The Last Dog on Earth

by Daniel Ehrenhaft

  “Harold?” Westerly smiled faintly. “What does he want?”

  “He wanted to check up on you. He was worried that you were sick because you didn't reply to any of his e-mails.”

  “He was worried, eh?”

  “He also said that you'd probably give us a hard time.”

  Westerly couldn't tell which figure was speaking. Their voices all sounded the same. Lifeless. Mechanical. But then, they were Harold's drones. It was fitting somehow. He imagined that if he lifted those faceplates, he wouldn't even see eyes or noses or mouths. He'd just see a lot of circuitry. And Harold would be at some distant base, controlling them via remote. Control was key for Harold. Control was all that mattered.

  “Well, I suppose Dr. Marks was right,” Westerly said finally. “I've got a reputation for giving people a hard time. Speaking of which, why are you wearing those suits? Why don't you show me your faces? I won't bite you. I promise.”

  They turned to one another. Then, slowly, the one in front reached up and unclipped the clamps that held his helmet on. He pulled the helmet off, revealing a high-cheekboned Asian face and short black hair.

  “Listen, Dr. Westerly, we're not here to argue with you,” he said. “As you know, the situation is very, very bad. We hope you'll come with us. We need your skills as a research scien—”

  “I'll tell you what,” Westerly interrupted. “I'll make a deal with you.”

  “A deal?”

  “Yes. Here it is.” Westerly took a deep breath. “I want you to go home. I want you to lose your jobs and run out on your families and lose everything you've ever cared about. Then you can come back here and pick me up. And I'll come with you. I promise. Because then we'll have something to talk about. We'll be able to speak the same language.”

  The man in front shook his head. “I'm sorry,” he said to Westerly. “We need you, Dr. Westerly. But I can't force you to come.”

  “No,” Westerly agreed. “You can't.”

  The group of them stood there staring at him for a minute or two. Then they turned back toward the front of the house.

  Westerly sat down again.

  Moments later, he heard the doors slam, followed by the sound of the truck as it backed down the driveway and disappeared into the night.

  Maybe tomorrow, he would go for a nice long drive himself. It didn't matter where. So long as he didn't walk. He was finished with walking places. From now on, he would drive.

  Jasmine had always hated cars.

  Jack had never known such terror. It overshadowed even her pain and thirst and hunger. Night had long since fallen, and the boy was still gone. He'd abandoned her. He'd trapped her by tying her to this tree. She howled and howled for him, but he would not come. She chewed on the rope, trying to free herself, but the rope was too strong for her teeth. She whipped it around in her jaw, growling in frustration. Finally she spat it out.

  A car was approaching on the highway.

  Unlike the others, it moved very slowly. Finally it stopped, its lights glaring directly into the brush where Jack was trapped.

  She barked at the terrible brightness.

  Men were approaching. She could smell them; she could hear them rustling through the underbrush and barking at each other in their strange, hushed way. But the boy was not among them. Jack barked again—more viciously, warning them to stay away. But the men kept coming. There were three of them. They stood around her in silence.

  All of them carried sticks.

  Jack stared at them, growling and baring her teeth. She would attack if—

  One of the sticks came crashing down on her skull.

  White light exploded before her eyes. The pain was swift and devastating. She screamed. Another stick crashed down upon her, then another. She couldn't escape.

  Mercifully, it didn't matter. After the next blow, she slipped into a deep, black sleep, and the nightmare faded to nothingness.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  The trooper, Officer McVittie, took Logan to the state police station, which turned out to be on Route 61 about a mile north of Dayville.

  The first thing Logan did was take a shower. The shower wasn't very warm, but Logan had to admit it still felt pretty decent. He'd forgotten what it felt like to be clean. To not smell like fish.

  After that, they gave him a change of clothes. There was a huge bin full of donated and forgotten stuff right next to the shower room. Officer McVittie chose Logan's outfit for him: a black sweatshirt with the letters OG printed on the front, baggy wool socks, and a pair of corduroys that were so wide that they could have easily fit two other kids inside them. Neither the cops nor Logan had a belt, so they gave him a piece of string. Logan had no choice but to use it.

  Once Logan was dressed, Officer McVittie handcuffed him to a bench in the main part of the police station.

  Logan had never worn handcuffs before. The metal ring was cold and sharp. If he moved at all, it cut off the circulation in his left hand.

  “I have some stuff to take care of, Logan,” McVittie said, as nicely as ever. “Then I'll be back to ask you some questions, all right?”

  No, that's not all right, Logan felt like saying again. What would be all right is if you'd let me out of here to go get my dog.

  The bench was next to McVittie's desk. A half-eaten tuna sandwich was sitting there on the desk, right beside a newspaper. Logan couldn't help staring at it. His mouth watered. His stomach growled. Loudly.

  “Hey, are you hungry?” McVittie asked.

  Logan lifted his shoulders. Were you always a crap-for-brains?

  “I think I can rustle up something for you,” McVittie said.

  “Really?” Logan asked. He eyed the cop suspiciously. Maybe this was some sort of trick to get him to talk.

  “I'll be right back,” McVittie said. He disappeared down a hallway.

  Logan sighed. If it was a trick, there wasn't much he could do about it. He was surrounded. And he was starving.

  He glanced around the station. It was small but busy. Phones were ringing. Several cops in state trooper uniforms were bustling around. So were one or two people in regular clothes, the kind of suits Robert wore when he sold cars. There were also a few soldiers, as well as guys in what looked like space suits, only without the helmets. Everybody was shouting at each other or shuffling papers on their desks or shaking their heads. Almost every other word out of their mouths was POS.

  For some reason, they kept glancing at a small jail cell on the other side of the room. It was full of scraggly guys with bags under their eyes, sprawled on the floor and across benches along the wall. They were all asleep. Logan wondered if he'd end up there with them.

  He swallowed and turned to a window. It was already dark outside. An unpleasant ache squeezed at his gut. Maybe Jack was sleeping by now. Sure she was. She'd worn herself out by howling, and then she'd fallen asleep. She was just as tired as he was. She would sleep through the night. And as soon as Logan was free, he would rush back and find her and feed her and bandage her—

  “Here you go.”

  Logan glanced up. Officer McVittie was back. He had a grape soda, a bag of potato chips, and a tuna sandwich. He placed the food on the bench next to Logan.

  “Thanks,” Logan said.

  So it wasn't a trick. McVittie wasn't so bad after all. Logan felt a quick pang of guilt for having doubted the guy.

  On the other hand, given his experience with authority figures in uniform—namely, Sergeant Bell and his lieutenants—he really hadn't been able to help himself.

  “All right, Logan,” McVittie said. “Eat up. I'll be back.”

  Logan scarfed down the whole sandwich in about three seconds. It tasted like the greatest gourmet meal he'd ever had in his entire life. Then he gobbled up the potato chips. Those were even better. But the more he stuffed himself, the worse he felt. The unpleasant ache didn't go away.

  Jack was still out in the woods.

  She was alone. Tied to a tree. Barely able
to walk. No tuna fish or grape soda for her.

  Okay. Enough. Logan had to stop thinking about her. Period. He had to do whatever it took to take his mind off her, at least until he got out of here. His eyes flashed to the newspaper on the cop's desk, a fresh copy of today's Portland Times. He started skimming the front page:

  POS DEATH TOLL RISES TO 56

  CDC URGES ALL DOG OWNERS TO REPORT TO

  AREA HOSPITALS

  PORTLAND, Oregon, July 27—Autopsies conducted today confirmed that seven more people in the Portland area have died from POS, or psychotic outburst syndrome, the disease that has decimated the canine population across the Pacific Northwest. The official number of human fatalities now stands at 56. Sources at Portland University say they expect this number to rise

  Logan stopped right there. Reading the newspaper was probably a stupid idea, given the circumstances. He squirmed and shifted on the bench, searching the desk for something else….

  The computer. Hmmm. He could surf the Web. He could check out all those sites that Mom and Robert used to tell him were offlimits. What was the worst that could happen? He was already in jail.

  The power was on, but the screen was blank. Logan reached for the keyboard with his right hand. His elbow brushed the half-eaten sandwich. It was a stretch, and his left hand tugged on the stupid handcuffs and made the metal dig painfully into his wrist, but he made it. He tapped the space bar.

  The screen winked to life. His eyes narrowed. The computer was opened to some kind of search engine for residents of Dayville. It looked like a blank form. The cursor blinked in a little rectangle marked Full Name, but there wasn't any …

  Wait a second.

  He could find out where his father lived. Maybe he could even call his father.

  He wasn't kidding around with himself anymore. All of a sudden he was deadly serious. He was in jail.

  He'd seen enough movies to know that somebody under arrest was allowed one phone call. So Logan could call his father and ask him to go rescue Jack and take her to a vet. His father would do that, wouldn't he? Even after seven years? He wasn't that much of a jerk.

  Logan pecked at the keys, typing in his dad's full name with his forefinger. Then he pressed Enter.

  The computer whirred. The screen shifted.

  An address appeared under the rectangle: Evergreen Drive (4 miles south of town line, unmarked exit off Route 61).

  There was no phone number, though.

  Logan frowned. He cast a quick, furtive glance around the station, just to make sure nobody was watching. But nobody was. Everybody had their backs turned to him. There seemed to be some kind of commotion going on in the little cell. One of the scraggly guys had woken up. Or maybe all of them had. Logan couldn't really see.

  “Lemme out of here!” a voice shrieked. “Lemme out!”

  “Yo!” another guy yelled. “That dude's drooling. Something's wrong!”

  “He's got the disease!”

  “Get him out!”

  “Clear the cell! Clear the cell!”

  Suddenly, cops were yelling and running in every direction.

  Uh-oh. Logan tried to stand. The metal dug into his wrist. He winced. He could only sort of stoop. He craned his neck to get a better look at the cell and caught a glimpse of one of the scraggly guys. The guy's eyes were rolled back in his head. Big white globs of slobber fell from his lips and dribbled all over his shirt. He was banging on the cell bars. The rest of the scraggly guys were backed against the wall, staring at him.

  Logan swallowed. He was trapped in a jail with some freak with a deadly disease. People were panicking. He was panicking.

  His eyes fell to the desk. With his free hand, he yanked open the top drawer and started rifling through it. Maybe McVittie had left a spare set of handcuff keys lying around.

  But there were only pens and paper clips and envelopes in the drawer. Logan shoved it closed, then yanked open the next one. It was completely empty. Come on, come on. He bent over as far as possible and opened the bottom drawer. Inside was a bunch of Ziploc plastic pouches marked Evidence in red Magic Marker. Several of the pouches contained handguns. He'd never seen a real handgun up close. They were bigger than he'd imagined.

  One of the pouches contained a flashlight. Another had a hunting knife—a big one with a jagged blade, maybe eight inches long and an inch wide. The blade was stained with drops of what looked like rust. Logan shuddered. He could guess what that was.

  But the knife looked sharp.

  “Stand back, everybody!” a cop shouted. “Stand back!”

  “Hurry up!”

  “This dude is bugging out!”

  After another quick glance at the cell, Logan fished the knife out of the plastic pouch. He could feel tuna fish rising in his throat. There was a very good chance he might barf. If shoplifting was such a terrible crime that he had to be handcuffed to a bench, he could only imagine what would happen if he got caught now. Tampering with evidence, trying to escape …he'd end up in “kiddie prison.” He'd become the next Perry.

  Adrenaline pumped through his veins as he sawed furiously on the little chain that connected the two rings of the handcuffs. The blade sliced into the metal with a hideous grinding sound. A spark flew. He didn't know where his energy was coming from. Maybe from the fear of being a smoker and getting a tattoo and spending the rest of his life impaling people and—

  Snap!

  Logan gasped. He'd done it. He'd cut the cuffs in half.

  He was free. He stared at the metal ring around his wrist, not quite believing it. The severed chain dangled against his forearm. He almost laughed. He tossed the knife back into the drawer and grabbed the bag with the flashlight.

  “Everybody just relax!” a cop yelled.

  Logan didn't allow himself so much as a peek at the cell. He simply bolted for the door and out into the darkness. He didn't stop running until he'd reached the highway.

  It was only then that he realized he wasn't wearing any shoes.

  The torn piece of shirt was still there on the side of the road, just where Logan had left it. The pavement around it sparkled in the moonlight.

  Logan breathed a quick sigh of relief. He'd actually made it here faster than expected. He'd jogged most of the way, partly because he was scared of being chased and partly because he was so worried. Jack had to be starving half to death by now.

  He should have snagged that half-eaten tuna fish sandwich for her.

  “Jack!” Logan whispered into the woods. “I'm back, girl!”

  At least she wasn't howling anymore. That was a relief. Logan dug the flashlight out of his borrowed corduroys and struck out into the woods. Like he'd figured, she must have fallen asleep. Good. She could use the rest.

  The powerful beam of light danced through the branches as he plowed forward. “Jack, wake up, girl! It's me!”

  It hadn't been so bad running in socks on the pavement, but now Logan winced every time he took a step. Needles and twigs and stones stabbed through the fabric. Whatever. He could take it. He was going to come right back to the highway, anyway.

  He had a new plan now. He was going to Dad's house.

  He'd finally get to see the hot tub and trampoline. He figured he was … what? Already two miles south of the town line? Maybe even farther. So he had two more miles to go at most. On pavement. No sweat.

  He could see the pine tree a few yards ahead of him. “Hey, Jack!” he called again, a little louder. She wasn't even barking. At home she always barked when Logan returned after being gone for a while. She must really be wiped out.

  “Jack?” He looked down.

  At first, he didn't even recognize the bloody body on the ground in front of him. He thought it might be some kind of animal that Jack had managed to kill and partially devour.

  But the animal was tied to the tree with the rope.

  “Oh my God,” Logan breathed.

  The flashlight slipped from his fingers.

  He fell to his knees and p
icked it up. He started searching Jack's body with the light for any sign of life. All he saw was blood. He started shaking. Invisible burning tentacles seized his stomach, twisting and squeezing it. She'd been attacked. Something had torn her to pieces. Something had—

  Wait.

  A wheeze. A very faint wheeze.

  Logan put his ear to her fur. Yes, there was life there: a muted heartbeat, lungs struggling to breathe. He wiped her blood off his face with his sweatshirt sleeve, then untied the rope with shaking fingers. He scooped her into his arms. He didn't bother taking the flashlight with him. The moon had gotten him this far. It would take him the rest of the way.

  One hour, two hours … Logan had no idea how long he'd been carrying Jack. Dad's house must be close, but he hadn't seen anything that looked like an unmarked exit.

  Somewhere in the middle of the night, on that deserted road, he knew that he had to rest. Every twenty paces, he yawned. His back and arms could no longer support Jack's weight. Drowsiness had been tempting him for a long while. Now it was like a warm, fuzzy blanket that he could no longer resist. He couldn't afford to resist it. He'd close his eyes—just for a second, just to rest them— and end up nearly stumbling and dropping her.

  He was putting Jack's life in danger. He had to stop.

  He was even starting to see things … blurred, flickering lights—something glowing in the forest. Forget it, he said to himself. There was no point in going on. Not like this. He'd curl up on the side of the road and take a nap. Just for a little bit.

  There was a ditch up ahead. A beat-up old car was parked in it. Logan sank down beside the car. He laid Jack on the gravel, then stretched out next to her. His joints creaked. Using his hands for a pillow, he made himself as comfortable as he could.

  He'd never imagined gravel could feel so soft.

  PART V

  JULY 28

  Top-secret orders given to the Oregon

  National Guard, posted the morning of July 28

  Communiqué 776 Encrypted 15—Integer Scramble Zone 1, Oregon