by Doug Goodman
“Where?” It was Ernest.
“The girl is less than a hundred pounds. Eighty or ninety, I’d guess. She barely leaves a mark, but you can see the indentation in the needles.”
“Bullshit,” Ernest said.
“Okay. Then there is this, too.” She brushed the needles aside. A low print was in the dirt, clear as the mud stain on Ernest’s shirt. A little bubbly heart stood out in the center of the track.
“That’s amazing,” Rawls said. “You’re like one of those survivalists, aren’t you?”
“I’m an observer. There’s a lot to see if you know where to look.”
“Exactly why I like the Wolf. It does the looking for you,” Ernest said. “All I have to do is watch the tablet.”
“Watch the tablet? These are the Rocky fucking Mountains. The most famous people from here got that way by dying here. These mountains are home to bears, wolves, mountain lions, rattlesnakes… But that’s okay because you’ll be watching your computer screen. Your toys can’t replace knowledge and skill. You’re part of the machine, the lazy machine that would rather monitor outputs than tackle a problem, even when everything you need is right in front of you.”
“That may be true,” Ernest said, “but the lazy machine caught up to you in what, ten minutes? Sticks-and-stones the Wolf all you want, but she is effective.” He pressed the tablet and the Wolf lumbered to life, punching the ground where the tracks had been and destroying any semblance of evidence.
Angie shook her head and called McAuliffe. She told him about the tracks with the bubbly heart and sent him a photo with her measuring tape next to them.
“Looks like we have the right people on the trail, Angie. Happy hunting,” he said before hanging up.
“So, who is gonna start this party?” Rawls asked, increasing the tension between Ernest and Angie. “I mean, someone has to lead.”
“Lady’s first,” Ernest said. “We’ll see if your pooch chooses the right path.”
Angie led Murder ahead of the others and below the trail. She gave him the command and directed him to search upward. Murder dropped his chicken and sniffed around a bit. He first started checking out some of the bushes and trees.
“You know, my lazy machine would already be down the trail by now,” Ernest said.
Angie ignored him and encouraged Murder to keep working. Murder walked over and hiked a leg on the Wolf.
“Hey!” Ernest said. He pressed a few buttons, and the Wolf backed away from Murder’s stream.
“Get to work,” Angie said, her voice stern and cold. Murder shook his body, then started down the trail, his scarred muzzle bobbing up and down along the trail.
“You made him do that on purpose,” Ernest said as they headed down the trail.
“He did that all himself. Guess he wanted to let your Wolf know which dog was in charge.”
Neither Ernest nor Rawls said anything more for the first hour of the search. Murder led them through the mountains and along animal paths and water ruts. Angie thought to herself of how even the dead seemed to follow the path of least resistance. She had to remind herself not to think of zombies as the dead. They were vehicles for very living and very vicious hosts.
She wondered if “host” was a proper word to describe the relationship between a crimson wasp and its zombie. She made a mental note to ask Dr. Saracen about parasitism the next time she was in his lab, which she hoped was never.
After an hour of following the zombie, Angie breaked Murder. He seemed still eager to lead them after the zombie, but Angie knew he needed the rest, even if her furry companion acted otherwise.
The two techs were not doing so well as Murder. Ernest was arching his back and Rawls was pulling off his boots. The little angel on her shoulder was telling her to help Rawls, but she couldn’t hear him well because the devil had gagged him.
The mountains finally let the moon enter the upside-down crown that was the night sky among the mountains. The moon made its trajectory like a mad dancer dousing out the light of the stars around it. It was times like these when the lunar surface blazed so powerfully that Angie could understand why the Greeks bestowed it with such power as to make it a goddess: Hecate.
Angie wished the moonlight could cool her down. They were all sweating in the heat of the night.
Ernest called in their position, but he could not get a response. The frequency crackled and buzzed. Angie shrugged as if to say “that’s mountains for you.” Ernest sent a way point and hoped it got through to Incident Command.
Murder led the search party through thick, winding pine lands. After about twenty minutes, Ernest said to Angie, “Um, Ms. Graves?”
She turned on them abruptly and dug in her heels. She did not like being called a Miss, and she liked their tone even less.
“What?”
“I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job, but your dog is wrong. We’ve left the scent trail.”
She glanced down at Murder, who had stopped to scratch his ear, the good one. Under the moonlight, his blue patches stood out like silvery puddles of water in a dark forest. He had a blue patch on top of his head, and another one on his right shoulder that curled toward his chest.
“I’ve been doing this a long time. I know when my dog is on the trail and when he is not. If there is another direction you want to go, fine, but I’m following Murder.”
Ernest said, “I understand you’re doing your dog whispering thing out here, and that works for you, lady, but we have actual science to back us up. The Wolf says your dog has moved from a one hundred percent signature trail to a thirty percent signature trail. It’s been falling ten percent almost every five yards for the last forty yards or so. That means the trail is back that way.” He thumbed over his shoulder for effect.
“Murder says the trail is this way. That’s where I’m going.”
Ernest raised his hands up in bewilderment. “To keep following your dog, I got to call it in and explain why me and Rawls are not allowing the Wolf to do its job. I’ve got nothing personal with you, lady, but I have to go back to the trail.”
“Fine,” Angie huffed, and turned around.
Rawls seemed uncomfortable to split up, but neither Ernest nor Angie were budging in this battle of new tech vs. old tech. Rawls followed the Wolf back up to the trail.
As the click-clacking of the robot’s feet receded in the trees, Angie said to Murder, “You better be right, dead dog.”
Murder opened his crooked mouth and breathed happily, then returned to the trail. As Murder worked, Angie scrutinized his behaviors. Was he really working or was he taking her down an elk trail? This direction did look like an animal path through the woods. So if she was being honest with herself, he could be looking for fun. But then, his outward demeanor, which was one of the main ways he communicated to her, was all business. His muzzle was moving like his nose, not his brain, was leading him somewhere. His whole body was being pulled along by that nose. Unfortunately, there was no magic device that could make her dog speak, so the best way to communicate was to “read” him. And so far, his body read, he’s working a trail.
Twenty minutes later, Angie breaked Murder and gave him some water and a dog biscuit. It was important not to overwork the dogs. She had found that with many veteran dogs, and particularly with retrievers, they had an innate desire to make their master happy, a desire so strong that she believed the dogs capable of working themselves into injuries. So it was up to her to force him to stop, rest, and refuel before returning to work. She also pulled out some trail mix for herself. She studied their trail on the GPS and was just starting to wonder where the Wolf had taken Rawls and Ernest when she heard the robot coming toward her. A wave of relief rushed over her, though she tried not to show it.
“I wish I had a camera to take a picture of you two,” Angie said. “The looks on your faces.”
Angie had seen fish more shocked to be out of water. Ernest and Rawls looked like football players coming out of the tunnel only to
find themselves on a baseball field.
“How did you get here?” Rawls asked.
“Followed my dog,” Angie said with a lot more confidence than she had sixty seconds ago. “Do you know the difference between an AKC trailing dog and a search dog? The AKC-certified trailing dog is taught to follow every corner of the trail and not deviate. A search dog like mine, he’s taught to find a body as soon as possible. If that means cutting corners, then do it. You boys just took a long detour around the mountain, which the zombie probably did, but this guy here smelled the other end of the trail and took me straight to it. It may not be actual science, but in his mind, it was common sense.”
Ernest shared a disheartening look with Rawls.
“By the way,” Angie said. “We should stop.”
“Why? You tired?” Ernest asked.
“I don’t’ think we are going to catch it tonight. The tracks are too old and lead up over that pass. It is going to be slow going for everyone.
“I’d rather keep going,” Ernest said. “Based on the readings, I think we’re closer than you think. No offense.”
“Fine. Let me know when you want to stop.”
Angie let them take the lead and did not work Murder. The search pushed on until dawn, and by then even Rawls was complaining that he was tired. He was walking slow and gently like a man in new shoes who had collected a few blisters on his feet. As Ernest slipped in the dirt, red splotches had ruined what wasn’t ripped out of his shirt. He had put on his bite protection underneath for fashion reasons apparently. The bite collar stuck out above his shirt collar. Angie shook her head. She ate a granola bar while they marched up the pass. They had another hour on the trail before they made it to the top, she guessed.
“Okay, why don’t we stop here,” Ernest said.
Angie found a soft spot in the ground, which was never easy in the Rockies. She checked Murder for ticks, took a drink of water, then pulled out her tarp and wrapped it around herself and Murder, who curled up next to her into a search team burrito. Despite the heat of the night, Murder’s warmth felt good next to her. Angie was asleep before Ernest and Rawls decided to start a fire.
Angie succumbed to a deep sleep, the kind that has monsters in its deepest, darkest, recesses.
Murder’s teeth tugged at her sleeve, and for a moment she wondered if this was what life as a retriever dummy was like. Then she felt heat. She exhaled as she woke, like she was coming up for air. The sun sat on its throne high above them, pushing through the clouds. Something stunk, like burning rubber, and a thin trail of black smoke circled down out of the sky. Her eyes followed the path until it brought her to the Wolf. Flames were feeding like bloodsucking parasites on one of the Wolf’s rubber feet. Soon the fire would jump to the rest of his carriage.
Angie leaped out of her tarp. The fire the boys had built was quickly finding its way to the Wolf. “Fire!” she yelled. The boys woke groggily. Angie popped the top from one of her water bottles and shook it out over the Wolf’s pads while Murder pranced around the machine, joyously wagging his tail for a job well done. Later, Angie would think that it was the Lab in Murder. Labs were a special kind of stupid. Case in point, Murder was smart enough to recognize the danger and wake her up, but then he started dancing around the fire−out of harm’s distance−with all the attention-hounding of a rump shaker in a rap video.
“Hurry! We gotta move it!” Angie shouted.
Ernest was on his feet before Rawls. He was going through his bag and searching for the tablet while Rawls reached into his backpack. Rawls pulled out another water bottle and emptied it on the Wolf. He missed, and Angie growled. They both reached into their bags for more bottles. Some they uncorked and others they squirted onto the fire until it was nothing more than smoking, watery ash.
By the time Rawls had doused the fire under the robot, Ernest had commanded the Wolf away from the firepit’s smoky remains.
The last droplets of water fell from Angie’s water bottle.
“Jesus,” Angie said in her best Julia Roberts Oh My God voice. “Who the hell starts a fire in the middle of a pine forest surrounded by wild fires? Have you not watched the news in the past three months? We’re lucky we didn’t burn up half the state and kill ourselves in the process.”
She did not wait for Ernest or Rawls to respond. She stuffed her tarp back into her pack and left them to deal with the steaming Wolf.
Chapter Nine
When Rawls and Ernest and the Wolf caught up to Angie, they found her rubbing Murder down. She had him to thank for saving their lives. If Murder had waited a minute longer, the fire may have spread beyond their control.
Murder was egging her on, moving to keep her petting him. He didn’t care about their near loss of life anymore; he just wanted the attention. It was while she was petting Murder and thinking about their special kind of stupid that Angie thought of a quality that she had always liked about dogs: their ability to live in the moment. Dogs, for the most part, had an innate capacity to overcome baggage. She had seen shy, almost aggressive dogs that had been abused turn into the most grateful pets.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Ernest said as they came up with the Wolf. “In hindsight, I don’t know what I was thinking starting a fire. I guess this felt like camping, and I just wanted to have a fire going to keep the darkness out.”
“If you were so scared of the dark, you should have brought a flashlight,” Angie said. She wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily.
“Okay, first of all, I am not afraid of the dark. And second, you have to understand that I am not some wilderness expert like you. I’m a glorified lab tech out in the wild because I thought it would be an adventure to hunt zombies.”
“Well, I hope you’re enjoying your adventure.”
“I was wrong, I admit that. But instead of pointing it out to me, maybe you could lend me a hand. Assume I was raised in Denver, hunt zombies in the city where I work fifty to sixty hours a week, and don’t get outdoors that much, so I need some help. But I need help, not your criticism.”
Angie’s shoulders slumped. If Murder could forgive and forget so easily, she should take a cue from her dog and also find forgiveness. “Sorry for being an ass. There is a lot of drama from elsewhere that I am throwing on you, and that is wrong. Basically, I am being set up as an ‘us against them’ thing with you guys. For you two, succeed or fail, everything will be good when you go back to work when this is done. I am fighting for my right to do this. I am being constantly judged on what Murder and I screw up.”
“I’m not judging you.”
“I know, I know.”
“Maybe we should start over,” Ernest said. “My name is Ernest Ramirez. I am a Wolf handler for Mueller Engineering, the minds that built this beast.”
“Angie Graves. I train dogs to find all kinds of things–fowl, forensics, bombs, cadavers, and now zombies.”
“That’s amazing.”
“Thank you.”
The other boy stepped forward. “I’m William Rawls, but everybody just calls me Rawls. I’m even newer than Ernest, which is why he is lead. I guess I’m kind of a handler in training.”
“Oh, and this,” Angie said, pointing to the canine at her side, “Is my dead dog. Ole Black-and-Blue himself. His name is Murder, and he is the world’s first ever zombie dog.”
“Murder. I like it.” Ernest said and put his hand out. Murder growled.
“He isn’t very people friendly, kind of like me,” she said with more apology than she wanted. “But he is really good at what he does. I guess it takes a slightly demented animal to chase zombies, but then again, it takes a slightly demented handler, too.”
Ernest said, “Can I ask you something? Back when we started, Dave mentioned that you were tracking larvae. What does that mean?”
“There is a theory that the wasps are using the zombies as part of their reproductive cycle. They abduct the children, take them to their lairs, and deposit eggs on them. That’s what becomes the lar
vae food.”
Ernest looked at Rawls, and then to Angie. “That is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard. I have a second cousin who went missing year ago. You’re saying it’s possible that she became food? I’m going to be sick.”
“It’s only a theory, but Murder and I are trying to confirm it.”
“Would you two like to lead?”
“I would, but first, let’s cut some notches in your shoes so that you don’t keep sliding on the trail. It won’t be perfect, but it’ll help.
Angie took Ernest’s Bigfoot feet and cut little lines along the rim with a spare Swiss Army Knife she kept in her pack. She then slashed a few lines in the middle of the sole, shallow so as not to poke a hole in the already thin shoe.
For Rawls, she drained his blisters, then padded them with moleskin. Then she stuffed his shoes with large rocks, doing her best to jam them in.
“What are you doing to my shoes?” Rawls asked.
“I’m trying to stretch them so that they fit you better,” she said between grunts. Once she was satisfied, Angie hung the shoes from a nearby pine.
They spent the rest of the afternoon regrouping. Angie pulled half the items out of Rawls’ backpack. Rawls and Ernest opened up the Wolf’s chest cavity and checked the wires to make sure that everything was operational after the fire. They were lucky. The Wolf had sustained little damage beyond the superficial.
Angie noticed Ernest checking some equipment strapped to the side of the Wolf.
“Is that a catch-pole?” Angie asked.
Ernest flashed a knowing smile. “Yes, it is. The ultimate instrument for snaring dogs, goats, and the occasional zombie. If you douse it with garlic, you can even catch vampires.” Ernest pulled the catch-pole out of its clips and pantomimed the capture of a zombie as he spoke. “It’s simple, really. First, you get up alongside or behind the zombie. Next, you lower the noose—we aren’t supposed to call it that—over the zombie’s head, and pull the cord. Then the zombie has nowhere to go. Can’t get to us, and can’t escape, so we force him to the ground. Once he’s on the ground, we can exterminate the bug.”
