The Attack

The Attack

It came out of nowhere. Everyone blames pitbulls and rottweilers for dog attacks, envisioning their rolling muscles and foaming  jowls. It was a labrador, the kind children beg for, that clamped its canines around my arm. It pierced through the muscle and shook the limb until the flesh tore. The flannel of my shirt became soaked in warmth, but the hurt was too consuming; I didn’t notice the red, the scarlet channels rolling in every direction—along the length of my arm, between fingers, spilling over skin till it splattered on my jeans. The noises from my mouth, the cawing shouts of pain, echoed in my ears, distant and removed from my body. I thought it was coming from someone else, maybe down the street or behind the old carwash. The dog held on, growling and pushing until my back smacked on the concrete.

The screams halted suddenly. My uninjured arm reacted instinctively to cover my face and throat. My mind grasped for something logical to hold onto, something beyond pain and terror and the vicious animal that pinned me to the ground. It molded itself around the words and forced them through my mouth like balls of lead. “Help! Help! Get off of me!”

I didn’t hear the footsteps, only the gruff shout behind me. “Get off him, you damned mutt!” It began raining then. Suddenly, the pain lessened. The dog had released me, run off into the night and disappeared beyond the halo of streetlamps. The rain ceased as quickly as it had begun, and as I looked up into the hazy lamplight, an old man’s face stared back at me. It was the owner of the carwash, a hose in hand. “Let’s get you to a hospital,” he said, helping me from the ground.

Word count: 297