The Speed of Souls Read online

  The Speed of Souls

  Nick Pirog

  Copyright © 2018 by Nick Pirog

  All rights reserved.

  www.nickthriller.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  “LOSS”

  Cassie

  Life is fleeting.

  Take the tadpole for example. Well, not one, but the many swimming in the small blue pool in the backyard. Amidst the layer of pollen on top (which keeps making me sneeze) and the dirt residing at the bottom (from my paws, I’m a digger) are hundreds of little tadpoles. They are at different stages. Some resemble nothing more than little floating worms, others have a bit more heft to them, corkscrewing their way through the water.

  I know from previous summers that only a few tadpoles, the Chosen, will survive the long journey to Frogdom.

  On the edge of the pool, a tiny frog sits quietly. He is green and shiny. I wonder if he’s one of the tadpoles from last year.

  I lean down until my nose is nearly touching him. I give him a sniff. He smells froggy. Startled by my apparent intrusion, the frog leaps off the rim of the plastic pool and jumps into the grass. The grass is long; it’s been weeks since the men with the noisy machines have come. I sniff the frog out, sending him (all frogs are hims to me for some reason) jumping. We play this game for a long minute until he finds his way to the sanctuary of the wild mint that grows near the deck.

  I bark twice.

  Come back.

  I want to play.

  After a long minute, I return to the small pool and again find myself lost in the dance of the tadpoles. So much life. Enjoy it while it lasts, I want to tell them. You never know when your time will come. You never know when a dog—who is just trying to be friendly and wants to play—will accidentally, without malice, trample you to death.

  Sorry, Greenie.

  I do a lap of the yard, try to do some digging (but my heart’s not in it), then head inside. My food bowl is in the kitchen. It’s empty. It should have been full hours ago. Just a light film of water is left in my silver water bowl. I lie down next to it, licking up the last dredges.

  I walk into the bedroom. Jerry is on his stomach, one arm draped over the side of the bed. All he’s been doing for the past two months, since it happened, is sleeping. I lift my front paw and scratch the bed near his head.

  Once, twice, three times.

  Finally, he stirs, opening one eye. Jerry’s eyes are blue. I remember the first time I saw them. It was the day he rescued me.

  ~

  The Shelter wasn’t all bad; in fact, compared to First Home and the Street, it was cushy living. No one screamed at you and hit you with a newspaper. No one made you wear a choke chain. You didn’t have to dig through trash for food. Your water was always clean. I didn’t know life got any better. I thought the Shelter was the jackpot. Then I saw those blue eyes.

  He leaned down next to my cage. His knee hit the cage, making a loud rattle, and I hunkered in the corner.

  “I’m sorry, girl,” he said softly. As far as humans went, he was nothing special. But his eyes; I was mesmerized by his blue eyes. They sparkled with kindness. He slinked a few of his fingers through the cage and said, “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

  I was still hesitant. First Home said, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” a lot. But it was never okay.

  “What’s her name?” the man asked a woman who filled my food bowl earlier.

  “Cassie.”

  “Is she a golden retriever?”

  “Border Collie, Golden Retriever mix. See those white markings on her face and feet? That’s all collie.

  “How old is she?”

  “We think she’s around four.”

  The man turned his attention back to me and said, “Hi, Cassie.” His eyes crinkled and he added, “I just want to say, hi. That’s all. I just want to say, hi.”

  Well, I can say hi, I remember thinking. And what could he do to me through the cage?

  I slowly unfurled and took a half-step.

  “Thatta girl,” he said. “Come on, just a little closer.”

  I took two more half-steps.

  The man wiggled his fingers through the cage. I leaned forward and gave a few light sniffs. His fingers smelled like pickles. I took another step forward until his fingers gently brushed the fur above my nose.

  “Do you want to come home with me, girl?” he asked.

  I did.

  So badly.

  I gave his fingers a lick and did a twirl.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, his blue eyes beginning to water.

  ~

  Now six years later, Jerry’s second eye opens. Just as quickly, it closes.

  I bark.

  “Go back to bed,” Jerry mumbles, turning over on his back and scratching at the patchy brown fur on his face.

  No.

  I will not let you sleep your life away.

  And I’m hungry!

  I jump on the bed, stick my nose in his ear, and lick his face.

  “Cassie! C’mon!”

  Get up! Get up! Get up!

  “Just let me sleep a little longer,” he says.

  I hop off the bed and go grab my water bowl. I jump on the bed and drop the bowl on Jerry’s chest.

  “What the he—”

  His eyes open, then close. “Ten minutes!”

  I bite the blanket by his feet.

  “Ouch! Cassie! Stop!”

  I bite again and again.

  “Fine, I’m up!”

  With eyes half open, Jerry fills my water bowl, then he goes to the storage closet and fills a big cup with food and dumps it in my bowl. He goes back to the storage closet and I hear him refilling the cup.

  Not again.

  He comes out of the closet, takes two steps in my direction, then his half-open eyes spring open.

  There is only one bowl to fill.

  Not two.

  Like I said.

  Life is fleeting.

  Jerry

  This is the third time I’ve done this in the last two months. It had become such a routine, so autonomous to fill up two bowls with kibble.

  It takes me a few breaths to compose, another breath to will the moisture back into my tear ducts, then I head back to the storage closet and dump the kibble and the large measuring cup into the plastic dog food container.

  Cassie is lying next to her dog bowl. I’m not sure if it’s my current state, or simply the morning rays shining through the window highlighting her golden and white coat, but I’m once again struck by her beauty. Her ears curl forward, resting near her large amber eyes.

  I get down on my haunches and say, “I’m sorry, girl.”

  It’s an all-encompassing sorry. I’m sorry I haven’t walked you lately, played with you, that I haven’t taken you to the lake in two months, that I let your water bowl get empty, that I didn’t feed you on time, that I keep forgetting there is only one of you now.

  She gives my hand a couple of soft licks.

  “I’ll try
to do better,” I tell her.

  I open the refrigerator and pop open a clamshell of blueberries. They are Cassie’s favorite. Hugo was all cheese and bacon, but not Cassie. She likes carrots, apples, and especially blueberries. I imagine if she were human, she would have been one of those yogis.

  I hand-feed her a few berries, watching her savor each one as though it is an immeasurable delicacy. That was another difference between her and Hugo. Hugo would devour his food, or treat, with force, with animosity, how dare you not have been eaten already. But Cassie was a nibbler, a savorer. One bite of kibble at a time, chew, chew, chew, swallow. Then gingerly pick up another.

  I hold out a blueberry and tell her to sit.

  She does.

  We go through the rest of the routine.

  Lie down.

  Shake.

  Twirl.

  Play dead.

  But she won’t.

  Not since it happened.

  My heart would rip in half, but there’s nothing left to tear. Like when you rip a piece of paper in half, then rip those pieces in half. It’s easy the first couple times, but when you get to the fifth or sixth rip, the pieces are so small, the callus of paper so thick, it becomes nearly impossible.

  I let out a sigh, give Cassie a head rub, then find my way to my desk and laptop. I flip it open and check my email. I have a backlog of emails, mostly from fans, plus an email from my agent, Chuck. I open his email. It’s two words: Call me!!!

  I find my phone, turn it on, and see I have twenty-five missed text messages. All but a handful are from Chuck. They date back nearly eight weeks. The others are from my mom or Alex. I disregard the texts from Alex—I’m sure they’re just pictures of girls from whatever dating app he’s currently using—then skim over my mother’s texts. Mostly it’s her asking if I’m okay. Her last text is from a few days earlier, informing me that they will be here mid-June and are staying for most of the summer.

  Here is South Lake Tahoe.

  I’ve been living in my parents’ vacation home for the past three years. I don’t want them living with me for the summer, but my piddly royalty checks hardly cover my monthly living expenses, and my parents have been letting me live rent-free for the past six months. I would just have to put up with them. Not that they’re bad, in fact, they’re great, but no thirty-five-year-old man should be forced to cohabitate with his parents for three months. But on the bright side, it will be good for Cassie. Two more people to lather her in love. And maybe take her for a walk.

  I skim through Chuck’s text thread, which is redundant and can be summed up by “Where is the book?”

  I hit the call button and the phone rings.

  Chuck picks up on the second ring. “Jerry!”

  “Hey, Chuck.”

  “Long time.”

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  “How you doing?”

  I take a deep breath. “Better.”

  “I went through it with my cat a few years back. It’s tough.”

  I want to say, “Your cat was fifteen, Chuck, and she couldn’t hear and she could barely see. She had a long, full life. Hugo didn’t reach his third birthday. He had an entire life ahead of him.” I don’t. That cat could have been Chuck’s whole life for all I know. Though with a wife and three kids, I doubt it. Still, if I’d learned anything in the past couple months, it was not to judge someone’s capacity for love. Or their grieving process.

  “Yeah, it is,” I say.

  There’s a small pause, then Chuck says, “So, the book?”

  “Yeah, the book.”

  “How’s it progressing?”

  I tilt my head back and gaze at the skylight set in the stained wood high above. “It’s going great. I’ve really thrown myself into it. Helps keep my mind off things.”

  It’s a lie. I haven’t written a word since Hugo died.

  “Really? That’s great to hear. Can you send me what you got? Alison has been hounding me for a draft.”

  Alison is my editor at HarperCollins. They signed me to a five-book deal after Pluto Three climbed to #6 on the New York Times bestseller list.

  “You know how I am with drafts,” I say.

  I don’t like letting people read first drafts. First drafts notoriously suck—at least mine do—and the story is still fluid. There’s nothing worse than hearing a bunch of opinions, good or bad, while the story still has an active heartbeat.

  “I know,” Chuck says, “it’s just, they’re a little worried over there.”

  Tell me something I don’t know.

  Pluto Immersion, my follow-up to Pluto Three, had been, in a word, a flop. It made the publishing house money, but it was widely considered a miscarriage of words. A rush project for the money that didn’t deliver. It currently carried a 2.7 customer review rating on Amazon. And my follow-up, follow-up, Pluto Destiny was so bad HarperCollins almost decided not to publish. And in hindsight, they shouldn’t have. They did a 150,000 copy first run and only sold 40,000. It had a 1.9 rating on Amazon and the last review I read, maybe three months back, simply said, “I hate Jerry Ryman for having made me read this crap.”

  I feel a lick on my ankle and glance under my desk. Cassie is curled near my feet. I smile at her, then turn my attention back to the call. “Give me three months,” I say.

  “Three months?”

  I know this is a stretch. I’m already four months past my deadline. “Yeah, three months. It will be worth it.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, but they’re not gonna be happy.”

  There isn’t much they can do. They already paid me the advance.

  “Tell them I said that I promise it will sell more copies than Pluto Three.”

  Chuck must be stunned because he doesn’t say anything for a long second. I’ve never said anything like this before. In fact, I hardly ever brought up Pluto Three.

  “Wow, well, then, shit, okay,” he stammers.

  I laugh.

  “Okay then, I’m stoked buddy,” he says. “I guess I’ll leave you to it.”

  We hang up.

  I look down at Cassie and shake my head. “Why did I say that? Better than Pluto Three? What was I thinking?”

  She glances up with her amber eyes and pants. She doesn’t know either.

  I click on Google Drive and open the folder for my new book. It’s called Citizen Three. I’d nearly driven the Pluto series into the ground with the second and third installments, but I thought a prequel would appeal to an audience.

  I click open the manuscript document and scroll down. I have twelve chapters written, which is half done. Could I whip out the second half in three months?

  Sure, I could.

  Summer season in South Lake Tahoe was getting ready to explode. There would be fifty thousand new tourists each weekend from the end of June until the beginning of September. While all those people were splashing around in the lake, gambling at the casinos, and altogether having a great time, I would be hunkered over my laptop at Starbucks, guzzling Passion Tango iced tea by the gallon.

  And if I threw myself back into the book—like I told Chuck I had—it would take my mind off Hugo. Maybe give me a reprieve from the hundreds of small things that reminded me of him. The tile floor in the bathroom where he would sprawl out when it was hot. The big Nylabone that he would drop in my lap and want me to hold while he chewed on it. The broken molding on the bedroom door frame he smashed into when chasing after Cassie. Yelling at him to get his enormous head out of the toilet when there was perfectly good water in his bowl.

  I type the words: Chapter 13.

  I stare at them for a long minute. Then another. I open a new tab and go on Facebook. I shouldn’t do what I’m about to do, but I can’t stop. I click on Photos and scroll to a picture of Hugo.

  He’s coming out of the lake. He has two balls in his mouth. His orange tennis ball and another ball—a regular yellow tennis ball—that a different dog was playing with. The o
ther dog, a petite black lab, is behind Hugo, staring at him, uncomprehending: why did you take my ball?

  But there is little the lab can do.

  Hugo is, well, huge. Even by Bernese Mountain Dog standards. Most Bernese top out at one hundred pounds. Hugo went to the vet a few weeks before the photo was taken. He was one hundred and eight pounds.

  Cassie was the one to pick him out.

  ~

  Cassie and I had recently relocated to South Lake Tahoe after living in downtown San Francisco for the previous four years. Pluto Immersion had come out three months earlier and was in the process of flopping. I was hard at work on Pluto Destiny, not to mention nursing a broken heart after a girl I was engaged to left me for another guy. Cassie had a bunch of dog friends where we lived in San Francisco, but at our commiserative refuge in Tahoe, there was nobody to play with.

  After a few lonely months, I decided Cassie needed a playmate. Two hours later, we were at a breeder on the outskirts of Sacramento called Bernese Mountain Bliss.

  The owner, Bonnie, a woman in her early fifties who had been breeding Bernese Mountain Dogs for going on twenty years, led Cassie and me around to the back of the property where four adult Bernese and a litter of twelve puppies roamed the freshly cut three acres. Immediately, Cassie and I were under attack by a vicious pack of black, tan, and white, balls of fluff. They were small, no more than fifteen pounds, but they had these amazingly massive paws, like little kids running around with boxing gloves on.

  The nine-week-old puppies each wore a different colored piece of yarn around their necks to distinguish them. There was one puppy who I was immediately drawn to: Green.

  Green quickly took a liking to my shoes and within a short minute, he’d untied both my shoelaces and pulled my left shoe off my foot. He was so rambunctious. I was already in love with him.

  But Cassie had other ideas.

  She was rolling around in the grass a few feet from me, four or five of the puppies pouncing on her, nibbling at her ears, and sniffing every inch of her. While I was busy playing with Green, Cassie picked up one of the puppies by the scruff of its neck and literally dropped the puppy in my lap.