He returned the pair of blue eyes to the open jar, and screwed the lid shut.
He had satisfied one hunger with cookies and chips, satisfied another by revealing his glory to the congregation in the jars and by seeing that they were in awe of him. Now it was time to sleep for a short while and recharge his batteries; dawn was nearer, and he had promises to keep.
As he settled upon the disarranged bed sheets, he reached for the switch on the nightstand lamp, but then decided not to turn it off. The disembodied communicants in the jars would be able to see him better if the room was not entirely dark. It pleased him to think that he would be admired and venerated even while he slept.
Bryan Drackman closed his eyes, yawned, and as always sleep came to him without delay. Dreams: great cities falling, houses burning, monuments collapsing, mass graves of broken concrete and twisted steel stretching to the horizon and attended by flocks of feeding vultures so numerous that, in flight, they blackened the sky.
5
He sprints, trots, slows to a walk, and finally creeps warily from shadow to shadow as he draws nearer to the thing-that-will-kill-you. The smell of it is ripe, strong, foul. Not filthy like the stinky man. Different. In its own way, worse. Interesting.
He is not afraid. He is not afraid. Not afraid. He is a dog. He has sharp teeth and claws. Strong and quick. In his blood is the need to track and hunt. He is a dog, cunning and fierce, and he runs from nothing. He was born to chase, not be chased, and he fearlessly pursues anything he wants, even cats. Though cats have clawed his nose, bitten and humiliated him, still he chases them, unafraid, for he is a dog, maybe not as smart as some cats, but a dog.
Padding along beside a row of thick oleander. Pretty flowers. Berries. Don’t eat the berries. Sick-making. You can tell from the smell. Also the leaves. Also the flowers.
Never eat any kind of flowers. He tried to eat one once. There was a bee in the flower, then in his mouth, buzzing in his mouth, stinging his tongue. A very bad day, worse than cats.
He creeps onward. Not afraid. Not. Not. He is a dog.
People place. High white walls. Windows dark. Near the top, one square of pale light.
He slinks along the side of the place.
The smell of the bad thing is strong here, and getting stronger. Almost burns in the snout. Like ammonia but not like. A cold smell and dark, colder than ice and darker than night.
Halfway along the high white wall, he stops. Listens. Sniffs.
He is not afraid. He is not afraid.
Something overhead goes Whooooooooooo.
He is afraid. Whipping around, he starts to run back the way he came.
Whooooooooooo.
Wait. He knows that sound. An owl, swooping through the night above, hunting prey of its own.
He was frightened by an owl. Bad dog. Bad dog. Bad.
Remember the boy. The woman and the boy. Besides… the smell, the place, the moment are interesting.
Turning once again, he continues to creep along the side of the people place, white walls, one pale light high above. He comes to an iron fence. Tight squeeze. Not as tight as the drain pipe where you follow the cat and get stuck and the cat keeps going, and you twist and kick and struggle for a long time inside the pipe, you think you’re never going to get loose, and then you wonder if maybe the cat is coming back toward you through the darkness of the pipe, is going to claw your nose while you’re stuck and can’t move. Tight, but not that tight. He shakes his rear end, kicks, and gets through.
He comes to the end of the place, starts around the corner, and sees the thing-that-will-kill-you. His vision is not nearly as keen as his smell, but he is able to make out a man, young, and he knows it is the bad thing because it reeks of that strange dark cold smell. Before, it looked different, never a young man, but the smell is the same. This is the thing, for sure.
He freezes.
He is not afraid. He is not afraid. He is a dog.
The young-man-bad-thing is on its way into the people place. It is carrying food bags. Chocolate. Marshmallow. Potato chips.
Interesting.
Even the bad thing eats. It has been outside, eating, and now it is going in, and maybe some of the food is left. A wag of the tail, a friendly whine, the sitting-up-and-begging trick might get something good, yes yes yes yes.
No no no no. Bad idea.
But chocolate.
No. Forget it. The kind of bad idea that gets your nose scratched. Or worse. Dead like the bee in the puddle, the mouse in the gutter.
The thing-that-will-kill-you goes inside, closes the door. Its scary smell isn’t so strong now.
Neither is the chocolate smell. Oh well.
Whooooooooooo.
Just an owl. Who would be afraid of an owl? Not a dog.
He sniffs around behind the people place for a while, some of it grass, some of it dirt, some of it flat stones that people put down. Bushes. Flowers. Busy bugs in the grass, different kinds. A couple of things for people to sit in… and beside one of them, a piece of cookie. Chocolate. Good, good, gone. Sniff around, under, here, there, but no more to be found.
A little lizard! Zip, so fast, across the stones, get it, get it, get it, get it. This way, that way, this way, between your legs, that way, here it comes, there it goes — now where is it? — over there, zip, don’t let it get away, get it, get it, want it, need it, bang, an iron fence out of nowhere.
The lizard is gone, but the fence smells of fresh people pee. Interesting.
It’s the pee of the thing-that-will-kill-you. Not a nice smell. Not a bad smell. Just interesting. The thing-that-will-kill-you looks like people, pees like people, so must be people, even if it’s strange and different.
He follows the route the bad thing took when it stopped peeing and went into the people place, and in the bottom of the big door he finds a smaller door, more or less his size. He sniffs it. The smaller door smells like another dog. Faint, very faint, but another dog. A long time ago, a dog went in and out this door. Interesting. So long ago, he has to sniff sniff sniff sniff to learn anything. A male dog. Not small, not too big. Interesting. Nervous dog… or maybe sick. Long time ago. Interesting.
Think about this.
Door for people. Door for dogs.
Think.
So this isn’t just a people place. This is a people and dog place. Interesting.
He pushes his nose against the little cold metal door, and it swings inward. He sticks his head in, lifting the door just far enough to sniff deep and look around.
People food place. Hidden away is food, not out where he can see it but where he can still smell it. Strongest of all, the smell of the bad thing, so strong that it leaves him uninterested in food.
The smell repels and frightens him but also attracts him, and curiosity draws him forward. He squeezes through the opening, the little metal door sliding along his back, along his tail, then falling shut with a faint squeak.
Inside.
Listening. Humming, ticking, a soft clink. Machine sounds. Otherwise, silence.
Not much light. Just little glowing spots up on some of the machines.
He is not afraid. Not, not, not.
He creeps from one dark space to another, squinting into the shadows, listening, sniffing, but he does not find the thing-that-will-kill-you until he comes to the bottom of stairs. He looks up and knows that the thing is in one of the spaces up there somewhere.