By Nick Patrick Hickman

It’s Isaac who walks the three blocks to the grocery to buy the hamburger meat. This whole plan is his idea, anyway. Except when it comes time, it’s Harrison who will hold the meat. The bait. That’s what they agreed.

It has to be, because when the stray dog gets aggressive with jaws pulled back—biting, snapping at the air—it always goes after Isaac first.

The key is that it doesn’t see Isaac. Just Harrison and the juicy burger meat.

Isaac saw it from his bedroom window. The dog got real low to crawl under one of the fence boards, into the backyard. It stood in the moonlight, sniffing the air, at the edge of the shadow from the treehouse Dad started building three summers ago. Dad was outside—somewhere. Smoking a cigarette, cooling off. Done, maybe, with the yelling.

The dog’s coat was scruffy and matted around its face. It snarled, and Isaac could see dry, peeling skin on its snout.

Orange light flung across the lawn and cast Dad’s silhouette in the grass as he opened the backdoor, stepped back inside. Isaac tiptoed across his room to cut the lights and lock his door. He listened for the sound of the kitchen cabinet, Dad’s heavy steps down the hall to his room, the turn of the door handle.

There was the murmur of Mom’s voice from their bedroom. Isaac waited for yelling, but none came. He went back to the window and there it was, the dog, still sitting on the lawn below the treehouse. It looked up, right at him.

Mom had that way of talking to it. When the stray dog found a way into the garage, waiting for the house door to open—when it started growling and getting all wild with bright red veins striking the pupils in its eyes—Mom was the only one who could force it back outside. Isaac’s trouble is always wanting to fight back too much, yelling and kicking at it. Taunting it, even, sometimes. Because big brothers do not stand back and let their mom and little brother get hurt, not even when it comes to attacking dogs.

But the trouble with Mom, even before the cancer and before she was all the way gone, never coming back—she could not ask for help. Not even from the other cul-de-sac neighbors, like to watch out for the stray dog showing up. Better to handle it ourselves, she’d say. And don’t bother them with this, they have real crimes to chase.

So The Stray kept coming back, mostly at night.

There was the sound of shattering glass in the garage. A broken bottle, probably.

It was back.

It rushed through the door, somewhere between Dad’s legs. Dad shouted and it barked—snot flung from its nostrils. Its lips pulled back behind pink slobbery gums and Isaac stepped in front of Mom and she stepped back in front of him and nudged him behind the kitchen island. The dog lunged at Dad and he threw up his forearm, where its yellow teeth latched, and Harrison screamed and Mom rushed at Dad as the dog tore at his arm. She drove her shoulder into Dad’s chest, back out the door. Slammed it shut.

It thumped against the outside of the door. Again, thrusting its entire weight against the wood. Then silence.

Its face appeared in the window, teeth clanking the glass and smearing strings of drool across the windowpane.

Isaac is back from the grocery with the raw burger meat in less than an hour. Everything is so close you can walk, here at this new house in the city. Except parks and soccer fields and outside places. The kids here, they all mostly play videogames for fun. They don’t even like baseball or know how to play Ghost in the Graveyard.

And if Mom was still here—Isaac has thought, just to himself, never telling Harrison—probably they never would’ve moved from the old cul-de-sac house. But after Mom was gone, The Stray was coming by more and more. Then every night.

If they just moved away—Dad’s idea—gave themselves a clean start, there would be no more visits from The Stray. Dad wouldn’t let it follow them, he promised, and once they were gone, it wouldn’t know where to find them.

No Mom, but no more visits from The Stray, either.

It found them three months later. Isaac saw it first, one night—always at night—staggering down the sidewalk with filthy fur, sniffing the air. On that night, he locked Harrison in the bedroom closet and told him don’t make a sound, it won’t know you’re in here.

Isaac peels the burger meat from the plastic and says they should maybe cook it a little bit, add some seasoning. He knows how to ball the meat between his palms into little patties. The stronger the smell, the better this will work. He feels sure it will come tonight. It knows Dad’s car, that’s Isaac’s theory. That’s the only way. When Dad gets off work—at his new job in this new city—and stops by the grocery to get a bottle of Jack Daniel’s because usually the one in the drawer below the TV is almost empty from the night before, somewhere along the way, The Stray must see his car. Probably it lingers by the grocery dumpsters, recognizes Dad’s blue Ford with the mismatched tailgate, and it knows where to go.

It was scratching, clawing, at his bedroom door. Isaac could smell the thing. Could smell its fury. It snapped at the air between the door and the floor. Isaac clamped a hand over Harrison’s mouth to muffle his crying.

I’ve got it, he said.

It was the third visit that week.

Isaac grabbed his baseball bat. It barked again from the other side of the door and Isaac undid the lock—he pushed open the door and swung the bat.

These city houses are all split in half, right down the middle. Except that each side has its own front door and a letter, like A, B, C, or D, to know which is which. These neighbors, they must hear The Stray causing all that ruckus—how could they not? But they never call for help, not even Mr. Martin living on the other side of the wall with his TV always on. Maybe if they did then someone else could see how dangerous it is and maybe help catch it and get it help or something. Maybe then it wouldn’t be all up to Isaac and Harrison and some hamburger meat.

This morning when Dad said he’d stop by the grocery after work and grab some frozen pizzas for dinner, Isaac finalized the plan. Wait for the Stray to follow Dad home—or just give it an hour, wait for dinner to end or for Dad to turn on the baseball game. There will come the growling at the back door, the scratching and snarling as it looks for a way in. It’s all about timing. And being ready if it comes early, like right when Dad gets home.

It’s later than usual when Dad’s truck turns down the street, four houses down, where the stoplights are always blinking yellow. The autumn sunlight is already dimming. Isaac watches through the front door peephole. Dad parks. It’s the way he swings his legs out and slams the truck door behind him—that’s how Isaac can tell. Then it’s confirmed: The Stray rounds the back of the truck. It trots under the faint glow of the streetlight, stalking Dad down the sidewalk to the door.

“It’s here,” Isaac says, and Harrison runs to take his spot. “Ready?”

“Ready,” Harrison calls from down the hall in Dad’s bedroom holding half-cooked burger patties in his hands.

Isaac crouches behind the couch.

The front door opens and instantly there’s barking and nails scratching the plywood as it bounds into the entryway.

Harrison hits his cue with the brave voice Isaac made him practice: “I’m in here you stupid mutt!”

Isaac springs from his hiding spot, chases the sound of Dad and The Stray rushing towards the bedroom in search of the sound and the cooked burger smell. Isaac’s socked feet slip as he turns the corner. There’s Harrison, face pale and burger hands trembling, standing on Dad’s bed.

“Now!” Isaac shouts.

Harrison tosses the burger meat to the corner of the room and bounces up to reach the window, hoists himself out and into Mr. Martin’s yard.

Isaac has a hand on the doorknob. “Dad, come back out—hurry!”

Two sets of bleary red eyes flick back and find Isaac in the doorway. There’s the crackling static of a growl. And there’s no separation between fur and flesh, no slice of air between the two figures who leap at the door right as Isaac pulls it shut.