Friday afternoon, Gabe drank; Friday evening, Gabe passed out.  Friday night, passed-out became asleep; Saturday morning, sleep gave way to his recurring dream.  He was in his car, Sarah was next to him.  He fumbled with his keys, he dropped them.  The alcohol blurred his movements, he retrieved the key and slid it into the ignition.  The car rumbled to life and they pulled forward out of the driveway into the path of the truck with its breaks out.  This time though, just when it was supposed to come careening into the passenger side and crush his wife and his car and ruin his life, a dog started barking and the whole scene was chased away and replaced by blackness.  Gabe had been cringing even in his dream, waiting for the impact, and when it didn’t come he woke up suddenly, and was hit instead by the power of his hangover, so thick it wasn’t until the first sips of his morning coffee that Gabe actually noticed the very real barking echoing in from the distance.  It was coming from the direction of his nearest neighbors’ yard, but after three months in the area one of the few things Gabe was sure of was that the Wilkins didn’t have a dog.  He went to look out the window, but the morning fog obscured any clear view of the distant farmhouse.

“Weird,” he said, turning to face his only companion, the white-faced old golden retriever Lou, who was sitting by the door waiting for his morning walk. 

Making eye contact with Gabe, Lou pawed the door eagerly, suggesting either agreement or an oncoming bladder emergency, and after downing the rest of his coffee, Gabe put on a pair of old running shoes, stuffed the black leash into his pocket, and opened the door.  Lou flew through the gap with an energy and bounce Gabe hadn’t seen in years and Gabe was glad to see him well though he couldn’t help but mutter a curse under his breath as he traipsed in the dog’s path across the dewy lawn in the direction of the Wilkins’ house, his stomach rumbling with nausea despite the crisp morning air. 

Barely visible ahead through the fog, Gabe knew Lou had reached the split-rail fence that marked the edge of the yard by the abrupt stop of the barking.  He jogged quickly to try and keep Lou from crossing over, but wasn’t quick enough and just as he arrived, Lou bounced over the bottom rail and was lost up the hill of the Wilkins’ property, his tail wagging madly behind him.

“Damn dog,” Gabe muttered as he called out to Lou and stepped between the fence posts himself.  “Lou-boy.  Lou-boy.  C’m’ere Lou-boy. C’m’ere.”  Gabe said, his voice as high-pitched and cheerful sounding as he could muster without making his head explode or waking up the neighbors.  Chasing Lou was painful – talking to the Wilkins would be torture.

After Gabe had first moved into the house, he had come over to the Wilkins to say hello, assuming they would appreciate it as the ‘neighborly’ thing to do. Gabe had realized how wrong this assumption was the moment he met Mrs. Wilkins, who was decidedly unexcited by his visit and only begrudgingly invited him into their house: taking him straight into the kitchen for a cup of tea, asking polite questions but never pursuing his answers.  Mr. Wilkins had been out when Gabe arrived but he came home towards the end of his visit, and from the moment he entered was openly hostile to Gabe’s presence.

“What’d you move here for?” he asked gruffly after the two men shook hands.

“Just needed to get away from things for a while.”

“Why?”

“I’ve been through a loss.”

“What’d ya lose?”

“Um, no, I mean a death.  My wife died, I’m just up here to get away.  To be alone for a bit.”

“Then why’d you come over here?”

“Excuse me?”

“If you wanted to get away, why’d you come to our house?”

“I just thought, you know, that I’d come say hi, introduce myself as your new neighbor.”  Gabe looked around him then and wondered just why he had come over..

Mr. Wilkins frowned as if talking to an uncommonly stupid child and then turned and walked back outside.  When Mrs. Wilkins made no attempt to apologize for her husband’s behavior, Gabe took it as his signal to leave and excused himself. 

He had actively avoided the house ever since and hadn’t even set foot on their property until Lou ran under the fence that morning, and so, when Gabe was just a few yards up the hill to the house and he heard the back door creak open, he knew his day was only getting worse.  He turned to explain his presence to whichever octogenarian it was that had just caught him, but instead of the old man’s stoop-shouldered shuffle, a young woman with a pony-tail wearing nearly nonexistent black running shorts and a tight white tank top bounced out the door.

Gabe stared awkwardly as she turned to stretch on the wall of the farmhouse.  She was wearing headphones and holding a walkman and Gabe realized she hadn’t noticed him there watching her.  Staring at her back, he wanted to remedy that, to call out to her, but suddenly couldn’t make a sound – paralyzed by the realization that he was looking at the back of his dead wife. It was her curly blonde hair back in a pony-tail.  It was her round ass.  It was her muscular runners’ thighs.  It was her bouncing stretch.

Gabe wanted to scream and opened his mouth as if to do so but the only sound was that of the woman, who let out a scream of her own as she turned and finally saw Gabe staring slack-jawed at her stretching.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Gabe said, snapping back to reality, his hands out in front of him to calm her down.

“Who are you?  What are you doing here?” The woman asked pulling her headphones from her ear and inching back towards the door.

“I’m Gabe Fine, I live next door, I just came over to get my dog, he ran over here a minute ago.” 

The woman looked down the hill to Gabe’s left and seeing the two dogs, their frenzy now developed to the point of trying to mount each other, she seemed to believe him and let her hand drop from the door handle.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’ll help you get them,” and then stepped down from the porch to walk with him.

“What’s your name?” Gabe asked, staring at his wife’s eyes and smile and trying desperately to understand.

“I’m Kate.  Nice to meet you,” she said, extending her right hand.

Taking no notice, Gabe asked what she was doing there.  She dropped her arm and they turned and walked towards the distant dogs.

“This is my parents’ house.  I’m a teacher and it’s summer break so I’m staying with them the next two weeks.”

“Oh.”

“Bucky,” Kate cried in a deep-voiced reprimand.  Her little terrier came quickly back, his tail between his legs in shame.

“Lou,” Gabe tried, imitating her voice but with the opposite results as Lou only followed Bucky to Kate, his nose almost glued to the other dog’s rear.  “I’m sorry, really, he’s usually such a good dog,” Gabe lied as he at last took his eyes of Kate to bend over awkwardly and take the distracted Lou by the collar.

“It’s okay,” Kate said, a few hairs sneaking out of her pony-tail./p>

Bent over like that, her hair in disarray, Gabe almost feinted from the similarity with his dead wife and he couldn’t stop himself from staring. 

“Okay,” Kate said slowly, clearly unnerved by the sudden change in Gabe’s demeanor.  “I’m gonna go put Bucky back inside now.”

“Yeah, okay, thanks, yeah, Lou and I are heading home,” Gabe said as he dragged the reluctant Lou back towards the fence.

*

Later that morning, Gabe pulled a stack unbound pages from the large manila envelope that had arrived in the previous day’s mail.  On top he read the hand-written post-it note from his friend Rob.  “Some freelance stuff to keep you busy.  Give me a call if you need to talk – Rob.”  Pulling the post-it off, Gabe saw the title page for the first time. Zombie Zone.  He let out a sigh and put the novel back down on the table.  Was this Rob trying to be funny? Was this his way of saying Gabe should just get over it and move back to the city?  Gabe wasn’t interested if it was and went to the kitchen to pour himself the day’s first glass of whiskey.

Gabe had met Sarah just three years before after being introduced by a mutual friend when Sarah had just moved to New York.  They had hit it off immediately, and fallen into a relationship that stretched for, unprecedented for Gabe, three months without real problems.  It was after three months that Sarah had cheated on him with her ex-boyfriend Julian and the abusive spiral of their relationship had begun.  Gabe forgave her.  Sarah promised it wouldn’t happen again.  When things were finally close to healed six months later, Sarah told Gabe she wanted to break up with him, setting off a series of fights that had ended in her begging him to come back and him pushing her away.  He took her back; she cheated on him again.  She begged for forgiveness; he forgave her.  The next fall they were married.

And then on their second anniversary, they were at Vail skiing with some friends and had wound up at a party where Julian was also.  Sarah brought Gabe over and introduced them.  Julian smiled, Gabe frowned.  Julian was single again.  Sarah sent Gabe to get them all drinks. 

An hour later, now sloppy drunk, Gabe realized that he had lost track of Sarah and started wandering the house looking for her. He found her talking closely with Julian in an upstairs hallway.  He hadn’t said anything, just grabbed her by the arm and pulled her downstairs and out to their car.  She had yelled at him, had shouted at him, but he hadn’t listened at all.  When they reached the car down the block she had finally acquiesced and gotten in the passenger side and pulled the door shut behind her without a major battle. 

“I hate you,” Gabe had said, dropping the keys on the floor of the car as he tried to fit them into the ignition.

“Then why’re you taking me home?  Why don’t you let me f... stay at least?”

“Because we’re f... married.  How could you Sarah?”

“I didn’t do anything, we were just talking!”

“I f... hate you,” he said as he at last fit the keys in and turned the ignition and pulled out of the driveway without looking, lining his wife up perfectly with the front end of the break-less truck.

*

Drink in hand, Gabe turned to go back and watch TV, but the sudden sound of the dog barking in the distance again led him back to the window.  The morning fog was almost totally gone and Gabe saw the Wilkins’ porch clearly as Kate, still in her running shorts, walked inside and shut the door behind her, leaving Bucky alone in the backyard again. 

Bucky’s barks went unheeded in his own house, but in Gabe’s Lou rose obediently from his bed and walked over to the kitchen door to resume scratching as he had that morning.  Gabe ignored him.  After downing half his glass, he refilled it and went to sit in his usual leather easy-chair and turned the TV on to the Home Shopping Network.  He had become addicted to the station when he first moved to Woodstock and had read that it was the only all-live station on TV – but now after three months, even as the hosts stumbled over their words and dropped merchandise, Gabe continued to feel alone. He flipped the channels distractedly and then turned it off in frustration. 

He was there to get away from things.  To not see the face of his dead wife every day in the faces of his friends.  To not see memories of his dead wife every day in the buildings of the neighborhood. To escape everything she had ever touched.  And now she had moved in just across his backyard. He had left Brooklyn to get away from her and she had moved in next door.  This couldn’t’ go on. 

*

The dog was still barking when Gabe heated up soup for dinner.  Hands shaking, he dropped a glass bowl and it shattered on the kitchen floor.  He grabbed a new one without bothering to clean up.  The shards cut deeply into his bare feet and blood streaked along the white tile. 

Lou kept scratching at the door helplessly.  Gabe poured himself another whiskey and resolved to only let the dog out after dark.

*

It was past ten when Gabe, his dinner untouched, at last got up from the kitchen table to attach the leash to Lou and let him out the back door. He expected a colossal battle to keep the dog from following the barks, but after a full day inside Lou had little on his mind but going to the bathroom.  After sniffing around some and then kicking grass back on his shit, Lou yawned and stretched and started casually towards the Wilkins’ house.  Gabe didn’t give an inch though and pulled Lou quickly back inside. 

The barking continued.

*

Gabe passed out at the dining room table that night, whiskey glass still in his hand.  Some time later he had his usual dream, but again, before Gabe could pull into the road, the dog chased the car away and the pickup never came and this time he even saw Sarah still alive.  In running shorts; about to go for a jog.  Gabe woke up in a confusion of drunkenness and dreaming and realized it was true.  Sarah hadn’t died.  She had moved in next door while he was trying to forget her.  While his life was falling apart around him, she had bought a dog.  That bitch.

Slamming the rest of his whiskey, Gabe rose from the table and slipped his shoes on. At the sound of the back door opening, Lou came running from the other room and slipped outside before Gabe could stop him.  Gabe grabbed the heavy flashlight he kept near the door and shivered his way across the moon-lit grass towards the Wilkins’ house, past the split-rail fence, across the manicured lawn, and up onto the patio.  Thinking of nothing but Sarah, he pushed the patio door open quietly and stepped into the house, Lou sniffing hesitantly at his heels.

As Gabe remembered from his earlier visit with the Wilkins, the patio door led to the kitchen – now pitch-black but for the faint blue glow of the microwave clock on the far wall.  In the corner, Gabe heard a rustle, and then a single loud bark as Bucky woke up from his nap.  Gabe froze, sure that the sound would wake the sleeping residents, but Lou scurried eagerly across the linoleum floor and soon the two dogs were sniffing each other in near silence.

Gabe slid carefully past the kitchen table and into the living room.  Trying desperately to remember the layout from his only previous visit, he went across to the front door and shushed his way up the shag carpeted stairs.

At the top, Gabe paused to let his eyes adjust to the darkness of the window-less hallway. He felt a door to his left and guessing it was the master bedroom started to his right, his arms, elbows locked, out in front for protection.  The first door he reached was a bathroom.  The next opened to a small bedroom vaguely lit by the moonlight shining through a half-open window.

Gabe passed to the bed in the corner and knelt down beside it.  In the darkness he couldn’t see the sleeper’s face clearly, but the lightly colored curls splayed carelessly on the pillow were familiar, and he reached down to run his fingers through his wife’s hair.  He almost sobbed out of anger and heartbreak as he slid his left hand along her face and then brushed the back of his fingers gently along her cheek.  She moaned lightly as if enjoying his remembered touch and then rolled onto her back, her eyes parting slightly and then flying open wide in terror.  Before Kate could open her mouth to yell though, Gabe swung his right hand quickly across the bed, knocking her out cold with the flashlight, splattering blood on the bedroom wall.

Gabe began immediately to wrap Kate’s body up in her blanket but then jumped in fright as something brushed against his arm.  He turned, his flashlight cocked and ready but relaxed when he saw that it was only Lou coming up to see what was going on, Bucky behind him looking confused.  Gabe patted Lou on the head and then grabbed the body and blankets and set out back down the hallway, the two dogs trailing eagerly behind him and scurrying between his legs.

Kate’s head and feet brushed against the pictures on the hallway walls, and at one point Gabe stumbled over Lou and Kate’s head dislodged a small frame near the bathroom.  It fell silently on the thick carpeting though and after a sigh of relief at his luck, Gabe moved on.

Downstairs, the moonlight that had helped him earlier was no longer bright enough and Gabe slammed Kate’s head further on the doorframes and bookcases as he stumbled through the blackness.  The patio door was still open and Gabe slid out and then kicked it shut behind him, the obedient and puzzled Bucky staring from inside. 

The cold night air gave Gabe a brief burst of energy, and he managed to reach the fence and toss the body over before his arm strength failed completely.  On the other side, after catching his breath, he resorted to dragging the blanket behind him to cover the remaining distance, Lou leading the way and sniffing cheerily at everything they passed.

Back in his own house, Gabe dumped the sheet-wrapped body down the basement steps.  The sun was beginning to peek out above the distant tree-tops then and leaning back against the basement door, Gabe looked at the kitchen around him for the first time in months.  The broken bowl was still left shattered on the ground, surrounded by streaks of dried blood.  Garbage was spilling over the sides of the trash can.  Dirty dishes and pots had over-flown from the sink and taken over the countertop.  Suddenly sober, Gabe strode purposefully to the sink and began to wash the dishes, cheerful, lighthearted, knowing that today was the day he would get his life back in order.