break with the clash of glass shattering.
Then I turned back to the door, 'I DIDN'T ASK FOR THE GODDAMNED METEORS TO KILL EVERYBODY I KNOW, YOU SORRY SON OF A BITCH! YOU CAME TO ME, REMEMBER. I HELPED YOU! I'M A GOOD AMERICAN! ITS NOT FAIR . . .' Tears were flowing down my cheeks; I turned back toward the hall and rushed out. 'It's not fair,' I cried all the way home. It wasn't fair, goddamnit.
They stole my SuperAgents. There, I thought about it, you bastards gonna come arrest me? Come on then! 'SuperAgents, SuperAgents, SuperAgents, SuperAgents, quantum connected computer, quantum connected computer, SuperAgents . . . Fuck you!' I screamed at the windshield and repeated the process several times over all the way home. 'I'll say SuperAgents if I want to, damnit!'
I got to my apartment and there were cop cars, several black sedans, and an Animal Control vehicle. 'Oh my God, Lazarus!' I ran up stairs and there were two cops standing at my door to block my way and I could see men in my apartment tearing it to pieces. There was also blood on the floor.
'Hold it, son. What is your business here?' one of the cops asked.
'I'm not your son! And I live here. Lazarus, here boy.' I whistled for him and tried to push through the door. The cop that called me his son clubbed me in the head with his nightstick. I zoned out for a second and fell to my knees, but I could still hear.
'Jesus, Tony, what'd you hit him for?' the other cop asked.
'Hey, you heard the Feds. Nobody gets in until they are done.'
'Yeah, but did you have to hit him? He's just worried about his poor dog.'
I regained full awareness and consciousness a few seconds later. I rose up and the one cop who had clubbed me put his hand on his pistol. 'Wait, please, officer. Please, I don't want any trouble. I just want to see my dog. Where is he, please, tell me?'
The other cop stepped in between us and gave his partner a stern look. 'Come with me.' He led me downstairs to the Animal Control van, then nodded to the man leaned up against the back door of the van smoking a cigarette.
'Open it up, Charlie,' the cop told him.
The man held his cigarette between his lips and opened the door of the van. There was Lazarus. There . . . was . . . Lazarus . . . dead. He was lying there in the van in a black plastic bag. I had to pull the plastic back to look at him. I sobbed deeply and loudly. 'Oh my God, Lazarus. Puppy, what did they do to you?' I fell to my knees and bawled and hugged the puppy to my head and sobbed some more. It was more than I could take, and it wasn't fair.
'WHY! He's just a dog.' I hugged him harder and cried deeper. 'Why did you have to kill him?'
'Hold it there. I didn't kill him. The Feds had to put him down because he attacked one of them and wouldn't let go,' the Animal Control man explained and then stamped his cigarette butt out on the ground.
'Of course he did, you dumbass! They broke into my apartment. He was just protecting our home!' I cried and held him to me. I cried a bit longer and then stood up. I pulled the bag out of the van and held its dead weight to my chest. 'You can't have him. He's my dog . . . my friend . . . my . . . only family. I'm gonna take him home and bury him.'
'Sorry, son, city ordinance says we have to take him and dispose of his body safely,' the cop told me.
'No! He's my dog. I want to bury him with the rest of my family.'
'Sorry about all this, I have a dog too,' the cop said. Then he sounded sincere. 'I would be upset if some jerk shot my dog. Where's your vehicle?' he asked me.
'That SUV over there in the parking lot.' I pointed to it.
'Go.' He turned and walked away.
'Hey, wait a minute . . .' The Animal Control officer started to protest, but I looked at him in such a way that he would know he was going to die if he said another word.
Laz and I got in the SUV and drove home, as close to Bakersfield, California, as we could get. It took two days and I cried and cursed and cried and cursed and cursed and cried all the way. I only stopped for gas and caffeine. I seldom ate. We had to take the long way since the interstates through both Cheyenne and Denver were gone from the first big impact of The Rain. We had to go way south and cut across below the southern border of Colorado. It added significant time to the drive. It didn't matter though, because I was numb and nothing was going to stop me. Poor Lazarus. I wish I had never met that damned Larry Waterford and his piece-of-shit ancient game console. Poor Lazarus, I loved him so much. . . .
The cleanup crews that worked night and day after The Rain had made it inside the blast circumference about fifty miles, and the public was only allowed inward about forty miles. The roadside was covered with funeral bouquets and memorabilia and personal belongings of lost loved ones. Occasionally I would pass a few people on the side of the road replacing a memorial symbol or decoration. Sometimes the people on the side of the road would just be sitting there, perhaps to feel close to all that they had lost. I understood what they were feeling.
I went as far as I could go down the public road before I had to turn off the main construction road to a side trail. Fortunately I had bought the four-wheel-drive SUV. I finally reached a point that I decided was as far as I could go inward and stopped in a small valley area. It looked like desert terrain with scrub brush growing here and there. There was rubble and debris strewn about, but the rubble was mostly covered by just over four years of blown sand and desert overgrowth. It would have to do since I couldn't get any farther in.
I carried Lazarus in my arms a good hundred meters from the trail end where I stopped the SUV and set him down. I put together the little army shovel that I had picked up along the way and started digging. I dug for hours it seemed like, but I wanted to make sure that the hole was so deep that no scavengers would dig him up.
'I love you, Lazarus,' I cried and sniffled. 'You were the best friend I ever could have.' I covered him, crying the entire time. I packed down the spot good, stood up, and stuck the shovel in the ground for a headstone. I reached in my pocket and pulled out my bottle of 'happy pills' and popped the top off of them.
'I ain't gonna cry no more, buddy. It's just me now. Oh God, I miss you so much!' I sniffled and turned the bottle up and drank about four or five of the pills. 'I ain't gonna cry no more.' I took another two pills just for the hell of it and then stumbled back toward the SUV. 'So long, Lazarus ol' buddy, I love you so much. God, if you're up
