by P. T. Phronk
“You know I have to.”
“Is he dead?”
“I believe so.”
She paused, an odd expression of confusion on her face. “Why don’t I care?” She sighed. Her blackened hand caressed his face. “We could’ve been something.”
“Maybe in a past life.”
She barked a single laugh.
He held the stake between her breasts.
The only parts of her body not blackened by burns were her eyes. Soft, wet, they met Stan’s. Their usual coldness was gone.
“Goodbye, Stanley. I lov—”
“Stop. I know.”
He kissed her cheek, then pushed. It wouldn’t go in. He straddled her and put his weight into it. Finally he was inside of her. Her back arched. She moaned softly, her tongue flicking between her extended fangs. He pushed deeper.
Blood bubbled. He drove into her. It gurgled around the wound, trickling in rivers on the concrete around them. It formed red gloves around Stan’s white knuckles.
When it stopped, he collapsed on Dalla’s corpse. He cried a tuneless moan.
Time passed. How much time, Stan couldn’t say; his mind had temporarily lost the ability to judge.
Far away—or was it close? It could have been close—he heard his dog barking. Thank God she was alive.
The door flung open beside him. A hand closed on his ankle. He flipped over just in time to see three of Dalla’s offspring shambling into the room. One of them gnawed at his neck. Another dug at his stomach, grabbing a roll of loose skin and pulling.
He screamed. The blood left his brain, and he saw stars; sparkling stars, blue like her eyes.
After wiping Fox off his boot, Morgan was ready to collapse.
He had to find Stan and that crazy mutt first. What did Stan call her now? Bloody? Seemed appropriate, at the moment at least.
He saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Grayish-brown, furry. Yup, it was that damn crazy mutt. The reason for all of this.
Bloody (hah, “Bloody”; was hard to think of her with a silly name like that) had her head lowered, and was shaking back and forth. As Morgan approached, he saw what the little lady was hunched over.
It was that guy from the tee-vee. Bloody gave a big tug, then freed Letterman’s head from his body with a not-too-pleasant sucking sound. Her fur was matted with dark blood, which continued to pump from Letterman’s mangled body long after it should’ve stopped.
Bloody looked up at Morgan and seemed to smile, showing off her row of crooked yellowish doggy teeth. Morgan smiled back, then bent down to pet her.
The reunion was interrupted by a crash nearby. Two people in tattered clothes sprung from the rubble of a collapsed shelf. But no; they weren’t people. The way they moved, just a little too fast, it told Morgan they were things. Other monsters, like Letterman. Where the heck did those ones come from?
Further away, another popped up at the same time. As if they’d all been awaken by a loud noise, though Morgan didn’t hear nothin’. In unison, they sprinted to the back of the store.
Bloody made eye contact with Morgan. Morgan sighed. The two of them followed the creatures. Bloody barked as she got closer.
They entered the storage room, and there was Stan, lying on top of a shrivelled corpse, with the three creatures rippin’ and tearin’ at him. Morgan looked down at his boots. Well, they were already stained red anyway. Bloody growled from deep in her throat; it was a sound unlike anything Morgan had ever heard her make before.
The man and his dog got to work.
26. Dénouement
THE NEXT FEW HOURS WERE very confusing for Stan.
When he next opened his eyes, he was being carried by strong arms. Another set of arms pressed a shirt to his bleeding neck. The tag from the shirt tickled Stan’s skin.
He tried to see who was around him, but then he heard Bob’s voice: “don’t cha move.”
The pain was immense. He could feel his blood emptying, his consciousness fading.
Next, he was on a cold surface. A contraption of wood and metal loomed above him. Its panels and antennae were scribed with symbols and adorned with amulets and vials that sparkled in the starlight. Looking at it hurt his brain, so he closed his eyes again.
There were voices around him.
“Right here, boss?” said a deep, unfamiliar voice.
“Yes, Howard,” said Bob. “Press hard.”
“K, no prob.”
The pressure on Stan’s neck intensified.
“Now, you,” said Bob, shifting his weight, which made the ground bounce and creak. A truck. They were on the bed of a truck. “I know we haven’t seen each other in a while. I been trying to get in touch, to, you know, say I’m sorry. For what happened in New York.”
Stan forced his eyes open and began to formulate an understanding grunt, but Bob didn’t wait for a response.
“Gotta apologize again, though, see, because all this—” the truck bounced as he gestured at the apparatus strapped to it “—I built in somethin’ special, an extra piece Mister Fox never knew about, so I could right my wrong with you.”
Stan heard the unmistakeable sound of Bloody sighing. Thank God she was okay.
“Got some of your fur, see. Sent special directly from a friend back in New York. Amazing, ain’t it? That he could still scrounge up some scraps of fur from our old pad?”
Wait, fur? He wasn’t talking to Stan at all. He was talking to Bloody. She used to be Bob’s dog, after all.
“I put the fur on there, and I followed my formulas, tuned it up just right to send a signal out through space and time demanding to see ya again. Bam, whaddaya know, the universe obeyed, and here you are. I didn’t think it would be like this, though. You gotta know that, see?”
Bloody sighed again.
“No, see, there’s a reason! What I did to you back then, I didn’t think it could be undone, but I studied. Went to California, found some people who knew some things. It can be undone. I know how. I can do it right now. Let’s hurry before Stan the Man here leaves us.”
Bob continued to talk, but his voice drifted further away. The door to the truck opened for a moment, then closed again. Bob returned to the foot of the truck bed.
“I’m gonna inject it. Sorry, gotta go right in the spine. It’ll pinch a bit.”
Bloody yelped. Stan opened his eyes. Bob stood up with a syringe in his hand. A moment later, Bloody’s face rose from the ground. Except Stan’s dog was bigger than before. Her floppy little ears flattened against her head, which was writhing and expanding like a balloon. Her fur retracted into her skull.
More of her body came into view as she stood on her rear legs. Her front legs wrenched themselves back with a crunch. She arched her spine, and her gut expanded. Breasts appeared, bulging out behind a pair of her little doggy nipples. Her fur continued to retract.
Her little nose stretched out and turned pinker. Her lower jaw cracked into its new position. When all the fur was gone, a human face was left.
A naked woman—a pudgy, thirty-something woman with scraggly hair—stood where Bloody had been, panting, her tongue hanging out of her mouth. Stan recognized her. She was Bob’s friend from New York. His friend who always wore the Metallica shirt.
“Now,” said Bob, looking her up and down, “you’re still a werewolf, weredog, whatever ya are. Dang, I missed ya. But anyway, the cure we were looking for back then, when I managed to get you stuck as a mutt, I still haven’t found it. I’ll keep lookin’. I owe it to ya.”
Bloody cleared her throat. Her voice was hoarse. “You stupid fuck,” she said.
Bob laughed. “Good to hear your voice again, Annie! Now, get spitting; he’s fading fast.”
Indeed, Stan felt himself losing consciousness again, though he wasn’t sure if it was from the blood loss or from the shock of finding out that he had been sleeping in the same bed as a weredog for the last four years.
Drifting in and out of consciousness:
“We need more
saliva. Howard, could you go get us some water? Oh, and some gum?”
Stan felt warmth, then tightness, on his neck. He opened his eyes to see the woman—Bloody; or was it Annie now?—standing over him, a string of drool hanging between her mouth and Stan’s neck. Her hair had a pattern of gray and darker gray that was oddly similar to the pattern of Bloody’s fur.
Next he dreamed about Dalla. He was taking a picture of her in front of the Grand Canyon. It was night, but then it was day, and her skin was radiant in a way he’d never seen. Her eyes sparkled in a way he’d caught only glimpses of. Then blood blossomed from her chest in a way that he was all too familiar with. He clicked his camera, bathing her in gray light.
He opened his eyes to clouds above him and wind against his face. The truck bounced down a highway. Bob’s singed hair whipped in the wind. He applied spit from a Tim Hortons cup to a wound on his forehead.
“He’s waking up!” said a gravelly voice. Bloody was on her hands and knees beside Stan. She was chewing gum.
Bob held the cup in front of Bloody. Bloody horked into it.
“Pullin’ through, is he?”
Bloody sighed with relief in an oddly familiar way.
Two wounded, weary faces hovered above Stan’s. He began to laugh. “What the fuck, you guys.”
Bloody began to inhale and exhale rapidly. It was a sound approximating laughter for someone who’d forgotten how. Bob breathed, then began to cough.
When he’d regained his voice, Bob said: “I think he’s gonna be okay.”
For the first time in a month, Stan felt that was true.
27. Dog Days, Over
“LIKE ATTRACTS LIKE!” SCREAMED MORGAN at anyone who would listen. “Power attracts power! It travels through space and time to make sure it’s in good company.
“Sometimes with a little help,” he said as he winked at a child wearing a Superman T-shirt.
“The most powerful among us are drawn to the same location. Like heavenly bodies, the ones with the largest gravitational pull … well, you see where I’m going with this. The biggest stars smash into each other. Bam!” he screamed. The small crowd that had gathered around him jumped in unison.
“Fire. Destruction. Black holes. I’ve seen it with my own eyes,” he whispered, then paused to gauge the crowd’s reaction. A few of them were nodding. Even people across the street, in front of the old Masonic temple—the new Jimmy Kimmel venue—were squinting to see what was going on.
“And then creation, ‘cause the ones who come out of that alive …”
A voice from down the street: “Maps to the stars!”
God dammit. It was Cole. That fucker. That scum. Selling his god damn maps in Morgan’s spot again.
“Ryan Gosling! Drew Barrymore! Gary Busey! And a special map, limited time only—you won’t find this on the internet folks—follow the trail of the last known locations of Damien Fox!”
“That’s a new low, Cole,” seethed Morgan
“Oh look, old mister Morgan has returned. Or should I say, Robert? Bob? Hank? Gale? Quite the past you’ve got there, mister.”
“You ain’t got no right,” muttered Morgan, then to the gathering crowd, “you ain’t got no right to be messing with people’s personal lives like you done.”
“No right, you say? Look at this other new arrival.” He pulled a blue-inked piece of paper from under his stack of maps. “That there is a vendor permit, old man. Unless you’ve got the same, I suggest you move along before I alert an officer of the law.”
That evening, after filling out the paperwork at the police station, getting a stern talking-to about resisting arrest, and paying a fine with his last three days’ worth of donations, Morgan prepared a cup of tea. He rubbed some sage oil on the scrap of paper that had been clutched in his hand all day: a piece of Cole’s vendor permit. The oil helped maintain contact with the silver wire that ran to the roof, then to the apparatus stationed there. He taped the wire to the paper. He took a sip of tea, concentrating. Then he took a lighter to the piece of paper and watched it burn.
When his tea was done, he recoiled in horror at the pattern he saw in the tea leaves.
Later that evening, Cole arrived at his apartment. He put his box of maps down by the door. He took a piss. He felt compelled to pour gasoline onto his La-Z-Boy chair. He sat in the chair. He flipped his television to the celebrity news show. He had a smoke. He felt compelled to touch the hot end to the gasoline-soaked chair.
“I brought McDonald’s!” Stan shouted. His voice echoed down the hallways of the largely empty mansion. He heard the woman formerly known as Bloody heft herself off the couch then stomp over to the doors. She grabbed the greasy bag from Stan’s hand.
Stan laughed. “One of those burgers is mine.”
“Fine fine, but I’m taking the French fries. I been craving them all day today,” she said in her husky human voice.
“You crave them all day every day.”
“Won’t deny it,” she said, grinning.
Stan followed her wiggling butt into the kitchen, where newly created windows let sunlight into the mansion. He’d also taken out the wall between the kitchen and the sitting room, where a fire crackled. Heating was a problem, given that he was still working out how to connect Dalla’s invisible mansion to the electrical grid.
Bloody’s mouth hung open as she eased herself onto the couch, then used her belly as a plate for a pile of fries. Her Misfits T-shirt was getting all greasy, and Stan made a mental note to teach her how to do laundry. She was still getting used to taking care of herself, instead of having Stan literally pick up her shit.
Mister Finch—Dalla’s cat—leapt up on the couch beside Bloody. The two of them got along famously now. When Stan and Bloody realized their apartment building had burned down and they were probably wanted for questioning about that, they went to see about the invisible mansion. As soon as Mister Finch saw the two of them in that empty alleyway, sans Dalla, his eyes became wide. His ears turned down.
Bloody had put her hand on the back of Mister Finch’s neck and gave his forehead a single, understanding lick.
Stan wasn’t sure if that moment counted as an invite from the mansion’s new owner, or if just thinking of its old owner was enough to break the illusion, but they found themselves standing beside a mansion instead of an empty alleyway.
The other cats stuck to the nooks and crannies of the place; there were rooms Stan still hadn’t entered, and he found himself getting lost and turning back whenever he tried to explore. He told himself he was frightened to clear out every room because of the horrors he would discover; the basement was something he didn’t even want to think about. But part of him knew that he was even more terrified of finding little signs of Dalla. Her posters and knick-knacks. Tchotchkes infused with her ghost.
Stan sighed, looked through a box in the kitchen, and removed a plate from a wrapping of tissue paper.
“Burger me,” he said to Bloody.
Bloody continued munching on her fries as she stared at the fire.
“Bloodhound! Hand me my burger!”
“Huh, whoops, sorry, forgot,” she said, then tossed a burger across the room to Stan. She didn’t mean she forgot the burger; sorry, forgot had become a response that meant sorry, I forgot I’m not a dog anymore, so now I can speak when spoken to.
Stan unwrapped a greasy burger, then took a bite out of it.
A phone rang. Stan took a moment to dig a smartphone out of his pocket; he wasn’t used to having one. At least wireless signals still got into the impossible mansion.
His mother started talking immediately, a stream of local gossip and thoughts on world events. It gave Stan time to finish chewing his burger.
He swallowed. When she finally gave him a chance to speak, he asked, “So you’re feeling better?”
“Much better. Truly, dear, I’m not just saying that.” Stan’s mother’s voice was tinny. He could picture her old phone, with the rotary dial and the scuffed earpiece.
“You’ve been drinking the tea? Rubbing on the cream?”
“You call that cream?”
“Mom …”
“Yes, dear, yes. Smells funny, but I been doing it every day. You know I’m not always fond of this Oprah Winfrey alternative medicine mumbo jumbo, but by golly I do feel better. You said it’s a lady friend of yours that makes it?”
“Roommate now, actually.” He looked at Bloody, who was absent-mindedly rubbing Mister Finch’s belly with her foot. Stan smiled. He felt like he’d known the woman on his couch for years. Which he had.
“Oh, living with a lady are you? I’m so glad you’re finally making … friends,” said his mom. He could almost hear her winking.
“Yeah yeah. New subject please.”
“Fine, dear. How’s that dog of yours?”
Bloody poured the last few French fries into her mouth before moving on to her burgers. He still thought of her as Bloody, but was it even her name any more? Or would she go back to being called Annie, the human name that Bob had known her as? But of course, Bob wasn’t even Bob any more. He insisted people call him Morgan now. What happened to the time when people only had one identity?
“Dear?”
“Oh, my dog, uh, she died, mom.”
She inhaled and squealed at the same time. It was a sound he hadn’t heard since she got sick. He had to bite his cheek to keep from laughing.
“Uh huh. Hit by a car. Some old man who wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing.”
She rattled off words of consolation while Stan continued to unpack. Bloody could’ve helped, but she insisted that none of the stuff was hers. There was no way Stan would be unpacking the box of dried food and rawhide bones.
“Anyways, anyways,” said his mother. “New subject. Tell me more about your new job.”
“Ah, yeah, so it’s a sort of … detective service? My roommate and I—yes mum, the same girl who makes the herbal remedies—we get hired to find people. You know, children, long lost loved ones, grandpas who wandered off.”