CHAPTER 2 — What Was Hidden Behind the Baby Clothes
Three days passed.
Neither Sara nor I entered the nursery.
Neither of us wanted to remember what had happened.
But Rex never stopped watching that window.
Even soaked by rain...
Even shivering from the cold...
His eyes never left the closet.
Something inside me finally broke.
I walked upstairs.
Opened the nursery door.
Everything remained exactly as Rex had left it.
I began picking up the scattered clothes one by one.
Nothing.
Just blankets.
Tiny socks.
Baby toys.
I felt ridiculous.
Maybe I really had imagined everything.
Then...
One folded blanket felt strangely heavy.
I lifted it.
Behind it was a loose wooden panel inside the closet wall.
I'd lived in this house for four years.
I had never noticed it before.
Curious, I pulled it aside.
A narrow hidden space appeared.
Inside...
There were fresh scratch marks.
Not made by Rex.
Something much smaller.
Something with claws.
Before I could react...
A sharp hiss exploded from the darkness.
I stumbled backward.
Curled tightly inside the hidden compartment was a massive venomous snake.
Nearly six feet long.
Its body coiled around the warm insulation inside the wall.
Its head lifted toward me.
Its mouth opened.
I froze.
Then everything suddenly made sense.
The growling.
The barking.
The shredded clothes.
Rex hadn't been destroying the nursery.
He had been trying to reach the snake before Sara opened that closet again.
The wildlife officer arrived twenty minutes later.
His face turned pale the moment he saw it.
"This species hides in warm enclosed places," he explained.
"If your wife had reached into that compartment..."
He stopped speaking.
He didn't need to finish.
One bite.
That was all it would've taken.
Sara burst into tears.
I couldn't even look at her.
Because all I could think about...
Was Rex.
The dog I had punished.
The friend I had abandoned in the rain.
Without another word, I ran outside.
But the yard was empty.
His chain lay untouched.
The gate stood slightly open.
May you like
Rex...
Was gone.
