Two dog soldiers opened the gate to the quarry and let the Humvee enter. Inside, troops of every species lined the edge of the pit, staring into it, some shaking their heads. Many covered their snouts with scarves or some other fabric. Whatever was in the bottom of the quarry released a cloud so toxic that Mort(e) almost expected to see it.
An orange cat ran in front of the vehicle, frantically gesturing for Bonaparte to steer the vehicle to the right.
“You’re driving on the tracks, you pig!” the cat said.
Bonaparte parked the Humvee beside a row of trucks. As the vehicle turned, Mort(e) noticed why the cat was so excited: a trail of hoof prints, perhaps twenty feet wide, led straight into the pit.
When Mort(e) exited the Humvee, the stench enveloped him like a waxy second skin. He felt the urge to lick himself clean. Wawa kept her paw over her nose.
“Do you see him?” Bonaparte asked.
It was impossible to miss Culdesac looming over the others. As he approached his old friend, Mort(e) could not resist peeking into the pit. A trio of dogs let out mournful howls. Mort(e) was about to tell them to shut up. Then he peered over someone’s shoulder.
At the bottom of the quarry lay a herd of deer, all dead, piled like dolls, bristling with antlers. Their bodies had been elongated by the biological processes of the Change, while their bellies had swollen with the putrid gases building inside them. A black mist floated above them, and for a second Mort(e) supposed that this was the stink personified. It was instead a fluid swarm of flies gorging on the dead. The slightest breeze caused them to buzz away and then return, so that the scene resembled the snow on a television screen. Glistening, lifeless eyes stared at Mort(e) through the horde of insects, accusing, pleading, asking questions that could not be answered. The great accomplishment that took the ants millennia to achieve had thrown itself off a cliff.
To Mort(e)’s left, a rat began to vomit. His comrades laughed.
“I thought you’d be used to this!” someone said.
“It’s not the smell,” the rat said. “It’s the flies. I hate the flies.” He coughed and spat.
“It’s a good thing the Colony didn’t make the flies smart,” a dog said. “Then they might realize that they eat nothing but corpses and shit.”
Culdesac, Mort(e) noticed, had turned to see the commotion. The bobcat straightened up, recognizing his friend, his disciple, his apprentice. Mort(e) walked toward him. A cat was in the middle of asking the colonel a question, but stopped when she realized that he wasn’t listening. Culdesac extended his paw to Mort(e).
Mort(e) punched the colonel on the bridge of his nose. Culdesac had always told him, Don’t aim for the face. Aim for the back of the head. Imagine your fist going through your enemy’s brain, dragging the bone and flesh with it.
In less than a second, guns pointed at Mort(e) from every direction. Shiny barrels glinted inches from his face. He followed each of them to their owners: the slitted eyes of a cat, the beady eyes of a rodent, the soft, wet eyes of a dog.
“Lower your weapons,” Culdesac said. He scrunched his nose to confirm that it wasn’t broken. “Do it,” he said.
The rifles descended.
“That means you, Lieutenant,” Culdesac said.
Wawa holstered her gun. She didn’t seem to like that. Mort(e) understood — there had been a time when he would have ripped out the throat of anyone who failed to make proper eye contact with Culdesac.
“Don’t you all know who this is?” the colonel asked. “This is Mort(e). The hero of the Battle of the Alleghenies. The Mastermind of the Chesapeake Bridge Bombing. The crazy bastard who assassinated General Fitzpatrick in broad daylight. This choker was killing humans before some of you were born.”
For once, Mort(e) appreciated the choker comment. It lowered expectations for him.
“So you got my message,” Culdesac said, leaning in. “Congratulations. I didn’t call you the smartest for nothing.”
“Just tell me why you brought me here,” Mort(e) said.
“Isn’t this what you wanted?” Culdesac asked. “If memory serves me, I couldn’t stop you and Tiberius from snooping around a place like this.”
“Tiberius is dead, Colonel.”
Culdesac nodded. He scanned the soldiers until he picked out a dog who was taking photos of the deer. “Have you got all the pictures you need, Private?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” Culdesac said. “All right, everyone, clean it up.”
Several lackeys began barking orders at their own lackeys, and within seconds the crowd buzzed with activity again. Flatbed trucks moved to the edge of the pit, while soldiers wearing hazmat suits rappelled into the quarry.
Culdesac motioned for Mort(e) and Wawa to walk with him. Mort(e) glanced at Bonaparte standing beside the Humvee, unaffected by the excitement. Grinning, the pig made a punching motion with his hoof.
The three made their way over to a hastily erected tent. Culdesac brought them over to a table covered with papers, each containing jargon that was of no interest to Mort(e). A mug of cold coffee acted as a paperweight. Most animals despised the stuff, especially those who had lived in the wild. It was said that they never needed a stimulant because they so often lived in fear for their lives. But for whatever reason, Culdesac had acquired a taste for it. Perhaps he was finally slowing down and needed something to compensate.
Culdesac picked up one of the documents and spread it out on the table. It was a map of the area, marked up with red Xs and other notations.
“I didn’t call you the first time it happened,” Culdesac said. “Even though I knew then that something wasn’t right.”
“There have been other suicides?” Mort(e) asked.
“I wish they were only suicides.”
Suicide and murder were supposed to be relics of the past, such as wars, superstition, beauty magazines, reality television, and every other corrupt outgrowth of human civilization. The ants killed themselves only in service to the Colony, including, according to legend, the Queen’s own mother. But even sacrifices like that were rare nowadays.
“Lieutenant Wawa has been leading the investigation,” Culdesac said. He nodded to her, and she stepped forward.
The Red Sphinx had received reports of people exhibiting the physical symptoms of the virus, she said. So far, no one tested positive. Her unit was monitoring the situation, ordering blood tests for every neighborhood where symptoms had been found. But the cases of unusual behavior were even more alarming, and more unpredictable.
“There was a family of cats not too far from your house,” Wawa said, pointing to an X on the map. “They all hung themselves. There was also a mother rat who killed herself after drowning several of her children. These weren’t veterans who were traumatized by the war.” With this, she winced and said, “No offense.” Mort(e) asked her to continue. The parents had worked for the Bureau, she said, and the children were going to attend school later in the year.
“And then over here,” she continued, tracing a line on the map with her brown fingernail. “Murder-suicide. A dog — a sanitation worker — stabbed his next-door neighbor, poisoned his mate and two pups, then ate the poison himself.”
“You think these incidents and the reports of infection are related?”
“Yes,” she said. “I just can’t prove it.”
“So everyone isn’t as pleased with the big Change as they’re supposed to be,” Mort(e) said. “What does this have to do with me?”
“It all started when you moved into the neighborhood,” she said.
“I want you to be honest with me,” Culdesac said, “Has anything unusual happened since you came home?”
Before the bobcat even finished his question, the image of the graffiti appeared before Mort(e)’s eyes, throbbing with each beat of his heart.