Not how I thought it would go

I was sitting outside in a caricature of a park, reading what I could of the charred pages of a dime romance novel when I heard it: a quiet swishing sound, irregular but with an almost-rhythm to it. Sneaky feet walking over dry grass. It was late spring and though I had once heard that turf grass was supposed to be a hardy sort, the lack of man-made maintenance and untainted rain had done a number on it. Mottled brown and almost wicked, speckled with green where something weedier had summoned some kind of strength from the dying earth. It might not have been pretty to look at, but it did make sneaky feet easy to hear.

Swish swish. My spine straightened and the sound stopped. The mutt at my feet, a skinny thing with a comically large head, mottled brown and clinging to life just as desperately as the grass around me, did not look up. It just kept dozing in my shadow. Since I had found the wretched thing, I had been trying to figure out if it was dumb, deaf, or lazy with limited success. That was part of its charm, perhaps.

Swish swish. Closer now. I nudged the pooch with my boot, but instead of jumping to high alert, looking fearsome with bared teeth and foaming gums, it rolled onto its back and whuffed out a grunt.

Swish swish swish. The sound was very close now. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Hand on my blaster, I turned suddenly, face sunburned and smeared with filthy soot, eyebrows drawn menancingly, mouth pulled into a tight line.

But there was no one there. Just a scrap of a dirty magazine that the dusty wind had tossed my way, forgotten and forlorn like a suburban tumbleweed.. I was, all at once, relieved and disappointed by my printed company which promised low low prices and blowout deals on children's clothes. The red inks had run and the sun had bleached much of the vibrancy from the everything else.

I turned to find the dog on its feet, crooked tail tentatively wagging and reddened, mite-bitten ears perked high, hoping that the item in my hands was part of our next meal.

I tucked the scrap between the brittle pages of smut and set them carefully in my bag. The park felt too open, too exposed. I clicked my tongue idly and set out to find a more secluded spot in a city devoid of life.