The Last Slice of Pie

When I was eleven, summers at my aunt Mabel’s farm were the highlight of my year. She had two border collies, Rusty and Pip, who were inseparable. They’d chase the chickens, herd the goats, and sleep at the foot of my bed. My cousins and I would spend our days exploring the creek and our nights listening to Aunt Mabel’s stories on the porch. But that summer, Rusty got sick. The vet said it was old age, nothing to be done. We buried him under the old oak tree, and Pip would lie there for hours, whimpering. I didn’t believe Pip could go on without him.

It was a hot July afternoon when I went to town with my aunt to run errands. On the way back, she got a call on her flip phone. Her face went pale. When she hung up, she said, ‘Pip passed.’ I thought it was a prank, but the tears in her eyes said it was real. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about how Pip would never again greet me at the gate. Around 1 AM, I heard a scratching at my door. I opened it, and there was Pip, black and white, tail wagging, looking as alive as ever. I blinked, and he was gone.

The next morning, I told Aunt Mabel. To my surprise, she nodded slowly. ‘I saw him too, at 2 in the morning, sitting on the porch, watching the moon.’ She said it with a calm that sent chills down my spine. ‘Sometimes, when they leave too fast, they stay a while,’ she whispered.

Over the next week, Pip appeared to us in glimpses: a flash of white behind the barn, a bark in the distance, a warm spot on the floor. My cousins swore they saw him herding the goats one evening. But then, something changed. It started with a missing pie that Aunt Mabel had baked for the church picnic. She blamed the raccoons, but I saw a paw print in the flour on the counter, a dog’s paw print. Then, one night, I woke to a growl from the hallway. I crept to the door and saw Pip, but his eyes were not the warm brown I remembered; they were a deep, glowing red. He bared his teeth, and for a moment, I felt pure terror.

The incidents escalated. Tools went missing, the goats were found scattered, and Aunt Mabel’s prized rose bushes were torn to shreds. The neighbors whispered about a wild dog, but I knew it was Pip, or whatever he had become. My aunt tried to laugh it off, but I saw her praying at the kitchen table.

Then, on the night of the full moon, I heard a knock at my door. Aunt Mabel stood there, her face ghostly. ‘He’s in the barn,’ she said. We walked out together, flashlights cutting through the dark. The barn door was open, and inside, we saw Pip standing over a dead chicken, his muzzle stained with blood. He turned to us, and his eyes were not just red; they were pits of fire. ‘Pip, no,’ Aunt Mabel pleaded. But Pip let out a howl that was not a dog’s howl, but something ancient and hungry.

We backed away, but Pip lunged. We barely made it inside the house, slamming the door. The scratching and snarling lasted until dawn. When the sun rose, it stopped. We peered outside, and there was Pip, lying under the apple tree, as if asleep. But we knew better. My aunt called a priest, and my parents came to take me home. I never set foot on that farm again.

Years later, I learned that Aunt Mabel moved away. She died of a broken heart, they said. But before she left, she told me a secret: ‘Pip was always jealous of Rusty. When Rusty died, a part of Pip died too, but not out of love. Out of rage. That other thing that came back, it wasn’t Pip. It was something that took his form, feeding on the bitterness left behind.’ I never forgot those words. And to this day, whenever I see a black and white dog, I cross the street. Because I know that some loves that turn to hate never rest, and they will wait, just to have the last slice of your soul.