Cadaver Dog (11 page)

Ernest shared a disheartening look with Rawls.

“By the way,” Angie said. “We should stop.”

“Why? You tired?” Ernest asked.

“I don’t’ think we are going to catch it tonight. The tracks are too old and lead up over that pass. It is going to be slow going for everyone.

“I’d rather keep going,” Ernest said. “Based on the readings, I think we’re closer than you think. No offense.”

“Fine. Let me know when you want to stop.”

Angie let them take the lead and did not work Murder. The search pushed on until dawn, and by then even Rawls was complaining that he was tired. He was walking slow and gently like a man in new shoes who had collected a few blisters on his feet. As Ernest slipped in the dirt, red splotches had ruined what wasn’t ripped out of his shirt. He had put on his bite protection underneath for fashion reasons apparently. The bite collar stuck out above his shirt collar. Angie shook her head. She ate a granola bar while they marched up the pass. They had another hour on the trail before they made it to the top, she guessed.

“Okay, why don’t we stop here,” Ernest said.

Angie found a soft spot in the ground, which was never easy in the Rockies. She checked Murder for ticks, took a drink of water, then pulled out her tarp and wrapped it around herself and Murder, who curled up next to her into a search team burrito. Despite the heat of the night, Murder’s warmth felt good next to her. Angie was asleep before Ernest and Rawls decided to start a fire.

Angie succumbed to a deep sleep, the kind that has monsters in its deepest, darkest, recesses.

Murder’s teeth tugged at her sleeve, and for a moment she wondered if this was what life as a retriever dummy was like. Then she felt heat. She exhaled as she woke, like she was coming up for air. The sun sat on its throne high above them, pushing through the clouds. Something stunk, like burning rubber, and a thin trail of black smoke circled down out of the sky. Her eyes followed the path until it brought her to the Wolf. Flames were feeding like bloodsucking parasites on one of the Wolf’s rubber feet. Soon the fire would jump to the rest of his carriage.

Angie leaped out of her tarp. The fire the boys had built was quickly finding its way to the Wolf. “Fire!” she yelled. The boys woke groggily. Angie popped the top from one of her water bottles and shook it out over the Wolf’s pads while Murder pranced around the machine, joyously wagging his tail for a job well done. Later, Angie would think that it was the Lab in Murder. Labs were a special kind of stupid. Case in point, Murder was smart enough to recognize the danger and wake her up, but then he started dancing around the fire−out of harm’s distance−with all the attention-hounding of a rump shaker in a rap video.

“Hurry! We gotta move it!” Angie shouted.

Ernest was on his feet before Rawls. He was going through his bag and searching for the tablet while Rawls reached into his backpack. Rawls pulled out another water bottle and emptied it on the Wolf. He missed, and Angie growled. They both reached into their bags for more bottles. Some they uncorked and others they squirted onto the fire until it was nothing more than smoking, watery ash.

By the time Rawls had doused the fire under the robot, Ernest had commanded the Wolf away from the firepit’s smoky remains.  

The last droplets of water fell from Angie’s water bottle.

“Jesus,” Angie said in her best Julia Roberts Oh My God voice. “Who the hell starts a fire in the middle of a pine forest surrounded by wild fires? Have you not watched the news in the past three months? We’re lucky we didn’t burn up half the state and kill ourselves in the process.”

She did not wait for Ernest or Rawls to respond. She stuffed her tarp back into her pack and left them to deal with the steaming Wolf.

Chapter Nine

When Rawls and Ernest and the Wolf caught up to Angie, they found her rubbing Murder down. She had him to thank for saving their lives. If Murder had waited a minute longer, the fire may have spread beyond their control.

Murder was egging her on, moving to keep her petting him. He didn’t care about their near loss of life anymore; he just wanted the attention. It was while she was petting Murder and thinking about their special kind of stupid that Angie thought of a quality that she had always liked about dogs:  their ability to live in the moment. Dogs, for the most part, had an innate capacity to overcome baggage. She had seen shy, almost aggressive dogs that had been abused turn into the most grateful pets.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Ernest said as they came up with the Wolf. “In hindsight, I don’t know what I was thinking starting a fire. I guess this felt like camping, and I just wanted to have a fire going to keep the darkness out.”

“If you were so scared of the dark, you should have brought a flashlight,” Angie said. She wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily.

“Okay, first of all, I am not afraid of the dark. And second, you have to understand that I am not some wilderness expert like you. I’m a glorified lab tech out in the wild because I thought it would be an adventure to hunt zombies.”

“Well, I hope you’re enjoying your adventure.”

“I was wrong, I admit that. But instead of pointing it out to me, maybe you could lend me a hand. Assume I was raised in Denver, hunt zombies in the city where I work fifty to sixty hours a week, and don’t get outdoors that much, so I need some help. But I need help, not your criticism.”

Angie’s shoulders slumped. If Murder could forgive and forget so easily, she should take a cue from her dog and also find forgiveness. “Sorry for being an ass. There is a lot of drama from elsewhere that I am throwing on you, and that is wrong. Basically, I am being set up as an ‘us against them’ thing with you guys. For you two, succeed or fail, everything will be good when you go back to work when this is done. I am fighting for my right to do this. I am being constantly judged on what Murder and I screw up.”

“I’m not judging you.”

“I know, I know.”

“Maybe we should start over,” Ernest said. “My name is Ernest Ramirez. I am a Wolf handler for Mueller Engineering, the minds that built this beast.”

“Angie Graves. I train dogs to find all kinds of things–fowl, forensics, bombs, cadavers, and now zombies.”

“That’s amazing.”

“Thank you.”

The other boy stepped forward. “I’m William Rawls, but everybody just calls me Rawls. I’m even newer than Ernest, which is why he is lead. I guess I’m kind of a handler in training.”

“Oh, and this,” Angie said, pointing to the canine at her side, “Is my dead dog. Ole Black-and-Blue himself. His name is Murder, and he is the world’s first ever zombie dog.”

“Murder. I like it.” Ernest said and put his hand out. Murder growled.

“He isn’t very people friendly, kind of like me,” she said with more apology than she wanted. “But he is really good at what he does. I guess it takes a slightly demented animal to chase zombies, but then again, it takes a slightly demented handler, too.”

Ernest said, “Can I ask you something? Back when we started, Dave mentioned that you were tracking larvae. What does that mean?”

“There is a theory that the wasps are using the zombies as part of their reproductive cycle. They abduct the children, take them to their lairs, and deposit eggs on them. That’s what becomes the larvae food.”

Ernest looked at Rawls, and then to Angie. “That is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard. I have a second cousin who went missing year ago. You’re saying it’s possible that she became food? I’m going to be sick.”

“It’s only a theory, but Murder and I are trying to confirm it.”

“Would you two like to lead?”

“I would, but first, let’s cut some notches in your shoes so that you don’t keep sliding on the trail. It won’t be perfect, but it’ll help.

Angie took Ernest’s Bigfoot feet and cut little lines along the rim with a spare Swiss Army Knife she kept in her pack. She then slashed a few lines in the middle of the sole, shallow so as not to poke a hole in the already thin shoe.

For Rawls, she drained his blisters, then padded them with moleskin. Then she stuffed his shoes with large rocks, doing her best to jam them in.

“What are you doing to my shoes?” Rawls asked.

“I’m trying to stretch them so that they fit you better,” she said between grunts. Once she was satisfied, Angie hung the shoes from a nearby pine.

They spent the rest of the afternoon regrouping. Angie pulled half the items out of Rawls’ backpack. Rawls and Ernest opened up the Wolf’s chest cavity and checked the wires to make sure that everything was operational after the fire. They were lucky. The Wolf had sustained little damage beyond the superficial.

Angie noticed Ernest checking some equipment strapped to the side of the Wolf.

“Is that a catch-pole?” Angie asked.

Ernest flashed a knowing smile. “Yes, it is. The ultimate instrument for snaring dogs, goats, and the occasional zombie. If you douse it with garlic, you can even catch vampires.” Ernest pulled the catch-pole out of its clips and pantomimed the capture of a zombie as he spoke. “It’s simple, really. First, you get up alongside or behind the zombie. Next, you lower the noose—we aren’t supposed to call it that—over the zombie’s head, and pull the cord. Then the zombie has nowhere to go. Can’t get to us, and can’t escape, so we force him to the ground. Once he’s on the ground, we can exterminate the bug.”

“Exterminate?”

He pointed to another compartment, this one locked.

“Glock is in there,” Ernest said.

“What if you can’t catch him and the zombie attacks you?”

“I’ve caught every zombie I’ve chased.”

Ernest’s confidence wasn’t as reassuring as Angie wanted it to be.

“Have you ever not captured one?”

“I’ve seen video. When a wasp gets separated from its corpse, the wasp goes crazy, completely unleashed, like a mother bear without its cubs.”

Angie thought of the wasp Dr. Saracen had showed her at the lab, and how it had remained with the skull even after the head had been removed from the body. The thought of that alien-like body attached to her head made her shudder.

By the time they finished, the sun was descending into a red horizon like a pilgrim entering an unholy land. Ernest called in to Animal Control again, as he did every hour since they lost radio communication. He wanted to tell Dave McAuliffe that they were re-starting, but he had to leave a message and hope it got through because of the bad connection.

Just then, a drone buzzed over the trees and above them. As the drone circled, the Wolf began downloading information. A video connection came through. It was Dave McAuliffe. The man had lost his normal starchy appearance. He looked like a crushed cigarette.

“Angela, Ernest, and Rawls, I need you to cease search efforts,” he said, his voice gargled like he was talking through curdled milk.

“Like hell,” Angie snapped.

Dave glared at her with his bleary eyes and blinked away the reaction he obviously wanted to give. “Angela, Animal Control appreciates your support. The fact is, however, that we have new evidence that the child may not have been abducted by a zombie, and the credibility of the story that put you there is in doubt. And I have two officers and one dog handler out in wildfire country. Keeping you all safe is more important than anything else.”

“We are experienced professionals doing our job. There is still a zombie out there. My dog and the Wolf are on it.”

As McAuliffe opened his mouth to respond, the screen went blank.

“What happened?” Angie asked.

“I don’t know.” Rawls checked the connectivity status. Angie checked the skies. The drone was nowhere to be seen.

“Our connection’s been lost,” Rawls said. “I’m not sure why.”

“It could be the fires or the mountains. This is Colorado,” Angie said.

“Well, what do we do now?” Rawls sighed. “We have orders to stop the search.”

“And go where?” Angie said. “There is no rendezvous point. Our only option is to press on.”

Ernest sent a voice-to-text transmission from the Wolf.

“We have traveled 13.8 kilometers from the point last seen. I am sending you a way point to mark tonight’s starting location. We lost contact with Incident Command, so we will continue the search. We anticipate taking the zombie tonight.”

Angie was excited to have point with Murder. As Murder led them through the trees, Angie thought of The Most Dangerous Game. She remembered the hunter in that book talking about how hunting humans was so thrilling because they could hunt you back. Or maybe it was that hunting lions and tigers was thrilling for that reason. Stalking through the trees, knowing that there was a zombie out there somewhere and that it could kill her filled Angie with an excitement she never found during her day-to-day.

She was embarrassed by her excitement. It made no sense.
You have to be out of your mind to enjoy this
, she told herself. But there it was welling up inside her like a derrick:  the hunt thrilled her.

Murder led them to the top of the pass. As they climbed, Angie found it interesting how the scent was pooling at the top of the mountain. The scent was not on the sides of the pink granite facing the sun, but in the shadows between the rocks, in the tiny crevices. Murder found little cities of scent there that he could visit.

From atop its bald face, the search party could see the vastness of the Rockies partly hidden underneath giant black clouds that sometimes flashed red like a thunderstorm from hell. Angie imagined if the fires spread out of control, the mountains could end up looking like waves of lava spreading across the continent.

She removed her hat and wiped the sweat from her brow.

“We’ve been lucky,” Angie said. “The mountains and the wind have kept the smoke away from us so far. It changes from here on out.”

Ernest made the sign of the cross, then raised up his tablet to take a photo. “Some people call zombies damned things. Maybe it’s going home.”

“Abandon all hope,” Rawls added. He, too, was wiping sweat from his forehead.

The thought of them descending like Dante into hell killed the thrill Angie had felt earlier as they headed up the pass. She wanted to get away from this hell, but first she wanted to find the missing girl.

The descending face of the pass was a rockslide. For at least a hundred yards, the pass was full of small granite rocks the size of footballs.

“Okay, this will be new,” Rawls said, thinking of the robot.

“That’s a pretty steep incline,” Angie said. “I’d guess thirty degrees on loose rocks. Do you think that thing can make it?”

“In theory,” Ernest said. “The Wolf is supposed to have a pretty robust balancing system tested in lab and field trials. That being said, I don’t think it’s ever gone down a rockslide down the side of a mountain. I think this will be a first.”

“Well, good luck. I wouldn’t want to be the one responsible for losing a ten-million-dollar piece of equipment on a rockslide.”

“What choice do we have?” Ernest replied.

Angie shrugged. She didn’t have a solution. In her experience, sometimes you encountered new and strange obstacles in the wilderness, obstacles that would test you. For millions of people, it was part of the appeal of hiking the backcountry. If you didn’t like those tests, you shouldn’t be out there.

Knowing there would be little scent on the rockslide, Angie breaked Murder and released him from his job. Murder nimbly trotted down the rocks, barely spilling a single rock.

“My plan is to follow him,” Angie said while pointing at Murder. “You can try following us, but I don’t know how the Wolf will fare in this.”

She watched the trail Murder took to solid ground, then made sure to only step where he stepped. By following Murder, Angie was using a common technique used by handlers in the wild. Dogs had an innate sense of maneuvering within brush, fallen trees, rockslides, and whatever else Mother Nature threw at them. Murder would always find solid ground better than Angie.

She took it slow climbing down the mountain face, carefully placing each boot where she remembered Murder stepping. While she was confident the path worked for her dog, she kept in mind that Murder weighed much less than her, had a lower center of gravity, and of course two additional legs. Angie slipped only once. She kept her eyes focused on the rocks in front of her and tried to ignore the echoes of the ones rolling for fifty feet down the incline. She took a deep breath, secured her footing, then eased off the rockslide.

The thought of a wasp navigating down the same rockslide, child in tow, sent a chill down her spine. She wondered how it could be done. It would take skill, precision, and concentration, three things she did not associate with the wasp/corpse relationship. Was it really a wasp that was responsible for the abduction? Or were zombies much more coordinated than she gave them credit for?

Ernest and Rawls were still conferring on the plan of attack when she got to level ground. Both were punching ideas into their tablets. Angie guessed they had come to a decision because suddenly the Wolf stood up. A moment later, it walked down the loose rocks. Angie was impressed with how well the Wolf handled the rubble they were climbing down. It was dangerous footing, but the Wolf adjusted to the change in decline, testing its feet before putting them down.