Spoiler! :
The weather has changed suddenly, from a stinging heat to a swift breeze and a chilliy nip in the air. It is lovely; a welcome relief, although the air has a thickly acrid scent to it. I sit in the yard with my friend Susan. It is a small yard, with only enough room for us to relieve ourselves and and sometimes to play tug-of-war. It is surrounded by a high chain-link fence with neighbors neighbors to the left and right and the woods to the front, just out of my reach. A huge old oak tree sits in the front; an even bigger one sits in the neighboring yard and shades whatever part of the yard our tree doesn't reach. The lawn used to be manicured until the drought. When the clouds disappeared for months, the grass shriveled up brown and crunchy.
Susan is sitting under our oak tree, resting against its sturdy trunk. She is staring at me with dull eyes. Susan is old. When I came here as a tiny baby she already had white hairs around her mouth and a slight limp. Even then I could smell the pain and frustration coming off of her whenever she walks. But she was still well enough to play with me whenever I asked in those days. She taught me how to be nice to the children and not to chase Thecat. Now she is too old to play or do anything more than sleep. Time has worn away her ears, making her deaf. We dogs can still communicate through body language, but I wish being able to talk to her, to ask her questions about the persons, to tell her about my longing to go in the woods.
I walk over to her and lick the top of her broad black head gently.
"Hello, old lady," I say. She knows I spoke to her and gives a happy moan. She looks at me with eyes being taken over with white clouds that block out their sight. I can see from her knitted eyebrows that she is anxious. She is breathing quick and shallow, as if she is trying to keep out the strange bitter-smell that seems to cloud the air.
"Teebo," She whimpers, nudging my chin with her muzzle. She is struggling to find the words that she can still remember. They sound foreign coming out of her mouth; her voice is cracked with disuse. "I smell... smell..." Here her face contorts with the effort of thinking. "Sm..M-mok!"
At first I am confused. What is mok? Then I realize that she is trying to say "Smoke". That is what the smell must be! But why would there be smoke? I can hear a faint crackling sound, a whisper at at first, then growing louder. I look out towards the woods. A gust of wind ripples through my fur and blows smoke in my eyes and mouth. It stings. Through my smoke-bleared gaze, I can see a faint orange glow over the trees. It sets the hairs all the way down my back high and stiff.
"Susan, we should go inside," I say. Then I remember she can't hear me. I nudge her with my nose until she stands up and silently shuffles over to the bark door with me close behind. I bark until Bailey opens the door. Bailey is one of Man and Woman's pups. She is halfway grown, noy yet the raging smell-storm of hormones that her older littermate Guy is. Bailey is my favorite person, though she is not my master.
I don't have a master. At first I thought Bailey was my mistress, but then I realized that she payed no more mind to me than any of the other four persons did. I was an animal on the outside. They fed me and sheltered me, but never was I invited to join them on their outside excursions. Susan and I always stayed behind, left alone and unable to go outside to relieve ourselves until they returned some hours later. I don't remember the last time I even saw the front sidewalk.
Bailey says some words. I understand a few: "Come in" means she wants us to come inside. "Doggies" means both of us. "Breakfast" is my favorite word. I dash inside, and Susan follows. We can already smell our food; it is made of hard kernels with little taste, but I don't mind. They smell enough like food and they quiet the rumbling in my stomach. That is all that matters to me.
Woman sets the steel bowl full of kernels down in front of me. She says "Teebo, wait!" I know what that means; I am not to touch the food until she says the magic word. She sets Susan's breakfast in front of her but doesn't make her hold on. Susan takes a few bites of food, chewing painfully. Her teeth are starting to come loose. One time I found one in the water bowl, a worn-down molar from the back of her mouth. The water was stained pink and smelled like blood.
"Okay!" Woman says. I dive into my bowl. I don't even bother to chew the kernels, just swallow them down. My belly has stopped crying so loud by the time I lick the bottom of the bowl. I turn to Susan's abandoned breakfast and wolf that down too. Finally I am satisfied.
I pad into the living room, hoping for some attention. Everyone is glued to the Tee-vee. The Tee-vee is a glowing box. It glows and strange noises come out of it. Sometimes voices, sometimes music, sometimes laughter, sometimes all three at once. I hate it, but the persons stare at it daily.
Today there is a man's voice. I do not understand what the words mean, though he sounds scared. Reader, I will tell you what the man is saying in English, so you can understand better. Remember though that I cannot understand a word. When a dog is very devoted to his master or his mistress, he might learn the English language and understand what the humans say. I do not have anyone to be devoted to, but I am trying to learn anyways.
The man says, in short, something like this: "The rabies epidemic has now been reported in four counties. Due to the recent trend of leaving dogs unvaccinated, upwards of 75 pets have been infected and have been destroyed. We ask that you please head over to the nearest vet clinic to have your dog or dogs vaccinated. Do not let your dog outside off-leash.
Spreading faster than the disease are the wildfires caused by the strong winds and the extremely dry vegetation-"
I lose interest in trying to understand because I notice the smoke-scent seeping through the cracks in the door and window. It is quite strong to me, though the persons cannot smell it yet. Persons have terrible noses. I hear that crackling, popping noise again. Now it seems to be approaching as fast as a train, roaring, snapping. I shudder. Fear washes over me in a tide. I know something bad is about to happen.
Thecat, who had ben lounging on the coffee table, stands up. He begins licking himself but I can see his ears swivel back to hear the noises. His slivery pupils are dilated, almost wild. His thick black-and-white fur is puffed up even as he smooths them down again with his tongue.
The Tee-vee has gone silent and the humans are all talking. Jake, the youngest pup, sits down next to me and strokes my fur. I am getting more nervous; I can feel my paw pads sweating into the carpet. I don't know what is happening. Why do the humans seem so concerned? I want to shut out the faint smell of smoke, the roaring that is growing louder by the second, the anxiety that is shrouding the room. I let Jake play with my ears even though I hate it when he does that.
Suddenly there is a loud banging on the door, so loud that even Susan jumps up because she feels the vibrations through the floor. We both race to the front door- me barking, Susan making a strange choking noise. There door bangs again with such fiercity that I worry for a moment that it will fall down and the intruder will get us all.
Man comes to the door quickly but cautiously. Woman and the pups hover in the entryway. I can hear Man's muscles tense up, see his flaring nostrils and his twitching eyebrows, his eyes dilating like Thecat's had been. He seems to be expecting something really scary. I stand prepared to attack as he opens the door.
The smells seem to slap me across the muzzle. Smoke clouds all of my senses, blocking out all the smells and the view from my eyes. I can hardly see across the street through the dirty brown haze hovering in the air. I look up at the man standing at the door, careful to not make eye contact, to not incite him to attack. He is extremely tall and rather bulky, with a strange shiny suit of black and yellow. He has an odd-looking hat on his head. I want to bark at him but I am too intimidated by him. I cower and back off.
Looking closer at his face, I can see that sweat is dripping off his forehead. His blue eyes are frozen with fear, as if his mind has shut down and he is working entirely on instinct. That happens to me sometimes.
He says something that makes my persons' faces go paler than the full moon on a clear night. I can understand a few words he says "Go" means he wants them to move; "Dogs"; "Cat" that is half of Thecat's name; "Food", "Water" needs no explanation. "House" seems to elicit much grief from the persons. Jake and Bailey start crying. He also says some things I heard on the Tee-vee, like "Wildfire" and "Spreading" and "Evacuate". I wonder what the words mean.
And then my persons are all crying and howling and barking. They are rushing around grabbing food, filling water bottles, stuffing trashbags with the cloth they cover their bodies with. Within three minutes they are together at the door again, sweaty and panting.
Bailey cries something and then fire man says some words. I can understand some things: "Leave dogs and Thecat" My stomach plummets to my feet. They are going to go without us again.
Man grabs my collar and Woman grabbs Susan's. Guy swings Thecat up in his arms and then throws him out into the grass on the front yard. Thecat hits the ground running and disappears. Man and Woman drag us dogs out by our collar. They leave us, dumbfounded, on the porch, hop in their cars, and speed off.
We are alone.
We just stay there for a second, unsure of what to do. Do the persons want us to stay? Susan sits down, watching the road. I hop off the porch and go around to the side of the front yard, sniffing. I can't smell much, because of the smoke. It is starting to hurt my throat. The roaring noise is very loud and I suddenly feel hot, like I am standing too close to the fireplace.
Finally I get enough sense in me to look up, towards the woods. What I see makes my heart skip a beat, then start galloping like a startled deer.
A wall of flames surges not forty yards away, munching the trees at the edge of the woods. A few stray flames reach hungrily towards our strong old oak tree. The deep-orange light is brilliant, the top of the wall kicking and spiralling and sparking in the air. The light is everywhere, just an endless line approaching us quickly. Of course, dogs cannot see red; the fire looks like a tower of eerily glowing black. Pillars of smoke blot out the sky.
The wind changes, once again blowing the smoke into my face. It is so strong now; I can hardly draw in a breath. The roar is deafening now. Panic sears through my veins, threataining to shut out any thoughts. There is going to be no escape, I realize.
Susan and I, we are going to die.
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