Free Painkillers by Simon Ings

the bottom. I edged back to where Boots was hanging and wedged the iron under the first bolt. But I was one-handed and clumsy and the lip slid off the head. A bone cracked.
    The kitchen door grated open.
    I dropped the tire iron and came out from behind the bonnet.
    Eva poked her head around the garage door. 'Have you seen Boots?' she called, over the purr of the engine.
    'No.'
    'He's not in the house.'
    'He must be,' I said.
    'He's not.'
    'Well he's not in here.'
    She hesitated at the door, all little-girl-lost. 'What are you doing?' She wrinkled her nose. 'Trying to gas yourself?'
    'Well don't stand over the exhaust pipe,' I said.
    She stepped round the side of the car.
    'No.'
    'What?'
    'The car's filthy, you'll get your dress messed up.'
    'What are you doing anyway?'
    'I think a spark plug needs replacing.'
    'Now?'
    'It's okay.'
    'How can you see to work?'
    'It's okay.'
    'What's the matter with the light?'
    She reached for the switch.
    'I don't need it,' I snapped.
    'Oh well break your neck in the dark then,' she said. 'Miserable sod.'
    I waited until I heard the kitchen door slam shut.
    Boots's leg was shattered, splinters of bone sticking through the skin. I bent the leg away from the wall: it made a wet, clicking sound. If I wasn't careful I'd prise the leg away and leave the paw bolted to the wall.
    With my good hand I fixed the tire iron under the bolt again and worked it more gently. It began grinding in its socket. Another minute and the thread disintegrated. After that I managed to jiggle the bolt out by hand. I looked for somewhere to wipe the blood off my fingers. There was an old pair of jeans I used for painting in a bag behind the toolbox. I was just fishing them out when the kitchen door opened again.
    'Bootsie?'
    I heard Eva scuffing about in the basement area, and a rustling as she pulled aside the undergrowth of overgrown budleia and honeysuckle. 'Oh Boots.'
    The other bolts were loose. They'd used too powerful a gun, because the cement had pulverised around the metal. Once that first, difficult bolt was free, Boots was pretty much just hooked there. I got him down, clumsily enough, trying to keep his blood off my clothes. When he fell his muzzle came open and a black pool ran out of his mouth. I knelt down and felt inside. His tongue was missing.
    The message was pretty much unmistakable. How many more of these, I wondered, before they ran over my head?
    I cast around for the tongue in the dark. Maybe it was somewhere in that puddle of brown slurry at my feet. Either that or we were going to find it under the pillow come bedtime. Or floating in the milk carton at breakfast. Or -
    The exhaust fumes were making me nauseous so I slid into the driver's seat and turned off the engine. I took the keys with me as I climbed out. I went round the back of the car and opened the boot. I lifted out the plastic liner Eva had laid there to catch crumbs and spillages. Flakes of dried icing dusted my trousers.
    I carried the liner round to the front of the car, laid it out and rolled Boots onto it. I wrapped him up and dragged him round to the boot. I needed both hands to get him into the car. I tried not to rub the liner across my stitched palm, got my arms round him at last, and manhandled him into the boot.
    'Are you going to help me or not?'
    I slammed the boot shut so hard the car bounced.
    'He's not in the house,' she said.
    'Did we leave a door unlocked?'
    'No.'
    I put my hands in my pockets in case she saw blood stains. I stood side on to her, and glanced down my shirt front. It was too dark to see anything. 'Then how can he have gone?'
    I followed her back into the house along the leaf-sodden path to the kitchen door. In the light from the kitchen window I saw my shirt was clean.
    In the house, there was nothing out of place. No sign, beyond the missing dog, that they had been here. I couldn't resist looking under the pillows in the bedroom - God knows what Eva made of that - but there was nothing there.
    I