Those Damned Dogs

"She said a dog had been following her," the girl said, eyes wide as saucers.

"A dog?" Maria asked, making a small note," just a dog by itself?"

"Yeah, she was sure it was following her around." The girl replied, somehow managing to make it sound like Maria had asked her if the sky was blue.

Marie made a show of asking the girl if she had ever seen the dog, she hadn't. Asking her if she had ever seen anyone hanging around her friend, she hadn't. Asking every fucking question under the sun in the vague hope that something might shake out of the empty box she called a brain.

Nothing did and the girl was sent out into the hammering rain with everything short of a playful slap on the ass. Leaving Maria to collapse into her office chair and stared out at the grey sky, grey building and grey road.

Technically she did not work at the police station, she was on the books as being a "Preferred Contractor" for the local government. Anyone who bothered to ask just what the hell she was preffered for would find that she reliably made sure that the many offices of government had enough ink and paper clips.

As she glumly flicked through her notes she wished that that was the truth of things. She could deal with ink and paper clips, ink and paper clips didn't get followed around by dogs for a week and then vanish into thin air.

This girl, a one Sasha Cartwright, was the sixth girl to go missing like this in the past six months. At least she was the sixth girl who had actually mattered to anyone. Despite its reputation the city of Black Hollow has managed to maintain a healthy homeless population. So when something nasty crawls out of the mud it usually spent some time dining on those poor cunts before it got big, bad or hungry enough to start picking off people who would be missed.

This one was a strange case though, she had figured from the mentions of a dog that it might have been a werewolf of some kind. Following a target around before picking the right time to strike. Yet if that was the case then bodies should of started turning up already. Unlike some of the things that go bump in the night they don't need woman for anything other than food and unlike the Vampires they don't enjoy playing with their food.

Yet no bodies had turned up and the dog was different every time. Sometimes a Labrador or a Wolf Hound or even a little Jack Russel Terrier. They would pick a woman and follow her around, never getting too close but never trying to hide. After a week of this she would vanish on her way from one place or the other and that was it.

Flicking through her notes Maria wondered if she could not try and see if any Jane Does in a particularly bad state had been picked up over these past few weeks.

After all, in a city like Black Hollow a great many things could happen to the unaware or just plain unlucky.