Wild Dog City (Darkeye Volume 1) (26 page)

The grass tickled against Mhumhi's chin and
stomach as they moved, trotting silently. Some were sniffing a bit,
but they didn't seem terribly concerned about it, their ears
focused forward. Mhumhi was unsure of what he was supposed to do,
so he merely followed them, exaggerating his limp. Umenzi drifted
back towards him.

"I bet you're disappointed to have to be with
the ambush and not the chasers," he said, in a genial way. "But
don't worry, the ambush is better. They say it's for dodders and
puppies, I know, but you really get the best crack at the hulker
and you don't have to do all that running. Plus it takes a bit of
skill knowing where to set it all up."

He paused, sniffing the air, then added, "I'm
certain Ligwami and Nzui picked the biggest male, there's no point
going first otherwise, right?" He laughed. "I really pity the ones
who go last. They'll be left with that little female, and she'll
probably have holed herself up somewhere small. Maddening work for
less meat."

Mhumhi said nothing, but Umenzi didn't seem
to need anyone else to hold up the other end of the conversation.
He kept chatting away.

"Some of those big male hulkers can be real
head-crackers when they get cornered, but don't worry. Ligwami can
lose himself in a hunt, but Nzui's real sharp, and she always gets
the dogs out of the way before the big stupid things can do
anything."

"Hey, Umenzi," said one of the other dogs.
"Let's let little Mhumhi have a nip at the belly! He can go back to
his pack blood-faced! How will that be for an initiation?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Umenzi, but he
looked very thoughtful. "It can be a bit rough, for a first timer-
but then again, you're tough, aren't you, Mhumhi?"

The assembled dogs all exchanged looks,
tongues hanging out and tails wagging. Umenzi nudged Mhumhi
playfully in the shoulder.

"I bet you didn't think you were getting into
anything like this when you woke up today!"

"No," Mhumhi said, very truthfully. The dogs
around him whuffed with laughter.

Umenzi led them up a bit further, zigzagging
briefly across one of the flattened trails the hulkers had left
behind, and then stopped them beside some tall, blackened
trees.

"Here's the spot," said Umenzi. His demeanor
had changed, and his ears were flattened back against his skull,
his head level with his shoulders. "Fan out, and keep quiet now.
Listen for my signal."

The dogs did as he said, keeping their
profiles low, spreading out in near-silence within the rustling
grass. Mhumhi found himself suddenly isolated, the other dogs
blocked from view.

He could leave now, he realized. He could run
off and they'd probably be none the wiser- if they caught him at it
he could just say he'd gotten turned around and lost in the
confusing tall mess. He could even try to disrupt their hunt and
make it look like an accident. There was no reason for him to
witness what was about to happen.

Mhumhi thought this, and knew that he'd have
to move, but he stayed still, stayed crouched low in the grass.

His mind was roving, thinking of Maha, her
impish grin, those pale babies she'd crushed with her teeth; the
little naked hulker girl, running, her two legs pumping; the hulker
dragging the dead coyote with its head smashed in, and the vision
of it crouching and glutting itself on its insides; the hyena
lifting up Sacha's body by the head, her legs whirring; the crunch
of the little rat's head disappearing between Maha's teeth.

There came a dull pounding noise from far
away. Mhumhi wasn't sure if it wasn't his own heartbeat. He looked
around himself at the shifting, whispering grasses, obscuring
everything from view. There could be anything out there.
Anything.

The pounding was definitely getting closer.
It was not his heart. It was the sound of flat, heavy hulker paws
crushing the grass.

He heard its heavy breathing, in the strange
silence, the low breaths of the dogs around him, hidden from view,
the very soft footfalls of the pack running towards them, driving
the hulker- his breath came so
harsh
, so
desperate
-
he knew what death was, he knew the stakes of this game-

Umenzi burst out of the grass beside Mhumhi,
his companions following suit, as the hulker's footfalls got close-
Mhumhi heard him slip, caught a glimpse of his naked back as he
turned around- and suddenly they were all surrounding him.

The hulker was trampling the grass flat
around itself as it spun and spun, looking for a way out, but the
twenty or so dogs of Nzui's and Ligwami's combined packs were
whirling all around him, bounding through the grass, twittering and
cheering openly now. The hulker was caught.

Mhumhi saw his white-ringed eyes rolling, his
flat teeth bared. The dogs ran around and around him, shifting
between one another and changing direction like fluid, but none
attacked him directly yet. He was holding a large branch with both
hands, and he swung it wildly at the dogs each time they got too
close.

Mhumhi had not joined in the circle- he
merely stood back and away, watching. He could still run away, he
knew. The hulker shook his branch and howled, his voice loud and
booming. He swung the branch again, though it did not contact any
of the dogs- they leapt away too quickly.

The hulker's roving eyes darted madly around
the circle, and then suddenly they caught on Mhumhi. And they
stayed. Mhumhi was petrified. The hulker
stared
at him, his
mouth open, his chest heaving, clutching his branch to himself.
Mhumhi could only stare back.

It seemed like longer, but it must have only
been an instant, because the hulker yelled and swung his branch
down again, turning. His calf was shining dark yellow and a dog was
leaping back with blood on his tongue. The hulker screamed again a
moment later- another dog had caught his leg on the other side,
twisting viciously at a mouthful of skin. The hulker raised his
branch but another two dogs grabbed the forked end of it in their
mouths, holding it fast. A fourth dog ran to sink his teeth in the
hulker's other leg.

The hulker screamed and screamed, tugging at
his branch, his eyes wild- Mhumhi wanted to shut his ears, because
the hulker was not angry, he was just scared, just scared now, so
scared- A dog caught on his knee, and another on the inside of his
thigh, as they swarmed up at him like ants, dragging him down- One
caught him by his wrist and with a sob he fell.

They tugged him taut by his wrist and his
legs, stretching him as he writhed and struggled with the branch
still in his hand dragging against the grass. His chest and belly
lay exposed and naked before them.

"Mhumhi," said a dog, and with a start Mhumhi
realized it was Umenzi, leaping to him, smiling broadly with his
tongue hanging out. He fell into a brief play-bow, wagging his
tail.

"Nip at his belly, Mhumhi! Go on, open him
up!"

Mhumhi said nothing- he could say nothing-
and looked at the hulker's face. He was crying like Tareq, wetly,
whimpered utterances coming from him as he cringed and turned his
face away.

"Come on, Mhumhi," said Umenzi, his grin
fading somewhat, and when Mhumhi stayed stock-still he glanced at
his brethren in bewilderment.

"He's frightened," called one of them. "Hurry
it up, Umenzi!"

"Come on, Mhumhi, he can't hurt you, look,"
said Umenzi, and he sprang forward and tore open the hulker's lower
belly.

Mhumhi did not understand why the hulker did
not scream then, for he was still alive. He stayed alive. The dogs
ran forward, tearing at him, tearing at his skin and muscles and
vital organs, all tugging in different directions- Nzui took a
piece of skin at his flank and pulled too hard, exposing a stripe
of white-yellow muscle, flaying him- and Umenzi was in the hulker's
belly, his whole head, and Mhumhi caught the awful stench as the
bowels ripped.

The hulker opened his eyes and looked at
Mhumhi. His expression was dull and strange. His torso jerked as
Umenzi leaned further inside and ripped away at something.

"Go on, go on," he was saying- the hulker-
no, he had not spoken, it was a dog. Mhumhi recognized him as
Ligwami after a moment, for his whole face was streaked with blood.
He shoved Mhumhi forward. "Don't be frightened. You said you were
hungry, take some of the meat. Go on."

And suddenly Mhumhi found himself headfirst
in the hulker's chest cavity, jostling for space beside Umenzi and
another dog as they tugged and ripped. It was drier than he had
thought- there was merely exposed flesh everywhere, all around,
coils of intestines in Umenzi's mouth, fat ugly globs, a dull
thudding and thumping sound- Mhumhi bumped his head on something
hard and turned it slightly. It was the hulker's ribcage. He could
hear his beating heart.

Mhumhi seemed to lose himself for a moment.
He did not lose his memory, nor his sanity; he merely lost his
understanding. He opened his mouth and it filled with meat. It was
like nothing he had eaten before, for it was hot,
alive
,
pumping- it filled his mouth with softness and wetness and his mind
with hunger.

He ate and ate, feeling the hulker's insides
and the other dogs pressing all around him- he ate and ate and tore
and ate.

At some point the hulker died. Mhumhi was not
witness to when, but he knew it was before he had finished eating,
for the hulker's heart was not beating when he swallowed it.

When he realized that, Mhumhi backed away
from the crowd. More dogs jostled to fill the space he had left.
They were all silent now, in contrast to their twitters and cheers
before; the only noises were those of eating, of flesh tearing, of
bones cracking.

Mhumhi's stomach felt warm and full, fuller
than it had ever been. The hulker's heart was inside him. Mhumhi
had seen him alive, and looked in his eyes, and his heart was
inside him.

Mhumhi backed away further, turned, and ran
through the tall grass, heedless of his injured leg and his heavy,
swaying stomach.

The grass seemed endless. Mhumhi quickly got
lost, but it did not matter. He just needed to be away. His paws
thudded beneath him, his mouth open, panting- his heart was beating
so fast- was it his heart, or the hulker's heart? Was the hulker's
heart still beating inside him, thudding, like it had when Mhumhi
had put his head inside his chest?

He nearly ran into a tree, but swerved just
in time, skidding to a stop. There was something there, on the
tree. Flies buzzing, a strange scent. He had no comprehension of
what he saw for a moment, then he understood.

There was a hulker hanging from the tree by a
cord, dead. The branch had cracked slightly, and her legs trailed
against the ground. Mhumhi wondered how she had gotten up there. On
the other side of the tree's base he could see another hulker- oh,
he recognized her, it was the little hulker girl that had fallen
out of the bus. She was dead too. Her neck was twisted to one side,
as though it had been broken. Her eyes were closed, her face
calm.

The old part of Mhumhi could tell they had
not been killed by dogs. How had they both died out here alone?

The strange new part of Mhumhi thought,
Meat
.

Mhumhi turned and kept running, running and
running, until he saw the curved black building rising in the
distance through the grass. He ran towards it gratefully, out of
the bloody grass, back onto the concrete, back into the world of
metal and glass and processed, bloodless meat.

He found himself scratching at the metal
grate before he really knew it, pawing at it with a kind of
desperation.

Maha's face appeared beneath him, looking
up.

"Mhumhi?"

He backed away from the grate, away and away.
He heard her climbing up the pile of trash, saw her small fingers
curling around the metal as she moved it aside for him.

"Mhumhi," she called, poking her head out,
when he did not approach. "Mhumhi, what happened? Why's your face
look like that? Did you get hurt?"

Mhumhi stared at her, not understanding, then
slowly came into awareness: his face was coated with blood, his fur
slicked back and darkened with it.

"Mhumhi, say something," said Maha. She
sounded frightened.

"I'm not hurt," said Mhumhi. "It's not
mine."

"Oh, that's good," said Maha. "Did you get
into another fight? You won, didn't you?"

Mhumhi stared at her.

"Yes…"

"Did you get meat, then?"

"What?"

"I said, did you get meat, then?" She rubbed
her round belly, and Mhumhi's eyes were drawn to the area. "I'm
hungry again. I hope you got a lot."

Mhumhi stared. Maha furrowed her brow.

"Mhumhi! Why won't you answer me?"

"I got meat," he said. "I got some meat. It's
for Kutta."

"What?" Maha drew back. "Why just for
Kutta?"

"It's for Kutta," said Mhumhi. "Not for you.
Not for Tareq. Feed him the other rats."

"Why?" Maha looked like she was going to cry.
"Why?"

"Shut up," he said- near snarled. "Be quiet.
We must go back now. Don't talk to me anymore."

Maha did start crying, sniffling, wiping her
nose with her foreleg, and the sounds made him feel sick. He jumped
into the storm drain, shoving her aside, and ran down the
tunnel.

The
New Monstrosity

Maha stopped crying after a little while as
she trailed Mhumhi back to the corridor, sinking into a kind of
sullen silence, her eyes raw and accusing. Mhumhi was relieved when
they came to the reservoir room. The sound of rushing water seemed
to help clear his head, block out the haunting sound of the beating
heart. He thought he might stick his face in and clean it- even in
the sewage, it might feel cleaner.

They came to the corridor and Mhumhi stopped
short. Kutta was lying outside the door.