now trying to chase a hog down, kill it, and dress it. No, they’d cut off what they could, others would join in like vultures, and half of it would then just rot in the sun. If the hogs escaped, they would be into the woods now, wild boar in short order and damn dangerous.
Charlie finally stirred.
“Anything else?”
Silence.
“Minor point, but it’s starting to get dangerous. Dogs.” John looked over at him.
“A lot of dogs are starting to run loose now. They’re starving and they’re going wild. We had an incident up on Fifth Street last night; two children got cornered by a pack of dogs. Fortunately, the father had a shotgun and dropped several of them; the rest took off.”
After the grimness of the previous conversation John knew he shouldn’t be reacting so hard, but he suddenly felt a tightness in his throat. The two fools Zach and Ginger were indeed getting hungry, begging ferociously at every meal, and yet still the family would share a few scraps. Most of the squirrels John had dropped over the last week had been tossed to the dogs raw.
“I think we have to order the shooting of all dogs in the town,” Charlie said.
“No, damn it, no,” Tom snapped. “I’ll burn in hell before I’d go home and in front of my kids take Rags outside and blow his brains out. No way. If they’re running loose and proving to be a danger, sure, but not that.”
“What did the father do with the bodies of the dogs he shot?” Kellor asked quietly.
“Jesus, I never thought of that,” Charlie replied.
“How many dogs in this town?” Kellor asked. “At least a couple of thousand. That’s enough meat for full rations for three or four days at least, half rations for a week and a half.”
“You can go straight to hell, Doc!” Tom shouted, and John was surprised to see tears in Tom’s eyes. For the first time since this crisis had started, from the initial panic, the executions, the fight at the gap, it was now Tom who was breaking into tears.
“We got Rags the week my youngest was born. He’s been with us ten years, as much a part of the family as any person. He’d die to defend us, and frankly, I’d do the same for him. I’m not giving him up and that’s final.”
“Tom, what I was talking about earlier,” Kellor said, “that’s only the first starve-off. I didn’t even have the heart to talk about the second starve-off. Those that survive into the fall, chances are by the end of the winter most will be dead anyhow. Do you think any dogs will still be alive by then? And if so, they’ll be feral, reverting back to packs of wolves, killing people to survive.”
“Help will be here long before then!” Tom shouted. “It’s starting already; you heard what John said.
“Charlie, I don’t care what the hell you order, I will not do it to Rags or any other dog that the owners are still taking care of.”
Tom was red faced, in John’s eyes almost like a boy in a sentimental movie about a dog or other beloved pet, the obligatory scene when the kid is about to lose the dog, but we all know that at the end of the film, except in
He was in tears now thinking of Zach and Ginger. How would Jennifer react? Ginger was her buddy, the two inseparable. It was terrifying enough trying to avoid the fate looming for Jennifer, but to do that to her, to kill Ginger? No, John would refuse as well. And he knew, as well, that in his heart, even without Jennifer, he would reach the same conclusion.
“I’m siding with Tom,” John said.
“John, we have to leave sentiment behind,” Kellor said.
“It’s more than that,” John snapped back. “It’s yet another step backwards in who we are.”
“John, ten minutes ago you agreed to letting some people starve faster than others. What in hell do you mean about stepping backwards?”
“I know this is illogical. It’s just that we’re Americans. We and the Brits especially are alike in this. We see something more in our pets than just brute beasts. For old people alone, they’re a final source of comfort and love. For children, the beloved buddy that understands even when adults don’t…”
He was ashamed, he was starting to cry.
“I’d kill every dog in the town if I could save one life by it,” Kellor snapped back.
“That will take something out of us forever, maybe a line I don’t want to cross, would rather not live in… No.”
“The line is there,” Kellor replied. “It is there no matter what.” Charlie stirred.
“How about this then? Loose animals will be shot and given to the communal food supply. Owners must keep pets inside or leashed. If an owner decides to dispatch a pet on their own, they can keep it for their own food supply. Is that agreeable?”
Tom jumped on it and nodded.
“Fine then.”
“And every day they’ll lose weight, that could be turned into food,” Kellor snapped, “and eat food that people will give to them, even as they’re starving.”
“That’s their choice,” Tom replied.
He seemed ashamed of his emotional display, wiped his face, and stood up.
“Anything else, Charlie?” Charlie shook his head sadly.
“John, that broadcast we should monitor from now on. We’ll pull an old car radio, get some batteries, and rig out an antenna.”
“Good idea.”
“Maybe they’ll be coming soon,” Charlie said hopefully. “Sure, Charlie. Maybe they will.”
John left the meeting and started for home. The radio was now set on the dial to the Voice of America channel, but it was only static, maybe a whisper of a voice for a second or two, then static again.
He thought of stopping in to see Hamid, perhaps try to trade something for a few cigarettes to round out his day, even though it was still only mid-morning. The meeting had worn him to the edge.
He opened the glove compartment; extra ammo for the Glock strapped to his side was in there, along with what he called his reserve, a cigarette. He lit it up, inhaling deeply as he pulled onto State Street and drove past the elementary school. The once beautiful front lawn was now ragged, beat down, torn out in places. Some kids were down in the playground, playing baseball. They already looked skinnier to him, reminding him of photos of German kids playing in the rubble after World War II.
The cook fire was going. Today it was horse; one of the older beasts, close to death, had been shot. A crowd was gathered round it, butchering it, legs sticking up, yet another memory of a World War II film, of German civilians in rubble-strewn Berlin, hacking at a dead animal. One of Tom’s men standing by, shotgun cradled casually under his arm, was watching the proceedings. Everything, every ounce of fat, bone, innards, everything would go into the kettle. Some greens would be mixed in, and there were at least fifty or more people standing around listlessly, watching every move hungrily.
John passed the school, continued on, the interstate to his left. Makala’s Beemer still resting where it had rolled to a stop thirty-five days ago. He was tempted to drive the extra mile up to the isolation hospital, stand outside, and call for her. If he stepped in, he was stuck there for at least three days. He missed her. He slowed, drove past the turnoff to his house, and continued on, but then on reaching the turn to the conference center he figured he’d better not. So he continued on, driving several hundred more yards to a bridge that spanned over the interstate just behind the gap. He got out of the car, nursing his cigarette for one more puff before he got down to the filter.
The sound of the car running caused some of his old students, standing guard on the bridge, to turn. At the sight of him they waved.
His old students, my kids, he always called them. Hell, Mary and I were the same age when we met and no one could have defined us as kids to ourselves and she most definitely was not a kid at twenty… He remembered so many insane nights with her when neither got a wink of sleep till dawn and then they went to classes. And yet now, the years stretching away, those standing guard were indeed kids in his eyes.
They were uniformed. Blue jogging trousers of the college, blue long-sleeve shirts, college baseball caps… and guns. Several were in the baggy white hazmat suits. One of the girls, hunting rifle poised, was talking across the double barrier of stalled cars to a band of refugees on the other side. She had sat in his 101 class only the
