The Pack (3 page)

“Not all,” Shep snuffled, “just those we can help.”

“Which ones are those, Shep?” Callie yapped. “Are you going to make calls on whether we have anything to offer a particular ferret who squeaks for assistance? We're barely surviving as it is!” Her eyes were hard.

“Honey wouldn't come without him,” Shep barked. “I didn't want to leave her behind, and I figured it's one cat, and he can bark, which makes him special, right?” Callie's eyes seemed to be softening. He woofed on, “We don't have to rescue every pet we come across. I mean, how many rodents speak dog? I'm guessing none.”

Callie hung her head. “I'm not really angry about that,” she grumbled. “I know what you meant. But you didn't say that — you said
every
pet who needs our help. As lead dog, you have to say only what you mean, only what you're willing to fight for with all the fur on your back.”

“How do you know what a lead dog can and can't say?” Shep growled. “All you ever do is hide behind my flank.”

Callie scowled, her jaw locked and ears flat against her head. “That was mean,” she snuffled.

Shep sighed. Why was she making this so difficult? “I'm sorry,” he grumbled. “I had to make a call up there, so I made one. I'm trying my best, Callie.”

“Aren't we all,” she woofed, and padded away from him into the darkness of the banyan's roots.

Three suns had passed since the pack left the kibble den, and they'd spent that time moving from building to pile of rubble to building, searching for food and water and other dogs trapped by the storm. It was slow and difficult work, as they had to watch out for unstable floors and ceilings, collapsing walls, and vents of foul-smelling air that burst into flame if a dog flicked his tail at them the wrong way. The pack only cleared one or two buildings in a sun, collecting scraps of kibble, snoutfuls of water, and a few dogs, though too often they found only casualties of the wave. When the Silver Moon appeared, they would gather under the banyan tree.

Shep sat in the shadow of the tree watching fat clouds burn orange and pink in the setting sun. His whiskers twitched, sensing the dropping air pressure — rain was coming. The first drop splashed on his snout.
Guess it's already here.

The rest of the pack trickled in a few dogs at a time, returning to the old banyan tree for the night. Though the dogs had once fit comfortably beneath its sprawling branches, there were now too many in the group. Dogs lay hunched against one another, legs on snouts, paws in jowls.

Shep spotted Fuzz on one of the lower branches, staring down at him with a look of pure disgust, as if Shep was to blame for the crowding, the rain, every thing. The pack had mostly ignored the cat, and Fuzz made a point of keeping out of every dog's way. Every dog, that is, except Shep. Fuzz materialized like a malevolent hairball every place Shep went. Shep was sniffing out a wrecked den — “Shep-dog miss food packet in book room” was hissed from a corner. Shep took one stinking heartbeat to tug on a sock with another mutt — “Shep-dog think it wise to take fun-break while dog-pack starve?” It was like having a foul-tongued flea chattering in his ear.

It didn't help that Honey was always following Shep around, asking him about his life before the storm or offering him some special piece of kibble she found. Shep would have to bark with her in the morning about getting the cat — and herself — out of his fur. He had no idea what he'd woof (how do you tell a nice girldog to go sniff some other tree?), but he had to get the cat off his tail.

Callie trotted to Shep's side. “Five more dogs this sun. That puts us over twenty.”

“The cat's always watching me,” Shep grumbled. “No matter where I go, those green eyes follow.” He squinted at Fuzz's silhouette amidst the leaves.

“I don't know where we're going to put them all,” Callie woofed.

“Didn't I
save
the stinking meower?” Shep snuffled. “Shouldn't he be grateful?” He looked down at Callie as if noticing her for the first time. “Were you just woofing at me?”

She flicked her snout up at him. “What?” she asked. “Oh, yes,” she yipped. “We're going to need to sniff out a new den.”

“We just need to rearrange a few dogs,” Shep barked. The thought of trying to move such a large pack through this city of deadly traps smelled like a three-sun-old squirrel carcass — bad, bad, bad.

A sharp squeak pierced the soft murmur of the pack.

“Please remove your snout from my fur,” growled Ginny to an oversized newcomer, a Bernese something or other named Hulk.

“Maybe you should keep your fur from frizzing in my muzzle,” Hulk snarled.

Ginny snorted with surprise, then flashed a look at Shep like he should stick his snout into their scuffle. When he made no move to intervene, Ginny thrust out her chest defiantly.

“Lassie would never allow a mutt to growl at a ladydog like that!” She tucked her paws up into her belly and buried her muzzle in her fluff.

Callie had a told-you-so smirk on her snout. “Still think we can solve things with a little reorganization?”

Shep forced his tail up — he smelled that Callie was looking for a fight.

“I don't disagree with you,” he said. “I just think we might be sniffing up the Black Dog's rump to move this many dogs anywhere.”

“Black Dog's rump or no, we have to find a den with more room.” Callie nosed her way under a large plastic sheet that lay over the space between two heaps of trash, then yipped for Shep to follow.

Shep glanced up at the clouds, which had expanded and now covered the sky like a gray blanket. He winced at the raindrops, then shuffled under the tarp after Callie. He had to crouch to fit under the flimsy roof, and rain dripped on his scruff through a hole. Callie curled near his head against a mud-stained pink stuffed rabbit.

Callie continued, her woofs muffled by the rabbit's puff tail. “It's like when there are too few toys in the Park. All the dogs tear each other's fur out to get their teeth on the one bone.” She snapped her jaws around the rabbit's tail and growled, curly tail wagging. She tugged the tuft and the whole toy fell on her head. Callie rolled with the rabbit, growling and kicking her paws and wagging her tail — in a heartbeat, she'd become that carefree pup Shep had met on the balcony. It felt like cycles ago, though it was really only a biteful of suns.

“I think you killed it,” Shep woofed as Callie reduced the rabbit to a pile of stuffing.

“Huh?” she yipped, ears and tail up, a tuft of fluff caught on her fang. She snorted a pant. “Right,” she barked, smiling. “Where was I?” She pushed the toy under her paws. And, suddenly, she was back to being the serious, pushy yapper the storm had created. “My point is that with every dog piled on top of one another, we won't have to worry about ‘if' there will be a fight. There will definitely be a fight, the only question is how many suns we have till it happens. Then you'll have to break it up, and the loser will think you were unfair and challenge you, and the last thing this pack needs is a power struggle.” She barked like she'd been running dog packs all her life. “We only have us dogs to rely on — no girls, no boys. Every dog needs to know who's in charge of keeping her safe.”

Shep watched Callie, her features a deeper black in the all-consuming blackness of the cloudy, moonless night. Ever since the storm, no human lights had glowed in the city. Once the sun was gone, there was only moonlight or no light at all.

He didn't disagree with her woofs. What itched Shep's ear was that
he
wasn't quite sure who was in charge of this pack. Callie said that “they” were the pack's leaders, but she made him bark only her orders, and never even asked his opinion about things.
What am I?
he grumbled.
Just a bigger snout for her to bark out of?

He growled at himself for thinking such a rotten thing about his friend. Callie had always stuck by him. They were a team. And she was good at ideas, the thinking stuff. Shep had thoroughly botched his last decision; he needed to stick to being the doer. He was good at the doing. This was their thing, him and Callie. It worked.

 

Shep woke to a bleak gray dawn. His fur was soaked and his tongue felt coated in grit.

Callie hopped to her paws and stretched. “We'd better sniff out a new den before sunset,” she woofed. “You snored in my snout all night!” She grinned and wagged her tail — she must have forgiven Shep.

Shep howled to wake the pack, then barked that they were moving on to a larger den.

“Where are we pawing to?” woofed Virgil, loping to Shep's side.

“We'll find out by sundown,” he replied quietly.

Virgil gave a curt nod of his snout, then began barking and nipping the raggedy pack into some semblance of order — small and old dogs in the center, larger and fitter dogs surrounding them for protection.

As the sun blazed across its arc overhead, the pack moved down the street. Shep barked for teams of dogs to sniff out each building that they passed. The rest of the pack snuffled around in the garbage clogging the gutters until all the scouts returned.

“Find anything?” woofed Callie as Shep loped out of a new-looking metal-and-glass building.

“Water came in through the vents in the walls and ceiling,” he wheezed, “but the windows held so the air's stale and thick with mold.” He snorted to clear his nose of the stench. “You find any kib? I'm starved.”

“I got a candy wrapper with some crumbs stuck to it and a can that's been punctured, take your pick.”

Shep's jowls curled at the offering. “What's in the can?” he groaned.

“Mystery juice.” Callie nosed the can over to him and started licking the wrapper. “It's nutty,” she woofed, ears drooping. “I hate nuts.”

The juice leaking out of the can tasted like sugar-coated rotten fruit — disgusting. “You can have this, too,” Shep grunted, rolling the can with his nose toward Callie.

A little brown and white mutt named Waffle, a pointer mix according to Higgins, dragged a tree branch out of a rubble pile near the gutter.

“Whoa!” he barked. “I've got the biggest stick!”

He tried to lift the whole branch in his mouth, but could barely drag it along by one end. A tan pitbull named Paulie was on the dragging end of the branch in a heartbeat. He wrapped his jaws around it and began a tug-of-war with Waffle. Soon, a number of dogs were in on the game — every dog loves Big Stick. Boji lugged a huge plastic tube from a pile and Hulk, Cheese, and Snoop chased her around the trash heaps.

Callie scrambled onto a box, tail waving and ears up, watching for an opening to jump into the game. “What are you waiting for?” she woofed to Shep.

What
am
I waiting for?
Shep wondered. The answer came to him in a heartbeat.
I'm waiting for my boy.

Shep used to play Big Stick with his boy at the dog beach. He would find the most ludicrous pieces of driftwood — drift-trees, to be accurate — and carry them over to the boy. The boy would laugh and try to tug the stick from Shep's locked jaws. Shep always ended up tackling the boy, both of them getting coated in sand, the stick long forgotten.

The happy yips and barks of his packmates echoed throughout the empty street. Shep had never felt so alone.

A breeze whistled between two buildings toward Shep. It carried a strange scent. Dog, but not pet. A scent laced with dried lifeblood, filth, and now the salt scent of the wave.

Wild dogs.

“Every dog!” Shep bayed. “Head for sunset!”

The game halted — Waffle and Paulie dropped their stick; Boji paused and looked at him, white tube protruding from her jaws. They seemed confused. Then Virgil caught the scent.

“Wild dogs!” he howled.

Those dogs who'd been in the kibble den wheeled on their paws and pounded down the pavement. The new rescues tilted their heads.

“What's the hurry?” woofed Hulk.

The first wild dog — a mottled brown and black mutt — skulked out of an alley near sunrise. “I thought I scented a gaggle of pets,” the wild dog snarled, “fresh for the feasting.” He growled, jowls trembling, then dove at a little black and white mop of hair named Baxter.

“Run, you fur-brains!” Shep bellowed.

He sprang over a plastic bin and tackled the wild dog before he could latch on to the yapper. The fluffy guy was scared out of his fur. A huge, tree bark brown mastiff girldog named Mooch snatched Baxter in her jaws and dashed down the street toward sunset.

The wild dog rolled Shep into a stone wall. “Your pack's left you, pet,” he snapped. “Ready to be my next meal?”

Shep got his paws under him and hauled himself into a defensive stance, tail to the wall. “Maybe you remember me?” he barked. “I'm the pet who killed your leader, Kaz.”

Recognition flashed across the wild dog's muzzle. “All the more reason to relish gnawing the marrow from your bones.”

The wild dog snapped at Shep's jowl. Shep feinted toward the dog's ear, but then ducked, turning his head and scraping the flesh of the dog's shoulder. Shep rolled on his back and thrust his paws into the dog's ribs, launching him into the wall. The dog hit the stone and flopped onto the ground; unconscious or dead, Shep didn't care.

A howl reverberated from farther down the alley — more wild dogs. The scent of battle was a treat to them: One whiff and they came running from all directions. This was Shep's heartbeat to escape.

He sprang to his paws and raced toward sunset.

“Ha-roo, Shep! You were amazing!” Oscar's squeaky howl pierced the silence of the street.

Shep whirled and saw the silly pup on top of a crushed Car. Shep scrambled back toward Oscar, the scent of wild dog growing stronger. Shep could hear their rasping breaths.

“Are you positively out of your
fur
?” he barked at the pup.

Oscar cowered. “I just wanted to see you fight again,” he whimpered.

Shep didn't bother arguing with the crazy yapper. He snapped Oscar into his jaws and bolted down the street after the rest of the pack.