Good Dog

by Dan Gemeinhart

  “Well … shoot … then … what are we gonna do?”

  “Um … we’re gonna get out of this car, to start,” Brodie said. He was looking forward, out the front window.

  “Why?” Tuck asked.

  Right then, their car slowed to a stop at the red light that was glowing through the snow.

  The black car pulled to a stop behind them.

  Four hungry hellhounds piled out.

  “That’s why!” Brodie shouted, and all three of them leapt over the front seat and through the windshield and then scampered down the hood of the car. They jumped down onto the snowy blacktop.

  The cross street was busier, and humming with traffic.

  “That van!” Brodie called. They all saw the silver van coming their way from the left.

  “But my shine!” Patsy called.

  “I got ya,” Tuck said, and leaned toward her with his mouth open.

  “No way! Not ag …”

  But Tuck snagged her kicking body in his jaws and bounded through the side of the van that was speeding past. Brodie was right beside him.

  Patsy was already snarling and swiping by the time they landed inside. When Tuck let her go she was already in mid-shout.

  “You listen to me, you stupid mutt. I swear I will rip your ugly …”

  “Oh, zip it, Patsy,” Tuck said, not even looking at her. His eyes were out the window, watching as the hellhounds hopped into a pickup truck a few cars behind theirs. “I know you don’t like it but you’re gonna have to deal. You got any better ideas for staying ahead of those guys and not losing your soul in the process?”

  Patsy glared at him, her eyes flashing and her tail whipping furiously.

  “I didn’t think so,” Tuck said. “So get used to it. It ain’t a treat for me, either, you know. You ain’t exactly a french fry.”

  “We got another light coming up!” Brodie announced.

  They all stretched to look.

  “See that yellow car coming the other way?”

  “Yep.”

  “If we jump now and switch directions it might catch them off guard. We could put some distance between us.”

  “Got it. You give the signal. You ready, Patsy?” Tuck asked, bending toward her.

  Her only answer was a growl. But she didn’t slash with her claws or run away.

  Tuck picked her up in his teeth.

  “Now!” Brodie shouted.

  They burst through the side of the braking van and landed with stumbling feet on the painted line between the lanes of the road.

  The yellow car was already right there, speeding in the opposite direction. Without even a chance to get their feet properly under them, Brodie and Tuck sprang into it.

  “That was close,” Tuck said, spitting out Patsy on the backseat. “Did it work?”

  Brodie had his nose against the back window.

  “Kind of. They’re still behind us, but now they’re a few more cars back. In that red car with the dark windows.”

  “Well, at least we’ve got some time to figure out a plan,” Tuck said.

  “How you doing, Patsy?” Brodie asked.

  The cat looked up. She’d been angrily licking at her back where Tuck had held her.

  “This is the worst night of my life,” she said. “And I’m not even alive.”

  “At least it’s working. It looks like you’ve still got as much soul as you started with.”

  “I wish I could say the same for you guys,” she said, looking at their shine. “That last hop especially cost you. The faster we’re moving, the harder you hit, the more soul you lose.”

  “Well, we don’t have a lot of choices.”

  “Uh-oh,” Tuck interrupted.

  “What?”

  “Their car. It’s moving faster than ours. It already passed two others.”

  Brodie joined him at the window. There were only two cars between them and the red one now. It was in the next lane over. As they watched, it pulled past another car.

  “You’re sure they’re in it?” Tuck asked, squinting at the darkened windows of the red car.

  “Yeah. I saw them hop in. This is bad.”

  They were really moving now, the street humming underneath them. Brodie looked through the front window. The traffic was moving smoothly ahead of them. There was no sign of a stoplight.

  The red car passed the last one between them. It was coming up on their rear bumper now.

  They passed under a streetlight, and Brodie could just make out the shapes of four dog heads in the front and back windows, pressed right against the doors.

  “Oh, man,” he said. “They’re gonna jump.”

  “Why would they do that?” Tuck asked nervously. “They’re gonna catch up to us.”

  “No,” Brodie said. “Not jump out. Jump across. Into our car.”

  The red car was almost even with them now, right beside them in the other lane. The shadowy dog heads bobbed excitedly.

  “Oh. Yeah. That makes more sense.”

  “We’ve gotta jump!”

  “We’re going way too fast!” Patsy warned. “You’ll burn too much soul!”

  “Again, Patsy,” Brodie growled. “No choices!”

  “I’m telling you, we’re going too fast!”

  “They’re almost here!”

  “We’ve gotta do it!”

  Their shouts competed with the roar of the car engine and the rumble of the road beneath them. The headlights of passing cars and streetlights cast crazy shadows and glares around them.

  “There’s no way that you can—”

  At that moment, Darkly’s big golden body came ripping through the side of their car, his eyes blacker than the night sky and his teeth out and ready. The other hellhounds were right behind him.

  There was no more time for argument or for waiting.

  Brodie bared his teeth and jumped out through the other side.

  He hit the snow-dusted sidewalk hard. His paws had no chance to catch him and he rolled, pinwheeling and tumbling along the concrete, the world a crazy spinning blur of headlights and dark sky and cold pavement.

  He came to rest beside a fence—not hurt, but shaky and senseless.

  A small whimper slipped out of his throat.

  Because Brodie? He’d felt it. He had felt the chipping away of his soul with each thump and scrape. He had felt the wearing down of his spirit. The lights swirling around him were fewer, and more lonely. The world around him seemed a little more dark, a little more cold.

  He shook his head. Tuck was sitting a little ways away from him, also shaking his head but already rising to his feet.

  “That sucked, buddy,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Brodie said. He looked around. “Hey. Where’s Patsy? Didn’t you grab her?”

  Tuck’s tail went down.

  “Oops.”

  “Come on!” Tuck said, taking off after the speeding car they’d just jumped out of. Brodie followed without thinking.

  In no time Tuck was well ahead. Brodie was no match for his full-on, from-the-heart strides.

  He looked to the side.

  “White car!” he shouted ahead, hoping Tuck could hear him. “I’m hopping in!”

  Brodie put everything he had into his legs, squeezing as much speed out of them as he could. The car pulled up beside him and he jumped, passing through the front door and the front seat before landing abruptly in the backseat next to a kid with his eyes glued to a video game in his hands.

  He straddled the kid, looking out the window at Tuck running on the sidewalk.

  Tuck looked back, but it was too late. The car was already going past him. He turned on a surge of speed and jumped.

  Brodie stepped back to make room, but Tuck’s timing had been off.

  His head popped into the car for just a second, his eyes wide and tongue flopping, but it disappeared through the backseat as the car raced forward.

  There was a thump from the back of the car.

  “Tuck!” Brodie screamed, j
umping up to look desperately out the back window.

  The road behind was empty, though, except for snow and other cars. There was no sign of Tuck.

  “Yeah?” Tuck’s voice answered.

  “Tuck? Where are you?”

  “Uh. Someplace dark. And loud. The trunk, I think.”

  Tuck’s head appeared through the backseat.

  “Yep. I was in the trunk.” He jumped into the backseat and then straight on into the front of the car, straining to see out the windshield.

  “There it is! I see her!”

  Brodie joined him. Two cars ahead of them was the red car. Patsy was up against the rear window, on the ledge behind the backseats. She was twisting and dodging and swiping with her claws. Brodie could see dog tails and heads jumping and spinning and rising and falling in the seat in front of her.

  It looked like quite a fight.

  “If we get to a red light, we can go save her!” Tuck said, his voice tight.

  Brodie didn’t say anything.

  “But we should have a plan! Any ideas?” Tuck asked.

  Brodie was still silent.

  “Buddy? Any idea for a plan?” Tuck looked at him.

  Brodie’s ears drooped.

  Because Brodie? Brodie was a good dog. And sometimes good is a tough thing to be.

  “What?” Tuck asked.

  “Listen, Tuck. This is our chance.”

  “Our chance to what?”

  Brodie looked away. Out the window. Away from that mangy cat, trapped and cornered and fighting for her soul. Away from the purehearted dog beside him.

  “They’re … they’re distracted, Tuck. And they’re speeding away from us.”

  Tuck’s mouth closed.

  “What are you saying, buddy?”

  Brodie didn’t want to. He didn’t want to say it. But he had to.

  “You know what I’m saying. I think we should go. While we can. Get away.”

  “What, and … leave Patsy?”

  “This is our chance,” Brodie repeated.

  “But she needs us.”

  “I … I need to get to my boy. I can’t waste any soul on her.”

  “Waste? But … Patsy’s our friend.”

  Brodie looked away again, out into the darkness.

  “Barely. Come on, Tuck. Let’s go while we can.”

  Tuck looked at Brodie for a long, wordless moment. Brodie couldn’t meet his eyes. Finally, Tuck spoke.

  “Okay, buddy. Okay.”

  Brodie’s tail almost started to wag. But then Tuck kept on talking.

  “You go ahead. I’m not gonna leave Patsy. Not like this. I’ll … find you later. I’ll meet you back at your boy’s house. If I can.”

  Tuck looked away, back toward where Patsy still swirled and struck at the hellhounds surrounding her.

  Brodie wanted to say something. He wanted to argue. But no words came. There was nothing to say. He had to get to Aiden. He had to. So he had to leave those hellhounds behind. And this was his best—maybe his only—chance. But he could tell from Tuck’s eyes, from his voice, that that dog wasn’t ever gonna leave that cat to get torn up by those hellhounds.

  Brodie turned to the door. He looked out at the snow-speckled night. He eyed the sidewalk, which was a blurry obstacle course of garbage cans and parked cars and light poles. He needed a clear place to land. It wouldn’t hurt to crash into anything, he knew. But he didn’t want to waste the shine.

  Up ahead, he saw it. A nice stretch of clear pavement.

  He looked back at Tuck, who still stood with his eyes on Patsy’s struggle. That dog was ready to do battle. His eyes were ready. His muscles. His teeth. His heart.

  “Be careful, Tuck.”

  Tuck looked at him, once, then away quickly.

  “You too, buddy.”

  Brodie turned back to the window. They were almost to the jumping place. He readied his legs for the leap. His soul swirled around him.

  And then the memory came. It rose like a sunrise, all glow and shine, but fast. It was from that day. The one in the picture by Aiden’s bed.

  Sunlight dancing on water. The sweet smells of summer mud and soda pop and soggy swimming suits.

  They were at a lake. It was a good day. The monster was there but he wasn’t growling or snarling or drinking or shouting. He was just talking. Laughing sometimes, even. Aiden was happy. It was a good day.

  Aiden was throwing the ball. He was throwing it off the end of a long wooden dock that stuck out past the tall weeds around the lake’s edge. And Brodie was running, claws clattering on the dock planks, and then he was jumping and then soaring and then splashing and then swimming, paddling through the water after the yellow bobbing ball. Swimming, Away. And Back. Clambering back up onto the dock, dropping the ball at his boy’s bare muddy-toed feet, and then shaking the water off his body. Aiden was laughing, giggling, breathless. Beautiful.

  Brodie, panting, had flopped down onto the wet wood to rest. Aiden had sat down beside him, legs dangling over the dock’s edge, toes splashing in the water. He’d wrapped a skinny, goose-bumped arm around Brodie’s shoulders and Brodie had looked up into his sun-silvered eyes and he’d almost stopped breathing he was so in love with that boy.

  “What a dog,” Aiden had said with a smile, shaking his head, and his wet hair had flopped down into his eyes. He’d leaned in close with his Popsicle breath and whispered again those four words: “You. Me. Together. Always.” He’d scratched at Brodie’s wet head. “Right, Brodie?” And then he’d laughed his perfect Aiden laugh. Just because it was a good day. Just because they were there together. “Man,” he had said, shaking his head again and looking deep into Brodie’s eyes. “What did I ever do to deserve a dog as good as you?”

  That. That was what he was fighting for. That’s what he would brave heaven and hell and everything in between for. That’s why he would leave Tuck and leave Patsy and face the dark world alone. That boy. That love. That Always.

  He braced his paws, bunched his muscles. He would land running, sprint back the way they’d come, while the hellhounds roared off in the opposite direction. He’d never see the hellhounds again.

  Or Patsy.

  His opening came. The empty, waiting sidewalk. It zoomed closer and closer, and then it was right there right in front of him—and then it was gone, receding into the distance as the car sped away. With Brodie still in it.

  He closed his eyes, felt the humming of the car, remembered the golden glow of his boy’s face on that sunny summer day. He’d been ready to jump. He had been.

  And then his boy’s words had whispered again in his head.

  What did I ever do to deserve a dog as good as you.

  And then the words of an angel-who-wasn’t-an-angel.

  You’re good dogs. Remember that. Be good dogs.

  Tuck had remembered. Brodie, for a while, had almost forgotten.

  He didn’t have to abandon Tuck and Patsy for his boy.

  No.

  He had to stay and stand with them. For his boy.

  His boy loved him, with all of his heart. It was a big love. And he had to be worth it.

  That’s what love does, I guess. It makes us bigger.

  He turned to face the front, standing shoulder to shoulder with Tuck.

  Tuck looked at him.

  “Aren’t you going?”

  “No. I’m staying. With you.”

  Tuck’s stubby tail went back to wagging.

  “What about your boy?”

  “I’ll find him. I will. But my boy … he … he deserves the best dog in the world. So that’s what I gotta try to be.”

  Tuck’s tail whipped into double time. He grinned wide and toothy at Brodie for a minute, then looked back out the windshield at that cat, still swiping and slashing and swinging in the car ahead.

  “Thanks, Tuck,” Brodie said after a while.

  Tuck looked at him sideways.

  “For what?”

  “For being a good dog. Now let’s go save t
hat mangy cat.”

  Tuck’s tail jumped into full puppy wag.

  “Yeah! Let’s do it, buddy! You got a plan?”

  “My plan was to ditch her. What’s yours, hero?”

  But there was no need for a plan. Because right then the windshield was lit up red by the brake lights of Patsy’s car in front of them. Their own car started to slow.

  “It’s go time,” Brodie said. “You ready to grab her?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “All right. That’s our plan, then.”

  They jumped from the car before it stopped moving. Patsy did the same, a moment after them.

  She hit the sidewalk sideways with her back to them and before she even took a step, Tuck scooped her up and they were off, sprinting down the sidewalk with the hellhounds on their trail.

  For once, Patsy didn’t complain about being in Tuck’s mouth, even though she was bouncing and swinging and jostling as Tuck pumped his legs furiously, trying to put some ground between them and the hellhounds that howled and snarled behind them.

  “You idiots came back,” she said.

  “Of course we did,” Tuck said, and he didn’t even hesitate or shoot a dirty look at Brodie when he said it.

  Because Tuck? He was the kind of soul who saw the best in others, and didn’t waste time on the worst.

  Brodie eyed Patsy as they ran.

  “Your soul,” he said.

  “What about it?” she snarled, dangling from the pit bull’s jaws.

  “It’s … almost gone.”

  Patsy only had a few lonely little soul lights left, faint and wispy.

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “They took some, didn’t they?”

  Patsy spat.

  “You kidding? I’d never let those black-eyed mutts get a bit of my shine. These claws are sharp enough to keep a few brainless ghosts away. It’s all this car-hopping and running. I didn’t have much to start with, and I’ve been spending it fast with you two idiots.”

  Brodie looked back. As usual, the hellhounds couldn’t keep up with their pace on foot. But they weren’t going anywhere.

  “So what’s the plan?” Patsy asked.

  “You’re looking at it,” Brodie said.

  “What, run till sunrise? That’s your plan?”

  “You got a better idea?”