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The animal was starving, maybe crazy. Scared.
Letting it out was stupid. Suicidal. Way too risky a thing to even consider.
Rags had to think about it for a while, too. At first she stood on the bloodstained curb and studied the car. The dog was barking furiously.
There were no dead around. There was nothing but a couple of bodies that been shot in the head and left to rot. The stink was terrible, but Rags was used to it. Everything stank. She stank. She’d give a lot for a hot shower and clean underwear.
A lot.
The dog barked at her.
And then it stopped barking and stared at her.
It had strange eyes. One was such a dark brown that it looked almost black. The other was mint green. It wore a collar and had a tag, but Rags couldn’t read it. Not through the cracked and dirty windows.
Rags came over and peered inside. The dog looked at her with its strange eyes. She expected it to growl. It didn’t.
After a long time, Rags climbed up on the hood and sat down, cross-legged, and laid her forehead against the windshield. The dog stared at her and did not move.
Rags had no idea how long she sat there. Shadows moved on the street around her. The air was still and there were no sounds in the distance. No moans or screams. No gunfire. Nothing.
Even the dog was silent. Watching her. Waiting.
There was so much going on in those eyes. Intelligence. And . . .
And what?
It was almost like looking into the eyes of a person rather than a dog. Even PomPom, much as she’d loved him, hadn’t had this same quality. PomPom looked at her with a dog’s eyes and a dog’s mind and a dog’s uncomplicated love.
This dog seemed different in ways she couldn’t understand.
Rags straightened and then placed her palm flat over one of the cracks in the windshield. After a moment the dog bent forward and sniffed.
Then they sat and looked at each other for a while longer. Ten minutes maybe. Enough time for the shadows to slide around a bit more.
“Your family’s gone,” she said quietly.
The dog watched her.
“Mine, too.”
The first of the evening crickets began chirping in the weeds that had grown thick in the cracks on the pavement.
“If I let you out,” she said to the dog, “will you be nice?”
The dog watched her.
“I don’t have much food, but I can give you some soup. I have a couple of cans of beef soup. It has too much salt, but it’s okay. Do you want some soup?”
The dog watched her.
“I’ll give you half of what I have if you don’t get all crazy on me.”
Those eyes—dark brown and mint green—watched her.
“Okay . . . ?”
If there was anyone else to swear it to, Rags would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that the dog nodded.
