The Last Dog on Earth (21 page)

“I
know
, Dad.” Logan groaned.

Dad sighed. “What I was saying is, your mother wants more than anything for things to be
stable
,” he said. “With a capital
S.
That's why she married Robert.”

“You know him?” Logan asked, surprised.

Dad laughed. “Sure. He sold your mother and me our first two cars—didn't you know that? Back then he was at a Toyota dealership, though.”

“Whoa.” Logan pursed his lips, processing this.

“Anyway, you don't need to know him very well to see he's a stable sort of guy. He works hard to keep everything always the same, all the time. The problem is,
life
isn't stable. But you already know that, Logan. Much better than Robert does, I'd bet.”

Logan opened his mouth to answer, or protest, or argue, or—or
something.
But then he closed it. Incredibly enough, Dad was right.

Which meant there really wasn't much point in continuing the conversation. He certainly didn't want to hear any more dumb stories about how Mom used to find Dad books. Besides, the silence wasn't really so bad.

Something was very, very wrong in Portland.

Logan wasn't sure what, exactly (or maybe he just didn't want to think too hard about it), but the prickling anxiety he'd felt since they'd gotten off the bridge was slowly turning to fear. There was hardly any traffic. Most of the streets were blocked off with police barricades. His father had pretty much been driving in circles for the past twenty minutes. The university was less than half a mile from the river, but they couldn't seem to get within four blocks of it. And they kept passing the same groups of people in those billowy safe suits, huddled on street corners or in doorways … or at least, Logan assumed they were the same groups of people. It was impossible to tell.

He glanced back at Jack. Her breathing was more strained. Her throat kept making a weird rattling noise. Logan's jaw tightened.
Now
he
was having a hard time breathing. The hospital was close. He could see the north tower.

Okay, worst-case scenario: He would grab Jack and jump out of the car and hurdle the barricades, and, yes, maybe the guys in the safe suits would try to stop him … but he would simply barrel right past them and straight into the emergency room because their plastic was so slick that they wouldn't be able to get a grip on him, anyway—

The car jerked to a stop.

“Uh-oh,” Dad muttered.

Logan faced forward again. “What?”

But his father didn't have time to answer. The car was surrounded by a furious, screaming, red-faced mob. Instinctively, Logan slammed his fist down on the lock and backed so far away from the door that he practically crawled into his father's lap. The people seemed to appear out of nowhere, like a swarm of bees. Their voices buzzed; their enraged faces pressed against the windows. And all their anger seemed to be directed at Logan and his father. The weirdest thing about it was that Logan felt mildly guilty. In spite of his terror, he felt as if he were a famous criminal who was being escorted to a courthouse and forced to confront his victims. And he shouldn't have. He was just trying to get his dog fixed. He didn't understand what was going on. Were all these people sick? Were things really that bad?

“Wh-what's going on?” he stammered.

“This must be the only the way to the hospital,” Dad mumbled. Before Logan could ask another question, his father grabbed the gearshift and gunned the engine. The next thing Logan knew, his body was slammed back against the door. The car swerved around a corner. The hospital swam into view. Logan winced as he stared out the window. People were diving out of the way of the car. Dad
didn't slow down. He didn't try to hit anyone, but he wasn't exactly avoiding anyone, either. Logan stopped breathing. His limbs froze.
This is crazy. This can't be happening. This can't be …

The car screeched to a halt again, and Logan's face nearly slammed against the dashboard.

“Stop right there!” somebody barked.

Logan looked up. A pale, beefy security guard in a blue uniform was blocking their path, clutching a rifle. He must have weighed close to three hundred pounds. He leaned forward and glared angrily through the windshield.

All at once, his brow furrowed. His face softened a bit.

“Dr. Westerly?” he called. “Is that you?”

Dad nodded. He rolled down his window. “How are you, Phil?” he asked.

“Well, not great, as you can see,” the guard said. He hurried around to the driver's side. “We've been waiting for you. Sorry about this mess.”

“How long has the situation been like this?” Dad asked.

The guard shook his head. “A few days now.”

Logan glanced from Dad to the guard. For some reason, they seemed to be taking their time to get reacquainted, which seemed to Logan a very dumb idea. From his perspective, it would be a good idea to roll the window back up. Soon.
Immediately.

“What's going on?” somebody in the mob screamed.

“Back off !” the guard shouted, waving his gun at them.

Dad's fingers danced on the steering wheel. “Quite a scene out here,” he said.

“You could say that.” The guard bent back down by the window. “It's getting harder and harder to handle—” He broke off suddenly.

“What is it?” Dad asked.

The guard shook his head, his eyes widening. “Is that a
dog
in the back of your car?”

“Yes, it's my son's. I let Harold Marks know that I was coming with her—”

“Dr. Marks didn't mention that part to me,” the guard interrupted. His voice trembled “Look, you'd better get going. There's National Guardsmen all over the place. They've been killing dogs.” He backed away from the car. “Straight through into the garage. Dr. Marks is waiting for you. He made sure your old space was waiting for you, too.”

Dad laughed. “Isn't that nice,” he said. He didn't move, even though the mob was closing in again.

Logan frowned at him. If he'd thought Robert should win first prize for Freak of the Year, Dad was Freak Champion of the World. He was in a completely different category. Ultrafreak. Megafreak. There wasn't even a word for it.

“Uh, Dad?” Logan growled. “I hate to spoil your fun, but my dog might get shot if we stick around out here. So I think we should go.”

“I guess you're right,” Dad said. But he didn't sound as though he meant it.

The scene inside the hospital was even weirder than the scene on the streets. Normally, hospitals were quiet. Almost
eerily
quiet. Not this one. This hospital was a madhouse. Logan had never seen anything like it. He clutched Jack tightly in his arms as his father led him through a maze of brightly lit corridors—all of which were crawling with figures in safe suits, angry-looking doctors and nurses, and an occasional patient. None of them seemed to have any idea what to do with themselves except shout at each other … except, of course, when Logan walked past them. Then they all shut up and gaped at Jack.

Logan's back was beginning to hurt from Jack's weight. Jack's breathing was getting worse. Every time Logan took another step, she made a strange gurgling noise—as if she were rinsing her mouth out with mouthwash. She kept coughing and panting. “It's going to be okay, girl,” Logan whispered to her.

He hoped he was telling the truth.

Dr. Marks's big, plush office was empty. It stayed empty.

Logan didn't get it. Out on the street, the guard had said that Dr. Marks would be waiting for
them.
But ten minutes had already ticked by with agonizing slowness, and Dr. Marks was still nowhere to be seen.

Dad hadn't said a word. He'd just handed Logan a plastic cup of water for Jack, then sat down on the giant leather couch and stared at all the framed diplomas and awards on the wall. Occasionally, he sneered. Maybe he was having a conversation with himself in his head.

Logan tried to get Jack to drink from the cup, but as it turned out, she wasn't thirsty. Or maybe she just was physically unable to drink. She lay sprawled on the floor, her breath rasping in her chest. And Logan couldn't do anything about it. He really wished he could find one of those National Guardsmen everybody kept talking about and maybe borrow a grenade or five and blow up a bathroom or something—because then the idiots might finally understand that some people actually wanted their dogs to survive.

“So, Dad,” Logan said. “Where do you think this guy is?”

“No doubt doing something very important,” Dad replied.

Logan blinked. Well. There was another totally whacked-out answer. So much for the relatively normal conversation they'd had in the car. Logan decided he would just stop asking questions. He tossed the cup in the garbage, then sat beside Jack on the thick beige rug and stroked the back of her neck, teasing gently at her shredded and blood-caked fur. Every once in a while, she twitched. Her eyes were rheumy and gummed up.

“Don't worry, girl,” he said. “We're going to get help soon.”

“I hope that's true,” Dad said. “I really do.”

The door opened. A man in a white lab coat stepped into the office. He quickly shut the door behind him and locked it. He was wearing neatly pressed suit pants and a tie. They swished in the way that only really expensive clothes do. His shirt had cuff links. His hair was slicked back with gel, like Mr. Wallace's hair. But
what struck Logan most about him was how drawn and tired his face looked. The circles under his eyes were like bruises.

“Craig,” he said. His tone was blank. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

Logan stood up. He figured that was the polite thing to do. Not Dad. He kept sitting.

“Hello, Harold,” Dad said.

Neither of them said a word after that.

Logan waited. Jack whined.

“Are you Dr. Marks?” Logan asked.

“Yes.” The man offered Logan a brittle smile and extended a hand. Logan shook it. “And you must be Craig's son. Logan?”

“Yeah, and now that we've all met, can you please help my dog?” Logan demanded.

Dr. Marks stopped smiling. He turned to Dad. “A chip off the old block, I see,” he said.

“If you want to say something to Logan, you can address him directly,” Dad said. “He's a human being. He's right in front of you.”

“I see that.”

Logan glanced from one to the other. His breathing quickened. He felt like taking their heads in either hand and smashing them together like two bowling balls—c
rack!—
but that would be fairly dumb, seeing as they were the only ones who could possibly help Jack.

“Um, can you guys talk about me later? In case you haven't noticed, there's a dog on the rug. And she's dying.”

Dr. Marks sighed. He knelt beside Jack and gave her a quick once-over. He acted as if he were examining a piece of meat. “So you claim that this dog is immune to POS,” he said.

“She is immune,” Dad said. “Her tissue shows no signs of astrogliosis. She was attacked by a dog with POS, and—” He hesitated. “By the
way, who came up with the name psychotic outburst syndrome? It was you, wasn't it?”

Dr. Marks pulled a pair of surgical gloves from his lab coat pocket. “It's an appropriate name,” he said. He blew into each glove, inflating them like balloons, then slipped them on. “I assume you found traces of astrogliosis in the attacker's tissue.”

“Yes.”

“What about blood toxicity?”

“The sample spoke for itself. None of her proteins contained amyloid rods.”

“I doubt that, but never mind,” Dr. Marks muttered. He lifted one of Jack's ears, holding it delicately in his fingertips. “Has she had her vaccines? DAAPL dash CPV?”

“As far as I know,” Dad said dryly. “She's not my dog.”

“The absence of astrogliosis doesn't necessarily guarantee immunity,” Dr. Marks said. “Spongiform change can manifest itself …”

Logan stopped listening. He couldn't understand a word of what they were saying. Not that it mattered, anyway. It was obvious that this conversation had nothing to do with the actual words that were coming out of their mouths. It had to do with their tone, with the way they refused to make eye contact. This conversation wasn't about Jack's condition or weird medical terms or POS; it was about
them—
their problems, whatever they were. They were just disguising it with their scientific jargon so they could pretend they were being adult and professional.

And they weren't helping Jack at all.

Come to think of it, the whole thing reminded Logan of the way he and Devon Wallace talked to each other. Devon was always trying to prove how smart he was, and Logan was always trying to show
him that he didn't really care. It was pretty much exactly the same, actually. Dr. Marks was the Devon Wallace character in this scenario—the perfect one, the rich one, the one with all the
stuff
, the awards—and, sad to say, Dad was Logan … angry, impatient, and, in the end, unable to figure out why being perfect mattered so much.

“… need to move her,” Dr. Marks was saying. “We need to get her to intensive care if she's going to have any hope of survival. There's fluid in her lungs.”

“Then move her,” Dad said.

Dr. Marks glanced up from Jack. “Not without a safe suit. I'm not taking any chances.”

“But you just touched her ears,” Dad said.

“I'm not going to get into an argument over this, Craig,” Dr. Marks said in a toneless voice. “Maybe you've forgotten what it's like to work in a professional environment. That's understandable. But—”

The doorknob rattled.

Dr. Marks rolled his eyes. “Yes?” he called.

Somebody knocked. “Harold Marks?” a man answered. “Is that you?”

“Yes.” Dr. Marks frowned. “Who's there? Can I help you?”

“Security. We have a situation out here.”

“Not again.” Dr. Marks groaned. He stood and unlocked the door. It flew open, nearly knocking him over.

Logan flinched. A grizzled man in a black hat stumbled into the room. He didn't look like a security guard. He wasn't wearing a uniform. He was dressed all in black except for a bloody homemade bandage around his left ankle. He slammed the door.

“Who are you?” Dr. Marks said in a loud voice. “What on earth are you doing?”