Free Dead Dogs by Joe Murphy

front door is a big, mahogany-red slab of wood and to either side it’s got these tall skinny windows of wavy glass that reach halfway to the ground. Through them the yellow light in Dr Thorpe’s hallway lights up the doorstep and the first few yards of driveway. Me and Seán stand in the yellow light and we listen hard. We don’t say anything and Seán’s mouth has unhinged and he’s concentrating so hard that a little bit of drool is hanging from his lower lip.
    We’re listening so hard that the next sound makes us both jump.
    Something in the house breaks and you can hear a man’s voice not shouting but getting there.
    Seán goes to say something but I’m putting my finger on my lips and then I’m bending down so that when I look in through the wavy glass at the side of the door I’m sort of hidden by the wooden panel at the bottom. I can’t see much and the rippledglass panelling only shows shapes. Black on gold. But I’m getting a sense of perspective. I can make out the length of the hall and the bright blaze of the room at the end. It’s like Dr Thorpe’s house is decorated the colour of honey.
    I can’t see much so I bend a little lower and lift the letterbox a little. I’m lifting the letterbox and then I’m looking through.
    Way down the hallway, way way down where the bright light comes from the room at the end, I can see two shapes. One on top of the other. I see Dr Thorpe and he’s on top of this woman with real frizzy red hair. They are both naked and pale and sweating . He’s on top of her and his hands are round her neck and they’re vibrating he’s squeezing so hard. Then he stops and then he’s looking at her and her face isn’t moving. Then something horrible happens. I’m kneeling down in the thick fake summer light of Dr Thorpe’s house nearly breathing it in like breathing in the fake pine that clots the air coming through the letterbox and I’m watching Dr Thorpe do something much much worse than anything Seán’s ever done. Dr Thorpe’s rearing naked above the woman’s own nakedness and he brings his right fist down in a long arcing missile trajectory. It smacks into her face with a hard packing sound. There’s no blood yet but the woman yelps because she’s been slapped back from the brink of unconsciousness . Then she gasps and grabs at her throat and looks around making this raw ragged sound, like she must have imagined what just happened.
    But she isn’t imagining and I’m kneeling sickened as Dr Thorpe hits her three more times. Her white limbs writhe as shekicks out beneath him. Now she’s crying and wheezing and now Dr Thorpe grabs her again by the neck. There’s blood coming from her lips and making jagged rivulets down her cheeks. They look like black scrawls of ink. They make her face look cracked. A cracked porcelain doll’s face, broken and distorted. There’s a stillness about her now. She is heavy and lax as a bag of clay. Her head has gone sideways and her eyes are looking right at me but she can’t see me. She can’t see anything.
    She looks the way I remember my Mam looking in old photos . Like she’s 2D. Like she’s not really there.
    I know she’s dead and Dr Thorpe knows too and he leans forward and his face is so close to hers that it’s like he’s going to kiss her on the cheek. His talk-show host’s hair is a sandy wave in the sandy light and it doesn’t move and it glimmers with hairspray. His eyes have a fire in them that Seán’s could never match. His eyes are shining marbles and he looks stoned. He looks ecstatic. He leans forward and he puts his finger to his lips and he says to her, ‘Shhhhhhhhhh.’

 
    I’ve only ever been to one proper party in my entire life and my Da hammered the shite out of me afterwards. This was last year and I’m only just gone fifteeen. This is before the fucked-up trip to Dublin and before I know what Rory’s big brother does for finance. Rory, the other keeper, lives on Courthouse Street with