Behind the Door

* * *

Todd's chest is heaving as he pulls up to his house. The three-bedroom rancher looks structurally sound, but the front door won't open. He peers into a broken window.

Oh my God, he says quietly. Oh my God.

The devastation inside is worse than anything he imagined.

He goes around back and pulls hard to open the gate. He climbs over fallen trees and moves dead branches away from his face. He gets to a clearing in the back yard and suddenly stops.

"Oh," he moans. "There's my dog."

His year-old Rottweiler, Simba, is wedged between the side of the house and the deck. The front of his body is splayed across the collapsed wooden planks while the rest of him disappears underneath them. His eyes are open and his teeth are bared. Thick black pieces of fur and flesh are plastered to the brick, and the putrid smell of decay fills the yard.

Todd quietly sobs, taking in deep gulps of air. "That poor dog," he cries.

His other dog is nowhere to be found.

He crosses the deck and tries the back door. He kicks at it, but the door doesn't give. He opens his bedroom window, tears down the blinds and climbs inside.

"No, man, wait!" Collins yells at him, still climbing through the dead trees. "Don't go in there like that." He urges Todd to put on his boots, gloves and surgical mask.

"It's all right," Todd calls out defiantly. "It's still my house!"