by Doug Goodman
Suddenly, Murder raised his head up off the trail. In Angie’s mind, Murder had a distinct “What you talkin’ bout, Willis?” look. Angie turned and walked away.
A few seconds later, Murder followed her, dancing lightly underfoot. She ignored him.
She walked back to the wasp trail. Murder was watching her forlornly, like the middle kid in a game of keep-away, where the object being kept away was a prized baseball. She didn’t need to command him to sit.
“Find buzz.” Murder looked at the tree where the wasp was hiding, then back to Angie, like the whole thing was a trick.
She waited.
Murder got up, walked toward the tree, then looked back at her anxiously.
“Get to work.”
He nosed around in the dirt. Started to turn back toward the cereal bars, then looked up at Angie forlornly like a whipped and beaten dog. When he did find the wasp, Angie praised Murder like he had just won Westminster as she handed him the stuffed chicken. Murder did not let go of it the rest of the day.
A few days after her breakthrough, Angie was up early collecting the supplies she needed for training Murder when her phone rang. “Shit,” she said when she recognized the NYC area code. Angie knew she owed the police department a status on their dogs, especially why they were late. She clicked Ignore and let the call go to voicemail. She was training, after all, and she didn’t take calls when she worked dogs. She would call them back after she finished training.
Angie still wore her thickest working gloves when she directly handled the wasp. Her skin broke out in gooseflesh as she gently tied a rope around the crimson wasp’s thorax. The body was drying out and becoming brittle. She would have to ask Dr. Saracen for another sample before long. She really, really didn’t want to do that.
Once the knot was tied, she took a break. She always needed a moment to collect herself before handling the wasp. She came back a few minutes later and moaned as she lifted the lifeless body out of the box and set it aside. She had laid a white washcloth underneath the wasp, and she tied that to a rope, too. Angie hated that a dead wasp could have such power over her. She was sure it was the red and black striping, but there was also something about the ungodly weight of it in her hands (no bug, even a desiccated one, was supposed to feel that heavy) and the cold sharpness of its exoskeleton.
She left the box in the warehouse storeroom and carried the wasp’s carcass out to a different field. She dragged the washcloth with the wasp’s scent about forty yards through pine needles, over rocks, and between trees, then tied the dead thing to a tree branch. The wasp hung about five feet above the ground. Then she put up the washcloth, brought out Murder, and commanded him to find the wasp. “Find buzz,” she told Murder.
The blue-and-black head nodded slightly, then charged into the field. His nose hit the ground where she had rubbed the wasp scent a little more than elsewhere, then he moved into the woods. He quickly found the wasp, then came back for his chicken. Angie smiled for an hour.
That night, a pair of headlights rose out of the darkness and came to a stop in front of her house. Murder had already started barking before the vehicle arrived. The dog scooted to Angie’s side. She took her rifle out and waited for the knock.
“Angie, you in there?” a voice came from the door as he knocked. The voice was as smooth as Angie’s was rough. There was a natural lilt to it that made people relax when he spoke. It was her father. He was tall and lean like Angie, with silver hair. He was bow-legged, so his feet set a little farther apart. He had a gait as easy and comfortable as his voice.
Murder barked perfunctorily while wagging his tail. No dog could resist her father.
“Some guard dog you are,” she grumbled. “Come on in, Dad!” she yelled to the door.
“I come bearing gifts.” He opened the screen door.
“Is that what I think it is?” Angie asked.
“Pizza from Del Greco’s.” He placed it on the table where she was writing logs. “Bought it a little less than an hour ago.”
She shoveled a wedge of pie into her mouth and savored the bite. Her taste buds languished over the combination of pepperoni and sausage and Canadian bacon in her mouth.
“It’s just pizza, Angie.”
“It’s never just pizza, Dad.”
She went to the kitchen and filled up some plastic glasses with water. Her father took a polite swallow and asked, “How things going up here?”
“Actually, I’m doing some really interesting work with Murder.”
Her father reached down and scratched the dog under his chin. The dog leaned into his touch. “Murder. Why do you call him that again?”
“I found him out on the road under a bunch of crows, and a group of crows is called a murder. You know this, Dad.”
He placed his hands on the dog’s spine and began to roll his palms in a soothing motion. Murder stopped moving, even wagging, and savored the massage the way Angie savored her pizza. “Guess I needed some reminding,” her father said. “Every once in a while, we all need some reminding, Angie.”
“What’s this about?” She put the pizza down cautiously. She could smell a reprimand faster than her dogs could smell a bear in the woods.
He let go of Murder’s spine, and the dog thumped his tail beseechingly.
“Those bomb dogs were due back to New York yesterday.”
“I just need more time. They have to be perfect.”
Her father never raised his voice. He didn’t have to. Even in argument, he was the calm waters. “No, they don’t. They have to be serviceable. And if they aren’t serviceable, that’s on you as the trainer.”
“Look, I don’t want to return a dog that is going to miss a bomb and get a building blown up or false alert on somebody’s bag.”
Her father looked around the room, then to Angie and Murder. He was divining the truth the way he always did, taking observing the situation and inferring from it. He was better at it than most, though he didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to read the clues scattered across his daughter’s home. He could always see through her.
“You must be working a lot with Murder if he’s in here with you.”
“I am. But it’s not getting in the way of the other dogs.”
“Angie, you’re drilling down into this dog the way you always drill into the thing that most interests you. You get it from your mom. Now, that can be a good thing. But sometimes you got to concentrate on what makes you money, and that’s bomb dogs. Each one of those is worth fifteen grand.”
“There will be more money.”
“It’s not just about money, Angie. It’s about being true to your word. It’s about shaking somebody’s hand, looking them in the eye, and doing what you say you’re going to do.”
Angie put her pizza down and started outside, Murder at her heel. (Murder licked his lips at the pizza but followed Angie. He was getting better.)
“Come on,” she told her dad. “I want to show you something.”
She led him to the warehouse and opened the storeroom. Pulled out the box and popped open the lid. Her father leaned over and looked at the giant wasp. His jaw slackened with a mix of surprise and disgust.
“That’s one of the bugs, isn’t it? I’ve only seen them on TV. I’ve never seen them up close.”
“I have, and I have the bite to prove it.”
“I did see Animal Control take down a zombie last week. It pulled one of the officer’s arms out of his sockets.”
“I’m training Murder to track them.”
Her father considered this, then said, “I want to see it.”
“I don’t know about this, Angie,” her father said. He was wearing the old working hat he kept in the back of his truck. Strapped to it was the dead wasp.
“Wasps hang onto the skulls of dead people. I have to test Murder on a trail where the wasp isn’t dragged around. He has to learn to air scent the wasp.”
“No, I mean I’m not sure I can do this.”
“We all have to make sacrifi
ces for the training, Dad.”
He turned his flashlight on and headed into the woods.
Angie waited twenty minutes, then tied a light stick and a GPS unit to Murder’s collar. “Find buzz,” she said, and Murder dropped his chicken and jumped into the woods. Angie picked up the chicken, stuffed it in her back pocket so it was hanging by the plastic head with the body dangling loosely. Then she followed after her dog.
Five minutes in, Murder came to his first obstacle. Her father had clearly skipped over a large log (she could see his bootmarks where he landed in the dirt on the far side of the log), but the wasp’s scent didn’t show a step-by-step pattern of where it had gone, so Murder started pacing back and forth. Angie pointed to the ground on the far side of the log and said, “Check here.”
Murder woofed his thanks and pressed into the woods. For an hour they moved back and forth, circling several trees and passing several false trails that Murder breezed by without hesitation. Angie was feeling good about Murder’s progress, but thought he should have caught up to her dad by then. How far had the old man gone?
She heard the burbling of the creek bed. They had come to Cryer’s Creek. She checked Murder, but he showed no signs of exhaustion or frustration yet. The dog got to the rocky banks and worked up and down the creek bed. The water whirled around sharp boulders. She could practically predict where the scent was eddying based on the currents. Angie had crossed the creek many times in her days, especially in daylight. When the sun was out, the creek was inviting. But at night time, the creek was like a bulge in a jacket that could be something nonthreatening or a gun, you didn’t know which.
Angie considered whether Murder was off her father’s trail, but the dog seemed certain that he was going in the right direction. He was running back and forth up and down the creek bed. There was scent everywhere, and Murder was trying to figure out where her father crossed. One thing was certain, though. He had crossed here.
Angie checked mud or sand where boot prints may form, but her expectations were low. The creek was mostly pebbles and river rocks. As she thought, she found no prints. If she had more time, she knew she could still check for impressions in the rocks, but it was night and she was working her dog. She didn’t have time to study the slight shifts in rock.
Then Murder jumped into the water. He cantered to one side like a ship listing, but once he got to the far side, he bounded back to the trail and ran into the dark. Angie verified their locations on the GPS and entered the water. Of course it was just deep enough to go over her boots. The cold mountain water awakened her senses and was a cool refresher in the dry heat of June. Also, it reminded her that it was late.
Twenty minutes later, she was about to call her dad to cancel the exercise when Murder barked low. His light stick had gone still, and she couldn’t read any behavior off of him in the dark. Something moved among the boulders up ahead, right next to her dog. Angie felt a weight lift off her shoulders. Murder had found her father.
“You can come out, Dad! You went too far. Now we have a long walk home.”
But her father didn’t say anything. He moved away from the dog, as if uncomfortable around Murder. As a reader of body movements, this struck Angie as very odd, and an old fear started to unfurl its wings inside her. She had never seen her father react like that to any animal. Then her father flailed at Murder, who barked loudly and ran back to Angie to get his chicken. A fear colder than the mountain waters doused her spine.
Angie pulled the bear deterrent she never went into the Cristos without and unloaded four plugs from her Magnum into the dead woman. The recoil shook her arms and shoulders. Half her shots went wide. The other two blew out chunks of the woman’s arm and hip. The dead woman was dressed in a bright blue gown and wore her best jewelry, which shined in Angie’s flashlight.
Something like a concrete pylon hit Angie’s shoulder. She hit the ground hard, her butt landing on rocks. At the same time, Murder tore a chunk of the zombie’s calf away from the bone.
The head, dumbass, she thought to herself, and raised her weapon. The zombie opened its maw, venomous saliva dripping from its teeth. Briefly, ghost-pain throbbed in her shoulder, a reminder of the effects of the venom. The last bullet in the barrel tore out most of the zombie’s jawbone, throat, and lower brain. The undead re-died, falling like stones to the ground.
Murder shook off the chunk of leg and barked again at the fallen zombie.
“Quiet, Murder.” Angie leaned back against a gray boulder. Murder restrained himself to low growls. His hair stood on end.
A giant six-legged monster uncurled its segmented body from what remained of the body and dragged itself away, twitching and curling and uncurling with half its abdomen blown to bits. Angie had never been so close to a living wasp that wasn’t attached to a damned thing’s head. Her heart pumped like engine pistons when the foot is jammed on the accelerator. The crimson wasp scowled viciously at her from its compound eyes as it fell behind some rocks and curled up and died.
The monster gone, Murder circled Angie, his tail waving low. He did not like her down on the ground. As far as Murder was concerned, humans were two-legged creatures and should be upright, not down low with him.
Like all trackers, the first thing Angie thought of was not her health (or lack thereof) but rather collecting the new scent item. She ripped off a spruce branch and used it to lift the dead wasp out from behind the rocks. She cringed as she held it out as far away as possible. Even though common sense told her the wasp was dead, her imagination told her otherwise. Any shift in the wasp’s position made Angie gasp.
A few minutes later, she had gingerly walked back to the creek. Her butt hurt from falling, her arms were sore from unloading the Magnum, and her shoulder felt like it had been kissed by a steamroller. Suddenly Murder caught wind of something and ran across the creek barking happily.
“Murder, get back here!” She would have to work on his recall.
Murder came back a minute later, this time with her father. The beam of his flashlight danced in the woods.
“I heard the shots and came as fast as I could. What happened? Are you alright?” he asked, staring at the dead wasp suspended between spruce branches.
“I’m fine, I guess. Murder went and found the wrong wasp, but we got a new one.”
“That’s wonderful, Angie. Did you reward him?”
“I was busy trying to save my life.”
Her father put his arm around her. “You could at least reward him for finding me.”
In fact, Murder was running circles around them both and barking piteously. Her father took the branches from Angie so that she could reward Murder with his chicken. Angie reached to her back pocket, though, and found it was empty.
“Shit. We have to go back, Dad. I’ve lost his toy.”
“It’s alright. He will learn to make due.”
“But it’s his chicken. You don’t understand. He’s OCD about the thing.”
“Then we will find it in the morning or get him a new one. Right now you need some rest.”
Chapter Three
Two ibuprofens and a pack of ice later, and Angie was back in her bed. Her father kenneled Murder, who whined and hollered like a mother with a lost puppy. Even from the house, Angie could hear Murder’s wails. It was a piteous thing to listen to.
The next morning Angie’s arm was swollen and stiff, like a solid piece of steel. She took some more pills and wished the medical geniuses of the world could build a better ibuprofen. She went to the barn and turned on her radio while she fed the dogs. It was an old transistor radio, a kind that was rarely seen anymore. Instead of electronic buttons, there was a big, fat silver knob for changing the dial and a punch button for switching between AM and FM frequencies. It was an ugly shade of beige. A thick antenna rod that reminded her too much of the creatures she hunted extended from the radio. Angie found a talk radio station and started filling bowls with her one good arm while she listened to the discussion.
; “Welcome back to Around the World. I’m Charles Blight. Today we are talking about the origins of the crimson wasp. We just heard a new report from Dr. Ahuja Chatterjee about evidence that the crimson wasp originated in Thailand as an offshoot of the emerald wasp. I have two other guests with me to discuss two very different origins. Welcome, Father Michael Carligi and former CIA operative Avery Rueben.”
Charles Blight had the crisp, trained cadence of a long-time newscaster. Angie filled up the bowls and tuned out Charles Blight’s unaccented speaking while she fed the dogs. Murder she fed first. He lay in his kennel as low to the ground as possible, with little rolls of fat pancaked on either side of him and his muzzle and ears flattened on the ground.
“Hey, boy,” she said as high-pitched and sing-songy as her raspy voice let her. “I got you some food.”
Murder didn’t move. He stared at the bowl of chow and whined.
With her good arm, she smoothed the hairs on his head. “I know you miss your toy, but we will get you a new one. In fact, look what I got,” she said as she pulled out a rope that was knotted on one end. She dangled it in front of Murder to try to entice him. Nothing doing, though. The dog didn’t move.
Angie left the rope with Murder, then closed his kennel and went back to get bowls to feed the other dogs. When all the dogs were fed, she opened an old foot locker full of leftover toys. While she looked, the debate raged on over the airwaves.
“Look, Father Mike, I don’t mean to belittle your point,” the ex-CIA agent was saying. “But it’s kind of an excuse. I went to Bible school and all that, and so I get creationism. But I’m telling you, this is not something God made. This is something that was built in a lab. Either by the Chinese or the Americans or maybe even the Russians.”
“But even you have to admit,” Charles Blight interjected, “The lack of evidence to support that the government built a biological weapon so dangerous and yet so ineffective. Surely there has to be a better way to topple governments than usurping their dead. What purpose do these creatures serve except to terrorize? They don’t turn other people into zombies like in the movies.”
