RIP Rico

[Note, this story falls within the horror genre; while there is not specific gore or violence, it may be assumed. There is also mild language. Proceed at your own risk.]

I never liked Janice.

She was the kind of teacher who corrected your grammar in the break room, the type who sent mass emails about “the ongoing issue of stolen lunches” like we were in a corporate thriller instead of a poorly funded high school. If you were late submitting your lesson plans, she’d remind you. Twice. In bold. One time she told me the only good new teacher was a silent new teacher – to me – the new teacher, in the middle of me speaking at a meeting. But she did her job, and in the grand scheme of workplace nightmares, she could be worse.

Then New Year’s Eve happened.

She posted the same picture she always did: a glass of wine, a caption that tried and failed to be chipper.

"Happy New Year! Another exciting celebration with just Rico!"

At first, I barely noticed it. Just Janice being Janice. Then the comments started.

Still just you and the dog, huh? You should get out more, Jan.

At least you’re not a cat lady…

Let us see Rico!

And then, her response: Rico knows what’s best for me. Rico wants it this way.

Something about that sentence crawled under my skin.

Rico was her golden retriever. Supposedly. But now that I thought about it, I had never actually seen him. No pictures, no stories, no dog hair clinging to her clothes (she wore a lot of black, drapey dresses – there should be hair!). Just these cryptic little remarks when people complimented her or noticed her efficiency:

Rico keeps me on track.

Rico doesn’t like it when I waste time.

She was always pushy, in your face and in your space. She dominated every conversation, and squashed any voices of dissent. The students whispered (and I heard it in the hall, because teenagers aren’t quiet) that she was…for lack of better words, intimate with her dog. There were rumors she was actually a dog. People would say (I don’t think it was true) that she actually growled when she was upset, and she’d wag her ass if someone did something good.

But, then, one day she got jumpy around us. The kind of skittish that suggested either a guilty conscience or something whispering in her ear when no one else was around. You can picture it – she looked like an abused animal now. Afraid of its own shadow, cowering in a corner to make itself smaller. I’d catch her mumbling to herself in the hall, fingers twitching over her keyboard like she was typing under duress.

There were “the incidents.”

One day, a student made a joke about her outfit. Janice turned to him, her face deathly serious. “Rico doesn’t like rude children,” she said. The kid went pale. The whole class did.

Another day, someone came into her room, and they found her hunched over her lunch, greedily shoveling it in, face in her bowl. A teacher down the hall started calling her “kibbles and bits.”

And just like that, the rumors continued. That she lived alone, talking to walls. That the dog wasn’t a dog at all. Kids actually would go up to her windows at night, trying to record her to put online. Her shades were drawn tight, but the noises they described – let’s just say they were unholy.

Call it guilt. Call it morbid curiosity. But one day, I invited her to a staff gathering – just the bar Friday after school. I was expecting her usual curt refusal. Instead, she blinked at me dumbly for a minute — and said yes.

Once we were out, things got worse.

Janice barely drank. Barely spoke. But every so often, she twitched, like something was yanking an invisible leash around her throat. Then, a coworker leaned in and whispered something to her.

She stiffened.

Then, just as quietly, she whispered something back.

The blood drained from his face.

When he returned, I asked, “What did she say?”

He swallowed hard. “She told me Rico doesn’t like me. Rico hasn’t even met me! I haven’t met Rico. What the hell is wrong with that woman?”

Janice left early. That night, I checked her social media. No updates. No cryptic messages. Just silence.

And the next morning — no Janice.

Alex, another coworker, and I drove to her house. Her car was in the driveway. Lights on inside. But when we knocked —

Nothing.

Then —

A shuffle. Something heavy moving.

Then, her voice — thin, reedy. Wrong.

“He doesn’t want me to talk to you.”

Alex tried the door. Locked. “Janice, open up.”

Silence.

Then — scraping. A slow, deliberate sound, like claws against wood.

Then, a whimper.

But not from Janice.

Then, a thumping sound, like a massive tail banging against a wall.

A deep, guttural voice commanded: “Go away.”

My body screamed at me to listen. Alex, however, had other plans.

We tried to open the door, we tried to knock it down. We are two slight people – we’re young teachers – we can’t pay to eat. We tried though. We went around the back of the house, and the back door was locked. Finally, we found a window, opened just a slit. With one hard shove, it opened.

Inside, the house was unnervingly neat — except the living room. There were torn up magazines, torn up couches. Massive piles of shit were spaced every few feet. Bones, raw meat, and other bizarre debris littered the remnants of furniture that were still recognizable. The air was heavy, thick with something rotting. Janice stood in the center, trembling, her gaze fixed on something in the corner.

At first, I thought it was a trick of the light. Then, it moved.

Eyes, low to the ground, blinked open in the dark.

The thing slunk forward — dog-shaped, but wrong. Its limbs stretched too long, its body impossibly gaunt, like it had been starved for centuries. Its mouth — too wide, too full of teeth — curled in something like a grin. We heard a deep thud as its mangy tail started to slap the table propped against a wall.

Janice clutched her head. “He’s in my mind. He always has been.” Her eyes were squeezed shut, her lips pursed like a crying child. She stomped her feet as she rambled on incoherently.

Alex whispered, “We need to get her out of here.”

“Go ahead,” Janice murmured. Her eyes opened, and her hands dropped. They went to her hips, and the old Janice was back. The tough one – the one we were all afraid of at work. She seemed to grow taller and stand straighter, and she demanded, “Tell me where you think I’ll go that Rico won’t follow.”

I felt it then — the weight of something ancient pressing down, curling around us like a hand on a throat.

Then, Janice smiled.

Not the relieved kind. Not the “help me” kind.

The kind of smile that says, I know something you don’t.

“You don’t get it,” she said softly. “I invited him in.”

Behind her, Rico’s jaw unhinged.

The lights went out.

The last thing I heard before we ran — before we fled that house like cowards — was the sound of Janice laughing.

Not the nervous kind. Not the panicked kind. The kind that says, this was never about escaping.

We made it to Alex’s car, and he sped away. We drove and drove, neither of us wanting to go home, or speaking. As the sun began to rise, he dropped me off, and I tried to shower away the visions of what we had just experienced. It didn’t work.

That morning, Janice didn’t show up for work. No police report. No missing person’s case. No one else knew her or knew what we saw. Just an empty house with the doors locked tight.

That night, I checked her social media one last time.

Her account was deleted.

This morning, I woke up, and I had a friend request from someone named Rico. And, the craziest thing is – I kind of want to accept it.