Tails of the Apocalypse (38 page)

He wasn’t old, the dog
. Not too old to run. Not so old that he felt the need to wander into the woods and simply lie down until death took him. Not so old that he didn’t miss the boy terribly. He was still young enough to enjoy life and love the boy’s sharing it with him.

But now he was on his own. Alone.

He’d lost the boy. After the Storm of Teeth, when his pack had been forced from its home. Then came the time of fear and scavenging. And searching for the boy.

That’s how he thought of him—the boy. Not like the Man, who sometimes forgot him outside when it was too cold. Not like the Woman, who was kind more often than not and sometimes slipped scraps from the table into his bowl.

Not like the Baby. Once when she pulled his tail, he’d nipped at her, and the Man had whipped him. Pulling his tail had hurt, and he’d barely scratched the Baby with his teeth. Less than fearsome, more than playful, to teach her a lesson that hurt begat hurt. But the Man had given the same lesson to him.

The whipping had scared him more than hurt him then, but now he was glad for it. Without it, he might never have learned to think before he acted. And lately, that lesson had served him well.

All the other members of the pack outranked him. Even the Baby. He was and always had been the runt. Except for the boy. The boy had always just been
the boy
. After the Baby joined their pack, the boy had also become a runt, like him. Last in line to eat, behind the Baby. Sometimes forgotten entirely and left to fend for himself. But those times were the dog’s favorite, when the boy would seek him out for companionship. They explored runthood together.

The boy would come and find him, and they would happily flee the squalls of the Baby to run a squirrel up a tree or a rabbit into the brush. Unlike the Man or the Woman or the Baby, the boy had never treated him as anything other than equal. Never made him do anything he didn’t want to do. Never beat him. Never shouted at him. Never asserted senior runt rank in any way.

And so he loved the boy as a playmate, a second self, a twin runt. They shared everything. Sometimes it was a ball the boy threw. Sometimes he grabbed one of the boy’s furs because it smelled so much like him, and the boy would pull on it and try to take it back. That was a fun game. And play-fighting. The boy would offer his hand, knowing his second self would never do him harm. He’d gnaw the boy’s fingers and the boy would make disgusted sounds and wipe his hand, and he’d chase the hand under the fur the boy used to dry it. Sometimes he’d catch the hand, and their game would start all over again.

Each had absolute access to whatever the other had. Except the boy refused to eat from his bowl. Though when the Man and the Woman weren’t looking, sometimes the boy let him eat from
his
bowl. But otherwise, they shared everything.

Mostly that was love, one for the other. Without expectations or conditions or demands, other than to know the one would always be there for the other. Would always protect the other. As they proved with the stray, on the day they’d even shared danger for the first time.

Long before the Storm of Teeth had come, they were walking in the woods near their home. A stray ran up on them, baring its teeth and looking for trouble. The boy froze in place, and though the dog was small, he moved between the boy and the stray to protect his twin. Teeth bared. Spinal fur erect. The stray had been much bigger than him. Most dogs were. More desperate seeming. Hungry, even.

That day, for the first time, he’d heard the boy shout. It surprised him. It wasn’t like his own bark, but it sort of was. The same, but with different sounds mashed into one. His bared teeth and the boy’s loud barking had scared the larger dog off.

So they shared this instinct too, he’d realized then. The instinct to look out for one another. As he was trying to protect the boy, so the boy had used his strange bark, aimed at the stray, to protect
him
. Twins in more than just spirit then, he’d decided. Love was also one runt sacrificing for the other. Theirs was a shared runt love.

That thought made him happy, but remembering it and the day they’d faced down the stray also made him sad. It made him miss the boy all the more. Part of him feared walking in the world made by the Storm of Teeth without the boy’s bark beside him to protect him. Part of him feared not walking beside the boy to shield him from that world with his own teeth. All of him missed the boy entirely. His stomach ached with the longing for his twin’s companionship. To chase a squirrel or a rabbit or a ball. To do anything, really, as long as it was done together.

In the days following the Storm of Teeth, his memory was one long stretch of boredom punctuated by flashes of terror. Eating when he could. Hiding and waiting until it was safe to move again. At those times, his thoughts couldn’t help but turn to the boy, and each day he felt a hole open wider inside him where the boy had been. He whimpered when he was sure he was alone and no one—and nothing—could hear.

His pack had left him behind. They’d all run out the front door of the house only a few nights ago, though it felt like forever. He remembered that night, when the Storm of Teeth had come.

He was in the backyard, lying on a bed of leaves on a cool evening that was sure to turn cold later on. On those nights, the boy often slipped him into his room without the Man knowing and snuggled with him under the covers. His twin would rub his belly, and he’d arch his head in the air and moan and the boy would laugh. On those nights, love would smell to him like the warm scent of the boy radiating beneath the covers. And they would sleep, curled up as one, until the next morning.

But it was too early for him to be inside on this particular evening. The pack was eating their dinner, and so he was outside in the backyard, awaiting a runt’s turn at his bowl. Then the storm came—slavering, growling, more frightening than even the stray had been. Than a hundred strays could ever be.

Their scent reached him on the wind long before he could see them. It was impossible not to smell them. The wind didn’t carry the scent of a good death, the natural odor of an animal after its life had ended. The scent of a food source he could roll around in and bring back to the boy. No, this was the smell of un-life, walking when it should be still.

He wanted to stand and bark, to be brave and warn the boy and the others, even the Baby. But the stench on the wind was so overpowering, so rank and fetid, that he merely dug under the leaves and woofed his fear. Then, when the creatures were closer, he hid his voice as well. Haunches shaking, he watched from his hiding place as they came into view.

The Storm of Teeth moved upright when they should be dormant and dead. They seemed to drag the cold with them as they lurched through the open yard behind his pack’s home. He cowered in his corner of the yard, far away from their path, where the Man had tied him to the corner of the house. They moved together, like a pack, but random and stumbling. They moved like a pack, but they didn’t hunt like one. They were slow and ponderous, not fast, but they never stopped or slowed down. They just kept coming. Like locusts looking for flesh.

He could smell the plague they carried as they moved past his hiding place, straight for his pack’s home. The smell marched into his nose on tiny feet, overpowering and putrid like its source. Dead and worse, like rotten meat infested with worms. Nothing should be walking and hunting like these creatures did. They kept moving when they should only lie still and let the worms do their work.

Had he been able, he would’ve stood and run away from them, as far as he could get. Every instinct in him demanded it, overwhelming his courage. But the Man had tied him with a rope, and it kept him from running.

They crossed the yard and scraped and clawed at the side of the house. The Man and the Woman screamed and fought. The Baby, useless, merely squalled, drawing more of the creatures. He remembered the boy shouting his name. But unlike the day when they’d stood together and faced the stray, the Storm of Teeth and the rope that held him separated them. If he moved at all, he knew the creatures would see him and come for him. Kill him. He wanted to avoid death. Death would mean he’d never see the boy again.

Finally, the creatures had broken in, and his pack had fled from the other end of the house, leaving him behind. The last thing he heard was the boy, screaming his name again. He’d wanted to run after him, but the rope had kept him from it. So instead he remembered the Man’s lesson.

He lay beneath his fur of leaves and waited. He’d always wanted to be bigger, especially on the day when they’d faced the stray. But now, as he hid himself from the slobbering herd, he was glad the lump he made beneath the leaves was small. Maybe the creatures wouldn’t notice. Maybe the leaves would hide his smell from them.

Some of the creatures pursued his pack, but others milled around the house for hours. He was alone among them. He’d never been so frightened. As the night’s cold descended through his fur and into his bones, he shook and wanted so badly to whine. But he remembered the Man’s lesson.

They tore and slavered and hissed and looked for more to eat. Their appetite seemed insatiable. But he remembered to think before acting, and so he waited and waited and waited longer. While the rope held him, there was nothing else he could do.

He learned to dart his eyes from creature to creature without moving his head. He watched them roam and stagger and slam against the house again and again, until the moon was rising in the sky. Finally they moved on, leaving him shivering beneath his leaves, exhausted. But he dared not move yet. He had to be sure they were gone. He fell into a fitful sleep.

He jerked awake, his paws kicking. He’d been running in a dream. A nightmare, then? Only a bad dream.

The night was cooling fast. It’d be a perfect night for him to scratch softly at the window, the promise of warm love waiting beneath the boy’s furs. It’d make having the nightmare worthwhile.

But then he saw the hole in the side of the house and his sadness, like the cold, settled deep into him. It hadn’t been a dream after all.

He sniffed to make sure he could no longer smell them. When he was sure they’d gone, he stood and stretched. His fur was soaked. His legs were stiff, despite their dream-running. The leaves clung to him with the night’s dew, sealing in the cold.

But he waggled off the leaves and dropped to his belly again and began to gnaw. The rope was bitter and stringy and rough against his tongue. It tasted like hay smelled. But he thought of finding the boy again, and that gave him strength.

He chewed. Time passed.

Once he thought he heard one of the creatures, but it was only a cat. The cat walked by him and watched him gnawing and he growled at it without stopping. The cat had simply turned away as if he weren’t worth her time and, mewing, walked on.

By the time the moon was full overhead, he’d eaten his way through the rope. His harness remained, but he didn’t mind that. It reminded him of the boy and their walks. Of the day they’d stood down the stray together. And that gave him courage. And hope.

He went inside the house, through the hole the creatures had made. His pack’s scent was everywhere. It mixed with the stench of the invaders. And something else. The smell of food.
Real
food.

His eyes followed his nose around the room. Whenever the Man or Woman wanted him to do something, they’d bark their strange sound, and he’d come running to this room. After he did the thing, they’d give him a reward. Next to the boy’s room, this was his favorite room in the house.

There were treats all over the table. His pack had been feeding when the attack happened. He stood up on his hind legs and sniffed. He began to salivate. The smorgasbord of smells almost overpowered the lingering, wormy reek of the creatures. He looked around left, then right. An old habit. But the Man and the Woman weren’t here to bark a warning at him. He was glad and sad at the same time for that.

He leapt up on one of their seats and stared at the table. Food covered it in wide, flat bowls. He was famished, he realized, now that the danger had passed. As hungry as the creatures seemed to be.

No, not like them. Never like them.

Placing his front paws on the table’s edge, he looked around one last time, then leapt up on the table and filled his jaws. He ate for the pure joy of eating while standing on the tabletop. He’d dreamed of it many times. He looked around again, just to make sure he wouldn’t get into trouble, then remembered: they were gone. The boy was gone. His sadness found solace as he gorged himself.

When he was finished, he tumbled down, first to the chair, then to the floor. His belly was fat and he felt sleepy. So he went back to the hole in the side of the house, looked left and right to make sure none of the creatures were around, then pooped in the backyard. Eating from the table was one thing. Pooping in the house? That just wasn’t right.

He walked back inside and to his favorite room in the house, where his twin runt slept, and clambered beneath the boy’s furs. He buried his body in them, just as he’d burrowed beneath the leaves. He wanted to absorb the boy’s scent into his own fur. He wanted it to be all he could smell, ever again. As he inhaled deeply and his belly spread full beneath him like a fat pillow, the sorrow returned. If he left here, he knew, eventually the boy’s scent would leave him. Especially now that the heavy odor of the Storm of Teeth lay across everything. He fell asleep, buried in the furs and painting a permanent memory of the boy’s scent into his nose.

Dawn brought more of the creatures. He awoke to them moving through the house. As he had the night before, he inhaled deeply to stamp the boy’s smell on his brain one last time. Then he poked his nose from beneath the covers.

One of them dragged a foot aimlessly down the hallway as it passed the door to the boy’s room. Eventually, he knew, he had to move. The longer he delayed, the further away the boy was. There was no rope binding him now. He must move soon if he were ever to find the boy.