by Doug Goodman
“You think he’s going to cancel my contract?”
“He would not say, but his tone was very belittling.”
“Well, he does have camera evidence of my old dog not learning this new trick, and his Best New Thing Ever trailing the zombie to the bodies.”
“Yes, I think as wrong as he is, that is it.”
“Well, why put off the inevitable? Let’s get this over with.”
She hung up the phone and watched the two dogs. Checked her stopwatch. Five minutes had come and gone.
“Release.” One dog ran to her to be petted. The other dashed for the tennis ball like an addict.
Angie brought Murder with her when she went back to Animal Control to see Director Summers. This time, she didn’t have to wait to get into his office. He was eating a hamburger and fries.
“How you holding up?”
“I’m good.”
He folded up his burger and pushed it to the side of the desk. “Well, that was some serious shit out there on the road last week. No one would think less of you for leaving. The handler who was with you did. Said he couldn’t handle it. Wrangling zombies was one thing; seeing dead kids was another. It’s the kid deaths that always get them.”
“They don’t get to me.”
“That’s right. Nothing gets to you. You’re a real rattlesnake.”
“I’ve got its skin mounted on the wall at home, Mr. Summers.”
“Please, call me Mark. Catching that zombie with a child, that was a big deal. It got lots of press. Henry’s been having nerdgasms over it for the past week. You were part of that, and I wanted to thank you.”
Angie waited for the axe to fall. She didn’t have to wait long.
“I also wanted to tell you that you’ve been bumped.”
So there it was. One and done.
“Listen, after all the crap I’ve put up with, the least you can do is give me a decent chance to prove myself. Your department is the one who pulled me into this rodeo to begin with.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not firing you. I’m increasing your workload. Instead of calling you out for our county, Saguache wants to call you out, too. They don’t have a Wolf yet.”
“I’m sorry. What?”
“Congratulations, you are about to get big-time, for better or worse. A few counties heard about you and your dog. They want to add you to their call list. Normally I’d decline, but they will be paying us to use you, and I’m not going to say no to more county dollars. It costs a mint to keep Animal Control running. We need all the funding we can get.”
A slurping noise came from the side of the room. Director Summers noticed the empty space on the side of the desk. “Where’s my lunch?”
Murder stood with his front legs bowed, inhaling what he had stealthily stolen off the desk while Angie and the director were talking.
Director Summers made a move for the burger, and Murder growled without stopping.
“Did you see that? He is literally inhaling my fries. Damnit. That dog is a real son of a bitch. You two are perfect for each other.”
Angie called Murder off his aggravated assault of Director Summers’ lunch by showing him his chicken. She didn’t laugh until she was out of the office.
She was working every day now, and had to force breaks on the Animal Control offices she assisted. Most of the callouts were resolved before she arrived on scene, so she put in for a gas stipend.
The fires were getting worse, as they always did toward the peak of summer. The Cristos were experiencing record highs. Most of the time, Angie’s commute was under smoke-laden mountain skies.
The air conditioning had been running full blast in the barn and the warehouse since June. Angie had used her fans to get her through the day, but once the fires set in, she started closing windows and turning the AC on. Still, sometimes it seemed like the wildfire’s black smell was sinking into everything.
Part of her morning ritual began to include checking for wilderness fire evacuation notices on various news sites and reading wind conditions (since wind direction and speed had changed the fates of many a home owner). Fortunately, she had not been required to leave yet and the winds were pushing the fire to stay north of her, but Jack Calf, which was less than twenty miles from her, had received the orders to evacuate.
Like so many other fellow Coloradoans, she listened to the warnings and the newscasts. She never created an inventory list because most of her things she had no problem parting ways with. Her true keepsakes and everything else she needed could probably fit into a duffel bag. Everything else would be for the dogs—the food, the vitamins, the medicines, and the tonnage of collars and leashes and dog bowls and everything else that came with the job. These she would load into the back of her F-150, and then attach the trailer, which she would keep the dogs in.
Angie drove up to Thirty-Nine Mile where she helped another handler load up her small city of dogs while the fires burned up the horizon. She came home coughing and decided to make sure she had everything ready in case she received the call to evacuate. She returned all the dogs that were not her own.
The television made for good background noise while she looked for her duffel bags. She had never owned luggage. Her lifestyle necessitated lots of bags and packs. Once the woman on the television started talking, though, Angie put down her bags and watched.
“Her name is Sarah,” the bleary-eyed mother said. She was a moderately obese woman with straw-like gray hair. The mother was sitting at a row of tables with what Angie assumed were her family around her. Two siblings and a father. The husband kept his arm around the mother, but he never looked up. Police were positioned on the outskirts of the table.
In her hands, the mother held a framed photo of Sarah. Sarah was a little blond girl, no older than ten.
“Sarah Erikson. She likes jelly beans and horses.”
“Sympathy With the Devil” buzzed from Angie’s cellphone.
Angie turned on the captions and muted the volume. She guessed she wasn’t going to be packing for evacuation after all. Director Summers told her to drive out to the Harietta airfield down in Salida. There she and Murder would board a helicopter that would fly her up into the mountains to look for Sarah Erikson.
It seemed a little backwards to Angie that she would drive out of the mountains only to get into a helicopter and fly back up into them, but she did not feel like fighting. She hoped Murder was okay with flying in helicopters.
The airfield in Salida sat between mountain ranges, with the Big Baldy Mountain peak looming from the east. Angie drank from her ginger ale while she drove. (She had slipped some ginger into Murder’s drinking water before she left.)
She parked in front of the 1970s brick-and-mortar at the airfield. It was early evening, and hers was one of the only cars parked in the lot. When she got out, the wind whipped the coils of her black hair around her neck so that she was constantly repositioning herself to face into the wind and wishing she had shorter hair (though she hated short hair because she thought the only women who had short hair were either old or didn’t like their husbands). She was neither old nor had a husband but wanted her hair long anyways. To fix everything, Angie pulled her hair into a bun and impaled it with a glow stick.
She let Murder out and took him to the bathroom. In the distance, heat danced off the airfield tarmac. Angie grabbed her pack and walked over to the helipad, where the Bell 212 was waiting. It was a medium-sized helicopter used by the forestry department to insert hotshots into the mountains during wilderness fires. The door slid open, and a man took Angie’s gear and stowed it.
“He okay to fly?” the man asked, pointing to the dog.
“I’m not sure I’m okay to fly.”
“Guess we’ll find out,” the man said dourly, clearly against his own better judgment. So I’m not the only one being forced into this predicament, Angie thought as the Forestry service co-pilot helped her in, then made sure she was buckled. There was no real buckle for Murder, so
she grabbed him by his tracking harness and held on tight.
As the world fell below her, Angie closed her eyes. Once they had reached their elevation and were flying steadily, she opened them back up. Murder had crawled into her lap. He was as nervous about flying as she was, perhaps because of her.
“Sorry, pup,” she said. She smoothed his head. The blue and black dog with the chewed-up ear pleaded with his eyes for her to put him back on the ground.
“What’s his name?” the man who helped her in asked her.
“Murder.”
“Oh. That’s a mean dog’s name.”
“He’s a sweetheart.”
“Then why did you name him Murder?”
“I had to kill the owners to get him.” The man chuckled.
“They are really pulling out the stops for this,” the man said. “We usually don’t get called in for something like this. If we weren’t headed out to the fires, we probably wouldn’t have picked you up.”
“It’s a little white girl with blond hair,” Angie said. “Those stories gain traction in the media. Once a story has traction, local government has to react swiftly. That’s just the way it goes.” The man nodded.
On either side below them, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains passed, teasing at their namesake with a slightly red tone. They were named for the blood-like coloration that was most obvious in winter when snow covered the ground. The heat was limiting the snow to only the highest peaks, so instead of blood red the Cristos appeared more like salmon pink.
A few hours later the helicopter stopped and began to hover. Angie looked out the window. Shadows congealed in the mountain passes as night seeped in. For a moment, she feared the crew in the helicopter might make her rappel down, but then she felt a sensation in her stomach as the helicopter started to descend. It landed in an old cemetery, hovering just a few feet off the ground and away from the tombstones.
As soon as the door opened, Murder jumped to the ground and began marking his territory on several gravesites. Angie thanked the US Forestry Service for the ride and hopped out of the helicopter.
“Murder, cut that out. Get over here!” Angie yelled as the Bell ascended back into the gloaming sky.
Two large, white Animal Control vehicles and one of the SWAT vans waited for her. Red Colorado dirt had tanned the lower halves of the vehicles. She did not know any of the men there. She wondered where everyone else was. Usually when a case got this kind of PR, dozens, if not hundreds of volunteers showed up to help in the search. At the very least, Angie expected a trailer and a few extra hands from a search-and-rescue group for Incident Command.
“How was the ride?” a man in a starched shirt asked. She assumed he was the person in charge. “I hope it was accommodating. We paid good money for it.”
Before her brain could stop her mouth, Angie said she thought she could have gotten there faster in her pickup. The man had shrugged nonchalantly. Angie wished she could take it back.
“These are officers Rawls and Ernest,” he said. “They are the tech handlers for the Wolf.” Angie shook their hands. They both looked so young as to make her feel old. She didn’t like that. She wasn’t that old.
“This is Angela Graves.” The supervisor then introduced himself as Dave McAuliffe, the head of Animal Control for Copper City, a small town that had turned its mining traditions into a year-round tourist attraction. McAuliffe had a certain clip when he spoke, a forced clarity that she associated with police, military personnel, and government officials who were often in front of cameras. She guessed police, probably a sergeant before he was moved to Animal Control.
“Actually, it’s Angie,” she corrected him. Without noticing, McAuliffe continued.
“Earlier today two hikers came to this cemetery. They spotted a zombie dressed in a white wedding dress and escorting a young girl, who might be Sarah Erikson, the young girl reported missing this morning. The hikers stated the girl was wearing rainbow-colored shoelaces, which matches Sarah Erikson’s description. This information was not given out. The parents had forgotten to mention it. The reason we believe this is probably not Sarah Erikson is one, distance—this is about thirty miles from Sarah’s point last seen and two, we have a family member being brought in for questioning.
“We don’t want this to become another Flight 370 with an ever-expanding search area just because somebody sees something. So rather than split all our resources, we decided to send a hasty team after this zombie. The idea is that between the robot and the dog, we should be able to locate it faster than if we had placed a hundred ground pounders out here.
“Contrary to what I just said about locating the zombie, I want to make one thing clear: your objective is the missing girl. Taking down the zombie is secondary. Finding its lair comes last. This search will be a little different for most of you, I think. You are used to working in an urban environment with other officers ready to support you. You are all experienced at what you do, so I don’t anticipate this will be a problem. So you are to stay out here as long as it takes or until the search is cancelled. I want you to call in at the first hour, and then at every operational period after that. This is thick wilderness up here. Make sure to stop and check for ticks. If you have any questions, Angie is your expert. Understand?”
Angie nodded. So did the handlers.
“Okay, get to it.”
Chapter Eight
Angie strapped on her pack and scoffed at Ernest’s hiking boots. She knew the brand. They were constructed to “feel” the trail and made him look like he was wearing Bigfoot feet.
“You’re not going to get very far in those,” she said.
“You take care of yours and I’ll take care of mine,” he said. “I don’t plan on being out here very long.”
For Ernest’s sake, Angie hoped it didn’t rain or hail or even get dirty while they were out searching. She thought of how some people just had to learn the hard way as she walked through the graveyard, waving her flashlight on the ground. Murder had been told to wait by the trucks. He watched her hopefully, his chicken in his mouth.
While Ernest and Rawls unloaded the Wolf, Angie stood by the graveside of Esmerelda Worth. Esmerelda was born in 1883 and died in 1910, which made her younger than Angie. The “0” might have been an “8.” Angie couldn’t be too sure; it was so dark and the stone was worn down. If it was an “8,” that would make her older than Angie, but not by much.
Guilt splashed all over her like mud from the tires of a 4x4 after a three-day rain. I raised you better, her dad said in her mind. Angie concentrated on the tracks on the ground. There were two sets. From her backpack Angie took out a measuring tape and her pen and notepad. She measured and recorded both tracks, then went back to the truck to wait for the techs.
Rawls at least had a backpack, which looked like a tick ready to burst. Angie assumed it was probably the same pack he used to get around at college, maybe Colorado College or Pikes Peak Community College. He wore brand new hiking shoes, but they were more likely to cause a blister than stop a snakebite.
Angie thought to say something. Now was the time to tell their commanding officer how poorly equipped these boys were. Angie was the expert, McAuliffe had said. With any luck, McAuliffe could get some better gear airlifted to them. But then Ernest pointed to Angie and said, “When is the apocalypse, mija?”
“Not soon enough.” She shook hands with Dave McAuliffe, then called Murder to her and started down the mountainside.
“Hey, don’t be mad,” Ernest shouted. “I’m only teasing. It’s just that you have the cowboy hat and the pack and the boots.”
“I’m over it,” she said, still refusing to point out how poorly they were dressed. “Meet you down the trail.”
“But we don’t know where it starts,” Ernest said.
When Ernest turned from yelling after Angie, he nearly ran into McAuliffe, who sneered at him. Ernest shuffled away.
She followed the steps for about ten minutes until she came to a narrow part
of the path that dipped in the mountain. There was also a lot of shade. Angie was about ready to set Murder loose when she heard the click-clacking of the Wolf coming upon her. Lights had been added to this Wolf. She smiled, thinking of her last encounter. Even if these handlers did not carry flashlights, they could at least see where the Wolf was walking.
“That thing sure is noisy,” she told Murder.
Rawls was in front, checking for obstacles and low branches. Ernest watched his tablet from the back. He already had a black smudge on his button-up.
“How’d you get here so fast?” Rawls asked.
“I followed the tracks.”
“What tracks?”
“The ones your Wolf is stepping all over.”
Ernest touched the tablet and the Wolf came to a stop.
“Hey, I’m sorry about earlier. What do you mean, tracks? Cause me and Rawls’ve only had the required wilderness-101 courses, and that’s some real Jeremiah Johnson mountain man shit you pulled.”
She kneeled down and showed them the zombie’s print.
“See how the heel is digging in so much into the ground? Normally people don’t do that. They have more kick-off from their toes. But a zombie is just a dead guy being driven by a bug. Think of a marionette on stilts. Fine motor control isn’t the priority.”
“Okay,” Rawls said. “It isn’t that I disbelieve you. I mean, the Wolf is on the trail, right? But how do you know this isn’t just somebody with injured feet?”
She pointed to the second footprint, the left. “See how it is turned in? Going to scenes the past few weeks and not working my dog gave me time to study zombies. They walk either splay-toed or pigeon-toed, but it’s always more exaggerated than it would have been when the person was alive. And the feet don’t step out as far. That’s ‘cause the wasp is trying to maintain balance while it walks. They have a lot of work to do, these wasps. It’s like working a remote control helicopter and navigating with a compass at the same time. Now, over here are the girl’s tracks.”
