Good Dog

by Dan Gemeinhart

  “It’s a mistake,” he said. “A big one. But fine. I’ll take you there.” For the first time since Brodie had met him, Tuck’s voice was completely serious. Then his mouth opened into a smile, and his tail began to wag. “But if we’re going, we’re running.”

  Tuck led them straight up the hill at a dead, reckless run. Away from the river, through the trees, past the pond. The higher they got, the darker the skies became. Blue gave way to gray above them as the friendly clustered trees below gave way to a thicker, grimmer forest. It was a shadow-stained kind of forest, with more branches and fewer leaves. More dirt, and less grass. A shivery, look-over-your-shoulder kind of forest.

  But Tuck and Brodie and Sasha? They didn’t turn around. Sure, Tuck’s ears drooped a bit. And Brodie’s tail hung lower. And Sasha did cast looks back the way they’d come, and anxious glances into the gloom that closed in around them. But they didn’t turn around.

  It wasn’t far, where they went, but it felt like a world away from the happy, sun-splashed one they’d left.

  And then they were there.

  The end.

  They followed Tuck around a large boulder and stopped where they were. The gray dirt path they were following went on a few more paces, and then … didn’t. It ended at the stark edge of a cliff. There was a sheer ledge, a line of stone and dust where the world seemed to end, and beyond it was nothing but blackness, and swirling white fog, and a frigid wind blowing into their faces.

  Brodie shivered, and it wasn’t just from the cold wind or just from soul-deep fear … it was from both.

  The whole place—the rocks, the path, the cliff—was blurry and vague. When Brodie looked close at any one spot, he couldn’t seem to focus on it … his eyes just slid to the side. Like teeth off a bone.

  He shifted nervously from paw to paw. Tuck had stopped a few steps in front of him, and Sasha stood by his side.

  “Yeah, buddy,” Tuck said, his eyes on the inky emptiness at the cliff’s edge. “There it is. The way back.”

  “How do you know?” Brodie whispered, the hair on his neck rising.

  “I’ve seen others go,” Tuck said quietly. He looked back at Brodie, and his eyes were sad. His heart was, too. “But they weren’t like you, Brodie. They were … bad dogs.”

  Bad dogs. Brodie swallowed back a queasy feeling at the words.

  Tuck turned his head to look at the edge, then looked back at Brodie. “Not one of them ever came back, buddy. Not one.”

  “I don’t like this place,” Sasha murmured.

  “Me, neither,” Tuck said. “It’s not a good place, Brodie. This isn’t what you want to do.”

  Brodie took a deep breath and walked past him, closer to the rim. His belly was churning and his fur stood on end, but he kept walking, until he was only a few steps away.

  It was strange, the darkness that waited beyond the edge. It didn’t matter that he got closer, didn’t matter that he squinted his eyes and tried to peer down into it. It didn’t get any less shadowy. Even only a few steps from the edge, Brodie couldn’t see even a paw’s length down into it. The darkness was so utter and impenetrable that it seemed like he could have reached out a paw and touched it.

  Brodie was shaking. Not just his heart. Not just his paws, or his muscles. Every bit of that dog, inside and out, was shaking.

  But Brodie? He took another trembling step forward. Then another. He reached his snout forward. Ready, perhaps, to leap into the darkness.

  Because Brodie was a dog with a heart as pure and shining as the color of the sunrise. And there’s never been a sunrise that shrank from darkness, no matter how thick or cold it was.

  When Brodie’s brave paws were mere breaths away from the brink, the angel finally spoke. He had waited as long as he could. He’d wanted to see just how much courage there was in that little black-and-white dog, and how much love.

  There was plenty.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  Brodie pulled back from the edge with a jerk. He spun to face the voice.

  There was a person sitting on a rock, just a few feet away. He hadn’t been there a moment before. Brodie was sure of it. Brodie squinted at him, cocked his head. But just like the rest of that place, he couldn’t exactly see him. His shape was there, and he could make out a kind face that was younger than an adult’s, but not quite a child’s. It was more boy than man, though.

  “You shouldn’t go, Brodie,” the boy said, “unless you’re really sure. And probably not even then.”

  Brodie took an uncertain step toward him.

  “How do you know my name?”

  “Because you’re here,” the boy answered. “You’re here, so I know you. Just like I know Tuck. And you, Sasha.”

  Sasha’s tail wagged, but Tuck stood as still as Brodie did.

  “Who … what …” Brodie struggled with his new words to frame a question. It was a question that the boy sitting on the rock knew well. It was one they always asked him.

  “I’m a … helper, Brodie. Some would say an ‘angel.’ That’s not quite right, but you can call me that if it’s easier. I’m here to help you move on. Or,” he added, looking toward the cliff, “to help you stay here.”

  “I’m not staying here,” Brodie said quickly. “And I’m not moving on. I have to go back.” His heart was filled with the sound of his boy calling out his name. The angel-who-wasn’t-an-angel knew that.

  “Come here, Brodie,” he said. His voice was gentle; it eased the fur still bristling on Brodie’s back.

  The angel held out his hand. Brodie hesitated, then looked back at Sasha and Tuck, who stood watching him. They didn’t look scared.

  Brodie walked forward, into the arms of the angel.

  He laid his head in the angel’s lap and let him scratch at his ears and pet down the fur on his back. These were hands that had petted dogs before, and knew how to do it right. And every scratch, every pat, and every rub was a memory of people, of how good they could be, of how good they could make you feel. Brodie closed his eyes.

  “Let me show you, Brodie. You guys, too,” the angel said to Sasha and Tuck. “Listen.” He knelt down in the dirt, one hand still on Brodie’s back while the other pointed, back down beyond the grim forest and toward the riverbank sunshine.

  “This place is an in-between place,” he said. “A passing-through place. When you came here, you left behind a world of darkness. Look.” The angel shifted, turning toward the cliff’s edge. Brodie turned with him, staring into that blackness with wide eyes.

  The angel swept with his hand at the darkness. The fog churned and thickened. The angel swept his hand again, and a round window opened in the mist before them. Through it sparkled a star-speckled blackness, and then again he swept his hand and a glowing blue orb appeared before them. Brodie knew it. Though he’d never seen it, though he’d never known what it looked like, he knew then that it was the world. The world where he’d come from. The world where his boy was.

  As he watched, the world zoomed closer. He saw water, he saw land and clouds, and he understood.

  He flew with dizzying speed, his paws still standing in dirt but his eyes a world away. Images flashed before him as he raced over the world, images the angel had chosen to show him.

  He saw a dog with food-starved ribs pressing through his fur, panting in a pile of garbage. He saw a man raising a stick, his face ugly with anger, as a dog cowered against a wall. He saw a woman and a mutt, shivering together under soggy newspapers as a freezing rain fell and other people walked past without a glance. He saw a limping dog scurrying across a road before a roaring car, too slow; he squeezed his eyes shut as the bumper slammed into the dog’s hind legs, spinning the broken body into a gutter. He saw many things. And he understood.

  “That world? It can be a dark place. It has violence, and despair, and cruelty, and pain. But there’s plenty of good there, too; plenty of light and love and hope. Beauty.”

  Again the angel swept his hand, and the visions changed.
Brodie saw a girl bend down and offer half her sandwich to a stray dog on the sidewalk. He saw a man lifting a dog up a front porch, a dog too old to climb the stairs himself. And he saw the same dog and woman sitting in the rain, but this time he saw the woman reach to pull the newspaper tighter over the dog’s shivering shoulder, and the dog lick her grimy hand in thanks. He saw a boy, pale and sick, lying exhausted in a bed—and a dog, sitting patiently by his side, eyes on the boy, never leaving.

  “Yeah,” the angel said. “Plenty of beauty. And that world is important. It’s where we find our goodness, and create our beauty, and prove our courage. But it’s all tangled up there. You can’t pull the beauty out from the tragedy.”

  He waved his hand and the flickering parade of moments sped up. It all passed by: pain and patience, kindness and cruelty, mercy and madness. Brodie couldn’t look away.

  “It’s only from up here that you can see it and understand it and find peace. You need … the bigger truth, Brodie. You need to step out into the light to see the shadows scatter.”

  Another wave of his hand and, somehow, Brodie saw it all at once. The view zoomed out so that he saw the bright blue world shining in a sea of blackness, but at the same time he could still see all the million moments of beauty and sadness flashing past. And he understood.

  The angel dropped his arm and leaned back. The mist swirled again. It filled in the window they’d been looking through. Once again, there was nothing beyond the edge of the dirt except for depthless dark and fog.

  “You don’t need to go down to find your peace. Your peace will rise to you, if you let it. Everything good rises upward in the end. This place is where your goodness shakes off the last bits of darkness and sadness and shadow, so that you can move on without it. And that’s what you need to do, Brodie.”

  Brodie looked up into the angel’s warm green eyes.

  “What if I can’t?”

  The angel pursed his lips.

  “There are some who think they can’t. They get stuck here. Or, worse, they try to go back, like you. But listen, Brodie. If you’re stuck here, it’s because there’s something back there holding you. Something that you can’t make peace with or let go. And sometimes, yeah, going back can help souls let go and move on to Forever. But listen. It’s almost never. It’s almost never. Most who go back … it just makes them hold on tighter. It makes it even harder to let go. And they stay until … until their life is gone. Their soul. And they’re stuck there. Not alive, not dead, just … shadows. Stuck in the darkness like mud. Ghosts.”

  Brodie understood, somehow, all that he had said. He could feel it, deep in the soul of himself. He could almost taste the truth in the angel’s words.

  And yet.

  Still echoing in his heart was that dark memory, the memory of his boy’s fearful face and the gnawing feeling that Aiden needed him and that he had let him down. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.

  And Brodie? He tried to see through to that bigger truth.

  But he couldn’t. Because one thing wouldn’t budge: the hard tug of his love for that boy. That love was the biggest truth he could ever imagine.

  Brodie looked into the blackness. Then he looked back up to the angel.

  “I … I … I have to go back. I’m sorry. I have to see my boy.”

  The angel’s brow furrowed. His mouth tightened. He leaned forward. When he spoke, his voice was still kind, but its softness had been replaced by a hard sort of truth.

  “Listen, Brodie. You say you want to see your boy again. I understand. Believe me. I do. But that’s why you have to stay here. If you go back, you may never see your boy again.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, Brodie. Whatever’s gonna happen back there in that world is gonna happen. You’re done with that world now. And it’s done with you. Someday, your boy will move on, like you did, and be in a place a lot like this one. And then your boy will let go, and be free, and move on to Forever. And you can be there waiting for him, Brodie. And then you can be with him again, Brodie. Truly with him. But only if you get there. If you go back now, like you want to, you’ll be able to see your boy, maybe … but you won’t be with him, not really. And then you’ll be stuck, almost for sure. And you’ll lose your soul. And your boy will move on. And you’ll never, ever be with him again. If you lose down there, Brodie, you lose everything.”

  The angel took his hand off Brodie’s back. He stood up and stepped to the edge of the darkness. He held his hands up.

  “If you want to go, go. Jump. I can’t stop you. But if your boy were here, he would tell you not to do this, Brodie. He would beg you to stay here and not do this. Believe me.”

  The angel sighed. He looked out into the depthless, wind-howled blackness, then back to the dog at his feet.

  “So. That’s your choice. Do you want to, Brodie? Do you want to go back?”

  Brodie’s soul was a battleground.

  When he thought of that one monstrous memory, of his boy in danger and screaming his name, every part of him wanted to charge forward, to leap off into that blackness and save him. But then he thought of what was at stake. Of what the angel said he’d almost certainly lose: himself. His soul. His boy, forever. Forever.

  “I want … ,” he said. He looked down into the waiting darkness. “I want …”

  But then the angel hushed him.

  “Wait,” he whispered. “Shhh.” Brodie looked up, then followed the angel’s gaze to where Sasha stood.

  She’d listened to everything. She’d looked into the blackness. She’d looked back at the sunshine, the river, the green. She’d looked. And she’d listened.

  And Sasha? She’d figured it out.

  She’d walked a little away from the rest of them, back down the path. Her body was still, her ears up. Her eyes were not on the distant water, or the fog-swirled cliff … they were looking up. Up at the clouds, and up at the blue sky. And up at the single beam of golden light stretching down toward her.

  Brodie saw what was happening. He took a quick step toward her.

  But Tuck stepped forward. He stood in front of Brodie, his shoulder blocking him. But gently.

  Because Tuck? He was a good dog. Even when it was hard.

  “I knew she was close,” he said. “I could see it when we watched the other dog go.”

  “But … but she … ,” Brodie started to say.

  “No, buddy. She’s ready. It’s a good thing.”

  He said the words, but it didn’t sound to Brodie like he meant them. Not all the way.

  “Here she goes,” he murmured. And then she did.

  It was just like before. The perfect light. The swirling, glowing fireflies. Sasha glittered and rose and shone. And then began to fade. Brodie whined, softly, just to himself.

  The last thing he saw before she dissolved into sparkling gold light was a wagging brown tail.

  Then the light dimmed. The floating sparkles winked out one by one. And Sasha was gone.

  Brodie’s heart, already teetering on the tooth’s edge of his choice, trembled at the sight.

  It was beautiful, the moving on … but it was so clearly forever. When Brodie watched it, he could feel it: Forevering rang with permanence. Sasha was gone, and she was gone forever.

  “Atta girl, Sasha,” Tuck said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “Atta girl.”

  Tuck sighed and his great black head drooped.

  The angel moved to stand beside them. He put a hand on each of their backs.

  “That,” he said. “That’s what you should be doing. Saving your soul. Not throwing it away. I know it’s hard. But look, Brodie. Look for the bigger truth. Please. Please.”

  It was the please that did it, that broke Brodie’s indecision. It was that please, added to the foreverness of Sasha’s leaving.

  Because when that angel-who-wasn’t-an-angel said that one word, the memory came back. The dark one, the monstrous one, the one with teeth. It rose up from the cliff’s drop behind him and roar
ed into his head.

  And this time, there was more to it.

  Once again, there was darkness. His boy’s arm was tight around him. But this time there were smells. Sharp, acrid smoke. Cigarettes. The word was there, tied tight to the bitter memories. And another smell, sour and sickening: beer. Somewhere, unseen, a television blared its chaotic noise.

  He could hear Aiden’s shuddering breaths, feel the fear in his body pressed against him, and even in a memory it broke his heart and raised his fur and bared his teeth. And mixed in the smell of his fear was the smell of mud. It was part of the memory, somehow, but he didn’t know how or why.

  There was a shout, a beastly roaring shout, and then footsteps coming toward them. A monster loomed, cloaked in shadows. It lurched toward them, huge and awful and deadly. Brodie cowered, his tail tucked between his legs, and pulled his trembling body up closer to his boy’s.

  A crash and a shatter.

  Kicking feet. Swinging fists.

  Aiden, crying out: “No!”

  Then: “Please!”

  Then, again, his boy’s voice breaking and cracking: “Please! No! Please!”

  And then Brodie was surging, wiggling free, leaping out of his boy’s arms. Running away.

  Running away.

  There was a blur, a mad confusion of fear and pain and shouting and panic. And then, through the chaos, Aiden’s voice.

  “Brodie!”

  His boy. Screaming. Screaming for him. His voice ragged, terrified, crying.

  “Brodie!”

  Brodie shook, shattered and sickened by the memory.

  “Brodie!”

  It was Tuck’s voice now, worried and sharp.

  Brodie shook his head. He looked at Tuck. He was panting like he’d just been running. He realized he was whimpering, high and desperate, and he swallowed to stop it.

  His boy. Frightened. In danger. Alone.

  Himself, running away.

  Away. And not Back.

  “Another memory?” Tuck asked.

  Brodie didn’t answer.

  He didn’t care about darkness.

  He didn’t care about shadows, and when or where they mattered.