Morte (17 page)

Wawa never learned the name of the man who owned her before everything changed. But she hoped he was dead or dying somewhere. Preferably the latter, in some dank cave where the last of the humans waited out their final days. And she hoped that he saw her scarred face in his dreams, and that he wanted to remember her name but couldn’t, and that it drove him mad. He deserved to know that he had failed to break her. He deserved to be afraid.

Wawa didn’t have time to be dwelling on these things again. It was late, and she had work to do. The only light in her cramped room at the barracks came from an old computer salvaged from the rubble, displaying a spreadsheet that detailed every possible EMSAH infection in the sector. Mort(e)’s investigation had begun, and she had to record his findings. If this was an EMSAH outbreak, then it was spreading so fast that the Red Sphinx would soon need an army of investigators to sort through everything. Of course, she could not yet use the word
EMSAH
, not even in the filename. In keeping with the gag order, she described the cases in numbingly bland prose: “Thor (canine, 12). Murdered by neighbor, Averroes (canine, 10). Altercation began Y9 7.3. Assailant stabbed victim; later poisoned family at dinner (mate, two pups); committed suicide.” There was still a blank cell where
she would have to write an equally flat assessment of the deer suicides. It was almost a relief to hear reported cases of biological symptoms. At least they were more predictable. But they had turned up negative in every suspected case so far. Now anyone with an abnormally long cold was being tested.

Though she had heard about settlements that had been erased from the map, she had not witnessed the process in real time. “Think of it as a test,” Culdesac told her. Everything was a test to him, including Wawa’s initiation into the Red Sphinx. He had toured the refugee camp where she lived, searching for new recruits. After being told they were drafting only cats, Wawa challenged the newest members to a fight. It was three against one. Wawa held her own against them until Culdesac consented to let her join, making her the first canine in the squad. The others were stunned. “You owe me,” Culdesac reminded her, “and you will pay up.”

Upon hearing the story of her slave days, Culdesac nodded and smiled. “You should be grateful,” he said. “Grateful to be alive. Grateful that your master gave you this rage that you’ve harnessed. That is who you are. That is your strength. You have to let it burn inside you. Never let it go out. And then you’ll be your own master.”

The colonel was the only other person at the base who was still awake. From her window, Wawa could see a light in his office. That damned coffee was keeping him up, along with a host of worries she was not supposed to know about. Instead of coffee, it was the expression on Mort(e)’s face earlier that day that kept her from sleeping. When she had pointed her gun at him. He thought that he was better than her. He was the bravest. Culdesac’s favorite—something neither she nor her comrades could ever hope to be. She had to listen to all the stories of Mort(e)’s exploits, told by drunk, arrogant cats
who thought that she wasn’t qualified to be a member of their little Red Sphinx club.

If he only knew what she was before all this.

Before the Change, her only reason for living was to make her master rich, while the canines around her suffered unspeakably, lived meaninglessly, and died horribly. Even now, after surviving so much, she could not shake the feeling that things could return to the way they were, and she would suddenly find herself trapped in her old life, realizing that the war had been a dream.

She could remember the litter of puppies, her brothers and sisters huddled together, hiding from the cold and the light. Then they were all separated, her mother included. Everyone was confined to cages facing a white stucco wall. Wawa could hear her siblings, along with many others, squealing above, beside, and beneath her. She tried to talk to them, but her voice died out amidst the shouts bouncing off the wall. Every once in a while, an overhead fluorescent light would turn on. Her master would enter, usually to feed everyone. He was shorter than most men, always dressed in a tracksuit—pants and jacket in matching colors, a white stripe traveling from his shoulders down to his ankles. A bucket hat or a baseball cap covered his shaved head. He called her Jenna. Years later, after giving up on finding out his name, Wawa began to refer to him simply as Tracksuit.

When she was older, her master and some of his friends would take her out of the cage and into a yard along with the other dogs. It was so bright that her eyes felt as though they would burst. Her nose and ears tingled with unfamiliar sensory input: grass, dirt, leaves, wood, concrete, rusty metal, rope, tiny armored creatures that crawled on the ground, distant elegant monsters that glided in the sky above. The master leashed the
dogs to a row of dying trees, which allowed them to get close to one another without touching. Other humans would arrive. These visitors—almost always young men—would gawk at the dogs, occasionally nodding in approval. Sometimes they would even point and smile at her. She barked at them as loud as she could to show them that she would protect her master. They would smile more, as if she had performed some trick on command. The men inspected the animals, squeezing their hind legs, holding their jaws and examining the teeth. Sometimes, after a lengthy inspection, they would take one of the dogs away. In the yard, Wawa learned the names of the others in her pack. Rommel, a brown dog who fought with the others whenever he got loose. Hector, a younger one, very agile and fast. Kai, another female who wheezed when she growled.

One evening, Tracksuit placed Wawa and three other dogs in cages and loaded them into the rear of a windowless van. She recognized her companions: Baron, Ajax, and an older one, Cyrus. He had a whitish coat with a few black splotches. His mottled tail and missing left ear suggested that he had been defending the pack for many years, second in command only to Tracksuit. He could quiet the others with a mere grumbling in his throat. One time, he protected Kai from Rommel, reminding the others who was in charge. He was the elder, the strongest among them. He would drink first from the trough in the yard and got the largest share of the food.

Wawa could not take her eyes from Cyrus as he sat in his cage, scratching himself, unburdened by what took place around him. After the van arrived at its destination, Tracksuit and his friend opened the door and led the animals out one at a time. The landscape was much different from the one outside her master’s house. The ground was flat, rough, and hard. Tall poles held lights that hung over a vast empty space. In one direction,
a highway stretched into the distance. In the other was a square building, the front of which glowed blindingly white through giant windows. Inside, the linoleum floor reflected the light like the surface of a puddle. Brightly colored cans, bags, and boxes lined the shelves. A man stood behind a counter, eyeing Tracksuit suspiciously. At the top of the building, looming over it, were glowing red objects braced to the wall with bolts and bent into shapes Wawa did not recognize.

Behind the building, the parking lot ended at a wooded area. A row of trash cans, fragrant with a week’s worth of garbage, concealed a dirt trail into the forest. Wawa followed, her senses alert. In the failing light, Tracksuit’s outfit went from a navy blue to black.

The trail snaked its way to a house painted a dull green color to blend in. The curtains were drawn. Tracksuit knocked, and the door opened, releasing the sound of hundreds of voices along with the smell of smoke, alcohol, and sweat. Once inside, Wawa was lost in a moving forest of legs. Few of the people seemed to notice her arrival. Instead, the crowd circled around an arena in which a man stood. There was a wall that rose as high as the man’s waist. On the other side of the wall, Wawa could hear the unmistakable sound of two dogs thrashing at each other. A head and a tail peeked above the lip of the barrier. Each yelp from the combatants drew cheers from the spectators. Before she could get a better view, Tracksuit pulled her into another smoky room where four men sat around a table. Each wore a long white T-shirt that went almost down to the knees, along with baggy jeans and high-top sneakers. Glowing cigarettes hung from their lips. One of them had a porkpie hat and wraparound sunglasses. He did not speak much, but the others were quiet and attentive when he did. Wawa had been trained to be silent, but she wanted to warn Tracksuit that these men
were enemies from another pack, constantly encircling them. She could smell it on them. And she could detect the anxiety seeping through her master’s sweaty outfit.

Tracksuit left the room, leaving Wawa alone to keep an eye on these predators. Minutes later he returned, holding Cyrus on a leash. Wawa was so overjoyed that she began to jump up and down, unafraid to bark at her friend. She stopped when she sensed the men walking past her. Each took a turn petting her. The man with the porkpie hat was last. With a meaty hand, he lifted his sunglasses to reveal two enormous eyes, one of which had a brown iris. The other was shaded over with a milky cataract. He smiled, exposing teeth that were the same off-white color as the diseased eyeball. He patted her scalp and left the room.

The men took seats in the front row of the arena. By then, Tracksuit had positioned Cyrus in one corner. Another dog owner—a fat man with a pit-stained T-shirt—brought his own warrior into the ring, a gray mutt. Both masters carefully washed the dogs using a bucket and a sponge placed in the middle of the floor. Cyrus’s tongue bobbed up and down while Tracksuit wiped his fur with a waffled towel.

The referee inspected the animals. He was a squat little thing with a goatee and a buzzed haircut. He resembled a dog himself. Cyrus sniffed him.
I can inspect you, too
, he seemed to be saying. The arena grew quiet, prompting Wawa to stop barking. Several people whispered into the ear of the man with the porkpie hat. He nodded, the fluorescent lights reflecting off his sunglasses.

And then it began. The two dogs charged each other, colliding in the center of the ring, snapping, growling, twisting about until they no longer resembled living things but malfunctioning machines leaking fluid. Cyrus attacked deliberately, while the
other dog seemed unable to help himself. He clawed at Cyrus, spraying foamy saliva with each bark.

It wasn’t long before the gray dog made a mistake and allowed Cyrus to corner him. The older dog pinned him and bit his leg, tearing open the skin. After that, the gray dog was on the defensive. His wounded leg left bloody footprints, and a cut slashed across his face from his snout to his right eye. Through the cigarettes and spilled beer, Wawa picked up the bitter scent of it. Cyrus was exhausted but had the upper hand. He took swipes at his opponent, provoking helpless squeals from the gray dog. Cyrus did not need to kill this mutt, but he would if he had to.

Before he could finish the job, Cyrus froze, his ears pinned to his skull. While the crowd exhorted him, Cyrus barked at them, telling them to shut up and listen. Wawa heard it, too: something was approaching the building. Tires crunching the dirt. Footsteps and whispers. The smell of rubber and gasoline. Wawa let out a warning bark of her own. A malevolent presence surrounded the house.

A man rushed into the arena. He clapped three times. The sound cut through the din of the spectators. Everyone rose from their seats and headed toward the rear exit in a thunderous stampede of shoes and sneakers. Tracksuit pushed his way through the crowd. Wawa barked, pleading for him to let her loose so she could run with the others, with Cyrus. He told her to shut up, a phrase she knew very well. As he untied the leash, the front door of the building burst open. The evacuation became more frantic. Everyone was shouting. Men in matching blue suits and hats entered through the front door, all pointing metal objects and barking like dogs themselves.

Tracksuit pulled Wawa into the meeting room and slammed the door. Thinking she needed to protect her master, Wawa growled at the door as the men tried to batter it down. With
another tug of the leash, Tracksuit directed her to a window. Opening it, he ordered her to jump out. When she hesitated, he cursed, picked her up, and shoved her through. The wooden frame clipped one of her vertebrae. She managed to land on her feet. Tracksuit squeezed out and landed behind her.

Seconds later, they were running, the trail and the trees jostling with each breathless step. Tracksuit stumbled a few times. The noises and the scents of the building receded. Though she was more tired than she had ever been, Wawa kept up with the dirt-caked pant legs of her master as they trudged deeper into the woods.

They made it to the trail, which eventually returned them to the hard, flat surface. The sun was rising. The building where Wawa had seen the strange red shapes seemed to be sleeping, the glow now dull. The van was where they had left it. Tracksuit knocked on the window. His friend was napping in the driver’s seat. It took another knock to wake him up. The men spoke briefly. Then Tracksuit took Wawa around the truck and opened the sliding door. Cyrus was inside, sitting in his cage calmly like a sphinx. The other dogs were gone, lost in the confusion.