Morte (3 page)

Soon after, Daniel began carrying cardboard boxes filled with water bottles, canned vegetables, and jars of peanut butter to the basement. One night, he hid a strange object behind the shelf where he kept his tools. It was a long metal tube with a wooden base. He placed small red cylinders into a hole in the side of the object. Then he propped the wooden base on his shoulder and aimed the tube at Sebastian, making a popping noise with his mouth. After his master went to bed, Sebastian sniffed the device a few times before giving up on figuring out what it was.

A few days passed, during which Daniel occupied the basement, his body odor lingering in a cloud around him. Sebastian took to hiding in the attic. There were trophies, old record players, photo albums, winter coats hovering on hangers—an entire lifetime’s worth of objects. But they had been sitting there for so many years. Too musty and old. They could not compete with Sheba. For a brief time, he held out hope that she was hiding somewhere in the attic. He would meow and wait for her to answer, or he would nap on an old comforter and expect her to be there when he woke up. Nothing worked.

A FEW NIGHTS
later, when Daniel was away, Sheba returned at last. The ritual ensued as it always had, with Janet hugging Tristan,
the two of them leading Sheba to the basement before disappearing upstairs.

Sebastian could tell right away that something was wrong. Sheba hunched down, claiming the spot for herself, her paws balled into fists. She growled at him. He hoped that it was some kind of game that she was playing, so he continued walking toward her. But then she barked and bared her teeth.

Sebastian ran to the attic. He sighed and let out a meow that he hoped Sheba would hear over the moans coming from Janet’s bedroom. He thought about dying again, but the feeling soon passed.

A litany of unfamiliar sounds rattled the window. When he peered outside, Sebastian saw the ramp to the highway jammed with the same vehicles from the television: large green trucks and moving metal boxes with long tubes sticking out the front. The engines rumbled, smoke rising from their tailpipes. Though Sheba’s tree blocked the view from the other side of the house, Sebastian was sure that the vehicles surrounded the town. A siren howled in the distance. It was some kind of alarm, like Sheba crying, only many times louder. These intruders had something to do with Sheba’s behavior, he was sure. They were influencing things, making the Martinis hostile to one another, making it so that Sebastian now ate only once a day rather than twice. The children cried more. The radio no longer played music—only angry, tense voices. The television flashed monsters on the screen. Janet often sobbed while folding her hands and whispering to herself. Everything was falling apart.

Then Janet started screaming. Sebastian arrived at the basement to find Tristan running up the steps. The man grabbed a roll of paper towels and a dishrag and returned to the cellar. Sebastian crept behind him.

On the third step down, he had a view of everything. Sheba
lay on the floor, panting and exhausted. Splayed out before her were three shivering puppies. Tristan frantically tried to wipe up the mess. He yelled at Janet. Sebastian could smell the fear in their sweat. They would not be able to clean up before Daniel returned.

Sheba would not look at him. She was hypnotized by the little ones.

Then the car pulled into the driveway. Tristan and Janet argued in a whisper. She put her hands on his shoulders, begging him to leave. Tristan ran out the back door as Daniel walked in the front. Janet switched off the light to the basement.

Husband and wife embraced—the first time they had done so in weeks. Upstairs, Delia started crying, so Janet went to the nursery.

Sebastian got closer to Sheba. When she finally acknowledged him, she acted as though she did not even remember her hostility from a few moments earlier.
I know you
, her affection seemed to say.
Where have you
been
?
The little ones were lolling about. Sebastian sniffed each of their foreheads. Then he pawed at Sheba and leaned into her warmth. With this movement, he purred to her,
Don’t worry. Don’t be sad. I am strong. I will not leave you. I am strong
.

After the Change, many of the animals reminisced about the time when they first achieved self-awareness, like humans talking about where they were for important historical events. This was Sebastian’s moment: a brief recognition of friendship between two beings separated by species and circumstance. He was lucky. So many others recalled watching television, or deciphering a street sign, or staring at some interaction between humans. Sebastian, on the other hand, had a true moment of bliss, a welling of joy and peace.

But it soon faded. He knew that he would lose her. She
would leave with her children, and he would be trapped in this haunted house alone. There would be the familiar sounds and smells. Perhaps another child for the Martinis. There would be food and water when he needed it, along with the litter box and the square of sunlight in the living room. But there would be nothing else, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Sensing that her master was not in the house, Sheba began whining, a sort of weak squeal that escaped with each breath. Then she howled like a wolf, startling Sebastian. He told her to be quiet, that it would be okay. Footsteps approached. Janet intercepted her husband at the top of the stairs, trying to talk him out of going down to the basement. The lights came on. Sebastian’s pupils shrank into painful slits.

Daniel froze at the sight. Sheba saw him coming closer, realized that he was not Tristan, and continued howling, as if this would transform the man into her master. Janet pretended to be shocked as well.

The man went quiet. His wife asked if he was okay. He backhanded her in the jaw, knocking her to the ground.

The man grabbed Sebastian by the scruff of the neck and tossed him aside. The puppies were still prone on the ground. Janet screamed. Sheba rolled onto her feet and tried to shield her pups from danger. Daniel kicked her in the ribs. Sheba yelped. She stood on her hind legs and bit into the man’s arm. Daniel kicked her again, another hard shot to her hip. She snapped at him. Unafraid, Daniel gripped her by the neck as she pawed at him. He shoved her into a wall. The sound of it made Sebastian jump. Daniel was trying to kill her. Sheba had to run away. Taking a last look at her pups, she sprinted up the stairs past Sebastian. The man pursued her, his feet stomping against the old wooden steps. Sebastian stepped into his path.
Daniel had to awkwardly jump over him. The move bought Sheba time, and she was able to run out the back door.

With Sheba gone, the man turned next to Tristan’s house. No one answered when he banged on the door. Enraged, Daniel went to his garage and returned with a bright yellow mop bucket, which he carried to the basement. Sebastian hid under the kitchen table. When the man climbed the steps, all three of the puppies were in the bucket, squeaking helplessly. Janet was close behind, begging him to stop. When she reached for the bucket, her husband pushed her away with the heel of his palm. He went into the bathroom and slammed the door. With the water running in the bathtub, Janet leaned against the wall and slid down until her head rested on her knees. She caught sight of Sebastian and began to cry.

The puppies stopped squealing.

SEBASTIAN RETURNED TO
the kitchen. The door was open. He had never left the house before. It was as though some invisible barrier had locked him in for all these years. Now, leaving seemed no scarier than taking a nap in the living room. The clarity of it was so blinding that he could hardly imagine having been afraid of the outside world before. So he walked out, guided by the scent trail that Sheba had left until he lost it in the middle of the yard. He called to her but knew that she could not hear.

Behind him, Janet closed the door, and she and her husband began fighting again. Sebastian was not frightened. He did not want to go back inside. Instead, he had an urge to explore, to learn things. He had never examined a bird’s nest up close or traced the connecting lines of a spider’s web. His mind ached for more knowledge, a thirst that could not be quenched. A pack of vines strangled the tree on Tristan’s lawn. A clump of ants dragged a wounded grasshopper to their lair, dismantling
the struggling creature along the way. A sad woman packed her children into a car weighed down with luggage and drove off. In the sky above, menacing helicopters and fighter jets cut through the clouds, racing toward the explosions and the great plumes of smoke to the south. Long after the Martinis had exhausted themselves with their fight, Sebastian wandered the neighborhood, cataloguing everything. He was not simply storing things away and recalling them. He was asking
why
.

He realized then that things did not last forever. They decayed. Or they left. Or they died. Or they were lost. Or they were taken away.

That night, while he sat behind the Martinis’ garage, the hair on his paws fell away. He was not alarmed. He simply brushed away the remaining strands, stretched out the toes into fingers, and rubbed the palms together.

More jets streaked overhead. Explosions thumped in the distance, getting closer. Sebastian climbed to the roof of the garage to see over the hedges. Miles away, a city burned. Helicopters hovered over the flames like flies above a carcass. Massive fireballs bloomed amid the wrecked buildings. Then the electricity went out in all the houses in the neighborhood. The faraway conflagration provided the only light.

Sebastian stayed up all night watching, thinking, remembering. He knew that when the sun came up, more things would change. Or be taken away. Or die.

STILL ON THE
roof of the garage, Sebastian woke to the sound of glass breaking in the house. His eyes opened. A column of black smoke obscured the city on the horizon. He turned to the house and tried to listen. Janet burst out the door. She wore a hiker’s backpack and held a child in each arm. Sebastian had never realized how strong she was.

Daniel trailed behind her. “We have to stick together,” he said, his voice breaking. This made Sebastian pause. He actually understood the words!

“We’re not staying in this house,” she said.

Sebastian mouthed the words:
we’re not staying in this house
.

Daniel ran inside while his family headed to the car parked at the front of the driveway. It was a silver SUV with mud streaks on the side and children’s seats in the rear.

When Daniel stepped outside again, he held the black metal tube in the crook of his elbow. “You’re not taking my children,” he said.

Janet ignored him.

“Mommy, what is Daddy doing?” Michael asked.

“Do you hear me?” Daniel said.

“Go ahead and shoot us then, Dan!” Janet said, her face puffy and red. “We’re dead anyway! Go ahead and do it!”

Daniel had no response. Blinking, his lip twitching, he leaned the tube against the side of the house and walked inside.

The girl was crying, while the boy kept asking questions.

“Get in the car,” Janet said.

While the mother fussed with Delia, Michael caught sight of Sebastian on the roof. “Mommy, look!”

Sebastian realized that he was standing on his hind legs like a man. But before Janet could see, her husband emerged from the front door of the house. He grabbed Janet by the hair and pulled hard.

On her back, dragged from behind, she tried to cradle the screeching baby in her arms. “Daniel,
stop it
!”

Michael was torn between his unhinged parents and the demon standing on top of his garage. The boy called to his father, but the man did not answer. Soon the entire family was in the house again. The door slammed shut, sealing off the noise.

A few minutes later, Sebastian could hear Daniel walking toward the porch, probably to retrieve the metal tube. Sebastian knew that his master was going to use it on the family. He pictured the man bringing the wife and children into the bathroom and running the water until the squealing stopped. Sebastian jumped down from the roof and raced to the object.

Daniel exited the house to find Sebastian before him, standing erect, brandishing the weapon. The fear and despair in the man’s eyes infuriated Sebastian. Did he not recognize a member of his own family? Did he not remember when Sebastian had protected the house from an invader, or when he accepted the responsibility of watching over the children?

“You do not recognize me?” Sebastian asked. The words felt strange rattling in his throat and leaving his mouth. It seemed as though they had always been there, waiting to be unlocked. The act of speaking felt like shaking his head until the right phrases fell out.

The man’s lips moved. No sounds came out. Sebastian stepped forward and pointed the weapon at his head. “Do you understand my speech or not?” Sebastian said.

“Yeah,” Daniel said. “Yeah.”

Three fighter jets swooped above the house, their engines vibrating the windows. More explosions thudded miles away.

“Get inside,” Sebastian said. “We talk there.”

Daniel complied, leading Sebastian to the living room. The smell of sweat and blood grew strong. There, Janet lay on the floor beside the recliner, still clutching Delia. Michael knelt beside her. Blood leaked from her split eyebrow and dripped onto the plush carpet.

“See?” Michael said to his mother. “I told you!”

The child recognized him. Janet, dazed, didn’t seem able to comprehend what she was seeing.

While Daniel told Michael to be quiet, to be a good boy, Sebastian could not resist watching his reflection in the mirror as it moved with him. He could walk upright. And he had grown taller than his master, with lean muscles underneath his fur. His limbs were long and thin. His paws had become functional hands. If he’d had claws, he could have sliced Daniel into bleeding strips of flesh if the man tried to resist him.

Daniel sat on the couch and, for the first time, offered Sebastian a seat on the recliner. Sebastian obliged, cradling the weapon on his lap. Sitting in the forbidden chair so close to Janet, he experienced a moment of panic. But things had changed, and she was in no condition to discipline him now.