Scott L. in Russell — PLEASE!
RATED: R
Viewer Discretion Advised
© Scott L.
A red-nosed pit bull held the back room.
It was around nine.
The alley ran dark under a single lamp—the kind that gave off more shadow than light. It hummed above the line of sight, breaking against the tree branches overhead.
It flickered now and then. The ground would drop out for a second, then come back.
What reached the ground shifted in shadow—just enough to set her off.
The rest stayed hidden.
Rusty was in the kitchen, fixing something to eat. He wasn’t watching the back. He didn’t have to. Nyla had that.
Rats moved through that alley. Big ones. Bold ones. You’d hear them, then you wouldn’t. It felt like their ground—until she moved.
Rusty had been saying it: don’t just walk in. Call first. Wait.
Billy didn’t.
He stepped through like he belonged there.
He never saw her.
A powerful lunge.
She caught the denim at the cuff and pulled. Everything went with it.
“Russell—please! Don’t let her bite my dick off!”
Rusty moved.
Not thinking—just moving.
He crossed the space and put himself in it, one arm pulling Billy back, the other rising on instinct alone.
Too late.
Nyla was already in it.
She clamped down, locked, and shook—hard.
The kind of motion that doesn’t ask questions.
The kind that answers them.
By the time she let go, the moment had already split open.
Billy screaming.
Rusty bleeding.
The alley behind them went still again—
not empty,
just quiet in the way places get
when they’ve seen it before.
Later, he told it like it had already passed through him.
Laughed some.
Not because it was funny—
just because it was over.
He said a guy named Dollar Bill used to be around—white cami, kept to himself.
Nyla got him too.
He hadn’t seen him since.
No one had.
I asked about the poster.
Carlos.
Rusty said he’d been over where the cat was supposed to be—some place worse than the one he was already squatting in, across the alley from mine.
Didn’t make sense.
We laughed a little.
Carlos didn’t seem like the kind of cat that would stay in a place like that.
Out here, things don’t always stay where they’re supposed to.
Sometimes they just… move on.
Or disappear.
I haven’t seen her either.
Which, in a way, feels right.
Like walking past a dark tree line and not knowing what’s in it—
even if you tell yourself there’s nothing out there.
As far as anyone knows, Nyla’s still around.
Still near that door.
Still watching.
