Dog Days

She cried. Oh, how she cried. Darling sat and watched his mother’s tears fall, big and glossy, down her face in little zig-zags, some of them catching in the creases of her face, and he felt bored. He didn’t try to be a callous, unfeeling type of person, but he’d seen her cry so often that he wasn’t fazed anymore. The tears were usually justified, of course, and usually about something he’d done to disappoint, embarrass, or just plain upset her. “Mom,” he tried again to speak to her, “Mom, I said I’m sorry. What more can I do?”

“B-Bring that dog back to life, that’s what,” she hiccupped, and then she was off in a fresh wave of tears. Darling sighed the sigh of the martyred, sat back on the ratty couch his diapers had once been changed on, and he shook his shaggy head. That damn dog had been the bane of Darling’s existence since the day it had strolled into the Munroes’ straggly yard, ears bent from some fight long lost, its nose in search of food. “Good ol’ Ralph,” Darling grumbled as he struggled to his feet and shuffled to the door.

“I’m goin’, Mama, and I really am sorry about Ralph, okay? I didn’t mean to hang him, really I didn’t.” He banged out the old door, his mother’s sobbing following him all the way to his car. He half chuckled as he turned the ignition and gunned the old ford, more rust-colored than red, down the bumpy dirt road. Once he was back on the highway he began to whistle while he picked at his teeth with an old toothpick he found on the dash. His mother would never believe it, but he really hadn’t meant to hang her damn dog. That had been a lucky by-product of his attempt to catch a problem coyote, the one that had been terrorizing local properties by eating chickens and their eggs. The county was offering a reward for the coyote or its carcass, so Darling, the night before, had lain in wait.

All he’d seen was a flash of fur, and he and Brandon just figured they were spying that blasted coyote. He didn’t know till later it was Ralph, Damn Ralph. But he also figured Ralph was the coyote everyone thought was eating chickens and eggs. Try to tell his mother that. He fingered the bandage on his arm which covered the bite Ralph had inflicted with his last breath. Damn dog. Darling rifled through some cassette tapes on the seat next to him and finally extracted one with an “ah ha!” He shoved it into his tape player and started singing Springsteen at the top of his lungs–and also off-key.

His car pulled into a convenience store parking lot with the screech of balding tires. He cut the clanking engine after he butchered the last strains of “I’m on Fire” and grunted out of the old ford, coughing out a wad of tobacco as he sauntered up to the store. He didn’t catch the rolling eyes of the proprietor, Jenkins Malloy, but little would he have cared. He knew how most people felt about him, and he’d long since stopped giving a shit.

Darling wandered back to the beers, grabbed a pack of six cheapies, and walked back up to the checkout counter. “Gimmie some o’ them cans tobacco, Jenkins,” he uttered as he turned to gaze at the woman behind him. He winked a crusty eye at her and she involuntarily shivered, clutching the milk and bread closer. He sure didn’t look like much of a prize with his mud-crusted boots, dirty jeans, and plaid shirt with stains and tears in several places. But what caused her to shiver wasn’t even the beard with tobacco juice splattered in it or the uncombed, unclean hair under a filthy feed cap. It was his eyes, bloodshot and rheumy, with some sort of yellow gleam. She couldn’t even explain it.

When he left and she placed her items on the counter, she ventured a question. “Who was that man?”

Jenkins looked at her for a moment, took in her jeans, t-shirt, and soft brown eyes. “You new here, huh? That there’s Darling Munroe. Don’t go near that hombre.” He shook his gray head sagely. “He’s just a bad ‘un. Even his pa disowned him couple years ago after his stay at the county jail for assault. Doesn’t want nothin’ to do with the feller. That should tell you something.” He finished checking the woman out as fast as his arthritic fingers would let him, and as she left she heard him chuckle. “Callin’ that piece o’ scum Darling. A mama’s wishful thinkin’.”

At that moment Darling himself was chuckling, but not for the same reason. He’d hit a deer on the road, accidentally-on-purpose most likely, and he was standing, staring down at it. Dusk was settling, a great time for such an occurrence because the highway patrol was switching shifts and Darling could get this tasty package home before he was spotted. He whistled loudly. “Brandon, get your damn keister out o’ them bushes and get over here to help me! We’ll have fresh meat for a week, c’mon!” At last, seemingly with reluctance, a set of bushes off the road parted and a heavy-lidded, thick waisted man stepped out.

“I dunno, Darlin’. Last time we did this Sheriff Trotter said it was wrong.”

“Well, Sheriff Trotter ain’t here right now, is he?” Darling tried to be patient with Brandon. He needed someone to help him, and Brandon was usually willing to do almost anything.

Brandon looked around slowly, his curly brown hair shifting side-to-side as he took in the perimeter. “I guess not. But still-“

Darling glared at him. “Have I ever steered you wrong yet? I don’t see you sittin’ in a jail cell or goin’ hungry. Now help!”

“Fine,” Brandon muttered as he lifted the deer’s back legs. “But if the Sheriff comes I’m takin’ off and you can’t stop me.” It was a rare moment of defiance for Brandon DePue, one that was quelled by a look.

They grunted and groaned as the deer made its way into the trunk. Darling had to use an old saw from the backseat of his car to take off the half-grown antlers, but then the trunk lid closed with a bang and the deed was done. “There.” He had a look of satisfaction, Darling did, and Brandon shivered. Darling’s eyes always made him shiver. They seemed to glow as the sun went down, glow a yellowish tinge that was truly eerie to behold. Darling was the only person Brandon knew with yellow eyes. Cat eyes, Brandon’s mother called them. She said nothing good ever comes of someone with cat eyes.

“You comin’, Brandon?” Darling stuck a huge plug of tobacco between his front bottom teeth and lip, and when Brandon looked up, he couldn’t help shivering again.

“No, you go on. I kinda don’t feel so good. Might go on to my Ma’s and get some Tylenol or something.”

“Okay.” Darling spat onto the ground. “Come around when you’re ready and you can help me skin our supper for the next week or two.” He crawled into the ford and clanged away, leaving Brandon in a cloud of dust.

Back at his shack, Darling was itching something awful. He figured it must be the several days he’d gone without a shower, so he quickly stripped down after dragging the deer carcass around to the back and storing it underneath the house, where deputies were less likely to spot it. As he stepped into the dingy shower, he uttered a “shit!” Looking down at his skin, he saw red mottles crisscrossing him like zigzags and his nerves jumped in alarm. He stood in the trickling water, uncertain of what to do. He hurriedly washed himself, finally, and stepped out into the light of the bathroom. He wiped steam off the full-length mirror on the door and sucked in air. He was covered in crazy red welts. He touched his skin gingerly but felt no pain so he shrugged, dressed himself again, and chugged a few beers.

He startled with a grunt when the banging on his door roused a drunken stupor. He sat up in his old easy chair, wiping spittle off his face as he heaved to his feet and shuffled to the door, kicking beer cans as he went. Why didn’t Brandon just barge in like he always did? But Brandon wasn’t at the door.

“Are you one,” an official-looking man in a dark suit glanced down at a piece of paper, “Darling Cassidy Munroe?”

Shit, thought Darling, wishing like the devil he hadn’t opened the door. “Who wants to know,” he graveled out through his sleep-closed throat.

“Proctor County Disease Control, please come with us.” That was when Darling spotted the man next to the first one. They were both dressed in suits, the second in blue instead of black. What would this disease place want with him? He shrugged. Wouldn’t be the first time something weird happened to him; probably wouldn’t be the last.

He closed his door and followed the men, bending into their sleek, dark Lexus and sitting back with a sigh as they rode in silence. Darling supposed he should care more about where he was going, but truth-be-told it felt too much like a dream. And the ride was comfortable, anyway. He must have nodded off, because the next thing he knew they’d pulled up to some building and he was being prodded to get out of the car. He stumbled behind one man, in front of another, through glass doors and down a dark corridor. The line of them, all three, then entered a carpeted room with an examining table and several chairs. The men motioned for him to sit and he did.

He’d awakened more fully now and was beginning to wonder what he’d gotten himself into. Had they found him out about the deer? But why this disease place? He scratched absent-mindedly at his neck while he tried to think. But before he could formulate some sort of plan, another man in a lab coat walked in, studying some chart in his hands, and sat in a chair opposite Darling.

“Hello, Mr. Munroe,” the man said, still looking down at the chart. “I understand you’ve not yet been briefed.”

“Briefed?” Darling had no idea what he meant.

The man smiled. “Yes, told why you’re here.” He sat up and finally looked directly at Darling. “You’re here because of this,” he motioned to the bandage on Darling’s forearm, “and this.” He pushed forward, and for the first time Darling noticed he was wearing gloves. The man touched a welt on the back of his hand.

“You see, your friend, one Brandon DePue, was admitted to Proctor County Hospital earlier this evening with symptoms of delirium and high fever, accompanied by these welts. We believe that you and he have acquired a curiously fast-acting strain of bird flu, and we wanted to see for ourselves the reality that you have not yet developed the fever and delirium.” He leaned further forward, peering closely into Darling’s face. “It seems you’ve only manifested the disease with these welts. We’re very excited about this, Mr. Munroe. Very excited.”

“Huh?” Darling was trying to keep up with this man, probably a doctor of some kind, but he was actually feeling a little delirious, himself. But then again, he usually felt that way. “What are you talking about?”

The doctor replied, “Mr. Munroe, because your symptoms are so minor after having been exposed to such a deadly, fast-acting disease, you may very well be the one who saves mankind.”

Darling thought for a moment, eyes gleaming yellow. “What do I get for that?”