Neighborhood Watch by Kathryn Kulpa

Camera 1

Our neighbor on the right, Mrs. Moulton, didn’t feel safe at home anymore. So much crime these days. Her husband, so often away on business. So she adopted a dog from the shelter, a huge black Hound of the Baskervilles beast with a head like a honeydew melon, fangs like the shark’s tooth Tommy Adams down the street wore around his neck to impress girls. We got used to the mournful baying of Baron von Woofenstein—that was the dog’s name—but one night his barks were higher, more frantic. We peered through my father’s old army binoculars at the Moulton house, but all the blinds were drawn. Should we go knock, I asked, but my father said good fences make good neighbors. Which made no sense, because the Moultons didn’t have a fence. Someone must have called the police cars, the fire truck, the ambulance that came screaming to the house. Above the sirens we heard another sound—pop-pop-pop—like firecrackers.

The dog went crazy, Mr. Moulton said. Leapt right for Mrs. Moulton’s throat. Of course he had to shoot. No telling what could happen, an animal like that.

But it was Mr. Moulton the police led from the house in handcuffs.

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Camera 2

Our neighbor on the left, Mrs. Benevides, was lonely, so very lonely, and her husband was away on business more often than he was home and so she adopted a dog from the shelter, a cute little poodle/shih tzu mix, all white with two tan feet, and named him Fang. We would see Mrs. Benevides walking that dog, which was always dressed for the weather: a shiny yellow raincoat and black booties for the rain, red plaid parka for the snow, a straw hat with little ear cutouts for summer days, and she’d put sunscreen on Fang’s ear tips, because dogs get sunburn too, Mrs. Benevides said. For long walks Mrs. Benevides put the dog in a stroller. His little feet get tired, she said.

I’m reluctant to use the word lunatic, my father said. But I do think the woman’s gone round the bend over that animal.

When Mr. Benevides came home from one of his business trips we heard yelling and screaming, high-pitched bat-shriek barks, and finally three loud bangs—pop-pop-pop—like firecrackers.

This time we were the ones to call the police. Three cars, the whole force. We watched as they draped yellow tape around the doorway, put up orange safety cones at the edge of the road. We hadn’t seen so much excitement since the time they caught the serial streaker in Target.

I didn’t mind him asking for a divorce, Mrs. Benevides said when they took her away. But I will walk through hell before I give him custody of my baby.

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Camera 3

Our neighbor across the street, Mrs. Daugherty, asked my father to build her a doghouse, and so he did. Her husband was a long-haul trucker, and the nights were lonely. My father liked to build things, felt at home with hammers and saws and more exotic tools I didn’t know the names of. I like to feel useful, my father said.

We’d look through the picture window, my mother and I, and see my father and Mrs. Daugherty on the living room sofa, cozied up like two tiles in a trivet, bent over loose-leaf binders from the paint store and the flooring shop, picking out colors and measuring lengths of wood.

I’m reluctant to interfere with his hobby, my mother said, as we drank our single-serving hot cocoas. But it does seem so lonely around here lately.

I could ask Daddy to build me a dollhouse, I said. But somehow the right time never came.

We watched the doghouse rise next door, barn red with butter-yellow trim, two stories, a shingled roof, even a little round window so the dog could sit up inside and look out. There was a flagstone path to the doghouse, a fountain with little stone rabbits ringing a pond. Frogs came to live in that pond. At night we heard them sing. But we never heard a dog bark.

One night I heard a noise louder than frog song—pop-pop-pop—like firecrackers. The police came sirening around the bend, the ambulance white as an ice cream truck. Mr. Daugherty stood over the doghouse, gun in hand.

What kind of animal are you? he asked.

My father lifted his head from the water bowl, as if he would have answered. His collar jingled, just once, before it was silent forever.

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KATHRYN KULPA — Kathryn is the author of For Every Tower, a Princess (Porkbelly Press) and A Map of Lost Places, forthcoming from Gold Line Press. Her work has been chosen for Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and the Wigleaf longlist. Kathryn has stories in Fictive Dream, Flash Frog, Flash Frontier, Fractured Lit, and other journals that don’t begin with the letter F. Find her at kathrynkulpa.com.

Art by ERIN BRAITHWAITE — Erin is a writer and illustrator from South Africa living in Bristol, England. She was selected as a mentee with Writer’s Block North-East and finished drafting her first novel in 2023, which has recently been longlisted in David Fickling’s Search for a Storyteller competition. Her short fiction has been published by Northern Gravy and The Amphibian, and in November 2024 she won the Wilko Johnson Writing Award via Louder Than Words Festival in Manchester. You can find her on Twitter (@EJBraithwaite28), Bluesky (@ejbraithwaite.bsky.social) and Instagram (ej_braithwaite).