The Return

by Dayna Lorentz

  A metal-link fence blocked his path, but Shep found a space where the ground curved away from the wire. He shoved his way underneath it, scraping his skin on a snag in the metal. He pushed through some overgrown weeds and found himself on the street where they’d left Zeus. A few stretches away, Callie and Oscar were tugging on the rope, trying to drag the boxer to better cover behind a Car.

  “You need some help?” he woofed, trotting to their sides.

  “Shep!” Oscar yowled, tail wagging.

  “Quiet!” Callie grunted. “You want to alert every dog catcher in the neighborhood?”

  Oscar cowered, then resumed his happy dance in front of Shep, thanking the Great Wolf and waggling his tail.

  Callie smiled at the pup, then at Shep. “Knew you’d be back,” she yipped quietly.

  Shep licked her muzzle. “I promised to get you home, and an alpha doesn’t break his promise.”

  She sniffed, and then her ears twitched. “You’re bleeding.”

  “It’s nothing,” he woofed. “A scratch from the fence.”

  “I guess it’d be too much to ask that the alpha brought me back some kibble?” Zeus snorted from his perch in the wagon.

  “You guessed right,” Shep woofed. Then he took up the wagon handle between his jaws. “Let’s get to that beach.”

  Shep pulled the wagon at a trot, though his muscles burned with the effort. He wanted to get as far as possible from that woman and the dog catcher. But also from whatever it was he’d done to scare the woman so. He kept chewing the heartbeats over in his mind, but came up empty-jowled. Why did she call the dog catcher? What had he done?

  What’s wrong with me?

  The road ended at a raised gravel track, on top of which were wooden slats connected by two thick metal humps. Zeus had to get out of the wagon so Shep could bump and drag it over the humps.

  Zeus winced as he lugged himself out of the plastic bowl of the wagon. “This paw is only getting worse,” he groaned.

  “You want me to gnaw it off?” growled Callie.

  Zeus growled back at her. “I’ll manage,” he grunted.

  On the other side of the gravel mound were more streets smelling of salt and rot. The pavement was fringed with heaps of planks, plastic bins, dead plants, and sheets of metal that creaked and wailed in the breeze. The dens beyond were marked with brown swirls up to their rooflines. Rusted tables and chunks of broken stone were strewn among the wilted plants and dead bushes. In some places, the parade of buildings was interrupted by a pile of splintered boards and glass — a den crushed by the storm. As the sun died behind them, no lights flickered on inside these houses.

  Callie stopped in front of Shep. “You need to rest,” she woofed.

  Shep dropped the handle. “We need to meet up with the others.”

  “Look at your drool.” She flicked her snout at his nose. “You’re bleeding. You need a rest.”

  Shep lapped up his slobber. “Fine,” he woofed. “But only a short one.”

  Shep curled next to the wagon — he would sleep, but only if he knew that Zeus couldn’t move without waking him. Shep dreamt he saw his boy. He ran toward him, but was held back. Shep strained toward his boy but couldn’t move a stretch. He looked back to see what held him, and there was nothing.

  When he woke, it was fully night. Callie and Oscar were arranging a small pile of kibble — mostly garbage, but a small rat topped the mound.

  One whiff of the stuff curled Shep’s jowls. After all his hunting, all that lifebloodlust, he had one meal of kibble and was transformed back into a pet. He panted, thinking how Blaze would chew his rawhide over being such a dainty-paw.

  “You going to eat that or are you having too much fun torturing me?” grumbled Zeus, whose slaver dripped onto Shep’s nose.

  “Eat up,” Shep woofed, shifting away from the fountain of drool.

  As Oscar and Zeus dug into the pile, Callie dragged a sealed bag with something rattling around inside it toward Shep.

  “It’s some sort of human food involving cheese and corn, as far as I can smell.” She nosed the bag in front of him. “You need to eat something.”

  Shep smiled, then rested a paw on a corner of the bag and tore it open with a fang. “Care to join me?”

  Callie grinned and lay down at his side. “Don’t mind if I do,” she yipped.

  Shep crunched a mouthful of the cheesy snacks. His boy had liked them — he’d always sneak Shep a few morsels when he ate them. And of course, the heartbeat he thought of his boy, he thought of going home, and thinking of home made him think of that woman and how she’d mistaken his love for aggression.

  “Callie?” he woofed.

  She looked at him, eyebrows raised.

  “Why did that woman call the dog catcher on me?” Shep licked his paw. “I mean, the man was coming for me, not you or the pup. What did I do?”

  Callie licked her jowls, then snuggled closer to Shep. “I don’t think you did anything,” she woofed. “The woman cried when you ran. I saw her. I think she thought she was helping us by calling the dog catcher.”

  Shep lapped up another of the crunchy, cheesy curls. “I keep wondering if I’d been friendlier, whether the white-shirted man would have let me go with my boy.”

  Callie waved her tail. “If they wouldn’t let tiny, harmless Pumpkin stay in the shelter, I doubt the man’s decision had anything to do with how friendly you looked.”

  “But still,” Shep grunted. “Even you think I’m monster enough to attack any human that threatens me.” He pushed the bag away with his nose. “I saw how scared you were for the dog catcher.”

  Callie’s ears and tail dropped. “I don’t think you’re a monster, Shep,” she snuffled. “I think you’d do anything to protect your pack. When all that threatened us were wild dogs and rats, that instinct of yours saved us. But now …” Her bark trailed off. She didn’t need to woof that a human — any human, even a man in black — was different.

  Callie licked his muzzle and went on, “You’re a good dog, Shep. You didn’t scare that woman. And you did good by not attacking that dog catcher.” Callie cocked her head. “Who knows, maybe by the time we reach the shelter, Pumpkin will have you sitting and giving paw for treats.”

  Shep smiled. “Let’s not get too fur-brained,” he yipped.

  They loped on through the darkness of the drowned city. In some places, the garbage had been hauled into piles. The roads were lined with mounds of moldy wall scraps, splintered boards, and broken glass and plastic. The humans were trying to reclaim the place from the wreckage. Soon, the street ended in a huge expanse of water.

  “Is it the ocean?” yipped Oscar. Shep had forgotten — the pup was so young he’d never even been to the dog beach.

  “No,” woofed Callie. “You wouldn’t be able to see anything across the ocean, and I can see buildings.”

  “And there’d be a beach,” grunted Zeus.

  “So we find a way to cross it,” barked Shep, taking up the wagon’s rope handle.

  Shep dragged the wagon to the edge of the water and scanned up and down its shores. It was dark, but the moon shone on the water’s surface and revealed two bridges — one not far from where they stood, toward the cold winds.

  “We head for that bridge,” he woofed.

  The bridge itself was long and skinny. Shep barked that they should walk in single file along the edge of the road to keep from being hit by a Car. Callie trembled the whole way, mumbling about how exposed they were and how ridiculous the wagon idea had been.

  “This wagon’s saved my tail,” Zeus grumbled. “I’d say ‘thank you,’ if I thought you’d hear it.”

  “Try me,” snapped Callie.

  “Thank you,” woofed Zeus.

  Shep heard something in those woofs — a softness? — that made him pause.

  “Why are we stopping?” yipped Oscar, whose eyes kept scanning the empty road, sure the dog catchers were only stretches away in the shadows.

  “Nothing,”
Shep woofed and dragged on.

  The bridge took them across to a narrow island crammed with buildings, and then to another, and then another, the dens on each going from bad to worse to demolished. As the sky began to lighten, Shep wondered if they’d ever reach the ocean. And then the road shrunk to a path, which dead-ended in white sand. An endless, rippling coat of blue sparkled beyond — “The ocean,” sputtered Oscar. They’d made it to the beach.

  The horizon at the edge of the ocean was faint yellow and pink, the clouds warming first, then the sky itself. Shep glanced around him — he hadn’t been this close to the ocean since before the storm. The buildings told the story of what had happened to them. Shep recalled the beach being lined with tall buildings full of human dens, all sparkling with glass. What remained were jagged teeth of stone, like a broken jaw laid alongside the sand. Some were still recognizable as buildings — a balcony here and there, a window that had somehow held in place — but most were the broken bones that remained after the storm and the wave had torn through. There would be no humans hiding out here to help them.

  Shep howled for his packmates, hoping they were within earshot. He didn’t want to start wandering around in the sand to find them if he didn’t have to, though between the whooshing of the wind and the crashing of the waves, there was little chance any dog heard his call. He hoped they smelled him on the breeze.

  Callie was the first to spot some movement down the beach, and then Shep saw them — Boji and Dover, and Daisy and Pumpkin with Ginny and Rufus, and finally Fuzz, slinking along atop the rubble at the edge of the sand. Shep felt joy rush through his fur at seeing his friends. His tail wagged frantically. He couldn’t stop himself from giving Fuzz a lick; the cat must have missed him, too, because he purred and waited a whole heartbeat before grooming the slobber away.

  Daisy trotted straight to Oscar, flap-ears up and tail waving. The pup cowered and Daisy stopped short. Her tail dropped; she licked her jowls and turned to Shep. “Alpha,” she began. “Nothing to report. We remained hidden under the rubble —”

  “We thought you’d never get here!” yapped Pumpkin, interrupting. She wriggled and pranced on the white sands. “We’ve been here for a full sun, and let me tell you, the beach is not the same as it was!

  “First, there are no people. And no food. The beach is also much smaller, like the ocean sucked the sand back into it. And there are weird breaks in the sand now, with rivers of salt water flowing through.” Pumpkin seemed completely overwhelmed by the havoc wreaked by the storm. But, then again, she’d spent these last two moons in the kennel — she’d never seen the wave’s destruction before.

  Daisy glared at the fluffy girldog, one snaggletooth caught on her jowl.

  Dover stepped between the two — the look on his muzzle told Shep he’d been doing a lot of crisis intervention between them over the last sun. “Storm damage,” he barked. “Just more of what we’ve already seen.”

  “What took you so long, anyway?” grumbled Rufus. “And it better have been something terrible because there’s nothing to eat on this stinking beach but dried seaweed and I’m starving.”

  Callie waved her muzzle at Zeus, who was still perched in the wagon. “I guess it depends on what you call terrible,” she yipped. “It’s not easy to drag a dog across a city.”

  “What happened to him?” woofed Ginny, snout in the air. “Too proud to walk like the rest of us?”

  “My paw’s hurt,” Zeus growled.

  Boji raised her hackles. “We should have left that murderer to be eaten by the water lizards,” she snarled softly. Shep thought it was a trick of the wind, that he hadn’t heard right, but his nose confirmed it — Boji smelled as angry as the storm.

  Callie must not have heard Boji’s woofs because she trotted up to where Boji stood, behind Dover. “Would you take a sniff of Zeus’s paw? It looks bad.”

  “I’m not going to lick that monster’s wounds.” Boji bared her fangs. “I’d tear the paw off before I’d clean it.”

  Callie stepped back, shocked at the angry scent coming off Boji in waves. “Just tell me if there’s anything I can do,” she yipped. “You don’t have to lick it if you don’t want to.”

  Boji looked to Dover, who licked his jowls and gave a weak flick of his tail. Boji shivered, then padded slowly toward the wagon. She glanced at the paw. “It’s not good when it’s yellow and stinks like that,” she woofed.

  “Thanks for stating the obvious,” Zeus grumbled.

  Boji growled.

  “Shut your foul snout, Zeus,” Callie snapped. “She’s the only one here with real experience healing dogs.”

  Zeus tucked his paw back into the wagon. “Like licking a wound saved any dog.”

  “Like I would have had to lick any dog if you hadn’t torn them apart!” Boji snarled. She looked at Shep. “What are we doing trying to save this,” she gave Zeus a withering glance, “thing?”

  Oscar puffed out his chest. “Shep promised to help Zeus and me get home, same as you all,” he barked. “And it wasn’t all Zeus’s fault that we’re late. We lost half a sun when we met a nice dog named Murphy who was already back in his den with his mistress and she gave us kibble but then she called the dog catcher and Shep nearly got caught!”

  “Dog catcher?” snorted Daisy.

  “Kibble?” whimpered Rufus, drool dripping from his jowls.

  “Already back in their den!” shrieked Pumpkin. “Oh, no! What if my mistress left the shelter? What if she’s looking for me right now? MISTRESS! I’M HERE! I’M HERE! I’M HERE!” Pumpkin began racing in circles all over the beach, howling and wailing.

  “Murphy’s mistress never left the shelter,” Shep barked, trying to catch Pumpkin as she bolted by. “They were never in the shelter.” He had to woof something to calm the crazy fluffball down.

  Boji’s ears pricked. “They?” she yipped. “You mean, Murphy stayed with his mistress?”

  Oscar scratched his ear. “Murphy’s family took him with them to someplace safe to wait out the storm.”

  The pack seemed to have been smacked by the same giant newspaper — all tails dropped at once. A wave crashed. Foamy water soaked the paws closest to the ocean.

  Callie broke the silence. “For the love of treats, we’ve met one dog — and only one dog — in this whole city whose family found a way to take him with them. Don’t let this drag your tails down!”

  “Of course we haven’t met any other dogs who went with their families!” Boji snapped. “Those dogs didn’t need to be rescued. They wouldn’t be with the dog catchers. Those dogs’ families loved them.”

  “Our families love us,” Callie barked. But the others had already begun to whimper to themselves.

  “Our families chose to leave us?” muttered Ginny. “I didn’t believe it before, but what if Shep’s been right all along?”

  “I did piddle on the carpet a couple of times,” Rufus yipped, cowering. “My family always got upset when I piddled.”

  Even Dover sank to the sand. “I am getting on in years,” he woofed. “Maybe I’m too old to hunt with?”

  “Don’t even woof such things!” Callie squealed. “You know that your family would have taken you with them if they could have!”

  “You know that?” Boji snarled. “I don’t know that. I know that my mistress and master took their children with them, but they left me behind to die in the storm.”

  Callie’s ears were flat against her head and her tail was between her legs. She licked her jowls nervously. Seeing Boji fall apart shook even Callie’s confidence.

  Shep padded to Boji’s side. The girldog smelled like she was ready to tear her fur from her back. “Your family didn’t leave you to die in the storm,” he woofed softly. “They thought you’d be safe in the den.”

  Boji roared on like a thundercloud. “Don’t lie to us,” she growled. “If it was so safe, why didn’t they stay? You know as well as I that my family wanted to be rid of me. Who wants a dog who’s afraid of steps and doorwa
ys?”

  Shep dug for something to say. “Well, they should look at you now — you’re not afraid of anything! You’re ready to go fang to claw with Zeus! You’re brave and powerful. If I were your family, I’d be proud to have you back.”

  Then he looked at all of his packmates and waved his tail. “You’re all tough dogs. Maybe that’s why our families left us — they knew we could survive. And we have survived!”

  Boji panted. “Exactly,” she snapped. “They could see the mean parts of us. The parts that could hunt and kill, the parts that could fight another dog. You, Shep, have even fought humans! Our families left us because they saw that we were not really pets. We’re wild dogs at the core. Monsters like him.” She glared at the boxer with a hate that caused even Zeus to cringe.

  Boji’s woofs scratched Shep as if she’d actually clawed him. But he knew, somewhere deep under his fur, that she was wrong. Somehow now, he knew.

  “I was wrong in the Park when I woofed that we shouldn’t go back to our families because they left us,” Shep woofed. “I was upset that you all wanted to go home; I said things I shouldn’t have.”

  “What’s changed?” yipped Oscar, looking up at Shep with wide eyes.

  And upon being asked, he knew. “Meeting Murphy’s owner,” Shep said. “When she put her hands on my fur, I felt what Ginny woofed about in her story, that connection. We’re meant to be with our families.”

  “You can’t know that,” Boji grunted.

  “I can’t know it,” Shep barked, “but I believe it.”

  Callie wagged her tail. “I believe it.”

  Boji slumped into a sit. “I’m so angry inside, even if they did love me, I’m not that same dog. I’ve licked hundreds of wounds, seen injured dogs no licking could help. Virgil died at my paws.” Boji loosened her stance; the miserable girldog smelled wretched. “I’m broken inside. No family would want what I’ve become.”

  Shep licked her nose. “You’ve become something better,” he yipped. “You’re a survivor.” The idea seemed to brighten every dog’s muzzle.