It was greenish-black, it squooshed between his toes, and it smelled of rotting fruit and cigarette ashes.
"Liz!"
"Rwaa?" his wife mumbled around a toothbrush.
"The dog puked or something," George said, pointing the bottom of his foot at her.
She grabbed a towel, threw it to him.
He wiped his foot, flossed between his toes. The smell of the stuff assaulted his nostrils in a very undoglike way.
A grayish-green, viscous trail lay atop the carpet, as if its fibers refused to drink the stuff in. He drew the towel across it, and it stretched like phlegm. A path of the smeared blotches led from the bedroom into the hallway.
"Where's the damn dog?"
Liz, a robe wrapped tight around her, left the bathroom. "Max, here Max," she called. The golden retriever ambled into the room, avoiding the trail of slime, wagging his tail cautiously.
"Gimme your paw." She turned it over in her palm, looked at the cracked, brown pads separated by tufts of fur.
"His feet are clean, and he looks OK," she said.
"Well, get another towel and help me clean."
They followed the foul-smelling path from the bedroom into the hallway. Rancid steam floated from the pine-scented disinfectant they vigorously rubbed into the stain. They cleaned the entire length of the hall, changing the water in the bucket as it became dark and gritty.
Once in the hallway, the trail turned the corner into the living room, crossed through the front doorway, veered into the lawn where it disappeared near the garbage cans.
)
