Finally, the creatures had broken in, and his pack had fled from the other end of the house, leaving him behind. The last thing he heard was the boy, screaming his name again. He’d wanted to run after him, but the rope had kept him from it. So instead he remembered the Man’s lesson.
He lay beneath his fur of leaves and waited. He’d always wanted to be bigger, especially on the day when they’d faced the stray. But now, as he hid himself from the slobbering herd, he was glad the lump he made beneath the leaves was small. Maybe the creatures wouldn’t notice. Maybe the leaves would hide his smell from them.
Some of the creatures pursued his pack, but others milled around the house for hours. He was alone among them. He’d never been so frightened. As the night’s cold descended through his fur and into his bones, he shook and wanted so badly to whine. But he remembered the Man’s lesson.
They tore and slavered and hissed and looked for more to eat. Their appetite seemed insatiable. But he remembered to think before acting, and so he waited and waited and waited longer. While the rope held him, there was nothing else he could do.
He learned to dart his eyes from creature to creature without moving his head. He watched them roam and stagger and slam against the house again and again, until the moon was rising in the sky. Finally they moved on, leaving him shivering beneath his leaves, exhausted. But he dared not move yet. He had to be sure they were gone. He fell into a fitful sleep.
• • •
He jerked awake, his paws kicking. He’d been running in a dream. A nightmare, then? Only a bad dream.
The night was cooling fast. It’d be a perfect night for him to scratch softly at the window, the promise of warm love waiting beneath the boy’s furs. It’d make having the nightmare worthwhile.
But then he saw the hole in the side of the house and his sadness, like the cold, settled deep into him. It hadn’t been a dream after all.
He sniffed to make sure he could no longer smell them. When he was sure they’d gone, he stood and stretched. His fur was soaked. His legs were stiff, despite their dream-running. The leaves clung to him with the night’s dew, sealing in the cold.
But he waggled off the leaves and dropped to his belly again and began to gnaw. The rope was bitter and stringy and rough against his tongue. It tasted like hay smelled. But he thought of finding the boy again, and that gave him strength.
He chewed. Time passed.
Once he thought he heard one of the creatures, but it was only a cat. The cat walked by him and watched him gnawing and he growled at it without stopping. The cat had simply turned away as if he weren’t worth her time and, mewing, walked on.
By the time the moon was full overhead, he’d eaten his way through the rope. His harness remained, but he didn’t mind that. It reminded him of the boy and their walks. Of the day they’d stood down the stray together. And that gave him courage. And hope.
He went inside the house, through the hole the creatures had made. His pack’s scent was everywhere. It mixed with the stench of the invaders. And something else. The smell of food. Real food.
His eyes followed his nose around the room. Whenever the Man or Woman wanted him to do something, they’d bark their strange sound, and he’d come running to this room. After he did the thing, they’d give him a reward. Next to the boy’s room, this was his favorite room in the house.
There were treats all over the table. His pack had been feeding when the attack happened. He stood up on his hind legs and sniffed. He began to salivate. The smorgasbord of smells almost overpowered the lingering, wormy reek of the creatures. He looked around left, then right. An old habit. But the Man and the Woman weren’t here to bark a warning at him. He was glad and sad at the same time for that.
He leapt up on one of their seats and stared at the table. Food covered it in wide, flat bowls. He was famished, he realized, now that the danger had passed. As hungry as the creatures seemed to be.
No, not like them. Never like them.
Placing his front paws on the table’s edge, he looked around one last time, then leapt up on the table and filled his jaws. He ate for the pure joy of eating while standing on the tabletop. He’d dreamed of it many times. He looked around again, just to make sure he wouldn’t get into trouble, then remembered: they were gone. The boy was gone. His sadness found solace as he gorged himself.
When he was finished, he tumbled down, first to the chair, then to the floor. His belly was fat and he felt sleepy. So he went back to the hole in the side of the house, looked left and right to make sure none of the creatures were around, then pooped in the back yard. Eating from the table was one thing. Pooping in the house? That just wasn’t right.
He walked back inside and to his favorite room in the house, where his twin runt slept, and clambered beneath the boy’s furs. He buried his body in them, just as he’d burrowed beneath the leaves. He wanted to absorb the boy’s scent into his own fur. He wanted it to be all he could smell, ever again. As he inhaled deeply and his belly spread full beneath him like a fat pillow, the sorrow returned. If he left here, he knew, eventually the boy’s scent would leave him. Especially now that the heavy odor of the Storm of Teeth lay across everything. He fell asleep, buried in the furs and painting a permanent memory of the boy’s scent into his nose.
• • •
Dawn brought more of the creatures. He awoke to them moving through the house. As he had the night before, he inhaled deeply to stamp the boy’s smell on his brain one last time. Then he poked his nose from beneath the covers.
One of them dragged a foot aimlessly down the hallway as it passed the door to the boy’s room. Eventually, he knew, he had to move. The longer he delayed, the further away the boy was. There was no rope binding him now. He must move soon if he were ever to find the boy.
He stood, ready to hop down, and his stomach roiled with his earlier feast. The creature’s shadow hesitated. He stood stock still, the boy’s furs around his head and shoulders. The creature grunted as it turned to come back up the hallway.
Fear coursed through him. His brain prepared his body for combat. He wanted to growl, to warn the creature away, as he and the boy had warned the stray away. But they were too big, much bigger than the stray, and they never stopped until they fed. Even after they fed. His growl would only bring their attention to him, he knew.
He had only one choice, then.
Leaping from the bed, he darted through the doorway, ignoring the groan of hunger behind him. He waddled down the hall, last night’s binge weighing him down.
Shambling shadows appeared in the living room, attracted by the first creature’s frustration. One of them was small like the Baby, only crawling. It dragged itself across the floor of the living room toward the hall. His eyes darted back and forth, looking for a path to freedom.
The crawling creature reached for him, and he was tempted to nip at the hand like he had the Baby’s. But he thought before acting. He wasn’t sure what biting one of the creatures would mean. Would he change too? Would he become one of them, no matter who bit first?
He feinted left, then jogged right and past the crawler’s clutching hands. Another creature stood between him and the open front door, but he darted between its legs and tumbled outside.
Creatures moved randomly in the street as the others in the house turned to pursue him. He could see bodies of the members of other packs sprawled around in death. At least some of them had stayed dead, as they should.
Now that he was out in the open, it was easy to avoid the creatures. His leg muscles bested the weight of his stomach, and he moved from body to body, making sure they were not the boy or the other members of his own pack. When he was satisfied, he moved into the woods behind the neighborhood and began his search.
• • •
His strategy was simple. He hid when the creatures were around and tracked when they weren’t. But tracking the boy was difficult. His scent was almost impossible to find.
As the Storm of Teeth grew in fe
rocity and size, as its biters spread their plague, the stench of the dead was everywhere. They were everywhere. Always hungry. Always eating. His fur was up more often than it wasn’t. He began to feel awake, even while sleeping.
The first day he spent going to the places he and the boy had always gone. The dog park. The route they walked, where the stray had attacked them. The fishing hole. But each time he failed to find the boy, his sadness deepened, his desperation grew. For three days he searched and tracked and found nothing but danger and grief.
On the third night, a bat attacked him, and he ran into cover on instinct. The bat carried a disease like the creatures. He could smell it. Only this disease was older, one he knew to avoid without thinking. He knew that if the bat bit him, he’d die. Death would be agony. He knew this. And he’d try to spread the bat’s disease to others, too.
Maybe the plague of the creatures was like the bat’s disease, then. He’d seen it turn members of other packs rabid after they were bitten. They joined the Storm of Teeth and became spreaders of the plague. Deep in his bones, he knew if a creature bit him, the plague would take him too. The same as would happen if the bat bit him. At last, the answer to the question. Whether he bit a creature or it bit him, he’d become a plague carrier. And go mad.
He resolved in that moment never to become like them. Not just for himself, but for the boy too. What if he found the boy after becoming plagued? He knew he’d try and hurt him, try to spread the sickness. Like the bat had tried to hurt him. And hurting wasn’t love. Not even runt love. And he didn’t want to hurt anyone, not ever.
That night, he returned to the fishing hole and laid his head near the edge of the pond. Maybe the boy would come back here after all, he decided. Maybe he’d remember this place, their refuge on lazy afternoons.
As he rested, the thought suddenly came upon him: what if the boy had been bitten by a creature? He whimpered quietly. Missing his second self made him ache inside. But it hurt even worse to think of the boy as a plaguebearer. Drooling, ravenous, and spreading madness to others like the bat.
No longer a boy. No longer his boy. An un-boy.
His twin wouldn’t want that, he decided. The boy was just like him and would never want to hurt anyone. He’d only ever barked the once, when the stray had threatened them. He’d never barked again, not even when the Baby cried all the time and everyone else began to bark at one another, aggravated.
He and the boy shared the desire to never hurt another soul. Better to die a natural death than walk, eternally ravenous, through an unnatural un-life. He slipped into the waking sleep that now passed for rest.
• • •
Before dawn, a noise startled him awake. His eyes popped open. That night in the yard, he’d learned to look first without turning his head. But the noise was off to the left. His spinal fur was already up, alerted by his nose. His ears too had warned him before his eyes had opened. It was the shambling noise. The shuffling, methodical step … step ... step of eternal appetite. The hungry, persistent tread of a creature that should be still and dead. He sniffed quietly, but the wind was moving in the wrong direction.
He turned his head slowly to see how many.
Only one.
The only one that mattered.
The only one that mattered at all.
He whined.
The boy’s clothes were shredded and dirty. His eyes were yellow and rheumy. His mouth was red and shredded, as if he’d gnawed his own lips away to stave off starvation.
The wind shifted and he caught the scent. It wasn’t the boy’s sweet smell, the smell of runt love and playtime and warm furs on cold nights. It was the rotting stench of un-life.
He couldn’t stop his sadness from becoming sound. His whine of fear became a moan of hope stolen away. Attracted by the noise, the boy turned and reached out for him.
He stood up. He barked. He didn’t care if other creatures heard. He wanted to warn this one away. To somehow scare the plague out of the boy and make it give his twin back to him. To be a champion again for his second self.
All his searching. All his caution.
He wanted the boy back!
The un-boy marched forward, moaning. A sad sound. But as with the other creatures, hunger ruled all. The un-boy bared his teeth through a ragged, receding mouth.
Reaching.
The dog growled and backed away. He’d never growled at the boy in anger. Only in play. But as the two of them stalked one another along the same shore where they’d shared so many afternoons dozing in the sun, he knew this creature was no longer his twin.
One moved forward, hungry; the other back, frightened.
Other sounds. Other creatures. From the other side of the shore.
He glanced to his right. There were several.
Then more.
Then many.
Too many.
He turned back to the creature that had been the boy. His whine erupted into a ragged, desperate stream of barking. The un-boy’s fingers worked the air, clutching for him. He remembered the boy’s scent, his real scent, and how much it smelled like love. How much it filled him up to share everything with the boy—to share a reason for living as a friend, each a champion for the other.
Then, he decided. Despite every instinct that begged him to run, as he’d run at the house, he stayed and stood his ground.
He knew his second self would never want to be this un-boy, hurting others. And he didn’t want it either—for either of them. But the boy couldn’t protect himself now. It was up to him to stand between the boy and the stray again. To free the boy who was his best friend from the un-life that should never have been.
A final moment to share together.
He leapt into the un-boy’s outstretched arms and ripped out his throat.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Pourteau is the author of Shadows Burned In, winner of the 2015 eLit Book Award Gold Medal for Literary Fiction; the Legacy Fleet novel Avenger; and The Serenity Strain novels, among other works.
He’s also edited collections of short stories by various authors, including the anthology Tails of the Apocalypse, a Top Ten Finisher in the Predators and Editors Poll for Best Anthology of 2015. He’s also a producer and player for the podcast Sci-Fi Writers Playing Old School D&D, as well as producer and co-host of the podcast Geeks of a Certain Age.
Chris resides in College Station, Texas, with his wife, son, and two dogs.
You can find out more about his work at chrispourteau.thirdscribe.com. Sign up for Chris’s newsletter and get free advanced reader copies of his works, the early word on sales, and monthly updates on his writerly doings.
Subscribe here: Newsletter
TIME PATROL:
Lara’s Recruitment
BY BOB MAYER
Our Present.
Area 51
“Russians.” Colonel Orlando spit with the wind; his father had raised no fool. He watched the small plane on approach to the pitted concrete airstrip in the middle of nowhere, Nevada. The runway dated back to World War II when the Air Force decided Nevada was a pretty good place to teach hastily-trained pilots to drop bombs, since the many misses pretty much had the same effect as a hit: a lot of sand and rock blown up.
“You don’t like Russians?” Eagle asked. “Ms. Jones was Russian.”
“She was a Nightstalker,” Orlando said. And that was the end of that, because Orlando had been a Nightstalker longer than anyone knew, which meant everyone alive had come after him, and he’d outlasted all his teammates. When he’d no longer been able to be an operative—the distinct odor of alcohol was his constant companion—Ms. Jones had made him the recruiter for the elite team.
Now she was gone, too.
Time takes all, Eagle thought. His shoulder ached with no painkiller, but he’d piloted the Snake here, and that had precluded taking any.
The plane touched down.
The Snake was behind them, a jet-engine tilt-rotor plane that, according to the Department of
Defense, was still being computer simulated and not yet in production. Eagle had been flying one for four years for the Nightstalkers, and now, as a member of the Time Patrol, had access to it when needed.
“Who are the new Nightstalkers?” Eagle asked. It was a question that had been on the edge of his brain ever since being “recruited” into the Time Patrol.
“Bunch of yahoos,” Orlando said. “Never be the same as you guys. Plus, without Rifts to shut, they spend most of their time cranking their yank. Or is it yanking their crank? Working routine stuff like stolen biological agents, nuke stuff, lab mishaps, containment failures. The usual dumb scientist stuff. Be glad you moved on. The scientists seem to be getting dumber.” From the tone of his voice, it was clear he was not happy that Eagle and the others had moved on.
“The Ranch the same?” Eagle asked.
“Yeah,” Orlando said. “The new Nightstalkers headquarter out of Area 51 for now. It’s just as you guys left it.”
“Good,” Eagle said.
The plane decelerated. It was a twin-engine jet with a single blue stripe down the side. No tail number, no other markings. It didn’t exist to the FAA. It didn’t have a transponder. There were lumps under the wings that an observant man could tell housed anti-missile defenses and some offensive capability. Both Eagle and Orlando were observant men.
The plane halted fifty feet away. The front left door opened out and down, providing a short staircase. There was no one for almost ten seconds.
“Geez,” Orlando complained. “You remember the Army, Eagle. Any time you get a tasking for warm bodies, you never send your best people. You send the folks you wanna get rid of.”
Then a big man dressed in nondescript khakis was framed in the exit. He paused and peered about, saw Orlando and Eagle, then looked past them to the Snake. He looked over his shoulder and said something, then came down the steps with the swagger of, well, a big man, used to dominating whatever setting he was in.
At the Helm: A Sci-Fi Bridge Anthology (Volume 1) Page 11