The Return (8 page)

He checked in with each dog to make sure that they were safely snuggled. As he rounded a corner near where they'd snuck through the wall, he heard Callie mumbling with Fuzz.

“Snnnnnnnurlllllll,”
she growled.

“No,” hissed Fuzz, “Callie-dog use too much jowl.”

Callie shook her head, then pursed her jowls.
“Snnnuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrl,”
she cooed.

Fuzz purred loudly. “Not terrible.” He licked a paw and ran it over his ear, a smile curling across his muzzle.

“What are you two doing?” Shep woofed.

“Fuzz is teaching me to speak cat,” Callie yipped, her curved tail waving.

Shep's jaw nearly fell from his head. “What in the name of the Silver Moon has possessed you to learn
cat
?” he barked.

“My family has a cat,” she woofed. “I thought it'd be nice, once I was home, to be able to bark with her.”

Callie had never mentioned a cat before.

“Some dogs think cat interesting,” Fuzz meow-growled.

Shep snuffled the fur near Fuzz's ears. “I think you're interesting,” Shep woofed. “But why not teach the cat to speak dog instead?”

“Silly fur, how am I supposed to even ask her if she'd like to learn dog if I can't speak cat?” Callie panted gently. “Anyway, I want to learn a few woofs, so she knows I want to be her friend.” Callie licked her front dewclaw. “We didn't start off on the right paw, if you catch my whiff.”

“Few dogs do,” grumbled Fuzz.

Callie explained how when her family brought her home, the cat was already in the den. Her name was Misty and she was an older cat, one of the meowers who yowled in the alley and drove Shep to gnaw on his toys to keep from chewing his fur off. Callie's puppy brain had thought Misty was a toy, like a stuffed cat that could move. She tore after Misty, chasing her up the walls and the curtains and on top of the cold box. The cat began losing patches of fur out of nerves. She hid behind the woman's legs, clawing her way up the human's pants whenever Callie so much as sniffed at her.

Callie had thought this was the most wonderful game ever invented. Only the Red Dot was more fun, but she needed her girl to play Red Dot. Chase the Cat was a game that could be played whenever the mood struck.

“So you can smell why maybe I need to put in some extra effort if I want to get Misty to like me.” Callie looked at both Shep and Fuzz.

Fuzz nodded his muzzle, as if considering the matter on Misty's behalf. He sat in his compact fashion, tail curled neatly around his paws. Its end flicked slightly in time with his purr.

“Well, good luck,” Shep woofed.

He lumbered into the dark again but gave up his pacing. He slumped down next to one of the boxes, tore a strip of the box-paper off, and began to gnaw on it.

Callie was learning cat.
CAT!
So that she could go home and make friends with something she considered prey a few moon-cycles ago. Why would she want to go back to that? Fine, she'd have food and a bed and a girl to protect her, but how could that life compare to running free with him? Hunting in the woods? Great Wolf, she wanted to bark with a
CAT
! What next, was she going to ask Pumpkin for tips on how to get her tail to curl better? Where was the girldog who'd tear through a mud puddle to chase down a scrap of paper? Who clawed through a screen to eat a lizard? What happened to
his
Callie?

 

A faint jangling stirred Shep — he couldn't believe he'd dozed off. He twitched his ears and took a deep scent of the space. The pack was still snuggled in their makeshift beds around him. Something jangled again, louder.

“Shep-dog!” Fuzz dropped from the box above Shep to the floor. “Human at door!”

Shep sprang to his paws. The sky was lightening Outside, and he saw through the small window a man's helmeted head and green-clad shoulders against the pale clouds. Men in green —
dog catchers
.

He had only heartbeats to get his friends out of the building. The whole pack couldn't squeeze through the hole in the wall without at least some dogs getting caught by the men. Shep had to find another means of escape.

The door
. But that would involve some dog — most likely him — knocking over whomever was jangling on the other side of it. He knew that no dog would forgive him for that — he wasn't even sure he
could
knock over a human again.

A part of the wall squealed, then started to rumble and roll itself up, creating a sliver of open air between it and the floor. Enough room for the whole pack to bolt out of!

“Dogs!” Shep barked. His voice echoed throughout the space. “Race for the growling wall!”

His pack awoke in a heartbeat and dashed down the aisles. Shep watched them run, then tried to locate the humans. He had to make sure every dog escaped.

A hand grabbed his scruff.

“Dogs!” a man shouted.

Shep yelped and struggled free of the man's thick fingers. He scrambled away, heart racing. The other dogs were already squeezing out from under the growling wall, which screeched to a halt. The wall squealed again and began to drop. Shep ducked his head under the rattling metal and escaped into the cool morning air.

“Keep running!” he howled to his packmates. “They're men in green!”

Every dog's eyes widened — the scent of their terror rose like a cloud. The pack bolted for the roadway. Snoop pulled ahead of the rest, his sleek body curling and stretching in long, springing strides. Shep sniffed to make sure all the dogs were ahead of him and smelled Callie far behind.

“Callie!” he cried, wheeling back toward the building.

Callie stumbled along, running as fast as her still-sick body could manage. Shep snapped his teeth around her scruff and, tugging with every bit of strength in his neck, pulled her up. Sure of his grip on her fur, he sprinted after the others.

“Thanks,” Callie wheezed.

“We're not safe yet,” Shep growled through locked jaws.

They were almost at the street. The other dogs had already reached the Sidewalk.

Daisy stopped suddenly, her paws skidding on the gravel.
“Car!”
she howled.

But it was too late.

The huge Car roared down the road, as fast as the wave. Snoop barely had time to look up.

“SNOOP!” shrieked Pumpkin.

A dull thud. The Car raced on.

There was no trace of Snoop.

Shep's jaws unlocked and Callie dropped onto the grass. “Stop!” he howled.

As if in response, the Car squealed to a halt. One of its doors opened, and a shrieking human stumbled out. Shep tensed his muscles and scented the air: They were caught between advancing men in green and a screaming person hidden by a giant Car. The scent of spilled lifeblood reached his nose; he stopped sniffing.

“He's a dog catcher!” Rufus yelped.

The human shuffled around the side of the Car, bearing Snoop's limp body in his arms. The men in green ran past Shep and the other dogs to help the man lift Snoop into the Car.

“Are we waiting to see how long it takes them to come for the rest of us?” Zeus snarled.

Shep growled at the boxer, then stood tall, ears up and tail rigid. “Back in formation!” he barked. He would not let them take Callie!

The pack, still shocked and trembling, fell in behind his tail. Shep raced them down one of the small roads and alongside a large building.

“We have to stop!” barked Callie. She flicked her tail at Pumpkin. A newcomer to the horrors of the drowned city, the poor girldog was in terrible shape. She cowered low to the pavement, shivering, and twitched her ears.

“We were just barking together,” she mumbled. “He wasn't even really in the street.”

The pack huddled around her. Shep knew he should woof something, but his mind went blank. It was his fault that Snoop had run into the road; he'd commanded the pack to rush out of the building without so much as scenting to smell if all was safe Outside. The screaming man hadn't meant to hit Snoop; Shep smelled how sad and scared the man was. The miserable human had just driven by at exactly the wrong heartbeat. It was Shep's failure as an alpha that put Snoop in front of the Car. This loss lay squarely across his withers.

“It's my fault,” he woofed. “I shouldn't have barked for you to run without scenting for danger.”

“Stop being such a fur-brain,” Zeus snapped. “We all know the street's dangerous. The dog should've stopped at the Sidewalk.”

“His
name
was
Snoop
!” Shep snarled and lunged at Zeus.

Oscar jumped in front of the boxer. “He's hurt!” the pup cried.

Shep threw his weight to the side to avoid Oscar. “Have you completely lost your tail?” Shep growled, panting.

Oscar stared down his snout at Shep. “Zeus might be mean, but he's hurt. It's not a fair fight.” Then he lowered his tail and ears. “We all know it wasn't your fault that Snoop got hit by that Car. That's all Zeus was trying to woof.”

Shep lowered his hackles. The pack seemed frozen in their fur. They smelled frightened and anxious — Shep had only made things worse. Even Zeus appeared unnerved by Shep's attack.
An alpha doesn't attack his pack
, he thought to himself between pants.
Even those pack members he hates.

“You're right, Oscar,” Shep woofed, calming himself. “I'm sorry, all of you.”

Daisy loped to Oscar's side and gave him a snort. “That took guts, pup,” she woofed, smiling. “But you get in the alpha's way again and I'll snap you like a biscuit.”

Oscar, who'd begun wagging his tail, stopped.

Callie stepped between them. “We're all just upset about Snoop,” she woofed. She trotted up to Pumpkin, who was so shaken she'd practically trembled all the hair from her body. “That man will help Snoop,” Callie snuffled. “He'll take him to the kennel and they'll fix him the way they fixed me.”

Dover sat on Pumpkin's other side. “Snoop may not have looked it,” he woofed, “but he was tough as rawhide. He'll be back to playing Big Stick and Diggin'est Dog in no time.”

Ginny panted lightly. “Do you remember during the storm, when he knocked that big bush on my back?” she yipped, her ears up. “Even when he wasn't trying to play, Snoop managed to put a wag in every dog's tail.”

Rufus snickered. “I don't remember your tail wagging after being smushed by that plant.”

Ginny gave Rufus a playful nip. “With time, I've seen how such a thing could be funny.”

Boji sat beside Dover. “Snoop is tough. He helped me to lick wounds,” she woofed. “And once, Higgins yelled at him for giving an extra kibble to a hungry new rescue, so Snoop nosed his whole ration to the starving dog.”

Fuzz began purring loudly. “Fuzz always like skinny-snout,” he meowed. “Less fuzz head than most dog.”

All the dogs began to smell more relaxed as they woofed about Snoop. Tails wagged and smiles played across every dog's snout. Pumpkin stopped trembling and stood a little taller.

“Who's this Higgins you keep barking about?” she asked.

“Now there was a dog who knew the kibble from the trash!” howled Rufus.

The pack started walking again, each dog yipping some hilarious tale about their former packmates — friends who were gone, but never forgotten. Shep couldn't help but wag his tail remembering the way Higgins's furface would bristle whenever he got frustrated. He even shared a story of his own, telling how Virgil rescued him in the stairwell from the fury of the storm.

As they loped down the Sidewalk, Shep didn't need to bark for all the dogs to stay together. The pack huddled close, barking and yapping and wagging their tails. All save Zeus, who lagged behind, limping. His muzzle was frozen in a mask of disdain, but Shep swore he saw Zeus's jowl tremble and his eyes blink each time some dog woofed Higgins's or Virgil's name. In that heartbeat, Shep wondered if perhaps Zeus really was sorry for having killed them. In the next heartbeat, he reminded himself that he didn't care if Zeus was sorry.
He'll never be anything but a killer.

 

The large buildings gave way to smaller ones, and soon the streets were lined with regular, boxy human dens. They saw a few humans digging trash from their yards and one or two Cars chugged by, loaded down with bags and salvaged pieces of furniture. Shep avoided any humans he smelled by crossing to a new street; every dog flinched when a Car passed.

As the sun crossed its midpoint, the pavement became unbearably hot under their paws. They needed to find water.

Shep had just decided to risk a rest when Boji barked, “I smell fresh water. And grass. Just off the road.” She waved her tail, hopeful.

“Fuzz, check it out,” Shep woofed, waving his snout.

“I'll go!” yipped Oscar. The pup dove into the scrubby hedge and got caught in a thatch of branches.

As he untangled himself, Zeus grunted a quick pant, then went back to scowling.

The cat hissed, then disappeared over the hedge in a single spring. After a few heartbeats, he meowed through the leaves. “Very strange. Huge Park with pits of sand and lakes. Grass pokey and short like shave fur.”

“Humans?”

“No. Safe for dog-pack.”

The dogs pushed through the broken and tangled branches of the hedge. Tall metal posts showed where a fence had once stood, but the dogs were able to pad onto the open field without facing any greater obstacle than the bush.

The field was narrow, but the grass stretched away on either side of Shep farther than he could smell. The green had been cleared of garbage; bags were piled neatly at regular intervals between the sparse trees lining the field's edge. From the intensity of the scent, Shep guessed the grass had been clipped within the last sun.

As Fuzz had meowed, the field itself was pocked with irregularly shaped pits and ponds. Several stretches away, on a small hill, a narrow pole stuck up from the ground. The strip of cloth at its top billowed in the breeze.

The strangeness of the open space unnerved Shep — what was this huge Park doing in the middle of all these dens, and why was it so clean and neat when everywhere else was still trashed from the storm? “We get a drink, then meet back at the hedge,” Shep barked. “No playing. No barking.”

The others smelled just as anxious. They slunk along the tree line, then scrambled to the water. The dogs drank quickly, glancing up after every few slurps to scan the grass.

Shep hung back, watching, until every dog had gotten a drink. He waved his snout at Daisy and had her take over the watch. Just as he wet his nose, she barked for him. He snuck a quick sip of water, then skulked, belly to grass, back to where she stood near the hedge.

“I heard something,” Daisy snorted. “A motor. Up toward the cold winds along the grass.”

Shep scanned the rolling hills of the field.

“Keep watch,” Shep woofed. “Last drink!” he barked to the others.

He loped back to the pond and took a long drink. He wasn't sure when they'd find another source of clean water — he couldn't even be sure what they'd find around the next tree.

He heard a motor, but it sounded small. Then a tiny, boxy white Car with no doors, just a white plastic roof held up by metal branches, burst out of the trees. A young man in dark blue body coverings hung out the side of the Car. He was waving a thin metal stick with a fat paw on its end and yelling, “No dogs!” Then he shouted something else, but all Shep could make out was the word “Go.”

Shep didn't know where this man specifically wanted them to go, but he clearly wanted them off his grass.

“Dogs!” Shep barked. “Back through the hedge!”

“We can't!” barked Daisy. “There's another one!” She bolted past Shep and sprang over the pond, racing for cover in the trees lining the other side of the open grass.

Shep looked behind him and saw that their entrance through the hedge was blocked by another of the tiny white Cars, this one carrying a different young man in a blue suit. He waved a long stick topped by a fan of metal fingers spread like a wing. What did these men want to do to them? They didn't seem like dog catchers, but Shep was sure that wagging his tail and acting friendly would not calm them down.

Shep dove over the pond. “Follow me!” he howled. He raced across the grass, kicking up clumps of mud.

“Zeus!”

Oscar's cry carried across the wide lawn. Shep whirled mid-stride; Zeus had caught his bandage on a root and was stuck. One of the boxy Cars was closing in on him — and Oscar was running right into its path.

“Oscar, leave him!” Shep cried.

The pup stopped, ears pricked and eyes wide, like he wasn't sure he'd heard Shep right. “You said we never leave a packmate behind,” Oscar barked. “An alpha never leaves a packmate behind!”

Great Wolf
, Shep growled to himself, gnashing his teeth as he dashed back toward the fur-brained pup and his evil ex–best friend.
Why can't this pup just listen to me?!

Zeus stubbornly tugged on the paw, which just wedged the wrapping farther up the stick.

“Stop,” Shep snarled. “Let me get it.”

Zeus snapped at Shep's snout. “I don't want your help.”

“Want it or not,” Shep growled, “you've got it.” He thrust his snout at Zeus's paw and bit the wrapping, cutting Zeus free.

Shep grabbed Oscar by the scruff. “Let's move our tails!” he barked through clenched jaws and tore through the grass.

Daisy had led the others through the sparse woods, which ended at another hedge. Shep glanced behind him, through the thick ribbon of trees separating the pack from the huge lawn, and saw nothing. It seemed that the men in the blue suits had given up the chase.

Pushing through the hedge's web of branches, they found another broken fence, only this one was made of wooden slats.

Callie poked her head through a hole in the fence. “A den,” she snuffled. “Looks empty.”

Rufus shoved his snout through the hole next to Callie. “Maybe there's food?” he yipped.

“Let's check it out,” Shep woofed. Even if there wasn't any food, they could wait inside the den until sunset. Moving in the sunlight was turning out to be as terrible an idea as he'd imagined.

Shep ducked through the fence first. He found himself in a small yard, much smaller than the one they'd just escaped — ten stretches from fence to den. It was dominated by a gigantic, toppled tree. The den had been crushed on one side when the trunk fell onto its roof.

He stepped to the side and waved his tail to signal the rest of the dogs to come through. “One of the walls is broken,” Shep barked. “We can get in there.”

The pack loped across the grass and up onto the remains of a wooden deck.

Ginny hopped onto a lounge chair and looked through a glass door inside the den. “Looks nice,” she woofed. “There's a lovely couch that looks perfect for snoozing.”

Callie sprang onto a board that stuck out of the broken wall of the den. “We can get in here,” she yipped. She walked up the board, which jiggled with her every step.

Zeus leapt directly onto the broken wall. Now that his bandage was torn, Shep could see the injured paw. The flesh had been stitched together, but lifeblood oozed out of the ragged wound.

Boji should lick that
, he thought, but he knew Boji would never go near Zeus. Anyway, after what he did, Zeus could lick his own stinking wounds.

More than licking, though, the wound needed to be rebandaged. How in the name of the Silver Moon was he supposed to manage that?

The others followed Zeus and Callie into the den. When every dog was inside, Shep clawed his way up the crushed wall and followed them.

The wall opened into the den's food room, which had been thoroughly drenched by the storm. The cold box lay on its side, having been knocked over by the collapsing wall. Other animals had scavenged there; little was left in the lower cabinets or the cold box.

Callie hopped onto the cold box, then up onto the counter. She sniffed the upper cabinets. “There's some food in these,” she yipped. She stood on her hind paws, but couldn't get the door to open. “Shep?” she woofed. “Could you lend a paw?”

Shep stood on the cold box and managed to claw open the nearest cabinet. “This is all I can reach,” he barked, stretching as far as possible.