EDITOR'S NOTE: We are pleased to present an excerpt from The Bitchfight, Michael A. Arnzen's latest excursion in squeam inducing horror outrageousness. The novella is currently available for pre-order from Bad Moon Books and should ship by the end of this month. Look for a review tomorrow, and an interview with Arnzen, conducted by Jeff Strand, on Friday. I previously reviewed Arnzen's CD Audiovile.



Chapter One from THE BITCHFIGHT


by Michael A. Arnzen

A wood-burned "Beware of Dog" sign was plastered above the peephole on Guido Vinelli's front door. Usually those signs meant nothing, but here it only made me jittery, because this was a mobster's dog. As I climbed the front stoop, I took a few deep breaths, reminded myself that I had no other options, and then pressed the black button of his doorbell.


A battery of rapid-fire barks responded from the other side of the door -- guttural yipes unlike anything I'd ever heard before. The barking got louder and louder until something meaty slammed into the door -- something large and tall enough to rattle the brass knob.


It had squealed on impact. Concerned, I pressed my ear against the door panel but then immediately pulled back as loud scratching noises scrabbled into my eardrums. The animal on the other side was trying to claw right through the wood to get at me. And it sounded huge.


"One minute!" a husky, exasperated voice called from inside the house. Then I heard three fleshy slaps, followed by a dissipating whimper. I love all animals, but part of me was thankful that whatever lurked behind the door was now firmly under control.


Eventually, the door opened wide and a large Italian man as round as a Weeble doll rocked side to side in front of me. He huffed and sweated and then bent forward, bracing his obesity on his knees. He smelled of stale Parmesan, and the wisps of hair greased-back over his baldness reminded me of a guy named Vito I used to know. Only this guy's name was Guido. Vito, Guido -- same difference. Both were connected.


"You..." Guido held up a hand while he caught his breath. "You the vet?"


I nodded, letting my soiled lab coat and name badge speak for itself. Normally, I would have lectured him for abusing his pet, but this time I had to play nice. I had a job to do and I wanted it to go quickly.


"I'm glad you're here," he said, inhaling a gallon-sized breath before standing fully erect. "Please..." Guido moved aside and pointed to a puffy brown sofa that looked custom built to accommodate his size. "Come in. Sit down."


I obeyed, sliding around a coffee table that had more dents and scratches on it than a bumper car in a kiddie park. I set my medical bag on my lap as I was consumed by the leathery fat of his couch.


Guido's living room was a mess and it smelled gamy. He had a penchant for dog track memorabilia and other kitschy canine things. Crumpled dog breeder magazines and weathered racing forms littered every surface, many curled open on the floor like the OTB on a bad day. Old pictures hung crooked on his walls -- from his yellowing family portrait to his terribly crude black velvet paint-by-numbers in a frame, featuring bulldogs playing poker. And Guido's sofa seemed as hairy as a barber's shop floor. I made a mental note to use the lint roller as soon as I got back to my car.


I hated house calls. While my clinic stank of cat urine and doggie drool, at least the interns managed to give the place some semblance of hygiene. But house calls like these always involved seeing the ugly side of people and their pets -- the private side, the side they usually don't bother wiping clean. And it also revealed the way owners really treated their animals when no one was looking. I preferred just seeing them coo with concern and sign over a big check for my care and attention. But in their homes, I had to confront the unattractive truth of pet ownership -- from unwashed bowls of food to unscooped litter boxes, from bloody choke chains to crap-laden doghouses -- and it always disgusted me. People never seem to recognize the abuse that underpins their love. How could they be so careless?


I'd stopped doing house calls long ago, when my clinic became financially secure. But those days, I now realized, were over. Here I was, sinking into the sofa of a mob captain, checking up on a pet for the most tired of reasons: because I needed the money. Yesterday, one of the Furioso Brothers had knocked on my office door with brass knuckles since I'd missed my third payment on a poker debt. After Tommy Furioso showed me how the knuckles worked, he told me I could pay off what I owed them by making a house call to a friend of his, or else he'd be using the nose of his pistol to ring my bell the next time. He didn't bother to hear my sob story about how I was behind on the rent for my clinic and my apartment, or how I hadn't been eating much more than tuna fish and crackers for months. He just wanted payback.


"It's my little girl, Alonza." Guido sat down beside me, wiping his brow. "I was told by our mutual acquaintance that you could fix the little pooch right up."


I nodded, trying hard to keep my mask of professionalism from sliding off my ears. "I'd have to examine her first to know what she needs, of course, but I'll do my best."


Guido carefully sized me up. He was rolling a magazine in his hands like he might hit me with it. Instead he tapped the cylinder against his leg. "Johnny Furioso tells me you're the best vet in town. And Johnny Furioso never lies. So if you're good enough for Johnny, you're good enough for me." He cracked my knee playfully with the magazine tube. "I think you'll do just fine, Doc."


A little girl wearing a stained t-shirt and plaid flannel boxers entered the room, carrying a pair of slippers. Her hair was a mess, but she was a beautiful sight compared to the filth that surrounded us. Her hair had that natural sheen of blonde that only little kids have -- that new hair look. She appeared no older than five, but I couldn't be sure. As she handed the slippers to Guido, he patted her on the head with his magazine tube and said "good girl" in baby talk.


Although demeaning, this might have been an ordinary exchange if it wasn't for the fact that the girl had been carrying his slippers (Text) in her mouth. Like a dog.


The girl yipped and trounced over to me on all fours, jumping up on my knees and leaning over them with her forearms stiff and wrists all floppy, as if she had paws. She panted and I smelled something like Hamburger Helper. "Um, how cute," I said, patting her head in a sharp way that I hoped would make her leave. "Now where's Alonza? I'd like to get started on her treatment."


"What are you, blind?" Guido asked, gesticulating at the child in pajamas.


The girl barked and drooled on my pants.


I leaned back, but Guido made a face that said I better play along. "Pet her," he ordered. "Go on. She won't bite."


I chuckled at that as I tentatively scratched the child on the chin.


Alonza likewise was tentative at first as she began humping my leg.


Guido slapped the rolled up magazine against the sofa: "Lon-zie! Bee-have!"


The girl leapt away, scrabbling to the corner on all fours. She dove onto a pillow that was surrounded by chewed up plastic dolls and crumbles of broken bone biscuits. The doctor part of me found it curious that a female would grind my leg -- only male dogs do that. The non-doctor part of me gently tapped the doctor part of me on the shoulder and reminded him that this wasn't a dog in the first place, but an actual human being.


This child needed help, but not from a vet. Lonzie was seriously disturbed. I couldn't call the cops, given my predicament with the Furioso Brothers, but maybe I could make an anonymous call to a social worker. I awkwardly climbed out of the sofa and grabbed my bag handle tight with both hands as I faced Guido. "I'm sorry but there's been some mistake," I said, and looked over toward the door. "I don't do...children."


"Stay." He clasped his hands around the magazine in supplication. "I mean (Text) please don't leave. Little Lonzie really needs your help, Doctor. There's no one else who can do this."


I tried to keep things rational. "But I'm not a pediatrician," I said. "And even if I was, I don't think I could solve this problem, which is clearly psycho...."


Alonza whimpered as though whipped and when I looked toward her doggie bed in the corner I caught her tugging something pink and yellow on her leg. Something I'd seen a million times before: an infected wound. But what stopped me in my tracks was the fact that the kid was nuzzling her teeth into the pus and gnashing on her own tissue. Guido might be a kind of child abuser, but he was right in looking out for her wounds: she needed medical attention.


I went to her corner and crouched down to balance on her level. "Now, now," I said, petting her like I would stroke an irritated Dachshund, rubbing the nerves on the neck to calm her down. "It'll be okay, Alonza. Let me see your boo-boo." She eventually stopped chewing on her kneecap and lifted her chin as an invitation to rub it, panting and flicking her eyes at me every now and then, wagging her tongue in that happy way that dogs do when they've decided to trust you.


The drool dripping from her mouth was repulsive, and her breath could have killed a tiny bird, but I tried to keep my focus on the child's sore knee. It was just a simple laceration, but the flesh had been worked far beyond raw. It was actually just an advanced case of rug burn. And that meant that this kid had been crawling on all fours for a very long time.


Guido was standing above us, thick magazine twisting in his hands like a baton he'd use on me if he didn't like what I found. I saw the title, bending in his grip: Front and Finish. I recognized the obedience trainer's journal immediately. Surely he knew the difference between training a dog and disciplining a child. What was going on here?


"It's not too bad," I said, opening my bag and pulling out some topical ointment and latex gloves. "Just a minor infection, actually." I rubbed some of the antibacterial oils into the girl's knee and she smiled at me, baring canines like fangs. They seemed sharper and more developed than most kid's teeth. Drool gushed around her tongue. I assumed this meant the lotion soothed her, but Alonza also looked like she could tear my skin off and use my flesh for a set of kneepads if I rubbed her the wrong way.


Guido crouched beside us, petting the kid along with me. "So my little scrapper is gonna be good to go?"


I withdrew some gauze from my bag and began wrapping the girl's knee. This was usually the part of the visit where I would chat it up with the pet owner, talking about whatever was on The Weather Channel that morning or some other advance in veterinary science. But here, keeling on Guido's living room carpet with a girl who behaved like she was a dog, and squatting beneath a man who thought he was her master, I didn't quite know what to say. This was a case of child abuse, plain and simple. I'd heard Alonza get whipped behind the door when I first rang the bell. Guido made her serve him slippers like a trained animal. And yet Guido hadn't explicitly asked for them, had he? And he was petting the girl with the loving hand of a parent. I tried to reason things out in my mind. Maybe this was just a kid's game, some wacky role playing? Maybe Alonza was just insane and this was some crazy psychologist's idea of therapy? Or maybe she was one of those Eastern European babies who get abandoned in the woods, raised by a pack of wolves in some cave and...adopted by a mob family years later?


None of it seemed plausible. I spooled the remainder of my gauze around Alonza's knees and looked into her eyes. She returned a familiar glare -- the same jittery suspicion that all the animals I work on give me. That primal communication that all dogs and cats and birds and ferrets give when you meet them in the wild. Animal signals . That's all I saw behind the girl's blue eyes. Nothing human, except the caveman part of her, the primitive side...which in this case had decided it was an Italian Pointer.


Her body, not just her behavior, confirmed it. She had the musculature of a mutt and a nose as big as Snoopy. But worse was the sign around her neck: a bruised red halo, the symptom of a leash tugged too tight, too often. I spotted plenty of scabs and abrasions and bruises elsewhere.


Guido tickled her chin, unconcerned. "I'm teaching her all sorts of command phrases and trigger words. Point. Protect. Things like that. She's a quick study..."


He wasn't teaching her. He was training her. Everything inside of me wanted to pick the kid up and make a break for the nearest police station. But I knew that would only dig my grave in the Furioso's back yard. And I could only imagine what sort of torture Guido was capable of, if he was dehumanizing an innocent little girl like this in such a sick and twisted manner. I didn't know what to say or do, but the Hippocratic Oath -- which for vets was more about hippos than medical ethics -- was the furthest thing from my mind. The best course of action was just to play along for awhile, to finish squaring up my debt to the Furioso Brothers, and to get the hell away from this freakshow of a family.


I'd learned my lesson: no more gambling for me.


Alonza growled deeply in her prepubescent chest as I taped the wrap snugly around her leg. I shot to a full stand, eager to depart. Her left nostril lifted up in a snotty childish sneer -- a satanic Shirley Temple -- and she barked so authentically I jumped.


"Well, that ought to do it," I said with a surprisingly calm voice as I cooled down and snapped my bag closed with a punctuated click. I eased away from Alonza and handed Guido the tube of ointment. "You should check her leg once a day. Keep refreshing it with that antibacterial gel. Be sure to use all of it -- go all the way until the tube is empty, even when the scabs harden over. It'll prevent permanent scars." I wasn't sure why I mentioned that last part; the child already had scars all over her, apparently from scratching herself with her own sharp-nailed paw-hands. But I was speaking as if on script and it was helping me keep cool and get the hell out of there. Habits had their benefits.


Guido smiled and nodded, pleased with my treatment. "Thanks, Doc."


I parroted his smile. This was easier than I thought. My debt was paid. "You're welcome," I said, casually walking toward the door. I gripped the knob.


"Where are you going?"


I opened the door. Enjoyed a lungful of fresh air. Turned. The girl was snarling and drooling by Guido's knee, poised like a pit bull, eager for its owner's command to attack. Her canines glinted with spit and it was now abundantly clear to me that Guido had sharpened them down to needle-sized points.


The man moved closer, Alonza guarding by his side. "I asked where you're going, Doc?"


I met his hard brown eyes. "What's the problem, Guido? I was told the Furioso's would be square if I came over and treated your...animal."


"Yeah?" He was now close enough to punch me.


"Yes." I lowered my chin and stood as straight as I could. "And she's all better now, so I'm going back to the clinic, and..."


"Oh!" He laughed, awkwardly cutting me off and gripping my shoulder as if in gentle friendship. Then Guido pulled me toward him a little. "I'm sorry, Doc. I think we were both confused. You thought that you were here just to fix up my Lonzie's cute little leg?" He chuckled. "That's nothing. An old sore. I didn't expect you to fix her up right now." He began squeezing my shoulder muscle like he was testing Italian bread at the supermarket. "The Furiosos didn't tell you about tonight? That's when I need you, Doc. When we need you."


I frowned. "Tonight?"


"Tonight!"


"What's tonight?" I asked, not sure I wanted to know.


"The Bitchfight," he said, as if it were sane.


Alonza licked her chops as he shut the front door behind him and lead me back to the sofa.


##

About the author:


Michael Arnzen is the author of several strange books, including Play Dead, 100 Jolts, and Grave Markings. He has won the Bram Stoker Award thrice, in addition to the International Horror Guild Award, and he holds a PhD in Literature. Arnzen presently teaches horror courses at Seton Hill University, just outside of Pittsburgh. Learn more about Arnzen and The Bitchfight at gorelets.