Day 9
#11 of Days
The light of dawn woke me, I glanced around spotted Karen still asleep and Harry awake, Star resting beside the pilot. Without noise I opened a pack and started organising some food for breakfast. Clearing the strips of rabbit meat from the coals of the small cooking fire, I wrapped them up and tucked them into a few of the food tins. I got some bread out, and put a tin of beans in sauce on to the heat.
A scant few minutes had passed before Karen came to wakefulness, nose twitching. "That smells good, what's for breakfast?" She asked.
"Hot beans on bread." I answered.
"Food of champions." Harry commented, wandering over, Starlight at his side.
While we were eating the lynx took care of feeding her young and fussed after them until we were almost ready to move.
"Ok you two, come here." I said, reaching for the kittens, handing one to Karen and taking one myself, putting it in the little sling at my front, Karen followed suit and then heaved her pack on.
"How far away is the airport?" Karen asked Harry.
"We should reach it about midday by my estimation." He replied.
We made our start, by mid morning we had reached the outer areas of Beijing, I had been dreading how the city would smell, but to my surprise it wasn't bad at all. "I was expecting it to be worse than this, where are all the dead?"
"Not sure, I would have thought it would be like Sydney but much worse..." Harry confirmed, confused as well.
"Well, lets keep going and get the hell out of here, it gives me the creeps." Karen said.
We made good time, we had gotten through the CBD and were entering the northern outskirts, where Harry had said the airport was. There were also a lot of apartment buildings around.
"It's the smell, not carrion, more like animal, lots of-" I was talking under my breath when Karen supplied the answer.
"Dogs." She said, "Lots of dogs."
"I guess, yeah, Harry, what do you think?" I asked, lifting my head to face the wolf mutant.
"I think we should run." It was then my senses alerted me to the tension and the fact there was hundreds of dogs at the end of the street, and they looked, hungry.
"Yeah, yeah that might be a good plan at that." I said, looking around.
It turned out Star supplied the answer, racing to an alley and leaping high into the air, clamping her teeth down on the fire escape of one of the tenements. "There! GO!" I yelled, pointing in her direction.
The dogs saw us start running, and their natural urges kicked in, baying and barking they raced for us.
I realised we wouldn't make it to the fire escape in time, the dogs would be on us.
I ran to keep up with Karen, and passed her my kitten, "Run and keep running babe." I told her.
"What? What do you?" She almost stopped but Harry grabbed her arm and dragged her, turning to me and nodding.
I drew my knife and pistol, thumbing off the safety as Karen had shown me.
The dogs drew up short, the alley was reasonably narrow, and as one who tried to dart past me found I could easily reach them with my knife.
"You bastards, forget them!" I yelled to the pack. I could hear the rattling of the fire escape now as my companions were climbing onto it, and that slight waver of my attention was what the pack were waiting for.
Pain lanced up the arm I was holding the pistol with, a mutt had dug its teeth in hard, I swung my knife around inexpertly, but at that range missing was impossible, the animal fell back whining. Some shots rang out from above me, Harry and Karen obviously trying to help even the odds, but all that happened was the smell of their pack-mates blood excited them further and a group rushed me all at once.
I fell down still lashing out with my knife, and started bringing my own jaws to the fight. A sharp stabbing pain in my left leg, the ripping of my hamstring, told me that this would not be a fight I would walk away from, but still I fought on.
Only when I felt the fangs of a large dog dig into my throat did I finally glance up at Karen on the balcony, I smiled.
Some things were worth dying to protect.
-
I woke with a start. Someone had hold of my shoulder.
"What's wrong?" Karen was looking down into my eyes concerned.
"Fuck, it seemed so real. I... uh, hey Karen, can I put a scene to you and see if you think it would be plausible." I asked her, still not sure of what had happened.
"Yeah, fire away Dave."
"Ok, so if you had a city, it has various pets in it, dogs, cats, rats, whatever. Also it has a stray dog population, right?" I said
"Right"
"Well, what would happen if every human in that city was turned into a pile of meat, what is the top predator in the city if there's no man?" I postulated.
"Fuck." Was her reply, "Hey Harry, we are going to need to change plans, the city might not be safe."
"We have guns doctor, what else do we need?" The pilot queried.
"Enough ammo to kill every stray and tame dog in the city. For a start." I replied.
"Oh fuck." Was the pilots enjoinder, "You're probably right there."
It took us the rest of the day to circle around the city to get to the airport to the north-west of the CBD, so we took shelter in a nearby building.
"Ok, in the morning we will make a start on the airport itself. I got first watch tonight." Karen told us.
"Aye aye ma'am." Harry replied, and turned into his bed-roll.
I wasn't far behind.
I was next wakened by Karen, she whispered, "Wakey wakey, hands of snakey." and pecked me on the cheek.
"Mmm, that's the only way you are allowed to wake me in the middle of the night from now on ok?" I replied equally quiet. I watched her tuck in. "Well Star, just you and me for a few hours."
"Mrow" was her only reply before she fell asleep at my feet as well.
When it came time for Harry's watch, I shrugged at the cat, "Let the poor bastard sleep. He'll need it.".
Ok, yes, if you thought that first bit read extremely realistic, I wrote it as such, David screamed at me for fourteen hours after he died that it was not fair and he had so much he wanted to do with Karen still. So a hefty plot re-write and a full 'day' re-written as well and he gets a reprieve. I am such a softie :/