by Mark Tufo
The popping of the door as it opened startled him more than the earlier gunshot. His breath lingered in front of his face causing a momentary smoke screen. The morning was quiet, there was no traffic, no bustle of everyday life. Just the occasional ‘caw’ of a distant crow and the more unsettling barking of dogs that were increasingly becoming feral without ownership. Brendon laughed as he thought of a snarling mad Henry, but then immediately chilled when he thought the same thing about Bear, the Rottweiler. A bunch of poodles and a Chihuahua might not be so bad but throw in a Doberman Pinscher or a German shepherd and things could really start to get ugly.
Brendon had his gun drawn as he stepped onto the broken glass. He noted that more than one person had been here just for the fact that most of the glass had been ground down to almost a fine powder. The thought that live humans were in the vicinity was of no comfort. People could be just as deadly as zombies and you had the added bonus of not knowing which side of that line they were on. At least the zombie didn’t try to pretend. As if to confirm his worst fear there were at least six or possibly seven scattered dead people, it was tough to tell because the aforementioned wild dogs had ripped them apart. They were nearly stripped clean and the bones that remained shone a bright white. Even the skulls had been crushed and the contents muzzled out.
“They had to have been humans, the dogs wouldn’t have touched zombies. Right? Who am I asking?” Dogs hadn’t done the initial killing though, various caliber brass littered the floor, and there were no guns around. The empty shells sounded like broken rain as he kicked through it. "It was bound to happen sooner or later." He thought. "Dwindling resources bring out the worst in folks." Brendon shivered as he saw the outline where the previous blood spills were. Tongue marks criss-crossed the floor, leaving red smears behind. His hunger, which had seemed such a pressing need only moments earlier, was rapidly losing its appeal. “You’ve seen worse.” He said aloud trying to bolster his nerve.
He nearly cried when he passed a smashed box of pop-tarts on the floor. “Maybe I should grab them and I can use them as an excuse to go back. You know Mike, I was heading to Mexico and I came across these cherry pop-tarts and I turned around because I figured that Tommy would want them. No.” He said shaking his head. “Tommy hated the cherry ones, are there any strawberry?” Brendon was so intent on looking for a different flavor he did not realize when visitors came to join him.
The deep bass growl was his first inkling that all might not be right in his world. He looked up at not the largest dog he had ever seen but clearly the most ferocious. A Siberian Husky stared back at Brendon, no wagging tail on its emaciated frame. “That’s a good fella.” Brendon said. “Want a pop-tart?” The dog’s growling increased. “I don’t blame you, the cherry ones suck.” The dog warily moved forward never taking its eyes off him. Patches of fur were missing from its black and silver coat. Dried blood had solidified on its right side, half of his left ear was torn. Brendon at first thought that possibly the virus had gone cross-species. Except for the eyes, they were a deep blue, he might have kept on thinking that.
Brendon held up his gun, the dog paused. “You know what this is don’t you!” Brendon said forcibly. The dog hesitated but only long enough to wait for three of his friends to join him in the hunt. A Golden Retriever, a Black Lab and a Dachshund joined the fray. The retriever and the lab could be trouble because of their size, but Brendon could not wrap his head around a violent dachshund. That was of course until the Dachshund seized the initiative and charged head long down the aisle at him.
“Oh come on.” Brendon pleaded. “A freaking wiener dog?” All the same, he scrambled up on the shelving, pushing some boxes of half eaten Cheerios out of the way. The Dachshund stopped below him, yipping up a storm. If not for his larger and fiercer friends this would be comical. The Lab and the Retriever slowly approached coming down the same aisle as the smaller dog. The Husky came down the aisle to Brendon’s rear. ‘Great, they know how to hunt.’ He thought.
The Lab looked ready to spring. Brendon placed a well-aimed shot in its chest, the dog skidded backwards and slumped against some Angel Soft bathroom tissue. The softest final resting place anybody could ask for. The dogs had backed up a bit but they weren’t leaving quite yet. Brendon turned to get a better shot at the husky, figuring if he took out their leader the rest of the pack might lose heart. Seemed like a great idea until the pack began to swell, Brendon stopped counting when the tenth dog came through.
“Three shots at the zombie, one at the Labrador. That gives me six, and there’s at least 13 of you.” He looked to his truck. The husky followed his line of sight. Backing it up earlier which seemed such a great idea now might end up being the last great blunder in a long string of them. Cognitively he knew the husky wasn’t smiling at him but it sure did look like a shit-eating grin from where he sat. Two more dogs jumped up at him only to be met with varying degrees of fatality. The one that was shot in the throat would die much sooner than the one that had its paw blown off, but it was still only a matter of time.
A few of the dogs were paying no heed whatsoever to the melodrama playing out, too busy foraging for scraps that previous hunting parties might have missed. A particularly vicious fight broke out between an Australian cattle dog and a Boxer over what looked like a bloody hairpiece but was in fact some poor soul’s scalp. Brendon absently touched the top of his head. A good portion of the dogs began to rip pieces out of their fallen brethren. “Glad to see that cannibalism isn’t just a human trait.” Brendon said darkly. No matter what else was happening in the store the husky never took his eyes off of Brendon. It was unnerving and to make matters worse the dog had pulled back far enough to make any type of shot difficult. "Does he know how much ammo I have left." Brendon didn’t voice his thought for fear that the hound might understand what he was saying. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing that had happened to him in the last few weeks.
Brendon pulled his gun up again. The husky retreated even further, placing himself squarely behind an unsuspecting poodle. Brendon shot. “Fuck it, I hate poodles anyway.” Two rounds later the white poodle lay on its side and other dogs began to jockey for position to get some of the tastier morsels on the cadaver. The husky had circled back around. “You are starting to piss me off!” Brendon yelled. The dog curled its lips up, exposing blood stained teeth. “Come here good boy.” Brendon said in a cajoling voice. “I’ve got something for you.” A cur from the back came up. Its tail tucked firmly between its legs, the sound of a human promising treats sparked a fading memory in its rudimentary ken. The husky bit its hindquarters for its disloyalty. The cur yelped its way back to the back of the pack. “Well it’s not like I didn’t know who the alpha dog was anyway.”
The dogs dispatched quickly of their former mates. The meal did little to stave off the effects of starvation that the majority of them were feeling. Most would die by the end of the month, but that would do little for Brendon’s present situation. “Three rounds left, do I kill two dogs and then myself?” It sounded like a decent plan. He just couldn’t reconcile being eaten by animals. There was some base part of him that this thought repulsed to the core. Must have been a hold-over from the early hominids. It kept them from letting a saber tooth tiger eat them.
Brendon didn’t think matters could get much worse. He chastised himself for his lack of imagination when three zombies ambled down the street and into the store. At least one good thing came of it, the dogs having realized that they were also on the zombies’ menu moved out of the way as the new hunters joined the mix. Two of the zombies started to go after the dogs, a young man somewhere in his early twenties, however, locked on Brendon. The dogs moved as the zombie approached. Always staying out of arm’s reach but close enough that they could grab scraps once the dominant hunter had taken down its prey. Like hyenas they cackled around the lion.
Two shots and one broken open brain bucket later the zombie man was on the ground. The dogs avoided the carcass like the plague-infe
sted carrier that it was. The commotion did not go unnoticed by one of the other zombies, who had peeled off from trying to catch the dachshund and instead focused on the non-moving prey, Brendon. The third zombie had somehow managed to corner one of the dogs and was tearing through it. The blood strangled barks of pain were ignored by the pack. "Survival of the fittest." Brendon said, as he stood on the shelving almost falling over when his left foot came down awkwardly on a can of Spam.
The zombie that was coming for Brendon was also in his mid-twenties or so and dressed as if he had at one time been going to a dance club, a tattered black silk shirt and a thick gold chain still clung to his grimy neck. No shoes to speak of but his pants were still in pretty good shape, considering. Brendon couldn't help but wonder if the three amigos had all been together when they changed over, did their friendship transcend the change? That question got resolved fairly quickly as zombie number two stepped on zombie number one's family jewels; the egg cracking sound of bursting genitalia got Brendon moving.
The zombie was within arm's length. Brendon ran down the top of the shelf, gauging where a good jump would take him and then how long it would take him to get to the truck. The husky paced him on the floor. The zombie wasn't going to be a problem unless he jumped too far and knocked himself out on the top of the doorframe. The husky was the issue. He might have, against all odds, made it to the truck unscathed if his jump hadn’t landed him squarely in spilled dish detergent. His left leg shot out at an unnatural angle, the pain in his groin letting him know that if he survived it was going to throb for weeks. Brendon went down on all fours, traction was measured in inches when it needed to be feet. The clubbing zombie was closing in as was his friend that decided human tasted better than collie.
Brendon looked like an extra on Avatar with blue goo covering everything that made contact with the floor. The husky was able to avoid the spillage as it sank its fangs deep into Brendon's calf. He screamed as he rolled over to kick at the dog. The husky, like a professional wrestler, matched him move for move. The dog started to shake its head back and forth causing Brendon to nearly pass out from the pain. Red flowed freely into blue. Sparks danced in Brendon's field of vision. He didn't remember doing it, if someone had asked him later on he would have thought that someone else had taken the shot. The husky jumped away, a deep crimson gash perforated its side, rib bone protruded through the injury. Brendon turned back over to begin his crab walk out of the store. The clubber might have caught him if not for the same trap that had temporarily snared Brendon. The zombie went head first into a display of pickles, shards of vinegar laced glass peppered his face. Brendon stared in horror as the zombie tried to right itself, a jagged piece of glass sticking out of its now empty eye socket.
As it got free from the La Brea Dawn Pits, Brendon got to his one good leg and half hopped, half jumped his way to the truck. Blood followed him. He pulled himself into the cab and immediately shut the door. Some of the hungrier and more dominant dogs began to assert themselves, within seconds the truck was surrounded. The circle was only broken to allow the Clubber and the dog muncher entry. Brendon nearly broke the key in the ignition when the zombies smacked up into the side of the truck. The truck started immediately. He ran over at least one of the zombie's feet and had possibly hit one or maybe two of the dogs. Brendon had a mild sense of satisfaction when he left and saw three big dogs closing in on their former leader. "That's what you get!" He shouted, spittle flying on the inside of the windshield.
He could not, for the life of him, remember why he had stopped at that little shit-hole, that was of course until the blinding yellow light warning of eminent fuel depletion started to blink. His leg hurt so bad he could barely think, he feared pulling his pants up to look at it, thinking that his calf muscle might only be secured to his leg by a severely chewed through tendon. Droplets of blood began to merge on the rubber floor mat, an ant might not yet be able to drown in the burgeoning puddle but it sure could go for a nice swim. Brendon's head began to swoon. The previous bright sparks of pain began to darken and become blotched and that was making vision increasingly difficult.
He drove until the tank gave out, which was fortuitous considering he passed out at roughly the same time. The truck came to an unaided gliding stop on a snow covered embankment. There he would have stayed until time eternal if not for a long range military patrol on a search and rescue mission.
"Is he dead?" Murphy asked his sergeant. As he looked through the windshield, his M-16 pointed directly at the occupant’s skull.
"Why don't you get your stethoscope and see if he has a heartbeat." The sergeant said as he lit a cigar up.
"Shit he just moved!" Murphy yelled.
"Shoot him so we can get out of here." The gunner on the second vehicle shouted. "It's as cold as my first wife's tits out here." The gunner thought about his statement for a second. "And probably my second too."
"How many times you been married?" The gunner on the tracked vehicle asked.
"Guys, this thing is moving." Murphy shouted above them all.
The sergeant came up to the side window. "Looks pretty pale and there's blood on the floor. He's a gomer, hurry up and shoot it, Dickens is right, it is as cold as his second wife's titties."
That got a good round of laughter from everyone, even Dickens.
Brendon's eyes fluttered open. His throat was closed and as arid as the Sahara in high summer. He somehow croaked out. "Help me."
Murphy immediately went into medic mode, shouldering his rifle and opening the door to the truck. He handed Brendon a half full canteen.
Brendon drank greedily, half convinced that he already had early onset rabies. He snorted some of the water back up after trying to gulp it down too quickly.
“Take it easy bud.” Murphy said. “What happened to you?”
“Bit.” Brendon said as quickly as he could so he could get back to the canteen.
Murphy jumped back, and raised his gun half way up.
“Dog.” Brendon clarified bringing the canteen down quickly.
“You sure?” Murphy asked not wanting to get too close.
Brendon gingerly pulled up the bottom of his pants, wincing as the denim fabric snagged on a jagged piece of rended flesh.
“Yup definitely dog. Let me get my med bag.”
Brendon nodded going full tilt back on the canteen.
“What are you doing out here alone?” Murphy asked, trying to distract Brendon from the unpleasant sensation he was about to administer to his leg.
Brendon braced against the slapping sting sensation the disinfectant had on his wound. “I messed up.” Brendon said between clenched lips.
“How so?” Murphy asked rubbing the wound out with what felt like steel wool but was actually a sterile pad of cotton.
“How bad is my leg?” Brendon asked afraid to look down and only see bone.
“Eh ten, twelve stitches max, you won’t be dancing anytime soon. But you’ll live.” Murphy said as he reached into his bag for a suture needle. “So you were saying?”
“I got into a fight with my fiancée's dad and we parted ways.”
"Before or after the end of the world?"
"After." Brendon said resignedly.
“Must have been a hell of a fight, that you’d leave your fiancée and travel companions in this shit.” Murphy said as he snugged tight the second stitch. “Is that how all this happened?”
Brendon couldn’t blame him for his supposition. His leg was shredded from a dog bite. He was covered in blood and dish detergent and his face was all puffy from pain, tears and lack of sleep. “No I walked away from them in perfectly fine condition, the rest of this I blame on myself.”
“Seems like you should have made nice and stayed with them.”
“You think?” Brendon said sarcastically.
Murphy made sure to pull the fourth stitch a little extra tight, happy when Brendon jumped in response. “Did anyone die because of the fight you had?”
Bren
don shook his head in the negative.
“Can’t you go back?”
“They’re on the road.”
Murphy stopped his suturing to look at Brendon squarely. “These aren’t the best of times to be out and about.”
“We had no choice, our home was overrun.”
Murphy nodded. He had seen many a home, town and even cities completely wiped out.
“Where were you going?” Murphy said tying up the last of his sutures.
“North Dakota first to get my girl’s grandmother and then ultimately back east to see if her dad’s family was still alive.”
Murphy kept quiet. The odds that either of those destinations were going to be fruitful ones were dismally low.
“I thought the same thing.” Brendon said picking up on Murphy’s lack of comment.
“Is that what you were fighting about?” Murphy asked as he began to bandage up the wound.
“Yeah something like that.” Brendon had not even the slightest desire to go into the true reasons, and Murphy didn’t look like the type that would believe anyway.
“How many were in your group?”
The word ‘were’ hurt Brendon more than the dog bite. He sincerely hoped that wasn’t the case. “Nine including Henry, he’s a bulldog.”
“English?” When Brendon nodded, Murphy added. “No shit! I love those dogs, couldn’t really afford one on military pay but I was saving up. But by the time this crap is over I don’t think there will be any left.”
Brendon nodded. Dogs like the Husky and hardy breeds like German Shepherds will have significant die off from not having human intervention, but they will eventually adapt to their new surroundings and most likely eventually survive. Specialty breeds like Henry or those stupid rat dogs won’t make it. They are entirely too dependent on their human masters.