Black gazed at the morning landscape. Green hills, forests, birds flew in formation against a clear sky. Geese, he recalled.
The chips worked with perfection. He wondered how long the device lasted before he and White reverted to sniffing assess and rolling over onto their backs for belly rubs. Until then, he planned to ride out the chips for their worth.
28
Erik forced himself to keep walking. Pain splintered his shins, his knees ached and popped. Each step made the blisters on his feet sing a mournful tune.
Once the defeated gave up their fight, the dogs swarmed them, biting calves, nipping ankles. The dogs did everything to get the captured motivated and going. Humans moaned in pain, or closed their eyes awaiting death. The dead they ate. Many endured the dreary slog by will alone.
Erik held Casey against his chest with his belt strapped around his stomach so the baby could sit on the makeshift seat. The belt allowed him to carry her with ease. When the night arrived, and the weather chilled, he tucked his daughter underneath his shirt, pressing her against his skin, keeping her warm. At one point he stopped. The two Dobermans who guarded them halted also, savoring the respite along with their charges.
Erik continued to walk. He took a break every three hours for five-minutes to rest his legs or let Casey do a number one or two. The Dobermans neither barked nor growled. He didn’t need the five-star treatment, but better than being attacked.
He licked his dry lips with a tongue coated in dust. Both men and canines dragged their feet or paws in the dirt, kicking up a choking beige powder. Everyone trudged with slack mouths. Canine’s tongues lolled, humans coughed and hacked. Whoever led the march forced a grinding pace.
Canines suffered during the trek. Dogs flopped over onto their sides panting. Others fainted and died. Yet more dogs poured in from various cities, swelling the ranks.
Erik prayed Moraine come rescue them. Black and White surrounded her, and Erik believed the two dogs held her in awe. After she returned their stare, a powerful boxer slammed his head into her face. Moraine collapsed to the ground with blood pouring from her wrecked nose.
Casey screamed after her mother fell. She scrambled from the flipped Hummer and ran on unsteady legs straight for Moraine. Several Dobermans encircled Casey. She ignored the sleek and dangerous dogs and wrapped her arms around Moraine’s neck. Both Black and White growled at the Dobermans who backed away from the toddler.
Erik crawled from the Hummer, heart pounding as chaos reigned. Through fur and vicious teeth he saw Casey encircled. Erik needed his daughter safe.
Black and White stared at him as he approached. For caution’s sake he lowered his head in embarrassed supplication to the dogs. He knew they could have him ripped apart with one bark.
No one moved and Erik hated the tension. Then the dogs drifted away, allowing Erik to crawl forward and kiss Moraine’s forehead. She breathed, a blessing he considered, but when he tried moving Moraine a Doberman lunged, baring its teeth. He gathered the crying Casey into his arms and left Moraine where she lay.
Erik stared at the cerulean sky and how the fresh sun warmed his face. Casey snuggled her nose against his cheek. He squeezed her close with both arms, with head canted low, watching his steps. The Dobermans padded alongside him in silence.
Erik contemplated what his eyes witnessed. The entire affair resembled a Disney movie gone wrong in a Stephen King sort of way. Fate, the full moon, whatever caused the earthquake and the canine's getaway unleashed a horror upon their world. And now he and a few others found themselves prisoners to two border collies and their army.
Cries came from his rear. He spun, facing the baggage train. The scene, comical if under different circumstances, sent chills through his tired body. Children hauled several super sized Bucky Brown wagons crammed with backpacks and bags. The leader, a tall lanky girl, admonished a tyke no older than five for not helping the others push a wagon mired in deep sand.
Erik noticed the dogs didn’t bother the children. The baggage team operated under lanky girl’s leadership. He wondered what sat in those stuffed bags piled into the wagons. He recalled how the children appeared out the woods near the hills with those brown plastic faux wood wagons. They loaded up items from food, water, to medical supplies from the fallen camp. They even wedged rifles amongst the heavy packs.
Erik counted two kids for each wagon. And from the looks, one team lagged too far behind the group.
Casey hugged Erik’s neck. Her eyes fluttered open. He pitied his daughter’s cracked lips and weather-worn face. He kissed her chubby cheek, now thinning from little food.
If his baby died, he planned to kill them all. Erik dropped his head and continued on with the march. The sun heated the back of his neck, Casey’s head rolled from exhaustion. Ahead sat trees in a thick cluster, rest, he thought. Black and White must have read his mind. The army shuffled off the road to pitch camp within the shaded copse. And then the real nightmare began.
29
Akiko became frustrated with the kids. The twelve-year-olds needed to get their act together. She fussed at one who blinked and let a toddler wobble off into the woods and over a hill. She could hear the baby’s cries as the army marched over the dusty path. Akiko deemed rescuing the boy impossible, leaving the child to die.
The earlier fight against the army camp frightened her and gave her scant hope of being saved. Dogs howled in agony and fury as soldiers ran up the hill firing their rifles. Akiko kept the children huddled with their heads to the ground as rounds buzzed and cracked through the air.
The racket birthed a headache behind her eyes. She remembered how the German shepherds guarded them, facing outward as the battle raged beyond her sight. The German shepherds protecting them dropped from stray bullets crashing into their bodies.
Fifteen minutes passed, and the gunfire ended in increments. Over a hundred dogs broke from the brush, storming the camp below the hill. Their attack brought on terrible screams.
The aftermath proved fruitful for the dogs. Her dreams of rescue evaporated with the losers getting slaughtered.
Akiko talked the older and more able kids into descending the hill. With Rottweilers as escorts, they raided abandoned homes for food and supplies, finding Bucky Brown wagons at a toy store to load their goods. Then they tramped through the devastated camp.
Dead bodies littered the parking lot, somewhat intact. Pools of blood drenched the streets. The dogs corralled the defeated, forcing them onto the hard macadam. People cried as the dogs dragged the dead into tents and buried their own along the tree line. The tents became makeshift dining halls where the dogs could eat human flesh while hidden from those who lost the battle.
After she fed the children MREs and Black and White completed feasting on human flesh, the long march began. She lined the wagons two by two, in a column, placed two children for each wagon and marched out.
Black and White broke after the almost two day hike. The army and captives released a simultaneous sigh. German shepherds surrounded the massive wooded field crowded with shade trees, scout dogs spread out on an unknown errand. She led the baggage train into a glade rich with foliage and ordered the children to relax and eat.
Akiko savored the rest, sitting on a fallen log as the eleven-year-olds handed out military meals they found in the army camp. The captured staggered from the main group, sectioned off in their own site.
Black padded through the camp. He stopped and barked as if chatting with the other dogs. He moved on until he arrived at Akiko. The Belgian collie sat, mouth closed to stare at Akiko in what she assumed to be contemplation.
Akiko nodded at Black and stood. The dog headed towards the captured humans who congregated in clumps, many suffering dog bites. They stared at Akiko in awe, but gave Black hate filled glares.
Akiko swept her eyes over the shattered folks. Black spun and sauntered into the busy canine army, leaving her alone with the captives.
Akiko confronted a thousand people or more, injured,
distraught. Many lost friends and loved ones. How could she talk them past their anger when anger burned in her heart at her family’s deaths?
“My name is Akiko.” She waited for a second. Her stomach churning, she wanted to vomit. Sweat speckled her forehead and the sun yet reached its zenith.
“What happened here,” a man shouted. His thick voice drew nods. “What is this?”
“This is war,” she said. “The dogs are in charge. And my job is to keep you alive.”
“Keep us alive,” he shouted and rose. “They attacked us.”
Akiko lifted her hands, palms out to still the captives. The man, six-feet tall, beer bellied and angry, posed and intimidating figure. He earned his anger, but at the moment, his rage might get him killed. Two Rottweilers stood on the crowd’s perimeter, watchful as the big guy’s voice rose.
“First, I need for everyone to stay calm to stay alive.”
The man lifted his chin. “You’re just a high school girl. I saw you pick the dead clean and steal their food and property.”
Akiko switched from being sick to the stomach to angry. “You will eat, drink water, and receive medication for your wounds. Besides, those two collies understand us. If you get out of line, they will kill you.”
“Are you threatening me? Are these your dogs, are you in control?”
“I’m not in control,” she said. “He is.” Akiko turned back and pointed. White stood ten feet from his captives with four Dobermans around him. “And he is listening to you.”
The man glared at White. “That mutt is not the boss here. It’s you. You are controlling these punk mutts. What is it, huh? A high school experiment gone wrong and now you’re trying to put it off on that flea-bitten mongrel who screws its own mother.”
White exploded into a barking rage, foam spewed from his mouth. Black rushed over to the commotion. The Rottweilers who stood silent near the crowd bolted into the throng, racing for the irate man.
Akiko’s stomach tightened and for a moment she thought White might send his Dobermans after her. Instead the two big Rottweilers forced a path through the crowd, reaching the big man. Both dogs lunged, each bitting a hand.
The man shrieked. Blood ran from his hands as the dogs pulled him. People made room for the struggling trio. The man sobbed in baby gurgles, his feet staggering forward even though he didn’t want to comply.
Akiko shuddered. She watched the unbeliever brought forward against his will. Dark red blood continued plopping to the earth. The dogs pressed their large heads against the dirt with the offender's hands locked in their jaws. He fell slow. His knees hit the grass first and then his hands. He bowed, tears created by pain and anger streamed from his eyes.
Akiko tucked her chin and shut her eyes to block out the horrible screams. A gentle bark came from her right. She discovered Black standing close to her. Black's presence calmed her nervousness, and she relaxed.
White entered the play, stopping a foot from the man. He skimmed the seated prisoners with intelligent eyes. Wails of shock rolled through the beaten throng.
White maneuvered himself to the man’s head. The big man lifted his face, bared his teeth and spat on White’s snout. The dog growled and barked again with the same viciousness. This time the Dobermans got involved. They clamped their sharp teeth onto the man’s ankles. He threw his head back and howled, his cry rivaling the surrounding dogs.
White cocked his right leg, letting loose a golden stream. Pee splashed onto the big man’s head. Golden rivulets trickled into his open mouth as he shouted and writhed against the painful humiliation.
Akiko wept along with the crowd. She sank to her knees despite her efforts to check her emotions. Two lapdogs appeared and licked the tears away from her face. She tried explaining to him how to survive but he decided not to listen.
White lowered his leg and mad-dogged the hysterical crowd. People wailed, hugged each other. The spectacle drew the entire camp. White, not satisfied, lifted his leg again, set his balls on the victim's soggy head and gyrated his hips with a frantic pump.
He stopped humping and stepped away, followed by fiercer barking. This drew a pack of dogs. The pack gathered in a straight line resembling children waiting to buy ice cream. Each dog peed on the man’s head, adding a cursory head humping for good measure.
A giant Great Dane offered his rear to the man. Within seconds something long, wet, and brown slid from underneath his wagging tail, landing on his head akin to a curled cinnamon roll.
The loud prisoner ceased struggling. Defeated, he lay, arms stretched out by the two dogs and ankles held by the Dobermans as the defilement persisted.
White paused by the man, impassive, savoring the crowd’s turbulent misery. The man’s shoulders shook, he moaned. The dogs appeared to take delight in dominating the huge offender.
White barked again, and the dogs scampered off, even the ones who held him. They left their victim soaked in pee and wet lumps of steaming feces.
White turned his back on the captives, vanishing amongst his four-legged followers.
Akiko focused on the man and the wailing crowd, reminding her of refugees in some desolate country. She gestured and several brave people approached the prostrate captive. With surprising tenderness they cleaned him with donated shirts and cloths. Now everyone knew who ran the camp. She considered them lucky. Next time White might kill a few captives to prove his point.
30
Doctor Jenny Chow woke from her restless sleep curled on her office couch. She swept her naked feet onto the carpet and pressed her thumbs against her eyes to relieve the aching pressure behind them. After twenty-four hours being awake, her body crashed.
Jenny stood, stretched. Bones cracked along her spine. She walked to the window and gazed out on a world soaked in early morning darkness. Coffee, with its enticing scent, drifted to her tiny nostrils. The kitchen operated twenty hours a day, her stomach growled but the papers on the floor dampened her hunger.
The news she received yesterday morning frightened her. She looked at her desk phone expecting the message light throbbing an amber glow. Nothing. But upon inspecting her cell, Carver sent her a picture of her dead team and a devastated National Guard camp.
Blinded by tears, Jenny shrugged off her clothes, tossed them aside and headed for the office shower. In the bathroom, she turned on the shower’s hot water and parked herself underneath the needling torrent.
The group ordered to find the dogs and bring them back died. Charles, Bill, Dorothy, big Dumpster, dead because she sweet-talked them into going after two Combat Canines.
Jenny missed Charles with his arrogance and swagger. The photo of his corpse seared her heart.
Done with the shower she paused before a mirror frosted in condensation. Charles’s ghost handwriting showed through the steam. She wiped the words away.
“I love you too, Charlie.” Her thin frame trembled as she remembered the body parts, or what the dogs decided not to eat. Bloody clumps, ropey pink intestines, hair, scattered jewelry, and gold and silver rings with detached fingers still in them.
She walked from the bathroom naked, relishing the frosty air against her wet flesh. Through the window the bright sun pushed up from the east. Black smoke rose in heavy billows from several distant buildings. Flames peeked above rooftops. She didn’t recall the smoke or fire thirty minutes ago.
Jenny knew someone might blame her for Black and White. How could they not? She turned to her desk, picked up her cellphone and called her parents in San Francisco. The other end rang and rang until her teeth hurt and worry gurgled her lower stomach.
Jenny thumbed off the cell. She walked closer to the window staring at an empty parking lot. The scene made little sense for a Thursday morning. An uncanny feeling brought sweat to her upper lip.
Jenny swiped up her desk phone, punched the number six with her forefinger. The phone rang eight times. Mike, her secretary, always answered his phone by the second ring. The clock on the wall read eight in the morning.
Shaken, she hung up the phone and went to her bathroom closet. The doctor pulled out underwear, jeans, a Stanford sweater, and brown moccasins. She dressed fast, exited the bathroom and picked her lab coat off the floor and slipped it on her slight body.
Jenny opened the door, entering the hall. She gazed up one end and down the other. No voices echoed to her save for the steady hum of the overhead air conditioner. The aroma of strong coffee reached her nose.
Jenny walked up the white hall. Sunlight poured through windows, brightening the interior. Six feet ahead sat the break room on her left. She peeked in, found the place empty. The automatic coffee maker did its job in making eight cups.
Coffee sounded good, but not yet. The silence unnerved her.
“Hey,” she said loud and high.
The coffee pot hissed, and a delicate tapping played against the linoleum floor. Shadows drew out against the far wall, jumbled, resembling beasts yanked from a nether world she read in horror novels.
“Hello,” she said and thought her words dumb. “Hey you guys. Be professional and show yourselves.”
The shadows moved from hiding. Furry, low, muscular, with dark eyes and yellow teeth pointed and sharp. Growls emerged from the four floppy eared hounds.
“Oh,” Jenny said. “You guys, what are you guys doing here?”
They stood high, their fur shaggy and disarrayed, far from clean and well groomed. A feral madness haunted their eyes, a wildness most domesticated dogs never experienced in their lifetime.
Jenny stepped back as the dogs advanced, heads angled to the floor, tails not wagging. She estimated twenty-feet between her and the four beasts. She forced herself to stay calm, knowing dogs sensed fear. The ones before her with red muzzles must have inhaled her fright, for their pace quickened from a casual walk to a quick trot.
Jenny dipped into the break room, grabbed the coffee pot filled with the hot black liquid. The dogs broke into a full run as she reentered the hall armed with her scalding weapon.
Baxter’s War Page 11