This is the stuff that happens in the other world, where I am much more important.     

      A crazy ex-girlfriend stole my dog.  When she dropped him back off, a square had been shaved in his side and he had stitches.  Poor guy, he was all doped up and confused, and he couldn't even tell me what she had done to him.  I did the only thing I could think to do, started calling up all the vets in town asking about what elective surgeries they offered for dogs.

      I left the party early, on foot.  Wondered down a dead end and when I turned around I realized I was in someone's yard.  There was a chain at my feet.  It was a dog chain and it was very, very long.  I turned and there was the dog, a big, angry Rot.  It was growling and glaring up at me and all I could do was hold it back with my fist on it's nose and hope it didn't decide to bite as I slowly backed away.  The slack on the chain was too long, there was no way I would back all the way out of the yard without getting my throat, or worse, ripped out.  But then I realized there was a way.  I had been snacking on a bag of Cheetos.  I dumped them on the ground and the dog dug in.  I made my retreat. 

      “What’s that noise? Does that mean something is on fire?”
      “No, that means the laundry is done. A fire alarm sounds like it’s the end of the world.”
      “What does an end of the world alarm sound like?”
      “You don’t wanna hear it.”

      “I’m Justin.”
      “Yeah, I know you. I’m your neighbor from downstairs in another dimension. I’ve seen you walking around but you're translucent. How did you get here?”

      I followed the nurse into a run down, grimy house on the edge of town. She was there on a court appointed visit. I had my business clothes on, my coat and my hat, and of course my gun holster. The first floor was barren except for a wrought iron bench by one busted out window. A thick layer of dust covered everything. It was every abandoned house ever, thoroughly unloved and forgotten.
       The nurse ignored me as I lagged behind, taking in the scene. She was all business. As she quickly climbed the stairs I began to feel quite uneasy. Someone actually lived here, and it had been a long time since anyone had come or gone from this place. I hurried my step to catch up to her.
       I rounded the corner at the landing just as she opened the iron gate and marched in to the dark, cluttered loft. I had only a moment to look around before it happened, but in some places a glance tells the whole story. Straight ahead against the wall was a small personal stove, dirty and unused for a long time. Old toys, stuffed animals in various stages of decay lay strewn about the floor.
The nurse was only a few steps inside when the thing, the boy, charged at her. His skin was the color of a dying salamander. He was painfully skinny, and sharp fangish ribs poked out in every direction. His teeth were spaced and jagged, like a rat’s. He pulled himself along with frail but agile arms. The pathetic, twisted wreck of his lower half dragged limply along behind him, like a sad little brother. He glanced at me just before he jumped at the nurse, and that wild, vicious, starving, vengeful face was all it took to break me. The nurse screamed in terror and agony and I fled down the stairs, shoved backward by sharp, selfish horror. As the nurse cried out in stomach turning shrieks I bounded out into the street, toward the safety of the crowd. My gun rested faintly in the back of my mind.
       I pulled myself together, speaking to no one, and finally after a while returned to the house. I had resolved to do what I should have done to the poor thing in the first place, but of course it was too late now to redeem myself. As soon as I stepped foot back inside I knew that he was gone. I walked slowly up to his room, my gun drawn now, and tried not to look too closely at the crumpled heap of scrubs and quiet flesh in the shadows. I could see where he had lived for so long now, a pile of ratty old sheets clumped in a corner served as a sorry excuse for a bed. Some light snuck in through one filth caked window. A fragile, limp piece of lace that looked like it was stolen out of a grandmother’s coffin hung from it.
      He had fled somewhere out there and now he was hiding in a new place. I imagined him feeling ashamed, afraid, and still that same loneliness, but maybe sharper now. Then I thought that he might get homesick, and I thought that he might be coming back sooner than later. I fled the house again.