by Doug Goodman
Jasper Hankamer’s small office was Spartan in design, with 1970s wood paneling under a quilt of stained ceiling tiles. On the cheap veneer of an old aluminum office desk stood a line of radios. The room had three padded fold-up chairs, two in the front of the desk and one behind it. Jasper shut the door behind them as Angie entered.
“I do not pay you for the human remains recovery work you conduct for my PD. I have, however, recommended you to Denver and Chicago units, who purchased your bomb dogs,” Jasper said.
“What are you getting at?”
“I am about to say something, and I don’t want it to come off as tit-for-tat. You and me, we already have that established. So this is in no way connected to our working relationship. Animal Control has asked for you.”
“Those sons of bitches set me and my dog up. I would never work for a couple of degenerates like them.”
“Degenerates like the Director of Animal Control?” Jasper said sarcastically.
“Damn straight.”
“They told me there was a misunderstanding at the demonstration. They were very impressed with you and your dog.”
“Impressed? Did they really use that word?”
“More or less.”
“There is a lot of interpretation to ‘More or Less.’”
“What is important is that you want to continue doing cadaver work for me. You need it. You feed off of it the way some cops feed off the thrill of the chase. And if you want to keep doing it, Angie, then you are going to help Animal Control. You are going to do exactly what they tell you to do. Hell, they’re even going to pay you for each find. Don’t that sound like the kind of deal you want to make?”
“I don’t deal with liars and thieves.”
“I don’t care what you think of them. You need to rearrange your thinking. If you ever want to be called out again by my unit to do cadaver work, you will work with Animal Control.”
“If you don’t have me to do your human remains work, who are you going to use?”
“Steve Franklin out of Alpine County Search and Rescue. He has a dog he says is ready.”
“Steve is over 300 pounds and Alpine County is an old person’s club.”
“You aren’t hearing me, Angie. I don’t care if he is 400 pounds, 100 years old, and has trained parakeets to find human remains, you don’t support Animal Control and I will make him my go-to handler.”
Angie could not think of a good retort that would make her look more clever than him, so she didn’t say anything. She walked out on Jasper.
Before she could begin work, she had to visit the director. He wanted to see her before she was processed.
Director Mark Summers was on his phone, so Angie had to wait ten minutes before she could be seen. She perused his office. He had diplomas from Embry-Riddle. There was a large metal device lying on his desk. She could not make out the function of the device. There was a small family photo of him, his wife, their two dogs, and a Pomeranian, but other than that, there was no “animal” in the director’s office.
Unlike the more quaintly furnished sheriff’s office, the director’s office did not have folding chairs or wood paneling. His chairs were high-backed, with lumbar support; the walls were obviously thin. Everything about his office proclaimed his department fiscally responsible. State-of-the-art by the lowest bidder. Angie chuckled.
Dr. Saracen knocked at the door, and the Director waved him in like he did Angie. Dr. Saracen smiled at her as he took his seat.
The Director caught Angie scrutinizing his room, so after he hung up, he said, “To be honest, this place has always felt a little too grandiose for me. When I was a little kid, my older brother used to tell me, ‘you know how to tell the cool kids from the posers? The cool kids never try.’ This building is trying to sell a product everybody’s already buying. I guess it tries too hard for me.” His honesty was a little off-putting.
“I was thinking of the phrase, ‘state of the art,’” Angie said. “I was wondering where it came from. Why would anything be called state of the art? I mean, to call a device ‘high engineering quality’ or simply ‘well built,’ that makes sense. But ‘state of the art.’ Shouldn’t that be reserved for opera houses and libraries?”
“I used to be an engineer with the county, so I can appreciate that, Ms. Graves.”
“How does an engineer get to run Animal Control?” Angie asked.
“When Animal Control focuses on using robots. Still, at least it isn’t like the Animal Control offices down south. Those are grand cathedrals to zombies. I guess we don’t get enough bugs up here to warrant the attention. The winter cold keeps the numbers low.”
“Right. It makes me wonder why Animal Control has their panties in a bunch trying to make me happen.”
“Do you know who that was on the phone? That was a concerned citizen. Mother of two. She owns the Jack Calf Garden Center on High Point. You may have been there. My wife and I go there sometimes. She was calling to complain about goats getting into her property despite the fencing she puts up. The goats are not there now, so I gave her the emergency dispatch number and told her to call when and if the goats return. She then asked me about the new Wolfs and whether they were a good expenditure of tax dollars. I detailed the functionality differences between the old and new Wolfs. When that didn’t help her, I explained to her the budget process and that her city councilman voted for the new Wolfs. She thanked me for her time and then we hung up.”
Director Summers steeled his voice to ask “Did you know that the word samurai means to serve? I think every government worker should know that. We are here to serve the public. We owe it to use funding wisely and make the best judgments based on the benefit to our citizens. I tell you this because I want you to know that I have no ulterior motive. I have no vendetta against you. I’m not some ungracious bureaucrat insensitive to the work you both have done. But I have a duty to the people to ensure that we do what is best for them.”
“What is best for them is that we find the larvae,” Angie said, “And we find out if these zombie bastards are stealing our elderly and our young.”
“But how do I know you will track larvae? So far, you have shown me that you can track wasps, not larvae.”
“But we have no larvae,” Angie said. “Only wasps. How can I use larvae when I don’t know if they exist?”
“Exactly,” Director Summers said.
“Correction,” Dr. Saracen interjected. “We KNOW they have larvae. All wasps pass through a larval stage. We just haven’t been able to find the burrows yet.”
“You still haven’t proven to me that you can find the burrows.”
“The strategy,” Angie said, “Is for us to track the wasp. We will follow it back to its burrow.”
“Emerald wasps,” Dr. Saracen added, “Die shortly after dropping their eggs. So the zombie should lead us to its burrow.”
Director Summers turned his attention to Angie. “What are you searching for, Ms. Graves? What I mean is, what drives a woman to teach her dog to hunt zombies?”
“I like working with dogs. What difference does it make?”
“It makes all the difference. If you are going to be in my employment, I need to know what motivates you. To put it another way, ‘Why do you want to work for the Animal Control Department of Jack Calf, Colorado?’”
“I’m not searching for anything.”
“Everybody’s looking for something.”
“Take me as I am or leave it, Director Summers.”
The director folded his hands and thought on this for a moment, long enough for Angie to notice the drabness of his cigar-colored jacket and tapioca pants. It was dull, and she’d had enough. As she was getting up to leave, the director stopped her.
“Well, you left before we could finish the exam. After careful consideration, the esteemed brotherhood of the wasp hunters has accepted you in its ranks. You will go out on calls for zombie sightings where the location of the zombie is not known. You are to help the A
nimal Control officers, but remember that you work for them, not the other way around. As appropriate, and long as you do not interfere, you can pursue the burrows theory.”
“And for all this I get a small fee. What’s the hitch?”
“That despite what I saw out there, I don’t believe your dog can do this line of work. Houston has an office that has been trying to develop a zombie dog for years, and they can’t get the dog to distinguish between a cockroach and a wasp or a dead guy who lies in the grave and a dead guy who walks the earth. But they’ve heard about you, Mrs. Graves, and your special dog. They want to know if he can really work. If I let them, they’d have you wrapped up in demonstrations and presentations for the next three months. And when your dog makes a mistake, guess who it will all fall back onto?” He paused a moment to catch his breath and said, “I want you, Mrs. Graves, because Animal Control has purchased two new scent-detecting robots. I want to prove they are field-ready. More importantly, you are going to help me prove that they are better than your dog.”
“You don’t know me very well if you think I’m going to help you prove my dog is ineffective.”
“Is your dog ready? Be honest.”
“Training these specializations takes years, not months.”
“Then, Mrs. Graves, you don’t have to do anything but take your dog on the hunts. History will take care of the rest of it.”
The portion of the dome that the mountains and trees allowed to be seen had dropped two inches of water earlier in the morning. It was a rare downpour in the middle of an unrelenting heat wave. The rain and the cool air the front brought with it had revitalized the mountains. Birds were chirping, leaves were opening up, and the after-rain smell was still thick and pungent when Angie rode up on her father. She had saddled one of his horses from the stable and ridden up the mountainside after him.
In the metal corral stood a young boy and a small horse. Also in the corral, kneeling, was her father. The boy was watching the horse, and her father was keenly watching the boy.
The boy was about to take a step−his heel pulled away from the soft earth slightly−when her father said in his soothing voice, “Be patient.”
The boy rolled back onto his heel and waited some more. His hand was outstretched, inviting, open. In the other hand, tucked at his side, was a carrot.
The horse walked up to the boy and put her nose to the boy’s hand. The boy turned to Angie’s father. The boy’s face opened up with quiet happiness.
Half an hour later, the boy was driving a truck that had little more than a few boards and an exposed driveshaft in the back. Angie and her father followed behind.
When they got back to the house, a cherry red Camaro was waiting. The boy’s father sat in his car, fumigating the yard with exhaust while he chain smoked.
“Thanks, Mr. G!” the boy said, waving his hand as he ran up to the Camaro. As soon as the boy got to the car, a transformation overcame him. His shoulders tightened and his spine stiffened. He climbed into the car and looked straight ahead as his father turned around.
“You spend your life studying animals, and people think they’re different somehow. That they aren’t like animals,” her father said. “Is it right for anyone to become so tense by getting into a car?”
“You can’t fix the world through horse whispering and doggie massage, Dad.”
“Oh? I guess not.”
They unsaddled their horses, then went into his house. It was an old house with no air conditioning and no heating except for the large circular fire built in the middle of the house. A large overhead duct carried the heat to the bedrooms. The coals were little more than dying embers.
“You hungry?”
“Sure, Dad.”
“You don’t have to eat if you don’t want to.”
“Dad, c’mon!”
He pushed his hat back on his forehead. “Angie, you don’t have to be an animal behavior expert to know that something is bothering you. Do you want me to wait until you are ready to tell me, or do you want to tell me?”
She sat down on one of his old chairs. They were thirty or forty years old and felt hard on her butt. “They want me to fail.”
Her father sat down opposite her and folded his hands and waited for her to tell her story.
Angie said, “Animal Control says no dog can track a wasp. They want to use robots, and they want me to use Murder to track wasps just to prove that robots can do it better.”
“Maybe they can do it better.”
“Dad! You’re not helping.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Angie. That’s kind of a crapshoot. I hope they’re paying you.”
“They are.”
Angie didn’t say anything more. Her father waited.
“I wish you’d stop doing that, Dad. I’m not one of your animals.”
“Well, what do you want me to do?”
“Just, I don’t know.”
He moved to the chair next to her and put his arm around his daughter. “I’m in your corner,” he said.
“I know,” she said, and she reached out to hold him.
“And besides, if they really think that a bunch of nuts and bolts are going to easily out-track you and Murder, they are some pretty big fools. They are in for a nice surprise. I’ve seen you and him working. You have a bond, and that’s not something you can easily replicate with an algorithm.”
“Dad, stop.”
“You started this.” He got up and took some hotdogs out of the refrigerator.
“I remember when you were a kid, and I was working cattle in—where was that? Calder?”
“Casper.”
“That’s right. Casper, Wyoming. Had you on your first cutting horse when you were six years old. You decided you were going to walk to Mexico because you heard another ranch hand’s kids talking about how much better Mexico was, even though the kid was too young to know Mexico from Delaware. So you decided to leave in the middle of the night. I’d never been so scared in my life. I had the entire ranch out looking for you. I was convinced you had tried to befriend a bear and gotten killed. But it wasn’t a bear you found. It was puppies. And you came back with these pups from God-knows where in your hands. I was so happy to see you. Then I realized that like the pups, you were covered head-to-toe with fleas.”
“You can’t ever leave that part out?”
“No, ma’am. That’s the punch line. Besides, it says a lot about you and your dedication. I may worry about many things when it comes to you, but these robots? They haven’t got a chance.”
Angie smiled.
“So when you going to find a guy?” her dad teased.
Chapter Six
The first call from Animal Control came at two in the morning. On her way to incident command, she received a second call that the officers had already found and disposed of the zombie. Angie turned her pickup around and went home, but she couldn’t get back to sleep.
The second call was the same.
Angie caught herself staying up late at night, waiting for her cellphone to ring. Crimson wasps, Dr. Saracen had explained, prefer to work at night when the people who would notice them were still asleep. Angie chose “Sympathy for the Devil” for the Animal Control callout number.
A week had gone by since the last callout. Wildfires had finally seemed to flare up in her part of the world. Driving to dog shows she would sometimes pass trucks full of wilderness firefighter hotshots or hear the humming of an air tanker flying to its target to drop a load of fire retardant. At one confirmation show, she made an arrangement to breed her bitch, Lizzy, to a stud in Wyoming. The pairing was a good match. The stud was a champion just like her bitch.
She read up on zombies, learning about swarms and the timeline of the zombie (they can stay “reanimated” up to 120 hours, but usually never made it past 72 before the corpse became useless). She read about the blood transfusion of zombies. Since funeral parlors removed the blood from a body after death, the first objective of a wa
sp was to put new blood into the body. Hence why zombies went for jugulars and drank blood. Drinking the wrong blood was not a huge concern of the wasp; most blood transfusion health issues became “fatal” to a zombie after the wasp’s 72-hour occupation.
At night she dreamed of shambling bodies lurking outside her home. Because the zombies in her dreams had been drinking the wrong blood type, her nightmares were hunched over like old, diseased trees. The monstrous insects and their undead vehicles were searching for her. Banging on the walls of her house while Angie’s dogs barked from within. One of the damned things always got in. She was never sure how, but she heard it moving in her house. Her dogs ran once the creature entered her bedroom, forcing Angie to lock herself in her bathroom. She waited there in the dark while it tried the knob, then curled its pale fingers under the door space. It disappeared, so she got down on her hands and knees and looked out the door space. A hungry, black and red eye looked back at her from across the space.
Angie woke up covered in sweat. The phone was ringing. Sympathy for the Devil.
She met Animal Control at a storage unit that stood outside of town like an island of light in an ocean of darkness. Typical modified pickup Animal Control vehicles sat in the parking lot, but there was also a white truck, like a delivery truck (or SWAT truck, Angie thought). The giant truck stood out like a white buffalo. In the middle of the vehicles stood Steve Rangel, as effervescent as though this was mid-morning and his Rockies had won last night. He waved Angie over.
“So this is the first one, Angie. I can’t wait to see your dog in action. Listen, an hour ago the security guard working the storage unit reported that he saw a zombie on his video feed. It was walking hand-in-hand with another person.”
“I’ve heard rumors,” one of the Animal Control Officers said. He was a young man who looked maybe old enough to have graduated high school.
“We’ve all heard rumors,” Steve Rangel said. “That doesn’t mean we change our tactic. You guys prep the Wolf. Angie, we can set you up right on the oogie-boogie’s trail.”