Wild Dog City (Darkeye Volume 1) (31 page)

"Shut up, Biscuit. Do you get it, Mhumhi?
It's all genetics and stupidity. You're not supposed to exist, by
nature. But you do, and I'll be damned if you haven't been very
good at breeding."

"I haven't had any puppies," said Mhumhi, who
was now thoroughly confused. Lamya sighed and let her head fall
back.

"You're supposed to be intelligent, but you
dogs are so
stupid
. I suppose I could spend all day
explaining the whole thing to you, but I don't see the point. No,
the point- the real point is that you mutts have been calling
yourself police and all and strutting around this town like you own
it. And you're just living off of our scraps! You're the dogs in
the dustbin, Mhumhi!"

"Living off
your
scraps?" Mhumhi
latched on to what little he could understand. "Haven't you got it
backwards? There are only a handful of hulkers out there, and
you're the ones eating
our
meat."

"Oh, my," said Lamya, though she looked
somehow pleased. "Your meat, hmm? It's true that the dogs are
everywhere in this city, and you have managed to kill a great
number of us- have you ever killed a human, Mhumhi, by the
way?"

"Killed a-? No, no I haven't," said Mhumhi,
flicking his eyes away.

"You've wanted to, though, haven't you. Like
the dog you are. I know about those hunts that take place up in the
bloody park. D'you see this?" She raised her covering slightly, and
Mhumhi glimpsed a cord around her smooth dark belly.

"What's that…? Were you caught in a
snare?"

"Not a snare," said Lamya. "Though thank you
for your kind concern. No, this is for if I ever get caught by
those police of yours. Biscuit tells me they tear your clothes off,
but I had a friend who told me about this trick. Keep the cord
against your skin and they'll probably miss it."

"What's it for?" Mhumhi asked. Biscuit put
his ears flat against his skull.

"I don't like the idea of being eaten alive,"
said Lamya, settling back into her chair.

Mhumhi still didn't get it, but there was a
certain finality to her tone. "I'm not a part of those hunts," he
told her. "And I- I don't like them. I don't think we should be
eating hul- humans. They're dogs like us."

Biscuit gave a snort. "Dogs like us…? That's
a filthy insult."

"Go back to the part where he doesn't think
he should be eating humans," said Lamya, her eyes dark and
glittering behind her bowl. "I think that's very funny."

Her scrutiny made Mhumhi have to pant. There
was no way she could possibly know he'd participated in a hunt and
eaten hulker meat, was there?

"Hey, Mhumhi," she said. "There used to be a
whole lot of hulkers in this city. Millions of us. More hulkers
than there are dogs."

Now Mhumhi snorted. "That's impossible."

"How many houses are there here in Oldtown,
Mhumhi? How many apartments in the whole city? Did you know every
one of them used to be filled with humans? My god, do you think
this city was just shat out of the earth for the
dogs
?"

"If there were hulkers everywhere, where did
the dogs live?" asked Mhumhi. "Did they just get along with the
hul- humans?"

"
Your
kind was in zoos and cages,"
Lamya sneered. "I don't think that there were any left in the wild,
even, not that I cared to check at the time… Anyway, we had proper
dogs, but they acted like- well, like proper dogs did and lived
with us. Like Biscuit here."

"You're saying too much, Lamya," said
Biscuit. She ignored him.

"Anyway, when that group of idiots started
selling IntelliDogs, they didn't realize the whole retro-thing was
infectious. And it got into the conservation center, and nobody
realized until it was too late. It only goes into effect on the
second generation. So we had the smart talky pet dogs, but the wild
dogs didn't care to be our pets, did they? So that was a real
problem."

"So," said Mhumhi, who was doing his best to
suspend his disbelief- and his best to keep up with what she was
talking about. "You're saying that these wild dogs drove out all
the hulkers? Or- or killed them?"

"No," said Lamya. "Don't be stupid. There's
no way a bunch of dogs could kill fourteen million humans,
intelligent or not. You all were still stuck in the zoos and cages,
anyway, you were nothing but freaks."

"So, what then?" Mhumhi said, feeling
impatient. "Where'd all those humans go, then, if there were so
many?"

"I just don't know, Mhumhi," said Lamya, and
her cruel little smile returned. "You tell me."

Killing With Kindness

The heat in the little room was becoming
oppressive. Biscuit was panting on the couch under his thick coat,
and Lamya flapped her stomach covering a bit before rising to open
a window. Mhumhi stared after her. He had sat in silence after her
last words, trying to put them together.

"Where did all the humans go?"

Lamya did not answer him right away- she was
leaning out the window.

"When are you going to find me that fan,
Biscuit?"

"When it's safe to wander around the stores
again," Biscuit replied, and licked his broad paws. "I told you,
the police are hunting domestics right now. It isn't safe for
me."

"What will you do if I die of heat stroke,
you useless dog?"

"Please," said Mhumhi, "tell me. Tell me what
happened." The heat was not affecting him, but he was panting
anyway.

"You shouldn't be listening to her," Biscuit
muttered.

"I heard that," said Lamya. She turned around
in front of the window. "Mhumhi, use your expensive little brain. I
don't think I've been very subtle about where they went. They're
still in this city- well, what's left of them."

"No," said Mhumhi.

"And I suppose a great deal has been swept
out through the sewers as dogshit, too. How much of it must there
be for you to already be running out?" Lamya tapped her chin, then
shook her head. "Whoever's left is still hanging in that big
freezer underneath each dispensary, though. Bodies of man, woman,
child, being ground up and prepared for your mouth-"

"No!" exclaimed Mhumhi. "No, that's
impossible!"

"How do they taste, anyway? I've avoided
having any, but-"

"The meat can't be hulker!" He had to leap
off the couch, startling Biscuit to his feet, and paced on the
carpeted floor. "Why would- I mean, who put all of them down there?
The dogs?"

He was beginning to feel a dull horror, like
the time Sacha had told them about the half-breed cull, only a
thousand times worse.

"I told you, the dogs had nothing to do with
it," said Lamya. "They put themselves down there."

"You mean, other hulkers-"

"No, I mean they put themselves down there,
Mhumhi, how hard is that to get. There's no great secret. They all
willingly became meat."

"That makes no sense!" exclaimed Mhumhi. "Why
would anyone-?"

"The reason I am alive," said Lamya, "is
because my parents asked themselves the same question. The selfless
ones went and died, Mhumhi, and so it's only the savages like me
that are left."

"But why-?"

"Because they needed meat," said Lamya. For a
moment her face became slightly pinched, the first expression of
discomfort Mhumhi had seen on her. "We were starving. There was a
program. Advertisements everywhere. Celebrities volunteered to do
it. Everybody was doing it, Mhumhi. Everybody wanted to save...
everybody."

"But if everybody wanted to die-"

"That's right." She bared her teeth at him.
"If everybody died for everyone else, they didn't die for
anyone."

"I don't understand…"

"You're not human, Mhumhi." Lamya turned and
gazed back out the window. "You don't feel that… oh, that special
kind of compassion we feel. That altruism. You're just an animal.
You wouldn't sacrifice yourself for anyone else; you've got
instincts against that. Survival instincts."

Mhumhi was silent, and glanced at Biscuit. He
was watching Lamya attentively.

"I suppose I'm like an animal too," she said.
"Because I never wanted to die for anyone. Too scared, even though
it was the right thing to do. I suppose that means that all the
real humans are dead." She laughed. "We're an extinct species,
Mhumhi."

"You're not extinct," said Biscuit. "Don't
say that. When the time comes, you will be many again."

"When the time comes," Mhumhi repeated. "You
mean, when the meat runs out, and there isn't enough left for all
the dogs?"

Biscuit turned to glare at him.

"He's caught on," said Lamya. "Not that it
matters." She turned to smile at Mhumhi. "You still have to eat, no
matter what you think the meat is. You've got to feed those little
kiddies, too, right? Kindness kills, doesn't it."

She stretched out her arms above her head for
a moment, tilting her neck to and fro. "To tell you the truth,
though, I really look forward to what you lot will do when it comes
down to it. When the food runs out, like it did for us. If dogs
start offering to die… well, I guess you've made it. You're an
advanced species."

"
Advanced
…" Mhumhi shuddered. "You,
you're mad, aren't you? If the meat runs out for the dogs, it runs
out for you, doesn't it? What will the hulkers eat, then?"

"What do you mean, what will we eat?" asked
Lamya, her eyes thin and sharp. "There'll be plenty of leftover
meat, the kind I can stomach. Which reminds me…" She pushed herself
up from against the window and went over to the white refrigerator.
"You can join us for dinner, Mhumhi, if you want."

She opened the refrigerator. Mhumhi found
himself backing away, bumping into the couch that Biscuit was
sitting on. Draped over one shelf was the body of a red fox.
Lisica. Mhumhi could see the snare wire still tangled around her
neck.

"What's the matter?" Lamya asked.

"How… how can you…" He could not tear his
eyes away from the indignity of her, the moisture beaded in her fur
and the way her pale tongue hung out of her mouth.

"I don't understand what your issue is,
doggy," said Lamya. "You don't want me to eat dogmeat? How many
thousands of times have you eaten human meat, though?"

"I… it isn't…" Mhumhi found himself struck
dumb, and Lamya grinned and swung the fridge shut again.

"I was lucky to get her," she said.
"Someone's been picking the meat out of my snares lately. Someone
who discriminates less than you, hmm? They seem to know just where
my traps lie. I've had Biscuit try to track them, but-"

"Wait," said Mhumhi, turning, finding the big
domestic staring down at him from his higher perch on the couch.
"You… you help her?"

"Of course I help her," said Biscuit. He sat
stiffly, his forelegs stretched out, his curled tail pressed tight
against his back. "She must have good food. I am not a wild dog, I
am a domestic."

"That's right," cooed Lamya, and she stepped
forward to rub one of Biscuit's thick ears between her fingers.
"And when all the wild dogs are dead, and you've fulfilled your
role…"

She put two fingers against Biscuit's head.
The large domestic did not move.

Mhumhi did not understand the gesture, but he
felt a sort of sick chill all the same, looking at the two of them.
There was something wrong…
terribly
wrong here… He should
not have come.

He looked back towards the closed door, and
both Lamya and Biscuit seemed to pick up on the motion, for Biscuit
rose and Lamya flashed her square teeth.

"Ready to be off, Mhumhi? Sure you don't want
any meat for your little kiddies?"

"No," said Mhumhi, taking a step back.
Biscuit leapt heavily down from the couch and walked towards him,
eyes thin.

"I hate to see you go, honestly," said Lamya.
"I haven't been able to talk to anyone besides Biscuit for a long
time.. it was nice. Especially as you're a terribly large animal.
Hypothetically speaking, I'm not sure I could even fit you in the
fridge."

Much to Mhumhi's surprise, Biscuit turned
around, a few feet in front of him.

"Lamya," he said, "that is enough. We'll let
him go."

Lamya pulled her eyes tight and the corners
of her lips down.

"You were the one who said he was hearing too
much!"

"That's your fault, not his," said Biscuit.
"And I don't think it matters. He is already in too dangerous of a
position to talk to the wrong dogs."

He glanced back at Mhumhi, who elected not to
say anything. Lamya gave an elongated sigh and flopped back down on
the couch.

"Fine, fine! Then tell him to come again. I'm
lonely. Bring his sisters- not those children, though." She uttered
a harsh laugh.

"Come," said Biscuit, tone cool, and he
reared up and took the doorknob in his mouth to turn it. Mhumhi
found he was still shaking a bit and said nothing, his tail tucked,
as he left the room.

Biscuit led him back through the silent
school until they came to a small room overlooking the playground.
Here he again reared up and pushed a window pane with his paw,
tilting it outwards with a soft creak.

"Through here," he said, and scrambled up on
a desk, his claws scraping, and leapt out of it. Mhumhi followed
somewhat more gracefully, though his injured paw clipped the sill
and made him stumble on the landing.

When he regained his balance he saw that
Biscuit was digging in the wood chips underneath a
teeter-totter.

"Here," he said, as his paws made loose dirt
fly. "I've got something for you… for the children."

Mhumhi went over cautiously and recoiled when
he saw the domestic draw a long piece of tattered, dirty meat from
the ground.

"I won't give them meat from a dog!"

"Don't be stupid," grunted Biscuit, dropping
the stuff on the wood chips. "You can't afford to be picky right
now. Besides, it isn't dog meat. It's my share from the dispensary.
I hide it here to keep Lamya from suspecting what it is."