21st Century Dead

by Christopher Golden

  “You’re a ghost dog,” one of the rabbits said, pointing at Murphy with a puffy brown foot.

  “I am,” Murphy agreed. “But if I’m a ghost dog, how can I be a guardian?”

  “You need to find a new one,” the other rabbit said matter-of-factly.

  “A new one?” Murphy asked.

  “A new one,” the rabbit repeated. “A new guardian.”

  “A new guardian,” Murphy echoed, knowing the rabbits were right. “But how do I…?”

  “You’re the special dog,” the rabbits said in unison, and then they, too, turned and scampered off into the grass.

  “You figure it out” were the last words Murphy heard before they were gone.

  And in turn, so was he.

  * * *

  Now

  The little dog stepped cautiously out of the pet carrier to address Murphy.

  “So now you think I’m the special dog?” he asked incredulously after listening to Murphy’s tale. “That boy doesn’t want anything to do with me, and his parents seem to agree.”

  “What do you mean?” Murphy asked.

  “They think I don’t understand, but when they put me in the crate, they were talking about taking me back where I came from.”

  “But they can’t,” the ghost dog said, trying to control his brewing panic. “The boy must have a guardian.…”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t think I’m it.” With that, the little dog turned away and curled up on his blanket. “Besides, I’m the runt of the litter … nobody wants the runt.”

  Murphy was about to argue that Mitchell was still dealing with the grief of Murphy’s own death, but the puppy was snoring, already fast asleep.

  * * *

  The disappointment was nearly overwhelming.

  For the briefest of moments, Murphy had believed that he had found his boy’s new guardian.

  But now he realized it had been just too good to be true.

  The ghost dog lay in the grass beside the mound that was his grave. There was still an air of sadness about it, a heaviness in the atmosphere that forced him to remember the day his body had been laid to rest.

  He saw it as he’d seen it then, the boy and the father and mother digging the hole that would hold his material shell. They had wrapped his body in his favorite blanket and gently laid him at the bottom of the hole.

  Murphy had watched them standing at the edge of the hole, staring down at his body. They were all crying as the boy slowly dropped a shovel full of dirt atop the wrapped and lifeless body. Then they took turns, covering up his earthly remains. And when they’d finished, they laid flowers upon the overturned ground, as the ghost Murphy turned his face to the setting sun and silently howled for the life that had been lost to him.

  The ghost dog blinked away the memories, noticing that his boy had come out of the house again. It was late, now, past Mitchell’s bedtime. In the days since Murphy’s death, the boy had had difficulty sleeping and had often come out to stand, exhausted, keeping sorrowful vigil by the grave in the backyard. And always, the ghost dog kept a close eye on his boy, even though there was very little he could do if the evil forest spirit had chosen to …

  “You miss him very much, don’t you?” asked a voice, carried upon the wind.

  Murphy lifted his head in alarm, watching as his boy started and looked about the yard for the source of the voice.

  “Hello?” Mitchell called out.

  “He was a very good friend, by your side until his end.”

  Murphy rose to his feet, growling, his eyes scanning the yard for the intruder but finding nothing. And suddenly he knew who—what—was speaking to his boy.

  Mitchell turned slowly toward the back of the yard, to where the tree had fallen that fateful day.

  “It’s a shame he had to die for such a foolish reason.”

  “He was protecting me,” Mitchell argued.

  “Protecting you? Pray tell, what did you need protecting from out there in the woods?”

  Murphy took a stance by his boy’s side, barking furiously into the woods, hoping his voice would dissuade the spirit, but it kept right on talking.

  “I only wanted to help you … to make you stronger.”

  “Make me stronger?”

  “Oh, Mitchell, you are quite the powerful little boy.”

  “I am?”

  “Oh, yes, but you’re still very young, and you’ve not yet learned how to tap in to the special power that lives inside of you.”

  Murphy could see the spirit’s words having their effect upon his boy, wheedling into his mind, making themselves right at home.

  “I just wanted to show you how strong you are … I just wanted to teach you.”

  “You killed my dog,” Mitchell cried to the woods, his fists clenched in anger. “You killed Murphy.”

  “A tragic mistake,” the spirit whispered. “One that I wish never had happened … but one that I can fix.”

  Fingers of dread clutched at the ghost dog’s heart.

  “Fix? What are you talking about?”

  “Your dog’s death … you … we … could fix that terrible, terrible mistake.”

  The boy looked confused. “How? How can we fix something like that?”

  “Together, we can bring him back,” the spirit whispered seductively.

  “That’s impossible,” the child proclaimed. “People can’t bring the dead back.”

  “People can’t … but you and I can.”

  “You’re lying,” Mitchell said, but it came out more as a question, a question that begged to know if the spirit’s words could be true.

  Murphy continued to bark, charging into the woods, but it had no effect, the spirit kept talking, slowly drawing the grief-stricken child closer.

  “You can’t do it alone,” the spirit said. “You need me to help you … but in order for that to happen, you must accept my offer.”

  The child stood there, fists still clenched, eyes filled with tears of hope.

  “Will you do that?” it asked.

  Murphy watched the child, hoping against hope that his boy would realize that nothing good could come from accepting the offer from the mysterious voice from the woods.

  “Will you accept my offer?” the voice asked again.

  “No!” Murphy barked. “He doesn’t accept … he doesn’t want anything to do with you!”

  “Yes,” Mitchell said at last, and the world suddenly turned to darkness, and the voice from the woods was louder.

  “Excellent.”

  * * *

  “Who are you talking to?”

  The childish voice startled Murphy, and he realized that he was still in the backyard, staring at his grave. It had all been some strange kind of dream.

  Or had it?

  The ghost dog whipped his head around to see the odd-looking puppy sitting beside him, head cocked to one side.

  “Is something wrong?” the pup asked.

  Murphy was just about to answer the young dog, when he saw it—a thick mist moving across the ground, an undulating, gray blanket over the forest. It moved as if it was alive—moved as if it had a purpose.

  “It’s happening,” Murphy said as the fog crept toward them.

  The pup jumped to his feet, watching the mist advance. “Is that normal?”

  “Far from it, I’m afraid,” Murphy told him. “What I’ve feared is happening … it’s happening too soon … it’s happening now.”

  “What is?” the pup yelped. “What’s happening?”

  “The spirit in the woods, it’s coming for my boy.”

  And with those words, Murphy spun around and bounded toward the house. He had to do something—anything—he had to try.

  * * *

  The puppy didn’t know what to do.

  He felt the cold touch of the flowing mist before he’d even realized that it had arrived. It touched his paws, moving between his toes, up his legs, filling him with a cold that made his body ache.

  He crouched low
, barking as ferociously as a puppy could. He might have been young, and little, but he could still do some damage with his needle-sharp teeth.

  “Well, aren’t you a ferocious thing,” said a voice that seemed to be coming from within the mist.

  The pup growled menacingly as the mist flowed around him, moving with great speed across the yard toward the house.

  “I could use someone like you,” said the voice. “A guardian to watch over and protect me.”

  “Where are you?” the pup asked the fog. “I can’t see you.”

  “I’m here … in the woods … I want you to be mine … isn’t that what you want, too?”

  Images flashed before the pup’s eyes, from a time not long ago when he was with his brothers and sisters, so happy with his family. And then his mother had told them how it would be. That her puppies would soon be leaving to be made part of other packs, and that it was likely that they would never see one another again; and if that wasn’t bad enough, she had then fixed her eyes upon him to explain that he was the runt—the smallest and weakest of the litter—and that there was a chance no pack would want him. The puppy had howled in sadness, hoping that if he carried on enough, perhaps it would never happen, and his brothers and sisters would remain with him, but one by one, as his mother had foretold, they were taken, until he was the only one left.

  And he’d remained that way for quite some time until the man came, and told him that he was needed to make a little boy happy.

  Desperate to know the feeling of family again, the pup was excited to belong, even if he was a runt, but the boy who was to be his new littermate had rejected him.

  “You can be mine,” said the voice. “You will be my guardian, and I will give you a pack the likes of which you could never imagine.”

  The pup waded through the cold mist, moving closer to the forest beyond the yard.

  “Will you help me?” the voice asked. “Will you be mine?”

  “Yes,” the pup said cautiously, so desperate to belong.

  “Come to me then,” the voice cajoled. “Come and aid me in my efforts to be free, and we shall form a pack that will make the world tremble.”

  The pup moved deeper into the shifting fog, and deeper into the woods.

  “Come.”

  * * *

  Murphy’s ghostly form bounded silently up the staircase, determined to get help. The mist was already there, covering the floors in a carpet of gray, like thick spider’s silk. The strange thing was that he could feel the cold of it. If he hadn’t been so fearful, he would have reveled in the sensation.

  The door to the parents’ bedroom at the top of the stairs was partially open, and he was disturbed to see that the mist had already found its way inside, making itself at home, lying atop the sheets and blankets, inching its way upward to cover their faces.

  Standing in the doorway, Murphy realized that there was nothing they could do to help, and nothing he could do for them. He listened as the parents moaned in the grip of sleep.

  In the grip of nightmare.

  Murphy retraced his steps, racing down the stairs and back out into the yard, knowing that if his boy was to be saved, he could not rely on anyone but himself. The boy stood by the mound of dirt where Murphy’s body lay buried. The cool, gray mist swirled at the bottoms of Mitchell’s pajama legs. The dog could see—could sense—that the boy was no longer truly awake, but was being influenced by something else.

  Something that had found its way out of the woods.

  Murphy hung his head in sorrow as the boy spoke the most disturbing of words.

  “I’m gonna bring you back.”

  And the world moved that much closer to being a far darker place.

  * * *

  The voice had led the puppy to the hole.

  The little dog cautiously approached the edge, eyeing the toppled tree and its broken roots that radiated outward in a circle around the base like the dirty rays emanating from a filthy sun.

  “Hello?” the pup called out, and the blue stone that covered the floor of the hole began to glow in the softest of lights.

  “Hello, pup,” said the voice. “Why don’t you come closer?”

  The pup hesitated and began to back slowly from the edge, but the dirt beneath his feet started to crumble, and he found himself sliding into the hole.

  He began to panic, the hard dirt-covered surface beneath his feet making him feel strange.

  Making him feel wrong.

  “Here you are,” the voice whispered from someplace beneath the stone. “Just where I need you to be … just where I need you to be so that I might be free.”

  There were some small cracks in the blue stone, and a cold white light began to seep from them.

  “Where are you?” asked the pup.

  “Beneath the stone,” the voice told him. “Can you see me?”

  The white grew brighter—colder—and the pup leaned in for a closer look and a sniff.

  “What are you doing under there?”

  “A very long time ago, when the world was young, I was put here by someone who felt that he knew better than I,” the voice explained. “I had a vision for the world that he disagreed with, and for that I was placed here, with the enchanted stone above my head to forever remind me of who placed me here.”

  “And now you want me to…”

  “Help me to be free. The stone is already fractured … the magic weakening … all I need is for you to pull up the pieces.”

  Something at the far back of the pup’s mind told him that it probably wasn’t a good idea, but he hadn’t been alive long enough to realize the importance of that inner voice, and so he decided to ignore it. He pawed at the larger of the cracks, his black claws clicking upon the hard surface of the blue stone.

  “That’s it,” cajoled the voice. “Pick at it … break it away. Good dog.”

  The praise crept into his mind, and the puppy dug all the faster, eager to please.

  The crack grew larger, and as the pieces of blue rock broke away, the cold light escaping from the fissure grew all the brighter.

  “Yes!”

  The pup felt his claws slip into the fissure, hooking the bottom of a fragment of the stone. He pulled it up a bit, before it thudded back down into place.

  “Yes!”

  The young dog tried again, and again the fragment fell back down. He growled as he continued to dig, becoming more and more frustrated. Finally, he felt his claws take hold, and he managed to pull the large fragment of the enchanted stone upward, so that the cold, white light filled the hole.

  And the spirit was free.

  * * *

  The thick gray fog swirled around the boy as if he were wearing a cape.

  “Please, Mitchell,” the ghost dog begged. “Don’t say such things … go back to bed.”

  But of course the boy could not hear him as he stared fiercely into the dirt, his focus so intense that Murphy was certain he could see straight through the earthen layers.

  Something moved in the mist behind the boy, and the dog immediately went on the offensive, taking a crouched stance and baring his ghostly fangs as he growled.

  The figure in the fog came to stand behind the boy, its features indistinct other than its eyes, which glowed a fiery red among the sooty gray. Though he had never seen it outside the dream, Murphy knew exactly what it was that now stood behind his boy, free from its prison in the deep, dark hole beneath the tree.

  “Get away from him,” the dog warned with a ferocious snarl, but the spirit moved closer to Mitchell, flowing around the boy in an embrace of greeting.

  It was torture to behold, the smoky form of the evil spirit touching the boy, flowing up into his nose, his mouth, and in through the corners of his eyes.

  “Stop it!” the dog barked. He lunged at the fog, trying to sink his ghostly fangs into the equally insubstantial mist.

  But there was nothing he could do except watch, sickened by what he saw.

  Mitchell was smiling now
, filled with the dark spirit of the woods, and he dropped to his knees upon the funeral mound, plunging his fingers into the soft ground. His eyes were closed, beads of sweat forming upon his brow despite the cool evening temperatures. The smile that had previously adorned his face contracted into a grimace, his head began to thrash from side to side, and the boy that Murphy loved so very much, and whose safety he now feared for, began to scream.

  The dog twitched at a sudden sensation coursing through his ghostly form. Murphy looked around, realizing that something was different—that something had changed—but all he saw was the shifting mist moving across the grass.

  His gaze turned back to the boy, who still knelt upon the grave, hunched over, hands buried in the dirt, and then he noticed the strangest of things. The ground was moving, pulsing ever so slightly, and more movement—caught from the corners of his eyes—showed him that this wasn’t an isolated event: the dirt all around the yard had started to churn and bubble as if suddenly liquid, as if something was pushing up—rising from beneath.

  He heard his boy gasp aloud, and was captured by the look of absolute euphoria upon his young face. The tears were flowing now, streaming from his eyes to dapple the front of his pajamas.

  Murphy did not want to look at what it was that filled the boy with such emotion.

  All around him things had started to emerge from the dirt—things no more than bones, but now filled with the essence of life.

  “I told you I’d bring you back,” he heard Mitchell say.

  Murphy looked toward the churning mound before the boy, watching as something covered in a filthy blanket pushed itself up from below.

  What had once been dead, now alive.

  * * *

  The pup opened his eyes to a brand-new world.

  Somehow, he was no longer at the bottom of a muddy hole, but was instead lying upon a freshly mowed lawn, the smell of cut grass and springtime heavy in the air.

  The pup raised his flattened snout to the air, breathing in the freshness of the air. It was taking a little while for his young brain to process, but somehow he must have found his way out of the hole and back to the house that was supposed to be his new home.

  But something didn’t feel quite right. Something was … off.

  The young dog got to his feet and was slowly making his way toward the house when the porch door opened and the boy stepped out, talking. There was something different about him, he seemed older, his voice lower, more mature, and he was holding the door open as he continued to speak to somebody still inside.