Wild Dog City (Darkeye Volume 1) (8 page)

He opened his eyes and put his ears forward.
It was standing a few feet away from him, mouth open in what was
almost a dog smile, paws curled near its chin. Again it spoke.

"Hello, dog!"

Its voice was eerie-sounding, not quite
right, not quite
dog
. He backed up a few steps, feeling
frightened, though-

It also reminded him a little bit of his
mother's voice.

"Dog!" the little hulker bleated again, and
took a tottering step towards him. Mhumhi's jaws opened of their
own accord before he could stop himself, and he made an arrested
lunge, jerking back halfway. The hulker stumbled back and let out a
bleating fearful cry.

Mhumhi backed away further, shaking from his
own forced self-control, and bumped into something behind himself
that clattered and fell over loudly. The hulker gave out another
startled wail. Mhumhi jumped forward and pulled himself back again
with a yowl of frustration.

"You go away!" said the hulker, and Mhumhi
felt another chill at the sheer
weirdness
of hearing it
speak. It was retreating back to its little nest of blankets now,
coughing and crying.

Mhumhi, panting, thought that going away was
probably a good idea, and ran to the door and bumped into
Kutta.

"Watch out, Mhumhi," she said, nudging him
with her shoulder, and then spotted the crying hulker. "What
happened to him?!"

"I didn't do anything!" said Mhumhi, running
to the opposite corner of the room with his tail tucked. "I never
touched him!"

Kutta trotted over to the crying hulker,
which had curled up again, and licked its naked forehead.

"Don't cry," she said, pawing at it. "We've
brought you food, don't cry!"

Mhumhi got a distinct sinking feeling when he
heard these words, but was distracted at once by the reappearance
of the other hulker, the larger one, in the doorway. Apparently
Kutta had convinced it to come back after all, though it was
staring at Mhumhi with those queer eyes. Mhumhi's lips wrinkled
back.

"Stop that," said Kutta, spotting the motion.
"Try to be nice, Mhumhi. They're only puppies."

"They're not puppies," Mhumhi muttered, but
Kutta advanced on him, tail wagging, and started licking his
chin.

"What- no!"

But he was too late; she had already jammed
her nose into the corner of his mouth and up came more meat. Mhumhi
tried to snatch some back up but Kutta shouldered him aside and
picked up the lot, tail wagging.

Mhumhi paced back and forth in his little
corner as she walked over to the coughing hulker and dropped it in
front of him. He stopped crying at once and picked up the meat in
his little fists.

"That's my meat," Mhumhi growled.

"Learn to share, Mhumhi," said Kutta. "I've
been doing it since Mother left, now you can pick up some of the
slack."

The mention of their mother gave Mhumhi
pause, and with a nervous glance to the other hulker that was still
standing in the doorway, he trotted closer to Kutta.

"Did you say that… that Mother was taking
care of these?"

"Yes," said Kutta. "She showed them to me a
little while… a little while before she left."

"You mean Mother and you were keeping secrets
from us?" Mhumhi demanded. "For how long?"

"I don't know how long Mother was taking care
of them! All I know is that she needed help, so she asked me to
come down… She told me not to tell you or Sacha, so I didn't,
but…"

"But what?" Mhumhi felt strange and
miserable, thinking of his mother down here in the sewers with this
horrible secret. He had just told Bii that his mother had never
associated with any hulkers, and yet…

"I need help," Kutta said. "I can't take care
of them alone anymore. The little one got sick."

Mhumhi glanced at the little one. It was
still eating the meat, its fists sticky and black as it put them in
its mouth.

"So leave them," he said. "They're not
dogs."

"Don't say that," hissed Kutta, shooting a
glance at the older one. "They
are
, Mother was right, they
just look different. They can talk, and they've got names-"

"You
named
them?"

"They already had the names! Look, the little
one is Tareq, and the big one is Maha. You should say hello."

Mhumhi felt that this didn't even warrant a
response.

"Come on, Mhumhi," said Kutta, sounding a bit
desperate. "Help me. They're Mother's children too… like Kebero…
they're our brother and sister."

At the statement Mhumhi gave a low growl.

"If you and Mother were keeping this secret
together," he said, "do you also know why she left?"

Kutta stepped back from him, then looked
away.

"I… no, I don't. She just disappeared,
Mhumhi. I think she must have gone looking for food or something…
we were struggling to feed them so much then. I-"

She stared at Mhumhi then, her yellow eyes
fearful.

"I'm afraid she might be gone."

Mhumhi tore away from her gaze with a kind of
frantic whine.

"We don't know! We don't know that! What if
she's really left, like Sacha said? What then? She obviously
doesn't care- she's always just wanted puppies- any kind-" He
looked angrily over at the standing hulker, which was still
watching them. "Any kind she could steal."

"She didn't steal us," said the hulker.

Mhumhi jerked back with surprise, but the
hulker was still talking.

"And
you're
not my brother. And she's
not my sister."

Mhumhi could only growl softly, unsure really
how to respond to this, but Kutta said, "Don't say that, Maha.
We're here to take care of you."

"He doesn't want to take care of us," said
the hulker- Maha- twisting her mealy lips downwards. "And you don't
either. I know you're planning something. You want to get rid of
us! Are you going to eat us?"

Mhumhi barked out a laugh. "Us eat them!" He
glanced at Kutta, then addressed Maha directly.

"You'd eat a dog, if you had the chance,
wouldn't you- little hulker?"

Maha seemed to tremble, and she pressed her
lips together. "I- I
am
a dog!"

Mhumhi laughed again, at the bizarre little
creature, hairless and shaking. "How did you trick my mother into
taking care of you?"

Maha made a pained little noise, and Kutta
said, "Mhumhi, be quiet. You think our mother-
our
mother-
wouldn't want to take care of them?"

Mhumhi found himself regrettably unable to
argue with this. He changed the subject. "You only brought me down
here so you could give them my meat!"

"I brought you down here because I thought I
could trust you," Kutta said. "I thought you'd understand. I
thought you'd behave better than Sacha would, anyway. I guess I was
wrong."

"That's not
fair
," Mhumhi said,
tucking his tail, and Kutta continued.

"And I've been telling Tareq and Maha about
the two of you for forever, too, and I told them all about how
Sacha was the cross one but you were the sweet kind one, you know,
and how you were the most fun to play with…"

"Come on, Kutta," Mhumhi whined.

"You haven't even met them, you just started
going at them from the start, and all because you had
one
bad experience with a hulker. And now you think you know everything
about them!"

"I don't think that," said Mhumhi. "I only
thought- I-"

"And you're still willing to listen to that
nasty old fox over our mother!"

"I thought you liked Bii!"

"Oh, he's all right," Kutta said, and then
made her voice fiercer. "But he doesn't know what he's talking
about. These little ones haven't done anything. And you just had
to-"

"All right," said Mhumhi, "all right, shut
up. Stop it. I'll help you. But no more meat. I'll give meat to
Kebero, so you give all your meat to these things."

"Then let me have Bii's portion, since
there's two of them!"

"Fine!" growled Mhumhi, who was starting to
pace again. "I can't believe we've got even more puppies to take
care of now!"

"We've had these," Kutta said. "It was just
only me and Mother that were taking care of them. You never had to
help."

Mhumhi wanted to raise his lip again, but she
sounded so tired, and her words sparked a grudging little feeling
of guilt in him.

"I'll help now," he said, though he had kind
of a bad feeling in his stomach about the whole thing.

Kutta wagged her tail and came up to wash one
of his ears.

"Good boy, Mhumhi," she said. "Come on, come
meet them, I know you'll get to like them."

Mhumhi kept quiet about what he thought of
that
, but he let her tug on his ear and draw him towards the
female.

"This is Maha," she told him. "She's the
older one. She can find food for them sometimes down here, but she
needs as much help as we can give her. Mother was giving them
milk-"

"Mother was
what
?" Mhumhi
interrupted.

"Hush. She was giving them milk, but
obviously she can't anymore. That's when Tareq started getting
sick, after she left. I think we've got to try giving them some
fruit if we can get any."

"You're crazy," said Mhumhi, "absolutely…
What are we supposed to trade for fruit? We're already running out
of meat for everyone…"

"You're right," Kutta admitted. She glanced
at Maha. "We'll talk more about it later. Now, go say hello."

Mhumhi wrinkled his nose at her, then went
over to Maha. For a moment they gazed at one another, her from up
high, him from below.

"Why don't you get down on all fours, like a
proper dog?" he asked.

"A dog can stand on two legs if she wants,"
said Maha, clenching her little paws.

"If you want to greet me like an older
brother," Mhumhi began, and she interrupted, "You're not my
brother!"

"Maha," said Kutta, "listen to what Mhumhi
says."

Maha pulled her lips down, blinking, and then
squatted, touching her knuckles to the ground. Mhumhi raised his
head and stepped over to gingerly sniff at her, nosing that thick
hair of hers.

"Where are your ears, anyway?"

"They're right here," said Maha, taking her
paw to pull her hair back. The movement startled him and he
flinched away. She made a strange sound then. Tareq, behind them,
made it too, putting his sticky little paws up to his mouth.

"What was that?" he asked suspiciously.

"I'm laughing at you," she said.

"Oh," said Mhumhi, rotating his ears forward
and back, and then added, "Don't."

Maha stuck her fat tongue out at him, and he
shuddered. "Don't do that either."

"Mhumhi, leave her alone," said Kutta. "Stop
being such a puppy."

"Stop being such a puppy," said Maha, and she
made that odd laughing sound again, though this time Mhumhi could
pick up the derision in it. He laid his ears back.

"You haven't greeted me- you haven't sniffed,
or anything."

"I don't need to sniff," said Maha, and Kutta
said, "Mhumhi, the hulkers can't really smell anything."

"They can't-? Well, I suppose they can't,
since they've got no noses."

Maha made a more bubbly version of her laugh.
"My nose is right here!" She pointed to a protuberance on her flat
face Mhumhi hadn't taken notice of before, because it looked very
little like a normal nose. There were two holes in it, which he
supposed were nostrils, but there were no side-slits, and it was
the same color and texture as the rest of her dark skin.

"Kutta," he whined. It was getting too
strange for him. She nudged him with her shoulder, then went over
to Maha.

"Go and greet your brother properly."

Maha glanced at her, then crouch-crawled over
to Mhumhi, who stiffened. The movement was so unnatural. Having her
close reminded his mind of the frailty of her bare skin, as well;
of the pulse he could hear beating in her neck. He licked his
lips.

Maha put one of her front paws out to him and
he jerked away.

"Let's not touch," he said. "That's
enough."

"Fine," said Kutta. "Say hello to Tareq, and
then we'd better leave. Sacha will probably be looking for us when
we get back."

Mhumhi spared a thought for poor Sacha-
though he was also rather jealous, with her being in the blissful
state of ignorance he'd been in not too long ago.

He let Kutta lead him over to little Tareq,
whom he dutifully sniffed as the little hulker lay and coughed and
whimpered. Again he backed away when Tareq reached out to touch
him.

Kutta seemed willing to accept this. "All
right, Mhumhi. Let's get back. And you two-" She turned to where
the two hulkers had come together, huddling in the nest of
blankets. "I'll be back tonight with some more meat. Maha, you must
eat some too."

"I'm not hungry," muttered Maha. Mhumhi
focused his ears at her.

"If someone gives you meat, you eat it," he
growled. "If you get too weak, I'll eat you myself."

Maha made a sort of disgruntled noise, though
he was pleased to see her draw up closer against Tareq at his
words. Kutta shot him a look but did not say anything until they
had left the room to travel back down the narrow concrete
tunnel.

"You really are beginning to sound more like
Sacha."

"I am
not
," said Mhumhi sulkily, then
switched his tail. Her words reminded him of something.

"By the way, she's getting suspicious about
you disappearing so much."

"Oh?"

"She thinks you've got a sweetheart, or
something."

Kutta laughed. "Oh, she does, does she?
That's funny."

"It
is
funny, since it's you," said
Mhumhi, and jumped away when she turned back to nip at him.

"If she thinks that, that's good," she said,
resuming her trot and wagging her tail. "It gives me an
excuse."