Page 6 of Something Unavoidable

Situations like this reminded him there was still further to fall.

He picked his way across what may have been a living room at some point, before the human who lived there decided to turn it into a landfill. Actually, Keegan had been to landfills that smelled better than this. At least two of the volunteers hadn’t even made it through the front door. Keegan had a mask and was careful to breathe through his mouth, but he was still convinced he could taste the decay.

George was in the next room, crouched beside the matted pile of fur that was Keegan’s target. She stroked the small dog’s head, murmuring to it as Keegan joined her. “If the bastard weren’t already in jail, I’d be sending him somewhere else entirely,” she said, her deep voice soothing. Keegan wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or the dog.

“Agreed,” he said anyway as he set down his kit on top of a cardboard box that wasn’t disintegrating as quickly as the things around it. The dog—he couldn’t tell the breed with how dirty and matted it was—looked up at him through crusty brown eyes. Its weakly thumping tail made Keegan want to join the murder spree. How much of a piece of shit would someone need to be to allow this to happen to a living creature?

After a quick exam, besides having sores from the mats in its fur and some malnutrition, the dog didn’t appear to have any obvious injuries. Keegan would still look it over again after they got it cleaned up back at the clinic. “Any others that need immediate attention?”

George sighed. “All of them? But most can wait until we get them out of here, clean, and fed.”

A neighbor had called the police after realizing she hadn’t seen anyone around the run-down house in days. It turned out the owner had been arrested and hadn’t bothered to mention he had animals at home. The police, in turn, had called George’srescue. The situation was horrific, but sadly not the worst Keegan had seen in the two years he’d been volunteering his services.

The little dog was half starved and badly dehydrated but stable enough to move. They had already pulled three dogs from the property and would be trapping cats for who knew how long. At least the cats were in better shape than the dogs. They’d been able to get in and out of the house through a broken window and were self-sufficient enough, even in winter, to keep themselves fed. There were illnesses and infections to deal with, but hopefully everyone would recover.

“Georgie!” a panicked voice shouted from the front of the house.

George’s eyes closed, and she drew in a steadying breath. “In here, Ben,” she called back.

“We need Dr. Reid. We— There are three— We found horses.”

George’s lips pinched together, and she met Keegan’s eyes, her own dark and damp with emotion. He nodded to the little dog. “You’ve got this one?”

She waved him off, so he stood and made his way back out of the deathtrap of a house, hoping he hadn’t caught some mold-borne disease while he was in there. He pulled off his mask as soon as he reached fresh air.

Ben, a young man with sandy blond hair and big, sad eyes, was waiting, wringing his gloved hands together and shifting from foot to foot. It was his first rescue, and the impact of the widespread suffering was showing. “They’re this way. No one realized the shed had stalls until we followed one of the cats in there,” he said, his words tripping over each other. “It’s dark and filthy, and they had water, but I don’t think there’s been any food in a long time.” His voice broke, and he lifted an arm to scrub his sleeve across his eyes.

Keegan picked up the pace as Ben led him to a structure that could only loosely be called a shed. It looked like one wrong move would bring the whole thing down. When they reached the doors, the stench of ammonia almost knocked him back a step. This was going to be bad.

He fucking hated people.

He didn’t see the horses right away in the dim light, but as his eyes adjusted, his stomach twisted.

There were four stalls, two on each side of the aisle. He approached the first, steeling himself for what he was about to see. The horse was all the way at the back, its nose in the corner. The ammonia was so strong here that Keegan’s eyes started to water. The state of the stalls told him they hadn’t been cleaned since long before the horse’s owner had been locked up. The mare was grossly underweight, her ribs and hip bones visible beneath her dull coat. He’d class her at a two on the Henneke scale. The scale—which measured a horse’s body condition—went to nine, with anything below four considered underweight.

It took effort to force open the bolt on the stall door. When it finally gave way, he was able to force the broken hinges open. The mare’s ears went back at the sound, and she shifted farther into the dark corner of the stall. “Do you have anything we can tempt her with?” Keegan asked Ben, keeping his voice calm and soothing.

“Uh,” Ben mumbled, patting his pockets. “I think George has some mints in the truck.”

Keegan gave him a nod, and the boy hurried off. While he was gone, Keegan shut the first door again and checked the rest. He found a second horse in one and a pony, who was in slightly better condition than the first horse, in the last.

Ben returned, and Keegan raised an eyebrow at the box of Tic Tacs. Ben’s cheeks went pink in the dim light, and he shrugged.“Georgie says she called for a horse trailer. It should be about an hour.”

Keegan nodded his understanding. “See if you can find halters for them—or even some rope that we can fashion into one. I want them out of this deathtrap and in the light so I can see them better.” He gave the box of Tic Tacs a shake, tipping a few candies into his palm.

The mare’s ears flicked. Then her head came up, and she made her careful way across the filthy stall, nostrils flaring as she scented the air. The tightness in Keegan’s gut relaxed a notch. Interest was a good sign.

The mare stretched out her neck, and Keegan gave her a few mints, wishing he had something more substantial to offer. Not that any of these horses would be able to eat full meals for a while. They would need to be refed carefully to avoid any of the dozen issues reintroducing nutrition too quickly could cause.

He ran his hand down her neck. Poor thing. She was skin and bones, her coat rough and filled with matted clumps. His breath hissed through his teeth when he caught sight of her hooves. There was no telling when any of the horses had last seen a farrier. Her hooves were so overgrown that the toes were curled back on themselves the way a person’s fingernails would if they didn’t trim them. Fuck. He hoped she’d be able to walk out of there under her own power.

“Keegan?” George asked as she stepped into the shed.

“In here,” he told her.

She walked over but kept a respectful distance. “I sent the other animals to Josie’s.” Josie was another vet they worked with often. She would be able to take on the smaller animals while Keegan focused on the horses since they were his specialty. “Four dogs. Thirteen cats, so far. And a fucking African Grey parrot.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with that one.”

Keegan heaved a quiet sigh. How had this asshole gotten his hands on a parrot? And how was it still alive? African Greys were notoriously difficult to care for. “I have a friend from vet school who specializes in exotic birds. I’ll text you her number.” He scratched the mare’s neck, and she shifted her weight closer. “How far out is the trailer?”

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