Tails of the Apocalypse (15 page)

“Be careful,” says Emily-mother.

The car starts to move again. We’re only part of the way on the road; the car shakes uncontrollably. We’re very close to the metal-box, passing it on one side.

I bark and paw at the window. Emily tries to hold me down but I’m frightened. I don’t want to be crushed. I don’t want to be lightninged to death. Go away, metal-boxes!

We pass the column of metal-boxes. Our car surges ahead of the others; there are fewer cars ahead. I stop barking. I did it. I scared them away.

“Good boy,” says Emily, rubbing my neck. “Good boy.”

I lick her face. She still seems very frightened; I want to help. I don’t understand what’s happening, but it’s okay. As long as I have Emily, I will be okay.

“It’s the Earthborn,” says Emily-father. He seems very worried; his fingers clutch hard at the steering wheel, and he doesn’t look at us. “It has to be.”

“If it was the Earthborn, they’d say so,” says Emily-mother. She holds the boom-maker close. “It’s not going to be another Reclamation.”

“What else could it be?” Emily-father shouts.

I don’t like shouting. I bark.

“Keep Demon quiet,” says Emily-mother. “Dad’s trying to drive.”

“Shh,” says Emily. She rubs my neck some more. “Shh, Demon. Be a good boy.”

Everyone smells frightened and angry. I don’t understand what’s happened.

We drive on for some time. The sun begins to sink ahead of us. We leave the sirens and the thunder behind us. Emily-father drives very fast. The car complains; I can understand. I wouldn’t want to run for this long. But I’m a good boy, and I don’t complain. I have Emily and everything’s okay.

Emily-father and Emily-mother are mostly quiet. When they do talk it’s always in hushed voices about things I don’t understand. Emily gets more scared as we go; I think her parents are trying not to frighten her, but if they are, they’re doing a bad job.

I know the car can speak to them all. Humans have metal in their bodies that allows them to hear what the car, or the house, says. They listen to things like games and hear things happening a long way away from here.

I can tell by how quiet they are that they’re listening a lot.

“
New Panama News
says the military is containing the outbreak,” says Emily-father. “An outbreak of
what
, exactly? I heard someone say they were bugs.”

“Some kind of bioweapon?” asks Emily-mother. “Could we be infected?”

“I don’t think it’s a disease,” says Emily-father. “Listen to the way they talk. They keep stressing to people to take their weapons with them. You can’t fight bioweapons with shotguns.”

“You can’t fight bugs with shotguns either,” says Emily-mother.

I put my head in Emily’s lap. She pats my ears. I feel a bit better. Wherever we are, we’re a long way away from the vet, and that’s good.

“We need to stop and charge,” Emily-father says. “It’s down to one bar.”

“There’s a station up ahead.” Emily-mother twists around to look at us. “How are you two travellers?”

I’m okay. I feel a lot better. Although even a trip to the vet is less scary than this.

“I’m gas,” says Emily. “But I need to pee.”

“We’re going to be stopping soon,” says Emily-mother. “I’ll come with you.”

Emily stops patting me. “I don’t like people watching me when I go.”

“This is different,” Emily-mother says, stress in her voice. “I need to come with you. It’s not safe by yourself.”

“What’s going on? Is it the Earthborn?”

Emily-mother shakes her head. “It’s not the Earthborn. We don’t know what it is. My ’net is clogged.”

“I know,” says Emily. “My ’net is clogged too. I sent heaps of messages to Tatyana and Mei Xiang, but I think my implants are broken.”

“Keep trying,” says Emily-mother. “If mine comes gas, I’ll let you know.”

The car slows down. It’s hot and doesn’t seem to be working right. Maybe they ran it too far too fast. It pulls off to one side of the road toward a building.

Nobody’s around. Not even any other cars. We were ahead of most of them. Everyone gets out. Emily keeps a tight grip on my leash, then ties it to the back of the car. I’m okay with this. I take the time to pee. Emily-mother takes Emily to do the same, behind the building.

Behind us, those big clouds continue to hang in the air. I take a moment to look at them; there’s a soft whine as Emily-father hooks up the car-feeder to the car. It hums as it begins to do things. They are feeding the car.

Thinking of food reminds me: I’m a little hungry. I smell something in the air; it’s like meat, but also living things, too. It has a strange smell. I don’t like it. It’s blowing in from those clouds, but I think it’s ahead of them. It’s something alive. A lot of somethings.

They’re coming.

I get afraid again, but then the wind changes and the smell goes away. Now I can smell something else.

There are other people here.

I bark.

“Fucking dog,” says Emily-father. “Shut up.”

I bark and I bark. The smell of someone else is coming from where Emily is.

Emily-mother and Emily return.

“How long?” asks Emily-mother.

“Two minutes,” says Emily-father. He smiles widely. “Aren’t you glad I paid extra for the fast-charge option?”

“Okay, okay,” says Emily-mother. “It turned out to be gas.” She laughs. Everyone laughs—it’s good to see something other than fear. It makes me feel better again. I wag my tail for the first time in a while.

Then the smell of someone else comes back. I bark again.

The door to the building opens with a bang. A man runs out, dressed in green, the same colour as the building. He’s covered in sweat and I smell pee from him, too.

“Get in the car,” says Emily-mother to Emily and me. She turns to the man, holding the boom-maker against her shoulder. “Stop! Who are you?”

Emily begins frantically undoing my leash. I strain against it, barking at the man. I will get him! I’m a good dog.

“My name is James,” the man says. He’s frightened; he’s angry. I’m angry too. “Did you come from New Panama?”

“Yes,” says Emily-mother. She keeps her boom-maker held tight. “Listen, we’re leaving now, okay?”

“Let me in,” the man pleads. “Please, you have room. I’ll ride in the back.”

“This is our car,” says Emily-mother. “We don’t know you.”

Emily unties my leash, but she holds it tight, leading me around to the side door. I growl at the strange man. I want to hurt him. I don’t think he’s a good man. Emily ties my lead to the inside of the door.

“You can’t leave me here for
them
. They’re killing everyone.” The man steps forward. “Come on. What a beating. You can’t pick a fucking dog over a person.”

Emily-mother points the boom-maker at him. “Get away.”

“Take me with you!”

BOOM.

The man falls.

My ears hurt, and there’s a high-pitched whine at the edges of my hearing. I bark a lot. Emily screams. I can smell burning chemicals and blood. The man doesn’t move. I want to hurt him too; I yank against my leash, but Emily has tied it up good. I kick and bark, straining against my collar.

“Drive!” Emily-mother shouts. She breaks the boom-maker and two red tubes fall out. She sticks two more tubes in and fixes it again with a click. She does this so fast I can barely see; she’s done before the first set of tubes hits the ground. “Drive, Daniel!”

Emily-father’s strong hands grab my leash and pull, roughly dragging me into the car. I kick and bark the whole way. It hurts. Finally I’m inside.

“Go, go, go!”

The car takes off again, leaving the man and the building behind us.

Silence. Nobody says anything; Emily-mother’s hands are shaking. Emily-father keeps looking at her. She doesn’t look back.

They are talking using the metal in their bodies. I’ve seen them do it before. They don’t want Emily to hear what they’re saying.

Emily, I think, knows that. “Is that man going to be okay?” she asks.

Nobody answers. I lick her face to try and calm her down; she pushes me away.

“Why did you shoot him?” Emily asks.

“I had to,” says Emily-mother. Her voice is so different now. Frightened, but with a hardness to it I don’t understand. “I had to, darling.”

“Are you a murderer?”

Nobody says anything for a bit. The car zooms on.

“Honey,” says Emily-father, “sometimes when people try to hurt you, or try to take what you have, you have to stop them. Sometimes you can’t use words.”

“Like the Reclamation,” says Emily. There’s a big silence. “I know you were in the army, Mum. Did you kill people then?”

“Sometimes you have to,” is all Emily-mother says. She smells strange. A mixture of fear and anger. I haven’t smelled anything like it before.

We go on, and the sun falls further. It is starting to get dark now, and Emily-father is forced to drive slower. This makes me a bit happier. We were driving very fast before.

I start to get hungry and whine. Emily feeds me bits of her snacks; they’re some form of very salty meat. I don’t like it, but I eat it anyway. I’m not very scared now. I think we’re safe. I eat some more.

And then a giant monster appears in the lights in front of our car.

It is big. Some kind of bug as big as a horse, with eyes that reflect red. I have never seen anything like it. Its pincers are up, reaching for the car, and it grows bigger as we quickly get close.

Emily-father yells. The car swerves. We try to miss the bug but hit it.

The car rolls over and over and over.

I’m very sleepy.

I want to sleep more, but something is shaking me, and my rest isn’t comfortable. I’m lying on something hard. It’s the inside roof of the car.

Now I remember. I kick and stand up. I smell a lot of blood. Emily is dangling down from her seat. Blood runs down her face. I lick the blood, hoping she’s not dead.

Slowly … slowly, she wakes up. Her face is red from being upside down a lot. She’s groggy; she doesn’t say much, just looks at me.

“Demon?”

Then she wakes up. She starts kicking, moving her arms around. The movement scares me. I bark.

Something shakes the car. Something big and heavy. I bark harder.

“No no no,” whispers Emily. She sounds scared too. “Demon, be quiet.”

Then I see what she’s looking at. The giant bug. It’s chewing on the front of the car.

I don’t know why it would do that. It chews into something and steam goes everywhere.

“Mum?” says Emily quietly. “Dad?”

I can smell a lot of blood in the front of the car. Emily-mother and Emily-father hang limp, like Emily did, but they don’t move. Emily-father has a hole in his head. I can smell Emily-mother’s bone marrow.

Emily fiddles with her seat and then falls. She lands with a thump. The bug stops eating the front of the car.

It moves around the car. Around and around. I recognise the behaviour of a predator animal; the bug is hunting. It must sense the heat of the car, smell the blood of Emily-mother and Emily-father, and think the car is bleeding. But I know the truth. We’re inside the car. It’s not the car that’s bleeding.

Now the bug is beginning to understand this, too.

Emily puts her hand over her mouth, trying to force her breathing to nothing. I growl at the legs of the bug as it passes; it’s a submissive growl, I’m not challenging its dominance. It can beat a car. I cannot beat a car. The bug is boss.

The bug hisses and digs at the door. Emily shrieks. The car shakes and rocks; the window breaks.

I bite the bug’s claw. It’s hard and slimy, like a wet tennis ball. I bite and I snarl.

The bug is too big. It can’t put its claw through the car window. I keep biting it, going for the weak points in its claws. Emily screams and screams. This urges me on.

I must defend Emily.

I taste bug meat. It bleeds black blood. I have hurt it, but it keeps coming. It doesn’t seem to feel pain. Normal things would retreat when they’re bitten. This bug continues, bending the metal of the car, trying to pry open the door. I latch my jaws onto the claw and shake my head back and forth, tearing at the flesh of its joint. I bite deep.

The limb comes away. The bug flails at the car, bashing with its good claw and its stump. Thump, thump, thump on the roof.

Emily cries and I’m afraid. It’s too big. We have to run. I jump out the other window.

“Demon!”

I leap on top of the car. The bug is there. I look right into its big, weird eyes. Its mouth clacks at me as it bites.

I know how to fight. I twist and jump, biting for its neck. There’s only thick, slimy skin there. My teeth drag across it, trying to find a weak spot. I don’t find one.

The bug’s remaining claw latches onto my rear left leg. It digs in deep. I howl. It hurts!

BOOM.

Emily. She has the boom-maker. The bug falls over the car, chattering and clicking. I smell guts. I smell blood. It’s all over me. All over the car.

My leg hurts. But the bug is dead. I limp over to Emily. She’s shaking so much the boom-maker falls out of her hands.

I lick her all over. She cries a lot. She tries to wake up Emily-mother and Emily-father. But she doesn’t try for long. They’re dead like the bug.

Emily tries to break the boom-maker so she can stick new tubes in. It takes her a little while, but she manages. I lick my wound when she fixes the boom-maker again. It hurts. I can’t walk on that leg, but I have four. I’m okay. I will lick it more later and make it better.

I can smell more bugs. I can smell a lot of things.

“I’ll come back with help,” Emily says to the car. “I’ll come back with an ambulance. Bye, Mum. Bye, Dad. I’ll be back soon. I promise.”

With the boom-maker held in her hands, Emily and I leave the dead car behind.

“Everything’s going to be okay, Demon,” Emily says as another car drives past. They’re getting more common. Our car was fast. These were slower. “Someone will stop for us. We’ll get help.”

None of the cars stop. Emily and I keep walking by the road. She holds my lead in one hand and the boom-maker in the other. Every time lights come, she tries to get them to stop. Nobody does.