Wild Dog City (Darkeye Volume 1) (6 page)

It was so close now, so close, and its nose
should be able to pick up Mhumhi's scent now- it was coming past
the dumpster now- if it looked to the left it would see Mhumhi
pressed there, helpless- he had to open his eyes.

It was not a dog.

For a moment that was all he understood, that
it was not a dog, as it continued to make its sluggish progress,
looking neither right nor left. He had nothing
but
dogs to
compare it to, but it was not one. It was tall- very tall- much
taller than the maned wolf or any other creature he'd ever seen. It
only had two legs- no, that was wrong, it
stood
on two, the
others dangled straight down, looking broken at the shoulder. It
was covered up in- in wrapping, he thought hysterically, like the
meat from the dispensary. What showed through the wrapping was
hairless, glistening skin.

Mhumhi swallowed again, feeling the meat he'd
just eaten roil in his stomach. It had not noticed him, just kept
moving forward in its slow, dull way, lurching step by step. He
tilted his head up- up to see its face-

Its face- there was something horribly wrong
with it. It had no nose. It was as if the muzzle had been chopped
off, leaving a weal of raw flesh. It had no ears at all, just more
wrapping around its misshapen head. Its eyes were huge and bulging
and the white was showing all around them. It was a face of
madness.

It took another lurching step forward. Mhumhi
suddenly realized what it was: it was a hulker, like the police
pack chased, like his mother had told him about. Slow, dull, and
meaty, the painted dogs always said, when questioned. Gentle, his
mother had called it. Different-looking, but a dog like we are.

The hulker heaved itself forward, feet
thumping, and there came the scraping. It had something with its
front paw, dragging behind itself. Mhumhi couldn't help but crane
his neck from the shadow to try and see around the edge of the
dumpster.

Its paw was naked, split, skeletal, curled
around like talons.

It was holding the back feet of a dead
dog.

Drool dripped from Mhumhi's lips as he
struggled against the urge to gasp and pant- the dog was a coyote,
yes, he saw that now, maybe even the coyote he had seen just
earlier stealing from a corsac fox- he did not know, he could not
recognize it, as its face was smashed to a bloody pulp that wobbled
as it dragged along the ground.

Mhumhi couldn't stop himself then, he gave an
awful rasping gasp, and the hulker's raw mouth split open, showing
square flat teeth, and it turned its head and looked directly at
him.

Hulker

The hulker's eyes were on him, wide eyes with
mad white edges. It dropped the back legs of the dead coyote and
swung to face him where he was cringing, terror-struck, against the
brick wall. In its other paw, which he hadn't seen, it held a long
piece of wood.

In a quick motion it swung the wood at him.
Mhumhi heard it whistle, the speed and strength of it belying the
hulker's earlier slow movements. He leapt forward instinctively and
hit the creature squarely in the chest. It was horrid and warm and
he squealed with fear and thrashed in midair as it grabbed at him,
sending it over backwards.

Mhumhi did not look back, he ran, dashing
full-speed down the street, around the corner, and away, fear
propelling him until the buildings of Oldtown whizzed by in a
blur.

He only stopped when he ran straight into a
low-slung, trundling tanuki and tripped fantastically, flipping
over onto his back. The tanuki mewled furiously at him and waddled
off.

He rolled back onto his elbows, panting,
looking around. The few small dogs that had been out on the streets
were staring at him as he lay there. He could not get the hulker's
nightmarish visage out of his mind. And the dead coyote… He
retched.

The bright sunlight and the sight and smell
of dogs like himself gradually dispelled his fear, though, and he
eventually got up, still shaking a bit, panting as though he'd run
twice as far. A horrible thought was coming to him.

Bii was still in the alleyway with the
hulker.

He hoped that the old fox hadn't been spotted
from his hiding place behind the dumpster. If he had, Mhumhi didn't
know what the hulker would do. Did it have the strength to shift
it? Mhumhi had the sinking feeling that the answer was yes,
thinking of the strength that the hulker had put into the blow it
had aimed at him, at the way that coyote's skull had been
smashed.

Mhumhi felt ill. He had to go back, to at
least see if Bii was all right. At least now he felt certain that
he could outrun the hulker… unless it had been startled, or
distracted, and had chosen not to chase him…

Forcing himself to retrace his steps back to
the alleyway was the most difficult thing Mhumhi had ever done, but
he did it, dragging his feet and shaking, until he saw the brick
alley and glimpsed the blue bins.

The smell of the hulker- which he now
recognized, though it was strangely indistinct- was still fresh in
the air, but Mhumhi did not think it was in the area anymore, for
his swiveling ears weren't picking up any movement. He crept back
into the alley, hugging the wall.

No one was there, no lurking hulker or
bat-eared fox. There were only a few smears of blood on the
concrete to suggest that anything had ever happened.

"Bii," he called softly.

For a moment there was no response, and then
suddenly the fox's tiny head wiggled out from behind the dumpster,
nose first and huge ears popping out after.

"It's gone?" he gasped.

"It's gone," said Mhumhi, and Bii came the
rest of the way out, back arched and quivering.

"What was it? I heard you scream- I
thought-"

"It was a hulker," Mhumhi told him. "I've
never seen one before. Bii, it was carrying a dead- a dead
dog!"

"Ah," said Bii. Mhumhi suddenly caught a
whiff of urine- the fox had responded to fear in his own way behind
the dumpster. "Let's get out of this place, Mhumhi."

Mhumhi had no argument with that, and they
trotted quickly out of the alley, aiming for home. Bii kept close
to Mhumhi's legs, and Mhumhi kept turning to lick him between the
ears, to reassure himself.

"I've heard that," Bii said, once they were
in the same bright place where Mhumhi had originally stopped, "I've
heard that the hulkers'll kill you if they can. I hear they eat
dogs."

Mhumhi suddenly had an awful vision of the
creature hunched over a dog's corpse, digging those talons into the
belly and tearing out meat with its flat teeth, and shuddered.

"My mother always said that they were our
brothers," he said. "She said they were dogs."

Bii sneeze-laughed. "Of course she would say
that! She's a domestic."

"What do you mean, she's a domestic?" asked
Mhumhi, feeling his hackles rise. "What's wrong with that?"

"There's a reason they're not well-liked,"
Bii said. "They have some sort of relationship with the hulkers.
Protect them, bring food to them, that sort of thing. Nobody knows
why they do it."

"Ah!" said Mhumhi, suddenly recalling the
blue-eyed domestic. It had said it was carrying meat to its sister,
but Sacha had been so suspicious. Had she thought…?

He thought of that dog, cringing with its
meat, and felt a surge of disgust.

"My mother never went near any hulker," he
said. "I know that much."

"I didn't say she did," said Bii. "I don't
think all domestics associate with them- there's just not enough of
them left. The police drive them to Big Park whenever they find
them, to hunt them down."

"Big Park," Mhumhi repeated, and then shut
his jaws tight. Big Park was where his mother had been last
seen.

"I hear they can even speak," said Bii,
apparently not noticing how stiff Mhumhi had gotten. "Or at least,
they can mimic speaking, make it sound as though some dog is
calling for help, lure you out, and then…"

The fur on Mhumhi's back rose. "I'm glad
there's not many of them left."

"Yes," said Bii. "I think the police want to
eliminate them entirely."

They didn't say much else the rest of the way
back, and Mhumhi felt a great deal of relief when they finally saw
Sacha's little head poking around the door of their home.

"Come on, come in," she barked. "Kebero's
hungry!"

Mhumhi bounded up to her, twittering and
whining, frantically bathing her neck and chin.

"Oh, Sacha, let's not ever leave the house
again," he said, rubbing his head against hers so that she was
shoved along the floor, ignoring her raised lip.

"What's the matter with you?" Seeing that
Mhumhi was in no state to answer, she addressed Bii. "What
happened?"

"We met a hulker," said Bii, who had gone to
lie down on a piece of fabric torn off the sofa. His tongue was
hanging out and he looked weary. "It went after Mhumhi."

"Are you all right, Mhumhi?" exclaimed Sacha,
standing up on her hind legs to brace on Mhumhi's shoulder so she
could inspect him. "Are you hurt?"

"No," said Mhumhi, turning to try and keep
licking her. Sacha butted him away with her head.

"A hulker, you said. I thought they were all
gone from this area."

Mhumhi glanced at her small eyes and wondered
if she was thinking of the domestic, for she had sounded
pensive.

"It killed a coyote," he said. "It was
horrible
." Sacha turned to lick his neck again, and he
wagged his tail.

"Mhumhi came back to help me," Bii said.
"Brave of him. I thought I'd die behind that dumpster, waiting for
the thing to go away."

"You did?" said Sacha, pricking her ears, and
then she hopped and snapped at Mhumhi's chin. "Don't you dare do
something like that again! What if it had gotten you!"

"But what if it was attacking Bii?" he said,
and flinched when she snapped at him again.

"What were you going to do, you big dumb
puppy? Cry at it? You see a hulker, you run away! Understand?
There's nothing you can do for someone who gets caught."

"Yes, I understand," he whined, falling to
the floor and rolling over, tail wagging against his belly. Sacha
stood over him a moment, letting him lick her face, then
snorted.

"Stop fishing for attention and go feed
Kebero now."

Mhumhi gave a heavy sigh and rolled onto his
feet. He looked back at her, eyes wistful.

"Oh shut up, Mhumhi, you're not a puppy
anymore." She gave his a elbow good-natured shove with her head.
"Go on now!"

Mhumhi went upstairs with his tail wagging,
and when Kebero came up and jammed his nose in the corner of his
mouth, even regurgitated for him without complaining.

Kutta, who was lying on the bed, got up and
stretched. "What was all the fuss about downstairs?"

Mhumhi told her about the hulker while Kebero
ate, expanding on all the gory details. When he had finished, Kutta
furrowed her brow.

"It attacked you?"

"Yes," said Mhumhi, a little put out at her
dull response. He'd been expecting to be fussed over again.

"Are you sure it killed that coyote?" she
asked. "It sounded like it was just carrying it."

"Well, it was
dead
, Kutta," said
Mhumhi. "I don't know what else would have smashed it up like
that."

"Exactly, you don't know," said Kutta. "Maybe
it was just taking the body away somewhere."

"Why're you so eager to defend it?" Mhumhi
asked, feeling a bit irritated. "It was certainly aiming to smash
my head in!"

"Mh-Mh-Mhumhi!"

They turned, for that had been Kebero,
slinking towards them with his tail tucked. "Will the huoooooolker
come here?"

"Oh, no, Kebero," said Kutta, springing at
once to lick his ears. "No, no, it won't come."

"Wh-wh-what if it smashes my head? I’m
sc-scaaaaaowed…"

"Oh, it won't, Kebero," she said, shooting
Mhumhi a look over his ears, as if it were all his fault.

"You don't know that," Mhumhi said, feeling
cross. "I bet it could get through the door even if it was pushed
closed."

"Stop, Mhumhi! It's all right, Keb."

Kebero was whimpering and huddling against
her forelegs, and she was having to bathe his neck and shoulders to
soothe him.

"It's not going to come in, Mhumhi's lying,"
she told him. "Don't listen to him, he's just trying to scare
us."

"I am not, you didn't see it, Kutta-"

"Be quiet, Mhumhi," she said, glaring at him,
and he snapped his jaws shut.

Kutta managed to quiet Kebero down with much
cajoling, and settled him on the bed with the promise that she
would bring Bii up to play with him. She rounded on Mhumhi in the
bathroom again.

"Why'd you have to scare him like that? Bii
got him talking so well- he wasn’t stuttering at all this
morning-”

"Well, he should know about it anyway, that
thing was dangerous!"

Kutta gave him one of her rare growls. "I
know you're exaggerating, Mhumhi. Mother told us all about the
hulkers, they're not
really
dangerous-"

"Mother was a domestic!" Mhumhi exclaimed.
"Of course she'd say that!"

Kutta went stiff. "How
dare
you speak
that way about our mother."

Mhumhi knew he'd gone two far, and licked his
lips nervously. "I'm not saying she was, you know, working for one,
but Bii told me-"

"Why would you listen to anything Bii would
say about our mother? He didn't know her!"

"I know that, but he just said that-"

"Do you think our mother would lie to us,
Mhumhi?" Kutta’s tail was high and rigid. "Are you on Sacha's side
now?"

"I'm not on her
side
," said Mhumhi
sulkily, looking away.

"I hope not," Kutta said. "Honestly, I don't
know why you've got to act so immature all the time, coming in here
with a story like that- you were just trying to get Sacha to pay
attention to you, weren't you?"