Dawn of the Jed Read online

  “You’d think if someone went to all the trouble to record their backyard, they’d use a better camera,” I said.

  “Just wait,” Anna said. “I wanted you to see everything I got. Just to give you an idea.”

  The picture didn’t change for two minutes. Five. Seven.

  The image suddenly winked, vanishing for a split second. The scene was the same, but slightly crooked. As if someone bumped the camera. The dim lighting and the graininess didn’t change.

  “Anna, I know you went to a lot of work, but does something happen soon? This is as bad as when my dad forced me to watch his favorite movies made when they couldn’t afford color. Ever heard of Citizen Kane? Rosebud is a sled. I just saved you two hours of your life. You can pay me later.”

  “What are you talking about?” Anna said, pointing at a spot on the computer screen just left of center. “Just keep your eye here.”

  All I saw was more grainy blackness. Suddenly there was a square of brightness, right where Anna told me to look. A light had come on inside the house. Then a thin line of white, vertical, expanding into a rectangle.

  The door was opening.

  A whitish gray blob shot out of the light, followed by a series of sharp noises.

  I knew that sound. Very well.

  “That’s Tread,” I said, listening to his muddy yet distinctive bark coming from the speakers. I suddenly realized where this camera was. “That’s my backyard. Which means the camera is up in the elm.”

  “Exactly,” Anna said. “Keep watching, and you’ll see how that SD card wound up where you found it.”

  The door closed, and the light blinked out. I had let Tread out and either went to my room or joined Dad to watch some reality show, maybe “Catapult Challenge” where teams won by throwing big stuff the farthest. It was further testament to the awesomeness of TV.

  Tread’s bark was louder now, but I couldn’t see him on the screen. I guessed he was out of the frame, probably at the base of the elm tree. But why was he barking at a camera he probably couldn’t see?

  “Why is he barking?” I said.

  “For the tenth time, keep watching.”

  “That was maybe the third time you said that.”

  “I’ll keep saying it until you shut up and keep watching. So keep watching.”

  “Five times.”

  Anna sighed heavily. My work here was done.

  The screen flickered again, and the image tilted slightly the other way.

  “You getting close?”

  “Close to what?” I answered.

  But Anna hadn’t said a thing. That voice came from the speakers.

  “Another few seconds. Whose bright idea was it to—”

  The frame stuttered with a hiss, and the screen went white. Anna reached past me for the mouse and paused the video.

  “The rest happens pretty quickly,” she said. “And I want you promise me you won’t get mad.”

  “That ship has sailed,” I said. “Someone put a camera in my backyard. I’m not OK with that. At this point I want to find these guys and, and … ”

  “And what?”

  “I don’t know. No, I do know. Sic Tread on them. See what happens when an undead dog takes a chunk out of them. I’d film it, too. ‘When Zombie Dogs Attack.’ Now that’s a reality show with some bite.”

  “Maybe we just need to talk about this a little. Relax. I’m sure there’s a good reason behind all of this.”

  I grabbed the mouse and clicked to resume play. The white screen gave way to the familiar grays and blacks of my backyard. But the shades were shifting back and forth quickly, as if someone were jostling the camera.

  The voices returned. I listened closely this time.

  “OK, got it. Let’s get out of here,” the first voice said. It sounded familiar.

  “Have you noticed the angry dog below us?” the second voice said. It was deeper. And even more familiar than the first.

  “Yeah, and I came prepared. I just hope a Frankendog loves Snausages as much as a real dog. Here, take the camera.”

  The blacks and grays swirled again onscreen, the sound a mix of rustling and clicks.

  “Got it,” Deep Voice said.

  “I’m going to drop the first one to see if he’ll eat it. If he does, I’m going to toss a handful across the yard and that’s when we’ll get out of here. Sound good?”

  “Sure.”

  More rustling. Then an odd silence.

  It hit me why the quiet seemed so out of place. Tread stopped barking.

  “Looks like he loves it,” First Guy said. “Hey Frankendog, lookie up here. Yeah, you see this, monster mutt? Huh? More Snausages. I just hope enough of your brain works to figure out where I’m tossing them.”

  “Do it already.”

  There was a whimper. Tread. It’s what he does when he’s anticipating a treat. I knew he’d go after those Snausages in a heartbeat (if he had a heartbeat). But knowing those guys were about to get away made me wish Tread wasn’t such a Snausage-seeking missile. If only he had a little guard dog in him. Or a big, ferocious guard dog in him.

  “Go go go go.”

  Blacks, grays, and whites danced on the screen. The camera whirled about. There was the house, the tree, the house, a flash of white, more black. The speakers suddenly exploded with a loud crack, and the screen went white.

  “That’s it,” Anna said. “All I could get. I think they dropped the camera. My guess is that when they picked it up, they didn’t notice the SD card popped out.”

  “Right, yeah,” I said. I couldn’t get Deep Voice out of my mind. I thought I knew who it was.

  But it couldn’t be.

  The flash of white, just before the camera blew up. It could have been a face.

  I grabbed Anna’s hand as it reached for the drive.

  “Hold on,” I said, clicking on rewind.

  The blacks and grays danced again, bouncing across the screen. There, the white.

  I stopped and clicked play, the cursor hovering over the pause button.

  There it was. I hit pause.

  “No freaking way.”

  It wasn’t perfect, due to the shadows and bad light, but there was no mistaking that face. I grew up looking at it.

  Trusting it.

  “Luke,” I said.

  Anna squeezed my fingers. I forgot I hadn’t let go of her hand.

  “There’s a good explanation, I know it,” she said. It was odd to hear her say that. She’d been suggesting (at times insisting) that I talk to Luke. Work it out. Now she was defending him.

  Because this was the first real proof of his betrayal.

  Until now, there was a chance Luke was telling the truth. Perhaps he really did need help with some sort of computer program so complicated it required only the most overachieving minds at school to figure it out. Why anyone would use such a highly technical program outside NASA was not a question I was going to ask.

  Deep down, I knew it was sweet of Anna to defend my former best friend. But I was going to have none of it.

  “Yeah, there is real good explanation,” I said. “He is a member in good standing of the NZN Network. He knew exactly where to put the camera to spy on me. And get some real good shots of my alleged Frankendog.”

  “Jed. Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t give up on Luke.”

  “Why not? Ever since the thing happened with Tread, he’s abandoned me. Oh, he’ll come by and say hi. Be friendly when he needed to. But it was all a show.”

  “Wait, I know Luke—”

  “You know Luke?” I snapped. “What do you know about Luke? Do you know he can go days eating nothing but Funyuns, not just because he likes them, but because he thinks bad breath is a superpower? Do you know that when we were ten, we were racing our bikes and when I took a wide turn heading for a parked car, he veered in front of me and pushed me out of the way thinking
I would explode like a crash-test dummy, even though he hit the car and shattered his leg? Do you know his favorite thing about his phone is that it has a microphone so he can record his farts, and he has more than an hour of them now in a file called ‘Fartasmic’? Do you?”

  “Jed.”

  “No, you don’t. That’s only the tip of the Lukeberg. And he knows everything about me. Everything. Do you know what he could tell NZN? Did you know that even though he’s made up all this crap about how zombies are evil and intent on taking over the world, the NZN is swallowing every word? Just because of who is saying it?”

  “You can’t think Luke is part of the NZN. That he’s the one behind all the leaflets.”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. But I do know I have to consider it. Which is about the last thing I want to do.”

  There were so few people in my life I trusted. That was the one thing I shared with “normal” people. We all go through life knowing we are lucky to have one or two people we could count on to take a bullet for us. Or deliver homework when we’re sick. Or actually talk on the phone rather than just text.

  You have more than one thousand Facebook friends. Maybe five hundred followers on Twitter. And if you called any of them to meet for dinner because you just needed someone to talk to, they’d say they’re waiting on a load of laundry, or have to take the dog for a walk, or how that sounds like a great idea, but next month sure would work better.

  Luke was my “Here’s your math homework, I didn’t know zombies could get sick” guy. The “Calling to see if you want to come over and play Dead Rising, and yeah, you can be the zombies again” guy. The “Sure, Burger Bucket at six” dinner guy.

  But now?

  I stretched out on my bed, breaking Dad’s “No positions beyond 90 degrees in your bedroom when with a girl” rule.

  Anger mixed uncomfortably with a deep sadness. I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing for a power greater than that of life over death.

  The power to forget. Forget school, forget bullies, forget the NZN Network.

  Mostly to forget Luke.

  I didn’t know how things could get any worse.

  “Jed, hate to interrupt the whole self-pity thing,” Anna said. “But have you noticed Tread has been barking like crazy?”

  Chapter Twenty

  Usually when Tread was excited, he’d unleash his low death moan of happiness. But this was not the sound of Tread joy. This was his “I don’t usually eat flesh, but I will make an exception” bark.

  “Seriously, son, that bark is enough to wake the dead. You know, if they lived here.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Dad.”

  I walked past him and went quickly to the back door. Though Dad’s attitude toward Tread had softened over time—more than once I caught him holding a few dog treats telling Tread to play undead—he still refused to get involved in the maintenance issues. You know, filling the water bowl, feeding him, cleaning up a rare accident instead of stepping over it and yelling, “Jed, crap happened, this time in the living room!”

  Mom was a little more involved.

  “Honey, I think Tread cornered a squirrel or something,” Mom said as she peered out the back window, glass of wine still in her hand. “His bark is so full of anger. You need to teach him to chill.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Mom,” I said, opening the door and stepping onto the back porch.

  Tread was at the base of the elm tree, barking and snapping at something I couldn’t see. It just happened to be the same tree that once held a surveillance camera. Coincidence? No way. Even Tread knew something was up, because that was his angry bark. He gave it to me on occasion, like when I balanced a treat on his nose. It’s the kind of trick you pull on, say, a Lhasa Apso. Tread stopped it with his angry bark, which also flipped the treat into his mouth. A nifty move for a brain-dead dog.

  Anna ducked past me, stepped off the porch, and called to the angry dog.

  “Tread, what’s up, you got a critter cornered back there?” she said.

  Tread ignored her. This was not going to stop without physical intervention. It meant navigating the Tread-made minefield since I hadn’t picked up after him for a few weeks, but I had to do something before neighbors became annoyed.

  “Anna, hang on, I’ll go get him,” I said, stepping around her. “Follow at your own risk.”

  “OK, but this seems weird,” she said. “I’ve never seen him like this. I’ve heard his bark when he’s protecting you guys from birds and gophers. But this one? It’s like he’s ticked off at something.”

  Anna was right. There was only one way to find out for sure.

  “Tread, come,” I said, looking down at my shadow cast by the porch light to pick out what was a clump of dirt and what was a clump of Tread droppings. “Tread, now, come.”

  After delicately maneuvering the thirty feet between porch and Tread, I reached toward his collar, wrapping my fingers around it and ready to give it a gentle pull.

  Next thing I knew, Tread was gone, my right arm with him.

  A shadow had dropped from the tree and now was scrambling over the back fence. Tread rushed at it, leaping in a graceful, athletic arc that hit about five feet up on a six-foot fence.

  If he wasn’t already undead, that smack against the wood would have unkilled him. But it didn’t even faze him. It just made him madder.

  Tread’s barking was furious as he paced along the fence, looking for an opening, my arm still bouncing on his collar. I weighed the situation. Do I try to corral Tread and retrieve my arm, or go after the shadow that had just leaped into the alley and was getting away as I debated with myself?

  “Anna, get my arm!” I yelled and pulled myself over the fence, not easy when your dominant hand is attached to your dog’s collar.

  “What? Oh geez, Jed, is that your arm on Tread?”

  “Yeah, you mind getting that for me?” I straddled the fence just in time to see the shadow turn right out of the alley. “Whoever was here just turned right on Swinton. Get my arm and come after me.”

  I flipped my trailing leg over the fence and dropped, putting out my right arm to brace my fall.

  Except my right arm was still with Tread. You’d think with my years being a zombie (which is all of them), I’d adjust quickly to a missing limb. Instead, I crashed onto my right side, the shoulder taking the brunt of impact. That would have left a mark if there was anything to leave a mark on.

  Scrambling to my feet, I raced down the alley. It was more of a quick stumbling, without my right arm to pump in tandem with my left. I was pretty fast when fully armed, but less capable when not intact.

  Reaching the end of the alley, I turned to the right. There was the shadow, only it wasn’t a shadow anymore. It stood two streetlights down, hunched over, hands on knees. Catching its breath, perhaps? Advantage, zombie. When you don’t breathe, you don’t have to stop and catch it.

  I took a few steps toward the figure, staying in the shadows. He probably had no idea I was coming after him, and I did not want to startle my prey.

  He was on the small side. Dressed in black to blend into the night. Jeans, hoodie. If he would just turn a bit toward me so I could get a look at his face.

  I crept steadily, staying low and ducking behind a car in the glow of the first streetlight. He was still hunched over. Dude was pretty out of shape.

  I was fifty, maybe sixty feet away, back in the darkness. There were some bushes at the corner. If I could make it to those unseen, I knew I could get the jump on him and figure out what the heck he was doing in my backyard.

  I ducked and scuttled toward the shrubs. Forty feet. Thirty. Twenty.

  “Jed!”

  The figure turned, stood, and raced down the street, disappearing after taking a sharp right.

  I started after him.

  “Jed! Wait.”

  I slowed and turned. Anna was running toward me, my right arm in her left hand. Nice gesture, but it wasn’t going to do me much g
ood now.

  “Here, here,” she said, holding out my arm like a baton. I took it and sped up.

  Anna stayed with me easily.

  “Thanks,” I said, holding my tongue about her bad timing.

  “No problem. So did you get a look at the guy?”

  “Sort of. Here, he went right.” We veered down Osage, which was even brighter than Swinton with several porch lights chasing away the darkness.

  Two blocks away, another light flicked on.

  “Motion detector,” Anna said, jogging at my side and breathing normally. “He probably set it off. Maybe he’ll set off another one.”

  Sure enough, he did.

  “Think we’re gaining on him,” I said. “He may be heading to the park. He could lose us there.”

  “Then let’s pick it up,” Anna said, shooting ahead of me.

  I quickened my pace, staying on Anna’s heels.

  “How was Tread when you left?” I said.

  “He was still barking when I left, but he didn’t seem as angry. More curious. It was all I could do to keep him inside as I headed out to catch up. Your mom said she’d keep an eye on him.”

  “Good,” I said. But I was worried. Tread could be pretty slippery.

  “Look, there,” Anna said, pointing down the street.

  He was about a block away, his legs moving at somewhere between a jog and a stroll.

  “Let’s hang back, get to the shadows, and sneak up on him,” I said. “He’s going to stop pretty soon.”

  We crossed to the other side, where light pooled unevenly along the sidewalk. We gained slowly. Just as I predicted, he stopped.

  The good news? He was hunched over again and turned the other way, so he probably had no idea we were coming.

  The bad news? The park was one huge bowl of darkness, and he was less than thirty feet away from vanishing inside it.

  Anna and I slowed to a walk, gaining as we went from cover (car) to cover (tree). We may not have been Seal Team Six, but we were at least Seal Team Four. This guy had no chance.