Horrible People Love Animals

Chapter 1

“Are we really going to do it?” Cassie asked into the burdening silence of another slow, costly Friday.

“She paid for it,” Jen replied, her emotion lost in monotone as she entered the client’s information into the computer.

The sterile buzz of the waiting room and reception area made Cassie feel like a monster wrapped in a veterinarian’s coat. If only she could be as detached as the seasoned professionals on clinical podcasts. They murmured dry, throaty statements like, “at least we’re not human doctors.”

“But we don’t have to,” Cassie persisted, looking straight ahead. Meeting Jen’s eyes might set her off, and Cassie was too bewildered for another of their arguments. After the last one, Cassie had nearly moved out of their shared apartment and taken a job somewhere else. The restless anxiety and rage spurred her wakefulness into the wee hours of the morning.

“But.” Jen waited. For what Cassie didn’t know, but her tone was patronizing. “The client paid us to do this. Otherwise she would have taken them to a shelter. Or,” she paused again for effect, and Cassie hated it. “She would have asked us to take them.”

“To save them,” Cassie corrected. “We can still save them. They aren’t dead yet.”

“Don’t,” Jen replied, a note of warning in her voice.

It could be forgiven that Jen listened to country music and said opportunity a lot. That her daddy loved her, and she was ambitious, all qualities that drew Cassie to Jen when they first met in college. But Jen never hesitated to remind Cassie that she was the one with the MBA, and lecture her about debt. Just how much they would be in if their veterinary clinic sank.

To think, hours earlier, Cassie had come out of a successful surgery, handing a client the sparkly G-string she’d found lodged in his Labrador’s stomach. That dopamine hit was nowhere to be found now.

“I,” Cassie began, but didn’t finish.

Peter came through from the breakroom, easing into his sickly blue scrubs. “Cat?” he asked, eying the green carrier.

“No.” Cassie sighed and pinched her nose between her fingers to make sure she was breathing and wouldn’t faint. “Euthanasia. They’re puppies. I haven’t had a look yet, but I’m guessing either newborn or a few days old.”

“Oh.” Experience was evident in his tinged tone. Perhaps the numbness was something Cassie would look forward to when she was broken in.

“I can,” he began simply, looking her over with concern. “If you want to sit this one out.” He reached for the carrier.

“That won’t help me.” She tensed, and brought the carrier against her chest, cradling it with both arms. “I need to just do it.” She swallowed. It wasn’t a slick reflex as usual, but rather a challenged exercise that coated her throat with adrenaline.

“You’ll be fine,” Jen said.

Cassie shook her head and pushed the doors open. She walked down the bleak, white hallway and into the euthanasia suite that was big enough to fit a grieving family, herself or Peter, a nurse, and the equipment needed to ensure each pet had a comfortable departure. The room was too big for one person, leaving Cassie with a pervading, dangerous emptiness that she feared would swallow her. She stood in it alone for a few minutes holding the carrier over her heart. Was it possible to burn out this early in her career? She opened the carrier on the exam table and reached in, removing the creatures one at a time and lining them up on the table top.

The puppies had round seal heads. Their ears were small and pressed against their skulls. Some of them were the same colour as their mother, a mottled black and white cow spot. They grunted like little pigs. The grunting moved their whole bodies.

“You’re hungry,” Cassie whispered.

She was able to rub their bellies with only her index finger. A tan male puppy sucked on her thumb while she opened a drawer for syringes with the other hand. It would only be too late once the needles were unwrapped. She could still save them.

When was she going to turn off I’m going to save them and accept that she had to kill them?

She counted the victims of circumstance. There were eight, as the lady had said. It came in handy that she was truthful, because Jen hadn’t bothered to check. Then again, if there had been more than eight, Cassie could have saved the extras.

But she wanted to save them all.

She was setting the needles into the syringes and drawing liquid out of the pentobarbital vial when her phone vibrated in her pocket. She read the text to prolong eight lives.

It was Austin. Somehow, he always knew when she was vulnerable to him.

She slid the phone back into her pocket, and took a deep breath as if she were attempting a winter ocean dive. She felt naked, exposed. Every hurt paled in comparison. She was giving up what she loved and just making money.

Now she would kill them softly. She closed her eyes. In vet school she had learned to understand death and help others understand it too. Coping with it was different.

“Ouch,” she spoke for the puppies, and her chest pinched as she watched the intracardiac needles stop their hearts.

The puppies sighed in pain, their heads drooping one at a time as she stuck them and pushed the plunger.

Cassie imagined their journey through the clouds. If the rainbow bridge and pet heaven were real, would they forgive her? Or was it all a hoax, as she now suspected? If it was, they would not continue, and this was really the end. She felt like they deserved names before they left, as if it would somehow solidify their existence. Farm animals weren’t named because it was important not to get attached, and Cassie refused to see the puppies as a commodity. She named them, the words dropping from her mouth like wishes. Her mother had given her a book of baby names once upon a time, but Cassie would never use it.

Their tight little bodies went slack in her fist, and there was a sudden give to their lifeless flesh. Cassie loosened her grip shakily. She didn’t want to crush them, even if they were dead.

The bodies went into a clear bag used for IV fluid. Unlike the others, the last puppy was missing pigment in his nose, leaving it an irritated pink. Cassie settled them into the bag and lifted. The biohazardous waste collectors only came twice a week, so they would sit in a freezer for three days.

Cassie played with her stethoscope as she flew down the long, narrow hallway. The stark whiteness of it seemed to go on forever. The double doors swished back, dulling the squeaks and barks of the overnight room as they closed. Reception was quiet except for Jen and her country radio, the banjos chaffing Cassie’s already irritated skin.

Her fingers were cold, and annoyance rose in her chest once more, except this time it was debilitating.

“I can’t believe you,” Cassie said. She’d meant for it to be strong, but it was quiet and broken.

“What?” Jen looked up from the computer. “You want to get paid this month, right?”

In Cassie’s silence, Jen added, “Sleep on it is all I’m saying. This stuff is only traumatic until you get used to it.”

“Oh, get your head out of your ass.” Anger helped mask all the sadness that she’d held on to until it soaked through her clothes and pulsed outwards like a slashed artery. Soon her skin would be dripping, weeping with the pressure of the water behind the dam. It was unprofessional to cry, she told herself. Very unprofessional to cry on the job.

Jen swiveled in her chair. “It’s not like I could do it. That pentobarb stuff is a controlled substance. Peter offered, but no. You had to be that type-A vet student.”

“I’m not a student anymore,” Cassie shouted. Sure, she was new, and hadn’t completed a residency, but it was Jen who was after this whole, ‘I work with cute animals in my very own vet clinic on weekdays’ persona.

“Why don’t you do your job then? You’re good enough at having time off. How about work for once. Otherwise I’ll have you twirling around in a dog suit offering discounted spay and neuter surgeries.”

“You know I’m sick.” Cassie’s voice started to break, and she hated herself for it. It wasn’t her fault that no one knew anything about endometriosis. Chronic pain was the norm, but every so often, she had a bad day and couldn’t sit still or move, so consulting on a complex neuro case with Peter was out of the question.

“I know.” Jen lowered her voice. “But I’m trying too. Really trying with only three members of staff right now. When I come home and you’re watching a rom com on the couch, you gotta understand that it pisses me off,” she caught herself, “even if I know your absence is justified.” Though Jen finished the statement with understanding, it still came across as if no one else would employ Cassie because she was tardy and frivolous.

Dolly Parton drawled over the radio, filling the silence that curdled between them. “Can you turn that crap off?” It was nit-picky in the moment, but Cassie wouldn’t mind being able to listen to a smooth eighties station once in a while. It would make her filing a lot more accurate.

Jen’s mouth pressed together, as if she were finding her Zen, something they both did on a yoga mat on Saturday mornings. The pleasant coffees and chit-chat of their weekends were projected in a new light under Jen’s murky resentment of Cassie’s sick days. It was unbearable to think Jen hated her so much over lost productivity, but Cassie couldn’t be surprised. Jen was the brute capitalist force behind the business. She had goals, and was earnest about them. Perhaps this whole thing was a tick box exercise, another attitude Cassie could relate to. The only issue was, Cassie felt lost in her work life and had no social life either, no scales to balance them with.

“I’m leaving,” Cassie said.

“Your shift doesn’t end for several hours,” Jen replied. She’d turned back to the computer. Country music continued to play.

“Not like that,” Cassie said. “I mean, I’m really leaving this time.” She pulled the stethoscope from around her neck, laid it on the desk and walked out.

Chapter 2

Cassie woke the next morning against Austin’s Adam’s apple, breathing at his throat. The night before, the moon had shone on his back through the window, watching her, and she had cupped his face with the intent of saying something along the lines of, “I love you.”

But she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Instead she wondered if he noticed the excess of her belly, or later the cellulite on her ass.

It crossed her mind as she touched his shoulders that Jen had no idea where she was, or that she was still sleeping with him. After all her warnings that Austin was bad news.

Cassie was all too familiar with his home. The smell of espresso and old-fashioned liquorice hard candies. The cocoon of his duvet engulfed her, as did the light damp on her skin after their night together. In truth she felt like an intruder. Every once in a while she swung back to him. She recognised destructive tendencies again, and then they lost touch. She didn’t know enough about his life anymore to understand what was going on between them.

Austin stirred and exhaled without saying anything. Cassie was the first to smile. He had stayed local after graduating, and got that great job doing what he loved. The problem was, they weren’t together, and she wasn’t sure why he hadn’t returned to Texas.

“Looks like I have a beautiful woman in my bed,” he mumbled. “I didn’t expect this kind of pick-me-up before my coffee.”

“I hate you,” she replied gently, and leaned her head into his chest, smothering her voice.

Her face was round and certainly not beautiful. Eyes always tired and bloodshot without the help of makeup, leaving her skin pale with blue veins trailing up under her chin and neck.

He shifted and pulled the covers over her shoulders. “So you’re decent.” He smirked. Not that it mattered, he’d already seen all of her.

She traced the line of his strong jaw. Apparently he had liked her first, as an ambitious twenty-five-year-old doing a second bachelor’s degree. When they met in college, Cassie had been a bumbling, depressed, fat idiot.

“You better?” he asked.

No, she wasn’t really. She had killed eight puppies yesterday. After Jen confronted her about crying, she exploded, saying she couldn’t do it anymore. Only, she hadn’t been that articulate. She sobbed something before storming out, and ignoring Jen’s phone calls. Leaving work shaky and teary, she answered Austin’s text message with a call. A few whiskey and cokes later, she reacquainted her mouth with his and took off all her clothes. After all their efforts to be friends, and only friends. He gushed a bit about liking her a lot. She was so beautiful. Etcetera. The complements he used to reel her in no longer held any sincerity. She went home with him desperate for some tenderness. She was a murderer, and needed someone to kiss it better. But what was she going to do from here? It wasn’t like she could afford to move out of Jen’s apartment.

She changed the subject. “I’m so sorry.” He must be seeing someone else. “I just needed someone.” She began to cry.

He drew her closer. “You’re not okay, are you?”

“No.” She shook her head against him trying to steady her breathing. She wanted to hide herself like this forever. He was the only one who needed to see her face.

He hushed her and ran his hand down her back.

“I’m starting to hate my job and resent my best friend,” she hiccupped and wiped her face.

“Jen can be very difficult. Remember, I’ve lived with her too. But you’re around each other twenty-four seven. I don’t know how you’ve survived.” He shivered. “Gosh, we used to be roommates. Can you believe that?”

She laughed, but searched his face for answers. He made eye contact, and it looked confident.

“That’s better,” he said, and touched her cheek.

Austin had a way of being wonderful, supportive. She was probably still drawn to him because he wanted a family. His attitude and appearance were situated somewhere between his father and mother, both Texan farmers Cassie only knew briefly when they were dating. That one trip to Texas, to his family farm in El Paso, made her feel terribly out of place.

Austin’s curtains hid what Cassie believed would be a lovely, hopefully temperate Saturday morning. The sun tickled the walls and floor through the fabric. Perhaps they could share a walk? A cup of coffee? More than a bed and two bodies.

He drew her attention back to bed and whispered in her ear. She turned her face into his cheek. This time she didn’t let herself think of her stretch marks or knobbly knees. Instead she let him become one with her.

When it was over, she considered forgiving herself for the puppies and her judgement of Jen. Making the situation a tick-box exercise with clinical detachment was easier than radical changes to her lifestyle.

The walk that followed was unpromising. Fitchburg was not a pretty place. There were no small businesses, only extinguished neon lights that belonged to brand signs. They looked even uglier in the daytime, unlit and dripping with bird waste and feathers. The sidewalks were cracked, and the curb sprayed with neon yellow paint to prevent accidents. Patches of grass suffocated between each block in the baking heat.

They had left it too late and now it was hot. If they had gone earlier, the air would have been more comfortable. The sun would be less hostile, and families would still be asleep. Kids, parents, and pets waddled slowly towards the community’s park, which was just a trodden baked field full of dog shit.

Austin’s clothes hung lazy on his lanky frame, and he appeared tan instead of mixed. When they were first introduced, Jen had mentioned that Austin was well spoken as if it were some sort of accomplishment.

The roads were busy with cars that swerved around each other, bleating like sheep. Austin’s head followed them. She couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, and his hands hung in his jean pockets.

He caught her looking, and with raised eyebrows, began to strut comically with wagging hips, taking the lead. When he passed her with the same movements and posture, he lifted his glasses and began to sing from his throat. She laughed because it sounded terrible.

“That’s the point,” he said. “And now you’re better. You don’t look like you’re going to cry.”

“As if,” Cassie replied. She hoped she didn’t appear as heartsick as she felt.

He took a moment before smiling, though the rest of his face remained pinched. “What’s your plan? Because you aren’t happy, Cassie.”

She immediately wanted his goofy, daffy side back. The young man she thought of as her first true love. The subject of her happiness? They had been here before, and she couldn’t answer.

She didn’t have a plan, and perhaps she just needed to grow up, but she felt an overwhelming urge to give into her frothing flight instinct.

“I don’t want to kill baby animals,” she said before she could think of something better. “Yesterday made me feel sick.”