Aside from this, Ish made no effort to find people, remembering how unsatisfactory had been the results of his previous attempts.
The look of the streets was changing a little. The drought of summer had not yet been broken, but the winds had blown dust and leaves and trash, and deposited them in little piles here and there. Over most of the city he saw no animals at all, neither dogs nor cats nor rats. In certain areas, however, particularly near the water-front, he saw a good many dogs, although only of a certain kind. They were small and active ones, terriers or terrier-like mongrels. By watching, he saw that they marked the establishment of some new cycle of life. They scavenged in the supplies which they found in the stores, perhaps having learned this from the rats. Where the rats pawed open a carton of crackers, the dogs came in and ate. But also the dogs apparently lived largely upon the rats. This accounted for their concentration in the areas where rats had been somewhat abundant even before the catastrophe. The dogs had also apparently driven away or killed off the cats, doubtless getting scratched in the process, but also achieving some desperately needed meals.
These dogs amused Ish. They seemed almost to swagger, cocky still, as terriers were supposed to be. Though dirty and thin, they exuded vigor and self-confidence, as if knowing that they had solved the problem of life. Temperamentally they must represent the individuals who had always lived more, or less on their own, taking care of themselves as they wished and paying scant attention to man. They showed no interest in Ish, keeping distance, not trying either to make friends or to escape from him. After Princess had tangled in a rough-and-tumble fight with one of the bitches, he took the precaution of keeping her on a leash or in the car whenever he drove through such districts.
In parks and on the edges of the city, wherever there was a good growth of bushes, he occasionally saw a cat. They kept mostly to the branches, apparently fearing the dogs and at the same time ready to prey upon birds.
During his walks in the hills he had never seen any dogs until one day he was surprised to hear a medley of yaps and deeper bays. Gaining a point from which he could look out, he saw a half dozen cattle, on what had once been the golf course, closely pursued and being harried by some eight or ten dogs. Focusing the field-glasses, he saw that the dogs were of different varieties, but none of them of the short-legged ratter type. There was a magnificent Dane, a collie, a spotted Dalmatian and others which had more the mongrel look but were all long of leg and moderately powerful. They were obviously a hunting pack, spontaneously formed and already experienced at their business. They were trying to cut out one of the calves. But the cattle fought back, vigorously, horns toward the pack, or kicking out from behind. They gradually made their way out of the open stretches of grass. When they reached the shelter of some bushes at the edge of the golf course, they seemed to gain the advantage, and the dogs drew off.
Since the show was over, Ish called Princess, and they started to walk back a mile toward where he had left the car. In a few minutes he heard the bay of the pack again. It came closer, and suddenly he knew that they were on his own trail.
Panic struck at him. He started to run. But after a few yards he realized that running would be of no use and only an invitation. He stilled his panic, gathered up a few stones, and selected a fallen branch to serve for a club. He continued to walk toward the car. The baying came closer; then suddenly it stopped, and he knew that the dogs must have sighted him. He hoped that the long-ingrained respect for mankind had survived, but also he suddenly began to wonder what had happened to the old man and the other people whom he had once seen in this region. Now one of the dogs, an ugly black mongrel, came out on the road right in front of him. Fifty yards off, it stopped, sat down, and looked at him. As he drew closer, he raised his arm, and made a gesture of throwing a stone. By age-old reaction the dog jumped up. It loped to the side of the road, and disappeared into the bushes. Ish could hear movement elsewhere in the brush, as if the dogs were circling about. Princess was behaving in her usual irritating and uncertain fashion. Now she cringed, tail between legs, brushing against him. Again she made short provocative dashes with loud barks, this direction and that, as if challenging one and all to combat with her and her man.
Now he could see the car far ahead; he walked steadily, husbanding his stones, looking backward only now and then, depending upon Princess to give warning, if a sudden attack should come from behind. He caught a glimpse of the Dane standing in a gap between bushes, a magnificent dog, heavy as a man. With a loud yap Princess made a suicidal dash at the great. He sprang toward her, and at the same time the collie dashed out of the bushes on the left. But Princess doubled with the agility of a rabbit, and the two larger dogs collided in their rush, and caromed off each other, snarling. Princess came back again to brush against his legs, her tail drooping. Now the Dalmatian crossed into the road ahead and stood there, red tongue lolling out. Ish continued his steady pace. The Dalmatian was the least fiercesome looking of the dogs, and Ish felt that he might brave that one. A handsome collar still circled the spotted neck, a metal dogtag dangling from it. Uneasily, Ish saw that it was thin, with ribs showing, and yet did not look in too bad condition. Evidently on rabbits or calves or on whatever the pack might run down or find as carrion, the dogs were managing to get along. He hoped that they had not yet been driven into cannibalism,—and that their interest in Princess might be somewhat playful—not to mention their interest in a stray man. At twenty feet distance, without slacking his steady pace, Ish raised his arm, threatening. The Dalmatian suddenly dropped tail between legs, and slunk off. The car was close now, and Ish relaxed.
He got to the car, opened the door for Princess to jump in, and stilling a last-moment panicky impulse to scramble, he himself stepped in behind her with dignity. As the door clicked shut, he had an immediate feeling of safety. He let his hand close comfortably around the solid handle of the hammer which lay at his feet. He felt sick with the reaction.
Looking out from the car, he saw only the handsome Dalmatian, sitting at the side of the road. Now being safe, Ish felt his attitude quickly changing. Actually the dogs had done him no harm, and indeed had not really even threatened him. During a few minutes he had thought of them as wild creatures thirsting for his blood. Now, they seemed a little pitiful, as if they might merely have been seeking the companionship of a man because of what they remembered long ago—of food laid out in dishes, of crackling logs in the fireplace, of a patting hand and a soothing voice. As he drove away, he wished them no bad luck, but rather hoped that they would manage occasionally to snap up a rabbit or pull down a calf.
The next morning the whole matter had even a more comic aspect when he became aware of Princess’s changed condition. Not wanting any puppies, he shut her in the basement.
Yet he could not be sure, and he decided if there was one way rather than another by which he did not care to die, it was to be torn to pieces by the teeth of dogs. After that he made it a rule always to walk in the hills with a pistol strapped at his belt, or else with his rifle or shot-gun….
Two days later the problem of dogs had come to seem a petty one compared with the problem of ants. They had already troubled him, but now they seemed to arrive from all directions at once and to cover everything. Even in the old days, he could remember that constant battle—his mother’s cry of dismay at finding a line of them in the kitchen, his father’s irritation, and the constant debate about whether they should summon the ant-man or try to handle the situation themselves. But now the ants were a hundred times worse than ever before. No longer did ardent householders combat them in the houses, and even wage offensive war against them in their own strongholds. Now after a few months their powers had brought their numbers to climactic proportions. Probably, also, they had found great supplies of food somewhere.
They streamed everywhere. Ish was sorry not to be a good enough entomologist to ascertain what really was happening and to work out the history of this overpowering increase. But in spite of some investigations, he never even discovered for certain whether the ants were spreading outward from some great center of development or whether they were breeding equally all over the city.
Their scouts ranged everywhere. Suddenly he had to become a furiously meticulous housekeeper, for the slightest scrap of food or even a dead fly brought an immediate stream of ants an inch wide, overwhelming the insignificant prey which had attracted them. He found them wandering upon Princess’s coat like fleas, although apparently they did not bite. He found them in his own clothes. Once in the early morning he awoke with a horrible dream because a stream of ants was pouring across his own cheek, bent to some goal which he never discovered.
Actually the house was only alien ground into which they made raids. Their real strength lay outside. Their hills seemed now to be everywhere. He could not overturn a clod without having ants swarm out by thousands from burrows that pierced the earth. They must be annihilating all the other insects, he thought, destroying their means
