Josh was already up and grabbing his coats and boots out of the front closet.

“I don’t know,” Josh said. “Looking at his mouth it looks like he attacked something too. Call the cops and the vet, I am going to check on Mattie.”

Randy nodded but grabbed Josh’s arm as he was headed out the door, “Be careful,” she said. He gave her a quick kiss and ran out the door after grabbing his hunting rifle.

Josh ran out to his truck and climbed in, speeding over to his sister-in-law’s house. In the house, Randy was calling the cops, sending them to Mattie’s house, then calling the vet. After she made those two calls, she hesitated for only a moment, then called Jacob to tell him what was going on.

“Hello?” a sleepy voice said on the phone.

“Jacob, it’s Randy,” she said.

Jacob was instantly alert, “Randy, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know for sure yet,” she replied. “Josh and I were woken up by Lady barking. We found Lucky on our deck. It looks like he has been stabbed. Josh is on his way to check on Mattie. I called the cops and the vet.”

“Oh my God,” Jacob said. “Keep me posted, I’ll be on the next flight home.” He hung up, immediately calling the airport and making arrangements for the next flight. He got on the first flight out in the morning, then called his boss, explaining to him what was going on. His boss understood, telling Jacob to let him know if he needed anything.

“A ride from the airport,” Jacob said.

“I’ll be there,” his boss said. Jacob packed his bags, calling for a taxi. He could have gone to sleep for a couple of hours, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to. He went to the airport, waiting impatiently for the flight home.

Josh arrived at Mattie and Jacob’s house and switched the lights off before getting clear up to the house. He had a flashlight and grabbed his gun out off the front seat. He stopped a little distance away from the house, hiked up to the front door, and grabbed the key out of his pocket. He unlocked the front door but didn’t worry about the alarm, he wanted it to go off. He turned on his flashlight, first looking toward the dining area, seeing blood on the floor. He followed the path of the blood to the kitchen, what he saw there stopped him cold.

Some man was lying there with the back of his head obviously blown away. Josh couldn’t see more than that, so he walked forward. Soon he saw that the man was lying on top of Mattie’s legs. He ran to her, pushing the man off of her—he was obviously dead. “Mattie,” Josh called to her. “Oh God, Mattie! Can you hear me?”

Mattie was unconscious. Josh felt for a pulse. He felt a very faint one, almost nonexistent. He turned on the flashlight and looked over her for wounds. The one in her leg was bleeding heavily, but so was the one in her chest. He looked around and saw that the guy was wearing a belt he took it off, putting it around Mattie’s leg, in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

He grabbed the two kitchen towels hanging nearby, putting pressure on her chest wound. He was horrified by the scene and was having trouble taking it all in. He pulled out his cell phone but discovered he had no service. That was odd, he never had a problem with service here. He threw it aside, praying the police would be here soon.

Josh was putting pressure on Mattie’s chest wound, watching her breathing. “Come on Mattie, hang in there. Don’t leave us.” He pleaded.

As he watched, Mattie all of a sudden took a long, deep shuddering breath, then stopped breathing. “No, Mattie,” Josh cried, tears coming to his eyes. He started CPR, praying help would arrive soon. He kept up CPR and soon heard the sirens. Please, he begged, please hurry. Within minutes, the lights lit up the house.

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