Strays

A stray dog tries to protect his family from a mysterious interloper who takes over the dog pack and leads it down the path of violence in this tale of power, terror, and sacrifice through the eyes of man’s best friend. Graphic violence. Approximately 4,900 words. 

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The Fumes assault my nose. I snort and shake my head. It’s the reek of the Humans, two-legged and lanky with noses that can’t smell and ears that can’t hear. Normally the Fumes cling to the human dens on the Sun Hill, the pungent odor of soaps, trimmed grass, and the gas spewing from the street monsters.

This stench should not be by Home Bridge.

I saunter towards Home Bridge’s shadow, and the creek trickles beside me. My group follows, panting. Leaf Dog walks beside me, smelling of crushed leaves. His nose snuffs, and he shakes his head.

Under Home Bridge, pups chase each other and splash in the creek, yapping as Den Mothers watch nearby. I catch eyes with Wide-Eyed Mother briefly before looking to our Black-Haired Pup, wrestling with another at the stream’s bank. Wide-Eyed Mother gave birth to many, but one by one a wound or bad meat or trash stopped their lives. Now, only Black-Haired Pup remains, splashing in the creek and yipping. Mud Dog sniffs my flank in greeting. I continue towards the rotting shack on the other side of Home Bridge. Deep Growler rips into a haunch from the deer carcass that lies in the Prey Pile.

Not even its smell can overwhelm that of the Humans.

I reach the rotting shack. One-eye, our Alpha, lies within it, her drooping jowls tumbling over her right paw. I gaze down at her. One-eye looks at me and lifts her snout. I turn my head.

Beside her, it sits on its haunches, towering over me, a dog of black fur and glowing eyes. No dog’s eyes glow
without light. No dog is this large either. Its front paws look more like talons, and its hind legs are enormous. Its snout is twisted like a scavenged squirrel. Its fangs jut from its upper maw, and it reeks of the Humans.

I step towards it and its flank. It’s male. The reek of the Humans dominates all other knowledge. The Humans that shoot and scream. The Humans that drove us from the Sun Hill. The Humans that take to the Prison stupid dogs who get too close.

I open my mouth to bite down on the Beast. He lurches away. I lunge forward.

One-Eye’s paws collide with my flank as she barks. I yowl, falling back on the sharp gravel, and lay there for a
moment, whining. A paw stands on my flank, and I look up. One-Eye’s red scar glares down at me. She growls.

She steps off of me. I stand. The Beast lurches up to One-eye, his front shoulders moving as a dog’s shouldn’t and his glowing eyes defying the darkness. One-eye stares me down. Finally, I turn, retiring to the space under Home Bridge. If One-eye will mate with the Beast, I cannot stop her.  I snatch a flank from the communal deer carcass as I pass. The smell of the Humans surges through my nose. The Beast killed this.

The next morning, the Beast is gone. One-eye sits facing the forest leading up the side of Tree Hill. I look at
One-eye for a moment. Then, I search for Leaf Dog, find him gnawing on a deer bone, and gather up the rest of my group. We lope past One-eye into the forest leading up Tree Hill. As we pass, I hear her whining. The Beast must have come from Tree Hill if One-eye watches this side of the bridge. The Humans have only recently started moving onto Tree Hill after claiming Tree Hill many seasons ago.

The leaves rustle under my feet. Leaf Dog pants beside me. The forest smells sharp and fresh, as if it were new. I keep my eyes forward, my paws loping up the hill. I step through a gap in the trees, out onto a street the Humans are building, and I cling to the shadows with my group. When I smell the Fumes, I think of the Beast.

My group recovers some chicken and turkey bones from large, unguarded grey bins that day. We chase squirrels, though when they dart towards the houses, we veer back and away. The shadows guide us as the Humans encroach on the forest. I see one today while I crouch in a hedge’s shadow, my group lying in wait behind me. It yammers gibberish while walking on its long, stilted legs across the brown, wooden ground attached to the back of its den. It holds a paw-sized bug to its ear.

Then I smell this human. And through the musk of the Fumes, I realize that it smells like the Beast, an odor marked by the faded but distinct spike of blood. I stand in the shadows and slowly move towards the human still speaking gibberish near its den. The closer I walk, the surer I become. This human smells exactly like the Beast.

Then it sees me. We lock eyes. It stops speaking. For a moment, we stay, frozen in time. I wonder if it will scream at me or run for a gun. Then I break my stare, wheel around, and race into the forest. My group and I continue hunting until the sun sinks low in the sky.

When my group returns to Home Bridge, it has been dark for some time, and the Beast is there, his glowing eyes lighting the shadows. One-eye lies beside him, her flank touching his paws. My group brings our squirrels and bones to the Prey Pile, and I see another deer. It smells of the Beast again. I turn across the stream and approach Wide-Eyed Mother, Black-haired pup yapping around her. She nuzzles my flank. I walk in a circle and then lay beside Wide-Eyed Mother, my head on my paws.

Every morning, the Beast is gone. Every night, he is there with a deer that stinks of the Humans. For this habit of coming at night, I call him Moon Dog. I spend evenings tearing into flesh from the Prey Pile with Leaf Dog or lying beside the creek with Wide-Eyed Mother.

A turn of the moon later, I am returning to Home Bridge. A squirrel dangles from Leaf Dog’s mouth, and rabbit hangs from mine. We cannot smell these catches, though, because the air under Home Bridge billows with the Fumes. The pups do not yap or pounce in the creek. A crowd has gathered facing the prey pile, Deep Growler and Mud Dog among them. There is a misshapen figure on the Prey Pile. Moon Dog towers over it, staring at
One-eye’s shack. The air is silent, so I hear her whining. I find Wide-Eyed Mother and Black-Haired Pup and sit beside them.

The misshapen figure on the pile is a dead human. Through the soaps and gases of the Humans, I smell its acrid, dying terror. Moon Dog sits near it, growling deep in his throat. The Pack surrounds him, looking to One-eye.

I stare at the dead human. I have never thought about using the Humans for food. It sounds foolish. Disgusting even. Impossible.

One-eye barks. I look to the rotting shack. Moon Dog advances towards her. She snarls, shakes her head and prances in a circle. Moon Dog continues to approach. She barks. He growls. I wrap my tail around Black-Haired Pup. Protect him. Cover his eyes.

Moon Dog roars and stands on his hind legs. The Pack breaks into barking. One-eye stops prancing. She whines. Moon Dog lifts a talon-paw. It flashes in the moonlight and slashes down on One-eye. She cries out. Her limp body sails through the air slides on the gravel. Moon Dog roars again and races to her on all fours. Deep Growler, Mud Dog, and other males sprint forward. I stifle an impulse to join them. One-eye yowls. Moon Dog lunges at her throat.

Then he whips around, standing as no dog should. Mud Dog leaps. Moon Dog swats Mud Dog away. Mud Dog screams and rolls through the gravel. Two dogs lunge for Moon Dog’s legs. Moon Dog slashes one’s snout and lunges at the other’s back. Bone snaps. Moon Dog’s head thrashes. Tendons rip as the dog shrieks. Moon Dog forces it to the ground.

Deep Growler leaps onto Moon Dog’s back. Moon Dog howls and stands. He reaches back and slashes at Deep Growler’s sides. Moon Dog lurches forward and hurls Deep Growler, squealing like a pup, through the creek. A wave of its water rushes towards me and Wide-Eyed Mother. I curl around Black-Haired Pup and close my eyes. The water douses me.

Only Moon Dog’s growl then ripples in the night, so I lift my head to see Deep Growler’s blood flowing from his still body into the creek as Moon Dog, on his hind legs, lurches like a corrupted, deformed human towards the dead body through a sea of whimpers, the dogs around him wrapping their tails between their legs and bowing their heads to him, the new Alpha of the Pack. Moon Dog howls, a blood-curdling sound that soars through the sky and dances in the ears of the Humans atop the Sun Hill.

Then Moon Dog returns to all fours and rips an arm from the dead human. He drags it to a group of dogs and drops it before them. They sniff it tentatively as Moon Dog passes the dead human’s flesh about the Pack.

When he drops a leg before Wide-Eyed Mother and I, Wide-Eyed Mother barks at Moon Dog.

Moon Dog roars, turns on her, and raises himself to his hind legs. I leap in front of her and bark. Moon Dog looks down at me. I rip flesh from the leg. It reeks of the Fumes and feels foolish. I chew on it, looking into Moon Dog’s eyes. Moon Dog growls before turning around and returning to all fours. I look at Wide-Eyed Mother and growl. She lays down, resting her head on her paws. I glance at Black-haired Pup, who tentatively
sniffs the human leg before tentatively tearing off a chunk of the flesh.

The next morning, Moon Dog is gone. I find Leaf Dog, and the two of us gather our group and leave for Tree Hill. That night, Moon Dog has returned. He towers over another dead human sprawled out atop the Prey Pile and growls at me as I place a dead squirrel upon it. I step towards Wide-Eyed Mother, curled up in a corner under the Bridge. Then Moon Dog barks. I turn around, and Moon dog leans down, rips flesh from the human corpse, and tosses it my way. It slaps on the gravel before me. I look up at Moon Dog. He growls again. I take the flesh and return to Wide-Eyed Mother.

Every morning, Moon Dog leaves, and every night, he returns with a corpse. Some dogs stop leaving Home Bridge during the day. I keep convincing Leaf Dog to hunt, but our group shrinks to three others. When Moon Dog returns with a dead human, some dogs bark and pant. They approach the corpse immediately and rip flesh from it. I wait to be last at the Prey Pile and take only the meager flesh that remains. Eating the Humans still sounds foolish to me. They have the exploding sticks, the nets, and the Prison. They can kill us more easily than anything else in the forest. Why kill them?

Four days after One-eye’s death, the first dog disappears. Two days later, another is gone. They do not return the next mornings. Two dogs have never disappeared in the same week.

Nine days after One-eye’s death, a group of dogs returns with another dead human.

They return late. I am lying far away from the Prey Pile with Wide-Eyed Mother and Black-haired Pup. Moon Dog’s dead human is there. I stare at it, my head on my paws. Moon Dog towers over the Prey Pile, glowing eyes looking my way. My stomach growls. But the Fumes pollute my nose. I will wait until the last group returns.

Then they return. Wide-Eyed Mother’s head lifts. She stands, and I do the same. The gnawing and yapping under Home Bridge cease. The intensity of the Fumes doubles. I snort and shake my head. Tawny Dog drags the dead human by the arm to the Prey Pile, where Moon Dog stands on his hind legs and pants excitedly. Tawny Dog plops the body on top of Moon Dog’s kill. I look for the dogs that hunt with Tawny Dog, and Thin Dog is missing. That isn’t right. Thin Dog is smart and sticks to the shadows. The Humans don’t take dogs like that.

Wide-Eyed Mother barks. Before I can turn to her, she is running across the creek. Moon Dog turns. Tawny Dog is turning. Wide-Eyed Mother growls. I bark and race after her.

She leaps onto Tawny Dog. He cries out. Moon Dog roars. I slide to a stop. I yowl. Wide-Eyed Mother lunges at Tawny Dog’s throat.

Moon Dog swats Wide-Eyed Mother away, and screaming, she skids through the gravel painted red with her blood as her body twists and breaks into forms like the corpses of Moon Dog reeking with sparking fear. I race towards her as Moon Dog howls. Tawny Dog and the other dogs from his group take up the howl as well.

I approach Wide-Eyed Mother and see her white fur glistening. Three long slashes stretch up her flank. I paw at her flank, nuzzle her neck, and lick at the wounds, but she does not move. Small paws rustle the gravel behind me, and Black-haired Pup appears at my feet. He places his front paws on Wide-Eyed Mother’s stomach and yaps as her blood leaks into the creek. I nuzzle her neck. Then her flank stops rising while Black-haired Pup continues to whine.

Moon Dog howls again. The Pack carries it onto the wind.

The next morning, I nuzzle Black-haired Pup awake. I have to take him hunting with me so that he will not be left alone, though he should not start hunting for another few turns of the moon. He stretches and yawns, then trots after me as I saunter toward Leaf Dog. We must hunt.

It is raining today. Rain makes smelling difficult. Not a good day to hunt, but my paws take me to Leaf Dog. I do not want to laze under Home Bridge today. I poke Leaf Dog awake with my snout. He stretches and yawns. Then he eyes looks at something behind me. I turn around and see Tawny Dog lying by the creek. He waits to go out later when there will be more Humans to hunt. I step between Leaf Dog and Tawny Dog and growl until
Leaf Dog looks out to the forest.

Black-haired Pup struggles to keep up through the wet, sticky leaves on the ground. Large drops of rain splatter on our backs as we ascend Tree Hill. The forest smells wet and saturated. I shake myself and continue uphill.

Then I smell dead flesh in the forest nearby. Normally, the rain would stifle such stench, but my stomach churns hungrily as the scent creeps through the air. I lead Leaf Dog and Black-Haired Pup towards the smell. The hill flattens out.

We come to a clearing with a deer carcass at its center.

I haven’t had deer flesh in many days. Black-Haired Pup appears at one side, Leaf Dog at the other. He barks and plunges towards the carcass, leaves ruffling in his wake. Black-haired Pup takes a few steps forward.

I lean down and pull him back. I can’t smell well. The rain stifles anything that doesn’t pull on my stomach, so whatever killed it might be nearby without any of us knowing.

But then Black-Haired Pup whines. I look down and see that he’s panting. His mouth closes, and he whines before barking again. I look back to the dead deer where bones snap and tendons rip as Leaf Dog tears into it. The succulent smell makes my stomach growl.

I step into the clearing, my nose pricked and Black-Haired Pup behind me.

Bushes around us shake. Gangly Humans rise from the wet brush. I bark wildly. Nets cover my head. Black-haired Pup yowls. Humans yammer in gibberish. My paws scrabble. The nets restrain me. Leaf Dog yips. Something hits my head, and there is nothing.

When I stir, I’m in a cage, surrounded by a sea of dog voices in a place that I know because I’ve been here once
before. The Humans almost ended my life here. This is The Sun Hill Prison.

My cage rattles. My ears twitch towards human gibberish. My cage rattles again as a fleshy hand bangs against it. I stand, blinking slowly and staring through the bars and grates, and my back hits the cage roof. One human gestures into my cage. Another stands beside it, sniffing, and this one shakes its head. The first human mutters something and walks away, and the sniffing one stares at me a little longer as its fumes flood my nose. I want to bark but know that I shouldn’t. Its thin hand touches my cage before it turns and follows the human in the hat.

I step into the broken light beams that peer through my cage bars, and I stare at a wall of jostling cages on the other side of a hall. Pudgy dogs, long-haired dogs, dogs who smell earthy like wood, dogs who smell damp like water, all of them barking and howling. A hall of us. Last time I was here, there were fewer because then only dogs who wandered too close to the Humans were caught. Now the Humans are coming for us because Moon Dog has trained our pack to hunt them. Because Moon Dog hungers for their flesh. I hear Leaf Dog somewhere in the mess of sound that surrounds me.

Black-haired Pup yaps. I turn my head to a cage across the hall from mine. Black-haired Pup’s small snout is pressed up against a cage. He paws the bars in front of him. I paw at the front of my cage too and bark. He looks at me through the sea of barking and howling around us, and we stare at each other.

I hear a creak as of a door opening at the end of the hall. But that’s no normal door. That sound. I know. Shake my head. Cage jostles. Bark. Pace. The Needle is coming. Not the Needle. The Needle is coming and coming. I leap against the bars of my cage and yowl with madness as the dogs killed before my eyes my last time here flood my mind.

A human in a long coat enters. Two others with sticks stand with him. One of them points at a lower cage. The
human in the coat nods, and his sharp needle glints. He flicks it. The two with sticks get down on their knees. They open the cage, reach in, and drag out a thrashing dog by the collar.

Thin Dog. The one who disappeared from the group that brought the body last night. Thin Dog thrashes under thick, grasping hands. They pin him to the ground. One of them yells something. It puts a knee on Thin Dog’s neck. The coated human kneels. The Needle reaches out and vanishes behind a knee. Thin Dog thrashes. Then he twitches and is still, so I turn away., knowing that the humans will now take Thin Dog’s body away.

They stopped his life after one night. When I was here before, dogs stayed many nights before the Needle claimed their lives. Now Moon Dog is killing the Humans, so the Humans are fighting back just as I thought they might.

Time passes, during which I sometimes get up and bark to Black-Haired Pup. I paw at my cage and whine. Then I pace in a circle and lie down amidst the quagmire of barking, thrashing, and howling that batters my flattened ears. The door opens again, and there is scrabbling against the hard floor and the Needle stops another life. The Humans carry the dead dog away and stuff another into the now empty cage. More time passes.

Then the alarm wails.

A whining sound echoes through the hall. Almost deafens me. I jump to my feet and look out. Pops and bangs beyond the hall. Black-haired Pup wails. I claw at my cage and bark. It won’t give. I ram my head against it. Black-haired Pup’s cries disappear. Other dogs howl and scream. The alarm blares. I scrabble against my cage bars.

The door opens, and the Pack pours into the hall, their excited barks and yaps joining the oppressive storm of noise. They prance in anticipation. Moon Dog, on all fours, leads them. He has broken in. Moon Dog turns to the nearest cage with a dog inside. He lashes at the bars with a paw-talon, there’s a snap, and the cage opens. A pudgy, white dog steps out, trembling. Moon Dog nods back to the pack.

He continues through the room, breaking open cages. The shrill alarm dominates my ears. Moon Dog lashes out at Black-Haired pup’s cage. He steps out, and I bark, placing my paws on my bars. Black-Haired
Pup, yipping, races to me and places his paws on the other side of mine. I lean down and lick the top of his head between his ears between the bars, and Black-Haired Pup whines.

Then Moon Dog pushes Black-Haired Pup aside and looks into my cage. I step back. Moon Dog and I stare at each other. My eyes twitch, and I growl. He growls back. His eyes glow like human lights, and in his growl, I hear the yowls of Thin Dog as the Needle took his life. For a moment, through the Fumes that ooze from his body, I smell the human from that turn of the moon ago. The human who smelled exactly like Moon Dog.

Then Moon Dog steps back and lashes at my cage bars. It slams forward, then snaps back, and Moon Dog moves on. My cage door bounces open. I step up to Black-Haired Pup and nuzzle the back of his neck, and we the Pack, which has now swelled with new dogs of every smell and shape. Leaf Dog is among them. We look at each other. Then I turn around.

Moon Dog has finished. He stands on his hind legs before the new Pack, his warped snout twisting further. My tail curls around Black-haired Pup. Moon Dog howls, a lonely sound that slices through the wailing alarm and dances with the almighty moon that dominates the inferior light of the stars. He returns to all fours, starts forward, and the Pack parts for him. I struggle to not attack as he passes. All of this is happening because of him.

He leads the Pack down another hall and then a room with a shattered door leading outside. It reeks with the metallic smell of blood and death. Moon Dog stops at the broken door. He watches the Pack leave as I enter the room. A human with a ripped throat is dead. Two more with exploding sticks lie in pools of stinking blood. Their eyes bulge. And three dogs lie dead with them, bleeding from holes in their sides. One of which is Tawny Dog.

I stop before his carcass. His fur is soaked with blood. The exploding sticks killed Tawny Dog, and Moon Dog hardly cares. I whine and paw at Tawny Dog’s body. This is our life under Moon Dog. The Humans will one day stop catching and start shooting. Home Bridge is not safe anymore because it is a human thing. They will find us. Killing the Humans is foolish.

Then Black-Haired Pup barks. I look up. Moon Dog steps towards him. He snarls. Then Moon Dog roars. He lifts a paw-talon. Black-Haired Pup freezes. I leap forward. Black-haired Pup whines, turning to run. Moon Dog’s paw-talon reaches down. Paws scrabble. Dogs bark. Black-Haired Pup won’t be fast enough, but Moon Dog is distracted. My teeth bared, I lean down, his shadow falling over my back as my eyes slam shut, and bite into Moon Dog’s thick hind leg.

Moon Dog howls. He rears back. I don’t hear Black-haired Pup cry. Moon Dog missed. Metallic blood spurts into my mouth mixed with something I’ve never tasted before, something steaming and grainy like dirt. I pull. Moon Dog starts slipping. I growl and yank. Moon Dog stumbles. He roars. I scoot back. Then he slips. His enormous body collapses to the ground with a thunder that sounds like the entire pack might be falling to
the ground with him, and where his blood pools onto the floor, faded lines of steam start rising.

I freeze. My legs tense. Moon Dog’s paw-talons. They would reach up and slash. If I jump on him, I’ll die.

Moon Dog rolls onto his legs. He leaps at me. His shoulder slams into my flank. Pain erupts into my body. I cry out. My body slides and then slams into the wall. My vision spins. No slashes on my body yet. An enormous paw steps on my flank. I look up. Moon Dog is there. He snarls. Black-haired Pup yowls as Moon Dog lifts a paw-talon and roars, forcing my eyes shut in preparation for the talon about to shred my body asunder.

My eyes open, and Leaf Dog is on Moon Dog’s back. Moon Dog stumbles back, his killing blow drawn away. Leaf Dog bites the back of Moon Dog’s neck and twists. Moon Dog snarls and reaches up. Another dog bites the wound I made on Moon Dog’s leg. Another dog leaps forward.  She bites down on Moon Dog’s other leg. Moon
Dog howls and slips, collapsing as he did before. Leaf Dog leaps off of his back, scrabbling on the floor. Dog after dog leaps forward, ripping into Moon Dog’s arms and tearing into his stomach as steam rises from his open wounds and shining blood until Leaf Dog steps up and lunges down on Moon Dog’s neck, and Moon Dog’s scream sounds more human than dog, harsh, stabbing, and high-pitched

I roll to my feet and shake myself off. My side throbs with pain, and I limp as I step forward. I can’t run.

Sirens blare in the distance. I look through the shattered door and see the lights flashing around the corner of the Prison’s street. Tires screech. I look down at my side and see Black-Haired Pup. He barks. I hear only the sound of sizzling steam behind me. I turn around.

Moon Dog’s dead body is changing. His fur is disappearing as his body shrinks and his snout retreats into his head, the steam from his blood clouding the air. After a moment, the steam ceases to sizzle and clears. And, lying in the place of Moon Dog with Moon Dog’s wounds, lies the human that I encountered that turn of the moon ago who smelled exactly like Moon Dog. Then the only sound is the sirens wailing behind me.

I bark. The dogs look to me, and many see the street monsters screeching to a halt outside. They start barking and bolt out the door, disappearing into the shrubs and the shadows. A human cries out and sticks and exploding stick over the roof of its car. A pow jumps to the stars. I look to the dogs who haven’t run yet and bark again, twisting my head towards the exit. Pain bursts down my flank.

A crowd of fur and tails and howls flows past me, through the open doors, and into the night. Exploding sticks pop. More black and white street monsters appear outside. Leaf Dog approaches me. I turn to Black-Haired Pup and pick him up by his neck scruff.

I limp to Leaf Dog and look into his twitching eyes. Then I place Black-Haired Pup at his feet and lift my head. Leaf Dog looks at me. The alarms scream, and the sirens blare. Exploding sticks chase after straggling dogs. My flank hit by Moon Dog throbs. The acrid smell of sweat, blood, and death fills my nose.

Then Leaf Dog plucks Black-haired Pup from the ground. Black-haired Pup whines. I nuzzle the side of his head. Then I limp back, bark, and twist my head.

Leaf Dog bolts past me into the hedges beside the Prison. Exploding sticks fire. I limp through the broken door to the Prison. The corpse of the human called Moon Dog lies behind me. He would have us hate the Humans. Maybe we should, but not in his way. In Moon Dog’s hatred, there is no protection. Only blood.

My heart thunders. I limp into the flashing lights. The pavement is hard under my paws. The humans scream their gibberish and aim their exploding sticks at me as the Sun Hill’s Fumes fill my nose, the Fumes that Moon Dog wore like a cloak.

Explosions. My body rips open. There’s nothing more.