Wild Dog City (Darkeye Volume 1) (30 page)

Blood dripped onto the floor from the
domestic's bleeding nose for a moment while he stared motionlessly
at Mhumhi. Finally he said, "Very well. There's no way for you to
get out, anyway, now that the ladder's down. I hope you realize
that."

Mhumhi had not, in fact, thought of this;
furthermore, now he was suddenly recalling his first sighting of a
hulker, when it had been dragging around a dead coyote and had
promptly tried to bash his brains in.

Perhaps this situation was not ideal, after
all.

"I realize that," he said, trying to sound
calmer than he felt. "Like I said, I just want to ask
something."

"Then come," said the domestic, surprising
Mhumhi, who had thought he might want to ask more questions. He
pushed past him and out the open door of the room they were in, his
curled tail vanishing from sight. It took Mhumhi a second to
realize he was meant to follow him.

The inside of the school was filled with long
hallways and rows of rooms. Mhumhi's nails clicked against
scratched, dirty linoleum as he gazed around. He was not sure
exactly what a school was- from the looks of it, it was a place
where you stored chairs and desks.

The domestic led him down one of these long
hallways, around the corner and down a set of stairs. Here there
were strange papers on the walls, faded and tired, many only
hanging by their corners. Mhumhi could not grasp what images were
supposed to be on them- they just looked like random blobs of
color, nothing like the almost-real images on the papers back in
the sewers.

The domestic paused at a brown door and
reared up to scratch it.

"Lamya," he called. "Wake up. We have a
visitor."

There was silence behind the brown door, and
the domestic scratched more insistently.

"
Lamya
."

"Leave me be," called a piteous, musical
voice- Mhumhi started to realize it was a hulker's. "Why are you
talking in Dog?" It went on to say something else that Mhumhi
couldn't catch, in a strange, liquid tongue.

The domestic replied in kind, though in his
mouth the words were more halting. He scratched on the door again,
and after a moment the door opened.

Mhumhi was startled again, because two things
happened very rapidly. He recognized the hulker as the one that had
been dragging the coyote, and was promptly bashed on the head and
knocked to the ground.

The domestic was laughing at him, he realized
in a dazed way, as he struggled to get back to his feet. The hulker
was swinging a broom around.

"How dare you bite my dog on the nose," she
said. "I think I'll kill you and cook you."

"Wait!" said Mhumhi, still a bit groggy, as
she raised the broom again. "Wait, please- there's puppies- hulker
puppies- you have to help-"

The hulker hesitated, and exchanged a glance
with the domestic.

"Hulker puppies?" she said. "What is a
hulker, exactly, and why should I care if it has puppies?"

"He means human, Lamya," said the domestic,
and the hulker's nose wrinkled.

"Ugh! You're not going to get into my good
graces like that-" She paused, tilting her head. "Wait, hulker
puppies- human puppies- you mean,
human children
?"

Mhumhi could only stare blankly, but the
domestic said, "I think that's what he means." He was looking
curiously at Mhumhi now. "Let him in, Lamya, let's hear what he has
to say."

Lamya hesitated, swinging the broom a bit
more between her hands, and then said, "All right, come in. We
haven't had a real guest in a long time, anyway. I'll give him some
tea."

Mhumhi looked at the domestic for some clue
as to what that meant, but he had already risen to follow her
inside the room. Mhumhi limped after him.

Inside the room there were several tired old
couches, a long counter, a white refrigerator, and a shiny black
microwave. The counter was covered with cardboard boxes, and unless
Mhumhi was mistaken, the cabinets below were stuffed full as well.
Mhumhi had to pause to sniff the air. There was a salty scent
coming from the boxes that he was unfamiliar with.

The domestic went to jump up on one of the
couches, and Mhumhi decided to follow suit on the other. It gave
him a sudden pang of longing for his old home, where the couch had
been ripped up to just the right level of comfort… this one was
hard and scratchy.

The hulker did something to the microwave,
which hummed, and then dragged a low table towards them.

"Lamya, you haven't even changed yet," said
the domestic. "Have you even taken a bath?"

"I don't
need
a bath," said Lamya,
crossly, and she put one of the cardboard boxes on the table. "Do
you think he cares? Oh, ask him his name, we don't know it
yet."

Mhumhi thought this was a bit rude,
considering she was sitting right across from him. The domestic
looked at him.

"What is your name?"

"My name is Mhumhi," he said.

"This is Lamya," said the domestic, rather
formally.

"And your name…?" Mhumhi prompted.

"His name," said Lamya, tearing open the top
of the box she was holding, "is Biscuit."

Biscuit gave his curled tail a grave wag.

"I see," said Mhumhi.

"Give him a cracker, Biscuit," said Lamya,
thrusting the opened box at the domestic. He stuck his muzzle
inside and dropped something on the table in front of Mhumhi.

"For you," he said. Lamya was grinning.

Mhumhi got to his feet on the couch and
sniffed the thing- it smelled dry and tasteless, and was the color
of old paper. He mouthed it cautiously and found it to be
surprisingly salty.

"Aw, Biscuit, I forgot you were bleeding,"
said Lamya, looking into the box and wrinkling up her face. "Here,
you two can have the rest."

She tossed the box on the table, and crackers
spilled out. Neither Mhumhi nor Biscuit made a move to take one.
Mhumhi was still working on getting the rest of his original
cracker unstuck from the roof of his mouth.

"Lamya," said Biscuit, "you must eat proper
food today. If you eat that meat I brought-"

"I told you not to embarrass me in front of
Mhumhi," said Lamya, flicking her fingers at him. "Anyway, Mhumhi
should tell me about those children he mentioned earlier. How many
are there? How old are they? Were they tasty?"

"I haven't harmed them!" exclaimed Mhumhi,
and Lamya laughed. He found he did not like her laugh- it sounded
too close to a hyena's.

"Well, that's very nice of you," she said.
"Biscuit said that you were one of the ones adopted by the pariah
dog, is that true?"

"Yes," said Mhumhi, "or, well, my mother's
name was Pariah-"

"She did not have a name," interrupted
Biscuit. "A dog does not have a name until he is given one by a
human, and she was never acting on behalf of any human. She called
herself Pariah, but even that was a lie."

Mhumhi stared at him, both for the evident
familiarity he seemed to have with his mother and the disdain in
his voice when he spoke of her.

"Lighten up, Biscuit," said Lamya. "Mhumhi
clearly loved his little mummy either way. I was only going to say
that she probably taught you some proper respect for humans."

"You keep saying human," said Mhumhi. "Is
that another word for hulker?"

Biscuit gave a soft growl. "It is the only
proper
word for humans," he said. "If you say 'hulker'
again, I'll bite you."

"Clearly his mother didn't teach him
everything," said Lamya.

"My mother taught me absolutely nothing about
hul- about humans," said Mhumhi, who was starting to get a little
annoyed. "We didn't even know she was taking care of the puppies
until after she died."

"The proper word is children," said
Biscuit.

"They're our puppies," said Mhumhi, and now
he exposed a single fang as Biscuit began to growl.

"It's moot," said Lamya. "Biscuit, aren't all
the domestic dogs supposed to know when somebody pairs up with a
human?"

"Yes," said Biscuit, drawing back a little,
shifting his broad paws on the couch. "It seems she took them in
illegally. She probably kept them hidden because she knew we'd
assign them to someone more responsible."

"Tricky little thing," said Lamya, reaching
behind herself to grab another box. "And so, why have you come
here? Have you got questions about changing their nappies? What is
it?"

"I came here," said Mhumhi, steeling himself
a bit, "to find someone who could take care of them. Someone who
could do a better job than us."

Biscuit straightened up at this, staring at
Mhumhi, but Lamya put her hand to her mouth and burst into peals of
laughter.

"You want to abandon them! You really are a
wild dog, aren't you?"

"I am not abandoning them!" snapped Mhumhi,
because perhaps her words stung a little too much. "We cannot take
care of them anymore, and if we die trying, it won't help them. I
just need somewhere safe to take them. You seem like you have
enough food-" he cast a lingering glance over all the amassed boxes
"-so it shouldn't trouble you at all!"

Lamya laughed again. "Food? Is that all it
would take? What about a pair of screaming infants, disturbing my
sleep?"

"They're not infants," said Mhumhi. "The
older one, Maha, is already-"

"No, no, don't tell me their names," said
Lamya, putting out a hand. "I don't want to know. I don't want
them."

"But they're your kind!" exclaimed Mumhi,
rising to his feet, ignoring Biscuit's warning growl. "And there
are few enough of you left as it is! How can you be so
selfish?"

"I'll tear out your filthy tongue, you-"
Biscuit started to growl, but Lamya grabbed him by the scruff.

"Shut up, Biscuit. He's completely right. I
am very selfish." She flashed her teeth at Mhumhi in what he was
not sure was a smile. "But the reason any of us are left at all is
because of that. Selfishness."

"What do you-"

"I tell you," said Lamya, leaning back,
releasing her grip on Biscuit, who had gone completely cowed, ears
back and tail under his belly. "I tell you, I watch you dogs every
day and laugh. I'm waiting to see what will happen to you when the
meat runs out. Will you all kill each other in the streets- or will
you go the
kinder
route?"

"What are you talking about?" Mhumhi asked.
"What do you mean, when the meat runs out?"

"Come on, doggy," said Lamya. "How much did
you think there was? Did you think there was just a bottomless
supply out there? Where did you even think it came from?"

Mhumhi felt a kind of fear, looking at the
wrinkles in her furless face. "I don't know where it comes from,
and I don't care," he said. "It's just meat. It's what we eat, and
it's never run out, and it never
will
run out."

Lamya exchanged a glance with Biscuit, then
snickered. "Well, good. Keep thinking that. That's what we're all
counting on, you know?"

"Lamya," said Biscuit, his tone warning. She
flapped a hand at him. Mhumhi wavered on the couch, wanting to
question again what she had meant, but feeling certain he would
rather not know the answer. In the midst of his thoughts there came
a loud, shrill squeak that made him jump.

"The tea's ready," Lamya said, and pushed
herself up from the couch and busied herself in front of the
microwave. In her absence Biscuit seemed to recover completely from
his cowering.

"You'd better be more careful about what you
say," he told Mhumhi. Mhumhi found that he could use his pale eyes
to good effect when he glared.

"Leave him alone," said Lamya, returning with
things in her hands. "I'm enjoying myself- we never get anyone new
to talk to. And here's your tea, Mhumhi." She put a mug down in
front of Mhumhi. There was liquid in it that smelled bitter and
steamed.

Mhumhi eyed it, wondering if she really
expected to drink it. She had taken hers up to her face to start
drinking in the hulker fashion, with the lips.

"We are lucky that some of the power still
works," she commented. "Else I'd never be able to have hot drinks…
my one remaining luxury. I suppose we're lucky we got overrun with
dogs and not something like hyper-intelligent
birds
. The
shit'd block up all the solar panels in a fortnight."

Mhumhi stared at her blankly, not even
pretending comprehension.

"What's a bird?" asked Biscuit.

"Big feathery bug that flies," said Lamya.
"And shits. I remember them- there used to be some in the Botanical
Dome when I was little. Aren't there any left there?"

"Botanical Dome…?" Mhumhi repeated, wrinkling
his brow.

"The Great Glass Garden," Biscuit
translated.

"I don't know, I've never been inside," said
Mhumhi. "I'm not police."

"That's right," said Lamya. "I forgot you
were just a dirty little stray like the pariah dog." She laughed.
"It's funny that you call them the police, isn't it?"

"Is it?" Mhumhi was starting to get weary of
feeling like he was being ridiculed. He lay back down on the
couch.

"Police dogs," said Lamya, and then she shook
her head. "You wouldn't get it. They used to exist to protect us,
you know."

"Protect who?"

"Humans, you stupid mutt, humans," said
Lamya, aiming a halfhearted kick at him that brought him nervously
back to his feet. "Dogs were meant to serve humans. Oh, don't look
insulted, I don't mean wild dogs- you're just a freak side effect
in the whole thing."

"What whole thing?" asked Mhumhi, the fur on
his back rising. Lamya took another long drink of her tea.

"Where d'you think you got that brain from?
There's no point to a dog being smart- it's just that some idiot
thought he'd manufacture dogs that could talk like parrots and sell
them."

"What's a parrot, Lamya?" Biscuit asked, his
blue eyes wide.