Pavlov's Dogs Read online

  Pavlov's Dogs

  Title Page

  CHAPTER ZERO

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Pavlov’s Dogs

  D.L. Snell & Thom Brannan

  Published by Permuted Press at Smashwords.

  Copyright 2012 D.L. Snell & Thom Brannan.

  www.PermutedPress.com

  Cover art by Cospirazy Digital.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  D.L. SNELL

  Thanks to John Sunseri and Jacob Kier for their help brainstorming the original concept, and thanks to our awesome beta reader, author C. Dulaney. Also, I owe a debt of gratitude to my family: without you, none of this would be possible.

  THOM BRANNAN

  For Kitty, without whom my world would have no color, my sky, no sun or stars.

  Turning and turning in the widening gyre

  The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

  Things fall apart...

  W.B. Yeats

  CHAPTER ZERO

  THE SMELL OF SCORCHED OIL and metal came as a relief, considering the whole world was rotting under Paulo’s nose. He and Marie hid behind the remains of an overturned Blazer, its trailer twisted around the hitch.

  “I can no hear them,” Marie said.

  Normally at this point Paulo would have poked fun, lovingly, at her poor English. Normally.

  He took in the dark, wavy hair framing her face, took in the strands of it stuck in her tears. Paulo decided to never make fun of her again, for as long as they lived.

  Leaning down, he kissed Marie’s forehead. “Amorcita, if we can’t hear them, maybe they can’t hear us.” He took her hand and put it to his lips.

  Marie smiled, knowing they were in bad trouble and he was going out of his way to comfort her, and loving him for it.

  They moved together, stepping around the overturned Blazer.

  Each of them had seen so much death in the past month. In the past hour. A whole world full of death and pain. So neither of them had paid any heed to the body pinned underneath the trailer, mainly because the corpse hadn’t been of the variety that moved. But now it was.

  The crushed woman looked at them without any eyes and moaned. It didn’t take long for others to join in. They came out of nowhere and everywhere all at once: alleyways, shattered storefronts; one even jumped off a roof. Its legs shattered on impact, but even that was not enough to stop it.

  At the sight and smell of the couple, arms shot up, jaws sprang open. Rheumy eyes zeroed in.

  And the moaning.

  The endless moaning.

  Insistent. Tortured.

  Like people dying at a hospital, groaning for help.

  Paulo ran with short steps, giving himself shin splints so Marie could keep up. She could only run so fast. Not nearly fast enough.

  He looked back, cursing their pursuers. Even the best horn players had to take breaths, yet these things could go on and on. Tireless. Ceaseless. Rolling out their monotonous one-note dirge.

  Paulo steered them down an alleyway.

  Suddenly Marie was falling down, dragging Paulo with her and crying out. She had rolled her ankle in a pothole.

  No world, no public services. No DOT.

  Marie sobbed as Paulo helped her up. He cringed and glanced down the alleyway. If any hungry corpses lurked ahead, they had just been called to dinner, certainly no thanks to the walking horn section behind them.

  “No puedo, Paulo. I can’t go on.”

  “No.” Paulo hunched and pulled her arm over his shoulders. “We keep on moving, and we do it together.”

  Somewhere ahead, the forever moan was answered. By a single woman, from the sound of it. Otherwise, the alley seemed clear.

  Paulo looked back, gauging the speed of the graveyard dragging itself along behind them.

  Dead men ahead.

  Dead women and children behind.

  Paulo realized they didn’t have much of a choice.

  He and Marie hobbled forward together, and Paulo’s eyes darted about, looking for anything they could call a shelter.

  As if by some answered prayer, he saw a door ahead of them, slightly ajar. Paulo laughed once, and Marie lifted her head.

  “What?”

  He pointed out the door, and they altered their trajectory toward it.

  Just ahead, a few dead men came around the corner. They instantly locked onto the couple.

  “Van a caer,” Marie said as Paulo moved faster, dragging her along. “If we fall...”

  “Then we won’t fall,” Paulo said.

  He and Marie moved almost as fast as the men. Judging by distance and speed, he worried they would reach the door at the same exact time.

  Then what?

  Die in the street?

  As they drew in, the dead men lunged, snapped, then ran into the metal door just as Paulo slammed it shut behind him.

  “I didn’t hear it click.” He bent down to study the moving parts. “Baby, there’s no latch.”

  With a wave, Marie directed his attention to the room in which they now found themselves. She leaned against one wall, and the other three walls weren’t far away. It was a small space, bare, completely empty: hall, tiled floor, a bit of debris that must have blown in with the wind.

  “¡Nada!” she said. “No block, no nothing.”

  “We should go farther—”

  Thump.

  The door jumped against Paulo’s shoulder. He jammed his foot against the base of it, into the crack, and pressed harder with his upper body. It felt as if he were holding back the pounding, swelling of the sea.

  His cowboy boots slid. Not by a lot, but they slid.

  “Marie, por favor...”

  He didn’t have to say the rest. They had been together so long—on the run for so long—some things could be left unspoken.

  Marie nodded, then limped from one wall to the next. It had looked like such a small space, but crossing it felt like three hundred feet. She practically fell into the far wall.

  Sweating, whimpering, favoring her one foot, Marie shuffled over to the hallway.

  “Here!” she said. “¡Una puerta!”

  The door stood at the end of the short hall, leading into an adjacent room.

  “Keep going!” Paulo called, shouting over the constant drumming of bones and dead skin on hollow metal. “Find us something, Marie, por favor!”

  She reached for the knob, but hesitate
d. How many times had they gone through one door only to turn back, chased by the dead?

  It didn’t matter though.

  There was only one choice left.

  Marie turned the knob.

  Beyond, she saw another empty room, but the outer wall had crumbled to a pile of mortar and brick. She could see out into the alleyway, which was completely packed with the living dead, all trampling and climbing over each other like frenzied ants.

  Marie put her hand over her mouth. So this was the force Paulo was holding back with a single metal door and a cowboy boot. And she knew the slightest sound would attract their wrath. Like red ants attacking a bug.

  Luckily the dead didn’t notice her as Marie quietly closed the wooden door. She noticed that the knob could be locked, if only they had the key.

  Marie hobbled over to Paulo, who met her eyes briefly as she leaned back against his metal shield. He blinked and shook his head.

  When would it ever end?

  Even though they knew the answer to that, they sometimes wished to just get it over with. But then their common sense got the better of them because sometimes even death was not the end.

  Paulo started to ask what Marie had found, but stopped. The fresh tears on her face answered his question.

  She took a shuddering breath. “This is it, mi vida.” She reached out and caressed the pocket of Paulo’s jeans. “Do you still have them?”

  He lowered his head and pushed harder on the door. A dark look had come over his face. “I wish we still had the gun.”

  Caressing his cheek, Marie smiled. “Do you still?”

  “Yes,” he said, “I have them.”

  Staring into his eyes, she dug into Paulo’s pocket and pulled out the small cardboard sheath.

  “I lost the other one,” he said.

  “But one is enough, no?”

  He couldn’t wipe the grave expression off his face. A gun would have been much quicker. Just two bullets and it would all be done. But a single razor blade? He imagined having to cut her, watching the light go out of her eyes as her life leaked onto the floor of this filthy little room.

  Paulo blinked hard and swallowed. He thought about cutting himself after, but while he was still dying, and too weak to move, the dead would finally get to them.

  Paulo caught Marie’s hand and kissed her fingertips, tasting a bit of salt and grit.

  “It is,” he said. “It’s enough.”

  They leaned in to share one last kiss, and as their lips parted, they heard it. Something new.

  “Is that a... wolf?” Paulo said.

  The hairs on the back of Marie’s neck shivered on end. “No se, Paulo. It sounds like.”

  The single howl rose into a chorus, and the beating on the door ceased. They heard dead meat slump against the metal and slide down. The relentless weight was lifted from the door, as if the deadly invaders had simply ceased to exist.

  Paulo reached to open it.

  Marie slapped at his hand.

  “Eh, stupid.”

  “I have to see.”

  She fidgeted, glanced back toward the hallway that led to nowhere. “Just a crack,” she told him.

  Paulo agreed.

  He opened the door, just a crack, just enough to let in the light of some brand new nightmare.

  Dark-skinned, hulking figures moved among the shambling dead, scything a path with their talons. Heads went flying, arms went flying. Corpses were launched into the air.

  A large hairy beast, with fur like a golden retriever, leapt from car to car, homing in on the couple. Paulo’s eyes widened as the figure lunged.

  He slammed the door.

  The day he first had seen a dead man get up and walk, Paulo had thought he had gone insane. Then after a while, the undead had become commonplace.

  Now Paulo was sure he had gone insane.

  He told Marie to run—hide!

  There was no place but the hall.

  She hid there, hoping it was deep enough, hoping Paulo would join her.

  She heard the hollow boom of the metal door being pounded open, could hear Paulo cry out.

  And then Paulo was screaming, his voice moving away, growing distant.

  Marie whimpered.

  Resisted the urge to peek.

  Paulo.

  He wouldn’t stop screaming, somewhere out there. They had always hoped their deaths would be quick.

  Marie couldn’t help herself; she stuck her head around the corner, into the room.

  One of the wolves was just stalking past the door, but then it stopped. Marie almost sobbed as she ducked back into the hall. She could hear it, sniffing.

  She couldn’t stand it anymore—she opened the door and stumbled into the adjacent room, toward the broken wall.

  In the alley beyond, the dead lay in a common grave, twitching here and there, but overall silent and still.

  Marie scrambled over the heap of brick, then tripped and fell face-first into the pile of corpses.

  The wolf at the door whipped around, homed in again, and chased after her. It was a short chase.

  Marie squealed as the beast tossed her over its shoulder. She clawed and kicked and screeched. It didn’t seem to faze the monster in the least.

  It carried her over the heaps of severed heads, jerking limbs, and slippery guts. They emerged into the street, and she saw a tractor clearing cars, and a bus behind it.

  “Marie!” Paulo called.

  The wolf with the golden coat was carrying him toward the bus—was loading him onto it.

  From one of the bus’s makeshift gun ports, he shouted again.

  “Marie!”

  And then he said something she didn’t understand. “There’s an island! They said there’s an—!”

  ONE MONTH AGO

  CHAPTER ONE

  THETA KAISER went for the throat. Samson sidestepped the attack, losing only a chunk of hairy flesh to his adversary’s fangs. A canine tooth nicked his artery though, which spurted briefly before healing. Black skin grew back and new hair sprouted, softer than the rest.

  “Their aggression,” Donovan said. “Their loyalty to their Master. How is that all...?”

  “Moderated?” Dr. Crispin said.

  He and Donovan stood outside the chain-link fence of the arena, hands folded behind their backs.

  “I was going to say ‘controlled.’”

  “How do you control any wild beast?” Crispin asked.

  “Hmm?” Donovan had already stopped paying attention. “With obedience training, I’m sure. Or you just put the sorry mongrel out of its misery.”

  “Obedience training, correct. But also with a shock collar.” Crispin held up some kind of papery web ensconced in a small case. “You’ve heard of BCI, yes?”

  “Of course,” Donovan said, not even attempting to hide his annoyance. He took great exception when someone insulted his intelligence. “That brain-computer interface is the shock collar, I presume.”

  Crispin smiled, yet cocked his head, as if he couldn’t believe Donovan knew the answer. “Yes. Very astute.”

  Donovan took the BCI harness and looked it over. “Silk,” he said, admiring the crinkly filaments; the strands of the web were each about 2.5 microns thick, so thin they looked as if they might fall apart if not supported by the case. Electrode arrays had been printed onto the grid.

  “Indeed,” Crispin replied. “Imagine a silk dress, the way it, ah, clings to a woman’s hips. Now imagine the same principle here, only applied to the convolutions of the brain. One quick saline flush, and viola! Man’s best friend.”

  “Fairly advanced BCI,” Donovan said, and Crispin smiled with affected modesty. Then he and the new technician looked back into the arena as Kaiser spit out the chunk of neck meat and growled.

  Samson growled back.

  By going for the throat, Kaiser had changed a routine combat exercise into a power play. In front of their Master, no less. Samson was the Beta Dog, second in command. Kaiser was just a Theta. A grunt. I
f Samson were to lose to this subordinate, he would lose everything, including his rank.

  And then the Dogs charged across the sparring cage, clawing at each other’s arms and chests, nipping at each other’s face. Blood and hair flew all over the concrete floor, and the combatants healed as they fought, their wounds scabbing over and sealing even as new ones opened up.

  Kaiser slammed Samson against the chain link with a loud clash.

  “Whoa,” Dr. Crispin said, laughing and stepping back. “Rambunctious.”

  Donovan didn’t shy away from the action. He stood so close he could smell the dog fur, could smell the coppery tang of blood.

  Dr. Crispin laughed nervously. “You might want to step back. Just a small safety precaution.”

  Donovan ignored the advice. He reached out as the Dogs wrestled, and he touched Samson’s Rottweiler fur, which was pressed through the diamond pattern of the fence.

  “Dr. Donovan!” Crispin shouted. He went to pull the neurotech’s hand back, but then the Dogs pushed away from the fence and circled each other deeper into the arena, crisis averted.

  Donovan turned and noted the sweat on Crispin’s brow. “They wouldn’t have bitten me, would they? The chip.”

  “Well,” Dr. Crispin began, “there’s a reason we hired you.” He let the statement linger and gazed out upon his Dogs.

  Samson locked eyes with Kaiser, trying to anticipate his opponent’s next strike.

  Kaiser feinted and Samson fell for it. Ducking, rolling, swiping, Kaiser raked away both of his opponent’s Achilles tendons. The Beta Dog fell and Kaiser again went for the throat. This time his teeth locked behind the esophagus, and when he shook his head and pulled back, he left a ragged hole that sucked for air and ejaculated blood.

  Samson fell back, lying flat, dazed but regenerating, in utter disbelief.

  Kaiser, panting heavily, spit out the mass of tissue and licked his bloody chops. Suddenly, he began to howl and transform. The bestial sound triggered something deep in Donovan’s brain, and he felt a shiver run through his nervous system.

  The neurotechnician squinted and leaned closer to the fence, studying the anatomy of the transformation. Beneath Kaiser’s skin, bones shifted, and his snout sank into his face. The Dog’s spine wrung an agonized cry from him, a uniquely human sound, as his vertebrae straightened and realigned.