The Storm (9 page)

“Thanks, Big Nose!” Frizzle yapped, trotting out of the stairwell, ears forward, tail wagging, chest up.

Shep knew from his stance that Frizzle wasn't trying to bully him, wasn't showing off. He was being friendly, in his pushy, yappy way. But still. Shep was doing all the work. He felt like these little dogs, and even the big dogs like Cheese and Boji, and even Callie, should give him more respect. Shep missed his boy. Things were so much easier with him than with these dogs.

Oscar ran into the entry room. “Daisy!” he yipped. “Shep says he can find my mother!” He frisked about in front of Daisy, tripping over his floppy ears and stumbling on his oversized paws.

“He lied,” Daisy yapped. “You —
snort
— came from the store. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't find your mom.”

Oscar stopped mid-roll. “What's the store?” he whimpered.

Daisy licked the little pup's nose. “Don't worry,” she snuffled. “You've got me, kid. We're okay.”

Oscar nuzzled into Daisy's ample flank and curled into a ball. He flashed a pair of huge, sad brown eyes at Shep.

Great Wolf and soggy kibble
, Shep thought.
You do a nice thing like get a pup off a dark hallway and all you get is grief.
Maybe Zeus had the right idea. Maybe it wasn't about being “up.” Maybe it was about taking care of yourself first.

“We should search out the other levels,” Callie barked. “Shep, Cheese, you coming?”

Doesn't this yapper ever stop?
Shep nibbled an itch on his hindquarters. No, he wasn't going to run around, following these yappers who barked orders at him like he wasn't the big dog, like he couldn't trounce every single one of them, roll them in the dirt and —

Shep shivered. He was so angry; why was he so angry?

Callie stood in front of him, brown eyes wide, searching his muzzle for a response. Her ears were forward and her curled tail wiggled. “You okay?” she yipped. She stepped toward him, tail now wagging in wide circles.

“I'm okay,” Shep woofed. “Just tired. What's the plan?”

The night stretched out like the flights of stairs before Shep: exhausting and seemingly endless. Worse yet, the wall-lights that had flashed on when everything else went dark grew dimmer with each passing heartbeat.

“Three more floors to go,” yipped Callie as she trotted past Shep up the steps.

Callie had split the dogs into teams to make clearing the remaining parts of the building easier. Shep and Cheese followed her from floor to floor. Callie sniffed each door, while Shep and Cheese focused on the knobs that needed opening. Frizzle moved with them; he stayed in front of the door leading from the hall into the stairwell, holding it open with his body.

Boji, Oscar, and Daisy remained on the entry floor. Seeing as Boji couldn't move easily around the building — what with vile stairs and villainous doorways blocking every path — she stayed in the entry room and watched little Oscar. Boji was a natural dam, and she nuzzled and licked Oscar as if he were her own pup. Daisy, like Frizzle, sat holding a door open — this one leading from the stairwell to the entry room.

Cheese bounded up to Shep with a large, brown and black wirehaired dog with a square head and long snout. Long, stiff hairs hung from his jowls near the nose like a hairface. Somehow, on a big dog, it didn't look as ridiculous as it did on Higgins.

“This is Virgil,” Cheese said, tail waving. “He's pretty strong — pulled the door open himself.”

Virgil tipped his head. “Terrier, Airedale class, at your service.”

Shep stood tall and approached Virgil with ears forward and head high. Virgil allowed Shep to sniff him, not submitting to Shep, but not trying to otherwise assert dominance.

“Can I be of assistance?” asked Virgil after Shep stepped back.

“Great Wolf, yes you can!” Shep barked. Those were the best woofs he'd heard all night.

“Two more floors,” Callie yipped, trotting past the big dogs.

 

The whimpers and cries of frightened dogs echoed up the steps and down the halls, filling the building and rivaling the howl of the storm Outside. In the end, they freed Virgil, a lean greyhound named Snoop, an old timer black hunting dog named Dover, and two more yappers: a schnauzer named Rufus, who was the blockiest looking dog Shep had ever seen — square head, rectangular body with bushy-furred legs and a silver hairface — and a snobby sheltie named Ginny, who was covered in poofy brown and white hair and repeatedly mentioned in emphatic moans her distant relationship to some dog named “Lassie.”

Virgil loped up the stairwell toward Shep. “Last floor clear?”

“Yup,” Shep woofed. “Callie and Frizzle are already headed back to the entry room. There was another chain, but we rescued the rest.”

Virgil growled. “I hate to leave a dog behind.”

Shep panted lightly — it was nice to hear another dog say what he felt inside. “At least we're done with the hard work, right?” he yipped, a scampish grin on his jowls. He batted Virgil's ear playfully.

Virgil furrowed his brow and cocked his head. “You want to play?” he barked. “At a time like this?”

Apparently, Virgil did not feel
exactly
the same way Shep did. “No,” Shep woofed. “Just a bug.” He started down the steps. “Never mind.”

A thunderous roar echoed around Virgil and Shep. They were near the top end of the staircase, high above the entry floor and as close to the storm as a dog could get.

The monster wind from before growled in Shep's memory — it was back! “We have to get out of here,” he barked.

The floor began to vibrate.

Virgil nervously eyed the ceiling. “I agree,” he woofed.

They trotted down the steps. At each turn of the staircase, the storm rumbled louder and the building shivered. Two flights down, there was a crack of thunder that rattled the dim lights to darkness. Shep and Virgil raced on in the dark, paws flying down the steps. Another flight down, and they heard a whooshing noise that got louder and louder, so loud it seemed to be sucking at their very whiskers. The floor began to shake hard, forcing them to stop on the next landing. There was a deafening shriek, and the ceiling above them splintered, then exploded up into the sky. The wind tore at Shep's skin, sucking him up.

“I've got you!” barked Virgil. He clamped his jaws around Shep's scruff.

Shep clawed against the pull of the wind. Bits of the building flew up into the clouds, and with them went scraps of each den: couches and tables, and Shep swore he saw a cat disappear into the spinning air.

Then the winds stopped. Shep fell against Virgil. As suddenly as it'd appeared, the voracious wind was gone.

“Thanks,” Shep whimpered, climbing off of Virgil. He shook and felt a twinge of pain where Virgil had grabbed him.

“Just doing my duty,” woofed Virgil.

Above them, the stairs that remained stood black against a blue sky. The first tails of dawn wagged across wispy clouds high above. It was as if, along with the roof, the storm, too, had disappeared in the screaming wind.

The building groaned, then slumped down on one side. The walls around them cracked and a piece of staircase fell past them down into the dark.

“That's not good,” whined Shep. “Let's get out of this stairwell!”

Shep and Virgil raced down what stairs remained and burst into the entry room. The rescued dogs stood huddled at its center, eyes wide and fur trembling. Callie sniffed around in the potted bushes near the clear entry doors.

The ceiling slanted toward Higgins's den and the door frame to the den was cracked.

“Zeus!” Shep yelped.

Zeus ambled out of the den. “What happened to the ceiling?” he grunted, yawning.

Shep sighed with relief at seeing his friend. Higgins scuttled out of the den behind Zeus, mumbling about how his master would be furious and something about an escaped moth, but perked up when he saw that there were new canine subjects to research.

Zeus's tongue circled his jowls and his stomach gurgled. “Whoa! Hear that? The big dog's hungry. We need to find some kibble!” he barked loudly. He turned to Shep. “Think you can hunt up some kib, the way you've unearthed so many yappers?” Zeus nipped Shep's scruff and panted.

Shep winced — Zeus had bitten him right where Virgil had snagged him back from the wind. “I think we have a little more to worry about than your stomach,” Shep grumbled. “For example, the building collapsing on our snouts.”

“Problem solved,” Zeus barked. He walked up to the clear entry doors. They stayed shut.

“Hey, which one of you yappers broke the door?” he growled.

“Like we didn't try that already,” Callie snapped. “The storm broke the doors.”

The building grumbled loudly, and with a squeal, the ceiling dropped a whisker-length and the clear doors cracked into huge spiderwebs.

Zeus scampered back, tripping over the pack of terrified dogs.

“If the doors are broken, how can we get out?” Ginny yowled, which started the whole mess of them howling and whimpering. The fear smell was like a fog around Shep. All of the dogs were terrified, even Zeus, who crouched close to the ground and whose ears lay back on his head.

Shep had an idea. “We can get out!” he bellowed. “Cheese, you other big dogs, push over those trees!”

Shep jumped over Higgins and threw all his weight against the potted palm nearest the doors. It rocked, tapping the clear wall of the door, then bounced back into place.

“Hey, Shep!” barked Snoop. “You-want-me-to-pushon-this-tree-huh-yeah-'cause-I-could-push-on-it-yup-yup-see?” He slammed his long, thin legs against a flowering bush.

“No, Snoop!” Shep cried.

But Snoop's single slap was enough to topple the bush; it landed on Ginny with a muffled crunch.

Ginny scrambled out from beneath the bush, leaves and sticks and petals jutting out every which way from her fur. “Lassie never had to suffer such indignities,” she grumbled.

“Nice pawwork, Skinny,” yapped Frizzle.

“Sorry, Shep,” Snoop grunted. “I-was-only-trying-to-open-the-doors-like-you-said-do-you-think-this-meanswe're-trapped —”

“Trapped?” barked Rufus. “Did he say trapped?”

“No!” Shep snarled. “No one's trapped.”
If these yappers would shut their jowls for a
heartbeat … “We just need to hit this tree harder.”

Regaining his stance, Shep reared to hit the tree again with his paws. Virgil joined him and they lunged against the trunk together. Their combined weight knocked the tree over. It banged into the glass and lodged in the cracks of the web. The glass bulged out, but would not break.

All the dogs started to howl at once — they
were
trapped! Even Shep felt the claws of fear scratching at his heart.

Callie appeared from down the hall toward Higgins's den. “I found a way out!” she barked. “There's a door down here that smells like Outside!”

“Let me smell!” Shep leapt over the small dogs at his paws, and he and Callie raced down the hall ahead of the pack.

“Good find,” Shep barked as they ran. He was a little annoyed that she hadn't mentioned this door
before
he started with the tree.

Callie must have sensed it, because she glanced at Shep, her head lowered apologetically. “I'm sorry I didn't say anything. I just figured that, with how nervous the pack was, I should start looking for another way Out on the sneak, in case the glass didn't break.”

They stopped in front of a door.

Callie snorted, head down and ears floppy. “I didn't mean to show you up in there. You had a good idea.”

“I was following your old idea,” Shep woofed. He flicked his tail and panted, grinning. It was hard to stay mad at Callie.

“We're a good team,” she replied, tail wagging and eyes bright.

Shep sniffed the door and drew in the scents of Outside. This door had a metal bar across its middle, like the door in the stairwell.
Thank the Great Wolf!

Shep slapped the bar with his paws and pushed the door open, then stood against it, holding it open for the rest of the dogs. They scrambled Outside into the alley — even Boji managed to hop over the doorway without too much “Oh, dear”-ing.

Only Dover gave Shep a wag of thanks as he passed. “You're doing good,” the old timer woofed.

It surprised Shep how much that kibble of support meant to him. “Thanks,” he managed to yip back.

 

The alley was not large, barely two stretches wide and filled with Car-sized square metal bins and piles of shiny black bags. A palm frond three stretches long was wedged against the brick wall not far from where Shep stood. Puddles of rainwater, some infected with shimmering chemicals, covered most of the ground, meaning every dog's paws were soaked. The small dogs, especially Ginny with her long coat, were drenched to their bellies. Oscar avoided drowning by climbing on top of a black bag.

From Outside, Shep could see that the dogs' building was not the only one to have been crushed by the storm. The sunrise side of the building across the street was gone; nothing but a pile of rubble remained. The opposite wall of the alley ended three floors up, but a skeleton of pipes rose several stretches above the jagged edge of the brick.

The weather, however, frightened Shep more than the broken buildings. Although he could hear rain falling all around and thunder rumbling in the clouds, the sky was clear above the alley. The air was thick with water and still as a stone, though winds roared nearby and shifting air currents twitched his whiskers. The storm had them surrounded.

“What do we do now?” Rufus whined.

The dogs, who were huddled in several groups, instantly looked at Shep. They seemed to be waiting for him to woof, like he was their leader. Paws soaked and fur trembling, they all seemed to have forgotten the very idea that pestered Shep like a flea: the fact that he had no clue what he was doing, that he was not supposed to be rescuing dogs, but rather home in his den waiting for his boy — assuming he still had a den to return to.

A chorus of yapping commenced: “Yeah, it smells like more rain's coming.” “We'll be soaked!” “We should never have left our dens!” “Where's my mistress?” “What should we do, Shep?” “Yeah, Shep?” “SHEP!” His name rang in his ears as the dogs began howling it in unison.

Zeus appeared beside Shep. His ears pricked forward and his eyes widened. He panted hard. “What have you become, Shep?” Zeus said, his bark dripping with sarcasm. “King of the Yappers?” He nipped Shep's mane, then trotted over to a pile of bags and began pawing at them.

Shep wanted to join him. He was hungry and exhausted. He felt like he'd been awake for cycles. He needed a good meal and a soft bed and rest for the next several moons. He had no idea what to do. Why was he here, again? Why did he rescue all these whiny little yappers in the first place? All they did was complain!

“We have to find a new den before the storm returns,” Callie said. She sat beside Shep, ears twitching. She trembled.

Shep wanted to make her happy, to keep her safe. He liked being a part of her team. But he was so tired.

“I know a place,” yipped Ginny. “My mistress takes me to this bright den filled with kibble and soft beds and treats and toys. I get my fur cleaned there by professionals,” she woofed, snout in the air.

“There's no place like that,” snapped Zeus. “Humans would never make such a place.”

“I've been there, too,” growled Daisy. She thrust out her bulky chest and strutted up to Zeus. “Ginny's —
snort
— telling the truth, so back off.”

She had no fear, that Daisy. Shep hoped Zeus would stay calm — he didn't have enough energy to break up a fight.

Zeus snarled at Daisy, then shifted his stance. “You deal with the yappers,” he grunted to Shep. He shoved Daisy out of his way as he passed to resume his investigation of the black bags.