Pavlov's Dogs (7 page)

As Jorge was about to get in, another girl from the trailer ran up, thinking there was more room. Her face fell, and Jorge saw it.

“Go ahead,” he told her. “I’ll get in the, uh...” He was going to say “back seat” until he saw there was no more room.

He glanced at the trailer.

“The one lady who got injured,” Ken said. “Why don’t you take her car? I’m sure she’d rather not leave it behind.”

“Yeah,” Jorge said, staring out at the lady’s yellow VW Beetle. “I guess I could... drive a girl’s car.”

Ken watched in his mirrors as Jorge went back to the trailer and spoke with the lady. She looked as spaced out as Jorge was acting. But she finally seemed to understand what he was asking and handed over her keys. Ken watched Jorge stare down at the keychain where the girl had affixed a big yellow daisy, same color as her car.

As Jorge got in the Beetle and tentatively put his hands on the fluffy white steering wheel, Ken couldn’t help but chuckle.

“What’s so goddamn funny?” the old man asked from the backseat.

“Nothing,” Ken said, straightening up. “Just nervous laughter.” He put Big Bertha in gear and took off, keeping one eye on the rearview mirror.

ALPHA MCLOUGHLIN, still in his workout coveralls, paced up and down the Dogs’ barracks, listening to the chatter up and down the rows of bunks. The talk consisted mostly of the Thetas—along with the cluster of Sigmas—bouncing conjecture back and forth about the meaning of the radio reports.

The Alpha, though, found himself wondering whether he would ever get used to wearing topsiders instead of combat boots. At first it had rankled him to walk around in the flat-bottomed blue shoes, but he at least had gotten used to the feel of them, if not the idea. He knew why they were necessary, especially when it came to finances and the cost of replacing the boots versus replacing the canvas shoes when they tore during the Change. But at heart, he was a military man, and he wanted those trappings.

“God
damn
,” Theta Rose said, “I don’t care what those things are out there. They could be nuns on a ’roid rage, and I’d gladly wolf on them just to get some time off this rock.” He laughed, showing off the gaps in his bottom teeth. “Can I get an amen?”

Rose put his fist out and several of the Sigmas bumped it.

Another Theta, a man with a skin tone somewhere between brown and red, spoke up. “That would be a good way to test ourselves: on the field of battle. My ancestors—”

Rolling his eyes, Rose said, “No one cares about that, chief. No one cares what your great grandpappy thought was a good way to die.” He nudged one of the Sigmas with his foot. “I think he had to change his name to Runs-On-All-Fours, yeah?”

“My name is—”

“Knock it off,” McLoughlin said, passing by them on yet another lap. “The name stitched on your uniform is Hayte.”

“Theta Haytah,” Rose said, sending the Sigmas into paroxysms of laughter. “He’s right, though. We should be out there on the mainland, cleaning things up. We could be out saving people. Instead, we’re what?” He slapped the bunk he was sitting on. “Chillin’ on the island with old Doc Crispin.”

Another man, reclining on his bed, laughed. “Yeah, what’s up with that? He just rolled over and let the new guy call the shots?” He brushed one hand on the front of his coveralls, scattering imaginary dust off the name KRISTOS stitched there. “Ain’t no way that flies with me.”

Alpha McLoughlin pointed a blunt finger at Kristos. “Stow that shit, Theta. You know better than that.”

Rose said, “Aw, come on, Mac. Don’t tell me you’re not itching to get out and sink your teeth into this. You know how many people we never got to help over in Afgha—”

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” the Alpha said. “That’s not who we are. We are not a group of individuals. We are not freelance contractors. We are not civilians.”

One of the Sigmas raised his hand, and Hayte smacked it down before the Alpha could see.

“We are a pack. We are the Dogs of War. And we do as we are told.”

The barracks door opened, and McLoughlin turned to welcome Samson. But the greeting died on his lips.

“Kaiser? Where’s your Beta?”

A sneer sprang up on one side of Kaiser’s mouth. “
Theta
Samson is still in therapy.”

Mac tilted his head to one side, like a dog hearing something it did not expect. He closed out everything else and focused on Kaiser, reading him.

It wasn’t anything he had been able to communicate to the scientists; none of their instruments could pick up on certain aspects of the Dogs, but McLoughlin could. Were he of the New Age, he would have called it their auras; if he were an Oriental mystic, the chi. He didn’t have a word for it, but something was different about Kaiser now, that indefinable thing by which McLoughlin had divided his men into ranks.

And certainly the fact that Kaiser had recovered more quickly than Samson indicated to everybody in the room that a shift in power had occurred. The hierarchy had changed.

But by how much?

“Does Crispin know about this?” McLoughlin found himself asking, just to fill the suddenly dead air.

Kaiser laughed. “Does Crispin know about
anything
?”

’

Donovan knocked on Dr. Crispin’s door, unsure of his own intentions but wanting to talk to the man after the vote. Part of him relished in winning the majority, but another part, perhaps the side of him attuned to survival instincts, insisted that he talk to Crispin without delay. To smooth things over.

He knocked again.

Both Holly and Jaden had assured him that this was where he could find Crispin, but there didn’t seem to be anybody home. He stood there looking at the door and deliberating.

Alpha McLoughlin, walking the corridors of the compound, ran the brief encounter with Kaiser over in his head. A few of the security men passing by gave him a look for crossing the open areas unescorted, but he was the top Dog. None of them met his eyes for long. When he caught a reflection of himself, he saw why.

“Jesus.”

Samson’s sudden demotion had upset him, but he hadn’t expected it to show in his face so much. His cheekbones had taken on an angular aspect, and his sideburns seemed bushier than before; telltale signs that a transformation was imminent, if he lost control of himself.

With a conscious effort, McLoughlin calmed himself and continued toward Dr. Crispin’s office. It would not do for the Alpha Dog to have the Change thrust upon him by circumstances.

He found Dr. Donovan standing there by the door, looking as if he couldn’t make up his mind. McLoughlin gently shouldered him aside and knocked on the door, then entered, as was the norm. Donovan followed, and the pair found the project director sitting at his desk, a half-empty bottle of Crown Royal in front of him. Three empty purple bags lay strewn across the floor, and McLoughlin could smell it on him; Dr. Crispin was drunk.

The doctor ignored the open door and his guests, staring instead at the small radio set that was part of his in-office entertainment system. Over it hung a large silver sword, shining in the harsh fluorescent light.

“Dr. Crispin?” McLoughlin said. The sound of radio news came to him, a constant outpouring of speculation and reports of so-called undead activity. Every time the announcer used the word “zombie,” Dr. Crispin flinched in his seat.

I’ve never heard that radio on before
, McLoughlin thought.

“Doctor, I need to talk to you about an issue with the Dogs, sir.” His eyes shifted over to Donovan, then back to the project director. “In private.”

For several seconds, they waited for Crispin to respond.

“Sir?” McLoughlin said, and at that, Crispin waved his hand, beckoning both men in.

Extremely conscious of Donovan’s presence but helpless against his own nature, the Alpha Dog began to speak while the neurotechnician took a seat.

“It’s Kaiser, sir. He’s... well, he’s more than a Theta Dog now. I know how you hate the, ah, unquantifiable aspects of the experiment, but I can tell, sir.”

He paused, but Dr. Crispin said nothing. McLoughlin caught movement in the corner of his eye, and turned to see Dr. Donovan leaning forward in his chair, hand on fist and listening attentively. The Alpha shifted in his coveralls and cleared his throat.

“The thing is, sir, our hierarchy is established, but I know you modeled our behavior from wolves, and I’m concerned about the rest of the Dogs taking this path. I fear it may foster inter-pack aggression, when our focus should be on the enemy.

“I’ve been looking at our structure, and it would be wrong to keep Kaiser as a Theta, but I don’t want him as the Beta, sir. He’s wrong for it. He’s not a leader. We could make Kaiser an Epsilon, an entirely new rank, but still subordinate to the Beta. Dr. Crispin? Sir?”

The news coming from the radio kept the room from falling into dead silence.

McLoughlin looked at Donovan, who raised his eyebrows.

“I don’t know, Alpha McLoughlin. I just got here. You would know better than I the project director’s moods.”

The Alpha forced a smile and looked away. He didn’t want to talk about the Dogs to this man, this outsider, but if he was the new neurotech leader, then...

Dr. Crispin dropped his glass to the floor and pointed up at the sword on the wall. “That thing,” he said, enunciating carefully as people who know they’re drunk do. “That sword up there. My father had it made for me, did you know that?”

Donovan, sure in his position—and Crispin’s condition—turned his sharp gaze from the Alpha Dog to the project director.

McLoughlin felt even more uncomfortable than before. He didn’t want to be in the office anymore, didn’t want to see Dr. Crispin this way.

“He had it made for
me
,” Crispin said, pounding the desk on the last word. “Always had a big imagination, my father. He said, heh, he said I was going to be a monster hunter.” He put his hands up in the air, making a noise that would have been a giggle if it had sounded healthier. “Just like Beowulf. Heh. BAH.”

Crispin reached for his glass and, seeing it on the floor, grabbed the bottle of Crown Royal instead.

“Me. A monster hunter. He said I was destined to slay them.” He stared into the bottle. “If he could only see me now. I don’t slay monsters. No, I... I only make them.”

The tone of the radio report changed then, from insistent recitation of breaking news to something else. Crispin snatched up a remote control from his lap, fumbled it, and then used it to turn up the volume. The sound of breaking things and a low constant moaning filled the office.

“This station has... those things are inside,” the male newscaster said. “I’ve locked the sound room door, but I don’t know how long that will—”

The sound of shattering glass interrupted the man’s last words, and the air was again full of moaning, then screams. The yells of the radioman stopped abruptly, turning into a deep gurgle. There was another crashing sound, and then everything ceased.

“Dead air,” Crispin said into his bottle. “Get out.”

He powered off the radio and turned to Donovan and Alpha McLoughlin. “Didn’t you hear me? Get the hell out of here! Out!”

He stood, raising the bottle as if to throw it, and Donovan stood too. His hands came up to protect his face as he and the Alpha Dog backed up to the office door. Crispin watched them go, then sat back in his chair.

“Monsters,” he said as the door clicked shut.

A DARK SMUDGE OF GREY stained the horizon, and Ken felt his spirits sinking, way down into his boots.

“Are you seeing this?” he said into his cell phone.

“
Yes, I am,
jefe,” Jorge replied.
“It doesn’t look good. Unless it’s a McDonald’s on fire. That, I can live with.”

Ken sighed, wondering why he had expected a straight response from his friend. He checked the rearview mirror and could see Jorge on the road behind him, driving the yellow Beetle. Ken’s eyes shifted to the people on his trailer. They were all hunkered down, shielding their faces from the wind. He couldn’t blame them. He was only hitting forty, but that was quite enough when you were exposed.

“Any more texts from the trailer?” he asked the older couple sitting in the back seat.

The young man who had moved to the trailer was their kin, and for a short while, they had been communicating via cell phone. Ken had asked them several times to see how everyone back there was doing.

Looking to the trailer again, he found himself wondering about the girl who owned the Beetle, the one who had been bitten. She had been dressed nicely enough—a white silk blouse over a business skirt, and a pair of low heels. He grimaced, thinking of how cold she must be, out there in the wind-bitten trailer.

As the Blazer passed the first signs of civilization, it was easy to tell that civilization had fled. The Best Buy at the edge of town was a hive of activity, people running into the store empty-handed, others rushing out with armloads of electronics. It was much the same for the smaller stores on either side of the big blue box.