The Puppy In The Backstreets

A week until Christmas. The high street was busy with people rushing past with their shopping. Christmas lights were strung across the buildings, just starting to turn on as dusk approached. A brass band played an instrumental version of "It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year" with much enthusiasm, with some of the passers-up even singing along to it by themselves. Someone dressed up as Santa was going round collecting money for a local church, with a woman dressed as an elf helping him out.

Not that Boomstick payed attention to any of that. He was making his way through the streets, wrapping his arms round himself to keep warm and giving irritable glances to the passers-by.

It had been a pretty shit year for him. The messy divorce he'd had at the beginning of it was just one thing and being separated from his mother a couple of weeks later was another. For the next few months, he'd just felt so miserable and out of it. If he wasn't drinking yet another beer, he was usually crying into his pillow.

He had been slowly recovering though. Going to the nearby shooting range every weekend had helped, as had getting a haircut. He'd even managed to book himself a therapist, so he could actually talk to someone about his problems. Plus, he'd been thinking about getting a job. With all of that happening, he felt that he could simply move on and forget everything bad that had happened to him.

But now Christmas was here. Normally, he'd be perfectly happy to celebrate it, but it just reminded him of how he didn't have anyone to spend it with. His parents weren't there anymore, the few friends he'd made in college had gone their own separate ways and even the therapist was busy with other clients. And he didn't even want to hear any mention of his ex's name.

Boomstick had headed into town just to see if there was anything he could decorate his shack with. Just to make it even slightly more festive for the holidays. But there hadn't been anything that appealed to his tastes. And now he just wanted to get back home. Everyone else's happiness was too much for him at this current moment.

As he made his way into the backstreets, he rubbed his hands together and blew on them just to make them slightly warmer. He tried picking up some speed in his steps in case that helped.

He stopped however when he almost trod on a small puppy underneath, which just managed to move out of the way in time. It rolled on the ground for a bit, as if it had just tripped up, before getting up again.

The puppy's fur was pretty faded and Boomstick could make out that there had been two circular marks on its belly. Male. He'd had a dog when he was a kid and thus could tell what sex certain ones where and what kind of food they liked and how many hours a day it should get outside and all the other useful tidbits of information.

Despite previously being in a bad mood, Boomstick's heart instantly melted. He always had a soft spot for dogs, even moreso if they were puppies. He clasped his hands against his chest and made a high-pitched sound of awe.

Completely smitten, Boomstick went over to pet the puppy, but it instantly hobbled away with a frightened look in his eyes.

"Hey, I'm not gonna hurt you," Boomstick said whilst kneeling down next to the puppy. "I just wanted to say hello. My, you're a cute one."

There was something not quite right though. The puppy looked skinnier than would be considered normal and he seemed to walk with a limp. Boomstick really needed to get home, and he already knew that somebody probably already owned that puppy, but he was still concerned for his sake. Did the owners just not feed it enough?

"Look, I've gotta get home, but I'll be back tomorrow. And then I'll give you something to eat. That be okay?"

***

The next day, Boomstick headed over to the backstreets again with a chicken leg, hoping the puppy was still there. To his delight, he was. He knelt down and held it out towards him.

"Here, buddy," he called out, and the puppy looked over at him. It seemed unsure at first, but them gingerly came over and took a bite of the chicken.

Boomstick reached his hand out to pat the puppy's head, but he nervously backed away again.

It was the same for the next few days. Boomstick would turn up to give the puppy food and he would eat it. Each time, the puppy got somewhat bolder. He still flinched at the idea of being patted or stroked, but sometimes the puppy would rub itself on Boomstick's leg.

And then on Christmas Eve, he just didn't show up.

***

Boomstick was quite surprised when he first realised that the puppy wasn't there. And then he grew worried. He first tried waiting in case it turned up, and when that failed, he started furiously pacing down the streets, hoping that he would come out of one of the houses. No luck.

It was getting dark by now, and Boomstick was now thinking back to those previous days. The puppy had obviously been under-fed for starters, and then there was the limp that he had. And now that Boomstick was taking that all into consideration...

Oh I'm a fucking idiot, he thought to himself, a feeling of disgust and remorse overwhelming him.

Boomstick sat on one of the brick fences, feeling tears welling up in his eyes. Of COURSE he should have taken the puppy home with him. Who cared if someone technically already owned him? He could have easily been a stray too. He was probably dead by now considering the state he'd been in for the last few days.

"You get here! Stupid mutt!"

Boomstick was startled by the voice of an angry man from the house behind him. He didn't know whether the voice was directed at him or someone else, but he got off the fence anyway and rushed over to the front door. He turned the doorknob and open it up.

In the hallway, he could here the sounds of something being hit the the next room. But it was a familiar whimpering sound that made him suspicious. He quickly entered, hoping it wasn't as bad as he expected.

"Oh, no no..."

Boomstick had seen quite a load of fucked-up shit in his life, and being a violent sort himself, he didn't mind at all. But what he saw here genuinely made him feel sick, his stomach churning the whole time.

Inside was a man with a shotgun. But he wasn't using it to shoot anything. He was however using it as a sort of club, beating the same puppy that Boomstick had met for the past few days with it. He could tell from the scrawny body and limp it had.

"Stupid fucking mutt! What did I tell you!"

The puppy made several whimpering sounds with every smack of the gun, but the man paid no mind to them as he continued with the beating.

Boomstick was initially at a loss at what to do. But then he bit down on his thumb with determination.

"You better snap out of it!" he muttered to himself before rushing over to the man and grabbing the arm he was using to wield the gun with.

"God, can you fucking get off me?!" the man rudely said as he tried to push Boomstick aside.

"Get off you?! You get off him?!" Boomstick yelled back without budging.

The man proceeded to grab him in return and slam him again a wall with one hand, the shotgun in the other.

“It's my fucking dog, okay?!” He pointed the gun at Boomstick. “You wanna argue with that?!”

In any other circumstances, the man would had gotten the upper hand. After all, he did appear to have some considerable strength. But here he had made a grave mistake. He was simply someone with a gun on him, someone who relied more on pure intimidation than anything else. Boomstick on the other hand had been trained in combat all his life. He had knowledge on how guns worked and how to handle them.

He grabbed hold of the gun. The man stared on, confused by what was happening.

When Boomstick spoke, his voice unusually had little emotion in it for once. But it was one that dripped with venom.

“You've…you've fucked up, buddy.”

With that, he let loose. He slammed the gun back into the man's face, causing him to stumble backwards. Before the man had time to properly get up and react, Boomstick turned the gun on him and fired it. It struck the man's shoulder, causing him to yell out in agony.

But Boomstick didn't stop there. He fired again at the man's stomach. And then at his left kneecap. And when the shotgun had run out of bullets, he switched over to his own gun leg and used that instead, the sound of shotgun blasts and the man's screams filling the air.

At last, Boomstick settled on his final target - the man's head. He fired one more time.

The resulting blast left a large bloodied smear on the wall behind the man, as well as the man's headless corpse.

For a moment, Boomstick was stuck in a dazed state, not knowing how to respond. But a familiar sound broke him out of it. He turned round and noticed the puppy trembling behind him and still whimpering. There were small puddles of blood around him from when he'd been struck.

It was at that point that Boomstick finally broke. He fell on his knees as tears spilled out of his eyes. Still trembling, he reached out for the puppy, which managed to hobble over into his arms. Boomstick picked him up and hugged him tight, rocking it back and forth a bit in the process.

“It’s – it’s okay,” Boomstick sobbed. “He won't hurt you anymore.” His body shivered even more as he hugged the puppy tighter. “In fact, I – I won’t let anyone hurt you anymore.”

They both whimpered a bit more, though the puppy gradually seemed to calm down. When at last he didn't feel so agitated, his first course of action was to lick Boomstick's face in order to clean up his tears.

Boomstick was slightly startled at first by this. But then he let out a small giggle in response. His voice was still broken, but he was feeling slightly better now thanks to the puppy licking him like that.

"Okay," he said. He sniffed as he wiped one last tear away. "Let's get you sorted out."

Boomstick didn't have any bandages on him, but that didn't stop him from trying. He tore scraps of his sleeves off and wrapped them round the puppy's legs. Sure, it meant that he was going to be even colder than normal on the way home, but he didn't even think about that. As long as the puppy was fine, he would be fine too.

When he was finished, Boomstick held the puppy up, just to make sure he'd done a decent enough job. In a way, he had. His cuts were covered up, with only some blood seeping through. But thankfully the red fabric would allow it not to show up too much.

"You're gonna need a bath when I get you back home too." Boomstick had no plans to leave the puppy behind in the grotty old house any longer. Especially not after what he'd been through here. Sure, Boomstick's own shack didn't look much better, but he felt he'd be safer with him.

He gently tickled the puppy's belly. “I’ll call you Jack. Simple and sweet. You happy with that?”

Jack let out a happy pant and wagged his tail. The first time he had ever done so. Boomstick smiled back and planted a small kiss on its nose.

Finally, he was able to heave himself off the ground with Jack still in his arms before heading out the door. He shut it tight behind him. Hopefully, the police weren't going to bother heading there. And if they did, surely they wouldn't come looking for him, right?

As they finally made their way back to the high street, it was like how things were before. The Christmas lights were shining and the tune of "The Christmas Waltz" filled the air from a nearby unattended radio. Nobody else was here though. They'd all finished their shopping and gone home to celebrate.

And in Boomstick's mind, that was how things should be.

A warm happy feeling settled inside him as he and Jack absorbed their surroundings. It made him chuckle slightly. He looked down at the puppy and gave him one more kiss.

Christmas won't be so lonely after all, he thought. And I'm sure the new year will be just the same.