Pavlov's Dogs

by Snell, D. L.

  Instead, the Beta bit down at McLoughlin’s calf.

  The Alpha Dog moved, releasing the hold and rolling away. He made it to one knee before Samson came barreling into him again. This time McLoughlin landed on top, straddling Samson’s hips.

  The Beta Dog reached up, and McLoughlin dove to the outside, wrapping an arm around Samson’s head and stuffing his shoulder into Samson’s armpit. The choke was complete when McLoughlin kicked off to the side, applying pressure from his forearm and shoulder to cut off the blood supply to Samson’s brain.

  Squeezing with everything he had, McLoughlin felt his friend finally slowing down. Closing his eyes, the Alpha whispered a soft prayer that his brother-in-arms would let it go and pass out. Samson’s legs kicked more slowly, and his arm, held up in the Alpha’s hold, started to droop. McLoughlin gave his thanks into the dirty concrete and got ready to let go. He didn’t want to hold the blood-choke for too long.

  A deep growl started in Samson’s chest.

  Ah, no.

  McLoughlin squeezed harder, crushing down with enough force to put a python to shame, but he felt it anyway; bones and cartilage under Samson’s skin started to shift and change. The heat from his body doubled as all his systems went into overdrive.

  “Fuck!” he yelled, pushing off and rolling away. He dimly heard Samson’s howl over the rushing in his own ears as he, too, began the Change.

  Donovan stepped closer to the fence, watching as both Dogs’ bodies began to shift and reconfigure. A smile crept onto his face. He knew he was going to get his death match. Once the Dogs were in their bestial forms, with no one in Command to override any of their animalistic impulses, the blood would fly.

  He felt the other Dogs clustering behind him and listened to their breathing change. They began to hyperventilate, the action in the cage appealing to the beast inside each of them.

  Idly, the director wondered if the security cameras were recording this. He would want to watch it again later. Over and over.

  The Alpha and Beta Dogs faced each other inside the fence; Mac’s golden fur shone in the sun, and Samson looked every bit his antithesis, shaggy black fur absorbing the light. Where Mac’s scleras were slightly yellow, Samson’s were blood red, the veins in his eyeballs distended.

  The Dogs snarled and snapped their jaws, circling each other, sniffing the air. Their taloned feet scraped and clicked on the concrete as they moved. Their shoulders heaved with each breath, their diaphragms pumping air in and out in great gulps.

  Samson charged, leaping with his claws out. Mac dove under the attack, rolling and kicking, hitting Samson’s knees and lifting his legs too high. The Beta tilted and landed awkwardly, coming down on his hands and chest.

  He was quick to his feet, running at the Alpha on all fours and lunging at his midsection, jaws wide. Mac’s fist rocketed up, catching Samson under the elongated jaw and sending him to the side. Samson’s claws raked across Mac’s hip as he passed, leaving four bloody furrows that soaked the Alpha’s golden fur.

  The Beta Dog turned to look at Mac, licking the blood off his talons. His bestial chuckle turned into a growl, and he began to bite his own fingers.

  The Alpha, wounds already healing, jumped at Samson, gathering himself in the air. Both feet shot out like pistons, smashing Samson in the face, and the Alpha and Beta fell backwards, away from each other.

  Donovan clapped, genuinely pleased by this display of skill and power. He felt the other Dogs staring at his back, but he didn’t give a shit. This was what it was all about.

  Science be damned.

  Samson charged again, but Mac ducked under it. He swept his left arm around, clocking Samson behind the ear and sending the Dog sprawling. Then Mac leapt after him, still eerily silent.

  Turning at the last second, Samson snapped at the Alpha’s neck. Mac locked one hand under Samson’s jaw, holding it away from his face but leaving his side exposed. The Beta Dog slashed and tore at Mac’s unprotected ribcage, stopped only by the bigger Dog’s stout bones. Samson’s foot came up on that side, ripping Mac from stomach to knee.

  McLoughlin stuck his thumb into Samson’s eye. Using the orbital bone as a handle, he yanked to the side. Samson yipped and pulled away, and Mac’s thumb came out with a sucking, squelching sound.

  And finally, the Alpha Dog began to growl.

  Samson shook his head, trying to clear his vision, flinging blood everywhere. He blinked his empty socket several times as he and Mac circled each other. The growl building in McLoughlin’s chest got louder and louder until Donovan could feel it vibrating the steel of the cage.

  The Dogs charged each other, hundreds of pounds of meat and bone smacking together in fury. They spun and slashed, clawing each other and roaring. Locked in combat, they fell to the side and rolled. One talon flew out of the melee, smacking against the steel fence.

  The Dogs and Donovan watched, wondering what the hell was happening. The new project director got even closer to the fence, taking in the combat, eyes wide open.

  An awful tearing sound made everyone flinch, and the fight came to an absolute standstill. Samson stood with his back to the spectators, towering over Mac, who was kneeling on the ground in front of the Beta Dog. Blood poured out onto the concrete, a red fount that seemingly had no end. The Dogs held their breath, leaning forward.

  Then Samson keeled over.

  The hole in his throat wasn’t healing.

  Alpha McLoughlin stood, a red piece of meat in his teeth, blood dripping from his snout. He spat the meat out and raised his furry arms, clawing at the sky and howling in triumph and pain.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE FLAT WALTHER PPK/E in Ken’s fist barked three times, knocking down the zombies directly under the window. “There’s too many!” he yelled up at Kelly on the second floor. “You’re not coming down through the lobby.”

  A pair of zombies got too close, and his .32 spit fire twice.

  That’s five, already. Only three more before this slide locks back.

  The zombies in the lobby turned toward the gunfire, moaning louder. Ken waved at them and smiled. He looked at the foliage on either side of the walk up to the building, trying to decide whether the bus would make it all the way to the wall. Backwards, so he could use the emergency exit.

  He shook his head. To make it to one of the side offices, the group would have to pass through the hallway downstairs, which was undoubtedly full of the dead.

  He walked backwards to the bus. “Kelly!”

  The slight girl poked her head out.

  “Look around. See if you can find a rope ladder or something. Maybe some electrical wire?”

  He turned and shot another zombie through the face; the dead man was close enough that Ken felt the mist of a disintegrating eyeball.

  “Tell Julius we need to get you guys down.”

  “Outside? Here?”

  “You’ll see!”

  He turned and hobbled for the bus, then hopped up the stairs on his good leg. He closed the door and wedged the baseball bat between it and the little stairwell.

  Dropping heavily into the seat, Ken cranked the bus and put it in reverse. He used the mirrors to back up until he was close to the oncoming horde.

  Ken slapped the lever into park and got up, limping to the back of the bus. He opened the emergency exit and pointed the .32 semi-automatic at the two clowns in the lead. Turning the gun sideways, he looked at it and shook his head. He swapped it out for the .44 in his holster and took aim.

  “Fuck you, clowns.”

  The big gun boomed once, and the male clown stopped moving forward, instead walking in a tight circle, his left leg acting as a pivot. The clown made a full revolution before falling over. The gun boomed again and the female clown bent over backwards in an almost perfect arch.

  Smiling, Ken closed the emergency door and limped back to the driver’s seat.

  “Much better.”

  He looked out the windshield. He had the attention of every sin
gle dead thing still on its feet. For a second, he thought about what Jorge might say.

  I bet you’re all wondering why I’ve called you here.

  Setting his lips in a tight line, Ken put the bus into gear and pulled away slowly. As he passed North Regional, he glimpsed Julius moving back and forth inside, yanking wiring out of the wall.

  Ken leaned his head out the window and yelled at the zombies. “Come on, you dead shitters! Rolling buffet of Bishop in here! All you have to do is keep up. What are you waiting for? You know you want some of this!”

  He turned the wheel, slaloming the bus back and forth and knocking over the zombies that got too close. Even at his slow speed, he had to keep stepping on the brake to make sure he didn’t get too far ahead of the shambling mass.

  Don’t want them losing interest and turning back.

  Banging against the side of the bus with the flat of his hand, Ken started to sing at the top of his lungs.

  Looking inside, not much to see

  Reflecting no identity

  Wearing the face that was given to me

  Buy my anonymity

  Molded thoughts a moldy brain

  Filled by latest ad campaign

  Passengers on the same train

  Time to derail! Embrace insane

  HA! HA! HA!

  He turned the corner and looked back, coughing. His nose had started bleeding again. The zombies were still back there, but he wasn’t singing another verse.

  It didn’t matter. They were coming on now, moaning together. They wouldn’t be able to hear him anyway. He alternated between the gas and the brake all the way up the block, then stopped at the next intersection. The dead caught up, surrounding the bus, hands scrabbling at the bottoms of the windows.

  “This is as far as the tour goes, folks,” Ken yelled out the window. “You’ll have to find your own way back.”

  He let off the brake and sped away. Two left turns and two minutes later, he was stopped in front of North Regional again, backing carefully up to the building. The rear of the bus tore away part of the overhang.

  Ken put the bus in park. “Close enough.”

  Hobbling to the rear, he clambered up onto a seat and muscled open the emergency roof hatch. He found himself looking up at Kelly’s smiling face.

  “We were wondering if you’d gone off for a bite to eat or something.”

  He returned the smile. “Something like that. Come on down.”

  Julius leaned out and threw down a rope ladder made of electrical wire. The rungs of the ladder were made of sawn-off pieces of PVC pipe. Ken looked up and signaled his approval.

  “Very nice.”

  Ten people had climbed down by the time the zombies made it back around to North Regional. The moaning made the others on the ladder nervous, and trash bags full of water from the toilets fell from their hands.

  The bags burst and splashed everywhere, and water poured down inside the bus, soaking Ken’s head and shoulders.

  “It’s all right,” he said, drying his eyes. “We’ll get more later. Just come on down.”

  Kelly ushered more people out the window and down the ladder, and still the zombies got closer.

  “Don’t worry about them,” she said, helping a man who had a prosthetic hook for a hand descend the ladder. “The bus is too tall for them to get to us.”

  The truth of her words was immediately evident, but the moaning was getting louder and louder, a choral dirge that didn’t abate, didn’t stop. Several survivors huddled in their seats, facing inboard and looking at the floor, or at their shoes. They held their hands over their ears.

  Zombies piled up against the bus, and as they moved back and forth, a tidal motion began to rock the big yellow vehicle. Ken looked out, seeing the dead folk backed all the way up to the horrid sculpture in front of the building. As he watched, one of the guy wires that held the art in place snapped with a loud, metallic twang!

  “You have got to be shitting me.”

  The sculpture swayed with the movement of the horde, moving in sympathy with the bus, and before too long, the motion was too much. Very slowly, the statue started to tilt.

  Absently, Ken helped another person through the roof hatch as he watched the sculpture pass the point of no return. It tottered and fell, smashing six zombies beneath it. The end of the sculpture was no more than three feet from the bus. An easy distance to step across.

  “Rifle!” Ken yelled up to Kelly.

  She disappeared inside the building and came back with an M1 Carbine, the last of the rifles that still had any ammunition.

  “What am I shooting at?”

  Ken pointed at the end of the sculpture, where the mass of zombies had regrouped. Two of them had fallen against the colossal work of art, and the motion of the crowd had pushed them up onto it. One of them, a mechanic in his former life, stood atop the sculpture and took one wobbly step toward the bus.

  Kelly fired, the shot pinging off the side of the sculpture and blasting through the nose of one of the zombies. The mechanic took another wobbly step.

  Kelly took aim and fired again, this time taking the zombie through the hip. When it lifted its leg to step again, the damaged joint wouldn’t hold it, and the mechanic fell onto the horde like a crowd surfer at a wake.

  “Is that everybody?”

  Nodding, Kelly dropped the rifle into Ken’s waiting hands. “Just me and Julius.”

  “Come on, then.”

  Ken opened one of the bus windows and fired with the Walther at the other sculpture-riding zombie. It did a short dance and fell off.

  One bullet left in this one. One more .44.

  He checked the magazine in the rifle, found three more .30-caliber bullets in there.

  “You want me to drive, boss?” Julius asked before lowering himself through the hatch into the bus.

  Handing him the rifle, Ken shook his head. “I got it. You just take a seat. Who has the nines?”

  Julius pointed up. “Kelly has one.”

  “What about the other two?”

  Grimacing, Julius said, “We’ll have to talk about that in a little bit. After we’re out of here.”

  Ken pursed his lips and considered pressing the issue, but Julius was a stubborn old man; if he didn’t want to talk, he wouldn’t. Neither would Kelly. Small as she was, she was tough.

  “Fine,” Ken said, shuffling to the front of the bus. He sat down and checked the mirror. “Let me know when she’s in. Is this everybody?”

  “Twenty souls,” Julius said.

  “Twenty?”

  “We’ll talk.”

  Kelly dropped into the bus and Julius whistled. Ken put the bus in gear and pulled away from the building.

  “Not bad,” Kelly said, slumping into the seat behind him. “Glad you came back when you did. Things got weird.”

  He looked up at her in the rearview. “How do you mean?”

  “Just, watch where you’re going. We’ll have the chance to talk soon enough. You know where Julius’s machine shop is?”

  Ken sat up and dug the map out of his back pocket. He handed it to her and then fished the marker out of his shirt pocket.

  “What the hell?” Kelly said, seeing all the blood on the marker.

  “Ah, shit.” Ken wiped the marker off on his shirt. “Sorry. I had some problems.”

  Kelly made a face and took the marker, passing it and the map to Julius, who marked an X on it and passed it back. He sat down and crossed his arms on the seatback in front of him, putting his head down.

  “Wow,” Ken said. “Not a word about it. Must have been bad.”

  Only raising her eyebrows in response, Kelly passed the map up. Ken smoothed it on the steering wheel. “Good,” he said. “This isn’t too far at all. We should be there in no time.”

  He took the bus through a turn and saw the Ford truck he’d crashed. A wriggling zombie was pinned under its front driver-side wheel. Ken tossed a salute at it as the bus rolled by. He turned again, pulling o
nto a smaller, narrower street.

  “Oh, come on,” he said, slowing the bus. A car wreck had closed the street about halfway up the block. An overturned Saturn was wedged between a Jeep and a Land Rover, each facing opposite directions.

  “Can we push through?” Kelly asked, looking over his shoulder.

  “Let’s find out.”

  Ken dropped the bus into low gear and moved forward, slowing as he got near the wreck. He turned the wheel so that the flat of the bumper was against the corner of the Land Rover’s. He goosed the pedal, and the entire wreck gave off a shuddering groan. The Saturn settled farther on its roof and slid with the Land Rover.

  “Shit. I don’t think I can shake it loose.”

  He gave the bus more gas, engine roaring in low gear. The combined mass of the wreck slid another two feet before the Jeep wedged against a parked van.

  “Let’s just find another way, then,” Kelly said, patting Ken’s shoulder.

  He shrugged and put the bus in reverse. The Land Rover came with him for a second, then let go with a crash. The bus began to shudder. Ken gave it more gas, and the shudder became worse, until the steering wheel felt like a jackhammer in his hands.

  Julius got up. “I’ll take a look.”

  Ken leaned down and picked up the wedged-in bat before pulling on the door lever. As Julius passed into the stairwell, Ken reached to his left and put out the STOP sign.

  “Cute,” the old man said. He was out of the bus and back within seconds. “I don’t know what you ran over, hoss, but that tire is shredded. We aren’t going anywhere.”

  Ken ran his hands over his head and looked up at the ceiling. “That’s...”

  He drifted off as he caught movement in the rearview mirror.

  “That’s truer than you know,” he said quietly.