* * *
The first order of business is clearing the other trailers. Her heart drops when she sees it. Not because it’s hurt or dead, not even because it’s growling at them ready for battle, but because she can see the writing on the wall already.
“Nope.” Kara turns on her heels to aim for the door while a small brown dog guards its long-dead owner. “No way. I didn’t see it. There’s nothing there.”
“I didn’t even say anything yet,” Wade replies. “Doesn’t look like he wants anything to do with us, anyway.”
“I know you. You love dogs. You miss the one we left behind with the kids. You’ll want to feed this one. Help it. Keep it.”
He raises his hands in mock surrender while she pauses in the doorway.
The dog isn’t much bigger than an oversized pumpkin. Scrappy and disheveled, with fur covering its eyes and pretty white teeth flashing while they discuss its fate.
“The door is open.” She tries again as if Wade hadn’t agreed. “He can come and go as he pleases. He doesn’t need us.”
“Okay.”
She sighs, rubbing two fingers between her eyes. “The dog is fine. He lived this long alone, right? The body looks like it’s been lying here for months, and he’s not even skinny, so clearly he can hunt.”
“Mhmm,” Wade replies, over the dim grumble of said dog, who hasn’t left his post lying atop a mostly decomposed corpse.
“It’s aggressive anyway,” she says defiantly, though it’s starting to sound like she’s trying to convince herself instead of him. She distinctly remembers things being the other way around last time they found a dog, with Wade telling her they shouldn’t help it and Kara attempting to convince him they should. Funny how quickly things change.
“Looks like it.”
“We can’t treat dog bites out here. Could get infected. We made it this far. We’re not getting taken out now by a pint-sized Benji.”
“That would be an embarrassing way to go.”
She narrows her eyes, irritated by how calm he is. Doesn’t he understand they can’t keep this dog? He’s saying all the right things, but she can tell he doesn’t quite believe her reluctance,and that’s annoyed her enough to leave the trailer in a huff for the fire pit.
She putters around, setting up their cooking station as he joins her and they silently prepare their dinner.
“It probably won’t even come out anyway,” she says, suddenly.
“Yeah, probably not.”
“But you left the door open?”
“Yes.”
The trailer containing one very disgruntled little dog is positioned directly in front of them. She watches to see if anything might peek around the corner.
No. Good. No dog yet.
“Looks like he didn’t eat the body,” Wade says. “That’s a good thing.”
“Wonder how long he’s been there. A few months at least, right?”
“Looks like it. Guessing he goes out and hunts and then comes back and curls up by whoever that was.”
The dog’s owner thought he’d leave after she shot herself in the head. Left the door wide open so her pet could escape and have a chance, but a dog’s loyalty is unbreakable, even in the face of death. That one seems to have taken it to a whole new level.
“Kinda sad,” Kara admits, rolling her eyes at herself. “But we can’t keep it. Please, Wade.”
“I’m not trying to push you to do that.”
“It’s not practical. There’s a good reason we didn’t bring Gator. Traveling is dangerous in this world, not only for us, but for anything with us.”
