The Dog Next Door

Harold had always hated the neighbor's dog.

It barked at everything.

Cars. Birds. The wind. Trash bags and even balloons.

Tonight, it barked at him.

He didn't stop barking. And it was going to wake the entire neighborhood.

Harold stopped digging and looked toward the fence.

The dog stood in the neighbor's yard, rigid and trembling, its eyes fixed on the blue tarp beside him.

“Quiet,” Harold whispered.

The dog barked again.

His teeth were showing, and his fur was sticking up on end.

He was poised to jump over that fence.

Harold glanced at the house.

Every window was dark.

Good.

He turned back to the hole.

Almost deep enough.

He drove the shovel into the wet earth.

Behind him, something moved beneath the tarp.

Harold stopped.

A faint scratching sound came from underneath.

He closed his eyes.

“Please,” he whispered. “Don't.”

The scratching continued.

Harold gripped the shovel tighter.

“You're making this harder than it needs to be.”

The dog began throwing itself against the fence.

Harold ignored it.

He kept digging.

Then the dog found a gap.

It squeezed through and charged across the yard.

Harold barely turned before its teeth sank into his leg.

He screamed and fell.

The shovel flew from his hands.

The dog released him, but instead of attacking again, it ran toward the tarp.

“No!”

Harold scrambled after it.

The dog seized the tarp and pulled.

The plastic ripped open.

Harold's wife lay underneath.

Her wrists were tied.

Tape covered her mouth.

Her eyes opened.

Alive.

Harold stared at her.

She stared back.

The dog stood between them, growling.

A light came on next door.

“Harold?” the neighbor called. “Everything all right?”

Harold didn't answer.

His wife began sobbing through the tape.

The neighbor called again.

“Harold?”

Harold slowly reached for the shovel.

His wife shook her head.

Not at him.

At the neighbor.

Harold froze.

Then she started struggling violently against her restraints.

Harold looked confused.

He tore the tape from her mouth.

She sucked in a breath.

“Harold,” she whispered.

He leaned closer.

“I didn't want to do this.”

She began crying harder.

“What?”

She looked past him, toward the house.

“The baby.”

Harold's face went blank.

“What about the baby?”

His wife stared at him.

Then at the open hole.

Then back at him.

“The baby was never ours.”

Harold didn't move.

His wife whispered:

“You killed the wrong woman.”

The dog barked wildly.

The neighbor's footsteps were getting closer.

Harold looked at the house.

For the first time, the reader notices the nursery window upstairs.

The light was on.

And behind the glass stood a little girl.

Watching.

Harold's daughter.

Except she wasn't his daughter.

She was the neighbor's.

And suddenly the dog's barking made sense.

It wasn't trying to save his wife.

It was trying to lead its owner to the child Harold had stolen.

The neighbor reached the fence.

Harold looked at the girl in the window.

She was holding something against the glass.

A photograph.

Harold's wife began screaming.

“Don't let him take her!”

The neighbor stopped.

He looked at Harold.

Then at the girl.

Then at the open grave.

And Harold finally understood what the dog had been barking at all night.

Not him.

Not his wife.

The grave.

Because beneath the first layer of dirt, was another body.

His wife's.

The woman beside him wasn't his wife at all.

She was the woman he had kidnapped to replace her.

And his real wife had been buried there three days ago.

Still wearing the wedding ring Harold had just noticed was missing from his hand.