by Scott Craven
We ducked behind a hedge, Anna standing so close I could hear her breathing. The kid was on the other side of the street. One last burst and we’d take him down.
“OK, on three we charge and take this guy down,” Anna said. “One—”
I raised slightly, moving my right leg a few inches in front of my left.
“—two—”
I lifted my head and shifted my weight to the balls of my feet, ready for takeoff.
“Wait, wait,” I whispered urgently. “You hear that?”
A steady clinking of metal got louder and louder. Anna and I turned as if on cue.
Tread was racing down the street, his tags jangling with each leap.
“Tread, no, stay!” I yelled, but it was too late. Our prey bolted toward the park.
Anna and I took off, but I knew we’d be too late as he started to melt into the night. I did the only thing I could.
“Tread,” I said as he raced toward us. “Fetch!”
I hurled my right arm toward the fleeing figure, wishing I hadn’t ignored my left arm when it came to necessary tasks. Like throwing. Because it threw like a girl. If I’d been thinking properly, I would have had Anna throw it. She threw like she punched—hard and accurately.
We watched as the arm arced toward the suspect. Tread flashed by us in a dead run, and arm, kid, and dog disappeared into the darkness at the same time.
We hesitated, hoping for a telltale sound. But there was nothing.
We followed their path, heading toward the spot where the three should have converged. Bushes rustled nearby, which I though was odd because the air was still. I peered that way but couldn’t see a thing. At that point, I thought nothing of it. If only I’d paid it more attention.
Instead, I focused on a shadow that barely stood out from the murky darkness. There, about twenty feet ahead, a figure sprawled on the grass. There was something next to his head.
As we stood over the figure, I reached down to retrieve my arm. The kid in the hoodie was moaning. Anna knelt and rolled him over.
Only it wasn’t a him.
She had short blond hair curled behind her ears with bangs. Close-set eyes, pert nose. I would have thought she was cute if not for being the jerk snooping around my yard.
“You recognize her?” Anna asked.
“No. You?”
“No. But it would help to get a better look at her in the light. C’mon, dude, you’ve got some ’splainin’ to do.”
Anna gripped the girl’s wrist, stood, and lifted the suspect to her feet. Anna led her toward the streetlight, the girl not putting up much of a fight.
“Tread, here, boy!” I yelled. “Tread, let’s go home.”
I went deeper into the park, looking for any movement of gray or white. “Tread, here, boy. Look, treats. I have treats. Want a treat?”
He had to be nearby. I stopped to listen.
There were crickets. Nothing else.
And certainly not the one thing I wanted to hear.
The metal jangle of tags.
Tread was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter Twenty-One
You know the saying, “You never know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone?” In my case, it wasn’t so much Tread as it was photos of Tread, which sure would have come in handy for the “Lost Dog” poster I began to make as soon as I got home.
I quickly learned the NZN Network had more photos of him than I did. I’d taken one, on Christmas. Which I’d purposely erased after I printed it because I wanted to keep his identity semi-secret. A zombie dog is not something you share on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. And if you are not going to take photos to share with the world—at least that part of the world that would find you on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram—what’s the point?
There was only one thing to do. I opened a paint program on my laptop and started to draw him, making him more adorable and less zombie.
When Dad came in to tell me lights out, I begged him for a few more minutes. I told him what happened, sort of. Tread was gone, that was totally true. But I said Tread ran away, which wasn’t true at all.
“That’s unfortunate,” he said, looking over my shoulder. “But shouldn’t you be doing something to find him rather than drawing an octopus?”
“Octopus?” I said, thinking maybe I should just draw Tread’s face instead of him sitting up all cute-like. “That’s Tread.”
“Why are you attempting to draw Tread when, I don’t know, maybe you should be making ‘Lost dog’ posters or something.”
“That’s what this is for. I’m going to put this on the poster, maybe even offer a reward.”
“Putting an octopus on a ‘Missing’ poster is a novel concept, but I doubt its effectiveness,” Dad said. “Have you thought about actually putting a photo of Tread on the poster? That way you will avoid those embarrassing moments when people show up at our door with calamari.”
“Calamari is squid, not octopus.” How did I know that? “And this isn’t an octopus.”
Only it kind of was, when I looked at it again. I deleted it.
“Maybe a photo of Tread?” Dad said. “When it comes to telling people what you’re looking for, nothing beats a true representation of the subject.”
“I don’t have any photos of Tread.”
“You sure? What about Christmas?”
“I erased the one I took.” I knew what Dad was thinking, and headed him off at the pass. “I didn’t want to put Tread online. I wasn’t sure how he might be perceived. So no photos.”
“Interesting concept,” Dad said, nodding. “Did you ever consider taking photos for your own pleasure? Recording memories and such.”
“Waste of time. A memory I’d remember. Photos are for proving to people that you are having a good time and are doing stuff that should make them envious.”
“Somewhere, my Dad-ness went off the rails and allowed a narcissist to grow up in my house,” he said, still hovering over my shoulder.
“Dad, please? I need to get this done.”
He patted me on the shoulder.
“Tell you what,” he said. “Let’s jump in the Man Van and do some scouting.”
I wanted to take him up on it. I knew a cruise around the neighborhood couldn’t hurt. But I also knew something he didn’t. Something I was having a hard time facing. Because if I really thought about it, I’d give up hope. I doubt the poster would be much help, but it gave me something to do.
I spent a few minutes screaming Tread’s name at the park. He knew I called him for two reasons—to feed him or play with him. And nine times out of ten, it involved beef jerky, his favorite. Every dog loved dried flesh, and my undead dog was no different. In fact, he probably enjoyed it more because he was a zombie (and I hate to say that because it is such a stereotype).
But he always came when I called. Not this time.
I rushed back to Anna so we could confront the girl together. They sat under a streetlight, the girl crying.
Anna, her arms crossed, filled me in on what the girl told her so far.
“Her name’s Judith,” Anna said.
“And?”
“And Judith cries a lot. You’re all caught up.”
“Seems we won’t add ‘interrogator’ to your list of valuable skills.”
“But we can add ‘being a jerk’ to yours. Look, she’s upset. She’ll calm down. Right, Judith?”
Judith sobbed even harder.
I kneeled in front of her. She looked twelve, maybe a little younger. I dropped my detached arm and put my hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze, comforting her, letting her know everything was all right.
“Don’t touch me,” Judith said, looking at me with dead eyes. I just brought that out in people, it seemed.
“OK, we’re getting somewhere,” I said. “Judith, I’m not sure you are aware of this, but I’m not exactly alive.” I thought I’d scare her a bit. Good cop, zombie cop.
“I got that idea when your arm hit me on the head,” she said, making me feel pretty smug for having an accurate arm, either throwing or as a thrown object. “I also know your name is Jed and you killed a bunch of dogs to make your own dog out of the parts instead of just, I don’t know, going to a shelter or something.”
Anna and I exchanged knowing glances.
“So you’re a member of the NZN?” I asked. “Because none of what you just said is true.”
“There are tons of homeless dogs in shelters that would love to have an owner, even if it was a zombie,” Judith answered.
“No, I mean none of what you said about me killing dogs and making one from the parts was true.”
“I got that impression once I saw your stupid dog. If you were going to make a dog, it would look a lot better than that.”
“Now hold on, Tread is adorable if you look past—”
“Jed,” Anna interrupted. “Let’s stay on task.” She turned to Judith. “So let’s make this simple. You tell me what you were doing in Jed’s backyard and I won’t shove that hoodie up—”
“Anna!” Looked like “good cop” wasn’t either one of us.
“Fine, I don’t really care, I never wanted to do this anyway,” Judith said, standing. “I was supposed to find some stupid memory card near some stupid tree in some stupid backyard.”
“Pretty stupid,” I said.
“You think? And then your stupid dog starts going crazy. So I leave and figure that’s that and get out of there, and then you stupid guys chase me for no stupid reason.”
“You ought to think about expanding your vocabulary,” Anna said. “Just off the top of my head—dumb, moronic, ill-conceived, foolish, senseless.”
“So who put you up to this?” I asked.
“Oh my God, I am so not going to tell you. They promised me … nothing. Nothing.”
“They?” Anna asked. “So more than one. Maybe, I don’t know. A club?”
I knew what Anna was getting at. The Tech Club.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Judith said. “Let me go, and I’ll tell you where your stupid—your dumb—dog went.”
“You have no idea,” I said. “Nice try.”
Judith smiled. “Fine.”
“Jed, I think she’s telling the truth,” Anna said, “Besides, it’s late. I have to get home. We all do.”
“OK, deal,” I said, knowing she wasn’t going to tell us anything useful.
“I was still kind of out of it after your arm hit me,” Judith said. “But when I looked up, someone ran though those bushes over there. And I’m pretty sure he had your dog.”
I kept playing that scene over and over in my head as I worked on the Lost Dog posters for Tread. I wasn’t sure Judith was telling the truth, but it made sense.
Even though Tread wasn’t roaming around, and maybe getting hit by a car for a second time, I had to focus on getting him back, even if it meant stupid posters.
“Thanks for offering the Man Van, but I’m going to stick to this for a while,” I told Dad.
“If you change your mind about looking, let me know. The Man Van is at your disposal. I’ll just be watching ‘History’s Greatest Blenders.’”
“You mean ‘Blunders’?”
“Nope, ‘Blenders.’ On the Kitchen Implements Channel. Not too late, OK?”
When Dad left, I took a break from the poster and found other work to keep me busy. I posted Tread’s description on Get-Yr-Pet, Seek-Yr-Pet, Petgetter, and a few other lost-pet sites. I alluded to his undeadness without spelling it out (“If he happens to be missing a limb, he’ll live, sort of”). And every site asked me to upload a photo.
Which I didn’t have.
After a lousy night’s sleep, I was up early searching the neighborhood. “If I were undead, where would I be?” Since I was undead, the answer was easy. I’d be sleeping like the dead. But where would a zombie dog go? If I had taken off all my limbs right then, I wouldn’t have been more stumped.
Tread was nowhere to be found. It was looking more like a dognapping.
I took the very long way to school as I kept looking, arriving fifteen minutes late to earn lunch detention. I had no idea that existed, but it did save me from the Wheel of Meat (it smelled like chicken, but it could have been ferret).
When I saw Anna, I told about the “Lost Dog” posters. I was afraid she would say, “Why? He was stolen.” But she didn’t. She just nodded. I wanted to hug her, but I probably would have started crying. I wasn’t sure we were to that point in our relationship yet.
I took another long way home, peering behind bushes and peeking over fences. I found a noisy Chihuahua, a timid Shih Tzu, and an easily agitated Doberman, but no sign of Tread.
After dinner, the doorbell rang.
“Son, door!”
“Got it, Dad.”
I hustled Anna to my room and showed her my sketch of Tread.
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but unless that’s a camel, it really sucks,” she said. “Can I give it a shot?”
I handed her the laptop and watched her work. In a few minutes, she was done. It looked exactly like a dog. And nearly like Tread. I told her as much.
“Thanks,” she said. “I guess hand-eye coordination is not a zombie strong point.”
I took over the laptop, putting “Lost Dog” at the top of the page and my phone number at the bottom.
“Should I offer a reward?” I asked.
“I guess. How much?”
“Dad owes me allowance, so that’s five bucks there.”
“OK, what else have you got?”
“I just told you. Future allowance. Five bucks.”
“That’s it, Jed? Seriously? You don’t save? You don’t do extra chores?”
No and no, but I wasn’t going to say that out loud.
“I can kick in, like, another twenty,” Anna said. “But you can just put ‘Reward.’ We don’t have to say how much.”
I put “Reward” right under “Lost Dog.” I added my contact information at the bottom, clicked save and print.
Everything hit me as the printer hummed to life and leaflets rolled out one by one. The best thing that happened to me in a long time was gone. Tread accepted me for who I was, the one who would always be there no matter how much I messed up. Even if I yelled at him because I was mad at the world, I knew he’d still be waiting for me at the front door, wagging his tail (assuming he didn’t bury it). Anna was important, too, but I couldn’t bury my head in her neck and pet her until I felt better.
And Luke? Tread was four legs and a tail above Luke. A part of me still believed Luke and I could patch things up, but that part was as detachable as my limbs. If Luke honestly needed space to deal with Tread’s creation, I could give him that. For a while. But if he couldn’t accept what happened—couldn’t accept Tread—then there was no way I could accept him. Our friendship would be over.
I pinched my nose to keep from crying. It didn’t work.
“Jed, I know we’ll find him,” Anna said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “He’s out there somewhere just waiting to be found. We’ll keep looking as long as it takes.”
That was the odd thing. I knew Tread was OK. I felt it, maybe because of our connection. Something in our Ooze.
The scary thing, the one truth I could not ignore, was that Tread hadn’t come back. I was pretty sure he felt that connection, too, and could use it to come back to me.
I knew deep in my zombie bones that Judith told us the truth. Somebody took Tread. Maybe even had him chained up in the yard.
All I could see was Tread straining to get free, pulling and pulling at the chain, his collar sinking deeper into his neck.
I had to block out that vision and focus on something else.
I was going to put up posters. That was that.
“I figure if we go from Dublin to Harvard streets, and Featherstone to Michigan, that will co
ver it,” I said, pointing at the blue dots scattered across the map. “Each dot is where we put a flyer. They’re about two blocks apart. That should do it.”
“Do you have a pencil?” Anna asked.
“A pencil? Like, the wood thing that makes marks on paper? I don’t know, let me check my drawer of useless and ancient stuff where I keep my phone books.”
“Fine,” Anna said, reaching for her purse and pulling out a pen. She went to work on the map, connecting the dots. I thought she was planning a route until she showed it to me.
The blue dots formed a pretty reasonable dog.
“That’s your subconscious working,” she said. “Who knew zombies had a subconscious?”
That’s when I told Anna the really crazy thing I was thinking.
“You don’t think Robbie was the one who took Tread, do you? I mean, what would he want with Tread? No way would he do it because Ray told him to. He can’t stand Ray. And there are a million ways to terrorize me that don’t involve something so blatantly criminal. He’s evil, but a felon? I’m not so sure.”
Anna made another mark on the map. An X. Right where the dog’s butt was.
“Not crazy when you think Robbie lives on your dog’s anus.” She laughed. “Maybe our first stop before putting up any flyers.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Do you think they mow the lawn or vacuum it?”
“Both. That’s just unnatural.”
Anna and I stood outside the world’s most perfect front yard. The lawn was a deep green, perfectly clipped as if each blade were measured and laser-cut.
Note to self: a laser-powered lawnmower was the ultimate man machine.
I had expected something quite different. A fence with iron spikes. Garden gnomes wearing camouflage. A “Beware of guard alligator” sign.
But all this home and garden perfection? It hardly fit Robbie’s image.
“You could putt on that lawn,” I said.
“Or eat off it,” Anna said. “The lunch ladies could learn something about cleanliness. Seriously, if the mold on the Leftovers Buffet had been trimmed this well, the health department probably wouldn’t have condemned it.”