My Brown Dog

Though I explored every accessible corner of the mall when I returned to the ground floor, I never saw her again. I don't know where she could've gone. Maybe her baser, animal instinct found a route out that I still haven't discovered, or maybe she crawled into a corner to die—giving up all hope. Maybe her corpse is the one that blocks the elevator.

Or perhaps she still stalks these grounds unseen and undetected, watching me...waiting...waiting for whatever it is something like her waits for.

But after seeing the dead body of my mother, watching as my sister went insane and abandoned me, there was little else for a ten-year-old to do but give up and die.

I didn't know how to do that, so I cried.

I ran and I cried, ran and ran until I found that I was down four levels underground, deep in the dark bowels of the mall where nothing else walked or lived or breathed, where I could be alone in my misery. And there I cried like no other child ever did before. I cried for my mother, the loss of my mother and my sister, but deep down I think I cried for more. Perhaps even then I cried for the loss of my sanity and the knowledge that on the surface there was nothing but death. Maybe I was the only survivor in the whole city or the whole country...

Maybe, just maybe, I was the last of the whole human race.

The magnitude of this possibility caught my breath for a moment, but it was too large, too painful and overwhelming. It all came tumbling back down on me and I continued to weep.

I must've got over it slowly, somehow, at least for long enough to scrounge for food and the other daily necessities of life.

Thank God our mayor knew what he was doing—even if it meant only that a single fourth grade student would be left with enough canned food and preserved groceries to last him nine gazillion years.

When at last I returned to the ground floor in my right mind, realizing and knowing what I was doing, there seemed no reason for me to have lived. There was nothing left for me here but fear.

I got the elevator working so I wouldn't have to walk down that spiral staircase where I felt something was always waiting for me round the next corner. But even then, elevators could be worse.

What if, I oft imagined, I was to see the door open and find someone, something, staring back out at me, grinning? Maybe the thing my sister turned into. Maybe worse.

Or, if in the middle of the night, the elevator were to run...moving up and down...up and down...all by itself. A short circuit was impossible. The mechanics of the lift simply did not allow that.

And so, having all these logged at the back of my mind, I charted out the limits and borders of my territory that belonged exclusively to Yours Truly. I thought I was back to my normal self, but under the circumstances, how normal could that have been?

I guess I was much worse than I thought, because it was weeks before I noticed that my mother's body—along with the other dozen that had been there that night of the bombing—were gone. Just...gone. They weren't where I remembered them to be.

Maybe the dogs took them away.

3

It was around the same time of my acceptance to reality that I began to hear the dogs.

Let me tell you how The Coming of the Dogs saved my life.

It was soon after I discovered the missing corpses of my mother that I heavily contemplated...well, I wasn't sure how to do it, being only about ten or eleven then...but I wanted to end it all.

There wasn't any reason to live if I was the only human left on the planet—in the city, at least—and doomed to be trapped forever in a nuclear-safe building sealed tighter than an aquarium. Whoever—fate, God, the ghost of JFK—planned this, didn't plan it. They planned everything else and forgot about a little boy imprisoned in a shopping mall.

I tried starving myself, but that took too long. Too discouraging, and instinct took over. I devised a fool-proof (or, should I say, coward-proof) method to choke myself to death—of all things, I felt triumphant. The noose was around my neck on the morning I heard the dogs.

I first thought it was something like those people who come back to life tell about angels or bells and stuff like that. Didn't know why, but I thought, well, maybe I got dogs. Fitting.

I killed that thought. Stepped on its head and crushed it to smithereens.

The sound was from something outside. Whatever nuclear mutant monster it could be, it was real—not a strange phenomenon in my head or the queer workings of water or air in pipes and overhead air ducts. There was nothing to run the water or churn the air, anyway.

The sheer curiosity gave me the will to live.

The sound didn't come from inside the building—not yet, anyway. It was outside. I was sure of it. Something outside. Not dogs. No, dogs wouldn't have been the right name for them, but after those weeks or months or maybe it was already years of not having spoken to another human being or read or written a single word or alphabet, I'd forgotten what to call them. Dog was the only word I could remember.

Dog.

A creature mostly associated with barking, and these creatures outside—whatever they were—most definitely made a lot of noise. Man's best friend? Well, no, that's where they didn't fit. I didn't want to be friends with something that was continuously outside trying to get in, scratching, pounding, breaking against the windows and doors.

If I had known what was going to come through those doors on that fourth night of Sleeping On Ground Level, I would have proceeded with the rope idea.

Even when I couldn't hear them, I began to fear where I walked, always turning my head sharply at the slightest sound until I thought I should just wait one day for them and let them catch me.

So that's what I did.

I began to spend my nights (to say "sleep" would be dishonest) upstairs, in the giant hall of the checkout area. It was spooky. Vastly lonely. The fear up here was different from the one I'd felt those years sleeping forty feet under the earth. Down there, I could huddle in a car, and though the darkness and lumpy shapes of dead automobiles stretched out for what seemed like parsecs in every direction, the shell of my car was the boundaries. My sanctuary. Like the safety a blanket provides on those cold, quiet nights when something stalks under your bed or in the closet. For me, the thing was everywhere. Under every car and behind every pillar and inside every unidentifiable shape or shadow. But in my car, I was safe.

On the ground level, all that changed.

The shadows and figures and darkness were the same—the windows sealed off most of the light—but there was no safety boundary where I could retreat when the fear threatened to overwhelm me.

I spent the first three nights awake and sweating, standing on top of a tall table that I'd dragged to the center of the hall. I remained there the whole night and stood sentry, turning at every noise or scuttle, searching for that thing I felt was sneaking to my table through the corridors of rubble and vacant furniture, reaching up the table to grab my ankle.

As long as saw it before it touched me, I would be safe.

For those first three nights, I forgot all about the dogs.

And then on the fourth night, they found their way in.

4

Ten years.

Ten long, dark years spent in the solitary confinement of the world's largest cell. Ten years wandering aimlessly hour after hour, day after day, until time stretched so thinly that it snapped and dropped me into the empty space of eternity, falling forever down to all ends, until the very reaches of sanity, alone, waiting, but always falling. And always dark.

And now these creatures sought to disturb my peace.

There were two that first night. They entered with caution, but not quite stealth, sniffing the air, senses pricked. They stayed close to each other and didn't enter very far. They were on the third floor looking over the balcony, surveying the clutter and rubble below, but though I was standing on a table in the center of the room, they couldn't see me.

Despite the dark, I could see them. They were always next to each other, very close, touching and rubbing as if they communicated through sensory contact. A few sounds were exchanged—horribly familiar sounding noises, but nothing I could make out—but for the better part, the two creatures went about in silence.

They reminded me of an old movie I'd seen when was younger. Jurassic Park. In a scene towards the end, a pair of intelligent two-legged dinosaurs chased two children into a kitchen. The reptiles sniffed, surveyed, clicked and chattered, but always remained close, as if breaking contact might result in their quick and violent death. That movie frightened me very much when I saw it.

So did these things.

But I stood still and watched them.

After a few minutes, they left.

At first, something argued that I could cohabit this building with them if all they wanted was to explore and sniff and hang around from time to time. But that's not all they wanted.

They came in at all hours of the day or night, barging in and making horrid, horrid racket! Noise I'd never heard such quantity or volume in all the ten years that I'd been living in this peaceful solitude! There were sometimes two, sometimes half a dozen, but never one, and never did they come in quietly and respectfully, minding the possible presence of spirits of those that'd perished here, like my mother, or even something that might be alive in here!

What, did they think that nothing could possibly overcome them? That because they were creatures of the night and the dark—creatures of this new, lavalite world—that they were invincible? I may have been living alone with no reason to defend myself, but my lifelong terror of solitude or the dark sharpened a honed sense of defense in me. If they wanted opposition, if they demanded attention, if their arrogance required fixing, I would give it to them. Like hell I would! Fix them good and proper.

Dogs!

Now I recall another reason why I named them so: Because dogs are oft used as the scapegoat to symbolize dirty, humble creatures—creatures with neither self-respect nor hygiene nor civility. Not the lowest on the food chain, or even the intelligence chain, but the crudest of all those so-called "higher" animals. Higher indeed! Man's Best Friend indeed! Their very presence desecrated the aura of this crypt that served both my mother and sister.

I'd show them!

After I discovered how they got in (through a one-way door behind the rubble on the third floor—I couldn't have got out that way, so no regrets), I barred up the entrance with heavy furniture and whatever means I could find. It should've deterred them. It should've given them a sign that something else was already here—something that didn't want them as company.

But did they take the hint?

On their next trespassing expedition, they came in greater numbers, combing the entire building below the third level as if looking for something. Didn't they understand that something blocked up the door on purpose? I thought so. And now they were looking for that something.

I tailed them from afar. They left after a couple hours, disappointed, in the dark. One of them felt a little adventurous and trailed behind the others.

I cornered it and smashed its skull with a block of conkreet.

The others never missed—so it seemed, for they never returned—but I soon discovered I had a problem on my hands. The problem of a dead body in my domain, something to pollute and decay and stink up my marvelous environment. This angered me. A lot.

I looked at it—dead, sprawled on the cold marble floor in a slowly expanding circle of warm red blood, and sudden thrill came over me. Maybe the thrill of the hunt and the kill, but it was something more than that underneath. It was instinct.

Meat.

Fresh meat.

After a decade of eating salted corn beef and canned sardines, this was a Heaven-sent gift, straight from the gods as far as I was concerned.

Tools weren't a problem. Neither was fire.

That night, I dragged the body to my underground limo and feasted. I feasted like a starving glutton savage coming upon food after weeks of drifting in the open sea. The fire was giant, alive, and I cooked the creature whole. Its flesh was sweet. A bit tough, but it was delicious and a gratifying reminder of what my life had been before this nightmare. I would've eaten it even if it had the texture of leather.

When I was satisfied, I ate more, and then, hunched over the burnt carcass like a caveman over his hunt, I wept. Memories flooded back as if dam somewhere in my mind had collapsed. Memories of what I'd been, what my life had been, of my mother, and my sister, and the whole world before this state—this state where the Land Out There must now be overrun with these creatures.

When my reminiscing was over, I buried the remainder in the core shaft of the elevator. It was deep in there. It still had another hundred feet before my refuse filled it and I would have to find another. God knows why they left so much space beneath.

But that night heralded the start of a new lifestyle for me.

I gave up on ever leaving this place. This was home now to me. Going out into the world would be dangerous—and what would the point be? At least this way, I would go on with the sweet memory of the way the world had been. Sunrises. Noisy streets with bustling traffic. Parks and ponds and gardens. Rows of neat, matching suburban homes like the one that used to be mine. Starbucks! Oh, God, just that word brought back such memories. Fated, faded memories, like old yellowing photographs. But that was how I wanted to remember my world. Even with all its imperfections and badness, it was still my world. Not this. I didn't want to go outside and have those images written over with the reality of a nightmare.

Life went on. I hunted the intruders on occasion, ate what I could, dumped the rest. Too bad I didn't have a freezer. The creatures learned; after awhile, they stayed away.

People say that being alone too long can drive you crazy, and I suppose it's true. Being down here drove me crazy—I almost leapt off a balcony with a rope round my neck, remember?—but then the creatures came along. No doubt if you met me now in person, you'd find me a little asentrik, but I'm not crazy. Life was good in a way. Tolerable. And the dogs kept it interesting.

And then the little brown dog came. My brown dog.

And that spelt the end.

5

Now I sit in the ground floor of my fourth floor basement, writing this by my limo's headlights.

The creature, my brown dog, is chained up to an old red fire hydrant, but it's dead already. I killed it first thing. No talking or teasing like with most of the others. This one terrified me, because it wasn't full grown like the others.

I'm hurrying to get this done.

I feel something overpowering me, taking over my mind. Not lunacy or the final straw being snapped before my mind removes itself altogether from reality, but something worse, something in the opposite direction—an awareness.

I feel...how do I put this...I can't find the right words. It feels that all along since The Coming of the Dogs, it's all been wrong. The hunting and the killing and the eating. Most of all, the eating.

Wrong.

There's something wrong with the dogs, something that's been that way since the first time I saw or heard them, something that I should've known at once but failed to realize. What exactly it is I haven't figured it out yet, but I don't think I want to. The thought of that truth scares me. It scares me horribly. I can't say what it is I missed...but the dawn of that revelation is creeping up on me. I don't think I can stop it. It's coming closer, and so are they.

They ignored it when some of their pack when missing or turned up dead. Even if they found cooked and eaten corpses, they left it alone and fled in fear. I would have done the same...

There, again, that something nagging in the corner of my mind. The same...do the same...

These wayward suggestions haven't quietened and crawled deeper into the shadows of my thought, but become bolder, standing in brighter light. I don't want to see them.

I can't.

I can't hold out much longer before I remember...or realize...and that'll be the end. I can feel my mind straining—like a beam under great pressure—and this final realization will snap it. But not only is this terrible truth coming. The dogs are coming, too. This time, with purpose. Vengeance.

They didn't care too much when I killed the grown members, but now, I've caught a...whatever you call it. Not a puppy, because they aren't really dogs, but their young. They're coming to rescue it, and pay out in kind to whatever killed it when they realize it's dead.

I heard them out there this morning—hundreds of them—gathering and making these horrible, excited noises. They sound like wolves in a feeding frenzy. And I don't know how, but I understood that they mean to destroy this building. Destroy it. My home. Gone to dust. And they will kill me, too.

That's why I must hurry.

I know I could hide out and elude them for awhile. I could live. But I don't want to live in a world where dogs have the power to destroy structures created by human hands. I don't want to live in a world where a human is hunted down by dogs instead of the other way around. My time has come. Our time. I guess I really was the last human on Earth, and for some reason, this doesn't amaze me.

But I will go down fighting.

I've planted traps at the entrance and along all possible routes down here. If, at last, they reach me, if their intelligence has evolved so highly that they can evade the traps and corner me, I will flee to my elevator. I pray the body blocking the way would've decayed enough by now so I can break through.

After that?

I don't know.

Something tells me I won't make it out of here alive, and I don't really want to. If this is to be my end, let that end be fantastic! Let them come, attack me, bite me, tear me to pieces, but I want to see the sky before I die! My death is inevitable now, so let it be marvelous!

I can hear them on the third floor. They're inside. I have to end this.

To whoever finds this: My name is...

My name MY name is tiwwwwwivyufjghsoooor...

Never mind.

The horror is real, but I can't remember my name. Doesn't matter. I am the last living human being of Miter Metro 73553, current population: 1.

If you're reading this, then my worst fears were false, and I am not the last living person on this planet.

I had a mother and a sister. I can't remember if I loved them, but I must've. The bombs killed my mother. Something else took Anne.

I am twenty-two years old, and I've been living in the fourth level basement of FallPark Mall for the past twelve years.

It's hot down here in the basement, the light from the car is dying, and the creatures are coming. They're coming to find me and kill me, but most of all to rescue their young. I don't regret killing it.

I should say him, though. I know it's a...oh, God, no, not a boy, please...him because it...uggh! There! Again! I don't think I can hold out any longer! That pain in my head. That sense of knowing growing inside my brain...it will burst soon and spill out that fearsome knowledge. But I know it's a him because...ugh, God, my head...

I know because he told me.

He told me, in the same way he told me not to hurt him and that he wanted to go home to his mommy and daddy, told me he wasn't a dog, but a boy. A boy! Can you believe that? The creatures speak our language, but I didn't believe him. Of course not! How could I?

Though I can understand him...it, for conscience sake I must call him it...it's the same tone as The Intruders. The Dogs. Those who came in with their strange skins and walking on two legs and all their trappings, calling out, searching, not calling my name but calling in the human language for anyone who might be foolish enough and fall for their trick. They came in, shining their bright lights—creatures with searchlights—calling out in our language, walking on two legs...oh, God, I don't think I can stand it anymore, that thing coming to remind me, make me realize...the world is overrun by them, I've been eating them, and now I killed their child—no! not child, their boy—no no no their young, the it! I killed the brown boy my brown dog brown like me and mine because I caught him and chained him here but he's not a dog not a dog he's not a dog, they never were oh my god oh my god that can't be true that can't be right! How did I mistake them in the beginning then hunt them and kill them and ohh...I can feel something pushing my guts up into my throat...I can hear them coming this way now...I ate them. For two years I've been eating them can't can't could've have happened...the last confirmation I need is a look in the mirror at my own reflection. I haven't done that in years, but I know that if I do, it will be the same face as the ones I've been killing.