We all gathered in the hangout room — the one I took food from the last time I was there — and Mickey turned on the enormous TV mounted on the wall. There was only one couch, so Anita, Mickey, Darius and I sat while the others stood. It was already tuned to the news, and a middle aged woman with blindingly white teeth sat at a desk and read off a teleprompter.
“A Central High School football game was interrupted Friday evening after a parent was arrested for tying his horse to the bleachers. The parent insists that it is within his rights as an American citizen to park his horse where he pleases, and that the police were abusing their power. More on that after the break.”
“Wow, that was fucking riveting,” I said, looking at Mickey. “Glad I hauled sixty asses from Texas to Tennessee to see that. I hope the dad gets the justice he deserves.”
“Hold your fucking horses, Gus,” Mickey said, not turning his gaze from the TV, looking intently at the commercial for prescription-grade antidiarrheal medicine.
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The bright-toothed woman was back on the screen, sitting at a desk across from a middle aged man dressed like John Wayne who was talking about horse parking laws. Mickey didn’t blink. I opened my mouth and Mickey immediately put a hand up in front of my face.
“Just wait. It’s comin’. It’s comin’.”
As if on cue, the man in the cowboy hat was pulled violently to the floor, out of the camera’s view. A second later, the same happened to the news anchor. Terrible, familiar sounds came from the TV: desperate screams, the ripping of skin, the crunching of bones, and the snarling of the clayhounds. I couldn’t see them, but their sound was unmistakable. The camera picked up the sounds of chaos coming from the newsroom.
“Leave it on.”
A southern drawl penetrated the chaos.
“Turn that camera off and the dogs are comin’ after you, boy.”
My heart sank into my small intestine. Every muscle in my body seized and I felt paralyzed, almost like Mickey had touched me, but he was still on the other side of the couch, looking almost as tense as I was.
“So it’s true. Today’s the big day,” Mickey said. He tried to project his regular cocky attitude, but his body betrayed him, and his voice warbled like a kid trying not to cry.
The clayhounds had finished their meals and the snarling died down. The rest of the newsroom settled into total silence, except for the sound of boots thumping against the tile floor.
Alec stepped into the shot and sat down at the anchor’s desk.