Maybe I was feeling more lonely than usual on that particular day. I'd kept to myself after the Blood Death, you see, avoiding the crazies I met roaming the city, aware that the normals - those that were left -
had abandoned the place for fear of epidemics breaking out, or just to get away from all those dead bodies, but there must have been something about that mutt that appealed to me. Sure, there were plenty of strays around, and not just dogs. Cats, chickens - unfortunately for the chickens, they didn't last long once I'd set eyes on them - pigs - yeah, same thing if I could catch 'em - horses, and I'd even observed a cow or two wandering along the roads. 'Cept for releasing horses from carts, putting any injured creature I came upon out of its misery, and slaughtering those mentioned for food, I'd ignored any surviving animals or birds, and mostly they'd ignored me. Oh, and there was one I'd hidden from. From a distance I'd watched a leopard loping along Regent Street - just once, I'd never seen it again - and I'd stayed out of sight in case it got hungry for warm flesh. Like I said earlier, the London Zoo had evacuated most of its dangerous animals, even put some down, at the beginning of the Blitz, so I had no idea where this cat had come from, and still don't.
Well, I must have been feeling pretty lonesome that day, because I called out to the dog. It was wary, though. Cocked one ear, angled its head, and kept well away. I guess it became a kind of game then, a challenge, me and the boiling meat against the canine's canniness. It looked interested enough, squatting there amid the debris of flattened houses, blackberry and elder poking through the dry earth and bindweed adding some colour to the greyness of it all, but the interest was in the sweet smell of cooking rather than me. I'd noticed by then that all the animals who'd survived the holocaust had become
'un-used' to humans, suspicious of us - or at least, of me - as if somehow they knew humans were responsible for the big foul-up. And who could blame 'em for that? But this run-down, red-haired mongrel's belly was ready to forgive all, because although it kept its distance, its nose was sniffing the air and one paw was raised as if to take that first step towards me of its own accord. And then an odd thing occurred.
It was a warm day, early in the year, May, I think. The winter of '46 had been real nasty (but nowhere near as bad and as scary as '47s), killing off most of the allotments and weaker wildlife, and it was obvious that this mutt had had a hard time of things. Ribs protruding, coat kind of threadbare, this old boy looked pretty beat up, and when I dipped into the can and pulled out a steaming sausage it became even more fascinated. And as I tossed the meat from hand to hand to cool it, then broke it in half, that timid paw touched the ground, taking the first nervous step towards me. I allowed a grin, but it froze on my face when something black and awful fell from the sky to land on the dog's back.
The heavens had been unblemished, not a cloud in sight, a gentle breeze the only interruption, but I'd neither seen nor heard the bird overhead and, so it seemed, neither had the dog. This was a huge bird, dark and ugly, with a wingspan of three feet or more. A goddamn great carrion crow, with claws like hooks, and a long powerful-looking black bill, sharp as a knife. Those claws dug into the poor mutt's flesh, while the beak stabbed at its head. The dog howled, but fought back, twisting and turning and snapping all at the same time. Blood was already beginning to flow from its wounded back, though, and it yelped between howls.
The Colt .45 wasn't always the only weapon I carried around with me; nearby, propped up against the curved roof of a half-buried Anderson shelter, was my other weapon, a Lee Enfield sniper rifle, picked up from a military barracks in another part of London. It was handy to have around for whenever I caught sight of one of those pigs or chickens -I'd even bagged the odd squirrel in the parks - and I made towards it. Before I'd even picked up the rifle, three more crows had joined in the attack on the dog.
I was surprised and shocked: where the hell had they come from, and why were they picking on this poor old boy? Exhaling my breath, I took a bead on one of the newcomers through the telescopic sight, the original crow too mixed up with the victim itself for a clear shot. It was clinging to the dog's leg with its beak, yanking and twisting, trying to bring its prey down, while its friends swooped in when they got the chance, pecking at any exposed dog-flesh they could find. I squeezed the trigger nice and easy, aloof from all the excitement, and felt the rifle recoil against my shoulder.
The bird I'd targeted thudded to the rubble without a squawk and one of its companions fluttered away, screeching some kind of alarm, heading back to wherever the hell it'd come from. The other two were too absorbed in their work to take any notice.
By now the victim was rolling through the dirt in an effort to dislodge the crow on its back, biting and snarling, no longer howling. It had guts, this skinny hound, but needed all the help it could get.
My next shot clipped a wing and scattered black feathers into the air, stunning the bird but not seriously wounding it. It hobbled around for a few seconds, and that's when I got an idea of these birds' true size.
They weren't carrion crows and they weren't rooks. These were the giants of the species: Ravens. I'd always thought these creatures lived on mountains and moors, or sea cliffs, but I guess I shouldn't really have been surprised: nothing was the same after the Blood Death. Maybe all the small mammals, frogs, lizards, or even dead sheep that these birds usually feed on had all been used up in their natural territory.
Then I remembered I'd seen this kind once before in London, long before the Blood Death rockets had fallen, but I was too busy at that moment to remember where.
I aimed again and took off the injured raven's head with the next bullet.
That left one more to deal with, and this would be the trickiest shot of all. I moved closer, going to the road's edge.
The dog was putting up a brave fight, but not quite giving as much as it was taking. I knelt on the cobblestones, looped the sling around my upper left arm to take the rifle's weight, breathed out, and took steady aim, knowing it was gonna be tight, but what the hell, if I missed the bird and hit the victim, it would be doing the mutt a favour. Without hesitation, I squeezed the trigger with the pad of my index finger.
It was a true shot, square in the chest, and the bird, still clinging to the dog's back, flapped madly for a few moments before flopping to the ground, dead meat before it even landed. But the dog wasn't satisfied: it pounced on the carcass and broke the raven's neck with its jaws, then proceeded to drag it through the dirt, shaking it like a rag doll and tossing it into the air until exhaustion set in. The mutt wandered off a few yards and slumped to the ground, chin resting on its paws, weary eyes watching what was left of the bird.
Leaving the rifle on the cobblestones, I approached the panting dog to see if I could do anything about its wounds, but as soon as I drew near it rose and shied away, watching me all the time over its shoulder.
It settled again immediately I retreated, this time keeping its eyes on me rather than the feathered carcass.
I went back to my lunch and I guess the aroma of those boiled sausages was too much to resist, because the next time I looked up the dog was in the middle of the street, standing on all fours, bloodied but undefeated, nose twitching again. Tossing a whole hot sausage towards it, I went on with my meal, and when I glanced the mutt's way again, the scrap of meat was gone.
This went on for some time, one morsel following another, each throw a little shorter than the last, until the scraggy-haired dog was sitting across the fire from me and we were finishing the meal together. Later I took it into the nearest house and bathed its wounds (there was plenty of water in this row of houses, although elsewhere pipes had been fractured by bombs during the war, or had frozen and burst over the last winter). I found quite a few old scars on its body, proof, I guess, that survival hadn't been easy for it.