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I pulled out of the space and drove in completely the opposite direction of the dog. John seemed like he wanted to comment on this, but one glance at the look on my face probably warned him off. I vaguely heard the sound of the dog running and barking after us as I turned onto the street, but disregarded it. We drove in tense silence.

Finally, tentatively, he asked where we were going.

“We’re going to fucking work, John,” I snapped. “It’s six o’clock and we’re opening the shop. There’s nobody there to cover for us.”

He didn’t reply to this and instead he leaned his seat back, turned and looked out the passenger window at the passing buildings and storefronts and the few early-morning joggers, not saying a word. I eventually asked him how he was doing, got no answer. I could see he was still breathing. That was good. Sleeping, that’s all. I guessed that was good, too.

If he gets sick and dies, Robert Marley, they’re gonna find you in a ditch somewhere.

I stopped at a red light, feeling foolish as always for stopping at an intersection at an hour when the streets are deserted just because a colored light bulb told me to. Society has got me so fucking trained. I rubbed my eyes and groaned and felt utterly alone in the world.

Thump!

Something hit the glass next to me and I heard the sound of scratching on the window, a sound like claws. I flinched and turned and saw it was claws. Molly’s. She was on her hind legs, her paws pressed against the window.

“Woof!”

“Go away!”

“Woof!”

“Shut up!”

“WOOF!”

“Hey! I said shut up! Get your feet off my car!”

“WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!”

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut! Up!”

This debate went on for longer than I care to admit, and the dog won. I got out and leaned my seat forward so she could jump into the back. She sniffed around John and then barked at me again, the sound deafening in the enclosed space. I considered telling her to shut up again, but my eye was drawn to her jingling collar and the little metal tag there.

I’m Molly.

Please return me to...

I still had some time and it seemed like as good an idea as any. I drove around in the general direction of the address and wound up way the hell outside of town, out near the drain cleaner factory. Molly started barking again and it took me a moment to realize she was trying to get me to stop because she recognized the neighborhood we were crawling through. I didn’t know if dogs really did that but I was sure this dog could do it. Creepy.

Dawn was dawning as I pulled up to the house, a run-down Victorian place that I realized I had actually been to before. With the realization of whose house it was, I suddenly had the urge to flip the dog out the side window and go squealing off down the street.

This was where Big Jim Slade and Cucumber lived. “Big Jim Slade” was actually Jim Sullivan, a copper-headed freckled kid from school six inches taller than me and twice my weight. That nickname came from a Zucker brothers movie. He was a year ahead of me and was famous around town because he had once been the victim of a carjacking attempt, which ended with Jim tearing the gun out of the assailant’s hand (ripping the skin off the guy’s trigger finger in the process) and then beating the man over the head with his own gun. Afterwards Jim visited the guy in the hospital and spent several hours reading Bible verses to him.

“Cucumber” was the nickname of Big Jim’s Special Ed sister, I couldn’t remember her real name. She was a couple of years younger than me. People think she got that nickname because of some sexual thing, but actually I started it. Sea Cucumbers have this thing where they puke up their guts when faced with a predator, hoping the predator will go for their guts rather than eating them. And Jim’s sister used to throw up a lot, and I mean a lot. Like, twice a week at school she’d wind up vomiting somewhere or on somebody. I don’t know what exactly caused it. She had a lot of things wrong with her but at least she got one of the cleverer nicknames.

My last year in school, after I had gotten sent off and put into the Behavior Disorder program, Big Jim heard me using that nickname and I lived the rest of my school days in abject terror of him, afraid he would break me into little pieces in the parking lot. The worst part would have been that as I was bleeding and feeling teeth breaking off in my mouth, I would’ve spent every second of the pummeling knowing I deserved it.

Wait. Big Jim was at the party tonight.

Was he? Yes, he was. I remembered him sitting on the hood of his truck, doors open and stereo thumping some terrible Christian Rock. Probably trying to drown out John’s band. So Jim was there with his dog? Did he bring his dog to every party? Was he blind and was Molly his seeing-eye dog? Or was it the dog’s birthday? I felt like a fool because here I was toting the animal all over town when I could have just left the dog at the party knowing Jim would have found her eventually.

I looked over the big house. No lights on in the early hours of Saturday morning. A terrible neighborhood, not a quarter mile from the sprawling drain cleaner plant that, on humid days, stank up half the town. I noticed the driveway was empty. Jim probably tied on a good drunk and was now sleeping it off at a girlfriend’s house.

Bullshit. Big Jim wouldn’t leave his kid sister at home alone all night.

I wasn’t sure why any of this was bothering me, but it was. I got out of the car and motioned for the dog to follow. She didn’t. I called to her and patted my thigh, which I’ve seen other people do with dogs so I figured it must work. Nothing. I did this for several minutes, the dog not even looking at me now, sniffing around John again. I realized no amount of thigh slapping, not even an all-out blues hambone, would move this animal. I leaned into the car and started tugging at her collar. She backed off, growling, looking at me with a disdain I didn’t think canines were capable of. I shouted at her, told her it was her damned idea to come here.

Through all of this, John didn’t stir. I think that was what freaked me out most of all. He was laying there in the uncomfortable bucket seat, twisted and slumped like a crash test dummy. More passed out than asleep. I reached in and grabbed roughly at Molly’s collar.

I’m going to skip ahead of the next ten minutes and just say that I wound up carrying Molly up to the house. The plan was to tie her up around back and slip away unnoticed, but as I passed by the front door, it opened.

Not all the way, just the few inches allowed by the security chain. I was hit by that jittery caught-in-the-act feeling. I turned, this huge dog in my arms, to see the pale, freckled, utterly-confused face of Jim’s sister. No sign she even recognized me, or maybe she just didn’t want to acknowledge where she recognized me from.

Hey! Weren’t you in my Special Ed class?

I quickly propped my chin over the dog’s back and spoke.

“Um, hey there. I, uh, have your dog.”

The door closed. I stood there for an awkward moment, feeling the odd urge to drop the animal and run. I heard Cucumber’s voice from inside, shouting, “Jim! The guy that stole Molly is here!”

I sat the dog down and grabbed ahold of her collar before she could bolt. The door snapped open again and I half expected Big Jim to show himself, his Irish copper-topped head appearing a foot and a half above where the girl’s had been. But it was the sister again, saying, “He’s coming. You better bring me the dog now. Or you can have it if you want it.”

“What?”

“The dog. You can have it. That one is worth a hundred and twenty-five dollars but you can have it free because it's used.”

“Oh, no. I don’t need a... I mean, uh, it’s yours, right?”

“Jim’s. But he doesn’t like it, either. He’s coming.”

“What, is there something wrong with it?”

Her eyes flicked quickly from me, to the dog, and back. Is that fear? Something make her nervous about this dog?

You and me both, honey.

“No,” she said, looking at her shoes.

“Then why’d you pay a hundred twenty-five dollars for it?”

“Have you ever seen a Golden Retriever puppy?”

“Your brother isn’t here, is he?”

She didn’t answer.

“I mean, there’s no car here. Doesn’t he drive a Jeep or something? Big SUV?”

She looked over, then said, “We have a gun in the house. Do you want the dog or not?”

“I—what? No. Where’s Big Jim?”

“Who?”

“Jim, your brother.”

“He just went down the street. He’ll be back any second now.”

“Dammit, I’m not gonna attack you. Didn’t he go to a party last night?”

Long pause. She said, “Maybe.”

Oh, shit, look at her. She’s scared senseless.

“Just outside of town, right? At the lake?”

She snapped, “You know where he is?”

“No. He never came home?”

She didn’t answer. She wiped at one of her eyes.

“The dog,” I said. “Molly, she was at the party. Did he take her there?”

“No. She ran off before that.”

So... the dog followed him to the party? It was there looking for Jim? Who knows.

She said, “I think Jim’s dead.”

This stopped me.

“What? Oh, no. No, no. I don’t think-“

She broke into tears, then choked out the words, “I think that black guy killed him.” She looked right at me and spat out, “Were you there?”

This was an accusation. She wasn’t asking if I was at the party. She was asking if I was at he scene of Jim’s death. This conversation was spinning out of control.

“No, no. Wait, the black guy? Is his name Robert? Got dreadlocks? How do you know him?”

She wiped her face with her shirt and said, “The police called.”

“About Jim?”

She nodded. “They asked if he was here but they wouldn’t say anything else. There was this dreadlocks guy, he came to the house a few times. He was on drugs. Jim works at the shelter for church and they do counseling and stuff for people like that. Sometimes people come here asking for Jim, asking for, like, rides or loans. The black guy would come here but Jim wouldn’t let him inside. Molly bit him. She ran out and bit his hand while he was talking to Jim.”

“When was this?”

“Yesterday. He was right where you are. He was yelling.”

“Did you hear what he said?”

“He said a dog bit his hand. I think the guy was some kind of devil worshipper.”

“Uh, that’s possible. Do you-”

“-I’m closing the door now.”

“No! Wait! What about the-“

The door closed.

Defeated, I lead Molly around to the back of the house where I found about ten feet of chain, ending in a broken link from where Molly had presumably snapped it the day before. So the dog had broken her chain, then walked seven miles to an empty field in a neighboring town where she somehow knew her master was attending a party? Come on.

I tied the chain around her collar and tried to make a knot with it. I climbed back into the car, saw John hadn’t moved even one millimeter other than for the steady rise and fall of his ribs to confirm that he hadn’t, in fact, died. That was good because we had to be at Wally’s in a few minutes.

If I had known what was about to happen at work I wouldn’t have gone, of course. I would also have taken off my pants. But I didn’t have the power of future sight—not at that point, anyway—and so I just sat sulking behind the wheel as we ramped into the parking lot to start the 7:00 AM shift at Wally’s Videe-Oh!, where I had worked for two years, John about two months. John was always bitching about “Wally” and how greedy Wally was and how he should have given me a raise by now. He didn’t realize that there was no person named “Wally” in the Wally’s organization. That was the name of the DVD-shaped mascot on the store’s sign. I never had the heart to tell him.

I parked and engaged in a discussion with John, transcribed as follows:

“John? We’re at Wally’s. You need to get up. John? John? John? You need to get up, John. John? I can see you breathing, so I know you ain’t dead. You know what that means? It means you gotta get up. John? Come on, we gotta go to work. John? Are you awake? John? John? Wake up, John. John?”

I finally climbed out of the car and walked around to his door. I reached for the handle, and froze.

His eyes were wide open, staring blankly through the glass. He was still breathing and blinking, but not really there.

Great. Now what?

If you’re thinking, “call an ambulance,” I admit that’s what a smart person would have done. What I did was experiment for a few minutes, poking him and slapping him on the cheek and getting no response. Finally I found I could lure him through the door by taking his cigarettes and holding them out as bait. He walked like a sleepwalker, slow and shuffling, otherwise unresponsive.

Once inside I planted him in front of the computer behind the counter, reached around and brought up a spreadsheet to play on the screen in front of him. If anyone came in, he would appear to be sucked into his work on the PC. I looked at the scene, considered, then grabbed his right arm and propped up his chin with it. There, he looked deep in thought now.

I put away returns and boxed up Tuesday’s new releases so Tina wouldn’t have to. I pretty much managed to look normal for the few customers who accidentally missed the Blockbuster two blocks down the street. When I got some time to myself, I flipped through the yellow pages, picked up the phone stuck to the back wall and scooted up a chair.

Two rings, then, “St. Francis.”

“Yeah, uh,” I said awkwardly. “I need a priest.”

“Well, this is Father Shelnut. What can I do for you?”

“Um, hi. Do you have any experience with, like, demon...ism? Demonology, I guess. Like possession and hauntings and all that?”

“Wellllll... I can’t say that I’ve personally dealt with anything like that. Look, people that come to me and say they’ve seen things or, say, they feel a kind of unexplained dread in their homes or, say, voices in their head and some such, well we usually refer them to a counselor or, you understand, a lot of times medication can-“

“-No, no, no. I’m not crazy.” I glanced over at John, still catatonic. “Other people have-“

“-No, no, I didn’t mean to imply that. Look, why don’t you come talk to me. And even if you need to talk to a professional I got a brother-in-law who’s real good. Why don’t we do that? Why don’t you come in and have a talk with me?”

I thought for a moment, rubbed my temple with my free hand.

“What do you think it’s like, Father?”

“What what’s like?”

“Being crazy. Mentally ill.”

“Well, they never know they’re ill, do they? You can’t diagnose yourself with the same organ that has the disease, just like you can’t see your own eyeball. So, I suppose you just feel regular and the rest of the world seems to go crazy around you.”

I thought, then said, “Okay, but let’s just suppose I honestly, I mean, in reality ran into something from beyond the—OW!”

It was a pinch on my thigh, like a bee sting. I flung myself upright, toppling my chair, letting the handset bang off the wall. I shoved my hand into my pocket, tried to pull out the syringe I had lifted from John’s place, found I couldn’t pull it out. The blasted thing was stuck to my leg. I pulled, felt skin and hair come loose. I hissed through clenched teeth, my eyes watered.

I yanked, tearing the syringe free and out of my pants, turning out the white pocket with it. I saw a dime-sized hole in the white fabric, stained red. I saw a drop of the black goo now hanging out of the end of the syringe. Now, I’ll try to explain this without cursing, but the black shit that came out from that motherfucker looked like it had grown hair. Little fine, stiff hairs.

No, not hairs. Fucking spines. Like a fucking cactus.

Did I mention that the stuff was moving? Twitching? Like it was trying to worm its way out of its container?

I ran into the employee bathroom, holding the syringe at arms length. I thought about tossing it down the toilet, had visions of the stuff multiplying in the city sewer, and then threw it in the sink instead. I ran out, got John’s lighter from his shirt pocket and came back and held the butane flame to the squirming blob. It burned, curling up and around like an earthworm. The end of the syringe browned and melted along with it, stinking like charred electrical wires.

The Soy Sauce, the black stuff from Planet X or whatever it was, burned in the flame until it became a tiny hard black crust in the sink. I shook it off the end of the misshapen syringe and washed it down the drain, ran five minutes’ worth of water after it. The syringe went in the trash.

I stumbled back out of the bathroom, shaking as if chilled. I picked up the phone, said, “Uh, are you still there? Hello?”

“Yes, son. Just calm down, okay? Nothing you’re seeing is real.”

There was a strange, venomous warmth spreading through my thigh.

“Look,” I said, “I appreciate your time but I’m really starting to think there’s nothing you can-“

“-Son, I’m going to be honest with you. We both know you’re fucked.”

Pause from my end.

“Uh, excuse me?”

“Your Mom writes on the wall with her own shit. Big changes are coming to Deadworld, my son. Waves of maggots over oceans of rot. You’ll see it, David. You’ll see it with your own eyes. Do you understand?”

I jerked the phone away from my ear, looked at it like it would bite me. I slowly hung it back on the cradle-

“David Wong?”

I spun around. A bald black guy in a suit stood at the cashier counter.

“Yes...”

“Detective Lawrence Appleton. Please come with me. Your friend, too.”

“No, I, uh, can’t leave the shop. John and I are the only ones-“

“-We’ve already contacted the owner. He’s sending someone in to cover for you. You’ll lock the door on your way out. Please come with me, sir.”

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