The Storm (8 page)

“Yeah,” Shep replied, trying to sound casual. He tried to push from his mind the image of the old timer alone and scared in the dark. Why couldn't he be like Zeus? He didn't want to care about these other dogs! But still, the feelings pressed on him like heavy paws. Shep even felt bad about leaving the snobby purebred behind. What if a tree broke her window? She might wish she'd taken Shep up on his rescue offer, but it'd be too late.

“I smell twelve other dogs,” Callie barked loudly from within a tangle of leaves. “Frizzle says you only found two, which means there are still ten dogs trapped in this building.”

“I heard a howl from above Zeus's den,” Shep woofed.

Callie burst out of the plant and slid to the middle of the entry room. “Then we've got to get up there,” she yapped.

Zeus stood and shook himself. “I don't care if there are fifty dogs still trapped in this building, I'm going to bed.”

“I wouldn't go back to your den, dog,” Frizzle woofed. “Not unless you're looking to take a Bath.”

“I'll go where I want, yapper,” Zeus growled.

“Fine,” Frizzle snarled. “You smell like you could use a Bath, anyway.”

Zeus whirled like a wind and snapped his teeth a whisker-length from Frizzle's snout. The little dog was so startled, he peed.

Zeus panted as he lifted his head. “Not so tough now, eh?” He loped into the dark of Higgins's den.

Callie crept toward Frizzle, tail low. “You okay?” she snuffled.

Frizzle shook himself. “Why wouldn't I be?” he grunted. “Big fuzz head. Had to sneak up on me, see that? He knew I'd get him in a fair fight.” He licked Callie on the nose.

She raised her wagging tail. “Yeah,” she yipped. “I know you would.”

Callie turned to Shep. “We'd best get moving on finding those other dogs. You'll help me, right?”

Shep lifted his head. Callie's eyes were wide and hopeful, and her little tail wagged back and forth. She panted lightly, mouth open, jowls curled up, and her ears bobbed with each breath. How could Shep say no to that muzzle?

“Yeah, Big Nose,” yapped Frizzle. “You'll help us.”

There it was — the reason to say no. But then he thought of the cracked wall and the howl from above, of that scared old-timer, of how frightened he'd been without food and water. How could he sleep when he knew other dogs were in trouble, feeling desperate and alone? It wouldn't take too long to check the other floors. And soon it would be light out and the storm would be over and he could go home. Why not help them out this one last time?

“Fine,” Shep barked. “But how do we get up to these other floors? There's a stairwell in my building, but I don't see a stairwell here.”

The yellow dog began panting and wagging her tail excitedly. “I know!” she barked. “Those metal doors over there.” She waved her nose at the two shiny doors in the wall behind Shep. “They open, and then the box behind the doors goes up.”

“Brilliant!” yipped Callie. “Can you open them?”

“I would,” whimpered Boji. “But there's this step.” She looked down at the step, as if perhaps the other dogs had not noticed its nefarious presence in the room.

“It's just a step,” yapped Frizzle. “Just, you know, step on it.”

Boji's eyes opened wide, like Frizzle had just suggested she jump in front of a Car. “Oh, dear,” she whined.

“Just take a big jump,” yipped Callie. “You'll fly right over that step.”

“Really?” asked Boji, her tail wagging.

Callie stood tall and wagged her tail back. “You can do it!”

Boji closed her eyes and leapt off the top of the step, landing in the middle of the entry room. “Did I make it?” she barked loudly, eyes still shut.

“You made it,” Frizzle yapped. He leaned slightly away from the trembling Beaujolais.

Boji opened her eyes. “I did it!” she howled. She did a circular happy dance, tail flopping from side to side. “Bless my treats, that was exhilarating!” She shook herself. “Normally, my mistress helps me with those terrible things. Why do they put those cliffs in the floor? Awful! Ridiculous! Humans can be so silly.”

Shep was a bit wary of this girldog. He approached with ears forward and eyes and nose open. He sniffed her over, and let her sniff him back. She seemed like a different dog now that she was off the step — very friendly, full of excitement. Her eyes were a soft brown and she smelled good-natured, even toward the little dogs. She was eager to lick Frizzle's snout, and quickly rolled over to show Callie she meant no threat.

“About this metal doorway?” Shep asked, once all four had finished their introductions.

“Oh, yes!” Boji barked. “We just need to push that button.” She leapt onto the wall and slapped at a small, lighted circle. Sure enough, the metal doors slid open, revealing a room barely bigger than Shep's crate.

Shep, Callie, and Frizzle trotted into the close room behind the doors, but Boji stayed in the entry hall. She looked down with that same miserable gaze at the metal-lined space in the floor between the entry hall and the small room.

“Aren't you coming?” Callie asked in her friendliest, most encouraging bark.

“Oh, dear,” Boji whimpered. She pawed dubiously at the metal in the floor.

And then the doors slipped shut.

Frizzle looked first at Shep, then Callie. “Now what?”

Shep's heart began to race. He did not like this small room; he did not like the metal doors that closed of their own volition. Every few heartbeats, winds roared around the little box, like the storm was licking the very walls. Callie trembled violently and crouched low to the floor. Frizzle began to bark hysterically, which made every thing that much worse.

“Hey! Dog! Bo-jellies! Let us out!” Frizzle yelped.

They could hear Boji whimpering on the other side of the door. “Oh, dear. Oh, dear.”

Shep scanned the walls of the room. Next to the metal doors were a bunch of small buttons like the one Boji had pushed to open the doors. Maybe one of them would open the doors back up? Shep figured it was better than standing there, heart racing, yapper yapping.

Shep reared and slammed his paws against the buttons. A number of them lit up, and the small room jolted to life. Shep fell back on all fours; his stomach felt like it was sinking into the floor.

“What's happening?” he cried, cringing against the wall.

“I don't know!” squealed Callie. “Make it stop!”

“I know what this is,” barked Frizzle. “We have one in my building. It's El Vator.”

“El what?!” Shep whimpered.

“El
Vator
,” Frizzle yapped calmly. “It's a room that moves from one place to another place.”

“It feels like we're going up,” Callie said. She stopped trembling and began sniffing at the metal doors. “The air is moving outside El Vator. And I smell different things with each one of those bings.”

Shep was trying to keep his kibble in his stomach. These yappers seemed much more at home with this human stuff than he.

And then the lights went out. El Vator shuddered to a halt.

Shep dug his claws into the floor. He was too afraid to breathe.

Two heartbeats. Howling wind.

The lights returned. El Vator rumbled to life and shot upward again, leaving Shep's stomach on the floor below.

“What was that?” he yowled.

“That's never happened to me before in El Vator,” Frizzle moaned.

El Vator slowed, and with a final bing, stopped completely. The metal doors slid open. Frizzle and Callie raced out, but it took Shep a heartbeat to catch his breath. Just as he was about to follow them, the doors began to slide closed. Shep leapt off his hind legs and bounded out of El Vator. The doors slipped shut, catching a few hairs off his tail.

Shep stared at the closed metal doors, sucking air like a thing half-drowned. “We are finding
another
way back down,” he growled. “I am not stepping paw in El Vator again.”

Frizzle and Callie flicked their tails in agreement.

 

They stood in a hall similar to the ones on the entry floor, only this one didn't have an entry room with clear sliding doors opening onto the street. This made sense, assuming Callie was right and El Vator had taken them up.

“Which way first?” Frizzle asked, sniffing the air down one of the halls. “It smells musty.”

“Let's split up,” Shep barked. “Frizzle, you sniff that way. Callie, you and I can cover this hall.” He wasn't about to get stuck hearing about Frizzle's imaginary fights for another length of hallway.

Frizzle set his little jaw, like he was about to protest, but then he turned and began snuffling along a door frame. Shep heard him grumble to himself under his snorty breaths.

“I'll take this door,” said Callie, trotting up to the nearest one. “You start on the next.” She sounded disappointed and kept glancing over her tail at where Frizzle had gone.

Shep walked to where Callie was sniffing. He didn't want to bully her into dropping that Frizzle like a spitting cat, but he hoped to point her to the right scent (not Frizzle's), like the old timer had done for him back in the fight kennel.

“That Frizzle seems to like you quite a bit.” He kept his bark as calm as possible.

Callie's ears pricked forward. “You think so?” She grinned. “He smells like a sun-warmed bed, doesn't he?” Callie bent her nose back to the door and took several deep sniffs. “This one smells empty — wait, there's a rodent of some kind. Or maybe a cat who just ate a rodent? Nope — rodent, I'm sure. We've really clicked, you know?”

“Who? You and the rodent?” He hated when his conversations with Callie got all twisty.

“No, silly fur, Frizzle.” Callie trotted to the next door and Shep followed.

“But how can you stand that little yap — dog?” Shep grumbled. He sniffed the gap below the door: no dogs.

“He's very, I don't know, up?” Callie replied, flicking her tail at the thought. “He's so excited about every thing. It's how I felt getting to run on the streets this morning. Like the whole world was full of good things for me.”

Shep had to agree that Frizzle was definitely an “up” kind of dog. Only Shep found Frizzle's incessant yammering and ridiculous fantasies of every thing as going his way annoying.

“Are you sure he isn't” — Shep dug for the right word — “crazy? All he barks about is fighting and I'm pretty sure he's never so much as sniffed another dog's rump.”

Callie cocked her head. “Are you
jealous
?”

Shep instantly started to backtrack. “Jealous? Of what? You and Frizzle? No. I mean, you're a yapper. I'm a big dog. The rescuer.”

“Then why are you growling about Frizzle and me getting along?” Callie sniffed a door. “Ferret.”

“I just think there are other kibbles in the dish, you know?” Shep woofed. “Better kibbles. Ones that don't yap constantly about fighting.”

Callie snapped at Shep's ruff. “Worry less about my kibbles and more about what's in your own dish.” She trotted to the next door.

Maybe Shep was a little jealous of Frizzle. Not about Callie, but about his being so “up.” Crazy as Frizzle was, he seemed happy. Shep had to admit, it would be nice to feel like the world was full of good things for him. Right now, the only thing he felt was like every thing in his world either hurt his teeth or yapped at him.

“I think I found one!” Callie yipped.

Shep joined her and scented the den: a big dog, older. The dog smelled nervous.

“Dog!” Shep barked. He heard shuffling claws on the floor — long hair, a mid-weight dog, lighter than Shep.

“Hi!” said the big dog. “My name's Wensleydale.”

“What kind of name is
that
?” yipped Callie.

“It's a cheese,” answered the dog. “I'm an English setter and it's an English cheese.”

“Well, Wednesday-dale, Wellesley —” Shep began.
Couldn't something be easy?
he grumbled.
Bad! Think positive!

“You can just call me Cheese, if you'd like,” woofed the dog.

“Well, Cheese,” Shep said, feeling like maybe this thinking positive had some fur on it, “I need you to look at the door. There's a paw on it called a knob.”

“Oh, yes,” Cheese said. “I know about these things. It's just that this door is so heavy. I can't get it open.”

Thank the Great Wolf, my teeth are saved!
Thinking positive was working already! “If you turn the knob,” Shep barked, “I can push the door in.”

“Brilliant!” yipped Callie, her tail in full swing.

It took a few tries, but Shep and Cheese finally got the door open. Cheese bounded into the hallway. He was as tall as Shep, but skinny, and covered in silky, longish white fur dappled with dark gray spots. His long snout had rather droopy jowls, and his ears dangled far below his jaw and were covered in the same silky fur.

Once they were properly introduced, Shep sent Cheese off to find Frizzle and help him rescue any dogs on his part of the hallway. Though Cheese was too light to pull open the metal doors, he was plenty strong enough to push them open. Shep and Callie continued sniffing doors along their hall, but came up with nothing.

“Let's head back toward El Vator,” Callie barked.

Just as she took her first step, the lights went out.

“Callie!” Shep barked.

One heartbeat.

Lights came on, but not the dim ceiling lights. In their place shone two blindingly bright spotlights. They glowed from a point high on the wall not far from where Shep stood.

Callie trembled a stretch away from Shep. “What's happening?” she whined. “Where'd the lights go?”

“Shep! Callie!” It was Frizzle. He came bounding out of the dark and ran directly to Callie. The instant he saw her, his stubby tail waggled and he started panting with joy. “Thank my Master, you're all right!” He licked her jowls, and she panted and growled and pawed playfully at his fat head.

Cheese loped into view, followed by two yappers — a fawn-colored, chubby, smush-nosed girldog with triangular black flap-ears and a long, skinny brown pup with stumpy legs and floppy ears that nearly dragged on the floor.

“The pug's Daisy, and the little dachshund's Oscar,” Cheese woofed, tail wagging in its friendly way.

“Where'd the lights —
snort
— go?” Daisy asked. Her tightly-wound tail wagged as best it could. Oscar, who was two, maybe three moons old, stayed pressed to Daisy's side, eyes wide and tail between his legs.

“We tried to open El Vator,” Frizzle yapped. “But the button doesn't work.”

“There has to be another way down,” barked Callie.

“What if there isn't?” grumbled Shep. It was hard to stay positive in the dark with a bunch of strange dogs and no boy.

“There is,” woofed Cheese. He looked cheerfully at Shep, then Callie, tail flopping side to side.

“And?” asked Frizzle. “You want to share with the rest of us?”

“Oh, sure,” he barked, then loped into the dark.

“Wait for us!” Callie yipped, running after him.

Frizzle and Daisy raced after Callie, but little Oscar wasn't as fast. He tripped over his own paws.

“You okay?” asked Shep, crouching low so that he was on the little dog's level.

“I miss my mom,” Oscar whimpered. He didn't even look at Shep; he stared at the floor.

Shep licked Oscar's head, nearly knocking him over. Oscar grinned, panting short, sweet breaths, then remembered he was miserable and went back to staring at the floor.

“Shep! We found a door!” Callie's voice echoed from down the hall. Shep smelled that the other dogs were already out of the hallway.

“Come on, Oscar,” Shep woofed softly. “We'll get you out of this dark hall and then try to find your mom.”

“Really?” he asked, eyes wide and tail wagging. “Okay.”

Shep walked slowly beside Oscar, letting him set the pace. Oscar didn't say anything, but he glanced at Shep's paws every few steps, as if making sure he was still beside him.

 

Callie was waiting for them in an open doorway at the end of the hall with Cheese, who sat with his rump against the door, holding it open.

“What took you so lon — oh.” Callie knelt down and gave Oscar a sniff. “Can you walk down stairs?” she asked him.

Oscar looked past her. Beyond the doorway was a stairwell that echoed with the barks of the other dogs mixed with the shrieks of the storm winds. At the end of each run of steps, there was a landing, above which was one of the blinding spotlights that had come on when the regular lights went out.

“I've never been down steps,” Oscar whimpered.

Callie trotted to the landing's edge. “It's like this,” she yipped, hopping down onto the first step. “See?” She hopped back up. She repeated her hop, first down the step, then back up.

Oscar began to tremble. “Where's Daisy? I want to go home!” he whined.

Callie stood on the step with her bottom front fang caught on her jowl, giving her the strangest expression. She stared at the step as if it might give her the answer. Cheese smiled blankly at Shep, tail wiggling, clearly unable to help solve the problem at paw.

“I'll carry him,” Shep said. “I saw a mother carry a pup once at the kennel. If I can get a good enough hold on him, I think I can get him down the steps.”

Callie sprang up the step and leapt at Shep's snout, licking and nipping at his jowls. “You wonderful big old furball!”

Shep was doing it: He was thinking positive. He was being “up.”
Bring on the good things!

Little Oscar trembled near Shep's front paws.

“I've got you,” Shep woofed. He snuffled his muzzle along Oscar's back until he felt enough give in the pup's thin fur. He took up the skin in his teeth and bit down. The pup yelped; Shep let go and the little dog plopped back onto the floor.

“Let's try again,” Shep grumbled. It was hard being “up” when every thing was difficult.

He bit Oscar's scruff again, trying to close his teeth as gently as possible on the fur. This time, Oscar merely whimpered as Shep lifted him off the floor.

“Let's go!” Shep growled through his teeth.

Callie led the way down the stairs, with Shep and Cheese following. Frizzle and Daisy waited for them on one of the landings.

“Don't go down any farther,” Frizzle yipped. “It stinks like rat and mildew. This door smells like the main hall we started on.” Frizzle jumped up on the door, pawing in the direction of a bar of metal, which stretched across the door's center where the knob should have been. The bar smelled like a knob: grease and metal.

“I think this is a special knob,” Frizzle yapped. “Shep, will you be a friend?”

Shep growled. Wasn't he carrying a pup in his jaws? Wasn't there another big dog
right next to him
?

Shep placed Oscar gently on the floor. “Sure,
friend
. Let me get that for you.”

He reared and slapped the knob with his paws to test it out. It clicked open just by pressing down on it.
Why weren't
all
knobs like this?
Shep wondered. He pushed again on the flat part and shoved with his shoulder, and the door swung open into a hall off the entry room. Boji still mumbled miserably in front of the metal doors of El Vator.