Cadaver Dog (15 page)

“I’m okay.” Murder whined his concern as he tugged on her. She sat up and began to pull herself away from the lair, but one of the fat sacks latched onto her leg. It was like being stabbed by a hundred hypodermic needles in the leg. Angie could not believe the pain.

“Oh my God!” she cried out. She screamed in a shrill tone.

Murder jumped on the larvae’s back and sunk his teeth in its curdled segments. The damned thing was like a living tumor. It squealed as it twisted around, curling like a shrimp in a pot of boiling water as it reached for the dog.

A giant buzzing sound filled Angie’s ears. She thought she might faint. She sat back against the rocks and held Sarah close. Sarah was no longer fighting Angie or Murder. She just lay in Angie’s arms like a lump.

Too late, Angie realized that the buzzing was coming from a wasp. How it had escaped Rawls, she did not know. She was sure Dr. Saracen would have a theory about wasps separating from their hosts, in this case, the bride. Its wings flittered as it skittered down the rocks to its lair. Its stinger hung jagged and short, like it had been wrenched violently out of the bride’s head.

The bright crimson wasp appeared even more nightmarish with the curtain of fire behind it. Flickers of flame crashed down around them, and Angie knew the wildfire had gotten too close.

Before she passed out, she saw Murder snapping at the wasp above him while the larvae bit him from behind.

Chapter Eleven

Angie was dreaming. She knew she was dreaming, and she did not care. Here, she was not tired. Here, she was not hurt. She was out by the creek. Some of her favorite dogs were with her. She was playing ball with them. The water was cool and refreshing on her bare feet. She was happy. Happier than she had been in a long time.

Something moved in the trees beyond the creek. Angie wasn’t scared of it being a monster like a zombie or a werewolf. She knew it was an even greater monster. Her mother was out there.

“Angie,” her father said. He was in the creek, astride his horse, Juniper. Angie had always liked the way her father looked sitting on top of Juniper.

“Angie, you have to wake up.”

“But I don’t want to.”

“Then you are going to have to go to the forest.”

“But Mom’s there.”

“I know, my sweet child. But you don’t have a choice.”

Angie was suddenly aware that the dogs were sitting and waiting on her to make a decision. The ball bobbed as it swept downriver. The water current grew louder and louder. She could barely hear her dad’s voice over the rush of water.

“Angie, wake up.”

Angie woke to a world of flames. The noise of the creek hadn’t been water after all, but torrents of fire crackling around her. She opened her eyes and found Murder curled up next to her. He was bloody and puffy, and a piece of his hide was missing. The wasp lay dead in front of them, as did the larvae. Angie kicked the bug and felt an unholy snap of its neck under her boots. She put her hand on Murder’s head. Her black and blue nuzzled her weakly.

“Get up, Murder,” she said.

He whined piteously, so she pulled herself up to her knees. She had fallen down into a narrow ledge where the wasp had built its lair and left the girl as food for its larvae. Angie could look over the ledge and down the mountainside. Fire was blowing up at them. Its heat was so intense, the skin on the side of her that was angled toward the flames was turning red. If she hadn’t been wearing the brush coat, her skin may have already started to boil.

She could move her legs and she hadn’t broken her hip or anything else. Luck had been on her side twice. She rubbed Sarah’s arm.

“Sweetie,” Angie said through a dry, cottony mouth, “My name is Angie Graves. This is my dog. We were sent here to find you. We need to leave.”

The girl glared at Angie.

“Do you know where you are?”

The girl didn’t answer.

“There must be something going on, chemically, with your brain,” Angie said. “I think the wasp did something to you to make you like this. Do you understand anything I am saying?”

The girl still didn’t respond. Suddenly, tears streamed down the girl’s face.

Angie tried to call the firefighters on the radio, but the unit was busted. It had absorbed the brunt of her fall, but the result was a smashed radio.

Angie called out for Rawls, then waited. The heat was more intense. A fire-striken tree fell over the lair, dropping little coals on them. The girl screamed and Murder wagged his tail weakly, but did not move. Angie gave him his chicken, and he wagged his tail contentedly but did not chew on the toy.

She called again, and this time Rawls answered back. He was above them with the Wolf.

“Get me the hell out of here!”

“I have a rope,” he said. “The Wolf has a winch.”

First, they raised Sarah out of the lair. She still wasn’t moving or speaking, but she had stopped screaming. Then he lowered the bowline to Angie.

She started to loop it around Murder, but Rawls stopped her. “You first.”

“You can take my dog first or leave us.”

Rawls didn’t answer. She wrapped the bowline around Murder’s chest. He whined back at her.

Rawls pressed the lever on the Wolf’s winch to raise the rope. Half-way up, the fiery tree snapped and landed on Murder. The dog jerked violently in its snare and howled so balefully that Angie’s heart snapped too. She tried to climb up to Murder, but the rocks would not let her get to him. She could just make out his legs spasming behind the log.

Rawls kicked the tree on the other end and pulled on the rope. The tree snapped again. Rawls pulled up the dog’s body. Angie knew her dog was dead because he wasn’t fighting against the flames on his muzzle.

Angie pulled herself up the rock face, pain erupting from all parts of her body. She reached for Murder. Pulled him away from the fallen tree trunk and patted down the flames on his nose. The flesh there was bubbling. She cradled him as the Wolf led them back up to the convenience store. They didn’t have to make it to the road before the firefighters pulled them up and out. As the trucks raced away from the approaching fire, EMTs worked on Sarah and Angie and Rawls. Angie had refused treatment until Murder was attended first. They had placed his limp body on a stretcher and carried him up the mountain. The dog disappeared in the smoke.

Every muscle in Rawls’ body ached. He was pretty sure he was starting to go into shock. As EMTs rushed up to him, placing an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, he picked up the tablet one last time. He entered new coordinates for the Wolf while a burly woman checked his vital signs. Behind her, he saw the robot rise up like a black skeleton. He last saw the Wolf entering the brush on the far side of the road, waves of fire roaring behind it.

Chapter Twelve

Angie buried her dogs. She knew there were easier, cheaper options out there, but none were as personal to her. That is what made this one worse than any other dog she had put beneath the earth. She was too injured to bury her lost dog. Between the bear attack and the fall in the lair, Angie was too beat up to do that kind of work.

“I didn’t do enough for you,” she said to the grave.

The recovery of Sarah Erikson from the wasp’s lair was nothing short of sensational. It had grown into a national story almost overnight. The thoroughly scarred muzzle and ripped ear of Angie’s dead dog, Murder, made the front page of Newsweek.

Angie, though, just missed her dog. Since she could not dig, her father and Dr. Saracen dug most of the grave. For an older man, her father still had a lot of muscle in him. They lowered the dog into the ground, a brown tarp wrapped around its body. Angie stood over the grave and wept as they shoveled the cut earth back into the hole.

The blackened, burned trees seemed appropriate for the burial site.

When the ceremony was over (
these ceremonies don’t end,
Angie noted,
they’re just over
), she walked back out of the forest of cinder and ash to what remained of her house. Most of it was burned to the ground except for a few charred bricks. The barn was burned down to the foundation. Only the metal of the kennels remained.

Angie sat down on the bricks and wondered what to do next. Rebuild? Move? She had lost everything.

Waylon came up to her and put his snout on her leg. Angie sniffed as she petted her companion, loyal even in depression. Next to her lay her Darcy, lost in his own sadness. There were those who believed that dogs were incapable of emotions, that any perception of feelings by humans was just anthropomorphizing a dog. They had never seen a dog depressed over the loss of a friend. His heartbreak made her loss more agonizing.

From behind her came the nudging of her dead dog as he stuck his scarred muzzle between her arm and her side and pushed her hand on his head. Murder wagged his tail. Lizzy was off in Wyoming, but Angie still had more family.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Dr. Saracen said as he approached her. Like close siblings, Angie’s dogs guarded her emotionally. To them, Dr. Saracen was a potential problem that needed to be evaluated. Was he right for her, emotionally? If not, they would remove him from the premises with prejudice.

Murder led the others, wagging his tail and extending his nose to sniff at Dr. Saracen’s hand.

“Thank you,” Angie said. “There isn’t a one of them I don’t love like my own child. I would die for them.”

“It is difficult when we lose family. But when we are ready, we return to our work.” He showed her the Newsweek story that had exposed the harsh reality of the wasps.

“Now we know what happens,” Dr. Saracen said as he put his hand on her shoulder. “The hard truth about wasp reproduction is out there. We have a way to break the cycle, and so we have a way to stop the zombies. So rest and mourn, and when you are ready, there is work to be done.”

Thanks for Reading

If you enjoyed Cadaver Dog, please leave a review on Amazon. These reviews not only help other readers pick books, but also help authors to be seen. And keep an eye out for the sequel. I plan to keep running the dogs with Angie and Murder.

I am also the author of Dominion and Kaiju Fall (out from Severed Press) and a collection of bloody Arthurian Tales called Warriors of Camlann.

My books can be found at:

http://www.amazon.com/Doug-Goodman/e/B00IHF1I8S/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_1 (or just search for me on Amazon.)

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www.douggoodman.net
and my email is [email protected].

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