Paws

by Stefan Petrucha

  Are you saying we should kiss dogs instead of people?

  That’s gross.

  No, don’t go kissing your dog! Geez. Especially not this one. The coarse-grain-sandpaper tongue shreds the mask in no time. Getting my hands up and under its snout slows the lapping, but it’s still licking away, tearing off chunks of flesh like my head’s the business end of a chunky Deadpool ice-cream cone. Just like poor Bernardo.

  Screaming some guttural variation on ow-ow-ow, I twist away and get a look at myself in a storefront window. For a second, I think the missing face-bits make me look better, but that’s probably just the mind-numbing pain talking. Makes a fellow think, though. I’ve been around, gone toe-to-toe with every major character in the Marvel Universe—heroes, villains, sidekicks, and supporting cast—and this is what I’ve come to? Licked to death?

  Yawn.

  What’s up with the old lady?

  Pardon me for paying attention to my own agony. She’s back up, standing in front of her house. One hand’s clutching her chest like she’s trying to keep her heart from escaping; the other’s up on her chin, fingertips touching her lower lip. Dentures agape, she runs through a litany of phrases better suited to the Roaring Nineties:

  “Heavens to Betsy! Stars and garters! Jumping jiminy! Crikey! Bless my soul! As I live and breathe! Jinkies! Black goat of the woods and her thousand young!”

  (Okay, I threw in that last one, but she was saying it with her eyes.)

  Meanwhile, I’m trying to push off her beloved Benny before he hits bone and starts gnawing. It’s not getting any easier. He still looks the same, but he’s getting heavier. My arms feel like they’re gonna buckle any second.

  I rally for a big shove, only to hear a sharp beep-beep-beep. Someone’s texting me? Now? Nope. It’s the ADD. That flashing green light means it’s finally figured out this thing is not really a dog, after all.

  Goody! What with me not completely sure my whole head can grow back (and really, would I still be me if it did?), I figure I’m entitled to the use of some deadly force. Slight problem, though: If I take one hand off the pooch to grab the ADD, there won’t be much holding Benny back. I’ve got to be fast, so no pausing to check for messages.

  One, two…

  I’m about to skip three and make my move when company arrives. No, it’s not S.H.I.E.L.D. I haven’t done nearly enough damage for that yet. It’s a super-hero guest star! You know super heroes, right? If not Squirrel Girl or Throg the Frog, then at least the really big names, like Spider-Man? Remember what I said about Captain America not being in this book? He isn’t, but Spidey is.

  Amazingly, a flash of red and blue swoops in. I don’t even want to ask what that web’s attached to. I’d call him poetry in motion, an arachnid Astaire, but he’s more like one of those hopping wolf spiders—still as a statue one second, followed by a lightning-bolt move. Not a water spout in sight, he lickety-split leaps to a brick wall, waits a sec, jumps to a tree branch, waits, grabs a car hood, waits, hits a lamppost, waits…

  And me, I’m lying there like an idiot, watching him with what’s left of my face as he grabs the dog.

  I’m fast. I could certainly kick your ass and have you home before you knew what hit you. But this guy? By the time I belt out “Spidey, wait!” he’s over by the old lady, handing her the dog.

  “Here’s your pet, ma’am. Hefty little guy, isn’t he?”

  Benny’s no fool. He plays it to the hilt, going all limp, panting and whimpering. It’s the old lady who does the snarling: “Get away from my dog, you awful Spider-Man!”

  She jabs him with that Taser. Gzt!

  I thought his spider-sense was supposed to warn him of danger, but it’s like he has a blind spot for old ladies—or this one, anyway. Next thing you know, that awful Spider-Man is crouched sideways on a lamppost, rubbing his boo-boo.

  CHAPTER 13

  SCREW it. Here’s Chapter 13. This is the 21st century. I’ll be damned if I’m going to kowtow to some lame superstition. Pardon me while I toss some salt over my left shoulder.

  The danger’s gone, thanks to me (and whoever invented the nano-catalyst), but I don’t get so much as a “Thank you, you beautiful psychopath!” before Spidey heads off to lick his old-lady wounds and Aunt May leaves to ponder a goldfish for her next pet. Me, I can already guess how the conversation with Preston will go (“How did you even find a busload of nuns?”).

  I figure I may as well vamoose before S.H.I.E.L.D. gets here.

  Felt longer, but the Benny incident took all of fifteen minutes. A little luck and I’ll be able to scratch-and-sniff another doggie name off the list before the sun’s done rising.

  Upper East Side, here we come. My ’porter makes the trip a done deal. No muss, no fuss. Y’know, teleportation can be a pain for writers. If a character can zap anywhere, whenever they like, where’s the drama? That’s why there’s always some intergalactic whatsis interfering with the Heisenberg compensators. But that’s not a problem here, me not being what they call a rational actor. As already seen, I’d never use my ‘porter to ruin an exciting battle sequence. I’m more likely to ’port myself into a worse situation, or surprise everyone by dropping the plot completely to chill on a nice sandy beach. (SPOILER ALERT: I do that later. Watch for it!)

  It does come in handy for eliminating the boring bits we can all do without, like me catching a cab or earning stares as I ride the subway. I don’t want to go through it, you don’t want to read about it, so…poof.

  This time, I pop myself into a cozy bedroom. Wafting window shades with heart-shaped patterns, drawn closed against the growing morn, cast wavering shadows on the walls, whose whiteness is interrupted only by a few cheerful self-stick Disney characters. The child-small furniture is a matching white, with pink borders. A few dolls with unrealistic body proportions are scattered on the plush rug.

  It’s either a little girl’s room, or some clever bait set out by a pederast.

  (Now there’s a type I could kill with impunity…)

  But there’s no grisly creep waiting to strike. The only sounds are the soft rhythmic breaths of the two sole inhabitants, the cherubs asleep in the princess bed: an innocent child and her Labrador puppy. Her arms around him, his around hers, foreheads touching, eyes closed, they dream their dreamy dreams of rainbow unicorns and butterflies. It doesn’t get sweeter than this.

  Which means it’s downhill from here.

  Quiet as a Mouseketeer, I try to slip the Lab out without waking either of them. They wrinkle their noses, but I pull him steadily along, slow and gentle. Nice and easy, nice and easy. One nail on a neatly clipped back paw catches a loose thread on the comforter. I keep moving back—steady, steady. The thread gets tighter, tighter, until it snaps silently and drifts off like a tethered snowflake.

  They both go right on sleeping, she under her quilt, the Lab in my hands.

  Arriving via ’porter is quiet, but it pops when I leave. I figure I’ll put some distance between us before I zap out, so at least she’ll have a good night’s sleep before she’s traumatized by the missing pooch.

  Got the drapes pushed aside, one hand on the window, the other holding the Lab. Through the cloth of my costume, I feel a morning breeze against my man-teats. The scamp feels it, too, and he starts scrabbling his legs in midair. He doesn’t wake up. It’s more like he’s sleep-chasing a butterfly. Awwww! He’s special.

  And not a big problem—until he twists and nearly falls out the window. I hop back to keep him in the room, and he slips free. Now he’s sleep-trotting, bumping into anything that doesn’t happen to appear in his dream.

  Isn’t this peachy? Me, chasing a pooch on tiptoes. I put my finger to my lips and make the “Shh! Shh!” sign without the hissing, but a) he’s asleep, and b) who knows if a puppy’d understand that, anyway? Full of that freaky boundless pup energy, he hits a standing lamp, bounds across a shelf full of picture books, and headbutts an 8x10 of him and the kid in a heart-shaped frame that probably came free when he wa
s delivered.

  Everything goes falling, but I manage to catch it all—each and every appliance, book, and tchotchke—before they can hit the ground and wake the sleeping child. Why? Because no matter how many people I kill, no matter how much blood I spill…you know, I’m not really sure why. I should have ’ported out when I had the chance. Now I’m balancing all this kiddie crap, and the freaking mutt is still jumping around like a backup dancer in a Michael Jackson video.

  I try to put it all back where it came from, but for every popup book I get back in place, Sir Happy-Dance sends two more flying.

  Now I’m so fed up I want to chuck the pile at the wall. We’ve all been there, right? Stuck in traffic, waiting for an elevator, trying to defuse a nuclear bomb. You’d just grit your teeth and suck it up, right? But in moments like these, I don’t do what you do, I do what I feel like. That’s part of my appeal.

  So I chuck that precious pile of belongings right into those nice clean walls.

  The girl shoots up to a sitting position. Even her terrified gasp is endearing. The Lab can sleep through anything, though. While I run around after the skittering somnambulist, the kid gawks at the red on my suit with all her wide-eyed glory.

  “Are you…Santa?”

  If she’s going to throw it over the plate like that, who am I not to swing?

  “Sure,” I say. “It’s August, but hey, why not?”

  I grab the dog. She rubs her eyes. “What are you doing with Mr. Snuffles?”

  “Mr. Snuffles?” I look at the dog like I’d forgotten he was there. The double take makes the kid giggle. About time someone laughed at my jokes. “Well, honey, Mr. Snuffles is broken, see? So Santa’s gonna take him to the North Pole and fix him for you.”

  That’s from some kids’ book, right?

  She pouts. “But mommy said the vet already fixed Mr. Snuffles.”

  “Yeah, well, he broke again. See how his legs are moving around even though his eyes are closed? That’s pretty freaky, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, no!”

  “You don’t want a broken Mr. Snuffles, and Mr. Snuffles hates being broken, so now he’s got to get himself fixed again.”

  Fixed in this case likely being a euphemism for dead.

  “And you’ll bring him right back?”

  I give her a thumbs up. “You bet!”

  My fake grin is so sincere, I think about taking off my mask to show it to her, but that wouldn’t be pleasant for either of us. I do feel kinda bad about lying. If Snuffs doesn’t change, maybe I can bring him back. If he does, maybe S.H.I.E.L.D. will let me send her the goop in a jar. It’d be like a Sea-Monkey, only pinker. Picture that at show-and-tell.

  My guilt assuaged by vague promises, I turn to the window. But you know kids.

  “You won’t hurt him, will you?”

  “Not if I don’t have to. I mean…of course not! I’m Santa. Don’t you trust Santa?”

  She nods. “I sure do!” I turn away again. “Santa?”

  “Oh, for… What?”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  “Kid, it’s very early in the morning, and Santa’s had a rough night, so he’s a little cranky. If I bring you a glass of water, will you promise to close that freaking pie hole under your button nose and go to sleep? Otherwise Santa might punch a few holes into your pretty walls. Get me?”

  “Okay.”

  Sleepwalking dog under one arm, I make it into the kitchen and pour her a tall one on ice (filtered water, you freaks!). I stick in a straw and leave a stern note for the parental units suggesting they tell their child about stranger danger sooner rather than later.

  She takes like half a sip and sets the cup aside. Thirsty, my ass.

  She snuggles under the covers, I pat her warm head and make the puppy wave bye-bye with his paw. Since she’s already awake, I use the ’porter to take myself to the roof, like I should have done in the first place.

  Kids. Sheesh.

  CHAPTER 14

  YEAH, that’s right. Chapter 14. I’m skipping 13, like in an elevator, because it’s unlucky. Deal with it, sequential freaks.

  Meanwhile, back in fictive reality….

  Little realizing that her furry ball of love has become as dense as lead, the sweet old lady tries to lift him into her puny arms. Not happening. Her spine cracks like a bunch of banging billiard balls. I hear it all the way from over here.

  My trusty ADD armed and out, I trot over, ready to do my good deed. “Back away from the puppy, ma’am!”

  Startled by the je ne sais quois of my muscular form barreling at her—or maybe by Benny’s increased mass—she staggers far enough away to give me a clean shot. Now if everyone will stay right where they are for a sec, I can shoot first and answer questions later.

  The monster spray once seemed a quick and easy solution, but in practice that hasn’t always been the case. With a thwip and a thok, a web snags the ADD. I hope that stuff doesn’t come out of Spidey’s body. I really, really hope so. I know it’s all Adamantium-strong and stuff, but it sure as hell looks like there’s a fist-sized glob of snot oozing around my nice clean ADD.

  Before I can say ew! the web-sneezer pulls it out of my hands.

  I don’t even merit a decent spider-quip. “Wilson, I’d ask what the hell is wrong with you, but there isn’t enough time in the world to hear the answer. Just get away from the dog, get out of the city, and we’ll call it a day.”

  I’m stunned. The original teen-angst super hero steals my gun, and then he goes all cranky old man on me like a Frisbee landed in his front yard? He is not being friendly or neighborly in the slightest.

  Hoping I don’t come across like some kid whining, “He started it,” I point at the lady and her lapdog. “You don’t understand, that’s really a monster!”

  Sideways on the streetlamp, he rears like I’ve insulted his momma. “That’s no monster—that’s my aunt! I mean…it’s a harmless old lady!”

  Before I can begin to parse the psycho-dynamics inherent in that odd utterance, the aforementioned harmless old lady gives Spidey a look that makes me shiver. By now, even I know to give Madame Mace & Taser some deference. Sure, in my head I may call her old lady, biddy, crone, or what have you, but out loud? That’s asking for trouble.

  “You come down from that pole, you whippersnapper, and I’ll show you who’s old!”

  I put my hand to my mouth in the universal gesture for oh my! Spider-Man puts up his hands in submission, which looks really odd since he’s still sideways.

  “Sorry, ma’am, sorry! I meant senior citizen. Is senior okay?”

  Her eyes become angry slits. He looks around all nervous, like he’s sussing out an escape route from the Rhino.

  Since my costume and wacky behavior are no longer getting the attention they deserve, I clap my hands real loud. “Hey! Over here! Much as I’d love to grab some popcorn and watch this sad display of political correctness, I wasn’t talking about her. I was talking about the dog!”

  All three—Spidey, the senior, and the dog—twist their heads at me. It’s pretty cute, all of them with the same expression like that. A nice family shot.

  “Benny…a monster?” says the Amazing One. “Give me a break.”

  I cross my heart and raise two fingers. “I swear, any second now, that pampered snowball is gonna swell up so big it wouldn’t fit on a Jumbotron if you pulled back for a long shot. And I’m not just talking big—I’m talking an insatiable taste for living flesh. Can’t you tell yet? Look at it!”

  They do. They look at the puppy. It’s licking its crotch. I can hear the crickets.

  “Okay, maybe not any second, but it will, I swear! Why would I lie about something like that?”

  Ever the wit, Spider-Man shoots back, “Because…you hallucinate?”

  Good point.

  You’re not helping! How’d you like a punch right in that bold face of yours?

  You keep talking to yourself like this, you’ll only make his case for him.

  Right. Outsid
e voice. “C’mon! Didn’t you see it attack me? And you both felt how heavy it was, right? They heard her back crack in Times Square! For Pete’s sake and the love of Mike, what else could make a toy dog weigh in like Tyson?”

  Mr. Great Power/Great Responsibility shrugs. “She overfeeds him?”

  She tsks. “I do not.”

  Having had just about enough of our costumed shenanigans, the nice lady bends over to hook her leash on Benny’s collar. She starts to rise back up, but her expression’s changed. The wheels in her head have started turning. She’s thinking about something. By the time she’s fully upright—which, you know, takes a while— those scary eyes are glinting like the metal on the edge of a knife.

  “How do you know my dog’s name, you awful Spider-Man?”

  “Oh…uh…you just said it, didn’t you, ma’am? You called him Ben…or Benny?” His head starts a-twitching, like he’s looking for that escape route again. “Something like that?”

  Benny perks up at the overuse of his name.

  His owner’s not amused. “I did no such thing!”

  He digs himself in deeper. “Sure you did. Back me up here, Deadpool.”

  “Sorry, bro. Neither of us have used that name since you got here. Come to think of it, how do you know?” I put my hands on my hips. “Spider-Man! Have you been stalking this poor woman?”

  He nearly leaps out of his costume. “No! I…”

  Guess I hit a nerve. “Relax, compadre. Maybe J.J.J. calls you a menace, but I’m not here to pass judgment. Like I always say, before you take the splinter from someone else’s eye, you have get the log out of your own eye first. That way, you’ve got a log you can smack him with. Get me?”

  “No, not really.”

  Me neither.

  It’s a tactic! I’m playing for time, hoping the dog will get going with his strange change already. If this mysterious Dick guy is behind it all like Jane said, he’s got a real quality-control problem. Or maybe granny here does overfeed the dog.

  “Guys, I don’t want any trouble. I love you, Spidey—and ma’am, you should really consider joining the X-Men. But I’ve got a job to do, and it’s actually in the public interest for a change. Can’t I please just have the dog for a little while—just to make sure he doesn’t turn into a monster?”