But Jugg said, “Isn’t he kind of flat in the middle?”
“Duh! He was run over by a car.” I scratched behind Dickie’s ear with my good hand. “He’s a good dead dog, yes he is.”
“Does your mom know?”
“No, Jugg. And I want to keep it that way. Help me roll the head under here and then we’ll push Dickie back under with it.”
Dickie’s tail tapped the floor like a slow, hollow heartbeat. He didn’t pant like he used to, which made sense, since he didn’t need to breathe anymore, but still, there was a look to him tonight that was a little creepy. He kept staring at me and staring at me and wouldn’t stop.
“Here, we need to put a t-shirt under the rock before we push it so it doesn’t scratch the floor — Mom would notice that,” I said.
Jugg got up and pulled a t-shirt off my chair, then we put the shirt under as much of the rock as we could. Jugg gave the rock a push, and so did I, with my good hand. I was so busy thinking about the rock, and Mom waking up, that I wasn’t paying much attention to my bloody hand. Until I felt something tug on it. I looked over and Dickie had his jaws sunk into the sock around my hand.
“Hey! Dickie — let go!” I said.
I reached over with my other hand, but Dickie pushed himself to the side, taking my hand along with him so I was kind of stretched out.
“Bad Dickie,” I said. “Let go, let go.” I slid a little across the floor in my blue jeans.
Dickie shook his head. It made my hand sting so hard I felt tears in the corners of my eyes.
“Crap, Dickie, that hurt! Let go.”
Jugg jumped up and stood behind me. “Should I, you know, kill him again or something Boady?”
“No!” Okay, maybe that was a weird thing to say, but Dickie was the last gift my dad had ever given me. Dickie was my dog and the first undead I’d ever raised. I felt a weird love for him. “Just try to distract him.”
“With what?”
That was a good question. Dickie had only been undead for a few days, and since he didn’t seem interested in eating or drinking, or really doing much more than lying like an undead rug under my bed, I wasn’t sure what he’d be interested in. Dickie shook his head again and tugged — his sharp teeth tearing all the way through the sock.
I snatched my hand back and the sock came off. I thought Dickie would go for the sock, but he didn’t. Instead, he lunged at me — pretty good for a dog with only two legs.
Dickie got a hold of my hand and bit down hard. I screamed.
And then my hand didn’t hurt any more. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t tired any more, wasn’t sore any more, wasn’t worried any more. Yeah, really everything suddenly seemed super, super good. I sort of slipped back, laid on the floor and liked it.
I think Jugg screamed. I think he said something. But I just stayed were I was, feeling floaty and fine.
Until I saw my mother’s face.
She leaned over me, strands of dark hair like a funeral veil around her pale, pale face. Her eyes looked worried and maybe angry, but not crazy. I was surprised about that because I figured all the blood I was leaking would really make her crazier.
“Boady, what have you done?” she asked in her sad-mother voice.
I worked on thinking about what I could have done to make her sad. “Uh, Jugg saw me take his dad’s rock. He didn’t say I couldn’t.”
“Not the rock, Boady. The dog.”
Oh yeah. Dickie. Man, I should be seriously panicking about my mom finding out about that, but I was still feeling freakaliously fine.
“Well, I missed him and I wanted him back. So I used one of your books to, you know, do the undead thing, like how you get your boyfriends.”
Her eyebrow arched and there was a glimmer of angry-mom in her eyes. “They are not my boyfriends. Not all of them,” she said. “Did you read the entire book? Did you read the consequences of raising the dead?”
I blew my breath out between my lips in a big, frustrated sound. “No. I only had about an hour to read the good stuff. I had to put the book back because you woke up.” Okay, this is where my brain finally hit the danger button. I had just told my mom my secret. I was so screwed.
Instead of grounding me, or telling me what chore I’d be doing for the next six months, Mom tipped her head up so all I saw was her neck and chin. I knew her eyes were closed. I knew she was trying hard not to cry. I’d seen her just like that a lot of times. Every time, actually, after she “broke up” with her boyfriends and sent them back to the grave. But most of all, that first time she really went crazy when Dad died.
“Mom?” I said. I got my elbows under me and pushed up so I was kind of lying and kind of sitting. Jugg was gone, and the room was pretty dark. I had no idea how long I’d been on the floor, but my back was stiff and the room smelled of mint and lemon — things my mom always uses to clean up blood.
The rock head was right where Jugg and I had left it, its face turned upward, the long nose pointing to the ceiling, the eyes, I hoped, unmoving. A puddle of blood ringed the base of the rock. My blood. I had no idea what to do about that.
“Can I keep Dickie?” I asked Mom.
I heard the slow thump of his tail on the hard wood floor and Mom and I both looked over at him. He was sitting on his bad legs, and he looked different. I couldn’t quite figure it out, then I knew what it was — Dickie was breathing. Even his eyes looked more like eyes.
“Look! He’s better!” I sat up the rest of the way and put my hands together in front of me. My cut hand didn’t hurt so bad, and it was already scabbing. “Please, Mom, please can I keep him?”
Mom nodded slowly. “You have to keep him.”
My heart soared and I felt like cheering. Then the “have to” part sunk in.
“Why?”
“Because once an undead drinks your blood they are tied to you.” Mom put her cool soft fingers on the back of my hurt hand. “That is why we are always careful about blood in the house. Boady, Dickie is your keeper now too.”
Okay, so I wasn’t seeing a down side. I think Mom noticed that.
“Dickie is a part of you. He can make you do things if he wants to, things you might not want to do.” She looked over at Dickie who was still wagging his tail and staring at us.
“That’s okay, Mom. He’s a good dog. I love him, you know. He’s family. Even dead.”
Mom nodded. “I understand.” And I figured she really did. Then she put her arms around me and gave me a hug. I let her, because even though I wasn’t worried about Dickie, I was a little worried she would remember I had snuck into her room and gotten into her stuff. Plus, the rock was making slurping sounds over there in my blood, and I didn’t think that was a good thing.
“Come help me make dinner.” Mom stood up and walked over to my door. “After that, you can take Giorgio back where he belongs.”
“Who?”
“The head.”
“Oh.” Great. It had a name. Maybe I could trick Jugg into carrying it this time. Or maybe I’d find a wheelbarrow to put it in. I sure didn’t want to touch Giorgio barehanded again. He bit.
Still, what mattered was I wasn’t really in trouble. Even though I didn’t get to keep the head, I got to keep my dead dog. Things had worked out okay.
I stood up and walked over to Dickie, then bent down and scratched behind his ears.
“Who’s a good doggy?” I said.
Suddenly, I knew I should scratch a little more to the left and maybe a little harder, and then a little bit to the right, and then stroke under his chin. So I did, even though I was hungry, and even though my back started hurting, and even though I didn’t want to do it any more.
“Bad dog,” I said.
Dickie just thumped his tail and licked my cheek with his swollen, purple tongue.
Okay. Maybe this was a good thing for him, but so far it wasn’t so great for me. Back when he was alive and misbehaving, I would send him to his doghouse and shut the door. I wondered if I could make him g
o to his house now.
“Go to your house,” I said.
Dickie whimpered and I could feel how awful it was to be locked up in that dark little house. I knew how alone and sad it made him feel.
Wow. I always thought I’d been a really good friend to Dickie. But maybe I hadn’t understood what it was like for him to be my pet.
“I’m sorry, boy. I’ll try to be better this time, okay? No house.”
He wagged his tail some more and stood. His bad legs looked a lot better, even though he was still a little flat in the middle.
I patted his head one more time — because I wanted to, not because he wanted me to — and straightened up.
“So, what do you want for dinner? Oh, wait. Do you need to eat anymore?”
Dickie tipped his head to the side and his ears perked up. He yapped. Bones. I knew he didn’t need food, but he wanted to chew on a bone.
Awesome.
I found the box of raw hide chews in my closet and took Dickie out into the front yard to a patch of grass still warm from the setting sun. I gave him a raw hide and sat with him for a little while watching the daylight slowly fade into evening.
“Boady,” Mom called through the kitchen window. “Dinner.”
Great. I’d forgotten to help her make dinner. That meant I’d have to do the dishes by myself.
“Be right there,” I yelled over my shoulder. I patted Dickie’s head one last time. “Gotta go, Boy. You gonna be okay here?”
Dickie wasn’t chewing on the bone any more — wasn’t even moving any more. His ears stood straight up and his tail was stiff. He looked like an undead statue, staring across the street at Jugg’s yard. Then I saw his nose wiggle a tiny bit, like maybe he smelled something.
“What?” I said. “What’s wrong?” I looked at the street then over at Jugg’s yard full of heads. I had the weirdest idea that maybe one of the heads was going to do something, like pull itself out of the ground and roll across the street to take back what’s-his-name I’d left on my bedroom floor.
“What boy? The heads? Is it the heads?” Man, I hoped it wasn’t the heads.
Dickie’s ears flicked back, then up again. That’s when I heard it — the thrum of a car engine veering off the main road and heading our way. Our neighborhood was pretty quiet so it was easy to know when a car was coming.
And Dickie totally knew it. He shoved up onto his feet and torpedoed across the yard.
“Dickie — no!”
But he didn’t listen. He took off like an undead bullet, even his bad legs keeping up with the rest of him.
He reached the end of our yard at the exact time the car drove in front of our house. My stomach clenched with sick horror. Dickie had always wanted to chase cars when he was alive and I wouldn’t let him. Then the one time he’d gotten out and chased a car, it had killed him.
“No, Dickie. Stay!” I yelled.
But he did not stay. He went faster, legs pumping hard, body low to the ground, ears back, tail straight out.
If he got crushed to death again I didn’t think my mom would let me re-raise him no matter how much I begged. Stupid dog, chasing stupid cars. “Stop!” I ran after him, even though there was no way I’d catch up before he was deader than undead.
He lunged for the front tire. Missed.
Hope fluttered in my chest. Maybe he was too slow. Maybe the car would zoom past and he’d be smart enough to let it go.
Dickie wasn’t that smart.
He ran under the car, jaws snapping at the opposite back tire — the back tire that ran right over the top of him. I heard the ka-thump and squeak of the shocks. The car kept right on going like nothing had happened. Like it hadn’t just re-killed my best friend.
“Dickie!” I ran into the street.
Dickie was nothing but a flattened lump in the middle of the road. And even though I wanted to cry, I noticed he was not bleeding. Then I noticed he was still breathing.
“Dickie?” He wagged his tail and slowly peeled himself off the pavement. His legs were working pretty good, and so was the rest of him, I guess. Maybe he was a little flatter in the middle but it didn’t seem to bother him. He shook his head and sneezed. Then he wagged his tail harder and barked at the retreating car.
He was fine. More than that, he was happy and excited, like he’d just gotten off a roller coaster ride.
“You’re crazy. Do you think you’re indestructible?” I rubbed the sides of his face and didn’t feel anything more broken than usual. Maybe he was indestructible. Maybe I’d done a really good job when I brought him back to life.
“Promise me no more cars today, okay boy? I know you like it but it freaks me out.”
He barked and licked my hand, still excited about chasing the car. And I knew we had an agreement — no more cars today. But tomorrow was a whole new story.
The theme for this dark fairytale was “Christmas Spice.” This read-out-loud challenge story was written in homage to the spooky holiday tales of old.
THE WISHING TIME
In the icy grasp of the northern land, Santa Claus lords his castle, and paces beneath the whispering eechoes of children’s wishes that are carried by the wind to him; a sweet addicting madness for a man bound to grant all wishes on one day each year. There, in that inescapable cold, where Santa Claus mutters to himself, chained by wishes in a thousand languages, you will find the elves.
They are slim and quick, half as tall as a man. They are cold, angled and edged, skin and hair and lips the color of glass and sharp rainbowed cuts of diamond. Human eyes can not see them, except for a glint of light against the carved crystal walls, silver snowbanks, the blue edge of sky.
But to a creature of my sort, the elves are easy to see. I am a coal troll, content to live beneath the hills where winter is but a passing season.
I am still a child, only two hundred years old. I do not remember the day Santa Claus came to our tunnels, promising jewels and joy, ribbons and toys, cinnamon and spearmint wonders. But ever since, there have been fewer trolls to dig in the hills, to scrape out the coal that Santa Claus gives to naughty children.
I do know that he has taken my mother, my father, and yesterday, when I went calling for my youngest sister, I found he had taken her too.
Tonight is Christmas Eve and I have followed the old tunnels to the northern lands, to the castle cut of crystal and ice.
I pause at the mouth of the tunnel, where daylight comes in cold and blue. The mad lord’s castle is so close, I can see the elves, quick and diamond bright, dashing in and out of the great arched doors with arms full of gifts. The wind against their skin draws a fluting tone into the air, and as snow falls upon their skin, it is the sound of bells, ringing without end.
The madman’s shadow crosses an arched window, his hands braced against the sill, his head low.
I wonder if the wishes pause, when all the gifts have been given, when even children who do not know they have wished have received an answer — a moment of happiness, an hour without pain, an unexpected smile.
I wonder if the madman dreams for a moment of silence in this distant empty land.
The shadow shifts, and I know he sees me, huddled in the dark doorway of the hill.
I want to run away, but instead I nod to him, false bravery, false confidence, and step out into the snow.
The elves pause as I approach. They turn toward me with the same motion as if they were not made of many minds, but think, move, and breathe as one.
“My family,” I say, and my voice is low and soft, like coal burned to ash. “I want my sister back.”
The elves open their mouths. Wind catches against their lips, and the sound of a thousand empty bottles fills the air. Then they turn back to their tasks, loading and bespelling the sleigh, racing against the fall of day, faster and faster, beneath the pressure, the frantic pace, the heavy weight of Christmas, as if I were not there, as if they did not see me.
There are no trolls among them, no bodies of soft black coal,
made for digging in earth’s pockets and living life warm and laughing.
There are only diamond-hard elves.
I jog into the castle and run through the halls, down the stairs and up the towers as the gray light of day fades to dusk’s lavender.
Then, from the corner of my eye, I see an elf. She is smaller than the others, and her hair is tinsel-bright and tied back in a braid. She moves clumsily, and much slower than the other elves.
I touch her shoulder with my sooty fingers. She drops the gift in her hand and looks up at me.
Black eyes, coal eyes, eyes of my family. It is my sister, even though all the rest of her is ice-clear and diamond hard.
“Hurry.” I tug on her wrist, but her feet are frozen to the glass floor. I look down, and see in the reflection of the floor the red smudge of the mad lord approaching, growing larger and larger behind me.
“You can’t have her,” I say to the reflection. “I want her back. Please, I wish for her to come home.”
I can feel the heat of Santa Claus behind me, smell the cinnamon and cloves from his great red robes.
His gloved hand reaches beside me and picks up the package my sister had dropped. “She is yours,” he says, softly. “Merry Christmas.”
My sister draws a deep breath, and her skin becomes coal once again. She lifts her feet.
We do not look back at the mad lord, the elves, nor the castle. We run to the tunnels until we are deep in the earth, where winter has no meaning.
I have asked my sister if she remembers the day I saved her, and though it has been little more than a month, she remembers nothing of Santa Claus nor his land. She is content to dig in the pockets of the earth, and live warm and laughing.
It is I who have become restless, knowing now what all my kind have become. And in my pacing I have made a plan to return to the mad lord’s castle next Christmas Eve.
Every night, I recite my Christmas wish, over and over again. I know that the wind will carry my words to the man who paces a crystal castle, chained by wishes in a thousand and one languages, and I know he will hear my voice, calling for my family’s freedom, and wishing for his death.