The Last Dog on Earth

by Adrian J. Walker

  Charlie stirred on our mattress and sat up. She looked at Jag’s body, absorbed the situation and turned to me.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Do you think you can walk?’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘If I had to, I could run.’

  ‘Then wake the others,’ I said. ‘And tell them to keep quiet.’

  We crept from the protection of our pillar and into the open space of the cathedral’s northern aisle. Charlie, Dana and I led the way, and David and Anna brought up the rear, with the children between us. I kept my eye on Charlie, supporting her through every stifled cough, but she brushed me off impatiently.

  ‘I’m fine, Reginald,’ she said. ‘Just keep your eyes on Aisha.’

  We counted five flashlight beams, two moving along the long western aisle and three motionless by the outer walls, their owners either sleeping or smoking. We picked our way through the sleeping bodies and found a wall along which we walked, crouching. Whenever a beam swung our way we would stop and duck against the concrete until we were sure we were safe, then continue on our way.

  It was freezing cold. Some gloomy version of dawn had broken through the roof’s jagged scar. The light that came through was moving with slow shadows and, as we reached the rough crossroads beneath the dome, I felt a prickling in my hair and realised what they were. Snow was falling into the cavern and resting upon the sleeping prisoners.

  Aisha gasped and I looked down; she was caught in a shaft of grey light, holding her tongue out to catch a flake. I watched her eager face in that glum light and I wondered how many more times my heart could break before it fell to pieces altogether.

  David broke my daze. ‘Where is the door?’ he whispered.

  I scanned the eastern aisle. The choir seats that faced each other were now heaped with sleeping bodies and the pulpit was cleaved in two. I spotted the door set into the opposite wall and nodded at it. ‘There, between those pillars.’

  I saw a shadow lumber across the doorway.

  ‘And that is the guard,’ said David. ‘How do we get past him?’

  ‘I shoot him,’ said Dana, raising Jag’s gun.

  ‘Simple as that, is it?’ I said.

  She curled her lip. ‘I know how to shoot this thing,’ she said. She narrowed her eyes and levelled them at the guard. ‘Bet I could hit him from here, too.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ I said. ‘Very comforting, but I tell you what, why don’t I save you the bother and run up and down the aisle with my pants on my head shouting out our location for the other guards?’

  ‘Fuck you, we’d be there before they got to us.’

  ‘With seven children? Through all these people? Honestly, you Americans with your guns, it beggars belief, it really—’

  ‘I’m fucking Canadian!’

  ‘Keep your voices down!’ hissed Charlie. ‘Now, what are we going to do?’

  We peered across at the door.

  ‘We need to distract him,’ I said.

  ‘How?’ said Charlie.

  Nobody spoke for a moment. Then Dana allowed the gun to slide down to her waist. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘I know what he wants.’

  ‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘You can’t do that, I won’t let you.’

  ‘I won’t let him either, but I might be able to distract him long enough for you to open the door.’

  ‘But what if …’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘No,’ said Charlie. She straightened up, trembling. ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Dana. ‘No offence but, even if you weren’t sick as a dog, I’m fairly sure you’re not his type. Don’t you think he’s more likely to go for someone younger?’

  ‘Not his type? Nonsense!’ Charlie spluttered with indignation, glancing at me. ‘Plenty of men like an older woman.’

  As they argued in hushed voices, I saw the shadow stop. There was a chink and his face lit up in the glow of a lighter. My heart sank a little as his features flickered in the orange light.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I said.

  Charlie and Dana stopped.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Reginald,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Trust me,’ I said. ‘I have a sneaking suspicion that neither of you are his type.’

  Touch

  LINEKER

  My idle fantasies of warmth and comfort disintegrate in the lurid light. The door of my cage buzzes open and every muscle in my body is on fire, every fibre twitching under the same furious will.

  My handler leads me out and we follow the line to the feeding yard, just like we always do. But this is anything but familiar. It’s too early, for a start, dark outside, and the air is full of unusual smells compounded by the scent of a thousand dogs reacting to them. I keep a steady trot and squeeze down the urge to dart away. It’s the same urge that’s pulling on every other dog in the line, and some of them aren’t quite so able to bury it.

  Two beagles – their barks insane with fear – leap from their handler’s side. This causes a chain reaction in the dogs around them, and one by one they stray from the line, yanked back by their handlers until those of us still in control have to pass ten, twenty, thirty dogs being beaten on the concrete outside of the yellow lines marking our route.

  I keep my eyes ahead. I need food. Now. And I’m not taking my usual share.

  I find the biggest dog at the troughs – a black mastiff who takes up two spaces and is already gulping huge mouthfuls of slurry. I growl, pounce and land on his back, sinking my teeth into his shoulder. With a gullet-clogged yelp the gluttonous cunt rears back on his hind legs and hurls me to the concrete. The pain of the impact only feeds my fury and I turn, head down, fangs bared. He plants his front paws before him and a wet growl shudders from somewhere in his mass of matted black fur. Our handlers, seeing the stand-off, move in. But they’re not quick enough. I leap again with my fangs screaming in the strip light, and clamp my jaws tight around his eye and ear. With a pathetic howl he heaves his body from the floor but I sink my teeth in, trying to find bone and nerve, tugging at his flesh. And it’s too much for him. He drops, legs splayed and scrabbling on the ground. I release him and away he crawls, whimpering and flopping like a clubbed seal.

  My handler comes for me but I snap at him. Blood drools from my chops and he backs away.

  Back at the trough, the dogs lower their tails and widen the space left by the mastiff. I lumber up, stick in my snout and eat my fill.

  REGINALD

  ‘Hello,’ I said. My voice quivered like a newborn fawn.

  In a flurry of metal and canvas the guard flicked his cigarette to the floor and swung his gun in my direction.

  ‘Who’s that? Put your hands up!’

  I did as he said. He fumbled in his belt for his flashlight and shone it in my face.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, squinting.

  I sensed his grip on the gun loosen.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, with dreadful familiarity, ‘it’s you. What happened to your face?’

  I ventured a smile and an awkward shrug. ‘Bit of bother,’ I said.

  He gave a soft grunt and lowered the flashlight, then stepped out of the shadows. His great face loomed down at me, grey and chiselled in the dawn light.

  ‘What do you want?’ he said.

  ‘I was … I got lost on the way back from the latrines. Glad I found you.’

  I tried a smile again and glanced behind him. The others had crept to the wall behind and were sneaking along to the door. The plan was for me to distract him long enough for them to open the door. Then Dana would use Jag’s gun to either hold him back or finish him off. We needed to give ourselves as long as possible to dash for the fire door without attention from the guards.

  My friend began to turn in the direction of my gaze.

  ‘Er, are those cigarettes?’ I asked, nodding at the pack in his chest pocket.

  He looked back and frowned. I do not believe he was particularly intelligent and I had no idea what bearing this would have upon pro
ceedings.

  ‘Could I … ?’

  Another frown. He reached for the cigarettes, picked one out and held it before me, tip upwards like a branchless white tree growing from the enormous thicket of his fingertips. He moved as if through water, like an astronaut bounding. Or perhaps it was my own sense of time that was clogged.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, reaching for it. But he snatched it back.

  ‘What’s it worth?’ he said, eyes flashing.

  Something’s always worth something else.

  I swallowed, glanced at the shadows on the wall. They had not yet made it to the door.

  Hurry up.

  ‘Well?’ he said, taking a step towards me.

  ‘I …’ I faltered. ‘Well, I suppose … I’m really not sure what you …’

  His face darkened. ‘Get down on your knees.’

  The minutes that passed on the canal side were as short as atoms and wide as galaxies. It was as if they existed in a different realm; sealed like some rare exhibit in a vacuum of time and space. If I choose to, I can view them in perfect detail. Every word howled, every shake of her lifeless body, every pump of her chest, every denial screamed into the sky.

  We tried everything we knew until the ambulance arrived, and although it had long since given up its grip, I kept hold of Isla’s hand until we reached the hospital.

  Some time later, as tubes were removed and machines shut down and we fell into that long, cold silence, they finally persuaded me to let go. Her last touch left me like a long-held breath. A second later somebody put their hand on my shoulder and I flinched.

  I have no idea what neurological mechanism was responsible for my repulsion to human touch but I do know it grew from that moment. I felt it – a terrible seed taking root in the fingertip and pushing its tendrils through my body. Within a day I could not stand to be within an inch of another soul.

  So do not for a moment think that my recent improvements in this area were lost on me. The fact that I could first withstand Aisha’s touch, then Charlie’s, and not only that but now actively seek comfort in them, was nothing short of miraculous. And the touch of strangers, too, was losing its torture – well, if that was not a sign of something positive then I did not know what was.

  This, though, this was one step too far.

  I was glad of the darkness.

  ‘This has to be quick,’ he whispered above me, and I was not sure whether that was a good or a bad thing. As his buckle clanked I peered eagerly through his legs at the wall behind. Dana had reached the door and was choosing a key from the many that hung from Jag’s ring. She moved slowly so as not to make a sound.

  Hurry up, I thought. For heaven’s sake, hurry up.

  He gave a breathy grunt and yanked down his underwear.

  Hurry up, hurry up, hurry …

  Heat rose close to my face. I looked behind him again – Dana was still working through the keys.

  ‘Come on, then!’ he said.

  My throat tightened, my lips made a clumsy attempt to seal themselves. He gripped my hair. Still nothing from Dana.

  Please, please hurry …

  ‘Get on with it, will you!’

  What the hell is she doing?

  Another key wiggled – to no avail. Something hit my lips. A taste of salt.

  Oh Christ, hurry up please.

  ‘Get on with it!’

  He yanked my head towards him.

  Hurry, please, hurry before …

  There was a click and a jingle of keys from the door behind.

  ‘What’s that?’ he said, looking over his shoulder, still holding my head. Behind him, Dana stood in the open doorway, perfectly illuminated by light from the staircase.

  For a second, nobody moved. Then Dana swung Jag’s gun towards us and pulled the trigger. It clicked, with no report, and the useless sound brought my friend to full attention.

  ‘Hey!’

  I suppose a punch might have done but, as I have ruminated many times since, there was no guarantee it would have had the same effect. No, what I did was this: I reached up, grasped him and bit down as hard as I could, and I will say only this: if the scream of childbirth can only come from a woman, then this scream could only ever come from a man.

  He slapped me away and fell to the floor, foetal and howling with his knees clamped tight. I got to my feet and staggered to the door where the others were still standing.

  ‘Holy shit,’ said Dana.

  ‘Come on,’ I muttered, spitting blood and gristle. The guard’s howls filled the cathedral and I sensed bodies moving behind. ‘No use dwelling on it. Get everyone downstairs.’

  We were barely halfway down the first flight before we heard boots approaching from the corridor below.

  ‘Back,’ I yelled, about-turning. ‘Back!’

  But as we stumbled back into the cathedral we found ourselves face-to-face with four guards and four gun barrels glinting in the inky morning light. My friend was still rolling in agony at their feet.

  ‘Hands above your head,’ said the guard at the front. ‘And drop that.’

  Dana placed Jag’s useless gun on the floor and we raised our hands. Boots hammered the stairs behind. We were done for.

  Suddenly the air was filled with a cacophonous drone. A siren.

  The guards looked around. More of them streamed from the eastern aisle, heading for the yard. Bodies shifted on the floor.

  The guard nearest us took a breath.

  ‘Everybody outside!’ he yelled.

  David

  LINEKER

  There’s no time for training, not today. Instead we’re hurried into the yard. Snow drifts against the fence. The air is freezing and full of thick flakes.

  As we find a space in the front row, I notice that my handler’s hands are shaking, and it’s not from the cold. The whole yard is a whirlwind of smells and sounds both familiar and unfamiliar. There are new things near us; voices we don’t recognise, strange engines beyond the wall. These things intend to kill us, unless we kill them first.

  Intruders.

  REGINALD

  We shuffled down the western aisle, packed like cattle and bullied towards the entrance by the guards. With every step I swore I could hear the fluttering of a thousand heartbeats.

  ‘Go, go, keep going, keep moving, get outside.’

  The guards were in disarray, their orders nervous and unrestrained, in voices that rose with the sound of our footsteps, the wails and the sobs of fear, entwining in an inseparable hiss and hum that filled the dome until all was a roar that could not be hushed.

  I witnessed many moments in quick succession. A woman, a mother in her late thirties, absent-mindedly flattening the hair of her young son with one shaking hand; a reflex learned, I imagined, in some bright kitchen filled with the familiarities of cornflakes, radio chatter and school bags.

  The crack of an old man’s ribs as a guard brought him into line with his gun stock. His face crumpled in annoyance – as if he had merely stubbed his toe on a chair leg as he rose to get tea – then he fell to the ground beneath the slow stampede.

  A shriek from above followed by a guard tumbling from the dome’s balcony and hitting the concrete with a wet crack. I searched the roof for signs of who had pushed him – perhaps some rebellion that might spell freedom – but the balcony was empty and the doors shut. His fall was either through choice or misadventure.

  Then the horror of Aisha’s hand leaving mine.

  I heard my voice and Charlie’s voice. Where is she? Where has she gone? Do you have her? Aisha!

  I searched the crowd, got down on my hands and knees and crawled along, scanning the floor for her legs. Then I stood.

  Aisha!

  No sign.

  Then the touch of her hand once again. Joy – even in that dark place shifting with shadows and all the smells of death and doom. Joy.

  She had found a little girl, five perhaps. She had lost her parents. Her face was scrunched and serious, her lips pinched togeth
er between finger and thumb, a rough version of a coping mechanism that she would not be allowed to perfect. Her father stumbled in and took her without a word.

  We reached the entrance and spilled outside into the yard, already awash with prisoners, guards and dogs. Howls of alarm emerged with us like bats released. Their reason lay along the far wall: the scaffold was complete, twenty gallows with one rope hanging from each.

  Chaos. Snow overwhelmed everything. The guards wanted to form us into lines but there was no chance of that. Nobody would go quietly. The prisoners ran, some together, some alone, screaming in terror or wide-eyed and mute, scrabbling for hiding places where there were none to be found, for some crack in reality through which they might crawl. Some made for the fence, managing to claw up only three or four shaky footholds before being dragged down by dogs.

  Having been so far protected by the weight of the crowd, we now found ourselves out in the open and at the mercy of the guards, who were shoving, prodding and dragging prisoners towards those terrible gallows. We instinctively dropped to our knees in an attempt to shrink from their attention.

  ‘Where’s Anna and her children?’ I said.

  David gripped his son. ‘I can’t see them. They must have been separated.’

  ‘Dana?’ said Charlie.

  ‘Right here,’ said Dana, stumbling breathless to the ground. ‘What do we do? What do we fucking do?’

  Charlie squinted, surveying the mayhem. ‘The guards – they’re not in control, and they’re not using their guns.’

  ‘No,’ I said, remembering what Hastings had said the day before. ‘They’re low on ammunition.’

  ‘And it’s needed elsewhere,’ said Dana. ‘Can you hear?’

  In the panic, we had hardly noticed the rumbling beneath our feet or the shouts from beyond the fence.

  ‘They are under attack again,’ said David. His face lit with a nervous smile. ‘Somebody is coming.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ said Charlie.

  ‘Stay hidden for as long as possible,’ I said, searching the open space for anything that might provide cover.