Chris Pourteau - Tails of the Apocalypse

But there was also a hot voice. And it told her to do something else. She ran down to the corner where the van had turned, then headed north, following its sound. She sprinted as hard as she could, but the engine’s hum diminished with each passing second. She gasped for breath. Her legs burned. When she couldn’t run any further, she coasted to a stop at the bottom of a long hill, gazing up the empty street. Palm fronds fluttered above the sidewalks.

Tears streamed down her face. She sank to her knees. Ahead, a small shadow trotted toward her from the darkness.

“Knife!” She leaped to her feet and ran to meet him. “How’d you get here? Did she throw you out?”

He jumped up, pawing her, then spun in a circle. Raina gestured north over and over. “We have to find them, Knife. Do you know where they went? Do you know where she took them?”

Knife stared up at her, his black eyes just like the button eyes of a stuffed bear she’d had as a little kid. He turned around and walked swiftly up the hill, nose sweeping side to side. She followed him through winding roads of grand houses nestled in the trees. After another two or three miles, the houses stopped altogether and there was nothing but forest. On top of a rise, Knife came to a stop, his wet, black nose twitching.

Raina gazed into the darkness. “What’s wrong? Where’d they go?”

Knife glanced up at her. He took one step forward, then stopped again, paw lifted hesitantly.

Raina balled her hands into fists. “Just tell me where to go.”

Uphill and to her left, far away but clearly her, Tough barked three times.

The house lay in the darkness like a spider’s hole.

The smell of rotting bodies wafted on the wind. Eggplant whined from around the back of the house, her smush-nosed voice like a raspy baby. A candle flickered behind the windows. Raina waited for it to go out, then waited longer still. Knife sat beside her. Silent. Watchful.

The wait gave her a long time to think. At first, she thought to go around back, get the dogs, and run away. But Officer Morgan knew where she lived. She was a bad person. The same as the man who’d called and the one who’d chased her in the street. The type to come back for her. Even if Raina could find a car, get back to the hospital, and move the dogs somewhere new, it wouldn’t be right. She would still be out there. Preying on the city. On the dogs.

The front door was locked, but the garage door was propped up by two-by-fours, with a couple of hoses running out into the drive. Raina used one board to lever the door up another few inches, slipping a second board beneath it and wriggling through the gap. The door to the house was unlocked.

Raina stood in the darkness. Someone was snoring from a back room. She took off her shoes and snuck forward. Officer Morgan lay in bed beneath her sheets. The revolver rested on the dresser beside her. Raina moved silently forward and picked up the gun. It felt too heavy, like something from another world.

Knife growled. Morgan blinked, inhaling with a stutter and grabbing at the empty space on the dresser.

Holding the gun in both hands, Raina aimed it at her head. “Why did you take them?”

The woman startled upright, pressing her back to the headboard. “Jesus!”

“Why did you take my dogs?”

“Put down that gun, little girl. Before someone gets hurt.”

“Shut up.”

“Do you even know how to aim that?”

“I saw you do it.” Raina lowered her aim to Morgan’s chest. “Tell me why. One. Two. Th—”

“They’re not pets anymore!” Morgan blurted. “One dog keeps you safe. Anything more is just meat.”

Raina didn’t think she could pull the trigger. When the gun went off, it was so loud that Knife peed on the floor.

Along with her dogs, two others were caged out back. When she let them out, they snuffled around the yard, inspecting the pile of bones, but they didn’t pick any of them up. They knew better. Raina called them to the gate, but when she opened it, the two strange dogs ran away. Smiles followed them. She whistled, but he didn’t come back. Hoping his new friends would help keep him safe, she let him go.

Raina loaded the others into the van. With the seat scooted all the way forward, she could barely reach the pedals. On the way home, she kept running into snarled intersections, forcing her to detour. Miles from the hospital, she backed into a pole because she was too short to see behind. Some part of the van caught fast to the pole. She got out with the dogs and walked south.

The sun rose, slanting over the buildings, glinting on the dew on the cars. When she got to the hospital, she found the dogs scratching against the other side of the door to reception. She opened it and they rushed her, jumping up against her legs. The back room smelled like poop. They’d eaten all the food she’d left out and the water bowls were down to the last licks.

She cleaned up the mess. Poured fresh water. Let out the little dogs who’d been cooped up all night. After, most went back to bed. Raina sat on the bench in the front room, Knife on her lap.

“She was right,” Raina whispered. “I can’t take care of you all. If something had happened to me, they would have been trapped. Nothing to eat. Nothing to drink.”

Knife looked up at her from the corners of his eyes.

“I had to learn to take care of myself. That’s the only way now. For all of us. Do you understand?”

He yawned, squeaking, and closed his eyes.

She let them sleep a while longer. She tried to think of another way, but Officer Morgan had shown her the truth. No one was coming to save you. No matter what your dad said, there was no salvation except what you honed for yourself from whatever you had.

The next night, she brought a full bag of kibbles down to the parking lot and poured it into multiple tubs in case any of the dogs came back later. Then she got her pack, brought the dogs outside, and headed east.

The dogs ranged ahead. Raina slowed. Dragon bounded onward and the others raced after. One block away, then two. Raina stopped. The dogs kept running. All except for Knife, who turned his head, one black paw lifted from the street. He glanced at the others as they disappeared around a hedge, then strutted back to Raina and took his place by her side.

She wanted to tell him to go, to be with the others, but she couldn’t make herself do it. She kneeled and scratched his ears.

“I can’t take care of all of them,” she said. “But maybe we can take care of each other.”

He lifted his nose to the wind. Raina did the same. When he moved down the street, she followed.

Growing up, my family had a golden retriever named Lady. She’s been dead for close to twenty years now, but my family still tells the occasional story about her. Like when we got a kitten who was so small she would curl up on Lady’s back to sleep. Or the time my dad went pheasant hunting in his friend’s asparagus field; my dad got one bird, his friend got one, and so did Lady—she’d found a hen out in the maze of asparagus gone to seed and done as her instincts suggested.

But Lady was the only dog I had as a kid. After her, it was nothing but cats. As recently as my late twenties, I didn’t think too much of dogs. I had nothing against them, but I had no desire to own one. And I definitely didn’t like little yappers.

Then I started dating someone whose mom had two dogs: a little orange terrier and a mutt—maybe a Chihuahua/miniature greyhound—named Vinnie. I thought the terrier was okay, but Vinnie was an ambassador to dog skeptics. Funny. Playful. Loyal. One time, when we came by the house for the first time in a few weeks, Vinnie threw back his head and howled when he saw me.