The Silencer: A Bad Boy MMA Romance (20 page)

“Well, it was an idea,” she said as they kissed each other goodnight.

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Around the beginning of October, Keith came home late from work one night. The house was pitch black, as Ashley and the kids were all asleep since it was a school night. Pulling up to the house, he parked his car and headed inside, exhausted after putting in long hours that day. On his way to the front door, he began searching for his house key on his key ring. Walking through the yard, as he continued his search for the key, he ran into something dangling from a tree branch. It felt warm and wet as it smacked him in the face.

“Ugh! What the hell?” he murmured to himself.

He took a step backward, trying to figure out what he’d just ran into as he pushed away thoughts of what it might be. Warm blood was still dripping out of the freshly killed raccoon that swung from the tree. The animal’s blood was smeared across his face and shirt. He couldn’t escape the rust scent of the blood; he gagged, almost vomiting in the yard.

Whoever did it, killed the raccoon and tied a rope around it before hanging it from the tree. His senses were heightened as the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Who would’ve done this? He looked around, making sure no one was watching. With no one in sight, he retrieved a switchblade to cut it out of the tree before Ashley or the kids found it. They’d be scared to death at the sight of a bloody, mutilated raccoon dangling from the tree as they walked out of the house.

As he cut the animal corpse from the tree, he thought maybe some nearby teens must have done it as a sick Halloween prank. It was only three weeks away. He hid his soiled, bloody shirt inside of a grocery bag with the raccoon and tossed the plastic bag in the trash bin at the curb. After disposing of the animal and cleaning himself up, he decided to keep the event to himself. Ashley was already on high-alert as it was, and he didn’t want her to worry more than she already was while he was working these late hours.

The next few weeks were uneventful in the Marshall house as the kids did their chores and Ashley tended to the baby. The children continued helping with as much as they could since their dad was still leaving early and coming home late as the demands of the bank grew. Bryce was becoming a bit more active as he grew older, keeping Ashley on her toes. In the blink of an eye, that child could be happily playing at her feet one minute, and then standing on top of the kitchen counter the next. There was never a dull moment as long as he was awake, but she wouldn’t trade him—or any of the other kids—in for the whole world. Her bond with her children was very strong as she actively played with them and participated in their extracurricular activities. 

The week of Halloween, the kids went out one morning to check on their rabbits since the temperatures had drastically dropped overnight and there was a bit of frost on the windows. They were concerned that it might be time to move the rabbits to one of the outbuildings with a heater, and lay some extra hay in the chicken coop. Keith and Ashley came running out of the house when they heard the children screaming.

Approaching the rabbit hutch, they saw what all of the commotion was about. All of the rabbits had been massacred. The rabbit hutches were filled with dead rabbits. Blood was splattered all over the inside of the cages; some on the ground. Their stiff bodies didn’t move, and their large eyes were open. Staring back at the children. Ashley quickly took the kids back to the house and made them hot cocoa to help comfort them as Keith tried to clean up the mess before he went to work. With almost no time to spare, he didn’t get very far. He’d thrown away the dead animals, but the blood remained. It would have to wait until he had a chance to hose it out; he had to finish getting ready for work. They allowed the children to stay home from school that day. They wept, asking what happened to their animals.

Standing at the kitchen sink washing his hands, Keith overheard the kids chattering about what happened to the rabbits. He felt horrible to see them so upset.

“Must’ve been a fox. They love to hunt rabbits and other small animals,” he offered.

Ashley wondered if it had really been a fox or another animal, or if it was the handy work of a disturbed individual.

“I don’t have time to finish cleaning the hutches out right now kids,” he apologized. “We’ll get more rabbits once the cages are all clean.”

He kissed his family goodbye as he left for work. During his drive, he thought about what he could do to make his family safer, and put his mind at ease. He still hadn’t told his wife about the raccoon. She was already freaked out about the door and the window. Telling her about the raccoon may push her over the edge, he though. If she knew about the incident, she’d flip out of her mind. He didn’t want her living in fear; she’d done that long enough before she met him. It was practically all she knew. A couple of days later, Keith came up with an idea that the whole family loved.

“I was thinking,” Keith said one morning as the family indulged in their stacks of pancakes, “maybe we should get a dog.”

Ashley shot a look at him that expressed concern. She had allergies, and he knew it. “Why?” she asked as she cut up Bryce’s food. She sat him in his booster seat at the kitchen table.

“Really dad? Can we really get a dog?” Brooke asked. She loved animals.

“Well, it wouldn’t be a house dog exactly, but it would be an outside dog. It might help scare off those foxes and other wild animals. Plus, I figured you kids would like to have a pet,” he added.

“What kind of dog did you have in mind?” Ashley asked. Hearing that it would be an outside dog made her feel better; she wouldn’t have to worry about her allergies. She listened as she attempted to eat a hot breakfast with the rest of the family while Bryce smashed his food in between his fingers.

“I was thinking a big dog, something like a Bullmastiff or a Great Pyrenees. I’ve done some research and they’re large, protective dogs.”

“I want a dog! I want a dog!” Brooke cut in again.

“Me too!” Chloe shouted.

“Me too!” Chase added, his brother chiming in right along with him.

Ashley and Keith smiled as their children bubbled with excitement. “All that’s left is for your mom to agree,” he said.

“Okay, okay, we’ll get a dog.”

The children cheered as they finished their breakfast. As they cleared the breakfast table, they began to argue over who would get to name the dog.

“Slow down,” Keith said. “We don’t even have it yet. We’ll have to see if we can find one first.”

“But who gets to name it?” Brooke questioned.

He thought about it for a moment. “If and when we get it, you can all choose a name. You can write your name on a piece of paper and we’ll draw one out of a hat. Whichever name gets drawn is what we’ll call the dog.”

Within a few days, they located a couple of dogs for sale. Although they weren’t exactly what they’d hoped for, they were big dogs nonetheless. A man had a litter of pups—German shepherds—but two of them had never been sold and they were nine months old. Keith contacted the man to schedule an appointment to go look at them.

When they arrived, the kids played with both dogs before deciding on the male. He was black and brown; classic German shepherd colors. The other was a solid black female. They took the dog home with them that afternoon after Keith paid the man $200 for him. With their new dog heading home, Ashley began to feel a bit of relief. Now she would know if someone, or something, was outside. And if anything were out there, the dog would take care of that problem.

The kids all wrote down the name they wanted to choose for the dog and placed it inside a hat. Keith had mixed up all the loose pieces of papers before Ashley drew a name. She hated the name she drew. Keith could tell it must’ve been good as his wife rolled her eyes.

“Our new dog’s name is…Peanut!” she announced.

“Who in the world wrote that name?” Keith asked.

“I did!” Chloe said.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because Chase is allergic to peanuts, and I thought it would be funny to name him something that Chase can’t have,” she giggled.

“Oh, Lord,” Ashley sighed. “Okay, Peanut it is.”

“That’s not fair,” Chase whined. “I want the dog to be mine, too!” he pouted.

“Don’t worry, he’s your dog too,” Keith assured him. “Your sister’s evil, that’s all,” he joked.

Peanut spent most of his time sunbathing on the front porch. He was great with the kids, chased away opossums, squirrels and deer, and only barked at the mailman until he got used to him. The kids loved playing with him. They’d play tug-of-war with him, using an old, thick, knotted rope; other times he’d chase the kids around the yard and nip at their jackets. Almost entirely grown, he was nearly as tall as Chase and weighed close to 90 pounds. He was a very well-fed dog, but happy and protective. If a strange car pulled into the long driveway to make a U-turn because they were lost, Peanut would go into full attack mode. He’d bark at, and chase, the car until it was gone. Simple things like that made the family feel at ease, especially Ashley.

Still working late hours at the bank, Keith felt relieved that they had a guard dog who wasn’t afraid to protect his family. Peanut was a big, solid mass of muscle—with a few extra pounds. His eyes were wild, making him even scarier looking. Keith liked that. He wasn’t the type of dog that you’d see and want to pet. No, he was the type that would send you running for cover, praying someone would find you or get the dog away. He was intimidating and looked ferocious.

About four months after Peanut had joined the family, Keith came home to find the dog lying in his usual spot on the front porch. It comforted him that Peanut slept right in front of the front door. As he walked up onto the porch, he noted that Peanut didn’t move a muscle. This was highly unusual. Typically when the dog heard a noise, his head popped up, but not this night. He was dead to the world. Literally.

As Keith walked up the stairs of the porch, he saw a pool of gore lying beneath the dog. His dark brown coat was matted with blood. Horrified, he examined the dog closer; he appeared to be completely gutted just like the raccoon. He was sliced open from the edge of his collar all the way down to his hip. His flesh gaped open as his intestine and guts spilled out of him. If it had been during the summer months, flies would’ve surely had a field day landing on him. Luckily, it was only the end of February; the chilly night kept down the odor of decomposition. His heart sunk when he saw the dog. Imagining what the kids and Ashley would think, his mind began to race. He’d have to bury the dog before they woke up. It would take forever with the ground still partially frozen from the harsh snow and ice they’d received only three weeks ago.

He stepped over the lifeless dog’s carcass as he entered the house to change his clothes. Removing his business attire, he slipped into a ratty pair of sweatpants and pulled a hooded sweatshirt over his head. Searching for his sneakers, he almost woke Ashley, but he quickly ducked down along the side of the bed. After he was sure she was asleep, he tiptoed out of the bedroom and headed to the living room. Finding his tennis shoes on the shoe rack, he put them on and headed to the shed to grab the shovel and a black trash bag. Using the shovel, he scooped the dog’s body onto the black trash bag and drug him to the edge of the woods that surrounded the house. Turning on a lantern he’d taken from the shed, he switched it on and began digging into the hard, frozen ground.

Hours had passed before he finally dug a burial ground deep enough to bury the dog in. Grabbing the edges of the black trash bag, he lowered the dog into his eternal home and said a prayer before shoveling dirt over the top of him. Dripping with sweat, he went back inside, showered and disposed of his bloody, soiled clothes using another plastic grocery bag after he’d wiped up the porch. He’d never been more thankful that his wife recycled them for mini trash bags for the bathroom waste containers.

Falling asleep only three hours before his alarm went off, he had nightmares about the dog all night. He pictured some sick person carving his dog up as though they were a professional butcher as the dog cried. The alarm clock went off at 6 AM, interrupting one of his dreams.