“I’ll join your pack,” she woofed. She flicked her snout toward where the others were piled in the shadows. “Looks like you could use another real dog to balance out all those yappers.”
Shep’s tail wagged in circles, though he tried to keep a serious look on his muzzle. “Well, that’d be very good. I mean, good. I mean, I’m glad to have you.” He licked his jowls.
“You can call me Blaze.”
“Blaze,” he sighed.
She curled back up on the floor, grinning. “Good night, Shepherd.”
“Shepherd,” he sighed, standing. “I mean, good night.”
Shep stumbled over sleeping dogs as he made his way toward the front of the bus. He felt dizzy and fur-brained and needed a sniff of fresh air. He also figured some dog should keep a watch out for water lizards or anything else that might surface in the night. Just as he was about to stick his snout through the shattered front window of the bus, Callie strutted out of the shadows.
“Where were you?” she yapped.
“I went to check out the rest of the bus,” he woofed nervously, though he didn’t know why he felt so nervous. “And to scent out that girldog.”
“So that’s why you’re all slobber-tongued.”
“I’m not slobber-tongued,” Shep protested, though even he could sense how silly he sounded. “I mean, I thought I should give her a smell, make sure she isn’t wild, you know?”
“Really?” Callie’s brown eyes were like noses sniffing his thoughts.
“She’s a very nice girldog, in fact,” Shep continued, barks pouring from his jowls like drool, “not wild at all, and I asked her to join our pack, and she said yes.”
“She called me a yapper,” Callie snapped.
“I’ll tell her to stop saying that, if it bothers you,” Shep woofed.
“It doesn’t matter if she stops saying it. She’s already barked it! It’s already out there, stinking up the whole den.” Callie was yapping loudly. Dogs were lifting their heads and staring.
Callie was nearly frothing at the mouth. “In sum,” she snarled, “I don’t like her.” She panted loudly.
Callie didn’t smell like her usual reasonable self. Shep tilted his head. “You sure that’s what’s itching you?” he asked.
“What, that’s not a good enough reason for you? You think that’s nothing, calling some dog a yapper?”
“I just think —”
“Well, don’t think,” Callie snapped. “I know. Calling me a yapper is as good as calling me a mutt.”
“What’s so bad about calling a dog a mutt?” Shep woofed.
Callie dropped her snout and looked at the floor. “Only a purebred could woof that.”
Shep crouched in front of Callie and gave her a quick lick on the jowl. “Callie, every dog in this pack thinks you’re made of bacon. Especially me. We’d have lost the Great Wolf’s scent a long time ago without you.”
Callie looked at Shep. “I hope you tell the new dog that,” she woofed. “She called me a yapper to make me feel unimportant, worthless. To show the pack — to show you that she was better than me.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t think that,” Shep woofed, not at all sure that Blaze didn’t think of Callie as just another dog. Shep knew he should tell Blaze that Callie was the real leader of the pack, but then Blaze would know that Shep was only the doer, the snout out of which Callie barked. He didn’t want Blaze to see him that way. He wanted to be her hero.
Callie limply scratched at her ear. “Just remember what I said back at the tree: The last thing this pack needs is a power struggle. And that dog smells like she thinks she’s the alpha, not you and me.” She retreated into the dark of the bus and sank into sleep.
Shep sat at the front of the bus and looked out the window at the sky. A steady rain fell from a sheet of cloud. The city was as dark as Shep had ever seen it, with only the faintest light shining through the clouds from the hidden moon high above. He wished he could see the Great Wolf’s sparkling coat; he needed guidance. How could he lead as a team with Callie and not have Blaze think less of him? But he didn’t want to lead without Callie. He also didn’t want to kick Blaze out of the pack. Everything was so difficult in this storm-wrecked world.
Shep wondered, as he had every night since the storm, if his boy was somewhere in this darkness, looking up at the same cloud-cluttered sky. He hoped not. Shep didn’t want to be trapped in this ruined place; he wouldn’t wish such a fate on any dog. But at least he’d been trained to survive in the fight cage; at least he was toughened to the harsh things of the world. His boy was as soft as a new pup. He wouldn’t last a sun on the streets of the drowned city.
As if answering Shep’s thoughts, a howl echoed through the dark. If he hadn’t seen him washed away in the wave, Shep would’ve sworn it was Zeus’s call.
The first tails of dawn woke Shep from his slumber. He’d dreamt of the river of dogs again, only this time it was he who was drowning. He’d looked up and seen the endless stream of pounding paws. He’d barked for help, but not one dog had glanced down as he sank deeper and deeper.
He lapped at a foul-tasting puddle of rainwater Outside the broken window of the bus, then scanned the surrounding street. Both sides were lined with stone buildings, some a few floors tall, all in various states of destruction. He wondered if the pack shouldn’t split up and scrounge for scraps in smaller groups — they might have better luck looking in more than one place. We’d be easier prey for any attacker. Then again, with strange things like water lizards around, are any of us safe, even in a pack?
Callie woofed in her sleep, her tiny paws twitching. He wondered what she was dreaming about and hoped it was a happy dream. He would hunt up some kibble for her, to make up for their spat. Maybe I’ll catch her a squirrel, he thought, though the idea made him gag.
Blaze hopped over Snoop’s sleeping form and joined Shep on the street. “You’re the first pet I’ve encountered who wakes before midsun,” she barked. “Look at the rest of them,” she yipped, waving her snout at the bus. “Lazy as the cycle is long.”
“Why are you all proud-snouted?” Shep woofed. “You’re a pet like the rest of us.”
Blaze swiped at a pile of rubble. “You and I are not like them,” she woofed. A chunk of stone tumbled out of the pile, revealing a cache of hidden kibble. Blaze waved her tail. “Want a bite?”
Shep scented jerky treats in Blaze’s stash. Slaver cascaded from his jowls. “Maybe just a nibble,” he yipped.
“So why don’t you tell me your story?” barked Blaze.
Shep wondered what story to tell. Begin in the fight cage? Would that be too horrible? Begin with the storm, with meeting Callie? Was that where my life began?
“Where were you born?” Blaze prompted.
“I was born in a kennel,” Shep answered. “Now you.”
“Me, too,” she barked.
“And?” he asked.
“And?” she repeated mockingly.
Shep whipped around and leapt at her chest, toppling her into a puddle.
“Ha!” she snapped. “Fight dog, right?”
Shep was surprised — impressed? — that Blaze could divine this information from a single attack. But the excited look on her muzzle made him nervous.
“Yes,” he grunted, “I was born in a fight kennel.”
“Don’t be shy,” Blaze yipped, slapping the dirt, her tail and rump waving behind her. “It’s nice to meet a dog who hasn’t had his life handed to him in a silver bowl.”
Shep stepped back, away from Blaze, cutting off their play. “The fight kennel never handed me anything except a cage,” Shep barked flatly. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Blaze stood, tail lower but still wagging. She slinked closer to Shep, rubbing his flank. “This is a tough world, and you’re a tough dog. Why are you ashamed of it?”
“I’m not ashamed,” Shep woofed, wondering what she meant, whether he was ashamed. “And what’s so tough about your world? You look like a pe
t who’s seen her share of comfy beds and bowls piled with kibble.” He sounded a bit more defensive than he’d meant to.
“Now look who’s barking about things he knows nothing about.” Blaze trotted away from the bus, toward the canal. She paused and looked back over her long tail at Shep. “You coming, hero?”
Shep glanced at the bus full of snoozing pets. He should stay and guard them. But he could go with Blaze just for a few heartbeats, maybe hunt up some kibble, and no dog would notice. Right?
He saw Blaze’s marbled coat shimmer in the morning light. “I’m coming!” he barked.
As they snuffled through the jumble on the street, supposedly scenting for food, Blaze told Shep about her past. She was born in a kennel inland, near a big lake filled with water lizards. She was taken from her litter by a young man in a wide-brimmed brown hat. He started to whistle and talk to her, and fed her scraps of dried meat. It took a few suns, but she soon understood that with each whistle he wanted her to sit, or stop, or walk toward him, to lie down at his paws or jump at a toy in his hands.
After a moon-cycle of work, the man took Blaze to a fat building with a curved roof, which oozed the acrid stench of manure and was surrounded by endless fields broken up by long stretches of fencing. It was hot and humid, like her kennel had been, but the only life in this place was the huge, snorting brown beasts. They groaned and grunted in the fat building, and tromped lazily through the open grasses. Blaze knew that she was the alpha of these creatures, though they were a full stretch taller than she was, and longer and wider by more, outweighing her like a Car to a yapper.
She barked at the young man to let her at the beasts, that she knew she could beat them; instead, the man walked her around the whole property, letting her sniff the new smells. The next sun, he put her in a pen with a few of the massive creatures. Blaze scampered up to them, but the beasts didn’t move. She wanted them to move, needed them to move so she could collect them for her man, show him that she knew she was these creatures’ master. She sniffed at the paw of one of the animals. The beasts’ fur ended in a cloven, bony toe, so Blaze nipped at the tender skin just above that horny bit. The beast gave a snort, then lumbered a step forward. Success!
The man then whistled at her, and she remembered that the whistle — high, two blasts — meant to run to one side of the man. He whistled like that again, and Blaze nipped the beasts to move to that side. The man leapt to his feet and fed her a treat. He went through each of the whistles he’d taught her, and Blaze realized that they were never meant to direct her, but to tell her what to do with the fat, snorty beasts.
The man made her practice on the few beasts in the pen for two more suns. Each evening, Blaze lay on the porch of the man’s den and looked out at the masses of beasts in the fields, longing to try her skills on such a test.
On the third sun, he took her out into the open grassland. Racing with the beasts, driving them first one way, then the other, staring down charging strays — it was like discovering that the fur she’d always worn was a mere blanket covering the fiery stuff beneath. Lifeblood pounded through her, and she slept each night the dreamless sleep of a happy dog.
There were a few other dogs working on the big herds, and they accepted Blaze as a partner. They were never a pack — each dog kept to herself. But they were friendly enough, and good workers. Some of the men kept dogs other than their herding dogs. Those men would put the other dogs in an empty stall at night to make them fight. Those fight dogs were kept apart from Blaze and her partners.
“It sounded like the end of the world sometimes, listening to those fights,” Blaze snuffled.
Shep knew exactly what she meant.
“So how did you end up here?” Shep woofed.
Blaze panted, grinning. “My man came here a few suns before the storm to visit his kin,” she yipped. “Funny how a chance thing like taking a vacation can lead to such a disaster.”
The winds had howled as loud as the big-wheeled farm machines. The gusts clattered the glass in the windows. Blaze’s man and his kin huddled in the dark around the kitchen table, where several candles flickered. There was a pounding at the door; Blaze barked fiercely at the noise. She scented that her man was anxious, and that the knocking only made him more upset.
The man answered the door, holding Blaze back by her collar. Several strangers dressed in green uniforms burst into the room and began shouting commands. The man yelled at the strangers, clutching Blaze to his chest, and the strangers yelled back. Blaze barked and snapped at one of the green men. Something changed after that. She was dragged by one of the strangers in green away from her man and locked in the Bath room. The door was opened a few heartbeats later and a bag of kibble was tossed inside. She heard her man shouting, then the rumble of footsteps and the slam of the door, and then only the wind.
Blaze smelled the air shifting; she knew she had to get out of that den and rescue her man. She broke the door to the room she’d been trapped in, then smashed through a window to escape. She roamed the streets sniffing for her man, but couldn’t pick up his scent. When the winds became unbearable, she found shelter under a boxy den near the canal. Then she smelled a strange salt scent in the air — the wave.
She ducked out from under the den and saw the water rising in the canal. A Car lay on its back near the building she’d hidden under. Blaze climbed onto the Car, and scrambled onto the den-building’s roof. The winds tore at her fur, and the rain soaked her, and she knew that she clung to her life by a claw. Then the wave smashed into the den beneath her and flattened it. The roof, however, floated on top of the water in a single piece. Blaze rode the roof like a boat until it smashed into a stone wall on the other side of the canal. She clambered onto that stone building and waited until the water washed away.
“After the wave, I tried to keep moving, but that fire inside me had been blown out by the storm.” She licked her jowls and sighed. “I’ll never find my man, never get to smell my home or my partners and the beasts again.” She pawed a sheet of rusted metal and a shiny cockroach skittered out of a puddle and under another piece of trash. “All I have left is this wasteland full of scuttling things.”
Shep licked her nose. “And me,” he woofed.
Blaze licked his nose back. “And your pack of yappers,” she yipped.
“Our pack of yappers,” he barked.
Shep and Blaze headed back toward the bus. As they loped through the scattered buildings and piles of rubble, Shep told Blaze his story: about the fight kennel, about rescuing the dogs, about the fight at the kibble den, and finally about how much he missed his boy.
“I’d give my front paw to smell my boy again,” Shep woofed.
“I feel like I lost my front paw when the green strangers took my man from me,” Blaze said, sighing.
They went on about their humans, what they were like and the silly things they did, like wearing shoes and watching the light-window. It made Shep happy to tell Blaze all about his boy, and to hear about her man. The only other dog he really barked with was Callie, and she only ever woofed about the stuff of this world, the world of the storm, the world without people.
By the time they turned onto the street where the bus lay, it was midsun and the pack was scattered, sniffing around in the trash. Callie was furious — her hackles were up and her tail was low.
“And where have you been, partner?” she grumbled.
“What are you, his master?” snapped Blaze. “We were out. Hunting.”
Callie trembled with rage. “I’m not his master,” she snarled, trying very hard to keep her bark even. “We’re a team. And teammates don’t run off for half a sun without leaving some whiff of where they went.”
Shep stuck his snout between the two before the fur started to fly. “You’re right,” he woofed to Callie. “I should have woken you.” Callie’s hackles smoothed, but Blaze sneered. Shep continued, “Anyway, looks like every thing’s well-furred here.”
Callie’s tail started to wag. “Y
es, things are good here, no thanks to you,” she woofed. “Virgil and Honey scavenged one of the surrounding buildings and found a whole loaf of bread in one of the dens. We saved you each a slice.” She snagged two pieces of bread from inside the bus’s broken front window and dropped them at Shep’s paws.
Callie straightened her stance. “This den smells like the perfect haven to wait in for the humans to return,” she barked loudly, as if trying to catch the attention of all the nearby dogs. “We’re close to buildings to scavenge, we’re safe from the rain, and with only one entrance, we can defend it easily. Now that you’re a part of the pack, Blaze, I’m sure you won’t mind if we all share your den.” Callie glared defiantly into Blaze’s muzzle.
“Clever dog,” Blaze snuffled, a rather frightening smile spreading over her jowls. “Of course, you all are welcome to share this den,” she barked, matching Callie’s strident tone. “But I don’t recommend it. This bus is not as safe as it looks. There’s a hole somewhere in the back that rats can get through. And one way in means one way out: We’re too easy to trap.”
Shep felt like something important was going on, but he hadn’t the faintest scent of what it was. It smelled like Callie and Blaze were having a marking contest, only no dog was peeing.
Callie stepped closer to Blaze. “So you’d have us wander the streets looking for someplace slightly safer, all the while leaving us prey to whatever wants to attack us, be it a wild dog or a water lizard?”
“No need to wander,” Blaze barked. “I know the perfect place.” And with that, she turned tail and shot off down an alley.
“Virgil!” Callie bayed. “You’re in charge. Higgins, follow me!” Then she raced after Blaze.
Shep felt like the odd dog out. Should he follow or stay? He wanted to follow. Callie had left Virgil in charge. I’m following, he concluded and charged down the alley. He tracked the fresh scent of Callie’s chase — she reeked of anger — and soon caught up with the three of them.
They stood before a wider section of canal, almost the size of the Park. The twisted remains of docks floated in the water. On the sunset side of the canal, the stone wall was smoothed to form a steep ramp up to street level. The space around the ramp was open pavement, edged by trees and grass, and then low buildings — or would have been, save for the pack of various-sized boats cluttering the plaza. The alpha of these seafaring survivors lay on its side several stretches from the top of the ramp, jammed against the buildings: a giant boat, thirty stretches long at least.