The Storm (7 page)

“Looks like it's just you and me.” Frizzle opened his jaws and panted in self-satisfied huffs, his wing-ears tipped to the sides in what Shep understood to be as close to content as they ever got. Frizzle swaggered down the hall in the direction opposite the way Callie had gone, then looked back over his tail at Shep. “You coming?”

Shep growled to himself,
Great Wolf, give me strength
.

“Callie tells me you're a fighter?” Frizzle sniffed lazily at a door, then loped down the stone floor of the hall to the next one.

“Was,” Shep barked, checking the door Frizzle had just sniffed. “
Was
a fighter.” He snorted, then took a deep breath, fully scenting the air. It was as he thought — that yapper's pug nose was good for nothing. “There's a dog in here.”

“What?!” Frizzle scrambled back, nearly head-butting Shep. “Let me smell it again.” He stuck his nose practically under the door and began snorting and snuffling. “Oh, yeah. There is a
faint
smell of dog.” He straightened his forelegs and licked his nose. “Very faint. Any dog could've missed that scent.” He scratched his neck, shook his coat, then tipped his head at Shep. “Well?”

“Well, what?” Shep woofed. Wasn't Frizzle going to apologize, or something? He nearly left a dog behind because he was too lazy to take a proper scent!

“You going to open the door or wait and see if it opens itself?” Frizzle jutted out his wide jaw. Shep had the urge to swipe it right off his tiny smug snout.

Shep grumbled to himself.
No dog should have to put up with this
, he thought.
Being pushed around by yappers, breaking teeth on stupid knobs.
He attacked the knob, biting and thrashing his head and scrabbling his paws against the door frame. Nothing.

“There must be a lock,” Frizzle said, yawning. “You should check with the dog inside.”

I'll check you, you little
… Shep hopped down onto all fours, and barked loudly at the door. “Hey! Dog! You smell like a big dog, am I right?”

He heard claws clicking on the floor. Taking a deep sniff, he could tell that it was a girldog, that she was a bit older than Shep, and was about the same size. A tough dog, but not a fighter.
Thank the Great Wolf.
Shep thought he might've chewed his own ears off if he'd had to take care of another yapper.

“Hello?” barked the girldog. “Yes, I'm a chocolate Labrador retriever.”

“What is
that
?” yapped Frizzle.

“You must be a mutt,” she moaned. “It's so hard to find a purebred dog these suns.”

“Who you calling a mutt, you choco-triever, or whatever you are?” Frizzle's hackles were up. He looked ready to fight the door frame.

Shep sighed and sat on his haunches. This was worse than a yapper — he had a snob on his hands. Shep knew these dogs from the Park. Dogs with fancy collars who thought the world of themselves, looking down their muzzles at the rest of the pack.

“Purebred or not, we're here to rescue you,” Shep barked.

“Thank you, but I'm perfectly fine as is.”

Shep heard the clicking of the girldog's paws, then nothing. She must have gone back to bed. She had the right idea.

“What are we doing?” Shep growled. “Let's just tell Callie we checked the rest of the hallway and get back to bed.”

“You can go back to the den,” said Frizzle. “I'm checking the rest of the hall.” He picked up his nub of a tail and trotted away from Shep, nose in the air.

Shep whined and stared longingly down the hall at the open doorway of Higgins's den, the nice dark place where he could wait out this storm in peace, all curled up on that giant bed, thinking only of the return to his own den, and his own boy, and his own yapper-free life. Then he got up and followed that stumpy, black, pug-nosed, little demon-dog Frizzle.

“So, you were telling me about your fighting suns,” Frizzle said as Shep caught up with him.

Shep didn't recall saying anything of the kind. “No, I wasn't,” he woofed. “I don't like to bark about it.”

Frizzle sniffed a door, properly this time, taking a number of snorty breaths. “Aw, come on. All dogs like to bark about their fights. This one time, at the Park near my den, I got into it with this dog who was almost a full-stretch taller than me. He thought I'd be easy pickings, but he learned a thing or two.” Frizzle panted loudly, grinning. “Dog, you should have seen his nose when I got through with him. I was all, CLAW, CLAW, right in his snout.” Frizzle danced back and forth on his hind legs, swiping his paws in the air.

Shep stepped back to avoid the flailing little yapper. It was almost too funny to watch him scrabble around. As if that was how you fought another dog. Frizzle looked like he was trying to catch a Ball with his paws, like a human!

“I'm sure it was a thrilling battle,” Shep woofed sarcastically.

Frizzle quit his air-dance and snorted loudly. “Yeah, well. I've shown the dogs in that Park a thing or two.”

“I'm sure you have.” Shep could barely keep from bursting into a fit of panting. This dog was ridiculous!

“Nothing in this den but a cat,” Frizzle yipped. “You agree, Mister Big Nose?” He cocked his head at Shep.

“Call me that again,” Shep growled.

“What?” Frizzle snorted. “You going to do something about it?” Frizzle's tail waggled and his jaws split into a snaggle-toothed smile. He hopped on his little paws. “Come on, Big Nose. One fight. I'll show you all my best moves.” He slapped his paws on the ground. A thread of drool dangled from his bottom lip.

Shep sighed. Much as he wanted to bury Frizzle in a pile of sand, he wasn't a dog who trounced yappers for the fun of it. Fighting — real fighting — wasn't a game to be played, especially with such an easy mark. “Maybe some other time,” he woofed.

“Really?” Frizzle yipped. “Because I've wanted to try this new move. I call it the cockroach. See, I get real low, then scuttle under the other dog's belly….”

This parade of crazy continued for the next several doors. Frizzle would try to get Shep to bark about his fighting suns, and when he refused, Frizzle would act out another of his infamous battles. With each display, Shep became more and more certain that the little dog had never fought so much as a dead squirrel. But he let him go on, and the battles Frizzle described became more and more fantastical.

“This one time, I had three — no, four — dogs on me at once. I was kicking with my hind legs — BAM, CLAW — and slashing with my jaws — FANG, FANG, FANG — and my fore claws, whew! They were invisible, moving fast as the wind — PAW, PAW, PAW.”

He had an active imagination. Shep had to give Frizzle that.

“I think we've got one,” Shep barked loudly, interrupting the severe thrashing Frizzle was giving to his shadow.

“All right!” Frizzle howled, panting heavily from his exertions. “Smells like a little dog. Fluffy one. One of those little white fluffy things, I'm guessing.”

Frizzle was getting better at scenting things out. Shep agreed that they were looking at freeing the worst kind of yapper — the tiny, breakable kind.

“Hey, fluffy dog!” Frizzle yapped. “You need rescuing?” He pounced on the door, scratching at the metal.

Tiny claws ticked on the floor stones, and there was the whisper of fur dragging on the ground. “Please! It's dark in here,” the fluffy dog woofed. “I'm lonely, and the wind is making such an awful racket.” The girldog's voice was raspy, and she smelled like an old timer.

The fact that she was an old timer changed everything for Shep. He crouched low, close to the door, and woofed softly to her. “I need you to look up at the knob on the door. Is there a little nub on it?” The girldog said yes, and Shep explained to her about locks and how she needed to turn that nub.

“Is there a table near the door?” Frizzle barked. “Can you get on it and turn the nub?”

The old timer whimpered. “No, there's no table. Does that mean you can't get me out?” She lay down and pressed her nose to the space at the bottom of the door. “The light's so dim in the hall. I wish it were brighter. It's so dark in here.”

Shep put his head down to the floor and snuffled at the old girldog. “I'm sorry,” he whined. “I wish we could dig through this door and get you out.”

“It's all right.” She sighed. “My mistress will be back soon.”

Shep didn't have the heart to tell her about the empty streets, how every thing seemed abandoned, about the iguanas parading down the Sidewalk, how he hadn't seen a human in suns. He didn't want to think about these things himself. How could he tell a poor, trapped old timer that her mistress might never return?

“She will,” Shep said. “Just curl up and I'm sure she'll be back in the morning.”

Shep waited until he could no longer hear the click and shuffle of the old timer's stride. By the time he turned around, Frizzle was already halfway down the hall, headed back to Higgins's den. They'd finished the entire hallway, and didn't have a single rescue to show for it. Shep trotted to catch up with Frizzle.

“Sad to have to leave her behind,” Frizzle yapped when Shep reached his side. “But that's the nature of things, right? The Law of the Land — only the strong survive.” Frizzle added an extra swish to his waddle as he spoke.

Nature didn't trap that old timer
, Shep brooded. But he kept quiet, not wanting to let Frizzle see how much leaving behind the girldog had rattled him.

Frizzle glanced up at Shep and stopped. “Why's your tail dragging?”

Stupid tail!
Shep growled at his rump like it had a traitorous mind of its own.

“It's not that old timer, is it?” Frizzle's tail wagged, like he knew he was onto something.

Shep braced himself for an attack. Frizzle sensed his weakness; Shep knew that any weakness was an opening.

But Frizzle didn't attack. He dropped his head, lowered his ears (as far as he could), and wagged his tail.

“Don't worry about her,” Frizzle said. “She was just a little scared. And she was an old dog. I give her one, two cycles, tops. Her best suns are long gone.” Frizzle panted happily, as if these points made every thing all right.

These little dogs confused Shep. Here was a clear opening for a fight and Frizzle didn't take it. Instead, he tried to be friendly. In an awful kind of way, he was trying to comfort Shep. Frizzle didn't know about the old timer in the fight kennel; he was just a cocky pup who was trying to be nice. Well, Shep didn't need his niceness. He was the big dog. He was a rescuer. He didn't need to be comforted by a know-nothing, yappy braggart like Frizzle.

“Just because she's old doesn't mean she's worthless,” Shep grumbled. “And if the law is only the strong survive, how do
you
expect to make it?”

Frizzle snorted. “Touchy, touchy, Mister Big Nose. Come on. We have to meet up with Callie.” He waddled toward the entry.

Shep watched the little dog until he turned the corner, then followed. Things were less confusing for Shep when he was alone. Then there were only his needs, only his fears.

He looked inside Zeus's den. The crack in the wall was black with wet, and a new crack had scratched its way across the ceiling. A puddle stretched from below the broken window to the open doorway. Small tongues of water licked at the stones of the hall.

Shep pressed his body to the opposite wall as he passed, as if dipping his paws in the puddle would infect him with the storm's destruction. The den's ceiling groaned like it was in pain. A dog howled somewhere above. There were others trapped in this building. Other dogs desperate for Shep to help them.

I can barely help myself
, Shep thought. He looked out the window at the end of the hall — still dark. Thick sheets of rain glittered in the darkness, warping the light from the buildings across the way. The storm's smell was every where, and when the wind gusted, the pounding of the rain against the glass was deafeningly loud. He'd never smelled anything like this storm. Was there any chance it would be over by morning? How long until he could leave all these yappers behind and go back to his den and forget their problems and needs and fears?

 

Callie and Zeus were waiting in the entry room. Callie sniffed the potted palms that stood on either side of the entry doors, while Zeus was collapsed in a pile against the opposite wall. Trembling in the hallway beyond stood a yellowish, medium-sized girldog with a long fat tail, floppy ears, and tapered snout ending in a brown nose. She stared miserably at the single step that led from the hall into the entry room.

Frizzle scrambled over to Callie and gave her a couple of licks on the nose. “What's up with the yellow dog?” he snuffled, tilting his head in the girldog's general direction.

“I think she's afraid of steps,” Callie said. “She's a little nervous about doors and steps. Her name's Boji, short for Beaujolais.”

“Nice to meet you, Bo-jellies!” Frizzle barked, tail wagging.

The yellow dog glanced at him, gave a feeble wave of her tail, then looked back at the step like it might take a snap at her.

Shep loped over to where Zeus lay, spread out between the blue wall and the counter. Zeus looked at Shep like he was ready to gnaw his own tail off.

“I don't know how you put up with it,” Zeus whined. “The incessant yapping: ‘Try it this way,' ‘Let's get that door.' I'm about ready to lock myself back in my den and take my chances with the storm.”

“I hear you, buddy,” Shep moaned, flopping down beside him.

Zeus wagged his tail. “The yellow dog is a little off,” he said. “We found one other dog, but his door had some sort of chain holding it shut. We called the Furface over to help, but he had no idea what to do.” Zeus had apparently taken to calling Higgins “the Furface.”

“We had one snob who wanted to be left in her den,” Shep woofed. “And one old timer girldog who couldn't undo the lock on her door.” Shep licked his paws, hoping to hide from Zeus how upset he was about the old timer.

“Good riddance,” Zeus said. “Last thing we need is a pain in the tail purebred and an old yapper.”