SURPRISE! Happy Halloween! This feed has once again been quiet for much longer than anticipated, but I do want to reassure you all that the show is not going away. I am currently neck-deep in final script development for season 2, so keep an ear out for production announcements early next year. I also have some interviews with experts and other bonus content to help fill the time.
For now, please enjoy this story, which retells the events of episodes 6-10 from the perspective of Sodapop, world’s greatest dog. This story picks up right where the last Tale of Sodapop left off, so if you’re not familiar with that story – or with the events of season one of Believer – you might want to go back and listen.
My amazing Patrons are getting the entire story right now. They will also get a bonus non-Believer story in the next few weeks. If you’d like to join them, along with brand new patrons Sara Norris, The Beldam, and Justin Cone, you can find out more at Patreon.com/believerpod.
And now please enjoy, The Second Tale of Sodapop, Part 1 - written and read by me, Julie Saunders.
THE SECOND TALE OF SODAPOP
On a little bed inside a broken room, a little dog watches the sunrise. The room’s outer wall is full of cracks and gouges that sharpen the sunlight into lines, blades of light that pierce the musty air. The streaks of sunlight form a dizzying pattern, a series of lines across the exposed wood floor. The lines cross and converge to a point at the center. There sits a human, her back to the dog, her unkempt hair lit like a halo. She traces the sun-lines with a sharp blade, deepens the scars in this crumbling bedroom. As she carves, she hums.
The human calls the dog “Sodapop.” Sodapop doesn’t call her anything. She is simply there, simply his, and so she never needs a name. She is his human.
Last night, Sodapop found his human lying near the top of a hill. She seemed like she was asleep, but her eyes were wide open, staring into a sky without stars. He licked her nose until the warmth came back to her fingertips and she laughed. That laugh rippled through him, spread from his ears to his wagging tail, and everything was okay again. Sodapop followed her down the hill as if they’d never been apart. After all, when the sun comes up, you don’t marvel at its return. You just get up and go about your day.
Halfway down the hill, they met Lara. Lara was Sodapop’s human’s human – or at least, she used to be. When Sodapop’s human left, Lara had taken care of him. But he didn’t need Lara now. And so when they reached the creaky old house at the bottom of the hill, and She walked inside without Lara, Sodapop followed. She called this place home. What else could it be?
The rest of the house is not broken. It’s just this room, the one with all of his human’s things in it. There are two other humans in the house. One is named Mom, and she doesn’t seem to like him much. Mom is afraid to come into the broken room, though. And there’s another human with a raspy voice, but that one never leaves the study. So in the broken room, things are quiet.
His human sits on the floor, tracing lines in the floorboards. She hums something to herself. Sodapop huddles on the bed. He doesn’t want to touch the lines. He watches her.
He can’t tell if she’s really here or not. Well, she’s here. But her body responds to something else. When She tilts her head, or looks off into the distance, or when the soft chemicals that tell her nerves what to do gather and respond – it’s to something else. Something Sodapop can’t seem to find.
He watches, and he watches, and he watches. But he was out in the woods for a very long time. There were no naps during his long day and night in the forest, just terror and excitement. Here, where he is – well, not exactly safe, but certainly settled – he feels the adrenaline drain out of his body. His head grows heavy, and his eyes get narrow. Before he knows it, he’s somewhere else too.
Sodapop often dreams when he sleeps. His dreams are not usually complicated. Most are just moments – a familiar scent, the sight of a squirrel running, the evening breeze through an opened door. Bits and pieces. This dream is different.
In the dream, Sodapop stands on fine, silver sand. The sand stretches in every direction, farther than he can imagine. And somewhere ahead of him, he hears a huge body of water. It’s not the ocean. Sodapop has been to the ocean. The ocean has birds, and saltwater spray, and laughter. The ocean smells like sunscreen and fish guts. This place smells like nothing. At least, at first.
Slowly, a scent creeps up on him. It’s Her scent, just like it was in the forest, except instead of cutting through the night like an arrow, it seeps in from everything at once. Sodapop turns around and around in the fine, soft sand. It’s as if she’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Sodapop runs, but every direction is the same. No matter where he goes, he’s always running toward the ocean that isn’t an ocean, and he never gets closer to its edge. Always, he can smell his human, and always, she’s just around the corner and a million miles away.
Finally, he sees her. She sits with her back to him. She draws something in the sand – long, tangled lines. Sodapop runs toward her, but his paws slip on the sand and he falls. He opens his mouth to bark, but something steals the air from his lungs. He feels himself crying, whining, howling into a vast expanse of nothingness, but no sound leaves him. It could be hours that they sit there, Sodapop stuck in the sand, his voice gone, while She never turns around. It could be days. He can’t move, he can’t cry, he can’t –
He wakes to find her face very close to his. Her skin is flushed, her eyes wild. Sodapop yelps, but she quiets him, runs her fingers along his neck, reassures him that he’s safe.
The door to the room is open, and from the hallway he can smell fear. A potent, piercing mix of sweat and racing blood, with a pheromone mixture that stabs at his brain. Something bad has happened. He starts to get up, moves to charge out into the hallway and right whatever’s wrong, but She shushes him again.
She does not smell of fear. But something is still wrong. He presses his nose to her mouth, her nose, the top of her head. How did she leave without him noticing? Where has she been? There are no clues forthcoming.
She buries her face in his fur. She starts to whisper. He doesn’t understand the words she says.
When she finally lets him go, he struggles out of her arms and bursts into the hall. The house is unnaturally quiet. He sniffs for Mom and the raspy man. The raspy man is gone. Mom is…yes. Mom is the one who was afraid.
The front door is open. The people must be outside. Sodapop rushes out to investigate.
There, on the lawn, is Lara. Sodapop feels a rush of relief when he sees her. Lara is like a water bowl – something you don’t really notice until it’s been missing for a while. He races across the grass and leaps up onto her legs. She reaches down and pats his head.
Then Lara goes tense. She has come outside. His humans are in one space again. Why don’t they ever seem happy about that?
His humans say words to each other. One is angry, the other dismayed. Sodapop lets out a little sigh.
The most frustrating part of having a human is the language barrier. Humans have a whole host of mouth-sounds they make, and only some of them seem to mean anything important. Meanwhile, they miss every physical cue. Most of them think there’s only one kind of tail-wag. You practically have to scream to get them to understand your meaning.
Sodapop sniffs at the bushes and the grass, an age-old way of signaling that everything is fine. “This is how much you don’t need to worry,” the gesture says. “The grass is more interesting than either of us. We are so safe that we can be curious.” They ignore him. He tries the high tail-wag, then the low one. He whines. He even flops onto his back and exposes his belly. Nothing.
Instead, they do something incomprehensible. His human picks him up and hands him over to Lara. That part is normal enough. She pats him on the head. That’s normal too. But her voice…there’s something wrong with her voice. She’s sad again.
Sodapop watches her mouth as she talks, hoping he’ll recognize a shape even if he doesn’t know the sounds. All he can tell is that something is happening. It’s not something that he wants to happen.
And then Lara carries him away.
Sodapop tries to explain that this situation is wrong. He struggles in Lara’s arms. He wails toward his human. Has she noticed that he’s leaving? Does she know he’s not following her inside? “I’m right here,” his whine says. “I’m over here!” Like a puppy away from his mother. I’m here, and I need you, he cries. But the Sun sets into the house, and Lara clips him into a car harness.
They ride for hours down dark, bumpy roads. Or maybe it’s minutes. It’s hard to tell when you’re a dog. Sodapop whines the whole time. There’s a cranky man in the front seat who gives him dirty looks. He doesn’t care. This is worse than the last time that Lara took him away. That time, his human walked out a door and didn’t come back. This time, he left her. With Lara. Lara, who doesn’t know how to find the itchy spot on the side of his neck. Who doesn’t remember that he likes the lamb treats more than the chicken ones. Lara, who takes him away from everything he loves, over and over again.
He loves Lara. He was glad to see Lara. But Lara is not his.
He is so busy whining that he doesn’t hear the racoons until one lands with a THUMP on the top of the car. It’s followed by another, and another. He can hear them skittering, hissing, careening off the roof and onto the road. He can hear them running after the car when they land. He can smell that they’re wrong – rotted, dark, like the squirrels he met the day before. They’re strange like those squirrels too, working in packs, coordinating in a way racoons normally don’t. And there are other animals coming, too – some with hooves, some with wings.
Sodapop barks. If they know there’s a dog in the car, they might go away. They might not realize that he’s clipped into a harness and can’t actually get them.
A cursed raccoon slips through the sunroof and into the car. Lara screams. It lets out a horrible hiss. Sodapop strains against his car harness – why did Lara restrain him like this? Didn’t she know this might happen? – and growls deep in his throat.
Lara grabs the racoon and throws it out a window. This is brave, Sodapop thinks. She still hasn’t unclipped him, which is silly of her. But she is brave.
A hooved thing slams into the side of the vehicle. The car careens sideways, fishtails back and forth across the road. Lara and the stranger yell at each other. Sodapop howls.
More things fall on the roof. He can hear them massing along the sides of the car, even approaching from the front.
The car turns.
The humans scream.
They all crash into a tree.
The animals run away. Why did they run away? He must have barked very well.
The humans slam into the dashboard. The harness pulls at Sodapop’s shoulders, but otherwise keeps him in place.
Lara groans. She’s hurt her head. Sodapop can’t reach her.
He strains at the harness.
There is a wound on the side of Lara’s head. There is blood.
He can’t clean it.
He can’t look intently into her eyes.
He can’t lick her nose until she pushes him away. He can’t make her safe.
In the forest, something screams. It is coming closer.
In the front seat, Lara rouses herself. She wakes up the cranky man.
Sodapop can smell danger. Just through the window. Just past the bushes. He feels his hair stand on end.
Finally, finally, Lara turns to him. She is hurt, and a little confused. He licks her nose. She runs her hand along his body, gentle but firm, searching for hurt places. He stares hard at her face, looking for the same thing.
She is okay. A little disoriented, but she will live.
The smell comes closer. Sharp, wild, strange. And close behind it…nothing.
Nothing. The worst thing.
Sodapop looks at Lara. She is hurt. He is not.
When she finally unclips his harness, he bolts out the window. He runs, without a thought, toward the danger.
Dogs don’t generally understand vengeance. They don’t think of pain as transferable, especially over time and distance. What they can do, though, is focus on one particular enemy, and keep going until it stops. They do that better than almost anything.
Sodapop crashes through the underbrush. At the edge of a cluster of damp ferns, a demonic raccoon appears. It bares rows of glittering, needled teeth. This thing is nearly as tall as he is, and certainly heavier. It raises dextrous paws edged in thin, sharp claws. It smells of death, decay, and a third thing Sodapop can’t place.
If Lara were here, she would pick him up, insist he leave it alone, tell him that no matter what he thinks, this thing could destroy him.
Lara is not here.
Sodapop hunches his head low, splays his paws out, tenses his shoulders. His tail goes down, ready to counterbalance and get out of the way. He’s never truly pounced on anything except for toys, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how. He can’t see himself there, skinny and small, thorns tangled in his hair. Nor can he hear his own growl, a high-pitched parody of a forest wolf. The raccoon can, though, and it stands firm.
With a soft thud, another raccoon lands behind the first. A third limps out of the bushes, fresh from fighting the cranky man’s car. Soon there are a half-dozen of them, bloodshot eyes glittering behind branches and bushes.
Sodapop remembers the squirrels from the other night, climbing each other in a frenzied swarm to reach the owl that should’ve killed them. He remembers them crawling over it, weighing it down, ripping it to pieces. The smell of death, of open wounds and blood. He feels his hind legs tremble.
Something ripples against his paw pads. It’s an odd sensation, like an echo in the dirt. A sort of electric pulse, emanating from behind him. Soon after, he hears a terrible roar. Like a bear, an elephant, one of the big creatures he’s seen on Lara’s TV. The cry of a monster.
The raccoons scatter. Sodapop barks at their retreating tails. The scent of death wafts away with them, and in its place he smells something…strange. An itchy smell. It’s not wrong, like the animals, or horrible, like the nothing-smell. It’s like every pheromone at the same time, tickling all his nerves. Sodapop sneezes.
Again, the ripple through the dirt. A heavy footstep. Sodapop turns.
The creature he sees is not an ape. It’s not a human. Some of its movements might remind you of a human, if you didn’t know humans very well. It’s a little like a bear, but the dream of a bear. A nightmare from someone who’s only ever heard a bear described, maybe. It walks on two legs, but it could drop to four if it wanted. It towers over him, taller than the tallest creature he’s ever seen.
It takes a step forward. Its hind paws are enormous, wide and flat. But there’s something more than that. It’s as if it walks on top of the earth and underneath it at the same time. Its footsteps send out ripples, reverberations under everything. Its movement disturbs roots, splashes in underground rivers. It’s here, where Sodapop can see and smell it, but it’s everywhere else, too.
The creature stops, and Sodapop realizes he’s been growling. As strange as this thing is, he recognizes it somehow. In Sodapop’s deepest, deepest memory, he knows this for an enemy.
The thing with the big paws hesitates. Slowly, slowly, it bends forward. It sets its front paws on the ground. It averts its gaze.
This looks like dog language, predator appeasement. But this is not a dog. Sodapop stops growling, but he keeps his eyes hard, his head low, ready for anything.
The creature lowers itself completely, lies flat on its belly. And then finally…it rolls over.
Sodapop blinks. In canine language, there is no clearer sign. I’m not a threat, it says. I give up. Here are my softest parts, all at your mercy. Still, he hesitates. It’s always dangerous dealing with a different kind of animal. They don’t always speak the right way. Cats, for example, like to show you their belly just before they attack. That’s because cats are traitors. Then again, Sodapop made friends with a cat before, and it helped. Everything is upside-down here.
The creature bares no teeth or claws. Its massive paws are extended, palm-side up, toward the sky. It keeps its gaze averted. Sodapop takes an exploratory sniff. Its smell makes his spinal column ache. He knows it. He does not know how. But he knows it, like a baby squirrel ought to know an owl.
Big-paws lets out a low, soft rumble. It is not a threat. It wants him to know this. But it is dangerous. He knows that in his soul.
The trees and bushes smell of calm, as if the forest itself wants to reassure him. He considers this.
Carefully, Sodapop wags his tail. Big-paws gets the message. It rolls onto all fours in one smooth, languid motion. It keeps its eyes averted, its teeth covered.
Above them, a star streaks across the sky. Sodapop can’t make it out well, but the big-footed thing jerks in response to it. Sodapop takes two steps back and growls again. Big-paws raises one paw in a human-like gesture. In a human, it means “stop.” This is not a human, but Sodapop stops.
It wants to help him. Or it wants help from him. He can’t tell.
He still does not like the way this thing smells. There’s something in him that wants to reject it, to chase it away. But he remembers the nothing-smell from a few nights before. He remembers a void that tried to erase the world. He thinks he remembers this creature running away from it.
Sodapop relaxes. In response, the monster does too. It stands up on its hind feet. Its movements are graceful, almost plant-like. Its shaggy hair makes a soft whooshing sound, like the whispering of trees. It turns its odd, flat face toward the top of the hillside. It looks back at him. He wags his tail again. Assured, it turns back toward the hill and begins to walk.
Sodapop follows, at a distance. The odd, electrical pulse finds him now and then. He knows this thing, but it knows him too, somehow. The way a dog knows a wolf, maybe. The way a dog and a wolf know that they’re the same, and that they’re enemies.
Indeed, the big-pawed creature knows him well. It knows that he crawls up onto the bed with his human after she falls asleep. It knows he likes soft blankets, likes to lay his head on her leg. That he sits when she says sit, that he lets her lead him around on a length of rope. The only things Sodapop hunts are toys – small pillows, really – full of stuffing that he can’t even eat. He’s a nuisance, this little dog with his comical, high-pitched “woof.” A thorn in the side of all wild things, upsetter of ecosystems, ally of the enemy.
But Big-Paws also knows that he dreams of dark places, and small creatures that run. That sometimes, in his dreams, he rips open their bellies and finds not stuffing, but slick, sweet gore. It knows what he doesn’t know how to know. Maybe it thinks that he knows something too.
A star streaks across the sky. The creature flinches. Sodapop sniffs the air for danger and growls.
Together, they walk into a forest full of strangeness.
To be continued…
[Music: “Swamp Fever,” by Walt Adams]