“You think so?” Possum finally asked, her voice a whisper.
“I know so,” Max said.
They didn’t speak after that. But Max felt the cat’s warm body against his side, cuddling with him as the world drifted into dreams.
CHAPTER 3
A RUMOR OF MONSTERS
Max awoke to the sound of barking laughter, the slosh of waves over sand, and the whoosh of wind past his ears. The air was still cool, the sun newly risen, but already the beach was alive with animals—dozens of dogs, cats, and other pets.
After a mouthful of kitty chow, Max padded slowly through the sand. He didn’t see snout or tail of Rocky or Gizmo or any of the cats, but he assumed they were out there somewhere.
Music met Max’s ears, carried to him by the ocean breeze. He followed the sound until he found several young dogs surrounding a large radio. The music was peppy with a fast drumbeat, and several of the dogs leaped up onto their hind legs to mimic human dancing. They couldn’t keep it up for long, though, and soon they fell into a furry heap.
Not far from the dancing dogs, a trio of puppies tossed a branch wildly over the sand. A herd of cats swatted playfully at ocean weeds as though they were cornered mice. Two Border Collie puppies chased a rainbow-striped beach ball.
And in big piles all over the beach were sacks upon sacks of dog and cat food. Some bags were open, their pellets spilling onto the sand, but most were stacked neatly. The cats had been right—the lady in the hat, whoever she was, had left more than enough food to last these animals for months.
Max spun in a circle, absorbing all that he could see and hear and smell. Everywhere he looked, there were animals enjoying themselves. No one was fighting. It seemed like one big, never-ending party.
Max knew he should find Rocky and Gizmo so they could continue their journey. But he couldn’t stop staring at the ocean. Its vastness, its smells, and its beauty were unlike anything he’d ever seen.
Before he could stop himself, Max raced into the surf.
The sand beneath his paws went from dry, shifting, and warm to packed and wet as the waves rushed toward him in a burst of wind.
The cold water crashed into his body, almost toppling him. Closing his eyes tight, Max dug his paws in the sand—and the waves receded, leaving him soaked and dripping.
Max laughed, loud and long. What a teasing thing, these waves! Splashing him before running away! Well, two could play at that game. Darting forward, he met the waves head on as they rushed back in, sending a big splash right back at the ocean.
He opened his jaws—only to take in a big gulp of the seawater. It wasn’t like the river water, which had a strange taste but was drinkable. No, the ocean water was foul and vile, like a cocktail of fish and plants and salt—so much salt.
Soggy and cold and with his mouth filled with that awful taste, Max padded back toward the dry sand. He saw other big dogs splashing in the waves, and he guessed they’d already figured out not to drink the water. It looked like fun to splash with dog friends. Too bad Rocky and Gizmo were much too little to face the ocean’s full strength.
Barking echoed from above. Max looked up to see Rocky and Gizmo back by the resort, next to the two Border Collie puppies. The puppies were yipping loudly—apparently trying to get the attention of Grendel on the deck railing.
Max shook his whole body, sending water splashing off his fur in every direction. Then he ran through the sand to hear what the commotion was about.
“Come on, Grendel, tell them the story!” the boy puppy barked.
The girl puppy spun in a circle. “Grendel, you’re not gonna let them go out there with the creatures, are you? They seem so nice!”
Grendel ignored the frantic puppies, carefully cleaning his orange face and little black mustache.
“What’s happening?” Max asked Rocky and Gizmo as he padded through the warm sand to join them.
“Oh!” Gizmo said. “Hi, Max! Rocky and I met these cute puppies and told them about our journey. They insisted we talk to Grendel first before we leave again.”
Rocky shuddered. “Supposedly there’s something dangerous in the swamps. Not that I’m afraid of danger, of course.” He ducked his head. “But, uh, I figured it couldn’t hurt to know what we’re up against.”
Realizing that someone new had arrived, the two black-and-white puppies stopped barking. They swarmed Max, sniffing at his fur, their furry tails wagging.
Max laughed. “Nice to meet you, too! I’m Max.”
The boy Border Collie jumped back. “I’m Seventeen!” he barked happily. “And my friend here is Twelve.”
“Hello,” Twelve said politely, though her yellow eyes were filled with worry. “We just met Gizmo and Rocky, and they said you were going west to Baton Rouge.”
“That’s right,” Max said. “A friend of ours who used to live there asked us to look for a dog named Belle.”
“Belle? Hey! We know her!” said Seventeen. “A Collie, right? Belle used to come play with us at the farm in Baton Rouge. She was so nice, wasn’t she, Twelve?”
“Sure was,” Twelve said, her voice still shaking with concern.
“Oh, you know Belle?” Gizmo asked. “How wonderful!”
“Everyone knows her!” Seventeen said. “Just ask around when you get near the city, and you’re sure to find her.”
“Oh, good,” Rocky said. “At least one part of this journey won’t be hard.”
Max looked down and saw that Twelve was shivering now, glancing past the resort at the road that divided the beach and the woods.
Nudging the puppy’s side, he asked her, “Is everything all right? When I ran up, I heard you barking about creatures in the swamp.”
From the railing above, Grendel yawned. “The puppies just have an active imagination.”
Twelve shook her head furiously. “That’s not true, Grendel! You know they gotta be careful out there.” To Max, Rocky, and Gizmo, she said, “There have been animals that started off to the mall and never came back. And some who went off and returned with stories of monsters in the woods. Dark things as big as houses, with skin made of iron scales and teeth like razors. And they like to eat us pets.”
Max chuckled. “I’m sure that’s just a story the bigger animals told to scare you. If any animals disappeared, they probably just decided to move on. There’s no such thing as monsters.”
Seventeen shook his head. “I dunno, mister. We all heard the howling. Grendel knows; I know he does.”
Three pairs of eyes glowed in the darkness beneath the deck, and then Possum, Panda, and Buddha crept out into the daylight. Possum’s tail snapped back and forth.
“These dogs are our friends, Grendel,” Possum meowed up at the fat cat. “They need to know what’s out there and why we stay on the beach.”
With a sigh, Grendel rose to all fours and stretched. “Fine,” he said. “I suppose I can take a break from sunning to tell you what I’ve heard. But I’m telling it only once, so listen close.
“After the hat lady left,” Grendel began, “most of us at the beach did our own thing, but there was one animal who kept us working. He was a great big beast of a canine who slobbered endlessly, so large he would tower over Max.”
Grendel paced as he spoke. Above him, the morning sky darkened as gray clouds swirled in from the ocean.
“The dog’s name was Georgie,” he went on. “Before the people disappeared, he lived at the inn up the road. He taught everyone to share the food that the hat lady left behind, and he figured out how we could flip the levers in the bathrooms to drink, what with the ocean water being so salty. He led expeditions to the boardwalk to find toys for everyone.
“After a time, though, Georgie got fed up with taking care of everyone else. He decided he’d follow the hat woman and try to make his way back to where he lived before his pack leaders moved to the inn. He walked right up to the swamp road that leads to the mall… and disappeared.”
Grendel paused, and the dogs huddled close
together, silent and listening.
“That night, we all heard it,” Grendel continued. “A loud, anguished howl from the woods that echoed throughout the beach, lasting a minute or more.” Grendel’s whiskers twitched. “And then Georgie went silent, and we never heard from him again.”
Max studied the trees on the other side of the road, past the resort. It couldn’t be later than midmorning, and yet the shadows there were long and dark. Was it a trick of the leaves, or was there some animal in the depths of the forest, watching them?
Rocky chuckled nervously. “Okay, so a dog ran away. That doesn’t mean anything bad happened to him.” He shivered. “Does it?”
“Maybe not,” Grendel went on. “But it wasn’t long after Georgie disappeared that we lost the bunnies.”
“Oh, no,” Gizmo gasped. “There were bunnies here?”
“There still are,” Grendel said. “But a couple of them were lost. Some of the cats and dogs goaded them into exploring the trees near the inn. But there was something in those woods, and the bunnies never came back. All we remember is those cats and dogs running back to the beach, yowling and barking in terror.”
“Wh-what did they see?” Rocky asked.
“It was dark, so they couldn’t be sure. But they thought they saw giant beasts covered in dark, hard ridges. And their eyes were black hollow things. Blacker than the night and evil.”
“One of the cats told me they had millions of teeth,” Seventeen said. “Teeth like steel daggers.”
“And I heard they move fast,” Twelve said. “They can lunge from the trees and then sink into the waters.”
“And you can’t see them until it’s too late,” Seventeen added.
Gizmo shook her head. “That sounds incredible. I mean, superscary and all, but I’ve never heard of anything like that.”
“Oh, and I wish I never had,” Rocky said. “Snatching up bunnies is one thing, but taking a dog even bigger than Max here? They must be as big as trucks!”
Max suddenly felt small and insignificant beneath the swirling gray sky, a speck on the endless beach.
“Anyway,” Grendel said as he lay down once more on the railing. “So far we’ve been safe in large groups. None of you will end up like Georgie as long as you stick together, so I don’t see why these puppies are raising a fuss.” His whiskers twitched again. “Though I have to say, that’s only as long as you get through the forest and to the mall before it’s night out.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Rocky yipped as he jumped to his feet. “Let’s get on our way before night monsters come to eat us up!”
Max stood and shook the sand from his fur. “Thanks for the warning,” he said to the puppies and the cats.
The two cat sisters and Buddha sauntered back to the safety of their home beneath the deck.
“It was nice seeing you again,” Panda whispered over her shoulder. “Good luck.”
“Thank you,” Max said.
Briefly meeting Max’s eyes, Possum said, “I won’t forget what you said. I hope we’ll see you again soon.”
Then the gray-and-white cat was gone.
The puppies started back toward the beach to resume playing with the other dogs. As Twelve passed, she lowered her head. “Please be careful, all right?”
“I promise I’ll be safe,” Max told her. “Nothing is going to stop me from finding Belle and my family. Not even a monster.”
Max watched the puppies bound through the shifting sand, then looked once more at the swampy woods, now darker than ever under the suddenly overcast sky. Surely all that lurked out there were more animals. And Max could handle most animals.
Unless they had iron scales and teeth as sharp as razors.
CHAPTER 4
THROUGH THE FOREST
After pestering Grendel for directions, Max, Rocky, and Gizmo left behind the beach and its laughing, playful animals. The music from the dancing dogs’ radio grew faint as they walked west to the road that would take them to the mall.
They padded over the concrete parking lot next to the resort, careful to avoid broken glass, and soon they were back on the main road. Its surface was coated with swirls of dried mud and littered with driftwood. They passed more shops and a wooden boardwalk before reaching a side street that veered north, into the trees.
“This must be the way,” Max said. He padded toward the shadowed street, then stopped, an uneasy feeling coming over him.
“Is everything all right?” Gizmo asked.
Max peered back over his shoulder to find his friends also hesitating.
Max nodded and said, “Yes, it’s fine. The shopping center can’t be too far. Let’s go.”
As he stepped onto the street, Max felt as if he were entering a new world. Coiled, thick-trunked trees towered over the asphalt, shrouding it in shadow. There was more debris here—decaying leaves and fallen twigs and plastic bags. He even caught sight of a rusted motorcycle leaning against a tree, overgrown with fluffy moss.
The farther they walked, the heavier the air became, until Max found himself panting. Sounds echoed all around him. Some were familiar, like the buzzing of insects and croaks of frogs, but there were other noises, too—strange ones. He heard groans and creaks, as if the trees were settling all around him. An occasional distant, unearthly shriek pierced the sky.
Max swallowed, nervously eyeing the darkness between the trees. Neither of the others spoke. Aside from the noises of the forest, the only sounds were their panting breaths and the pads of their feet on the overgrown road.
Even though the beach was not that far behind them, Max thought it seemed a thousand miles away. This place was some new, untamed land, where wild, unusual things could lurk around any corner.
Suddenly, the idea of monsters in the woods didn’t seem so silly.
Rocky cleared his throat. “I’m not sure I’m feeling brave right now.”
“It’s just noises,” Max said. “Probably just more frogs or birds—”
“But the birds all left,” Rocky muttered.
“—or… or… bats or something. We’ll be fine. Right, Gizmo?”
“Definitely!” she said. “Um, though maybe we should hurry a little.”
Silent again, the animals trotted steadily and quickly down the overgrown road. Max kept his eyes aimed forward, refusing to look into the trees and scare himself even more.
It was Gizmo who saw it first.
“Hey, what’s that?” she asked.
“What’s what?” Rocky said, following her gaze. Immediately the Dachshund yelped in fear. He darted between Max’s front legs and huddled underneath his belly.
“Rocky, what’s wrong?” Max asked.
Trembling, Rocky tried to answer, but he couldn’t get out the words. Instead, Gizmo pointed with her snout toward the trees on the side of the road.
There, in the dark, were two glimmering amber circles. They glowed and flashed in the shadows, like the eyes of some great, terrifying beast.
“It’s those creatures!” Rocky howled. “They’ve come to eat us all up!”
Max froze, unable to look away from the two glowing circles. His instincts told him to run, while his brain told him to stay still to avoid capturing the creature’s attention.
He and his companions huddled together, staring at the amber eyes. Max expected the beast to stomp out of the trees at any moment, the ground trembling beneath its feet. He expected a steel-plated body the size of a bus and a mouth filled with jagged razors.
Instead, the eyes stayed still, flashing at a steady rhythm.
Wait, Max thought. Didn’t the puppies say the monster’s eyes were black, like the night?
And wasn’t the blinking too steady, too mechanical, to belong to an animal?
Max let out a long, shaky breath, then chuckled.
“Why are you laughing, big guy?” Rocky whispered. “We’re about to become a monster’s lunch!”
“Actually, it’s kind of funny,” Max said as he carefully stepped o
ver Rocky. “All those stories are getting us scared over nothing.”
Max padded purposefully across the road to the blinking lights. As he drew near, he laughed again, louder this time.
The glowing circles weren’t the eyes of some terrifying creature. They were two round, plastic yellow-orange beacons with Xs on their fronts. They were on top of a small traffic barricade painted with orange and white stripes, though the paint was scratched and faded.
And spray-painted on the tree behind the barricade was a neon-orange circle with a black X in its center.
These weren’t just any beacons. These were the beacons, the ones that Madame Curie’s owner was leaving to mark her trail. The three of them were on the right track!
Facing his companions, Max called out, “Hey, it’s safe! In fact, this is exactly what we were looking for!”
With a relieved bark, Rocky waddled after Max, with Gizmo close behind him.
“Is that what I think it is?” Gizmo asked as she approached.
“It sure is!” Max said.
“See?” Gizmo said to Rocky. “Nothing to be afraid of.”
“Not this time,” Rocky muttered. “But one of these days my tendency to be overly cautious is gonna keep us from getting eaten.”
Gizmo licked his side, giggling.
Rocky sniffed at the barricade, and his eyes went wide. “Hey, you know what this means, right? The only human the beach animals saw come this way was the hat lady—which means she and our scientist lady are one and the same!”
“Oh!” Gizmo said. “Yay! And since she left here only a few weeks ago, we can still catch up with her.”
“Gertrude the pig was right, back at the laboratory,” Max said. “Madame’s owner is trying to fix us animals so that the Praxis virus we have inside us won’t be harmful to people. I’m sure of it.”
Max sniffed at the painted wood barricade and the glowing beacons and the tree behind them. The old woman’s scent was faint and distant, washed away by weather and time. But there was just enough left that Max could recognize the peculiar musk of human mixed with the perfume of lilacs and something sharp and antiseptic.
The Long Road Page 3
