Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

That night, Will dreamed
a dog was barking, barking, barking. Then he was awake. His clock said 3:09. What a weird time to be awake. He didn’t
have to pee, but he went and did that anyway, to make being awake feel normal.
Before getting back into bed, he looked out the window. Just in case.

Faintly illuminated by
the light on the street, a dog sat on the front walk. A big dog, really big,
wearing a collar that glowed in the dark.

The dog from the ice
cream truck.

Will pushed the window
open and leaned out. The dog raised its head and looked right at him with eyes
that glowed like a flashlight whose battery was almost dead. It had something
in its mouth. It dropped the thing onto the pavement, a dark, shapeless object,
not very big. Shapeless until the dog nosed and pawed it into…