Unhappy Endings

by Chris Philbrook

  Sam stopped tugging Duke’s collar when they reached the center of the yard, then lifted the well-chewed tennis ball. Duke’s musings stopped abruptly as he focused on the beloved toy.

  “Okay, ready?” Sam asked. He held the ball aloft for a few moments, building suspense like a master storyteller, then hurled the ball across the yard with all his tiny strength. “Go get it, Duke!”

  Duke exploded into action. His work patrolling was done for now. Now was the time for play.

  He bolted across the yard with frantic energy. Cool wind rippled his face as his legs pounded against the dry grass and patchy snow, until he felt like he was almost flying across the yard, his paws barely touching the surface. With a gleeful rush of adrenaline, Duke focused on the rolling ball in front of him, rapidly gaining on it, then spinning in a perfect turn as he reached out and clamped his teeth securely around its fuzzy shape.

  The moment he had secured the ball, Duke steadied himself, finishing his turn and now pointed directly back at Sam. He took off again with huge, bounding leaps of triumph as the boy laughed and cheered.

  Nothing could be better. At least not until he reached Sam and dropped the ball, leaping into the boy’s open arms and rolling across the dry grass as Sam scratched and petted his thick fur. It was an absolutely perfect moment, like so many moments with his family.

  At that point, Duke couldn’t have cared less about his family’s dim senses or lack of caution. He loved them absolutely, and knew that they loved him just as much. That love was the only thing that mattered.

  As always, Duke was the one who first noticed when everything started to fall apart.

  *****

  Early the next morning, Duke woke from a nap with a start, smelling a very faint but strange burning scent. He quickly got up from Sam’s pile of dirty clothes—bless the boy for always rebuilding the pile after one of his parents stole it—and hurried downstairs, his feet and claws clicking and thumping on the steps. He checked the kitchen first.

  No fire.

  Next he checked the living room. Nothing. The dining room. Nothing. The front hall. Almost nothing.

  The mail slot in the front door allowed just a small trickle of outside air to flow through. From it, Duke could smell the odor of a distant fire. Acrid and noxious, like the stinky gasoline they put in the car. Another scent mingled in, even fainter, making the fur on Duke’s back bristle slightly. The scent was so distant and diluted that Duke couldn’t identify it, but something about it was wrong.

  The distance of the odors didn’t indicate any immediate danger to the family, but they left Duke feeling uneasy. He paced around the house a few more times, checking windows and under furniture, all the while waiting for the family to wake up.

  After what felt like ages, they did. The one Duke thought of as Mom-Janelle came downstairs first.

  Duke ran to the bottom of the stairs, whimpering slightly and informing Janelle with his voice and body language that something wasn’t quite right. She smiled and scruffed the top of his head, which felt wonderful and slightly calming, but then she ignored him and continued into the kitchen to begin her routine of coffee-making.

  Duke continued to voice his worries, but Janelle just dumped some food and water in his dishes.

  “Relax Duke, I won’t forget your breakfast,” she said. “There ya go—all better.”

  Overwhelmed by habit and food-smells, Duke gobbled three large mouthfuls of kibble before regaining his focus and resuming his warnings. By then, Janelle was busily watching the TV.

  Duke made several more attempts to gain her attention, but she steadily ignored him in favor of the strange, flickering series of blurry pictures that so often hypnotized the whole family.

  When Dad-Ted came downstairs, Duke made the same attempts. Ted offered some very nice and distracting petting at the foot of the stairs, saying wonderful, reassuring things like “Good morning Duke,” and “Who’s a good dog?” but then ignored Duke completely when Janelle began speaking.

  “Ted, did you turn on the TV in the bedroom?” she asked. He shook his head no and poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “Why? Something good on?”

  She shook her head. “No. I mean—it’s really weird. There was an accident out at the gas station next to Bobby’s place. Somebody must have been drunk or texting or something, because they drove right into the pumps. Just before dawn. The whole place went up.”

  “Shit, that’s terrible,” Ted said. “These things happen, though. If people aren’t careful…”

  Janelle shook her head. “But there’s also a lot of other weird stuff on the news. Not here. I mean, it just seems to be everywhere. People are killing each other, Ted. People are actually biting each other! It’s kind of freaking me out, a little bit.”

  Ted rubbed her shoulders and planted a kiss on top of her head. “You know the news is all sensationalized. That’s why I hardly watch it. It’s all spun out of proportion to get everyone scared and constantly tuned-in. That’s why I just stick with the sports and weather. All I need.” He turned and headed toward the hall, putting his tie in place as he went.

  Upstairs, Duke heard the sounds of Sam jumping out of bed and thumping around his room. He made another whining plea to either of the adults. Surely they must have noticed something odd by now.

  Ted scratched Duke’s shoulders as he walked by. “Don’t worry, boy. Sam’ll be up soon. Then you guys can play.”

  When Sam came downstairs for breakfast, Duke tried desperately and failed again to alert his family to the unknown danger. As Ted was getting ready to leave for work, Duke tried yet again. His frantic efforts gained him more scratches and petting, which were delightful, but did little to put him at ease or bring his family any closer to safety.

  “Don’t worry boy, I’ll see you tonight,” Ted said.

  “Maybe you should call in sick today,” Janelle said. “All that weird stuff…”

  Ted kissed her cheek. “Really, Honey, I’ll be fine. Turn that TV off and relax, alright?”

  She smiled, but didn’t relax.

  *****

  Duke became more distressed as the day wore on. More convinced that something wasn’t right. Janelle got Sam ready for school and nearly out the door to the school bus, and then told him that he didn’t have to go after all. She helped him take his coat and boots off, then set him up with a coloring book and went back to watching the TV. Duke looked back and forth at his two oblivious family members, whining softly. Janelle stared at the strange rushing flutter of TV images. Sam colored a dinosaur with a gray crayon.

  Duke was absolutely certain that something was wrong now. Twice since waking this morning he had heard very loud, distant banging noises. Like the sounds he heard in the woods in the fall. At one point, a strange car had raced down the road at an unusually high speed. Even in the thin trickle of air flowing through the mail slot, Duke had smelled the scent of blood and human urine passing by.

  *****

  At noon, Duke made a very bad mistake.

  He had taken up residence at the front door, monitoring the series of distant but alarming odors trickling through the mail slot. Things seemed to calm down a bit by midday, and Duke drifted into a light, nervous sleep. His dreams were deep enough to allow the approaching intruder to come all the way across the front yard and up to the door without Duke noticing. When he rang the doorbell, Duke snapped awake, panicking, and began barking furiously.

  Janelle came running from the kitchen. “Duke! No! Bad boy!”she hissed. She pushed him back as she peered through the curtain and then opened the front door. The intruder reached in. Janelle made no move to avoid his reaching arm. Duke lunged.

  He knew something was wrong even as his bared fangs sank through the man’s coat, piercing the skin beneath. The scent was not an enemy scent. It was familiar. Not a threat.

  The man screamed hoarsely in surprise. Janelle screamed as well, both of them startling Sam and making him scream in the other room. As man tried to
yank his arm backward, a large brown package fell to the floor with a heavy thud. Duke tried to release the man, but the screaming frightened him, and he nipped one last time, reflexively, before dropping back into the hallway, his tail tucked between his legs.

  “Jeee-zus!” the mailman shouted. “Sorry!” He blushed brightly, clearly embarrassed by his scream and curse. “God dammit that hurts! Sorry! Jeez… Oh man. What’s got into that dog?”

  “Sorry!” Janelle said. “Oh God, I’m so sorry! He’s not like this!”

  “Don’t I know it!” the mailman said, clutching his injured arm. “I’ve been coming to this house and seeing that dog for years and he never said a peep about it!” He backed away. “He’d damn well better have all his rabies shots up to date!”

  Janelle leaned out after him. “I’m so sorry, Dave! Yes—he’s totally up to date! No rabies! I just don’t know what to say. Can I get you a bandage for that arm?”

  “No thank you,” Dave said. “You wanna do me a favor, get a leash for that dog!” He rushed back to his mail truck as if Duke were hot on his heels.

  Janelle stepped back inside and shut the door. “Fuck.” Her foot hit the side of the box on the floor. “Oh goodie. My book’s here,” she muttered sarcastically.

  “Mom?” Sam said, standing next to Duke. Both seemed to be clinging protectively to the other. “Is somebody gonna kill Duke now?”

  “Oh honey, no,” she said, pulling Sam close. “You’ve been watching too much TV.” She glanced at the television in the kitchen. “Maybe we’ve all been watching too much TV. He’s just scared. But I think maybe it’s a good idea for him to have a little break, okay? Let’s take him outside for a while.”

  Duke submitted silently to Janelle’s hand as she took his collar and led him toward the back door and the leash hanging there. His eyes darted sheepishly from side to side. He knew now that he would be put in the back yard, practically a world away from the family he so desperately wanted to protect.

  *****

  Looking in through the windows from the spot where his leash was tied, things seemed calm inside the house. Janelle had finally turned off the TV and was now attempting to keep Sam occupied and distracted. They played cards, a board game, read a book together, but always Sam would come to the window to look mournfully out at Duke. Duke wanted to go to him and reassure him so badly it hurt.

  Things were worse outside.

  With nothing between his nose and the drifting breeze, Duke was now aware of a great many alarming things.

  Smoke from multiple fires hung in the air. The sharp stink of gunpowder drifted past more than once. Blood. Human blood. Its smell rich, coppery, and laden with fear.

  Worst of all, Duke scented the growing odor of death.

  With no walls and windows to filter it out, Duke’s keen ears could hear the distant pops of guns. The squeals of tires. The sirens and the screaming. At one point he could hear Janelle talking on her phone, her voice full of fear.

  And he saw. Through the small, fox-sized hole in the fence, he saw the neighbors’ house. Saw the car that drove with glacial slowness down the street, then veered up onto the curb and into the neighbors’ yard before coming to a stop against a concrete bird-bath. Saw the human shape inside move against the door, then spill awkwardly out the driver’s side window. Saw it stand up on crooked, unsteady legs and begin limping toward the neighbors’ front door, even though it smelled of nothing alive—nothing but blood and fear and tainted death.

  The fox’s escape route proved the perfect vantage point. Duke watched, whining fearfully and then barking furiously, as the dead thing moved into the house. As the shouts of the humans inside reached his quivering ears. As one neighbor emerged from the patio door in back, falling onto his back with a bloodied leg and a fireplace poker in his hand. As the dead thing approached with its relentless limp, not stopping until the man pushed the poker into its eye and straight to the back of its head. His attacker vanquished, the neighbor collapsed from loss of blood.

  When the freshly dead man began to get up again, smelling of nothing but shit, dried blood and death, Duke’s barking reached a furious, fearful crescendo.

  Janelle was at the back door, about to open it, but then moved away as lights illuminated the front yard. Duke heard the familiar sound of the family car pulling into the driveway.

  He ran to the end of his leash, jerking himself right off of his feet, barking desperate warnings to his entire family.

  Duke heard the sound of the car door opening and closing. Heard Ted fumbling with the latch on the gate into the back yard. He also heard the dead neighbor steadily shuffling its way from next door, toward that same gate.

  Duke jerked his leash again, then again, snapping it loose on the third pull. As Ted opened the gate and came through, Duke barked like a Hound of Hell at the approaching silhouette of the dead neighbor behind Dad-Ted.

  Ted turned just in time to see the reaching shape, and somehow managed to jump back and swing the door shut quickly enough to prevent it from slipping inside. Duke’s charge carried him forward, and he slammed against the wooden gate even as the dead thing leaned against it from the other side.

  “Son of a bitch!” Ted gasped. “That’s Bill! They got Bill!” He grabbed Duke’s collar and pulled him away from the gate with great difficulty, then guided him in through the back door where Mom-Janelle and Sam were waiting, both in tears.

  “What’s happening?” Janelle cried. “I only got part of your call. Are you okay?”

  Ted nodded, guiding Janelle and Sam away from the windows, toward the middle of the kitchen.

  “What’s going on out there?” Janelle said.

  “It’s…” Ted fumbled. “It’s bad. It’s real bad.”

  Duke took up position between the three humans and the door, listening for any sounds of immediate danger. His nostrils flared, checking the air as well. He could sense almost immediately that Dad-Ted was not well. He smelled of many alarming things, but worst of all were the smells of blood, pain, and death coming from him. The same smells the neighbor had before he died and rose again.

  *****

  An hour later, Dad-Ted closed his eyes for the last time in life.

  The family was gathered in the den, still watching the useless flickers of the TV. Duke ignored the annoying strobe, glad of anything that made them feel better. Sam snuggled up between Duke and Janelle, and Ted slumped against her other shoulder, breathing long, slow breaths.

  Duke could smell Dad-Ted getting worse. With every minute he smelled less like Ted and more like something… wrong. Something broken.

  At first, Duke had tried to sit next to Ted, tried to lick his hand like he always had and comfort him. But the smell had become too upsetting. Instead, Duke focused on the boy, who was terrified. Duke could sense Sam’s fear lessen just a little when he pressed up against him.

  The process was so gradual, even Duke’s sharp ears almost didn’t notice when Ted’s breathing dipped from slow—to nothing at all.

  Duke softened his own breathing, listening intently for the sound of Ted’s breath to resume.

  It didn’t. But he did begin to move.

  Duke smelled the change vividly. The last vestiges of Ted’s scent were overwhelmed by the odor of illness, death and that horrible, gut-wrenching broken smell. Duke let out a low warning growl as Dad-Ted began twitching, then lurching into a more upright position.

  Janelle roused from near sleep and stared at the shell of her husband beside her, blinking glazed, whitish eyes.

  “Ted?” She tried to sidle away from him, but the weight of Sam and Duke prevented her.

  Duke began barking ferociously. The thing that had been Ted ignored him, locking its dead gaze on Mom-Janelle. Duke let out a deep, threatening growl, but he didn’t lunge—not yet. He did not want to hurt this thing, as horrible as it was. A moment ago it had been family. It smelled wrong, and he almost always trusted his nose, but it still looked like Ted, and that was enough to make him
pause. He continued growling, throwing several short, vicious sounding barks in for good measure. Any living thing would sense that he was at his limits, and not to be pushed, but the thing animating Ted’s body was not living, and did not acknowledge the rules of nature. It lunged forward, jaws snapping so hard that the teeth clacked together with a sound like wooden boards.

  Duke lunged across Janelle’s lap, and she reeled back, pushing herself and Sam farther away from the thing. Duke’s body collided with Ted’s corpse powerfully, knocking it back and tumbling it off of the couch. Janelle was pushing at it with both arms, and she screamed as the body pulled away with a wet ripping sound.

  Duke continued pushing, forcing the corpse-Ted onto its back and snapping at its thrashing head and shoulders. He could smell Janelle’s freshly spilled blood, and see it on the monster’s mouth and chest. He continued to press with his paws and snap menacingly, but did not want to bite—not so much because the thing looked like Ted now, but because the smell of wrongness emanating from it was so overpowering.

  Suddenly Janelle was up from the couch, her shadow looming over them both. Duke jumped back just as she swung down with the large glass candle holder she had grabbed from a nearby shelf. The heavy glass cracked brutally against the Ted-thing’s head once, twice. The thing’s arms continued to thrash and grab at the air, until a third blow landed with a snapping crunch, staving in Ted’s skull.

  Duke leapt up onto the couch, shielding Sam with his body. On the floor, Mom-Janelle continued wailing with fear and grief. Her head was bent over Ted’s ruined body as if to embrace him, even as her fist continued to rise and fall, pounding his chest with impotent desperation. After a moment, she turned her tear-streaked face toward Sam and Duke.