Brian nodded. "We hadn't been getting along that well."
"He sort of fits right in with us," Gabe said. "Check out the cool shirt."
Brian shrugged, a little embarrassed. "It's red. I thought it would be Christmasy. Now I feel —»
"Ha," Gabe interrupted. "Don't worry about it. The guys in the red shirts never make it to the second commercial break." He punched Brian gently in the arm in a gesture of nerd solidarity.
"Well, I'm going to run out to the car and grab another shirt," said Brian. "I feel silly. I have all my clothes in the Jetta. Everything I own, really."
As Brian walked toward the door, Theo suddenly remembered. "Oh, Gabe, I forgot. Skinner got out of the car. He's rolling in something foul out there in the mud. Maybe you should go with Brian and see if you can get him back in the car."
"He's a water dog. He'll be fine. He can stay out until the party is over. Maybe he'll jump up on Val with muddy paws. Oh, I hope, I hope, I hope."
"Wow, that's kinda bitter," Tuck said.
"That's because I'm a bitter little man," Gabe said. "In my spare time, I mean. Not all the time. My work keeps me pretty busy."
Brian had skulked away in his Star Trek shirt. As he opened one side of the double doors, the wind caught the door and whipped it back against the outside church wall with a gunshot report. Everyone turned to watch the big man shrug sheepishly, and Skinner, muddy and wet to the core, came trotting in, carrying something in his jaws.
"Wow, he's really tracking in a mess," Tuck said. "I never realized the perks of having a flying mammal as a pet before."
"What's that he's carrying in his mouth?" asked Theo.
"Probably a pinecone," Gabe said without looking. Then he looked "Or not."
There was a scream, a long protracted one, that started with Valerie Riordan and sort of passed through all the women near the buffet. Skinner had presented his prize to Val, dropped it on her foot, in fact, thinking that because she was standing near food, and she was still the Food Guy's female (for who could think of food without thinking of the Food Guy?), she would, therefore, appreciate it, and perhaps reward him. She didn't.
"Grab him!" Gabe yelled to Val, who looked up at him with the most articulate glare he had ever seen. Perhaps it was the weight of her M.D. that gave it eloquence, but without a word, it said: You have got to be out of your fucking mind.
"Or not," Gabe said.
Theo crossed the room and made a grab for Skinner's collar, but at the last second the Lab grabbed the arm, threw a head fake, then ducked out of Theo's reach. The three men started to give chase, and Skinner frisked back and forth across the pine floor, his head high and proud as a Lippizaner stallion, pausing occasionally to shake a spray of mud onto the horrified onlookers.
"Tell me it's not moving," shouted Tuck, trying to cut Skinner off at the buffet table. "That hand is not moving."
"Just the kinetic energy of the dog moving through the arm," said Gabe, having gone into a sort of wrestling stance. He was used to catching animals in the wild and knew that you had to be nimble and keep your center of gravity low and use a lot of profanity. "Goddammit, Skinner, come here. Bad dog, bad dog!"
Well, there it was. Tragedy. A thousand trips to the vet, a grass-eating nausea, a flea you will never, ever reach. Bad dog. For the love of Dog! He was a bad dog. Skinner dropped his prize and assumed the tail-tucked posture of absolute humility, shame, remorse, and overt sadness. He whimpered and ventured a look at the Food Guy, a sideways glance, pained but ready, should another BD come his way. But the Food Guy wasn't even looking at him. No one was even looking at him. Everything was fine. He was good. Were those sausages he smelled over by that table? Sausages are good.
"That thing is moving," Tuck said.
"No, it's not. Oh, yes it is," said Gabe.
There was another series of screams, this time a couple of man-screams among the women and children. The hand was trying to crawl away, dragging the arm along behind it.
"How fresh does that have to be to do that?" Tuck asked.
"That's not fresh," said Joshua Barker, one of the few kids in the room.
"Hi, Josh," said Theo Crowe. "I didn't see you come in."
"You were out in your car hitting a bong when we got here," Josh said cheerfully. "Merry Christmas, Constable Crowe."
" 'Kay," Theo said. Thinking fast, or what seemed like it was fast, Theo took off his Gore-Tex cop coat and threw it over the twitching arm. "Folks, it's okay. I have a little confession to make. I should have told you all before, but I couldn't believe my own observations. It's time I was honest with you all." Theo had gotten very good at telling embarrassing things about himself at Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and confession seemed to be coming even easier since he was a little baked. "A few days ago I ran into a man, or what I thought was a man, but was actually some kind of indestructible cybernetic robot. I hit him doing about fifty in my Volvo, and he didn't even seem to notice."