The Imaginary Lives of Mechanical Men by Randy F. Nelson

you want me to say, Roger? That this place needs a mommy? Maybe I should flush my career.”
    “No, I don’t want you to say that. I don’t know what I want you to say.”
    She avoids his glimpses.
    They take their breakfast like communion. Bagels and jelly and juice.
    Roger makes himself content with the early sun and the vista outside the breakfast room windows. The woods seem to draw him. It is a room full of white wicker furniture and uncertainty.
    Toward the end Rex reaches them. Saves them perhaps. It begins with a clamor at the kitchen door, a frantic scratching to get out. And as soon as Roger opens the door, Rex bolts, eager to get at something lying just outside. There on the terrace is a legless corpse, covered with dirt and decay. It is a chunk of cloth barely recognizable as the rag doll it used to be. Rex takes hold with his teeth, the stuffing spilling out of his mouth like red and gray entrails, and Roger shivers, feels the food rising in his stomach. He barely has time to put out his foot and stop the crazy dog from dragging the thing into the kitchen.
    Amy half turns from the refrigerator. “What is it? What’s got him so excited?”
    “It’s Timmy,” he says.
    At first Wesley thinks of fairy tales, of goblins and ghosts, evil stepmothers and fathers who murder their sons, trolls burying small soft bodies in deep forest. And roots like crawling fingers that go down fast. It’s like one of the stories from the book, but soon real patches of sunlight and the real warmth of afternoon banish dark thoughts. And Rex frolics. And they go walking, the three of them—Wesley, Roger, and Rex.
    When the path fades, they follow a stream that trickles through their forest, turning with no regard for the straight and crooked of human perception. It is just a stream. After a time they go creekwalking. And when Rex at last plops belly down, head between his paws upon a sandbank, Roger and Wes practice construction. They make a dam of stones and sticks and creek clay. Then a waterfall. Then a bridge. And before long they cut sturdy branches for walking sticks and again go clambering over roots and rocks, working their way upstream for another hour or more into cooler, clearer water. Finally resting at a pool where water striders skate on the stretched-tight surface of late afternoon, finishing their snacks where the foliage is rubbery green and thick.
    While they are walking and exploring, the stream begins to unravel imperceptibly, dividing itself, turning underground at one place and thinning to dribbles and drops in another. So they follow the dog, who scrambles thoughtlessly over moss boulders and through shadows, rips up a hillside of leaves, panting at the crest, the three of them panting and flopping together. And realizing by degrees that they are lost.
    “This is great,” says Roger. Then after a few breaths, “Reminds me of when I was a kid.”
    “You lived here?” The relief is audible in Wesley’s voice.
    “Naw. Just, you know, fooling around in the woods, doing guy stuff. I never knew all this was back here until old Rex”—he scratches Rex’s ears—“showed us. It’s great, isn’t it?”
    “How are we going to get back?” says Wesley.
    Roger snaps a twig and throws both pieces. Rex pricks up his ears momentarily, sniffs, and begins rooting among the leaves. “Look at him. Not worried a bit, not losing a moment. That’s the way we’re going to be from now on. I promise.”
    “Does he know the way back?”
    “This is great,” Roger insists. “You can see the whole world from up here. Those houses look like mushrooms, don’t they?”
    “Is one of them our house?”
    “I don’t think so. Our house is probably over—that direction. Sort of that way. Don’t worry, kiddo, all we got to do is find that creek again, right? Then follow the creek.”
    “I think it’s going to be dark soon.”
    “You worry too much, son. Gotta learn to trust your instincts. Here, watch this. Yo, Rex!