Good Dog

by Dan Gemeinhart

  Patsy’s answer was quiet, almost lost in the jittering thunder of the train in the darkness.

  “I thought … I thought he needed it.”

  “Who?”

  “Tuck. I thought he needed … to save you. To … Forever, or whatever. I … didn’t want to stop him from getting that.”

  Brodie looked at her for a moment; then his mouth broke into a grin and his tail began to wag.

  “You liked him!”

  “Shut up.”

  “You did!”

  “Did not. I just wanted the moron to move on so I didn’t have to listen to him anymore.”

  “Whatever. You totally liked him. You big softie.”

  Patsy looked at him. Brodie saw, just maybe, a bit of the old fire in her eyes.

  “Look, mutt. I been alive, and I been dead. And in all that time I ain’t never had nobody look out for me. Ain’t never had nobody care about me. And it felt … it felt … ah, never mind. We’re wasting time. Get outta here before I take the rest of your shine.”

  Brodie looked at Patsy, one last time.

  “See ya later, Patsy.”

  She blinked and yawned.

  “Probably not,” she answered, then looked away again.

  Brodie grinned at her sulking, angry profile, then leapt off the train onto the snowflaked ground.

  And Brodie? He thought, just maybe, as he was flying down toward the earth, that he heard three words muttered behind him as he flew.

  And maybe, they sounded a lot like “Good luck, idiot.”

  And Brodie? Well, he was right.

  The streets and the houses all looked the same to Brodie, dull and round under a blanket of snow. The world was quiet. The night was still. All those living people huddled in all those cozy houses under all that falling snow. It was peaceful.

  But Brodie? Brodie wasn’t peaceful.

  Brodie was running. And he wasn’t looking at cozy houses or falling snow.

  As he ran, his head swiveled, looking in windows for the familiar silhouettes of the boy that he loved or the monster that hunted him. He looked in driveways and down side streets for a beat-up car that leaked oil and reeked of cigarette smoke.

  Brodie’s heroic heart strained and sang and snarled. It had fought through life and death and day and night and good and evil to find his boy, to save his boy, and time was running out. He’d spent his soul down to its last noble lights. He could feel them circling him, precious and small and dwindling. They would be gone, and then hope would be gone, and then he would be gone.

  But they weren’t gone yet. So neither was hope, and neither was he.

  If he was fading to blackness he was doing it with his eyes wide open and full of light.

  He ran through the streets, heart bursting and eyes searching and soul burning.

  And Brodie? He found nothing.

  Cars passed him, but they weren’t the monster’s.

  Shadows moved behind drawn curtains, but they weren’t Aiden’s.

  He eyed parked cars as he passed them, but they were cold and empty and covered in snow.

  He was turning a corner, drumming his paws through the snow, when he felt the first soul light leave him. He’d spent it, jumping down from the train and sniffing at the cars and running through the gathering snow. He’d left no tracks in the snow, but he’d been touching the world all the same, and it had taken its toll.

  There was a feeling of pinching loss. Of a lessening. A theft. A pain as one-third of who he was blinked out.

  His paws stumbled. He kept his footing, but he faltered. His pace slowed. If he’d had lungs that breathed, he would have gasped and moaned.

  He slowed to a stop.

  He closed his eyes, then opened them again.

  He was at a crossroads. Two roads, each lined with lit-up houses, receded away in four different directions.

  The crossroads was at the top of a hill. Below, he could see the train tracks. Beyond that, the blackness of the river. He saw the bridge that crossed it, the bridge he had fought at, the bridge where Patsy had lost and then found herself. On the other side, the lights of the city sparkled. They sparkled like a million tiny souls.

  It was beautiful.

  It was, almost, like seeing the bigger truth. All those people, all those dogs and cats and birds and souls and lives and loves and problems and promises and dreams and despairs. All sparkling like a brilliant blanket of lights under a winter sky.

  Brodie sat in the snow.

  He looked up at the snow-pocked sky.

  If there was a moon, it hid behind clouds.

  He knew that if he howled, it would shine. And the angel who was not an angel would come for him. But he knew he wouldn’t howl. The angel knew it, too. He did.

  He looked around himself, at all the houses in all directions. Dozens of houses, in every direction. If he picked any direction except the exact right one, he would run out of soul before he ran out of road and his boy would be lost.

  But there was no way of knowing. No way to tell which direction to go.

  Brodie’s shoulders sagged. His head drooped. The world was too heavy.

  His eyes dropped hopelessly to the pure white snow of the street.

  Except.

  Except that it wasn’t pure white.

  Right there, right between his ghostly paws, there was something in the snow.

  Something very dark and very small but very much not pure white snow.

  It was black and dirty and dribbly.

  It was oil.

  A single drop of oil.

  It had, Brodie somehow knew all in an instant, dripped from a car with a cardboard window and a monster behind the wheel.

  Snow fell thick around them, burying all the world in quiet hiding whiteness. But somehow, as the flakes fell everywhere and on everything, none of them had fallen on that dirty black drop. The snow fell all around it, but it had not been hidden or lost or buried.

  It was, just almost, a miracle.

  Brodie rose to his feet. His eyes were sharp, his tail stiff and still. His eyes raced around the crossroads, flying over the snow, looking for and then finding what he needed: another inky drop of blackness on the snow, a few feet away. He paced eagerly forward, his eyes scanning again, and again he found another drop farther on.

  It was a trail.

  A trail to the monster.

  A trail to his boy.

  Brodie’s two soul lights glowed brighter.

  He set off at a sprint.

  The black drops led him down one street, and then in a sharp turn onto another.

  Brodie kept his head down, his eyes on the snow, not wanting to miss a drop, not wanting to lose the trail. He knew he didn’t have enough soul to lose the trail and find it again. He had one chance.

  The snow stopped falling as he ran, the flood of flakes dwindling down to nothing.

  Now all the night was a waiting stillness.

  It was shadows and silence.

  It was a dog, searching. It was a boy, lost. It was an angel, who was not an angel, watching. It was a soul, undaunted, but fading.

  And then, it was a monster.

  The car was parked in darkness, far from the nearest streetlight, beneath the darker shadows of a snow-curtained tree.

  The engine was off, the windows closed, the inside dark. Dark, that is, except for the single red glow of a cigarette.

  Brodie stopped running, his hackles raised, his lip lifted, his teeth unsheathed.

  He stepped forward, right up to the car, and looked through the grimy window to the man inside.

  The monster sat, wreathed in smoke. He brought a bottle to his lips and gulped a drink. Even through the cold metal of the door, Brodie heard his sloppy swallow.

  But Brodie didn’t look at the cigarette or the bottle.

  He watched the monster’s eyes.

  Because the monster’s eyes? They never wavered. They didn’t glance in the rearview mirror or wander around the night or close slowly into sleep.
They glared almost without blinking at a house across the street.

  Brodie followed the monster’s gaze.

  The house was white. It was two stories tall. It had a covered front porch, and a basketball hoop over the driveway. The sidewalk in front of it, and the little pathway to the front door, were neatly shoveled. The porch light was on, and light glowed from the windows downstairs. A string of Christmas lights, white and delicate, ran along the eaves and wrapped around the porch railing.

  There was only one reason that the monster would be watching that house.

  Brodie walked without thinking across the street. He walked down the sidewalk, then up the shoveled path toward the front door. Brodie, for the first time in a long time, forgot about the monster and his soul and Darkly and Patsy and even Tuck. Brodie’s only thought was on the boy that he knew was inside the white house with the Christmas lights glittering like souls.

  He walked up the porch steps. The wood didn’t creak under the weight of his body, because he had no body, had no weight.

  He passed without pausing through the front door.

  Brodie found himself standing in an entryway. The floor was a dark, shiny wood. To his right, a man and a woman were watching the flickering light of a TV screen. They were sitting together on a couch, facing away so that all he could see was the backs of their heads. The man laughed at something on the TV. His laugh was light, soft. It was an easy sound.

  In front of Brodie was a staircase, leading up.

  Somehow, Brodie knew. He knew where to go.

  He walked up the stairs. He didn’t race, but his step was steady and sure. He was a soul with a purpose. He was a promise about to be kept.

  Away. And Back.

  At the top of the stairs was a hallway. In the hallway were three doors.

  One was open, and through it he could see a lamplit room with a bookcase and a large bed, made and empty.

  Another was open, too, and through it Brodie saw a sink and a mirror and the edge of a bathtub.

  The third door was closed.

  Brodie paused. But not with uncertainty. No. Just the opposite. He paused with certainty.

  Finally, after miles and mayhem and doubt and despair, Brodie knew where to go.

  He walked up to the third door. The closed one.

  If he’d had breath in his body, he would have held it.

  Brodie walked through the door.

  The room on the other side was dark. There was a window, looking out on the street. There was a dresser, some shelves. Some pictures on the wall.

  But who cares? Who cares about any of that?

  Not Brodie.

  Because in the room was a bed.

  And in the bed was a boy.

  In the bed was the boy whose smile held all the happiness the world could hope for.

  In the bed was the boy whose arms hugged with a fierceness that could burn away all your shivers and your trembles.

  In the bed was the boy who hid under picnic tables in the rain and told you it was all going to be okay.

  In the bed was the boy who would share a thin blanket on a cold night and shiver to sleep together with you and give you only the very best of dreams.

  In the bed was a boy who would blink away his own tears and kiss you on the nose because he knew that you couldn’t stand to see him sad.

  In the bed was the boy you would do anything anything anything for.

  In the bed was a boy who fought monsters away to keep you safe.

  In the bed was a boy you’d trade your soul for.

  In the bed was Brodie’s boy.

  In the bed was Aiden.

  Brodie stepped up to the bed.

  Brodie didn’t have eyes to cry. He didn’t have a voice to sing. He didn’t have feet to dance.

  But Brodie’s soul? Oh, Brodie’s soul. It was a bright one. Believe me. If you’d been there when Brodie saw his boy again, you’d have had to look away, his soul burned so bright.

  Aiden was asleep. His eyes were closed. His mouth, barely open. His chest rose and fell, rose and fell, rose and fell. He looked warm. He looked safe.

  One arm was flung out from the blankets. It stretched across the pillow, where his hand lay open and limp. It was reaching toward a little table that sat beside the bed. On the table was a single picture. The picture was in a shabby fake-silver frame.

  In the picture was a boy and a dog.

  This boy. This dog.

  In the picture was everything.

  Every part of Brodie’s heart broke. And every part of Brodie’s heart rose up from ashes into song. Everything inside him fell apart just like it was supposed to, and then came back together exactly as it had always been meant to.

  Words? There aren’t any.

  Go ahead. Find your soul’s one true perfect love. Then die. And lose them forever. And then find them again.

  Then you’ll see. Then you’ll know how Brodie felt, standing in the dark room, looking at that brave and beautiful boy.

  I don’t know what Brodie would have done next.

  I don’t know if he would have barked, or jumped into the bed, or just stood in the darkness, looking at his beautiful boy forever.

  I don’t know.

  Because whatever Brodie would have done next was lost.

  Stolen by a sound that killed the wag in his tail and closed his mouth tight shut and snapped his head back toward the window.

  Because standing there by his sound-asleep boy, Brodie heard the ugly unmistakable sound of a car door slamming shut across the street.

  In the bed lay a sleeping boy.

  Downstairs, a laughing man and woman.

  Outside, a monster was coming.

  Brodie was the only one who knew.

  And Brodie had no voice, no teeth, no fists.

  He had two fragile soul lights, on their way to shadow.

  But Brodie? He still had his heart. And it was a good heart to have. Believe me.

  He ran to the window.

  Yes. There was the monster, standing beside his car in the darkness. His bottle was gone. Even from that distance, Brodie could tell the shake was gone. The terrible cold calm was there.

  The monster’s teeth were sharpened. His claws were out. He stepped away from the car, out across the snow-shrouded street. Toward the white house with the Christmas lights.

  Toward Aiden.

  No, Brodie thought to himself. Not again. Not ever.

  Brodie waited just long enough for one last look at his boy.

  His boy, there sleeping and breathing and dreaming, his arm outstretched toward a picture of them both, smiling in sunshine.

  One look. One look, after all that seeking and searching.

  And then? Well, then Brodie ran. Away from his boy. Toward the monster.

  Again.

  He ran away from the bed and through the door and down the stairs.

  He was on his way out, through the entry and out the door, when he pulled up short and stopped.

  He, a bodiless ghost dog, could do nothing against the monster.

  But on a couch in the next room were a man and a woman.

  And in his memory were the words of a policeman: Aiden’s temporary foster parents have a description of you and your vehicle, sir. You get within five hundred feet of them or Aiden, and you go back to jail.

  He ran into the room with the TV, ran in barking and growling and hopping high on his paws.

  The woman yawned. The man chuckled again, shaking his head at the TV. A crowd of people on the TV laughed along with him.

  Brodie barked louder, fiercer, more desperately. His barks were high and ragged and urgent.

  Listen! he shouted. Listen! He’s coming! He’s right outside! Look!

  The man and the woman didn’t look. They didn’t do anything.

  Brodie ran frantically to the window. He jumped his front paws up to the sill and stuck his head through the curtain and peered out into the darkness.

  The monster was still coming. He was
across the street now, standing on the sidewalk, one house away. He took one last pull on his cigarette, burning the end to a bright red angry eye, and then flicked it away into a snowbank.

  Brodie looked back at the couple on the couch. How could he get their attention? How could he make them look out the window?

  The curtain fluttered in front of his eyes and he shook his head impatiently to see past it.

  He froze.

  The curtain.

  Brodie glanced at his last two soul lights, but just for a moment.

  Then he focused all his energy, all his power, all his soul, on making his teeth real. On giving his mouth bite. He opened his jaws. He surged one last push of concentration into making his teeth real, solid things, and then he bit down on the edge of the curtain. Just like Tuck biting a french fry.

  He felt it. Felt the fabric between his teeth. Felt the weight of it, the texture. He could feel it in his mouth. Just like he was alive.

  Brodie didn’t wait to savor it. As soon as he felt the curtain tight in his grip, he yanked with all and everything that he had.

  He felt the tug. The resistance. The tension. And then the breaking.

  There was a rip and a snap and then the curtain was tumbling, along with its metal rod, down from above the window, clattering to the floor with a perfect, noisy crash.

  The woman cried out. The man jumped up.

  “What in the world?” he said. He was startled, breathing fast. Brodie danced before him, tail wagging.

  “What happened?” the woman asked.

  “I don’t know. Must’ve been loose or something. That was so weird.”

  The man’s breathing was calming. The woman’s body relaxed.

  A small smile came to the man’s face.

  “Man, that scared the heck out of me,” he chuckled, shaking his head. He sat back down on the couch.

  Brodie’s mouth dropped open.

  No! he shouted. No!

  It hadn’t worked. A whine, shrill and furious, seethed in his throat.

  But. But then.

  “Well?” the woman asked.

  “Well, what?”

  “You’re not just gonna leave it like that, are you?”

  “Oh. You want me to put it back up?”