When things happened, it was like a series of flashes. Moments out of time caught in frozen stillness.
Something reached deep into Lucky and grabbed some essential part of his core. He could feel it squeezing for less than a heartbeat and then, before he could blink, his view changed. The world went golden and he was next to Axel. Something slammed into his flank and he yelped, but there was no pain. Reaching within he felt [Intimidating Howl] click into place as he threw back his head. The howl stuttered slightly as he lurched in front of Intrepid. Another heavy weight slammed into him, painless but forceful. The howl rolled outward and for the third time in as many seconds he flashed in front of Val. The third blow came just as the golden glow around him shattered like a broken window. He almost thought he could hear it as the golden shards fell to the ground around him.
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Girl was panting, as though she had been running full out for a mile. The echoes of the shots were still fading as Lucky’s howl rose. Girl’s turn looked slow to Lucky’s eyes, as though it took minutes for her to reverse. Her hands had dropped to the grips of the revolvers that rested against her hips. Her expression was thunderous.
“Did you seriously just have your men shoot at the dogs?” Her voice was as fierce as her expression.
Vassar’s eyes narrowed as he looked down at the distant figures. For a moment, he was speechless. His voice had lost a bit of its certainty, “It’s a dangerous world we live in. Perhaps it would be best if you came behind the barrier?”
She snorted and shook her head. “Are you implying that those men didn’t shoot on your orders?” Girl snorted again, hands settling around the grips of her revolvers. She didn’t draw, but the threat was clearly there. “We won’t be going beyond the wall.” Her voice was smooth and confident. “In fact, I’m certain that we won’t be coming anywhere near your territory again.” She raised her voice until it boomed off the buildings. “We didn’t come to fight. We came for trade, for peace and we’ll go the same way.” Lucky could feel the waves of calm washing off of Girl. She walked backwards this time, rather than turning her back on Vassar, and when she reached the next intersection, she angled her way there, never taking her eyes off the councilman.
Lucky watched her back. He stayed right at her side. It was, after all, his place in the world. At Girl’s. Once they were shielded from the wall of cars, Girl turned on her heels and they ran. Paws and feet pounded the pavement and they made a serpentine path through the City, turning almost at random. By the time they stopped, Girl had to walk it off, hands laced behind her head as she caught her breath.
The dogs were panting, but not nearly as winded as Girl. “We should find a horse.” She managed to huff out after a few moments. “I can’t keep up with you guys.”
“Hopefully we don’t need to run like that often.” Sugar was panting the hardest of the dogs. Axel, on the other hand, was barely winded.
“That was stupid.” The big mastiff said, plopping down onto his haunches. “What did they hope to accomplish there?”
Val’s expressive eyes flicked from Girl to Lucky and then over to Axel. “ Nothing good, I’m sure.” She chuffed out a breath. “Where is everyone?” She said at last. “This City is bigger than home and it’s empty. Shouldn’t there be a lot more people?”
Girl’s breath was finally smoothing out. “I’ve been thinking the same thing. I get why the area around the Pit was empty, but everything seems empty.”
“Maybe there are more places like that. Where people are gathering.” Sugar suggested.
“There’s safety in numbers.” Val said.
Girl hummed thoughtfully. “We’re probably still too close to them. We need to keep moving, they could follow us pretty easily.”
“Should we go back to the Farm?” Intrepid asked as they started walking, still taking random turns.
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“We haven’t really gotten anything worthwhile out of this trip yet.” Girl observed.
“I wouldn’t say that.” Sugar said. “We found the Pit and we learned that the Hospital isn’t a safe place.”
“The hospital is hostile.” Lucky quipped.
Girl groaned. “It’s inhospitable.”
Lucky winced. “That was terrible.”
“So was yours.” She said.
Girl pulled out her phone and fiddled with it for a long moment. “Looks like there’s a warehouse store about two miles from here. We could head that way and see what we can find.”
“Good idea.” Lucky said.
They moved at a variable pace. Girl could only jog for so far before she had to stop and rest so they alternated short jogs with longer walks. They really did need to find some alternate mode of transportation for Girl. It wasn’t that she was holding them back, but if they needed to move quickly, they would be limited by her stamina. The eerily empty buildings flanking the road made the hairs along Lucky’s back lift.
“Where is everyone?” Intrepid finally asked, voicing what everyone was thinking.
“Maybe I can find some information online.” Girl mused, looking at her phone. Her steps slowed somewhat and the drop in pace made that fur stand up further.
“Let’s wait until we get to the store.” Lucky said, his voice tight.
Girl glanced down at him, her leaf-colored eyes puzzled. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t like the way this City feels now. It was fine earlier, but now there’s a kind of malice to the air.” A shudder raced down his spine. “I can’t really explain it.”
“It’s probably because of the Hostile Hospital.” Girl said.
“Not any better the second time.” Lucky said.
Girl giggled and glanced at her phone to check the map for directions once more. She broke into an easy job for a pawful of blocks before slowing back down to a moderate walk. The rest of the short trek passed quickly and soon enough they were looking up at the big blue warehouse store.
“Doors are closed.” Val observed. “Wonder if anyone else has been here.”
“It’s one of the first places I would go, if we had been here when it happened.” Girl said, a rising tone in her voice.
“Can we get the doors open?” Lucky asked.
Girl shrugged and walked up toward the automatic doors. When they slid open without a creak, her leaf-colored eyes went wide. Val immediately darted through the entrance and into the depths of the store. Shockingly, it was Intrepid who was hot on her heels. The two dogs disappeared into the rows of bulk merchandise. Lucky stopped just inside the doors, his head lifted, drawing in deep lungfuls of air. There was no immediate scent of humanity, or anything else alive for that matter.
Axel broke away a little to the left, Lucky to the right, and Sugar stood with Girl in the center, their back to the wall just beyond the doors, opposite the long lines of shopping carts. It didn’t take long before Intrepid and Val returned to the front of the store.
Val said, “Empty.”
Intrepid clarified. “It doesn’t look like anyone has been here in a few days. Shelves are mostly full.”
“Perfect.” Axel said. “Let’s get what we came for.”
Girl grabbed a cart and Lucky chuckled. “We just need to put things in the saddlebags, Girl. We don’t need a cart.”
She laughed. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Lucky chuffed and padded next to her as she pushed the cart toward the aisles. “So what are we picking up?”
“There should be some pallet wrap somewhere, we’ll be able to put things together so we keep our item count low. At least I think that’s how the saddlebags work.” Girl said. “Batteries, toilet paper, medicines, cooking staples. Everything we can think of will go in those bags.”
“Toilet paper?” Lucky asked.
Girl’s gaze went from one dog to another. “And dog treats, of course. They usually have massive bags of them here somewhere. Do you think things go bad in the void?”
Lucky tilted his head to one side, thoughtfully. “Maybe. Why do you ask?”
“Meat. It’ll make everyone on the Farm happy to have enough meat to last a while.” Girl said. “So we don’t have to make impossible choices as soon.”
Axel snorted, his heavy paws thumping gently against the concrete flooring. “It’s no impossible choice. If it comes down to a choice between living and dying, I’ll choose living every time. I always have.”
She frowned at that, her hands tightening on the handle of the cart. It was clear she wanted to say something, her mouth opened, but no words came out. She shook her head at last and was silent for a long moment.
“It seems almost normal.” She said. “Shopping. But we’re not really shopping are we?”
“No.” Lucky said. “Almost, but not quite.”
“I can pretend though.” She said. Her hands restlessly moved against the cart’s push-bar. “I think I’m going to be doing a lot of pretending.”
“Just so long as you know what’s real and what isn’t.” Lucky said. “There’s nothing wrong with pretending.”
It took hours to go through the store, picking up as much as they could. In the end, after filling the two saddle bags, each capable of carrying only a hundred items, they created a train of several garden carts loaded with light but bulky items that each dog would pull. They ended up sleeping in a pile of pillows in the backroom of the store.