Good Dog

by Dan Gemeinhart

  “Come on, Brodie!” he shouted, looking over his shoulder to make sure Brodie was following. “Get moving!”

  Brodie got moving. He heard wild jaws snapping at him as he got up to speed but none got him, and soon he was trailing right behind Tuck’s sprinting legs. As he ran he thought desperately about the way they’d caught up to him, how he’d seen them materialize right out of the solid brick wall.

  “No more turning!” he called out when he was close enough for Tuck to hear him. “Keep going straight!”

  They ran past one corner. Then another. He was losing track of where they were, of which direction Aiden’s house was in. Had they gone past it? Were they still running away from it?

  They approached another corner, but this one was different. The road they were running on didn’t keep going … it met another road, but then stopped in a T intersection, giving them only two options: turn left or right. But Brodie knew that turning only gave the dark dogs another chance to catch up to them.

  “Which way?” Tuck asked as they got closer.

  Brodie ran a few more steps, thinking, then squinted straight ahead.

  The street they were on did end, the way blocked by large, lightless brick buildings. But looking closer, he saw a passageway between them, a dark little break between the bricks. Alley, his mind told him, and he knew it was their best bet.

  “Keep going straight!” he answered. “Do you see the little alleyway?”

  “Got it!” Tuck replied, and they charged together across the street and into the shadowy alley.

  The asphalt in the alley was grease-stained and strewn with litter. The snow along the edges was filthy gray slush. The walls were close, blocking out most of the light from the streetlights behind and the stars above, turning their path into a valley of shadows. Their pursuers were a ways behind but still coming, their lifeless legs just as tireless as Brodie’s and Tuck’s.

  But, running straight, Brodie knew they’d get away eventually.

  Until, that is, they hit the dead end.

  Without warning the alley widened out into a big square lot. There was a truck parked to one side, and a couple of fragrant dumpsters on the other. But all around the space were walls. Four solid brick walls. They had doors—big, metal doors that rolled up to open, like garage doors—but they were all closed.

  Tuck and Brodie ran to the end of the lot, but stopped short. The only way out was back the way they’d come—and that way was blocked by the four running dogs who were getting closer to them with each second.

  When Darkly and his thugs saw them there, stopped and surrounded by walls, they slowed down to a sure, victorious walk.

  Darkly licked at his teeth. Brodie’s own soul lights still circled around him, reflecting off the shiny all-blackness of his gloating eyes.

  Brodie and Tuck were trapped.

  “We gotta get outta here,” Tuck panted, pacing furiously, looking at the walls all around them. He jumped up against the back wall again and again. That wall was lower, and didn’t seem to be a part of a building like the others. But it was still too tall to jump.

  “It’s no use,” Brodie said, turning reluctantly to face the approaching dogs. “We’re gonna have to fight our way out.”

  “Fight our way out? Against all four of them? No chance, buddy.”

  “Maybe. But no choice, either, Tuck.”

  Tuck turned a few more anxious circles, nose sniffing and eyes racing. The other dogs were almost with them now in the walled lot.

  Then, finally, he stopped pacing. He came to rest standing beside Brodie, so that their shoulders touched. He stretched his jaw, stilled his tail.

  “All right,” he said, and his voice was tense but no longer panicked. “Here’s the plan. We split up. I’ll go after the fast one—that spotted mutt. I’ll pin him. First chance you get, slip past the other three and scram. You’re way faster than them. You’ll make it. Once you’re out, I’ll try to shake ’em, too. We can meet back at that park we started in.”

  Tuck looked at Brodie, and he said his next words, low and serious, into Brodie’s eyes.

  “If I’m not at the park, go on without me. Go find your boy. Do what you gotta do.”

  “No, Tuck, listen, I …”

  “No time to argue, buddy.”

  And then Tuck? Tuck squared his shoulders to face the oncoming beasts. He shook the quivers out of his neck.

  And Brodie? Brodie thought about arguing for a moment, but then blew out a deep breath and did the same.

  Those two bravehearted dogs? They were ready.

  Together, they waited to battle for their souls.

  But then, a hissed voice: “Good lord. Are you two really this stupid?”

  Tuck and Brodie both jumped in surprise.

  Their heads snapped back to find the voice that had spoken from somewhere behind them.

  A cat sat behind a garbage can against the wall at their backs. She was scrawny and rib-showing thin, her long hair a patchy mix of brown and black and white. She had one furry ear that pivoted around, listening. There was just a scarred, pink little stump where the other ear should have been.

  For a second, Brodie couldn’t figure out how she could see them, and how they could hear her.

  And then he saw the faint glow shimmering around her fur, and the little golden lights circling her. There were only four or five, but they were there.

  The cat was dead. Just like them.

  She blinked slowly and yawned.

  She looked tough. And bored.

  “What … what … do you mean?” Brodie asked.

  “Shhh. They don’t know I’m here, Fido. Be cool. Look at them.”

  Brodie reluctantly turned his eyes back to the four dogs, who had finally strutted into the open space and had spread out, still coming toward them. Their black eyes glittered hungrily as they came, and their dangling tongues licked at their lips.

  “Do you mutts actually think you’re trapped?” the cat whispered. “You gotta be brand-new or super stupid. Or both. Yeah. Probably both.”

  Brodie ignored her insults. The bad dogs were only getting closer, and the cat’s words had given him some hope.

  “We’re not trapped?” Brodie asked quietly, his eyes still on the dogs. “I’m seeing a lot of walls, cat.”

  “Sure. And if you had bodies, those walls’d be a problem, wouldn’t they?”

  And then, in a flash, Brodie got it. He remembered the dogs appearing out of the brick wall to catch up to them, and it clicked in his brain.

  “Tuck,” he whispered. “These dogs can run through walls. I saw it.”

  “Great,” he answered, his throat growling at the attackers. “That don’t help us much, buddy.”

  “If they can,” Brodie replied, “then we can.”

  Tuck looked at him. His tail got right to wagging.

  “How do we do it?” Brodie asked the cat, backing up toward the wall.

  “What do you mean, how? These walls couldn’t stop you if they tried.” From the corner of his eye he saw the cat stand up and stretch, her eyes closed in pleasure. “I mean, you do know you’re dead, right?”

  “Well, yeah, but …”

  “Hold on a sec,” the cat interrupted, and then disappeared backward through the wall. Brodie’s mouth dropped open. The cat had just sauntered right back through the bricks and out of sight. Brodie blinked sideways at the wall, then turned back to face the dogs.

  “Where’d she go?” Tuck asked, but before Brodie could answer, Darkly cut in.

  “Nowhere to go, fellas,” he said, his voice smug with satisfaction. They were only a few feet away now, moving slow to block their escape, their eyes hungrily following the little lights swirling around Brodie and Tuck.

  One of the others spoke up, talking under his breath to Darkly but loud enough for Brodie to hear.

  “Hey, boss, why don’t they just …”

  “Zip it, Skully,” Darkly warned. “They’re fresh, remember? And we’re gonna teach �
��em a bit about how this world works, ain’t we?” They all closed in a few steps more. “Mmmm. I think I’m gonna start with the ugly black one this time. See how his soul tastes.”

  “Aw, save some for the rest of us, boss!” Thump protested.

  “Don’t worry,” Darkly reassured him. “These two is so fresh, there’s plenty for everybody. I just get mine first, got it?”

  “Well, then, who’s second?” Skully asked. “Me, right?”

  “No way, Skully! I been here longer! Right, Darkly? I’m next, right?”

  “You think I care, Smoker?” Darkly snapped.

  “Well, I care,” Smoker whined. “I don’t wanna get cut out like last time!”

  Tuck and Brodie stood there, listening to them argue over who got second shot at their eternal souls.

  From behind them, Brodie saw a faint glow behind the garbage can. He snuck a look and saw that the cat had stuck her scarred head back through the wall.

  “You guys had enough fun?” she whispered. “Or you wanna get out of here? Follow me. I think I got this figured.” Her head disappeared, then reappeared a moment later. “Oh. First time can be tricky, I guess, especially for idiots. Just remember: The wall is there, but you ain’t. You’ll only hit the wall if you expect to hit it. Don’t think about it. Just walk through it. Like it’s one of them doggy doors, or whatever. You’ll pop right through.” With these words, the cat disappeared again.

  Brodie and Tuck looked at each other.

  “What do you think?” Tuck asked.

  “I think we’ve got no other options.”

  Tuck wagged his tail.

  “Let’s give it a shot, buddy.”

  Brodie turned back to Darkly and his gang. They were a little too close for comfort.

  “I’d worry less about taking turns on our souls,” he said, cutting into their argument. “And worry more about that angel behind you.”

  All four heads snapped quickly around.

  Because those dogs? They were bad, but they weren’t the smartest pups in obedience school.

  Brodie and Tuck spun around. And without time to think about it, they jumped at the wall.

  To Brodie, it felt crazy. Jumping straight into a wall? But he’d seen the other dogs do it. And he’d just watched the cat do it. So he followed the cat’s advice: He didn’t think about it. He just jumped.

  Right at the wall.

  When his paws hit pavement again, he was on the other side of the wall, on a sidewalk, with a road in front of him and a supposedly solid brick wall at his back. Tuck was beside him, and his whole body was wagging.

  “That was awesome,” Tuck crowed. Then he looked back at the wall. “But we better run.”

  “This way!” the cat called from up the street. She was running flat out, her one ear back and her tail down. There wasn’t time to think about it. They bounded after her.

  The street was busier than the ones they’d been on so far. A car passed them going the other way, and up ahead, there was a line of vehicles stopped at a red traffic light.

  They gained on the cat quick. She was fast, but she was still a cat.

  Behind them they could hear the snarling and growling of four very hungry, very angry, very dead dogs.

  “What’s the plan?” Brodie asked the cat, pulling up beside her.

  “That truck,” she answered, her eyes still straight ahead.

  Brodie looked. One of the vehicles stopped at the light was a truck … one of those big ones that people use to haul stuff around. The back of it, though, wasn’t a big metal box like most of them were. It was just a big, flat wooden platform, empty and waiting. It was perfect. But it was also pretty high up. Higher than Brodie could jump, for sure.

  “How we gonna get up there?”

  “Just follow me, pooch.”

  Brodie looked back.

  Running at the cat’s speed, the trio was losing ground to the dogs at their heels. They were gonna get caught before they even got to the truck.

  “We’re not gonna make it!” Brodie warned.

  The cat lowered her head and pumped her legs harder, trying to squeeze more speed out of them.

  It didn’t work.

  Tuck looked back over his shoulder, sizing up their pursuers. Then he looked back to the cat.

  “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s speed this up a bit.” He drifted toward the cat, his mouth open. The cat saw him coming.

  “Don’t you da—” But the cat didn’t have a chance to finish her threat. Tuck grabbed the back of her neck in his teeth and scooped her right up in mid-stride, holding her dangling from his jaws as he ran. He never missed a step. The cat howled and hissed and thrashed, but Tuck just shook her a bit and ran harder.

  Up ahead, the stoplight turned green. The line of cars started crawling into motion, their red taillights blinking off car by car as they began to move forward: the first car … the second car … the third … and then the flatbed truck.

  “How are we getting up there?” Brodie asked again.

  The cat growled stubbornly in Tuck’s jaws and swiped at him fruitlessly with her claws. The truck rumbled as it began to move forward.

  “Come on!” Brodie shouted. “Do you have a plan or not?”

  “The parked car!” the cat finally spat out. “Use the car!”

  Brodie saw it. Parked on the side of the road, right next to the flatbed truck. Well, right next to it right then … but the truck was pulling a little farther away from it with every step.

  “Got it, Tuck?” Brodie asked.

  “Yep, buddy. We got this.” He surged ahead, the cat still bouncing around in his clenched teeth.

  The truck was picking up speed. It was halfway past the car now.

  They buckled down, sprinting hard to make it before it was too late.

  Tuck got there first. He sprang from the street to the car’s trunk, then up to its roof, barely slowing at all. A couple of steps along the roof of the car and then he leapt, his body stretching and soaring through the streetlight glow.

  Tuck? He was quite a sight, flying sleek and silky through the night, his soul glittering all around him, his mouth full of furious cat. Quite a sight. Quite a dog.

  He landed gracefully atop the truck’s flatbed and skidded to a halt.

  Brodie was right behind him. A determined jump up to the trunk, not as effortless as Tuck’s, but he made it. Then to the roof, losing speed but not taking his eyes off the truck. It was almost past him now and still picking up speed.

  “Jump, Brodie!” Tuck called. Brodie jumped with everything he had, stretching his front paws toward the accelerating truck.

  He hung in the air. For a moment, the world was soundless.

  It was close. Man, it was close.

  It would have been tempting for a watching angel to help him. But none did.

  His front paws touched down on the stained wood of the truck’s bed. His back paws fell just short but his momentum carried him forward, sending him tumbling across the flatbed. He came to an awkward stop a paw’s length away from rolling right off the other side.

  He looked up at Tuck, who was standing over him with his tail wagging fierce, and sound came back to Brodie’s ears: the roar of the truck’s engine, a distant honking of some car’s horn, the furious barking of four demonic dogs running hopelessly after the truck he was now riding.

  “Nice jump, buddy.”

  “Thanks,” Brodie said, standing up and shaking his head.

  The cat still dangled from Tuck’s mouth. She wasn’t squirming anymore. She was just hanging there, her few little soul lights circling her sulking head. Her good ear was pointed straight back. The fur all over her skinny body was puffed out in fury. Her eyes smoldered with anger so clear Brodie could almost smell it.

  He didn’t remember much about his life yet. But he was pretty sure he’d never seen an animal madder than that cat looked, hanging out of Tuck’s slobbery mouth.

  “Put. Me. Down.”

  “Uh, yeah, I’d put
her down, Tuck.”

  Tuck opened his mouth and the cat fell to the truck bed with a thump. Tuck stood there, wagging his tail and grinning, like he was expecting a “Thank you.”

  The cat rose up on her paws, arched her back, and turned to face him.

  “If you weren’t already dead,” she snarled, low and growly, “I’d kill you.”

  Tuck’s wagging slowed.

  “What? Why?”

  Brodie stepped between them, toward the end of the truck bed. The truck was moving along pretty fast now, and he walked slowly to keep his balance.

  The dogs were close—only a few running strides behind the truck, really—but the truck was picking up speed and starting to leave them behind. And they had no way to get up to where Brodie stood watching them.

  They’d made it.

  The dogs weren’t giving up, though. They ran on, their teeth bared and their eyes flashing angrily. Darkly still had Brodie’s soul lights glowing around him.

  “We’ll get you!” he roared. “We’ll find you and we’ll rip all that shine right off you!”

  Tuck joined Brodie at the back of the truck, his tail beating happily. They watched as the dogs fell farther and farther behind the truck, slowing from a snarling sprint to a stubborn jog.

  “He seems upset,” Tuck said.

  “Yeah,” Brodie agreed. The big yellow dog with the devilish black eyes was falling more behind by the second. But his eyes never left them where they stood on the back of the truck.

  “Golden retrievers are known for their friendliness, relaxed demeanor, and generous good nature,” Tuck said. He cocked his head at Brodie. “But maybe that’s just the ones that are alive.”

  Brodie didn’t answer.

  He was remembering the pain, that unbearable agony, of having a piece of his soul torn away.

  And he was looking at that demon dog’s unblinking eyes and his determined, tireless run. He wasn’t gonna stop, Brodie knew.

  That dog—that soulless, snarling hellhound—was a predator.

  And Brodie’s soul was the prey.

  The cat sat in the middle of the truck bed, her body a tight ball of anger. She strained to lick clean the spot on her back where Tuck had held her in his teeth.