#Inktober2019 - Day 06, 'Husky'

As originally posted at https://archiveofourown.org/works/20854958/chapters/49573574

Tonight, I’m going to kill the dog.

The others think I’m crazy, of course. They haven’t believed me since it first started showing up a week ago. “How many dogs have you even seen in the last two years?” they asked. “What would a wild Siberian husky be doing in Brazil? Why would it run all the way over the runway every night, just to run away again?”

This morning, they even pulled the security footage to prove it. “Just watch it, Cardoso.” When colonel Silva spoke, it was with pity in his eyes and voice, and that made it even worse. “There are no dogs there. Maybe the next time the satellite is up, you should have a quick chat with the big doc, eh? Clear the air.”

Thanks, colonel, but I’ll pass. I need to talk to a shrink about as much as I need a note in my file saying I’ve talked to a shrink.

No, tonight I’m going to kill the dog. It’s personal now. He’s made me look like I’m losing it in front of the others - made me a liability. We all know how bad it is out there, outside New Jericho’s compounds. Even here, on the edge of the jungle with barely half an hour of satellite coverage a day, we get the briefings. Hear things on the radio. Hear things on the radio.

I have a good thing going here. Two reheated meals a day, cleanish water, a bed with bugs smaller than my thumb. Failing a psych eval means handing in my gun, saying my goodbyes, maybe getting a spare revolver and bullet to take with me if I’m lucky and the others agree to ‘lose’ one from inventory. I’m not throwing away my life over some goddamn puppy.

The door to the watchtower opens and Montes steps in, making straight for the flask of water on the table. I don’t blame her. Even just sitting in here, keeping watch over the ground beyond the compound’s walls, I’m sweating. She gulps once, twice, three times, four, before I finally reach over and pull it away from her mouth. She wipes the back of her hand across her face, brushing the worst of the sweat from her scowling eyes as she grumbles at me.

“What gives, Cardoso? You know how hard it is, walking the perimeter wall in this heat.”

“I also know when the water is empty you have to go refill it. You really want to have to do all those stairs?”

Montes glances at the ground below and sighs. “Yeah, you’re right.” She flops down into the chair next to mine, unslinging the rifle from her shoulder and leaning it against the stained concrete wall of the tower. “I always hate night watch. Air’s too sticky, bugs are too big.”

She’s not wrong. Even by its usual standards tonight is unpleasant, like taking a bath in machine oil. And the bugs! They’re not so bad during the day, but in the evenings they swarm around the compound’s lights, a cloud of buzzing, biting, stinging insects which bothered us even before the repellent ran out, and which have only grown bolder in the year since.

I sigh, swatting away the fly which has found its way into the tower’s mesh. “I’m going to walk the rear, check the runway.”

Montes stares for a moment, shakes her head. “Still looking for that dog? You know there’s nothing back there but concrete and rocks.”

“You’ll see.”

“Whatever.” My watchmate sighs, reaches for a cigarette. “Anyone asks, I’ll say you’re getting water.”

“Thanks, Maria.” I take the flask with gratitude. Montes knows as well as anyone what it means if I have to speak to the doc.

The air out here is little better than inside. I walk to the first corner, stepping through both of the doors and out onto the rear wall, and curse as I catch sight of one of the external lights flickering. I don’t know whether it’s the heat, the humid air, or just a shitty batch, but we’ve been in this camp barely two years since the world ended, and already we’re running out of spares. It won’t be long before we have to start rationing out the lights - maybe we should be doing that already. At least there’s no bugs on this side, for once.

I slap the back of the light in irritation as I stand up, swatting away insects and swearing beneath my breath, and that’s when I see it. A flash of white fur, impossibly bright against the darkness, moving just for an instant on the far side of the compound’s airfield. I cut the power to the malfunctioning lamp and crouch behind the palisade, slowly unslinging my rifle and settling it atop the wall.

Another flash of white - there, moving behind those rocks. I smile as I flip open the scope, unlock the safety, and line up the crosshair. There’s nowhere to go, now. As soon as it moves out from behind those rocks, the husky is a trophy, and I’m no longer crazy.

I wait, and keep waiting.

My eye is getting sore, now. It must have been five or six minutes since that damn dog hid behind those rocks. I swear below my breath, wipe the sweat from my eye, and sight up again. Wait…

Something is moving, on the far side of the runway. No - several somethings. Long, thin shapes, fuzzy and indistinct, reaching toward the compound like the shadows of the fingers of some great, looming beast. My heart is pounding in my chest, my breath catching in my throat, making it difficult to swallow the saliva which is building in my mouth. Without the hum of the lamp, devoid of the buzzing of insects, I should hear something, surely?

They’re still closing in - 200 metres, perhaps, as I finally sound the alarm. A simple, two-tone klaxon, blaring across a compound suddenly bathed in orange light.

The screaming begins.

No - screaming doesn’t do it justice. It’s a wail, a shriek, a high-pitched note which drowns out the noise of the siren and freezes the blood even in the heat of the night. As one, the shadows rise from the ground, writhing and flowing like water stirred to rage by rocks below, each now visible as a coiling, writhing beast of obsidian scales topped with an eyeless maw of jagged fangs the length of my forearm. I want to cover my ears, close my eyes to keep out the horror, but instead I force myself to pull the trigger, cycling the bolt with desperate speed as the first shot goes high and wide of the mark.

By the time Montes arrives, her assault rifle clattering as it streaks tracer fire into the dark shapes, they’ve already made it a hundred metres, more. They’re falling, at least, far faster than the shelled monsters I’ve fought before whenever they’re hit, but amidst the deafening scream of their approach, hitting them is easier said than done.

The wail is interrupted by the sound of a heavy shotgun as Silva appears at my side, instantly sending a shadow-beast to the ground in flames as he racks another incendiary shell into place. In the end, the firefight is one-sided, and doesn’t last long: denied their ambush, the attackers don’t last long against our fire, the final creature reduced to a heap of dark and tangled limbs twenty or thirty metres from the gate. I pull my eye from the scope, scan the darkness - nothing. To my right, Montes is clutching her cross, murmuring wordlessly to God, while Silva is already ordering the other to sweep the other walls. I practically jump as his hand clamps onto my shoulder, caught off guard by the action.

“You ever see something like that before?”

“No, sir.” I shake my head.

“We’re going to have to start patrolling this wall again, I never thought I’d say that.” He stops, offers a hand. “You did good, Cardoso. Guess we found that wolf of yours, eh?”

“I guess so.”

The colonel nods at me as he begins to thumb fresh shells into the tube. “My report will mention this next time we check in. Damn fine work, sergeant Cardoso.”

I grin. “Thank you, sir.”

“No more than you deserve.” He smiles at me. “Can you hold down this wall while we check the others?”

“Of course, sir.”

As Silva turns away and walks into the other corner watchtower, I feel Montes tugging at my sleeve. “The runway…”

I have my rifle raised again in an instant, ready to fire. Down the scope, I see it at least - the husky, its perfect, white fur glowing in the moonlight as I stares directly at me. It’s the work of a moment to place the crosshair over its head, put my finger on the trigger…

The dog just stands there, wagging it tail as is stares right back, fearless. As I lower the rifle, I smile. I understand now.

“What is it, Paolo?” Maria’s voice is quiet, nervous even. I put a hand across her chest, gently pushing the gun away.

“A friend.”

I smile at the husky as it turns and pads away, vanishing behind a dip in the ground as silently as it appeared.