I’m Lily Madwhip and I’m Being Followed By a Big, Black Dog

I’m Lily Madwhip and I’m being followed by a big, black dog.
“Hey, do you know whose dog that is?†I ask Jamal. We’re sitting on the bus and I’m looking out the window at the big, black dog that has been following me since I left the house ten minutes ago. It’s long and thin, with short fur and a pointy nose. Judging from how it looks I bet it’s hungry. I spotted it first parked on its butt in the Tennison’s front yard staring at me and I thought it was doing its doggy business. I’m not a fan of watching animals do their business, so I looked away, but as I rounded the corner onto Smiley Ave, I looked back and it was still there, just watching me walk away.
“What dog?†Jamal asks.
“The big, black dog.†It’s peeking out from behind the old, dead tree by Mr. Lawrence’s house. Lightning struck the tree four years ago and split it down the middle. Mr. Lawrence had the two halves propped up and tried to hold them together by nailing boards up it like stitches. I think he thought since the boards were made of wood and the tree was made of wood, it would reabsorb the boards or something. It didn’t. Half the tree was dead and it’s all rotten and dried up now. The other half is fine though, so it looks like a weird tree with boards leading up to the branches, half of which have no leaves. Like a ladder to the lamest treehouse.
“What big, black dog?†Jamal looks out the window with curiosity, but he seems to look everywhere but where the dog is.
I point at the dog peeking out from behind the weird tree. “The big, black dog peeking out from behind Mr. Lawrence’s weird tree.â€
Jamal keeps looking in the wrong places. He pauses. “Wait, who’s Mr. Lawrence?â€
I give up. “Alright, well this has been fun, thanks.â€
The bus drives off and the dog watches us go. I watch the dog watch us go. It’s a watching party.
Sixth grade has been hard to deal with. Particularly the “no toys allowed†rule, which means I have to leave Paschar at home every day. I can’t even try to smuggle him into school in my backpack. I still see things before they happen from time to time, but without Paschar, I don’t always know what’s going on. I have to be on my guard all day until I get home. It’s nerve wracking.
“You seem tense,†Simone tells me. Simone is one of my best friends. She’s got orange hair but people call it red or ginger. I don’t know why they don’t just call it orange. I guess that sounds too much like the color a clown’s hair would be or something. We sit in the back of the class during social studies because Mr. Hasan doesn’t assign seating like the other teachers do. I like Mr. Hasan. He always wears a bow tie. Most days it’s red, but some days he likes to throw everybody for a loop and wear a black one. Once he wore a green one and I swear Hayden Brickowski nearly had an aneurysm.
“I saw a dog at the bus stop.â€
“Do you not like dogs?â€
“I don’t think anybody else could see this one.†At least, Jamal couldn’t. Then again, maybe he was looking from the wrong angle. Of course, this all wouldn’t bother me if it didn’t mean something. I’ve learned to trust my instincts when they tell me something’s not right.
Simone covers her mouth in mock surprise. “Maybe it was a ghost dog!â€
“You know... you joke, but you have no idea what I have to deal with sometimes.â€
Actually, she does. I told Simone all about fixing things for the angels, my dad getting kidnapped by a magician with a grudge, meeting the angel of death, and all the awful stuff last year regarding Meredith and Felix and Officer Flowers. She listened to it all and never asked for any proof. She just took me at my word. But sometimes I think she thinks I imagined some of it, or maybe she thinks I’m a bit of a loon.
There’s no recess in sixth grade, but we have gym outside on the soccer field. That’s where I see the big, black dog again. I’m holding Simone’s feet as she tries to do a sit up. How can you not do one full sit up, Simone? I don’t ask her, I just pretend that each halfway sit up counts and she thinks she’s done ten. The big, black dog walks out from around the side of the school where they keep the dumpsters. I wonder if it’s a stray and happens to be wandering through town. Maybe this is a completely different dog. What are you saying, of course it’s not a completely different dog, Lily.
“Hey,†I say to Simone as she flops back down onto the grass, “there’s that big, black dog.â€
She turns to look. “The ghost dog?â€
“Yes, the ghost dog.†Maybe I’ll just call the dog Ghost from now on. That’s certainly a good name for it. It kind of looks like Officer Flowers’ ghost, all black and charred, only it’s not charred it’s just furry.
Simone sits up on her elbows and nods. “Yeah, I see it.â€
I feel a sense of relief. “Really?â€
“No.â€
Okay wait, I hate it when she does this. “Are you kidding that you see it or that you don’t see it?â€
“I don’t see it,†Simone says. She looks at me apologetically. “Sorry.â€
Crud.
The rest of gym class, the dog and I have a staring contest. After exercises, we practice dribbling soccer balls and passing. Eventually, Mr. Betty our gym teacher blows the whistle to have us go in and change. I take one last glance over at the big, black dog and there’s someone kneeling beside it, petting it gently. It seems happy to be petted. I can’t really make out who the person is petting it, as they’re all hunched over and wearing some sort of hoodie. My first thought goes to Officer Flowers once again, but I haven’t seen her in almost a year, and I’d like to think she’s moved on, not haunting me with some weird ghost dog.
Today we have art class with Mrs. Zimmerman. I love art class. Last month I brought in one of my still lifes I did at home and Mrs. Zimmerman said I have a good eye for details. Today we’re using pastels to make a zoology collage to hang in the hallway. I’ve been working on this herd of giraffes since last week. I want to put a crown on the king of giraffes but that would be “unprofessional†as my mom always says.
Mrs. Zimmerman comes by to check our progress. She leans over and looks at Todd Gambil’s drawing of piranhas and nods but doesn’t say anything. That’s her way of politely avoiding a conversation with the principal and Todd’s parents about why she made their son cry. I saw Todd’s piranhas earlier and they look like a bowl of Fruit Loops.
“Very good giraffes, Lily,†she says. She hovers over me so close I can smell her perfume. She wears a lot of perfume, but nobody says anything. Todd Gambil is laying on his drawing of piranhas and I can’t tell if he’s trying to get in close for the real fine details or Mrs. Zimmerman’s perfume knocked him flat out.
“Is that a panther in the background?†Mrs. Zimmerman asks.
“What?†I look at my drawing. I don’t see a panther, I see one, two, three, four, five giraffes. Uh... I had drawn six. Oh there it is, laying on its side back by the treeline. Wait, did someone change my drawing? No, I literally was just working on it and the sixth giraffe was drinking out of the pond. Why is it all covered in red pastel? Oh my God-- my giraffe drawing has been murdered. Near the giraffe’s corpse sits a big, black-- oh it’s the dog. Of course it’s the dog.
“The big, black dog is in my drawing,†I say without thinking.
Mrs. Zimmerman leans back, “That’s a tad macabre but very realistically rendered, Lily.â€
Did I draw the dog without thinking? But the giraffe... how did that change? I run my thumb over the paper to confirm its just a drawing, and I smudge the king of giraffe’s neck, making it look all zig-zaggy. Crud. Mrs. Zimmerman makes a “hmm†sound and wanders off to the next table. I lean in close and stare at the dog on my drawing.
“You better stop killing my giraffes,†I whisper at it. To emphasize my point, I jab the dog drawing with the end of my orange pastel. It doesn’t yelp or run away because it’s just a drawing and the idea that it might is of course utterly ridiculous. I take some green and try to cover the dog with it, but I can still see its dark shape underneath and now it truly looks like a ghost dog.
After school, we pile into the bus home. There’s a lot more kids on the bus home from middle school than there was from elementary school. If you don’t get on early, you gotta hope you find a seat next to someone decent. The big kids from eighth grade claim the back every day, and dispense wedgies or overturn your entire backpack if you try to move in on their territory. Jeffrey Baker learned that the hard way on our first day. I’d never seen anyone pick on Jeffrey Baker before, so it was really satisfying to watch him waddle back toward the front trying not to cry while at the same time not let his underwear ride up any further.
I like to sit by one of the front wheels. When the bus hits a bump in the road, kids by the wheels get launched the highest. It’s kind of like jumping on a trampoline, only you’re sitting on your butt the entire time. And there are a lot of bumps in the road around here.
It’s while I’m sitting there in the seat by the wheel, looking out the window that I see an odd reflection in the building we’re passing. The building’s side is made entirely of windows, and in them I see the bus I’m in, only there’s faces of other people looking back. We’re going by kind of fast, and the glass of the windows warps the reflection, but I can definitely see the faces. They all appear to be adults with sickly gray skin and sunken eyes and they are all looking directly back at me like some sort of ghost tour bus visiting the land of the living. I glance around but nobody else is even looking out the window who might also see this, they’re all talking to each other or the kids in the seat behind them. Well, okay, there’s one girl who’s looking out her window, but she’s on the other side of the bus, so that doesn’t count. I look back out, but the building is passed and there’s cars and a side street we’re going by.
Something inside me says, Get off the bus. I’ve learned to listen when something inside me speaks. I excuse myself past Hanna Glass who had sat next to me earlier with a clear face of disappointment that there wasn’t another seat available. She gladly moves to let me out so I can creep up the aisle to the front of the bus. We’re not supposed to stand up while the bus is in motion, but Ed our driver never pays attention to what’s going on in the back unless people start getting too loud. Of course, even as I think that, I see him look up and stare at me just as I get to one of the half empty seats right behind him.
“Sit down, Lily.†he says sternly.
I sit behind him and lean around the chair. “Ed, I need to get off the bus.â€
“You shouldn’t be calling me Ed, Lily. Sit back.â€
“Mr. Ed, I need to get off the bus, please.â€
Ed narrows his eyes at me. I like to think he knows me well enough to know when I’m serious, because that’s all the time. I can see he’s going through the typical adult list of questions, number one being, “Is she goofing?†His expression hardens.
“Just sit back, Lily,†he says, “I can’t let you off before your stop. You’ll be home soon.â€
“Please!â€
He gives me one more uncertain look. “Sit back.â€
I sigh. “Fine.â€
I think about going back to my seat by the wheel, but Hanna Glass has already convinced someone else to take my spot. We exchange looks for a moment when I glance back, and then she goes back to talking to her friend. That’s fine, I’ll just sit here up front and be the first one off the bus if it catches fire.
We go several more minutes and a couple stops, dropping kids off. The seat over by the door clears, so I move to it because the boy I was sharing a seat with smells like he works at a pet store and doesn’t bathe. Maybe he does work at a pet store. Paschar would know. He’d know if the boy doesn’t bathe too, but that’s not really something I care about. Just the smell.
The bus drives past Holy Oaks Cemetery, where my brother Roger is buried. My parents got a plot for him by a willow tree. In fact, the only type of trees in the cemetery are willows. I wonder why they named it Holy Oaks instead of Holy Willows? I guess Holy Oaks rolls off the tongue better.
I hold my breath, as you are supposed to do when driving past a cemetery so you don’t inhale a person’s ghost. Several other kids who know the rule do the same. Some of the loud mouth eighth graders in the back start dramatically huffing and laughing, “Oh! Oh! I just sucked up someone’s spirit!†someone shouts.
A moment later, a big kid plops down in the seat next to me. He’s super tall, like maybe five foot ten, with long, dirty blond hair and the start of a mustache that looks like only every other hair grew out. There’s a gold loop in one of his ears, and he’s wearing torn jeans and a Pantera t-shirt. When he looks down at me his eyes are weird, kinda glossed over like someone whited them out.
“Lily,†he says. I wait, but that’s it.
“Yes.†I nod. “That’s me.†I try to act calm, but inside I’m praying he doesn’t twist my head off. I don’t even know who he is.
“It’s me, Roger.â€
I’m nervous and confused, but I manage to squeak out, “It’s nice to meet you. My brother’s name was Roger.â€
He frowns. “No, *******, I am Roger.â€
“Roger?†I look closer at him but beyond the dirty hair and the dirty clothes and the... dirt... he looks nothing like Roger. Then it hits me. “Oh my God, Roger, did you get sucked up by this kid?â€
Ed glances at us in the mirror with the same expression my mom gets when I start talking to my doll Paschar in the middle of one of her parties she hosts for work.
Roger shakes his head. Or rather, the kid with Roger in him shakes his head. Roger makes the kid he’s in shake his head. The kid’s head. Not Roger’s-- you know what I’m saying.
“I’ve got a message for you.â€
“Are you in purgatory?†I ask him. Paschar told me Roger was in Purgatory. That’s where you lie in your body until someone comes to get you.
“Not anymore,†he says, “I took a deal. Give you this message and I can finally get out of that hole.â€
The bus stops and a couple other big kids walk by us to get off. They look at me and the kid with Roger inside him with confused and disgusted faces. I can’t blame them. This is all confusing. And maybe a little disgusting.
“Where are you going to go?†I ask, “Heaven?â€
He smirks at me. Or rather he makes the kid smirk. “No way, squirt, they wouldn’t take me.â€
“Oh no, Roger,†I whisper so no one else can hear. Honestly, I should have been doing that from the start. “You’re not going to H-E-double hockey sticks, are you?â€
“For ****’s sake, Lily, you can say ‘HELL’.â€
“Are you going to Hell?â€
Roger... the kid.. Look, I’m just going to call the kid Roger and you’ll know what I’m saying. Roger leans back and puts his hands behind his head like he’s relaxing on a beach instead of sitting in a cramped bus, or rather sitting in the body of some greasy thirteen year old on a cramped bus. “Nope, I’m joining a whole new pantheon.†He looks over at me. “You know what a pantheon is?â€
“A marathon of pants?â€
Roger sighs and closes his eyes. “No, *******, it’s like a different religion.â€
“Ohhh...†I look out the window at people on the street for a moment before turning back to him. “Are you Jewish now?â€
“No.â€
“Buddhist?â€
He sits up and waves his hands. “No, look, I don’t have time for this. I’ve got to give you this message before my stop. Before this kid’s stop. You know what I mean.â€
“Okay.â€
He leans toward me and I can smell the flavor of the gum the kid must have been chewing on his breath. It was orange gum, in case you were wondering. I bet he swallowed it when he was huffing in Roger back at the cemetery. That’s not good for you. “Don’t swallow gum,†my mom always says, “it sits in your stomach for years.â€
“Two things, squirt. One: she’s coming, and two: be careful.â€
We stare at each other for a moment.
“That’s really vague,†I tell him.
He grins. “I know, right? And now I get to go join this new pantheon and be done with all this Christianity bull****. Can you believe they were going to leave me rotting in the ground until the end of time?â€
“I love you, Roger.â€
“Yeah, okay.â€
I look past Roger just in time to see Ed the bus driver make a face in the mirror like he just saw a two-headed racoon scooting across road. The smelly kid in the opposite seat is sitting there staring at me and Roger with his mouth hanging open and the same expression as Ed. Well, there goes what little reputation I had.
Roger spasms suddenly and coughs twice right in my face, then blinks several times. When he’s done, his eyes aren’t all whited out anymore, and he immediately reels back like I’m the one that just covered his face with spit instead of vice versa. So gross.
“What the Hell?†he snarls. “What are you doing back here?â€
He looks around and seems to realize that it was he who was in the wrong place, not me. “****, I must have hyperventilated or something.†and with that he gets up and walks back to where he came from at the back of the bus, followed moments later by more cussing when he realizes the stop we just made that he walked to the back during was his own.
When the bus finally gets to my neighborhood, I hop off with the others from my street and who should be waiting for me but that big, black dog. It sits next to a row of hydrangea bushes and watches intently as we cross the street in front of the bus, just staring coldly at me. I think about approaching it, but you’re not supposed to approach strays, and as if it reads my mind the dog curls its lip back in a quiet snarl.
“Fair enough,†I say to it, “I was just told to be careful after all.â€
I walk home with the big, black dog keeping pace far behind me, close enough for me to know it’s there but far enough back to not feel threatening. Every now and then I look back and it stops and sits down and cocks its head at me. I am quickly becoming not a fan of dogs.
Once I get home, I go straight to Paschar and ask him about the dog and Roger. He tells me that what Roger said is true, that there are other religious pantheons. He even spells the word out so I can look it up, which is good because I thought you spelled it with an ‘i’. He says that while he is aware of other pantheons, he is limited only to what humanity knows of them. In other words, Gods and angels of different religions don’t usually mingle. Paschar says Roger is outside of their “jurisdiction†now, which I also looked up and that means they can’t judge him--?
“So does this mean all the big books of mythology I read are true?†I ask.
Probably not, Paschar says, not even everything you read in the Bible is true. It’s like a two thousand year game of telephone. Someone said something at the dawn of time, and it got told to someone else, and someone else, and each time slightly changed from the last until you get here and things are vastly different.
“But you would know, wouldn’t you?†I ask, “You were there when it first got said, right?â€
No.
“Oh,†I scratch my head. “Okay. So... do you know who ‘she’ is?â€
I have no idea, Paschar admits, I don’t know what pantheon Roger joined. Take his word for it though, and be careful.
“I’ll be careful. But I’m sure whatever happens, I’ll see it coming.†I force a smile and hug Paschar. He can’t hug me back because he’s just a doll.
The rest of the afternoon and evening goes by as it usually does: my dad lets me play drums in the garage on Roger’s old drum set for a while. Good thing Roger’s been stuck in his coffin all this time, because if he had ever found out I was using his drums, that conversation on the bus would have been a lot different I think. He probably would have really twisted my head off. Dad makes tuna noodle casserole for dinner, which is super gross. I eat it, but I don’t like it, and I have to drink some milk with every bite just to keep from gagging.
At bedtime, I feed Dr. Fishy and Dr. Brown. Dr. Fishy is a Siamese fighting fish. If you have more than one, they kill each other, so Dr. Brown is a little algae eater who floats along the bottom of the tank and sucks up stones and spits them out again. Siamese fighting fish don’t attack algae eaters, so the two doctors make a great team. I’ve had them for four months now and they’re still alive which is probably a record for me.
After I read for a bit from the book I’m doing a report on, Mom and Dad come in and kiss me goodnight and then turn out the lights. I don’t tell them that I talked to Roger. Once they’re gone, Paschar who lays next to me in bed starts reciting the lyrics to old hymns you can’t find in church anymore. His voice is always so calm and soothing that it helps me go right to sleep.
It’s after midnight when I wake up sweaty and confused. I was having that dream again about the summer my cousin Susan got run over by a boat and chopped up by the rudder. I never tell anyone about the dream because they’d just sign me back up for therapy. Paschar is still beside me in bed and he’s immediately aware that I’m awake, so he starts reciting hymns again quietly. But there’s something wrong in the room. The moon outside the window is making everything blue, and I can kind of see most of my stuff. In the corner by the closet door, there’s a shape that’s not supposed to be there, not very tall, maybe half the size of a person, unless it’s a hunched over person. Please don’t be a hunched over person. As if in response, I see them: two shiny eyes reflecting light from outside, staring at me. They’re not human eyes, they’re doggy eyes. Like the eyes of a big, black dog that should not be in my bedroom.
“Paschar, the dog is in my bedroom,†I whisper.
He stops reciting hymn lyrics. I can’t see it, Lily he says.
This isn’t good.
“Go away!†I hiss at the dog.
It responds by standing up. For a moment I think it’s going to pounce on me and tear my throat out, but instead the hinges of the closet door creak as it begins to open. I know I shut it tight because closets freak me out ever since I saw the movie Poltergeist. The door opens a crack and the dog walks slowly into it, disappearing into the darkness inside.
Something just opened the closet, Paschar says, Was that the dog?
“I don’t know.â€
Suddenly, the closet door swings wide open into the room. I frantically pull the covers up to my chin, waiting for the dog to come back out or something worse. Maybe a billion spiders. No no no, neon glowing robot made of spinning blades and shooting flames. Zombies... pet zombies.. Zombie versions of every pet that died in this house. That’s-- that’s horrifying. Why am I thinking about that? Stupid imagination. Maybe it’s clones of my mom and dad, with black holes for eyes and blood pouring out of their mouths. Stop! Stop thinking of things!
Paschar sounds suddenly scared too. Maybe it’s Samael, he says.
Oh... oh crud. Someone, something in the closet is getting into our heads. It’s flipping through the rolodex of our nightmares, and trying to pluck just the right one to introduce itself to us with.
Lily, Paschar says urgently, Clear your mind! Focus on one thing and keep it in your head!
I start thinking of a brick wall, just focusing on the brick wall. Bricks. Lots of bricks. How tall is this wall? This brick wall? How brick is this wall? So many bricks.
Paschar starts singing the hymns he was droning on earlier. He doesn’t stop, and when one ends he goes right on into the other. He actually so really nice. I guess you could say he has the voice of an angel.
Bricks, bricks, bricks.
The closet door slams shut angrily. A minute later, my father comes stomping and shouting down the hallway and barges into the room, flipping on the light. I sit up and rub my eyes.
“What’s going on in here?†he demands.
“I have no idea,†I admit. “I was asleep and then something loud woke me up. It sounded like a door slamming.â€
My dad eyes the closet door suspiciously. For a moment I see him in my mind, opening the door and the big, black dog leaping onto him and tearing him to pieces. No, stop that, brain. Don’t open the closet, Dad. Please, don’t open the closet.
He looks at me. “Go back to sleep.†Then he flips the lights off and leaves the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.
I do not sleep a wink the rest of the night.


Source.