The Dog Walker

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We might discover terrible monsters lurking there. Be careful, they could follow you out. Or maybe they're already inside you. Are you afraid? Good. Now you are ready to enter the warning woods. Max Nolan needed a Nintendo Switch. Ever since he'd played one at Victor Dodd's birthday party, he'd needed nothing more.

But he'd played it almost a month after Christmas, and his thirteenth birthday in July would come far too late. He thought six months of living without a switch wouldn't feel much like living at all. His parents refused to buy him one, but said if he could find a way to earn the money, he could buy the switch himself.

After a couple days of brainstorming, Max conceptualized a neighborhood dog walking service. His dad gave him a list with most of their neighbors' phone numbers, and he started cold calling those he knew owned dogs. The Nolans lived in an older neighborhood. Neighborhood with a majority retired population. Two of the dog owners Max called sounded delighted to hire him to walk their precious pooches every day after school and twice on the weekends for the low price of$20 a week.

One haggled him down to$15 per week, but promised not to tell anyone she'd worked out this discount. A fourth agreed to pay him only ten dollars, but without any weekend walks. Abel McManus, the cranky old man who lived next door to the Nolans, told Max, I'm perfectly capable of walking my own dog, thank you very much and hung up.

Max stopped at each of his customers' homes after school collecting the dogs. There was Frida, the Portuguese water dog, Reed, the bearded collie, Roxy, the Beagle, and JC, the Australian Shepherd.

His favorite not only because of her even temperament, but because her owner, Carolyn Wilbanks, always spoke to him with the same respect she would give any adult professional, but with the kindliness of a grandmother. Mrs. Wilbanks lived closest to Max, so he always Started and ended at her house, which he realized gave her quite a bit more for her money than the other customers, but he didn't mind.

The first week went smoothly for the most part. Reed and Roxy gave him trouble every time he walked them past the Bonner Woods, which Max did the first two days on his way to collect Frida. But on the third day he rearranged his route so he walked past the woods on his on his way back home with only well behaved JC.

He could sense the intrigue the woods and the creatures in them held for her, but she'd been trained well enough to suppress her instincts. It was almost sad, but Max felt grateful for it at the same time.

On the Sunday at the beginning of his second week, minutes after Max returned JC to Mrs. Wilbanks, an earthquake rocked the neighborhood. He collapsed at the foot of the stairs leading up to his porch, grateful he hadn't started up them yet. Max, he heard his mother cry inside. The front door flew open. Max smiled up at his mother, who bled from a scratch on her bruising cheek. He's right here, she yelled before rushing to Max's aid. She reached down a hand to hoist him up.

Was that an earthquake? asked Max, getting to his feet. His mother said, Yep, a pretty big one too. What happened to your cheek? he asked. Oh, she smiled without an ounce of humor. I was mopping in the kitchen and slipped when the shaking started. I just hit my face on the counter when I fell, that's all. Ow, said Max. Hey, is he all right? Max's father, uninjured, asked in the doorway. Max gave him a thumbs up. His father said, Well get inside then. Haven't you guys ever heard of an aftershock?

The family prepared for the next quake, which proved even more powerful than the one before it. Thankfully, since they were ready, no one was hurt. Not in their house, anyway. Next door, cranky old Abel McManus fell and broke. And broke his leg. Max's parents felt awful after they'd found out he'd been stuck on the floor for an hour while they waited out any more aftershocks.

Another neighbor who ventured out sooner heard him yelling and went to his aid. This same neighbor confided in the Nolans that the doctor told McManus at his age he likely would never regain full use of his leg. Wednesday morning before Max left for school, Mr. McManus called the Nolan's house. That boy of yours still walkin' dogs? he asked Max's father. He is, yeah, his father answered, cocking an eyebrow and giving Max a thumbs up as Max scarfed down an English muffin.

McManus said, You know, with my leg broke. Dodge, my dog, he's all wound up and needing a walk. Seeing as I can't, he trailed off. Before Max's father could offer condolences, McManus said, I seem to remember him asking way too much. Uh well, if you want to discuss Max's rates, you'll have to talk to him directly, his father said, business like. He walked the phone to Max, suggesting to both his son and neighbor, there might be a uh disaster relief discount for, you know, injuries or whatnot.

McManus growled, Don't treat me like a charity case. I'll pay whatever he says his rate is, unless somebody else is getting a lower price. And so, despite what he still insisted was a criminal price at$15 per week. Wheelchair bound Abel McManus leashed his English foxhound dodge and handed him over to Max that afternoon with strict instructions not to let him fraternize with the other dogs. Max accepted this order without knowing what it meant, and smiled until the door closed.

Dodge stood defiantly on the porch as Max descended the stairs. Come on, boy. Come, Dodge. Max prodded, expecting mister McManus's glasses to appear between the blinds at any second. He wanted to get away before the miserly old man changed his mind. He jumped when the front door swung open again. Git boy McMahon has barked. Max didn't know if he was shouting at him or the dog, but they both scurried toward the sidewalk. Mrs. Wilbanks fawned over Dodge when Max arrived to collect JC.

She told Max it was very nice of him to help mister McManus, even if he was getting paid for it. She said, I'm not sure you could pay me to Oh, well now I'm just being mean, and that's no example to set for a good boy like you. I just know Abel can be tough to get along with, can't he? Yes, ma'am, Max replied, withholding his laughter in that way that makes it all the more obvious. They followed Max's usual route, collecting Frida, Reed, and Roxy.

Dodge didn't seem inclined to participate in the other dog's antics. sniffing and nipping at one another, barking at other animals and people. Max wasn't sure if that's what fraternizing meant, but if so, he thought mister McManus must have given the same stern warning to Dodge as he did to him. An hour later, after Max had dropped every dog except Dodge and JC off again, Dodge's leash tensed as they approached the Bonner Woods. Max scanned for critters as he picked up the pace.

He detected an unusual odor, not necessarily foul, but certainly not pleasant. It reminded him of a time his family's basement flooded and a few cardboard boxes full of books soaked up the water. JC, who ordinarily behaved herself around the woods, showed some excitement as well. She portrayed more caution than Dodge, who obviously wanted to be free from Max's grip. JC repeatedly made hesitant pauses to sniff the air before pouncing forward to make up lost ground.

Come on, you two, Max said, giving both leashes a gentle tug to draw the dogs back in line. Dodge twisted and lunged at Max's hands, baring his tiny sharp teeth. Both leashes slipped through Max's fingers as he recoiled. Dodge split away, rocketing at full speed into the woods. JC retreated behind Max, hiding behind his legs as if to assure him she would not leave his side. No, Dodge, get back here, Max shouted. Dodge ignored him. Max picked up JC's leash and trotted to the edge of the woods.

JC whimpered. Max questioned whether he should return her before going after Dodge. But Dodge had nearly sprinted out of sight already. He only caught sporadic glimpses of his white and brown fur through the trees. While he still possessed a chance of catching him and avoiding the unimaginable wrath of Mr. McManus, not to mention the likely end of his new business and any chance of affording a switch, Max decided to urge JC into the woods in pursuit.

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A couple hundred yards deep in the trees, Dodge disappeared over the sloped edge of a deep ravine. Max faltered. JC's blatant anxiety made him uneasy, too. She grew more agitated as they approached the place Dodge disappeared. Max had yet to notice any wild animals which might explain JC's apprehension, so its cause remained a disconcerting mystery. He wondered if it had anything to do with the wet odor, which thickened the closer they walked to the ravine.

Still, Max needed only to imagine knocking on Mr. McManus's door without his dog to unlock the will to press on. Staring into the ravine, Max began to lose hope. Not only was there no sign of dodge, at the base of the opposite slope, underneath a storm drain outlet, the ground had opened. A hole had formed, he assumed during the earthquake.

The exposed roots around the opening all looked wet and still held a few clumps of moist earth, even though the drain above them was completely dry, probably because it hadn't rained for weeks. Dodge's sharp barks suddenly resonated in Max's ears as if the foxhound were inside them. They inserted themselves between the thudding beats of his pulse. They were coming from inside the hole.

Dodge, Max called. Here, boy. JC tried to pull him away from the ravine. He said, We can't go back, girl. I have to try to get him, or McManus will kill me. Still she pulled. Max said, Come on, let's get him out of there. He dragged Jacey a few feet before she gave in, adopting the posture of a loyal companion rather than a nervous guardian.

She managed the descent more naturally than the boy with the leash around her neck. He forced her to backtrack up the slope more than once when he became stuck without anywhere to put his foot. How are we gonna get back up there? Max asked her. JC barked, but not in response to him. She aimed this rare outburst at the jagged maw now ten feet away. Dodge yowled back rambunctiously.

Max said, I think he's hunting. I'd better go get him before he gets any farther. Max looked around for something to tie JC to. He was scared of breaking Mrs. Wilbank's heart as much as he was of Mr. McManus. He couldn't trust any of the stones, roots, or small trees he saw enough to leave JC with them. Come on, we'll be fast, he encouraged her as he dipped a leg into the hole. He clambered down its roots until his feet touched a flattish rock.

He could barely reach Jacey to scoop her into his arms and hoist her down with him. It was just a small drop to the bottom of the hole then. Setting JC down, Max said, This must have opened up in the earthquake. I've been out here before, but I've never seen this. JC pressed against his legs. They stood under the sunlight, taking in the cavern gaping before them.

The earth composing the tunnel's ceiling, walls, and floor looked smooth enough to convince Max it must have been man made, perhaps a remnant of an old drainage system the earthquake uncovered. It wasn't quite tall enough for Max to walk through upright, but he wouldn't have to duck very low to fit. I don't have a light, he told Jacy. The ambient light from the hole only reached a few feet deep into the cavern. Beyond its reach, abrupt darkness.

Max shouted for Dodge. He could hear him baying further ahead. Max feared the dog had gotten himself lost. Without a flashlight, he wasn't sure he could ever find him. He yelled, Dodge, come here, boy. The ground. Shook. Max recognized the sensation immediately. A wet clump of earth fell on his shoulder, breaking apart and spattering Jacey with dirt. He shoved her with his hands, pushing as he yelled, Run, girl, get out! Thundering deep.

Deep inside the cave, sounding like large sections of it collapsing, robbed Max of any hope he clung to of recovering Dodge. He lifted JC onto the flat rock, then pulled himself up. The shaking subsided, but But he knew better than to stick around for the aftershock. He doubted he had any reason to stick around anyway. Dodge had gone silent. After hoisting JC up to ground level,

Max was about to pull himself out of the hole when the flat rock gave out. It spilled him into a new opening underneath him. His chin struck his knee on impact, jamming his teeth together. The black tunnel flashed white. this flash and the pain accompanying it.

Felt momentary, a fraction of a second. But when it faded, Max found himself on his back. His clothes soaked with water they'd absorbed from the earth he now lay upon. His muscles stiff with cold. He pried himself up. From the floor. Jacy, ten feet above his head, looked down on him, whimpering. JC, go get help. Tell someone where I am, Max begged. She cocked her head and kept whining. Go on, girl, go home.

The smell in this new, deeper tunnel made him nauseous. What he'd smelled above must have been this stench filtered through layers of dirt and stone. Exposed to its naked power, it no longer smelled. like wet books and cardboard, but disease. Regrettably, Max had the thought that the large tunnel resembled a throat, and the stench, that of mucus and strep.

JC wouldn't obey. Whether loyalty or fear, Max could not tell which held her in place, staring down at him. He tried jumping, reaching up for the hole he'd fallen through, but it was at least a foot out of reach. This tunnel. though similar to the one above, cut a much wider circle through the earth. It continued behind him as well, and since no light could reach him outside of where he now stood, he could not even begin to assess how far it stretched in either direction.

Jacy, his prophet, cut one of her whimpers short and stiffened. Max went still too. He thought he detected a faint tremor under his feet. An aftershock? It ended. Then it happened again, two, three, four more times, each repetition less faint than the first.

Deep sloshing further down the tunnel counterpointed each rumble, and with each repetition the sounds grew louder, the rumbling stronger. As clearly as the sounds and sensations, the smell That biological earthy stench told Max something was coming. Go get somebody, you stupid dog he yelled, his weakening voice cracking on dog. He remembered his parents' concern for him after the first earthquake. Surely they would already be in the street looking for him, he thought.

An intestinal gurgling grumbled up the tunnel. Help! Somebody help! Max screamed. JC jerked away, then looked back, head tilted inquisitively. Yes! Yes, go! Jacey bolted away in the direction of the slope. Max hoped she could make it up, that her leash wouldn't catch on something. If someone saw her running free, they would know he was in danger.

Would she lead them to him? Would she bring them soon enough? The sloshing and grumbling began to sink up. Together, they sounded like ocean waves crashing against the barrier of shadows. Someone help me, Max screamed, leaping up for handholds hopelessly out of reach. Glistening movement in the darkness stole his attention. Something beyond the light filled the tunnel's circumference with shimmering faint reflections of the gray sunlight. No creature jacked.

Had ever seen took up so much space. Yet, this approaching monstrosity pulsed with life. From the the darkest corners of our imagination. Yeah.

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The ground beneath him shook. Before his windmilling arms restored his balance, Max heard, then saw, a wave of viscous brown liquid splash across the ground and walls of the illuminated section. He leapt backward into the tunnel behind him. From there, masked by darkness, he witnessed the emergence of shovel-like teeth lining an eternally gaping mouth which took up the entire tunnel. The teeth circled in tightening rows as far into the worm thing's throat as the light allowed Max to see.

The earth simmered and dissolved wherever the creature's projection touched it. It became a glistening runway which the subterranean monster began to cross. Max ran into the open. Tunnel behind him. He questioned this decision, though he hadn't really been given a choice, when the monster sealed his exit behind him, stealing the remainder of his faint light. Panic gripped his chest tighter with every echo less.

Footfall. Without any idea how far this tunnel went, he ran, motivated by the possibility of escape ahead. Just a few more feet, maybe a few dozen, he told himself, and he would see light again. Every Every few steps his foot landed on vibrating earth. Over his panting, he could still hear the gargantuan creature worming toward him. He thought, the light back there must have made it slow down. It's actually

fast. How's something so big so fast? Just keep going. There's gotta be another opening. But he couldn't lie to himself any longer. There didn't have to be another opening, did there? He could have been a little bit of a little bit of Could have been steadily diving deeper below the surface. How was he to know without any light, any point of reference? His run came to an abrupt, painful stop. His head went oddly numb.

Warmth spread down his face, running along his jaw to his ears. Blood. That's how he realized he'd fallen on his back. He gasped air in through his mouth. His crushed nose wouldn't let any. Help he screamed, shrill, desperate, childlike. His swollen brain begged him not to scream again. He scrambled up to the wall and felt along it, feeling for a passage through,

a nook to hide in, anything but the hard, cold end of the line. He ran left along it, dragging his hand, finding nothing but the tunnel's dirt wall at its end. The creature drew near enough that he could feel it sucking the air around him. He could taste its reek on every breath. It vocalized no sounds of its own, but the earth growled as it dragged its It's Max imagined, extraordinarily long body through it.

Unconsciously, Max followed the direction the air was being pulled from to the right side of the stone wall. There, he found a dirt slope at an angle he could climb. He couldn't guess where it would take him other than away. from a certain fate of being masticated inside the worm's throat.

He climbed, quickly finding himself exhausted as the slope stretched upward. He encouraged himself, reminding himself up meant closer to a way out, and by now JC would have the whole neighborhood out looking for him. Wherever he Popped up, someone would find him. He would see the light at any second. Arms would reach down to pull him to safety.

The ground rumbled beneath him. The dirt under his feet gave way. He slid until his elbows carved deep enough to hold his weight. Help! He screamed one final time. He pictured his pain. parents again on the porch, his mother reaching down to bring him back to his feet. The next time the ground shook, his right elbow lost its hold. His feet had yet to gain traction. They slid until something wet, soft, and cold. Stopped them.

Max heard the sound of a gushing wave. He covered his head with his arms just before a warm substance coated him entirely. It burned immediately, eating through his his clothes and dissolving his flesh. The pain spared him any awareness of the creature digging into the moistened ground around him, and shoveling him into his gaping maw. Max was already in the dark.

So as the creature's movements fed him deeper into its throat, where its teeth circled continuously closer together, the world did not go black. It simply went away.

When JC led Max's parents along with Mrs. Wilbanks into the Bonner Woods, right down the ravine to where she'd left their son. panicked. Though there was no sign of Max anywhere, a wide section of earth beneath the storm drain outlet had obviously been disturbed recently. It looked like the ground had collapsed in on itself, as if a wide tunnel deep underground had just caved in.

Though they dug, they would never learn what happened to their or why the bizarre rash of earthquakes suddenly stopped that day. You made it out. Congratulations. If you enjoyed the story, please rate, like, review, or subscribe. For early, ad-free episodes and behind-the-scenes episodes I call into the woods, become a patron at patreon.com slash the warningwoods. You can also support the show by purchasing merch. The merch store and Patreon links are in this episode's description.

To stay up to date, follow me on Instagram and TikTok at The Warning Woods. And when you feel ready, meet me here for another journey into the Warning Woods. Thank you for listening.

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