66 YEAR OLD SECRET

When I was seven years old, I found a dog in the woods.

The morning was strange, even before that. Haiti was still half-drowned from the hurricane that ripped through two weeks before—houses gutted, trees snapped in two like toothpicks, and the air thick with the stink of rot. I had been scavenging for anything dry—wood, old cans, maybe a pair of shoes that still had soles. I needed to find these items to help mom since we didn't have a lot of money; therefore, I taught myself how to make jewelry.

That’s when I heard it.

A sound that didn’t belong. Not the buzz of flies, not the caw of the half-dead crows picking through garbage, but a low, playful bark.

He came between the banyan roots like he owned the forest. Jet black, coat shining like oil even in the dim light. Not a scratch on him. His ribs weren’t showing, his eyes weren’t dull with hunger like every other stray left behind by the storm.

To take my mind off my problems, I played fetch with him. There was a real connection between us, so I named him Acid. When I said it, his ears perked up, and he came closer, sniffing at my hand before licking it. His tongue burned a little. Not painfully—just enough to make me blink. I could’ve sworn he smiled. But in the back of my mind, I thought how in the heck did this dog survive?

Mom was easily convinced because I told her Acid could be used as a guard dog. She looked at him, then at me, and sighed the way mothers do when they know they’ve already lost the argument. Our home had just two rooms with only one window. I was aware of our financial challenges; however, to me, it was still home.

“Fine,” she said. “But he eats scraps, same as us.”

Then came the knocking.

No, not knocking. Banging.

Mom froze, her sewing needle halfway through a patch on my torn shorts. “Stay here,” she whispered, standing slowly.

I peeked. There were three men who stood at the doorway. I recognized two of them—local boys who hung around the market, stealing from tourists. The third was new—older, fatter, and meaner-looking. His shirt strained against his belly with a gold chain around his neck gleamed even in the low light.

“Evenin’, Madame,” the fat one said, smirking. “We come collecting.”

“Collecting what?” Mom asked, her voice trembling.

“Protection money. You don’t want somethin’ bad happenin’ to your little house now, do you?”

She shook her head. “I don’t have money.”

The fat one’s hand moved fast and then - the slap! The sound cracked through the house like a gunshot. She stumbled, hitting the table. Blood smeared her lip.

Something deep inside me snapped and I jumped between them, but the fat man pushed me and I broke my arm. Then something inside Acid answered.

He stood. Not like a normal dog—no barking, no slow rise, no stretch. He unfolded - as hair retracted into the skin. The sound of it was wrong, like meat tearing and wood splintering all at once. His body shimmered, rippling under his fur until the fur peeled away like wet paper.

He grew.

Three times his size, easy. His legs bent the wrong way, 12 inch teeth grew like cutting tools, bones jutting out like jagged knives. His spine arched and split, ribs twisting outward, each one glistening sharp and curved like a Katana blade. The air filled with a smell—iron, sulfur, and something like burnt hair.

The men screamed.

Acid’s head turned toward them, those yellow eyes narrowing. They weren’t dog eyes anymore. They were deep, liquid, and patient. Predatory.

The first man tried to bolt, but in his panic, he slammed into the doorframe so hard the sound was like a coconut cracking. He dropped, twitching once before going still.

The skinny one stumbled backward, shouting for God, for his mother, for anyone—but no one came.

The fat one, who’d hit Mom, tried to wedge himself between two dressers to escape. Acid lunged. The sound his claws made scraping the floor was like glass being dragged across concrete. Then came a wet rip and a scream that stopped halfway through.

When it was over, the fat man was still breathing—barely. The others weren’t.

Mom stood frozen, hand over her mouth. Her eyes darted between me and the creature that was, impossibly, my dog.

Then Acid turned to me.

He tilted his monstrous head and waited.

I reached out, trembling, and placed my hand on his face. The blades and bones and blood melted away beneath my touch. His body folded back into the shape of a normal, panting, happy black dog.

Mom took a machete she had and put the fat man out of his misery. Mom and I buried what was left of the men in the field behind the mango trees. No one came looking. In the chaos after the hurricane, people went missing every day.

No one ever bothered us again.

That was sixty-six years ago. I’m seventy-three now.

Acid hasn’t aged a day.

Mom died a year after the hurricane, and Acid and I became inseparable. I was adopted by a magnificent and influential family from Florida.

At seventy-three years old, and I still play fetch with Acid like it was yesterday. I live with my wife in a 3-bedroom house and I became a professional jeweler. My mom would be so proud.

Visiting Port-au-Prince, a man tried to mug me outside a bar. I was in my thirties then, drunk enough to laugh in the man’s face.

He pulled a knife out on me.

The next thing I remember is standing in the rain, my shoes soaked in blood. Acid beside me, wagging his tail. I buried that man too.

I’ve learned not to ask questions.

There’s a kind of peace in old age. You start to accept things you shouldn’t. I tell myself Acid saved me—saved Mom.

But at night, when the wind picks up like it did that night in 1959, I hear them again. The screams. The tearing. The wet sound of something being eaten.

And I see Mom standing in the corner, sewing needle in hand, eyes wide and shining in the candlelight. She never spoke about that night again. Not once. Not even when she got sick. Not even when she was dying.

The day she passed, Acid sat beside her bed and didn’t move for hours. I thought he was mourning. Then I saw his tongue flick across her hand. Just once. A little burn mark bloomed on her skin where he’d touched her.

Three nights ago, I woke to find Acid staring at the bedroom door. His fur was bristled, the faint glow back in his eyes.

“What is it, boy?” I asked, my voice hoarse with sleep.

He didn’t bark. Just kept staring. Then I heard it—a shuffle outside. More than one set of feet.

Old instincts kicked in. I grabbed the rusted machete by my bedside.

The door creaked open.

Two young men stepped inside, faces covered by scarves. I saw the guns first, then the twitch in their hands.

“Old man,” one said, “we know you got money.”

I felt my heartbeat slow. It was happening again. I looked at Acid. He looked back. And I swear to you, he smiled.

“Leave,” I said. “Now.”

The first one laughed. “Or what, grandpa? You gonna sic your mutt on us?”

The sound that followed wasn’t a growl. It was lower, deeper. The air seemed to pierce through my soul.

Acid moved.

The guns went off and so did the hand that held it. Loud and sharp cracks echoed through the house, but the bullets didn’t matter. They never did.

When it was done, something was different. Nothing was there but the destruction of my house. I couldn’t move. I just stood there with a machete in hand. Acid returned to his smaller shape, tail wagging lazily as blood pooled around my feet. The men had disappeared as Acid laid by the door, licking his paws clean.

I, on the other hand, can barely stand. My hands shaking. My skin hangs loose. My heart feels heavy with too many years of what this is.

After all these years, I sometimes wonder what happens when I die. Will Acid stay by my grave the way he did with Mom? Or will he do what he’s always done—take what’s his?

Acid didn’t find me that morning in the woods. He chose me.

Maybe he was never a dog at all. Maybe he was something older—something that came through the storm when the wind tore open the sea. Something that smelled my fear, my loneliness, my need. And maybe the name I gave him—Acid—wasn’t mine to give. Maybe he’d been called that long before, by other tongues.

I’ve tried to leave him before. Once, in my forties, I took a boat to the mainland. Spent three weeks sleeping in hostels, pretending to be someone else. On the twenty-second night, I woke up to the sound of claws on the floor.

He was sitting at the foot of my bed, eyes glowing faintly in the dark.

No matter where I go, he finds me.

But lately…, I think I hear him whispering when I sleep. Words that sound like my name spoken backward.

I dreamed of Mom. She was standing by the mango trees, calling me, her lips moving but no sound coming. Acid stood beside her. But his head was wrong—too long, too narrow, his teeth glinting through thin skin.

He curls beside me now, his head on my lap, and I can feel his breath against my skin—hot, steady, almost human.

I think he’s waiting. He’s always been there to protect me… but protect me from what? From from himself?

And for the first time in seventy-three years, I’m afraid not of what’s outside the door— but of what’s sitting right beside me.

He knows I can’t run. I can barely walk.

But I’ve kept the machete from that night in Haiti. Rusted, but sharp enough. I laid it on the kitchen table, right where he can see it.

Maybe this is what he wanted all along—to see if I’d fight. Maybe it was never about protection. Maybe he was just waiting for the moment I’d be too weak to stop him.

That night the air smells like the sea back home.

I'm in the living room since the storm took command over the skies. The lights went out and this time Acid is not near me. I hear the floor board creeks but he's moving slow and deliberate.

“Don’t,” I whisper.

He pauses. The sound that comes from him isn’t a growl—it’s a sigh. A long, low exhale, almost human.

Then he steps forward again.

Lightning flashes, and for an instant I see what he truly is—bone and smoke, ancient hunger wrapped in a familiar shape.

I grip the machete. My old heart has stood the test of time. I flashback to the day I saw him but my heart hurts.

He crouches.

We stare at each other.

The wind howls through the doorway. Soon, I’ll be gone. I can feel it but I have no choice...

As the moonlight penetrates through the house - No! I shouted. And now two friends have become enemies. On the wall, our shadows sour in mid-air and this time, my machete is in hand.