Quietly, Dorian was falling away.
He sank down and down, out of sight. Like a great membranous tent with its poles removed, he vanished into the floor, down flues and vents on all sides of his great platform nest. Vents obviously created for such a massive disease-sac melting into viral fluid and sewer gas. Even as I watched, the last of the noxious clot was sucked into the vents, and I stood abandoned in a room where but a few minutes before an unspeakable strata of discards and half-born fetuses had lain sucking at sins, spoiled bones, and souls to send forth beasts in semblance of beauty. That perverse royalty, that lunatic monarch, gone, all gone. A last choke and throttle from the sewer vent underlined its death.
My God, I thought, even now, that, all that, that terrible miasma, that stuff is on its way to the sea to wash in with bland tides to lie on clean shores where bathers come at dawn …
Even now …
I stood, eyes shut, waiting.
For what? There had to be a next thing, yes? It came.
There was a trembling, shivering, and then a quaking of the wall, but especially the golden door behind me.
I spun to see as well as hear.
I saw the door shaken, and then bombarded from the other side. Fists pummeled, struck, hammered. Voices cried out and screamed and then shrieked.
I felt a great mass ram the door to shiver, to slam it on its hinges.
I stared, fearful that the door might explode and let in the flood tide of nightmare-ravening, terrified beasts, the kennel of dying things. For now their shrieks as they mauled and rattled to escape, to beg for mercy, were so terrible that I clamped my fists to my ears.
Dorian was gone, but they remained. Shrieks. Screams. Screams. Shrieks. An avalanche of limbs beyond the door struck and fell, yammering.
What must they look like now? I thought. All those bouquets. All those beauties.
The police will come, I thought, soon. But .
No matter what …
I would not unlock that door.
No News, or What Killed the Dog
1994 year
It was a day of holocausts, cataclysms, tornadoes, earth-quakes, blackouts, mass murders, eruptions, and miscellaneous dooms, at the peak of which the sun swallowed the earth and the stars vanished.
But to put it simply, the most respected member of the Bentley family up and died.
Dog was his name, and dog he was.
The Bentleys, arising late Saturday morning, found Dog stretched on the kitchen floor, his head toward Mecca, his paws neatly folded, his tail not a-thump but silent for the first time in twenty years.
Twenty years! My God, everyone thought, could it really have been that long? And now, without permission, Dog was cold and gone.
Susan, the younger daughter, woke everyone yelling:
«Something's wrong with Dog. Quick!»
Without bothering to don his bathrobe, Roger Bentley, in his underwear, hurried out to look at that quiet beast on the
kitchen tiles. His wife, Ruth, followed, and then their son Skip, twelve. The rest of the family, married and flown, Rodney and Sal, would arrive later. Each in turn would say the same thing:
«No! Dog was forever.»
Dog said nothing, but lay there like World War II, freshly finished, and a devastation.
Tears poured down Susan's cheeks, then down Ruth Bentley's, followed in good order by tears from Father and, at last, when it had sunk in, Skip.
Instinctively, they made a ring around Dog, kneeling to the floor to touch him, as if this might suddenly make him sit up, smile as he always did at his food, bark, and beat them to the door. But their touching did nothing but increase their tears.
But at last they rose, hugged each other, and went blindly in search of breakfast, in the midst of which Ruth Bentley said, stunned, «We can't just leave him there.»
Roger Bentley picked Dog up, gently, and moved him out on the patio, in the shade, by the pool.
«What do we do next?»
«I don't know,» said Roger Bentley. «This is the first death in the family in years and-« He stopped, snorted, and shook his head. «I mean-«
«You meant exactly what you said,» said Ruth Bentley. «If Dog wasn't family, he was nothing. God, I loved him.»
A fresh burst of tears ensued, during which Roger Bentley brought a blanket to put over Dog, but Susan stopped him.
«No, no.1 want to see him. I won't be able to see him ever again. He's so beautiful. He's so – old.»
They all carried their breakfasts out on the patio to sit around Dog, somehow feeling they couldn't ignore him by eating inside.
Roger Bentley telephoned his other children, whose response, after the first tears, was the same: they'd be right over. Wait.
When the other children arrived, first Rodney, twenty-one, and then the older daughter, Sal, twenty-four, a fresh storm of grief shook everyone and then they sat silently for a moment, watching Dog for a miracle.
«What are your plans?» asked Rodney at last.
«I know this is silly,» said Roger Bentley after an embarrassed pause. «After all, he's only a dog-«
«Only!?» cried everyone instantly.
Roger had to back off. «Look, he deserves the Taj Mahal. What he'll get is the Orion Pet Cemetery over in Burbank.»
«Pet Cemetery!?» cried everyone, but each in a different way.
«My God,» said Rodney, «that's silly!»
«What's so silly about it?» Skip's face reddened and his lip trembled. «Dog, why, Dog was a pearl of. . . rare price.
«Yeah!» added Susan.
«Well, pardon me.» Roger Bentley turned away to look at the pool, the bushes, the sky. «I suppose I could call those trash people who pick up dead bodies-«
«Trash people?» exclaimed Ruth Bentley.
«Dead bodies?» said Susan. «Dog isn't a dead body!»
«What is he, then?» asked Skip bleakly.
They all stared at Dog lying quietly there by the pool. «He's,» blurted Susan at last, «he's . . . he's my love!» Before the crying could start again, Roger Bentley picked up the patio telephone, dialed the Pet Cemetery, talked, and put the phone down.
«Two hundred dollars,» he informed everyone. «Not bad.»
«For Dog?» said Skip. «Not enough!»
«Are you really serious about this?» asked Ruth Bentley.
«Yeah,» said Roger. «I've made fun of those places all my life. But, now, seeing as how we'll never be able to visit Dog again-« He let a moment pass. «They'll come take Dog at noon. Services tomorrow.»
«Services!» Snorting, Rodney stalked to the rim of the pool and waved his arms. «You won't get me to that!»
Everyone stared. Rodney turned at last and let his shoulders slump. «Hell, I'll be there.»
«Dog would never forgive you if you didn't.» Susan snuffed and wiped her nose.
But Roger Bentley had heard none of this. Staring at Dog, then his family, and up to the sky, he shut his eyes and exhaled a great whisper:
«Oh, my God!» he said, eyes shut. «Do you realize that this is the first terrible thing that's happened to our family? Have we ever been sick, gone to the hospital? Been in an accident?»
He waited.
«No,» said everyone.
«Gosh,» said Skip.
«Gosh, indeed! You sure as hell notice accidents, sickness, hospitals.»
«Maybe,» said Susan, and had to stop and wait because her voice broke. «Maybe Dog died just to make us notice how lucky we are.»
«Lucky?!» Roger Bentley opened his eyes and turned. «Yes! You know what we are-«
«The science fiction generation,» offered Rodney, lighting a cigarette casually.