Shut up, puppy, he thinks. Look there. Good boy. Wait— No. Over there. Look for fuck’s sake. Shut your fuckin’ trap and look.
Oh, boy.
Peyt’s old rucksack snugs sweat to his back. His boots are knotted together by the laces, flung round his neck. Creeping forward, heel, ball, toes, each step juts sharp stones into his bare soles. The pain keeps him alert. Eyes wide, focused. Performing visual recon. About ten metres to his right: a warehouse, red brick and corrugated iron, roll-down doors padlocked and windows blacked. Quiet but not necessarily abandoned. Far to his left: a boarded-up greasy-spoon, cinder blocks, wearing a neon smile on its western side, the bulbs silent and dark. Closer: the rotting car, once blue, now faded to silver and rust. Flakes turn to powder on his jacket as he scrapes up to the doorless passenger seat, streaking his beige sleeve a darker brown. Inside the sedan: grey vinyl upholstery, cracked or knifed or both, cotton batting clouding out of gashes. The floor corroded, pedals and steering wheel and dashboard shading a bed of concrete and weeds. Bent double, Peyt climbs in, one slow leg after the other. Parcel clutched to his belly.
Springs shriek as he edges onto the seat, a grating, ancient metal yawp. He clenches—everything—and freezes. Leaning forward on the dash, butt half-descended. The windshield is gone, its glass crunching beneath Peytr’s feet as he shifts, inching further into the car. Settling his weight by increments, not relaxing. Bunkering. Digging his fingernails into crusty linoleum. Gaze shooting past the kid thirty metres or so away, straight ahead, due west, wailing his fool head off in the gully. Peyt’s transfixed by the herdboys emerging from the tunnel’s maw. One by one, they stealth up behind the little banshee. Forming a pack of ten, eleven, twelve …
Peyt wants to, but can’t move.
Turn around, little pup. Run, you little idiot. Run! Drop your burden and get the fuck out of here. Leave it, just leave it. You’ve gone and hollered yourself into prey.
Finally, Pup’s seen them. The hue and pitch of his screaming changes: less mournful, more menacing. A growl twisting into a whimper snarling back into a growl. Sharp canines appear in his wordwind, curses with hooks and claws and teeth. Still holding onto the corpse’s arm, he pivots around, shuffling and scuffing as if trying to shroud her under a veil of dust. His body swivels, head swaying on a scrawny neck, gaze snapping from herdboy to herdboy. Crouching, defensive stance, holding the plastic bag out before him. The herd fans out, sauntering closer. Pup’s head whips back and forth, trying to keep all the strays in sight. Growl shrinks to whimper. The tallest boy, muscular, so muscular, with a wild, demented expression, purses his lips and whistles. Nonchalance in the tune; menace in his hulking slouch, in the tightening circle of his approach. Whimper snarls to growl. While the other boys pace around them, the leader stops in front of Pup. Cocks his head, cuts the warbling. Clenches and unclenches jaw and fists. Bares his teeth, imitating a smile. Peytr groans. Pup is so small. Too small.
Fault-lines of quiet radiate from the cluster of boys. A hush of tension, of waiting, of being on the cusp of violence. Quiet that shrinks the balls and twitches legs nonstop and makes Peyt giggle, giggle now until tears are streaming, and fixes him here in the deadzone, here where the herdboys roam, and rattles the gravel underfoot with earthquake tremors. Peyt squirms over to the driver’s seat, lifts his feet off the ground, shifts and wriggles until he’s squatting behind the steering wheel, haunches on heels, knees splayed. His guts buzz, being here, on the brink, trembling with that prescient quiet.
He flexes left right, then presses his back into the seat, feels loose springs dig into his spine. I’m alive, he thinks, settling in to watch the tallest herdboy. I’m whole. Of its own volition, his hand reaches into the plastic bag by his side. Fingers latch onto a beet and now it’s in his mouth and he’s chomping through delicious, filthy rough skin, tasting the earth, the burgundy flesh. He swallows, once, before his throat convulses. The greys pinch and pinch and pinch his legs, pinch his arms, pinch his cheeks, pinch his cock. Pinch his tastebuds and now the beet tastes like scalp, it tastes taboo, it tastes stolen. Pinch him to get moving, to get into the fray. He judders for the car door while they pinch the fuck out of him to stay put.
He spits red on the dashboard, stolen food and stolen words, and grinds his back against the springs. Stays put.
In the gully, Pup’s holding his ground. Panic has tipped him from defence to offense; now he’s brandishing his own little bag like a flail, swinging it round and round to gain power from momentum. “Dogs are the deadliest hunters,” Peyt says to Euri, sitting close beside him, braiding a lasso for her dappled pony, while the little one, Zaya, looks on. There’s no room for a fourth in the front seat; if Daken shows, he’ll have to listen to the story from outside. “See how vicious he’s become? And in such a short time?”
Pup’s screaming again and Peyt says, “Good strategy, kid. Keep ’em laughing,” while the boy’s battle cry rages. A fuckin’ insane bellow that cracks the herdboys right up. “But is it enough?” Peyt asks his audience, adopting a newscaster’s tone. He bags the half-eaten beet, wipes the juice on his cargos, shifts position to relieve the tingling in his bruised legs. “Alpha’s amused for now—see how he barks? See how his tongue lolls? He’s not threatened by our Pup, not one fuckin’ bit. But who knows? With the right provocation, dogs can turn… . Happy and healthy and sane one second, raving fuckin’ beasts the next. I mean, sure, Alpha’s ’wind might be all chewed to pieces.” Peyt’s voice catches, his mouth suddenly dry. He swallows and swallows and swallows until the words well from his throat. “But surely being chewed gives Alpha more bite.”
On cue, Alpha stops laughing. With military swiftness, he punches Pup in the gut. Peyt flinches as the boy bends double, gasping, the herd bending double with glee. “Such a tough ending for one with such a tough life,” he says, inventing a history for the boy who’s about to become it. “His Da ghosted on the field, making Pup the man of the house when he was still swaddled. Not that he had a house to man, mind. Ma lost it along with her job… .” For a minute or two, Peytr’s wordwind dwells on factories, production lines, conveyor belts pumping out batch after batch of prosthetic legs. A good job, he thinks. An honourable job. Anyone with a will to work would be happy to have it… . Ever patient, Euri waits for Peytr to continue in his own time. For years Zaya has been too young to talk, so she never interrupts. But the greys are demanding fuckers, pinch-twitching his thighs, urging him on.
“Pup’s belly is filled with ash and dirt and half-gnawed clauses, all his Ma had to give. Yep, she gave it all—oh, probably no more than an hour ago. And now lookit her, lying there, skin a perfect shade of grey, already attracting flies. Herdboys bowing down before her, touching her for luck, tearing her dress, her vest, her hair—stealing relics, that’s what they’re doing—taking turns to rub the naked idol of her, to rub and rub and rub against it, for luck—that’s right, for their own wellbeing.” Peyt swallows and swallows. “See? Don’t turn away, now. Remember this, Euri. Remember. That’s what saints look like.”
While the herd pays homage to the blessed dead, Alpha snatches the bag from Pup’s limp hands. “Good,” Peyt says. Too late, the kid takes a swipe, overbalances and falls again to his knees. “No, Pup. This is good. Consider it a peace offering. An apology for the ruckus. Go on, settle down. It’s Alpha’s—just let him have it. Keep his belly full so he’s less liable to turn on you for a snack.”
Peytr rustles the plastic bag on the seat beside him, adding sound effects to Alpha’s actions. Arm held protectively over his plunder, the herdboy rummages for an onion. In the car, Peytr does likewise. Alpha pulls out a carrot. So does Peyt. Alpha shoves the onion into his mouth so hard, Peyt’s eyes water. As the other boy feasts, Peytr firms his own lips and runs them over the papery-smooth vegetable in his hand, but does not eat. First the onion, then the carrot, disappear in Alpha’s gob, disappear in Peytr’s bag.
“Is it enough?” he asks, catching Euri’s shrug, Zaya’s gummy smile
. “Are they square?” At last … at long last … are they square? Devouring onions, beets, carrots, bannock bread, Alpha ignores the pup and keeps the other herdboys at bay with a glare. Finished with their quiet appetiser, some boys button their flies while others kick off their pants altogether. Licking their chops, they stand at arm’s length or sit, bare-arsed, and wait for their share of the scraps. Alpha leaves nothing but the greens from one carrot. These he tosses to Pup, magnanimous. The kid gulps them down, hardly chewing.
“A good sign,” Peyt narrates, speaking low to avoid disturbing the wildlife while it feeds. “But Pup isn’t off the hook yet. He’s got Alpha onside—barely—but what about Mongrel and Rex and Rover over there? Their loyalty stretches about as long as their tails, and those tails are held firm in Alpha’s paw. That’s right, Pup. Lower those eyes, expose that jugular. You’re fuckin’ new meat, so you just keep acting the part. Do what you’re told, no questions, no stalling. There’s no later in war, son. There’s only now. You do what you’re told on the double, no matter what. No matter what.”
Peytr digs his spine into the springs. Knuckles his eyes, then looks up through the car’s roofless frame, arching his neck over the steel strut, no headrest.
“In groups,” he says eventually, straightening up, “dogs are the deadliest hunters. They’re stealthy and cunning and mean. They’re not smart—they don’t have to be smart. It’s the pack mentality that gives them an edge.” Alpha beckons the herdboys closer. They gather round, sniffing at Pup, sneering and pinching at him like the greys. “No pup wants to be abandoned, shunned, a target. Better to suffer a little hurt for the sake of company. Better to inflict a little hurt together, than be a victim alone.” Their ’winds prod at Pup’s, willy-nilly. Touching and poking and mingling. Getting in his ears, up his nose, down his shirt, in his mouth. No boundaries. No taboos. The dogs bark; Pup grunts and bucks as they continue probing. Alpha holds the puppy still, lets the pack lick him behind the ears, lick his forehead, lick his frizzy hair. They lick him until his eyes glaze. They lick him until he’s amenable.
Euri’s confused, Peytr thinks, practically hearing her scowl. She still doesn’t get why Pup doesn’t fight. Why he lets them do what they’re doing.
“There’s a practice among ferals,” he explains, “to pin the weakest member down, gnaw his belly ’til it’s sprouting entrails.” Peyt falls silent for a minute, watching, thinking up a suitable term. “It’s called hanging the dog,” yeah, that’ll do, “because, once he’s stopped kicking, they string him up by the guts—from a lamppost or a flagpole or whatever’s around—and leave him dangling there. A snack for whoever needs it. And it’s usually the youngest, the weakest dog in the pack that gets wrung.”
With that Peytr’s voice trails off, and Euri lets it. Smart girl, he thinks. Give her the time and enough hints and she figures things out. Now she doesn’t ask why Alpha allows the boys to go only so far, no farther, before belting them off. Silently, she watches Alpha pull out his cock and piss a dark yellow circle around the pack, Pup, and Pup’s Ma. She doesn’t need to see his wordwind to know it’s jabbering about his territory, his claim, his pet, his his his.
Peyt lifts his jacket collar, shrinks down into it. It’s the long grey of afternoon, the ridiculous sun somehow baking the earth drowsy from behind all those clouds. With appetites eased for the time being, the herdboys bunk down right there on the footpath, right out in the open, with Pup nestled in the centre. Writhing, suffocating, but protected.
I could go now, Peyt thinks. I could just do it and go. Get back to the stalls …
Instead he yawns. Props his ruck in the corner behind him at shoulder-level, where the door and seat intersect. Tilts his head ever-so-slightly against it. Yawns again, but keeps his lids open wide. Threads his fingers through the ration bag’s plastic handles, holds tight. Stands watch as the others sleep.
Rover wakes first, maybe an hour later, to an alarm of crickets heralding the day’s end. Peyt sits, drops his feet between the pedals. Tension crackles up through the gravel, jolting him back onto the seat. “D’you think he’ll go for Pup while Alpha’s back is turned?”
Beside him, Euri’s ’wind is mute, the words too fast or too slow to be legible. After a while, he senses the shake of her head. “Nah, me neither.” Both laugh at the nasal twang he managed on nah. “I know,” he says, watching Rex and Mongrel roll over and nose Alpha awake. “Look at the greedy bastards. I know what they’re saying.” He ahems, lifts his hood so his ’wind won’t ruin any punch lines, and puts on a thick accent he invents out of nowhere. It strains his throat in weird ways, talking like this; dries it out and stretches the vowels all crazy. But it makes Euri giggle, just like it used to, so he hugs the wheel, bears down, and mangles his vocabulary.
“Right now,” he begins, “Rover’s saying: I are fuckin’ hungry! And Mongrel says, I are fuckin’ hungry too!” Peyt snickers as Alpha slaps the other boys’ groping hands away. “Thing is,” Peyt says to his sister, “they already ate the bag of food Pup found. All that’s left is whatever they can come up with themselves …”
Euri’s raising her eyebrows, so Peyt spells it out.
“Like, right now, Rex is telling Alpha, ‘Think me up some roast bird.’ And since Alpha’s the leader, he’s got to keep proving his worth, doesn’t he? No matter how fuckin’ stupid it makes him, Alpha’s got show he’s got nouse. Right? Otherwise they’ll eat him alive… . Okay, see what he’s doing? See how his ’wind is spitting and spinning? Hot … blood … juicy … meat … fat … grease … yummmm… . That’s enough for them to feed on—okay, that’s enough …”
Peytr leans forward, brow furrowed, until Alpha caps his supply. It’s more than enough for the herd—but Rex is hogging the words, sucking them fast as they come, burping and slurping and sucking some more.
“Fuckin’ pig. Listen to him now, Euri. Listen to what he’s saying to Alpha now:
‘Gimme ’nother what you fed me afore.’
‘What?’
‘Gimme more.’
‘More what, bitch?’”
Peyt snorts. “Oooh, that’s bound to raise hackles—and, ha! Hear Rex growling? Selfish fuck:
‘What you just fed me, only just now. I want it. Gimme more.’”
Alpha flips Pup over, uses his rump as a pillow. Rex scrabbles at Alpha’s hood, fingering the stained fabric, tugging at the strings. Alpha responds with nothing but a whistle, so Peytr sits quietly for a spell, getting a hold of himself.
“See,” he says after a few minutes, feeling the pinch the pinch the pinch of grey fingers at his chest. “See how calmly Alpha deals with his pack? Never betrays what he’s feeling. No fear. No regret. Just says, ‘It’s all aten up now, Rex. Gimme a lick of what you had, so’s I can remember its flavour. Once I gots the taste for it, boy, I’ll serve it up for y’all agin.’
“On second thought,” Peyt says, “maybe Alpha wouldn’t sound like such a fuckin’ idiot. I mean, he had a good upbringing. No Da, but a half-decent replacement. An original Ma plus a standin. Gov’t allocated sisters and a brother. He went to school, had a short stint in the army… . So he’s got to be clever, doesn’t he? Even now? I mean, he’s stayed alive long enough to make Alpha. Long enough to eat more than what he’s had eaten… . Right?”
But Euri likes the stupid voices. She thinks Alpha should sound dumb, so Peyt’s got to keep making him that way.
So.
“‘Get yer paws off me, bitch,’ Alpha says.”
But fuckin’ Rex is spoiled. He yanks at Alpha’s hood, yanks and yanks, shouting ‘Give me ’nother somethin, Alph. I are hungry,’ until the older dog sits up and wallops him a good one. Shuts him up—for a second. Before Alpha’s snuggled back on Pup’s bony arse, Rex’s begging turns howl. His nose bursts bloody while the rest of the herd bursts laughter. Mongrel wrestles the crying boy down, snaps at his roasted-bird thoughts. Then Rover piles on top, blunts his teeth on Mongrel’s greedy ’wind. “Rex and Rover are brothers for
real,” Peyt invents, and Euri agrees, seeing their matching black hair, slicked with grease, their broad features and deep-pink skin. “And brothers should protect each other …”
Sometimes, Peytr cries for no reason. He’ll be mucking out Ruby’s stall, or lying in a cot at the hostel, or sitting in a broken-down car with a full bag of food in his lap, and his face will suddenly wrinkle, and he’ll feel the greys pinching, feel lava rising in his chest, swelling in his throat, and then he’s heaving to get it out, cheeks stinging hot, forehead and upper lip and the crease in his chin first humid, then damp, then wet. He clutches his hands together, squeezes them bloodless, struggles to control their shaking. Through blurry eyes, he watches the herdboys grapple, gorging themselves dumber and hungrier and meaner, and tries not to wonder where their families are. Or which divisions the boys might’ve fought under, which regiments, before they became dogs. Or how long they’ll stick with Alpha, who seems content to recline on Pup forever, plucking soporifics from his lazy wordwind, eating them lick by lick. Going nowhere but to sleep.
Peyt wonders how long it will take for the pack to turn.
When the lava subsides and he cuffs the mess from his face, Peytr starts to get antsy. The afternoon is stubbornly hauling its bulk toward dusk, dragging wan daylight with it. Peyt gauges the time by the clouds’ hue. Cinder and ash: must be almost four. If he’s not at the markets before the shade of charcoal, all the night-jobs will be filled. He’ll wind up panhandling for hours just for a measly turnip, a parsnip if he’s lucky. No bread. None of the onions that always get gobbled first.
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