Costly Obsession: Animalize by Sasha Pruett
Chapter Three
...your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
I Peter 5:8
“Jeremy! Phone, it’s Chris.”
“I’ve got it Mom. Hello?”
“Hey man, did you hear about old man Farley?”
“What about him?”
“Last night, during the storm, something slaughtered all of his animals.”
“All of them?”
“Yeah, even his dogs.”
“What did it?”
“Well the cops are sayin’ that it was some kind of wild dog or something, a whole pack of ‘em, but I think that old man finally snapped and went on a killin’ spree.”
“Mr. Farley is kind of mental, but I don’t think he’d murder all those animals.”
“I don’t know man; he’s been a farmer all his life. Maybe he just got fed up with having to take care of all of it and decided to get rid of ‘em.”
“You’d turn the local doctor into a mad scientist who was doing experiments on his patients when they came to see him.”
“Who me?”
“Yeah you! You have a wilder imagination than my six-year-old niece that thinks she can talk to bunnies and ride the deer into the woods for a picnic with the forest creatures.”
“Couldn’t you just see old man Farley running around in the storm with huge knife or pitch fork, or better yet a chain saw? Bet they find his wife all chopped up in the root cellar.”
“Oh grow up Chris, not everyone goes nuts and hacks up their families. You’ve been watching too many late night movies and reading too many horror novels. This is Epson, nothing ever happens here.”
“Okay Jeremy, maybe he didn’t do it, but stranger things have happened and they’ve all happened in sleepy little nothin’ towns like this one where everyone knows everyone else. Haven’t you ever noticed that almost all those stories are written about towns like ours? I’m telling you we’re prime candidates for something freaky to invade and kill us all.”
“I can’t wait to hear your “What I Did over Summer Break,” report. Next thing you know we’ll have the devil trampling through the town with all of us hypnotized into following him.”
“Hey, it could happen.”
“Yeah right, and I’m the Easter Bunny.”
“I didn’t think you believed in that.”
“What the Easter Bunny? I don’t, that’s the point. Duh! Look I gotta go. See you and the guys at the spot tomorrow?”
“Sure, I have to see Will try to break the distance record for the furthest swing.”
“You did fix the rope didn’t you?”
“Sure, Michael and I did that after he went flying off backwards onto the shore instead of in the water. I sure hope my dad doesn’t go looking for the rope he uses to tow the boat with though.”
“Maybe we ought to put it back?”
“Nah, he really only uses it to reinforce the, what do ya call it…connection or whatever. Any way I better go too, I still have to take out the trash. See ya tomorrow. Bye.”
“Bye.”