Anthology

Beware of Dog

         "Come on, stop being a pussy and lets do this."
         "I don't know man. You see the sign, there's a goddamned dog in there. And any sign that says "Beware" means it's not just a tiny little poodle. I don't want to get hurt for some stupid high school prank."
         "Have you ever, in all your life seen or heard a dog in this yard? Ever seen that old man who lives her with a giant German Shepherd dragging his old ass around on a leash? No, because there is no dog. This old fuck may have had a dog at one point in his life, but there is most certainly no dog in this yard today, we can see that."
         The boy looked over the chain link fence separating the driveway from the back yard. There was green grass on the other side, no sign of toys or shit or holes in the ground that would give evidence to a dog living there. But the sign remained, plain as day in front of him, "BEWARE OF DOG" in big, red letters embossed into a white metal plaque, about the size of a license plate.
         "I'm going," said the other boy, grabbing the top of the fence and hoisting himself up. "You stay on this side of the fence and I'll go and get the fucking statue. Don't worry, I'll make sure to tell everyone how chickenshit you were to come with me."
         "Ted, wait!" The other boy jumped up on the fence and pushed his legs over. He landed a little awkward and felt the pain shoot up the back of his legs when his heels hit the ground hard. "I'm coming. You don't have to be suck a goddamned asshole about everything."
         The boys walked over the grass and stopped when they reached the corner of the garage. Ted peeked around slowly, looking for any sign of movement ahead.
         "Would you mind telling me," said Ted, turning to Mark, the other boy. "Where the fuck is the back of the house?"
         Mark looked at him strangely and peeked around the corner. He gasped when he saw what Ted was talking about. Instead of seeing the back of a normal suburban home, Mark was staring at a massive hedge maze where the back door should be. The perfectly ct and formed bushes went on for what seemed to be miles, which was strange because the house the boys were at, the one with the chain link fence and the red mailbox at the street, sat on the corner of Miller and Adolphia Crossing.
         Mark turned around. He looked back to where they had just came from. "This doesn't make sense," Mark said. "How can there be this massive structure in the back of this house, if from the front, the house is only fifty feet away from the street?"
         Ted shook his head. It's gotta be some sort of illusion or something. You've seen that shit online. People plan something so that when looked at from one direction it appears to be something it isn't. This old man had someone set this up so that his yard looked like it went on forever. Come on, let's go see what they did."
         Mark followed Ted around the corner and up the backside of the three story house. As they approached the bushes, what Ted had guessed as the reasoning behind this anomaly was proven false due to the boys being stopped by the ten foot high shrub which stood before them.
         Ted turned and followed the bush, watching out of the corner of his eye for an opening. After about thirty feet, the boys came to another hedge before them, which made them turn to the left and enter the maze. They followed the path down to reach the corner and Mark stopped. He turned around and looked back at the yard they had just came from.
         "I don't know about this, man. Is it really worth all this?"
         "If we want to prove to everyone how awesome we are, we'll do this. No one has ever come into this old man's yard before. We get back there, we grab something and we get the hell out, then we can show everyone that we are the coolest kids in school."
         "If no one has ever been back here, how will they know what we took is from this yard? We could just go to the garden store and buy a lawn gnome, push it around in the dirty for awhile, then show that to everyone, right?"
         "You are such a pussy."
         Ted turned the corner and walked farther into the hedge maze. Mark sighed and took off after him.

         Fifteen minutes later, after rounding countless corners and walking for hundreds of yards, the boys came to a testing situation. They entered an open area with a round hedge in the middle of it. There were four doors around the perimeter of the open area and a large wooden map between their position and the round hedge.
         Ted ran to the map and Mark followed, looking between each of the other three openings in the bush. Ted tapped on the map as Mark walked up beside him.
         "It says "You are here". Ted pointed to the small open area on the map. On the other side was a square marked, "Home". Between the two points was another open area, slightly off center. In the open area was a drawing of something that looked like a dog.
         Mark stared at the dog in terror as Ted navigated a way through the maze using the map. After a few minutes he found a path that would lead to the house while avoiding the area with dog. Mark still looked at the crude drawing of the dog as Ted grabbed his shoulder, shook him and pointed towards the opening to their left.
         "Come on, it's this way."
         "What? Are you joking? We're at the beginning of some massive hedge maze that in all honesty shouldn't exist and you actually want to go on just to find some stupid trinket, and think that magically people will think you're cool and all the girl will want to have sex with you because you went into the old man's back yard? You're crazy. There's a drawing of a dog on the fucking map. Just like the sign said. Maybe that's why no one has ever seen or heard a dog back here, because it isn't in our plane of existence. This place shouldn't be here. And neither should we."
         "Fuck you. The path I found will take us directly to the house with no chance of running into that dog. Come on, we'll be out of here before we know it."
         "No! How do you even know that map is right? Because it's in the maze, it must be an accurate portrayal of what is actually ahead? Also, it took us fifteen minutes to get from the back yard, represented here, to this clearing on the map, right? So, that's roughly two inches worth of the map. From our clearing to the house is over two feet! That means it will take us...hmmmm....lets see...." he said, thinking. "It will take us three hours of nonstop walking to get from here to the house! Three hours! Not including then walking all the way back and back home. We should be done with this little trek of yours sometime around midnight then, right?"
         "Look, I'm going. I don't care what you want to do. Go ahead and walk back out climb over that fence and go the fuck home to your room and play video games all goddamned night. I'm not doing it. I'm going to walk to the end of whatever the fuck this is and see what's there. I want to have some real fun and not just be a whinny little loser for the rest of my fucking life." That being said, Ted turned and walked into the opening to the left of the map. Mark watched as Ted turned right and was out of his sight. He turned and walked towards the entrance to the open area and when he was about half way there, he stopped.
         Mark sighed and turned back towards the opening to the left of the map and walked towards it. He turned the corner to the right just in time to see Ted make a right turn at the end of the first path.
         "Wait up! I'm coming with you."
         "I'm not stopping for you again, Mark! I'm going to keep walking and if you catch up to me, fine."
Mark turned the corner again just in time to see Ted make a turn, this time to the left. By the time Mark was at that corner, Ted was only twenty feet in front of him.
         Mark saw Ted stop and look to his left.
         "I'm right behind you. Keep moving, let's get this over with."
         The bush next to Ted suddenly shook and a giant, white arm, with long claws shot out of the branches. It wrapped around Ted's midsections and pulled him towards the hedge. Mark ran as quickly as possible and arrive just in time to see Ted, bent in half at the waist get pulled through the thick brush and out of sight.
         Mark pushed his hand into the bush and hit branches. The bush was much thicker than his arm could go comfortably. As Mark tried to figure out where exactly Ted had gone through the bush to follow the path, he saw something move between the leaves on the other side of the hedge. Mark jumped back and saw the lower half of Ted's torso fly over the bush and land next to him. Blood splashed out onto the ground and Mark saw the giant lacerations caused by the thing he watched pull Ted through.
         Mark turned and ran to the corner of the path, making a right turn and sprinted down to the next hall, making a left. He heard something behind him as he turned the final corner to reach the main clearing they had been in only minutes before. Mark stumbled and fell forward, tumbling into a heap next to the map. He turned and saw the beast as it rounded the corner badly, tearing a large chunk of the hedge from the ground, spraying loose soil and clumps of earth in all directions.
         It was a giant white animal, beast, something. Mark stared at it in disbelief. It looked a little like a lion, but it was the size of an elephant. It's face was flat like a man's but it' mouth and nose were that of a skull. The teeth were razor sharp, and there were thousands, grinding together. It moved on four legs, but it's front paws were more human, like the one Mark had seen grab Ted through the bush, whereas it's back feet were more like those of a cat or a dog.
         Mark stood and tried to run. He took off towards the entrance to the opening and turned to his left, trying to get back to the yard. Two more corners and he would be home free.
         On the last corner of the maze Mark's shirt snagged on a loose branch sticking from one of the hedges. It took him a second, but he tore free of the hooked twig and dove for the yard outside of the hedge maze, right as the giant creature smashed the entrance away. Mark stared up at the beast as it looked at him through yellow eyes. Mark push himself back, scooting across the ground. The beast didn't move towards him, but it watched him as he moved slowly towards the chain link fence.
         When he reached the fence, Mark stood, not taking his eyes off the creature. He swung one leg over the fence, then the other, knocking one of the links out holding the "Beware of Dog" sign. Mark scoffed as he watched it swing, the creature still behind it, a back drop of terror to an innocuous warning.
         When Mark stepped out from behind the house into the front yard, the old man was sitting on his porch having a cigarette.
         "What is that thing?" Mark asked. "It doesn't look like any dog I've ever seen!" He was practically screaming at the old man. His friend dead somewhere in that hedge maze.
         The old man took a puff off his cigarette, and as he exhaled, the smoke bellowing out of his nose and mouth, he said, "They don't sell 'Beware of Monster' signs."
         Mark turned and walked down the driveway, passing the paper man for the evening edition pulling into the driveway. The man in the blue windbreaker waved, Mark didn't look up, his eyes fixed on his scuffed and worn tennis shoes.
         Mark turned towards Adolphia Crossing, walking the sidewalk with purpose. He stopped at the corner and looked to his right, seeing the cars parked on the quiet street, the trees rustling in the evening breeze. He sighed and walked back past the old man's house and up to his own, thinking about which video game Ted would have liked to play that evening.