Tails of the Apocalypse

Demon and Emily (a Symphony of War short story) ^{by David Adams}

New Panama

World of Polema

May 19

2239 AD

Four years before the events of Symphony of War: The Polema Campaign

I’m Demon. I’m a good boy. I know I am because Emily told me so.

“Get in the car, Demon,” Emily says, frantically pulling my lead, trying to drag me into the open car door. Emily is my human and today is not a very good day. Evacuation sirens wail all around me. “The Prophets Wept, hurry!”

I don’t want to. I whine and pull back, pushing away from the door.

Even though I’m a good boy, I don’t want to get in the car today.

Sometimes the car is good; it takes me to the park, or to the vacant block near the water purification plant, where I can run and play and jump. Sometimes it takes me to the vet. Then the car is bad. I can normally guess which one it is. If we’re going to the park, Emily is relaxed and happy; if we’re going to the vet, she’s unhappy and stressed.

I don’t know what to think of the car today.

Emily is terrified.

I can smell it on her. The other humans, her parents, are scared too; the stink of their fear is everywhere. Emily’s father is in the steering seat. Her mother is in the other. She has the boom-maker from their cupboard. I can smell something strange in the boom-maker. Sulphur and chemicals and metal.

All the humans in this block are scared. And that makes me scared. There’s so much noise; thunder in the distance and flashes of lightning.

I run to Emily every time there’s thunder, and she’s never scared; she soothes me and tells me I’m a good boy. This is different.

This time the thunder scares her too.

“Emily,” says Emily-mother, her voice stressed. “We have to go. The roads are going to be blocked if we don’t move.”

Emily starts to cry. This upsets me more. I pull away from the car. She pulls back.

“Come on, Demon! Get in, get in!”

No! I don’t want to get in. Normally I’m a lot stronger than Emily, but fear gives her power. She drags me roughly into the back seat. My neck hurts. Emily-mother slams the door behind me so I can’t escape.

The car starts to move. I jump up, looking out the window. Our house, red bricks and green grass, disappears behind us. We’re heading away from the park and toward the vet. I start to bark. No vet. Not while there’s thunder.

So many cars, all driving in the same direction. Some are going on the wrong side of the road. With a thump, our car drives up on the middle part, and over to the wrong side, too. Cars swerve, and their whining engines hurt my ears. They are driving so fast. Heedless. Away from the house; away from everything.

Running.

The sky lights up in flashes; huge clouds billow, black and bruised, on the horizon. They rise in strange ways, like no cloud I’ve ever seen before; a giant ball of cloud slowly rising, and there’s fire underneath it. Then another flash, and another. They hurt my eyes.

“Shit!” says Emily-father, his voice hollow. “They’re using nukes. The evacuation hasn’t even begun.”

I don’t think we’re going to the vet.

The car swerves to one side. A huge car is coming down the road—it is like a very big box, and it has a big boom-maker on top of it. Our car gets out of the way. Another car doesn’t; the big metal-box drives over it, crushing it like a can. The people inside die. Did they have a good boy too? I didn’t see.

Another metal-box is right behind that one. And then another. It is a long train of metal-boxes with strange wheels. They have boom-makers on top.

“We have to get going,” says Emily-mother. “Can we get around?”

“The tank just drove over those people,” says Emily-father. “I don’t want to get too close. Hang on; if I swing on the outside…”

“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.

I walk along with Emily. My leg hurts a lot. I know Emily is scared, and I’m scared, too. I smell bugs. They’re getting closer. I don’t think Emily knows. She keeps walking along the road.

This is a mistake. We should get away from the road and hide. I know how predators think.

They go where the food is.

We keep walking. The cars are now constant. They begin to move slowly; I get scared. They’re moving too slowly. They have light. This will draw the bugs to them for sure. I keep tugging for Emily to leave the road and get out toward the wilderness, where we can be safe.

“No, Demon,” she says, tugging me back. “We have to stay with the people.”

One of the cars stops. The people inside open the door. It’s four humans, probably related. They smell of sweat and fear.

“Hey girl,” the driver says. He’s very fat. They all are. “Get in.”

“There’s no room for Demon,” says Emily. There’s barely room for her.

“Forget the dog,” the man says. “She’ll be okay on her own.”

“Demon’s a boy,” says Emily. “And I can’t go unless he comes with me.”

The man shrugs and drives away. We keep walking.

Finally, the flood of cars slows down. One of the cars far ahead has broken. The road is blocked. Now we’re walking faster than the cars. People look at us. I growl at them. They leave us alone. We pass the fat man and his fat family. I growl at them, too.

One of the cars is different from the other cars, a metal-box. There are people riding in it; I can see their faces through tiny windows.

Emily runs up to the door and pounds on it. The window rolls down.

“This is an ambulance, right?” she says, her eyes very big.

“Sorry, kid,” the driver says. He’s wearing strange, bulky clothes and a helmet. “Military use only.”

“No, no,” says Emily. “You gotta go help my Mum. She was in the army! She fought in the Reclamation; she’s back there, and she’s hurt bad.”

“Sorry,” the driver says again. “We can’t go back.”

“You have to!” Emily is shouting. “She’s in the army like you!”

“We’ll radio another unit to pick them up,” says the driver. “They’ll be fine.”

“You promise?” Emily doesn’t look happy. That makes me unhappy.

“Yeah. Sure, kid.” The driver looks down at her. “Are you hurt?”

I growl at him.

“No, Demon,” says Emily to me, quietly. I growl anyway.

“I’m fine,” says Emily. “Demon is hurt.”

“So your mother’s back there,” says the man. “Where’s your father?”

Emily points back the way we came. “That way, too. They crashed. I still think we need to go back for them.”

The man shrugs helplessly. “We couldn’t even if we wanted to,” he said. “The road that way is bumper to bumper. What a beating.”

Emily cries a bit. “My parents need help. They were bleeding. The car rolled. We hit a bug.”

“What?” The man looks concerned. He opens the door and leaves the metal-box. He slides a small box into his boom-maker. It makes a clicking noise. “What kind of bug? How big?”

“Big,” says Emily. She’s shaking a bit as she talks. I bump up against her leg to reassure her. “Like, really big. It attacked our car. Demon and I killed it.” She holds out the boom-maker. “With this.”

That seems to surprise him a lot. His voice is quiet. “You killed one?”

“Yeah.” Emily gives the boom-maker a shake. “Like I said.”

The man squints at her and pulls out a light. “The Prophets Wept,” he says, looking over Emily and me. “Black blood. Like they have.”

“I told you,” she said. “Demon bit it, and while it was distracted, I shot it.”

I did bite it. I’m a good boy.

Nobody says anything for a bit. Then he touches his helmet. “LT, I got a little girl out here. She’s separated from her parents.” He pauses. “I know, but she’s got a shotgun and a pretty mean-looking dog. She says she killed one of them.”

Another big pause. Then the man jerks his thumb toward the metal-box. “Anyone who can kill one of those has gotta be tough. Go around the back and jump in.”

Emily hesitates. “What about Demon?”

“And your dog, too. We’re getting past this shit-show. Don’t worry, we’ll keep you safe till we reach the evacuation point.”

“Evacuation?” Emily looks confused. “What?”

The man suddenly smells funny. “Just get aboard,” he says. “Let the corpsmen in the back take a look at you, and then I’ll call the rear elements and make sure they pick up your folks.”

Emily seems happy. That makes me happy. She goes around to the back of the metal-box. It slides open, extending a ramp. The inside seems cramped and smelly. It’s full of people. Emily walks up the ramp and cautiously sits on the floor. I sit beside her. The door closes, then the metal-box begins to drive; it swerves to one side, and through the tiny windows, I see it passing the line of stopped cars.

We’re driving off the road. Metal-boxes don’t seem to be worried by that.

Everyone is looking at me. They’re male humans and female humans. One of the males pulls out a bag full of weird-smelling chemicals. The metal-box shakes a lot but nobody seems bothered by it.

“Hey there,” he says. “My name is Specialist Roderic. I’m a medic.”

“Hello, sir,” Emily says. “I’m Emily Rowlandson.”

He nods understandingly. He looks at the boom-maker. “I don’t think you’ll need that anymore.”

Emily clutches it close. “It’s my Mum’s. I’m keeping it.”

“Okay,” he says. “Just keep your finger off the trigger when we’re moving. If that thing goes off in here, that’s a recipe for unpleasantness.”

Emily lays the boom-maker down beside her.

“Mind if I take a look at that wound?” the man asks.

Emily shows him her head. He seems pleased as he looks it over.

“She’s not hurt bad,” says one of the females. She has a long tube that smells of sulphur. But there’s a sound in her voice that raises the fur on my back.

The man glares at the woman. “What’s your problem, Corporal?”

“The LT didn’t authorise us to pick up a fucking dog. I hate dogs.”

I growl a bit at her. Emily rubs my back. That usually means the human is okay. I stop growling.

“I know,” says the man. “But it’s here now, so stop complaining.”

We ride in silence. The metal-box rocks from side to side; Emily and I slide across the floor. Driving away from the road is difficult. The man holds Emily with his legs. I whine and start to get dizzy. I throw up.

“Fuck!” The woman has my vomit on her boots. “Are you shitting me?”

“It’s not Demon’s fault!” says Emily. She’s crying again.

The woman kicks me. I feel sick from the rocking and my leg hurts. I whine and put my tail between my legs. I don’t want to fight the woman.

“Knock it off,” says the medic-man. “Don’t be a bitch.”

“I fucking hate dogs,” the woman says.

We keep going.

“What’s this about an evacuation?” says Emily.

Nobody answers.

“You’re getting everyone out, right?” she asks. “All those people?”

“Yeah,” says the medic-man.

“And other army people are going to pick up my parents?”

“Yeah,” says the medic-man. He smells funny as he talks. “We’re driving to meet a ship. It’s going to land in the woods and pick us up.”

“What kind of ship?” asks Emily. “A heavy lifter? There’s a lot of people.”

The humans all look at each other.

“I don’t have an aural implant,” says Emily. “Just say it out loud.”

“You don’t?” The medic-man looks surprised. “Most people have them by your age.”

“I know,” says Emily, sounding angry. “My Mum got sick in the Reclamation. The pension isn’t much. Implants are expensive. I only have the basics.”

For some reason, this seems to make most of the people… strange. They all look a bit sad, a bit angry.

“Yeah,” says the medic. “Military pensions aren’t exactly great.”

“That’s what we have to look forward to,” says the woman.

“You vote, don’t you?” says the man. “If you don’t like the system, change it.”

They bicker for a bit. Talking about something they call politics. I throw up again.

“You said it, buddy,” says the medic-man, patting me on the ears. I’m too sick to growl at him.

The metal-box jerks, rocks, and then mercifully stops. Everyone instantly becomes tense, listening to a sound only they can hear. More metal-talking, I guess.

“We’re bogged,” says the medic-man to Emily. “Wait here.”

Emily nods, holding my collar tight.

The back of the box opens. The smell of bugs washes in. I can see tree trunks. We are still away from the road. The people run out of the metal-box; they move fast and surround the metal-box.

We wait. I definitely smell bugs. I tug at my lead and Emily, too surprised to do anything, can’t hold on to me. I run out and down the ramp.

The bugs are coming from behind the metal-box. I bark and I bark.

I hear the medic-man. “The dog’s freaking out.”

“Fuck the dog,” says the woman. “Ready. On three…”

The bugs are very close. I bark as loud as I can. Emily comes out and tries to drag me back into the metal-box, but I resist. The humans don’t know the bugs are there.

I know how predators think. The humans are prey.

The medic-man walks out from beside the metal-box. “Hey, buddy,” he says. “What’s wrong?”

I sniff, and I know where they are now. I look up and bark.

The man follows my eyes, up to the trees.

“Contact!” he shouts out. “Climbers in the trees!”

Dozens of bugs with wings fly down from the trees. They snatch up one of the humans and tear him in half. The medic-man fires his boom-maker: crack-crack-crack! Emily and I run back into the metal-box and hide far away from the noise. The door closes.

The sounds of fighting thump all around the metal-box. It shakes suddenly as something hits it.

Through the window I can see a big bug, its claws holding onto the sides of the metal-box. It has lots of arms; it slams a claw against the side, denting the metal. Emily screams. Thump. Thump. The metal cracks.

There’s a flash of light and fire. The bug explodes.

The woman who hates me appears by one of the windows, splattered in black blood. Her tube-weapon has smoke coming out of both ends. She jams a smaller tube into it and fires again at something I can’t see.

Eventually the noise from the boom-makers stops, and the back of the metal-box opens again.

Five humans return. There’s plenty of room now.

“The Prophets Wept,” says the woman. “That fucking dog… he could smell ’em.”

“Yeah,” says the medic-man. “Saved us. Good dog.”

Yes, I’m a good dog.

The metal-box drives on. One of the humans gives me some food from a pouch on his chest and I eat it.

I hope I don’t throw up again.

I don’t know how long the metal-box runs after that. Wherever we are, it’s a very long way from the vet.

The humans are nicer to me now. They give me pats and food, and the medic-man takes a look at my leg. I don’t like him touching it—it hurts, but then he pours some chemical on the wound, which makes the pain go away.

The metal-box trundles on. The rocking stops after a while and the journey is easier. I could even stand, instead of lying down and feeling sick.

But I’m so tired. Emily and I sleep a bit, snuggled together between the legs of the medic-man.

We wake up to a deep rumbling. I feel it before Emily does; I jump up, barking excitedly at one of the tiny windows.

Dawn has come, and in the light of the morning I can see a flying metal-box landing in a green field. It extends a ramp. The humans around us, tired and smelly, seem happy.

The door at the back of our metal-box drops down and I’m the first to run out. I even put weight on my leg; it works, and although I can smell the beginnings of rot starting to set in, I know it’s going to be okay. The medic-man fixed me.

The air is clean and no bugs are around. The grass under my paws is unfamiliar and rich. We must have run a very long way. We’re out in the middle of nowhere.

Emily is the last out. The medic-man is carrying her very gently, her boom-maker slung over his shoulder. He walks down the ramp, smiling widely.

“The ship’s here,” says the medic-man. “We’re getting out of here.”

“That’s it?” says Emily, looking at the new metal-box. It’s not a lot bigger than the one we just left. “But what about everyone else?” She looks around. “Where are the other cars?”

Everyone is suddenly tense.

“Emily,” said the medic-man, “There are no other cars. They didn’t make it. It’s just us.”

“But what about Mum?” Her voice becomes stressed. “Wh-What about Dad?”

“It’s just us,” says the medic-man. “Come on. We have to go. The ship won’t wait forever.”

Emily begins to kick. “No!” she screams. “I want my Mum!”

No, this is not good. I growl at the medic-man. He’s hurting Emily.

“Emily, wait, listen to me. Listen! This ship is your way off-world, and you’ve got to take it. These things—the things that killed your parents? They’re coming. We can’t go back for your folks, Emily. They’re gone. They’re dead. Listen to me! Fleet is going to blast this whole continent. They’re going to nuke it, Emily. Everything.”

She isn’t listening. Emily is kicking and shouting. “Let me go!” she says. “Let me go! I’m going back!”

“Emily, stop it!”

“Let me go!”

He drops her. Emily lands with a plop, and then jumps up and runs to me. I put myself between her and the medic-man, growling.

“The Interdictor’s preparing to leave,” says the medic-man. “Emily, come on. We have to get onboard.”

The ship begins to whine, a loud noise that shakes the ground.

Medic-man comes close. I snap my teeth at him. I won’t let them take Emily.

“Stay back,” says Emily. “Demon will get you!”

I will, too. I growl some more at him.

Suddenly the woman, the one with the tube who saved us before, is behind me, her arms around Emily. “Come on, you brat!” she shouts. “Get in the fucking ship!”

No! I leap. I bite the woman. She falls over. I jump on top of her, biting and snarling, going for her throat.

BOOM.

Pain.

Now I’m lying on the ground. There’s blood everywhere. My blood. I can smell it. The medic-man has Emily’s boom-maker. He boomed me with it. Smoke rises from both ends.

“Demon!” Emily grabs my neck, holding up my head. She’s screaming and crying, but it all seems really far away. “Demon! Demon!”

I’m so sleepy. I kick a bit as the medic-man grabs Emily and picks her up, carrying her towards the metal-box. She screams and cries and fights, but she’s so little. The medic-man carries her up the ramp and onto the metal-box.

The woman looks at me. She, too, is crying. She’s upset even though I tried to bite her neck. “Fuck!” she yells at medic-man. “You didn’t have to fucking shoot him!”

Medic-man says nothing.

He too is crying.

Emily fights. She’s trying to get to me. I can see her through a tiny window, her face filling it up. She thumps her fists on the metal. I want to get to her, although I also want to nap; to go to sleep and let the pain go away. But I can’t get up. My rear legs don’t work.

I have to be with Emily.

The door to the metal-box seals. It hums loudly as though it might explode at any moment. Then the ship begins to rise. Soon they’re gone. All I can smell is the fresh grass and the blood. Then the wind changes. With it, comes the distant scent of bugs.

The humans will make sure Emily is safe. I hope. I don’t know if I did the right thing, but I know one thing.

I’m a good boy.

I know I am because Emily told me so.