“The Dogs”

CHAPTER TWO OF NIGHTMARES OF DETROIT

(Read Chapter One here.)

Traveling too fast up an overpass across an expressway, the bike hit a patch of ice in the snow and went out from under him, the Sewer Rat landing flat on his back. Embarrassed, he scrambled back onto the bike and rode down the bridge toward downriver and the industrial heart of the city, which Rat could already sense outlined glowing and terrible in the distance.

He had more broken territory to get through first; had planned his journey to bypass the zone of the dogs. The remnants of the city before him were a transplanted illusion. He saw at the same time the sprouting, barren cold wilderness that once was and would be again.

Why he was still in this city, he didn’t know. He’d fallen so far there was no place to flee to. “The last white person” living in the black city, his infamous brother had mocked him as once, with blue eyes flashing, before trying to throw Rat and his Detroit smell out of his cheap suburban house (everything for the guy a physical or psychological test), this leading to a living room brawl upturned chairs knocked-over lamps reawakened yellow-haired warrior brother who’d boxed in the army hitting the Rat with jabs and flurries of punches absorbed by the head and shoulders backs colliding with thin plasterboard walls, house shaking, a quick bout between brothers amid the comical debris of a tiny room. Afterward Sewer Rat walked dazed bloodied and angry toward the closest far-away bus to take him back into the darkness of town as his brother smiled primitively from the excitement of battle while standing like a prehistoric barbarian chieftain on his cheap sunken working-class suburban porch.

The story of Rat’s life was escaping, forever running somewhere, searching to find a nook of security, refuge from the violence of this mad city. Ever had it been for him, since he remembered. Ever would it stay.

He was the last white person in the city but not any longer, he’d seen or at least heard of new faces appearing on the streets, refugees from the swiftly declining suburbs. The entire area had been thrown into chaos, the machine falling apart, people flying off from it becoming wandering lost souls.

As he rode he noticed a panorama of a hundred tiny lights ahead, reflections of the snow he guessed. Only when in the midst of their raging eyes and throaty snarls did he realize he’d miscalculated; their region had spread.

Entire abandoned sections of the city had been taken over by packs of wild dogs, this one of them. The Sewer Rat pedalled faster, too late to back out. The dogs were of all colors, one notably white, like a wolf, others darkest black, all with red demonic eyes, running eagerly trying to hit his bike, teeth snapping at his feet. A chorus of barks echoed from dozens, scores of them. A hundred, their numbers grown, their primal voices building in force, more dogs rushing from shadows to join in. “Oh shit,” Sewer Rat said. If the bike slid now, if he fell off, it was over. He dropped his gloves so his hands could grip the bike handles with more feel and control as he stood on the pedals and increased his speed.

From the corner of his eye Rat noticed dogs rushing to cut him off. He had to outrace the fastest of them, those mad beasts bounding eagerly toward him. The air swept cold against his face and all he saw was frigid blackness ringed with ice rubbled buildings hostile sky sweeping insane no-man’s-land city, he was alone in it with no one to save him. “NO!!” he shouted as the bike shifted side-to-side wildly from his frantic pedalling, among the dogs one of them at the same time about to be ripped apart by them flesh-and-blood in their hungry mouths he’d die unknown and unmourned. Around him a symphony of bullying barking in-his-face close noise and aggression pissing him off. No different from people: brave in a crowd. He’d love to tackle the bravest of them in a fight one-on-one, to the death. It’d not be like the fight with his brother (despite his impossible reputation, a memory of a warrior past his best); there’d be no holding back. He’d rip out the dog’s eyes, tongue, and throat.

The entire pack of dogs stopped suddenly at an invisible line marking their territory. They stood looking after him with tongues out and mocking triumphant smiles.

“Assholes,” the Rat said, speeding ahead then turning in his madness around, firm control over the bike, riding back in the other direction from where he’d come as fast as he could. The dogs stared uncomprehending at him then went scattering in all directions as Rat on his bike like a big dog crashed through their line, Rat yelling in a powerful crazed voice as loud as he could. He laughed at the idea of his aloneness in this wasteland. He could yell all he wanted and no one heard; nobody cared. He yelled and yelled, and howled, then left their territory before the dumb animals could regroup. He still had a long way to go.

NEXT: “The Princess”

-Karl Wenclas