Dawn of the Jed (6 page)

But this time, it was Tread.

“C’mon, let’s get you a bath, clean you up before introductions,” I urged Tread. “First impressions are so important.”

I looked again at his distinctive tread mark.

“And that’s the kind of impression that may make this pretty tough.”

I nudged Tread toward the stairs. He climbed ahead of me and stopped at the top, unsure where to go. I eased past him, stepped into the bathroom, and started the bath.

“Tread, in here, boy,” I said, barely above the sound of the rushing water. “Tread, come. Tread? Tread!”

I peeked out the door.

No Tread.

“Jed, you need to come here night now. Jed! What the—!”

If we had a curse jar where you had to put in a buck for every swear word, Mom’s rant would have paid for a trip to Disney World.

I ran downstairs, skipping three steps at a time, and took the curve at the bottom as quickly as I could. My right leg flew off below the knee but I kept my balance as I hopped into the kitchen.

Mom stood on the counter by the fridge. Tread stood in the middle of the kitchen looking at her. His butt moved in a way that suggested he was wagging his tail, if it hadn’t been tucked into my waistband.

This was not how I envisioned introduction.

“Mom, let me explain—”

“No, you will get that beast out of here first. And then you bet you will explain, young man. We said no dogs. Were you aware that meant no dogs? As in none. Not one. And certainly not, not … three-quarters of one. What happened to his tail?”

Way too many questions, so the best thing was to follow her first order. Get Tread out of there and reattach the tail. I pulled the errant limb from my shorts to get his attention. “I think you dropped this.”

He snatched it from my hand and took off toward the stairs. I was just introduced to his favorite game.

I turned on my remaining heel to hop after him.

“Wait one minute, Jed,” Mom said, climbing down from the counter. “What is going on? And where is your leg? I swear you’d forget your own head if it wasn’t screwed on, and I’m not sure it is.”

“I lost the leg running after Tread. It’s somewhere—”

“Tread? You gave it a name?”

“Yeah, you see there’s this—”

“I saw the tread mark. I get it. But we need to discuss why Tread is here, and how he got to be dead.”

“You noticed that, huh?”

“Hard not to when I saw you pull his tail from your shorts. I’ve had my experience with such things over the last thirteen years. Thinking it over—”

Oh no.

“—I’m not so concerned about how Tread got to be dead—”

Here it comes.

“—but how he got to be undead.”

Yeah, so was I. I wasn’t going to tell Mom that. I had to be all cool, like I expected it, as if it were no big deal. I was not going to tell her that no matter how friendly Tread seemed, the way he came back to life scared the hell out of me. I mean, I read Stephen King’s
Pet Sematary
. I know how all those dogs and cats came back “different.” Curling on a lap one minute, ripping out throats the next.

But that was just a story. This was real life. Huge difference.

Right?

“I thought you might be curious,” I said. “You might want to sit down.”

“I’m fine right where I am,” she said. “Go ahead.

I told her. The walk with Luke, the accident, the Ooze. How Tread followed me home almost as if by instinct, as if we had a bond. By the end, she was sitting down.

“Go get it, let me see him,” she said. “Hop to it.”

With one leg, that is exactly what I did.

“Tread, if you don’t stay still, I seriously will take the ‘un’ from in front of ‘dead,’ I am not kidding,” I said, trying to figure out a safe place to grab him. Not the tail, even though it was the most convenient. Duct tape was wrapped thickly at the base, and Tread would set off alarms if he were to walk through a metal detector. His tail had more staples than bone at this point.

It was the night before Christmas and all through the house, a pair of zombies were getting thoroughly doused. They should have been tucked so tight in their beds, but life is so short when you’re thoroughly dead.

That poem—at least my version of it—kept doing a sugarplum dance in my head as I gave Tread the bath he needed since arriving. I was collateral bath damage, getting soaked with residual water as I struggled to keep Tread in place.

I learned how impossible it was to handle shampoo, sponge, and zombie dog at the same time. Tread hated to be washed just as much as a not undead dog (un-undead?), wriggling and twisting as he let me know exactly where he stood with this bath business.

Wrapping my left arm around his ribs (and hoping Tread’s struggles didn’t rip that arm off, because that would leave a fine mess of zombie everywhere), I squirted shampoo on his head and down the back of his neck, nearly emptying the bottle. Without releasing my grip, I massaged the shampoo gently into his fur.

I stopped, checking the water for chunks of fur. My own experience taught me to be very careful when bathing. If you rub too softly, the distinct zombie smell stays behind. Rub too hard, and you’re wearing a baseball cap for a week until your scalp grows back.

Nothing floated on the surface. The water was nearly as gray as Tread’s fur, so I had no idea what was lurking within. Fortunately zombie flesh floated, something I learned the first time I went swimming (and yes, I would have noticed that without all the screaming, thank you very much).

I buried my nose in Tread’s neck fur and inhaled deeply. I noted hints of shampoo (“Desert Spring,” which smelled exactly like “Mountain Breeze” and “Summer Storm”) and Tread’s familiar post-accident scent. Equal amounts bouquet and decay. Worked for me.

Twisting on my knees, I released Tread with my left arm and wrapped him quickly with my right. Time to work on the back end. I poured the rest of the bottle along his spine, across the wad of duct tape, and along his tail. I massaged again, gently, gently, following his back to the duct tape, to the tail and—

Dammit! The tail released with a plop. Must have been a combination of pressure and wet tape.

Tread was very delicate in a “quick to lose a limb” sense. Mom watched as I continued to work on the “Shake” command, laughing when Tread’s front leg shook free. I’d then spent the next fifteen minutes chasing him. Tread still was very agile when down a limb—sometimes I wanted to leave him a limb short.

Mom, however, said that was zombie-animal cruelty. Though she wouldn’t admit it, she was becoming attached to Tread, forming a bond that was probably stronger than the ones he had with his own limbs.

“Maybe the next time you lose a body part, we should just let you go around without it,” Mom said as I chased Tread, telling her he deserved to go tripod for a while. “Most times, the easy thing to do is not the right thing to do. By the way, it’d be a lot easier if you used these.”

She reached into the cupboard and took out an orange box that said in big black type “Dog Beefies” and below that, in much smaller type, “Any beef content in Dog Beefies is purely coincidental.”

“When did we get these?” I asked.

“I just found them up there,” Mom said. “Maybe from the people who owned this house before us. Don’t worry, they’re still good for another few years.”

“For a box that must be at least fourteen years old, these look pretty fresh.”

“The power of chemical preservatives, I suppose. Now go on, see how he likes them. And let me know. You know, just in case we need to pick up more.”

Mom was growing fonder of Tread every day, but she was not about to admit it. Despite the house’s strict “Only two-legged zombies allowed on the furniture” rule, I caught her petting Tread while he lay next to her on the couch. She pushed him off when she saw me, explaining, “I thought he only had two legs on when he jumped up, but apparently he is intact. Innocent mistake.”

“Sure, Mom. But I hope when you invite him on the couch again, he doesn’t have to lose a couple of legs so he doesn’t violate the rules.”

“We’ll see.”

Letting him on the couch, buying him treats—proof that Mom had a soft spot in her heart, and Tread was curled up in it.

Dad had been another story. On the day Tread followed me home, Mom told me to take Tread and stay out of the way when Dad got home. “I’ll text you when I want you to come down. It might be an hour or so.”

Tread and I kicked back on the bed. I put on my headphones and cranked my music, including “Time of the Season,” by The Zombies, an old song Dad played for me years ago. “The coolest zombies until you,” he’d said. I sealed myself away, not wanting to hear Dad’s reaction when Mom told him about Tread.

I spent the time on my laptop, searching for “zombie dog” and finding everything from people dressing their dogs as zombies to owners who thought their dogs looked like zombies. Not that I thought I’d find something as helpful as “What to Expect When Your Dog is a Zombie,” but I was hoping for something a little more informative than “Russian Experiments in 1940s with Zombie Dogs” (that is seriously messed up, Russia).

The phone buzzed about ninety minutes later. That text from Mom I’d been expecting.

Mom: Come down. Leave Tread in ur room.

I rubbed Tread’s ears, and he tilted his head and gave a groan in appreciation. His mouth curled upward in a half-smile. He loved having his ears rubbed, and I was careful not to press too hard because reattaching an ear would be a total pain in the ass.

“OK, boy, moment of truth,” I said, looking into his milky gray eyes that hid what was left of his very keen eyesight. “If Dad says OK, you are the newest member of the family. Wish me luck.”

As soon as I walked into the kitchen, I was given a very happy greeting.

“There’s me boyo,” Dad said in a really bad Irish brogue. “Hey there, Jed, big Jeddie. It’s the return of the Jedi.”

I didn’t need to see the empty bottle of wine to know what had been happening the last ninety minutes. Dad didn’t drink much, but when he did, he would get sloppy-friendly. Alcohol also brought up the Irish accent, even though Dad was about as Irish as Lucky Charms cereal.

“Hey, Dad, how you doing?” I asked, knowing the answer. I looked at Mom. “Really? Was it going to be this bad?”

“Now, Jed, nothing wrong with your father celebrating a little good news,” she said.

“That’s right, Jed the Jedi, a little celebration is in order,” Dad said, draining the last bit of red wine in one of our good crystal glasses, the ones at the back of the china cabinet that I am not even allowed to open. “Ai, tis a fine day, laddie, a fine day indeed.”

“Your father found out today that the company is hiring a few more people for his department,” Mom said. “How about that? Isn’t that great?”

“A grand thing on a grand day, truly,” Dad said.

“That’s, uh … grand. Sure,” I said. “Yay employment, right?”

“Right, boy, employment tis a fine thing,” Dad said.

At some point, Mom had made the decision Dad was not going to be happy about a dog. Any dog. And we didn’t just have any dog. We had a zombie dog. So she used the one thing that broke down all of Dad’s defenses.

I didn’t feel very good about it.

“Mom, really?” I said. “We couldn’t—”

“Jed, before you go on, let me just say there comes a time we must make difficult decisions,” she said. “And if the end justifies the means, it’s not such a bad thing. Especially when the end is so good for the family.”

She had a point, but it didn’t erase my doubts. At some point sobriety would return, and Dad would have to deal with changes without looking through a rose-colored wine glass.

“Now, Jed, if I remember, you too have some wonderful news to share,” Mom said.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“Don’t be shy. Go ahead and tell your father. In fact, why don’t you show him.”

“But, Mom—”

“
SHOW
him,” Mom said, shooting me her “Don’t argue with me young man” look complete with arched eyebrows and crinkled forehead.

I turned and climbed to my room. I opened and door, and Tread shot past me and down the stairs.

I really had to get better at anticipating such moves.

I was halfway down the stairs when I heard my father cry out.

“What the Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is this! Jed! Jed, what is this thing, and what is it doing in our house? Off, off, right I said get …
OFF
!”

I jumped the rest of the way down, skipping about eight steps and jamming both ankles when I landed. By the time I got into the kitchen, Dad was standing up and kicking at Tread, who was smart enough to stay just out of reach.

I knew it. This was going to take a lot more than wine and crystal glasses and a fake celebration. I glared at Mom.

“So this was your big plan, get Dad—”

And I stopped. Mom was crying, like, real tears. The last time I saw her cry was, well, I’m not sure. Maybe the first time I lost an arm and no one was really clear about how it went back on pretty easily.

“Mom, are you OK?”

Dad was no longer kicking at Tread because Tread had retreated under the table, but I didn’t care about any of that.