It was a beautiful night.

Sam and Donny ate on the patio deck, enjoying the cricket chirping and frogs croaking on a warm summer night in Louisiana. They'd been together since they were young and still enjoyed each other.

Suddenly, the patio door opened and slammed shut with a loud slap just for it to be opened abruptly and slammed again.

"You can't just keep walking away when you don't like the conversation, Katie!" Dean shouted.

Sam and Donny never enjoyed their fights.

"I'm sorry I do not want to fuck you anymore after you slept with that Whore!!!!" She spun to face him, jabbing a finger in his chest, eyebrows furrowed in anger, and cheeks red as the tomatoes growing in the yard.

"I fucked her cause you weren't fucking me!," He yelled back. Clenching his fists, he pressed his lips together and stormed inside the house.

SLAM!

"Grr!" Katie stormed off the patio and walked out of sight.

Annoyed at their humans, they sauntered into the yard.

Sam lifted his leg; tomatoes were as good a place as any.

Donny, ever the opportunist, threw himself in a fresh pile of deer shit.

All was right in the world again.

——————————————————

"Shhhk! Shhhk!" The kitchen knife dragged slowly against the stone, its edge honed before being set aside for the night. Its slow rhythm filled the empty restaurant.

With the last of his Minnesota staff sent home, Lamar stood in his empty restaurant, savoring the calm after the storm.

Telly grazed out back near Duke's Stall. It still smelled like him.

——————————————————

Little Jimmy helped his mom with the dishes, and when his dad asked for his help to take out the trash, he jumped up eager to help the man he admired.

As Jimmy ran to the trashcan, Zoey rounded the corner.

HISS!

Zoey arched her back at Jimmy, fangs bared at him.

"Honey, you scared her. Let's not run in the house, okay?" His mom smiled at her little boy.

Jimmy smiled back at her, "Yes, mama! I love you so much!"

"Sorry, Zoey." Jimmy went to pet her, but she hissed at him again and slowly backed out of the kitchen.

Jimmy frowned and stuck his tongue out at Zoey as she disappeared around the corner.

"Don't mind her. She's never liked children. You'll grow older, and she won't mind you so much," his mom said as little Jimmy flew out the door.

****

Zoey slinked back into Jenny's room, hopped onto the bed, and kneaded the blanket beside her before curling up.

Jenny didn't look up from her phone, scrolling through the latest Orange County News.

Absentmindedly, she lifted her hand and hovered her fingers above Zoey.

Zoey lovingly lifted her head and pressed into Jenny's touch. She purred louder with each scratch between her ears.

The corner of Jenny's lips turned upward.

——————————————————

Walter threw the empty glass beer bottle at Blue, not because Blue was bad but because Walter simply hated him. His wife loves that dog more than life, and it's the only thing he has to hold over her to keep her from walking out.

Blue turned his face in time as the bottle hit the concrete ground and shattered into tiny sharp shards. The sharp crack of breaking glass made his body tense.

He whimpered in pain as he got up, his stomach still aching from last night's beating for eating the hot dog he dropped on the floor.

As he stood, Blue started limping across the yard. The chain tied to his already too-tight metal collar clanked against the ground.

"AW! Poor Blue! Too uptight to sit near your daddy?!"

Blue didn't look back at him. He was used to insults, jabs, physical abuse, and neglect. He was just grateful for the cool breeze and the small patch of grass underneath an apple tree.

Shocked that the old man hadn't cut the tree out of spite, the apples that fell to the ground would temporarily quiet his empty stomach.

"Walter!" Betsy came out to ask for help with lifting something in the house.

"What!"

Betsy sighed; she hated how nasty he was to her. "I need help in the house. The fridge is leaking again. Did you even feed Blue? I can see his ribs. I thought you said you increased the feed he's getting."

Walter unbuttoned the top of his jeans and stuck his hand under them to scratch his balls, ignoring her, continuing to smoke his Marlboro lights.

"Walter!" Betsy yelled.

"I said what woman! If youre gonna keep running your mouth, put my dick in it at least, Damn."

Betsy stormed back in the house.

Walter sighed, flicked the still-lit cigarette at Blue—missed—then grunted. He left the top of his pants unbuttoned, his pendulous belly hanging over the top, and walked in after Betsy.

Blue lowered his head onto the dirt and closed his eyes. Maybe tonight would be his last.

——————————————————

Mary couldn't stand it anymore and she'd be damned to keep walking by that dalapadated house one more time without doing something about it. Never mind, she was arrested last week and released on bail this morning. Her principals and morals would rather have her sitting in a jail cell for the rest of her life than not do something about the cruelty of this world.

"Fuck it!" She unlatched the chained linked gate about an hour after the lights turned off. She knew he was asleep because of the snoring so loud it shook the walls.

She brought some WD-40 after hearing the fence creak for the millionth time and sprayed the hinges.

Silence.

There he was, lying in the dirt, emaciated from malnutrition and bald spots in his brittle fur.

He heard her coming but didn't have enough energy to lift his head, though she knew he knew seeing his ears perk up a microscopic inch and then relaxed again.

Mary pulled out some bolt cutters and snapped the chain with two cuts.

She held out some peanut butter, something he would lick up fast before, but today he is too weak.

"Poor Blue, I'm so sorry," Mary said as she slipped over his snout a bite guard in case he was in so much pain he attacked.

Mary picked Blue's lightweight body up and crept out of the yard, leaving with Blue in her arms and lethargic.

He needed a vet, or he would not make it much longer.

"That fucking fat kentucky white trash," she mumbled under her breath as Blues breathing began to labor.

She takes him to her partner in crime, Johnny, the Vet. Her inside man lets her where animals have it the worst so she can rescue as many as possible while on earth—even if it's under six months.

——————————————————

"BillyBob!" Tammy yelled at him from the kitchen. She was slaving away over the hot stove, cooking for the entire family.

No response.

"Billy!"

BillyBob turned up the volume to the TV so he could hear the game over her bitching.

Tammy, frustrated, stormed into the living room, right up to the TV, and unplugged it.

The men in the family collectively groaned as if what she did was the most ungodly thing to have been done to them.

"We were watching that!" Grandpa hollered as he crumbled up the beer can and chucked it towards the trash can.

Little Bobby Jr. wined in the spirit of winning.

"It's a rerun, BillyBob, and if you had half the mind to pay the cable bill on time, you would have been able to watch it on Monday like the rest of the world. Now something's scaring the pigs they squealing."

"What do you want me to do about it!? pigs squeal, it's what they do." BillyBob asked as he was plugging the TV back in.

"Plug that back in before checking on our livelihood and i'll smash that TV in and you'll never get to watch a game again for the rest of your damn life."

****

An hour passed before Billybob walked back in, more relaxed than he had left and smelled of cigarettes.

"I thought I asked you to calm them down, not you," Tammy chastised him. "What the fuck took you so long?!"

Ignoring her, He grabbed a beer from the fridge and went upstairs.

——————————————————

And then the dust came...