Puddles¶
Puddles is the worm-infected Doberman of Arnold Weathers, the first fully transformed host the task force fights in The Summer Service.
| Type | Monster / infected animal |
| Aliases | Worm dog; Arnold's Doberman; the dog head |
| Abilities | Shrugs off a forehead gunshot; keeps moving after being cut in half; vomits streams of worms |
| Weaknesses | Fire and the flashlight weapon; leg wounds slow it |
| Status | Destroyed; its still-living head was handed to McManley's team (as of Summer Service 05) |
| First appearance | Summer Service 05 |
Description¶
Puddles is a bloated, hairless, swollen white Doberman with fluid streaming from its mouth and a collar cutting into its neck. Clumps of hair lie around the entryway of Arnold's house, and the air smells of blood, feces and vomit (Summer Service 05). The dog's name comes from Arnold's niece Madeline Weathers, who recognizes the head when Andrew Howard shows it to her. The Biz first answers "Puddles? Yeah," then retracts it: "That wasn't Puddles when we found it" (Summer Service 05).
Abilities¶
- A bullet through the forehead (2 harm) has no effect.
- It charges and bites. It sinks its teeth into Huell Kendrick's neck and shoulder and drags him backward into the house, then bites deep into Kurt Larson's forearm.
- Its body keeps moving after it is cut in half, and thousands of worms poke from the stump of its neck. It rears back and vomits a stream of worms (Summer Service 05).
Weaknesses¶
A shot from Kurt that takes a chunk of bone and meat out of a leg makes it drop Huell. Fire kills it: Andrew points Kurt's flashlight weapon at the headless body in the pantry, setting it on fire for 4 harm, and Huell finishes it with 2 more, though it topples onto him, burning and dripping worms (Summer Service 05). See also the worms, which are killed by heat, salt and alcohol.
History¶
The Summer Service¶
When the team opens Arnold's door, Huell's flashlight reveals the dog. The Biz panics and fires a burst that wrecks vases and windows but does no harm to it. Andrew sprints back from the car, shouts "Hold it away from you!" and uses his holy weapon, which he has been treating as pepper spray. The spray of nothingness bisects the dog and also passes through Kurt's arm, costing Kurt 3 harm; the body falls away, leaving the head clamped on his arm (Summer Service 05).
Once Huell pries the head off, he sees worms riddling the back of its neck and its eyes still moving under closed lids. When the team reopens the door, the body is gone. Andrew bags the head and puts it in the trunk. In the kitchen the headless body is standing upright in the lattice-doored pantry. The team burns it, then douses the pantry and burns the spreading worms (Summer Service 05).
Andrew wordlessly hands the bagged, still-living head to an assistant at Donald McManley's RV: "Be real careful. It still moves." McManley examines it, and a garbage can with a cinder block on top is later put over it in the back of the RV. The team abandons the RV, head included, behind the abandoned gas station (Summer Service 05).
What remains unknown¶
Whether Puddles was infected before Arnold or after, and what became of the head after the RV was abandoned. The episodes do not say.