CHAPTER 4

THROUGH THE FOREST

After pestering Grendel for directions, Max, Rocky, and Gizmo left behind the beach and its laughing, playful animals. The music from the dancing dogs’ radio grew faint as they walked west to the road that would take them to the mall.

They padded over the concrete parking lot next to the resort, careful to avoid broken glass, and soon they were back on the main road. Its surface was coated with swirls of dried mud and littered with driftwood. They passed more shops and a wooden boardwalk before reaching a side street that veered north, into the trees.

“This must be the way,” Max said. He padded toward the shadowed street, then stopped, an uneasy feeling coming over him.

“Is everything all right?” Gizmo asked.

Max peered back over his shoulder to find his friends also hesitating.

Max nodded and said, “Yes, it’s fine. The shopping center can’t be too far. Let’s go.”

As he stepped onto the street, Max felt as if he were entering a new world. Coiled, thick-trunked trees towered over the asphalt, shrouding it in shadow. There was more debris here—decaying leaves and fallen twigs and plastic bags. He even caught sight of a rusted motorcycle leaning against a tree, overgrown with fluffy moss.

The farther they walked, the heavier the air became, until Max found himself panting. Sounds echoed all around him. Some were familiar, like the buzzing of insects and croaks of frogs, but there were other noises, too—strange ones. He heard groans and creaks, as if the trees were settling all around him. An occasional distant, unearthly shriek pierced the sky.

Max swallowed, nervously eyeing the darkness between the trees. Neither of the others spoke. Aside from the noises of the forest, the only sounds were their panting breaths and the pads of their feet on the overgrown road.

Even though the beach was not that far behind them, Max thought it seemed a thousand miles away. This place was some new, untamed land, where wild, unusual things could lurk around any corner.

Suddenly, the idea of monsters in the woods didn’t seem so silly.

Rocky cleared his throat. “I’m not sure I’m feeling brave right now.”

“It’s just noises,” Max said. “Probably just more frogs or birds—”

“But the birds all left,” Rocky muttered.

“—or… or… bats or something. We’ll be fine. Right, Gizmo?”

“Definitely!” she said. “Um, though maybe we should hurry a little.”

Silent again, the animals trotted steadily and quickly down the overgrown road. Max kept his eyes aimed forward, refusing to look into the trees and scare himself even more.

It was Gizmo who saw it first.

“Hey, what’s that?” she asked.

“What’s what?” Rocky said, following her gaze. Immediately the Dachshund yelped in fear. He darted between Max’s front legs and huddled underneath his belly.

“Rocky, what’s wrong?” Max asked.

Trembling, Rocky tried to answer, but he couldn’t get out the words. Instead, Gizmo pointed with her snout toward the trees on the side of the road.

There, in the dark, were two glimmering amber circles. They glowed and flashed in the shadows, like the eyes of some great, terrifying beast.

“It’s those creatures!” Rocky howled. “They’ve come to eat us all up!”

Max froze, unable to look away from the two glowing circles. His instincts told him to run, while his brain told him to stay still to avoid capturing the creature’s attention.

He and his companions huddled together, staring at the amber eyes. Max expected the beast to stomp out of the trees at any moment, the ground trembling beneath its feet. He expected a steel-plated body the size of a bus and a mouth filled with jagged razors.

Instead, the eyes stayed still, flashing at a steady rhythm.

Wait, Max thought. Didn’t the puppies say the monster’s eyes were black, like the night?

And wasn’t the blinking too steady, too mechanical, to belong to an animal?

Max let out a long, shaky breath, then chuckled.

“Why are you laughing, big guy?” Rocky whispered. “We’re about to become a monster’s lunch!”

“Actually, it’s kind of funny,” Max said as he carefully stepped over Rocky. “All those stories are getting us scared over nothing.”

Max padded purposefully across the road to the blinking lights. As he drew near, he laughed again, louder this time.

The glowing circles weren’t the eyes of some terrifying creature. They were two round, plastic yellow-orange beacons with Xs on their fronts. They were on top of a small traffic barricade painted with orange and white stripes, though the paint was scratched and faded.

And spray-painted on the tree behind the barricade was a neon-orange circle with a black X in its center.

These weren’t just any beacons. These were the beacons, the ones that Madame Curie’s owner was leaving to mark her trail. The three of them were on the right track!

Facing his companions, Max called out, “Hey, it’s safe! In fact, this is exactly what we were looking for!”

With a relieved bark, Rocky waddled after Max, with Gizmo close behind him.

“Is that what I think it is?” Gizmo asked as she approached.

“It sure is!” Max said.

“See?” Gizmo said to Rocky. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

“Not this time,” Rocky muttered. “But one of these days my tendency to be overly cautious is gonna keep us from getting eaten.”

Gizmo licked his side, giggling.

Rocky sniffed at the barricade, and his eyes went wide. “Hey, you know what this means, right? The only human the beach animals saw come this way was the hat lady—which means she and our scientist lady are one and the same!”

“Oh!” Gizmo said. “Yay! And since she left here only a few weeks ago, we can still catch up with her.”

“Gertrude the pig was right, back at the laboratory,” Max said. “Madame’s owner is trying to fix us animals so that the Praxis virus we have inside us won’t be harmful to people. I’m sure of it.”

Max sniffed at the painted wood barricade and the glowing beacons and the tree behind them. The old woman’s scent was faint and distant, washed away by weather and time. But there was just enough left that Max could recognize the peculiar musk of human mixed with the perfume of lilacs and something sharp and antiseptic.

He took in deep, gulping breaths of the faded scent, letting it swirl through his nostrils and into his brain. The old woman might have shed her lab coat for brightly colored, flowery shirts and a big straw hat, but he’d know her by her scent.

Finding some of the orange beacons he’d been searching for since leaving the riverboat filled Max with happiness. The forest no longer seemed quite so dark and ominous.

Not that he planned to stay on the overgrown road any longer than he had to.

Turning away from the beacons, Max met his friends’ eyes. “We’re safe from monsters for now. Let’s get out of these trees before it’s dark!”

Soon, the trees thinned out and sunshine beat down once more on their fur, the stormy clouds having drifted away. A breeze washed over them, carrying the musty smells of the forest.

Rocky darted ahead. “Oh, sweet freedom!” he yipped. “I thought we’d never get out of those woods.”

They had reached a big concrete parking lot. To Max’s right, a small billboard read INLAND SHOPPING CENTER—NEXT LEFT. Across the vast, open lot was the biggest shopping mall Max had ever seen, several stories tall with wide windows that glittered in the sunlight.

Taking up most of the enormous building’s side was a movie theater. Next to the theater was the mall entrance, and next to that was a storefront with cartoon fish and puppies and cats painted on the windows.

“That place is huge,” Gizmo said. “I bet it’s filled with all sorts of neat stuff!”

“Grendel said we should find a way to spend the night inside,” Max said. “We still don’t know what’s lurking out here.”

“Uh, yeah,” Rocky said, peering up at Max. “I like that plan.”

“I wonder if there ever really was anything in the woods,” Gizmo said as they walked through the lot toward the mall. “It would be nice if, for once, we didn’t have any dangerous beasts after us.”

Rocky nudged her side. “I thought you loved everybody, Giz.”

She sniffed. “Well, I do,” she said. “Except when they’re trying to eat us.”

Max chuckled. He was about to say something when a stray scent met his nose.

He stopped walking, one paw raised midstep. All day, he’d been surrounded by the murk of the swampy woods and the briny smells of the ocean. Now this new, fleeting smell set off an immediate alarm in his head.

It was the musk of wolves.

At least, he thought it was. The scent was so briefly in and out of his nostrils that he couldn’t be sure.

Sniffing at the air, Max turned in a tight circle. Nothing. He didn’t think he’d imagined it, but he had to be careful. The last time he’d thought he smelled wolves, he’d been right.

There was still a chance Dolph could be following Max and his friends, wanting revenge. He had already tracked them from Max’s hometown all the way to the riverboat. The animal was relentless.

And in the dark of night, hidden by trees, could wolves hunting for a rabbit meal be mistaken for giant, iron-clad monsters?

“What is it, Max?” Gizmo asked. “Do you smell something?”

Rocky gasped. “Is it the monster? Is it here?”

Max didn’t want to worry his friends, so he said, “No, it’s nothing. Let’s just get to the mall, okay?”

Darting ahead, Rocky called out, “Don’t have to ask me twice. Let’s hurry!”

As they neared the mall, Max looked toward the massive pet store. Twin orange lights caught his eye.

“Hey,” he said to his friends. “Over here.”

Another of the small white-and-orange barricades was set up at the edge of the pet store. Just like the barrier in the woods, the beacons on top blinked with a steady rhythm, and the old woman’s faint scent swirled in the air. Painted on the wall behind the barricade was another crude orange circle with a black X through its middle.

“The old woman was here, too,” Rocky said. “But why leave a beacon here?”

“It’s a pet store,” Gizmo said. “Maybe it’s just to let people know that she already came through.”

Max angled his head back and studied the pet store. It was dark inside, though far in the back he could see faint blue lights refracted by murky water. Fish tanks.

But more importantly, the three-ringed symbol that had been on Madame’s collar was spray-painted crudely all over the store’s facade. The circles were black and misshapen. Drips of paint fell from their bottoms, leaving goopy trails.

The symbol was for the laboratory that had made the Praxis virus. But, as Max had discovered, many humans had chosen to paint the three rings as a warning on any building containing animals that might have been infected.

He could only be thankful to the kind humans who must have freed Twelve, Seventeen, and the other pets inside this store. Memories of the time he’d spent in the kennel immediately after the humans disappeared came back to Max. His loneliness. The combination of aching hunger and his worry that he might never see his family again.

Max shook his head. He didn’t want to think about what could have happened if he hadn’t escaped. “It doesn’t matter why she left the beacon,” Max said. “All it means is that we’re still on the right path to finding her. Let’s get inside.”

As they neared the entrance to the pet store, they saw a plain white door next to the dark display windows. On it was a sign that read EMPLOYEES ONLY.

The door was slightly open. The hallway beyond was narrow and plain—white floor, white walls, white ceiling. Quietly, the three dogs padded down the dark hallway to another door. It opened with a squeak of hinges, revealing a room flooded with light. They were in a storeroom filled with doggy beds, toys, and—most importantly—kibble.

With flashes of black-and-tan fur, Rocky and Gizmo darted inside.

“This is heaven!” Rocky said as he sniffed the bags of kibble lining the shelves.

Gizmo lunged into a stack of plush, plaid pet beds, and they collapsed around her in a heap. She laughed. “This is fantastic,” she said. “What a great place to spend the night!”

Max wrenched open a bag of beef-flavored kibble, spilling the pellets all over the dusty floor. He, Rocky, and Gizmo ate until their bellies were full. An upside-down jug of water on a white, square base stood beside the door. It was easy enough to figure out how to press down the lever on the front, and one by one the dogs drank the water that streamed out.

They spent some time exploring the storeroom, discovering jars of tiny turquoise rocks for the bottom of aquariums, plastic tubes for small rodents to crawl through, and toys—so many toys. But soon exhaustion caught up with them, and Max decided they were ready for an early bedtime.

They all agreed to keep the bright fluorescent lights on in the storeroom. Just in case they helped keep monsters away.

Climbing atop the mound of doggy beds, Max, Rocky, and Gizmo spun in tight circles and then lay down to get comfortable. Rocky was the first to fall asleep, clutching a nubby red rubber ball between his teeth.

Max didn’t fall asleep right away. He kept thinking about all sorts of things—his family, promises he’d made, the dangers that might lie ahead. In his mind’s eye, he saw enormous, metal-plated monsters breathing fire and tossing aside trees.

It was one of the downsides of being smarter, Max supposed. His brain always wanted to work now, when in the past he could just close his eyes and drift off.

A small, wet nose nudged Max’s neck.

“Are you awake?” Gizmo asked.

Max lifted his head off his paws. “Sure,” he said softly, so as not to disturb Rocky. “Is everything all right?”

“I’m not sure,” Gizmo said. “Do you ever have trouble falling asleep?”

“It depends,” Max said. “If we’ve been walking from morning to night, sometimes I’m so tired I doze right off. But other times, my thoughts keep me from sleeping. It’s been that way ever since—”

“Praxis,” they said at the same time.

Gizmo giggled. “Oh, good, it’s not just me.”

Max licked Gizmo’s side. “Are you having scary thoughts because of all the monster talk?”

“Not really,” she said. “I keep remembering the day I last saw my pack leaders. I saw that squirrel outside their RV, and I jumped out the window to chase it. Even though I knew better!” She sighed. “There are squirrels everywhere. But there’s only one Ann, who loved me so much, and I loved her, and now I might never see her again.” Gizmo dug herself into the crevice between two upturned doggy beds until Max could only see the tufts of her tan fur.

“I was such a dumb, silly dog,” she whispered, her voice muffled.

Max climbed onto all fours, stretching his legs. As Rocky continued to gnaw on his rubber ball in his sleep, Max climbed over the mounded pet beds to where Gizmo hid.

“Hey,” he said. “You were never a dumb or silly dog.”

She peered up at him, a shimmer of tears in her dark eyes. “I sure acted like one.”

“Maybe,” Max said. “But there’s nothing we can do about it now, right? We can’t go back and change it.”

“No, it’s probably not possible to go backward in time,” Gizmo said, nodding in agreement.

Max lay down next to Gizmo. “I think these thoughts are called regret. I remember all the friends we lost, like Madame and Boss, because I didn’t know how to save them.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Gizmo whispered.

“Well,” Max said, “we can learn from our mistakes. And we can imagine different things.”

Gizmo’s tail wagged slowly. “Like what will happen once we find Madame’s pack leader and her big hat! I wonder if she’ll let me wear it.”

Max chuckled. “Exactly! But that hat is so big, it would wear you.”

Max imagined a big straw hat with a wide brim and a pink bow plopping down on Gizmo. And Gizmo running around, making it look as if the hat had sprouted legs.

Gizmo must have imagined the same thing, because both dogs burst into loud, snorting laughter.

Nearby, Rocky grumbled in his sleep. Max and Gizmo put their paws over their snouts to quiet themselves.

“Thanks, Max,” Gizmo said. “You really cheered me up.”

“I’m glad,” Max said. “I’m still learning, too. Being smart is new for all of us.”

Gizmo’s small mouth opened wide in a yawn. “Good night, Max,” she whispered as she curled into the plush beds.

“Good night,” Max whispered back. And though worry and regret still threatened to keep Max awake, he made himself imagine a future where he and Gizmo and Rocky were surrounded by their families, and soon he drifted off to sleep.