He realized then that things did not last forever. They decayed. Or they left. Or they died. Or they were lost. Or they were taken away.
That night, while he sat behind the Martinis’ garage, the hair on his paws fell away. He was not alarmed. He simply brushed away the remaining strands, stretched out the toes into fingers, and rubbed the palms together.
More jets streaked overhead. Explosions thumped in the distance, getting closer. Sebastian climbed to the roof of the garage to see over the hedges. Miles away, a city burned. Helicopters hovered over the flames like flies above a carcass. Massive fireballs bloomed amid the wrecked buildings. Then the electricity went out in all the houses in the neighborhood. The faraway conflagration provided the only light.
Sebastian stayed up all night watching, thinking, remembering. He knew that when the sun came up, more things would change. Or be taken away. Or die.
STILL ON THE roof of the garage, Sebastian woke to the sound of glass breaking in the house. His eyes opened. A column of black smoke obscured the city on the horizon. He turned to the house and tried to listen. Janet burst out the door. She wore a hiker’s backpack and held a child in each arm. Sebastian had never realized how strong she was.
Daniel trailed behind her. “We have to stick together,” he said, his voice breaking. This made Sebastian pause. He actually understood the words!
“We’re not staying in this house,” she said.
Sebastian mouthed the words: we’re not staying in this house.
Daniel ran inside while his family headed to the car parked at the front of the driveway. It was a silver SUV with mud streaks on the side and children’s seats in the rear.
When Daniel stepped outside again, he held the black metal tube in the crook of his elbow. “You’re not taking my children,” he said.
Janet ignored him.
“Mommy, what is Daddy doing?” Michael asked.
“Do you hear me?” Daniel said.
“Go ahead and shoot us then, Dan!” Janet said, her face puffy and red. “We’re dead anyway! Go ahead and do it!”
Daniel had no response. Blinking, his lip twitching, he leaned the tube against the side of the house and walked inside.
The girl was crying, while the boy kept asking questions.
“Get in the car,” Janet said.
While the mother fussed with Delia, Michael caught sight of Sebastian on the roof. “Mommy, look!”
Sebastian realized that he was standing on his hind legs like a man. But before Janet could see, her husband emerged from the front door of the house. He grabbed Janet by the hair and pulled hard.
On her back, dragged from behind, she tried to cradle the screeching baby in her arms. “Daniel, stop it!”
Michael was torn between his unhinged parents and the demon standing on top of his garage. The boy called to his father, but the man did not answer. Soon the entire family was in the house again. The door slammed shut, sealing off the noise.
A few minutes later, Sebastian could hear Daniel walking toward the porch, probably to retrieve the metal tube. Sebastian knew that his master was going to use it on the family. He pictured the man bringing the wife and children into the bathroom and running the water until the squealing stopped. Sebastian jumped down from the roof and raced to the object.
Daniel exited the house to find Sebastian before him, standing erect, brandishing the weapon. The fear and despair in the man’s eyes infuriated Sebastian. Did he not recognize a member of his own family? Did he not remember when Sebastian had protected the house from an invader, or when he accepted the responsibility of watching over the children?
“You do not recognize me?” Sebastian asked. The words felt strange rattling in his throat and leaving his mouth. It seemed as though they had always been there, waiting to be unlocked. The act of speaking felt like shaking his head until the right phrases fell out.
The man’s lips moved. No sounds came out. Sebastian stepped forward and pointed the weapon at his head. “Do you understand my speech or not?” Sebastian said.
“Yeah,” Daniel said. “Yeah.”
Three fighter jets swooped above the house, their engines vibrating the windows. More explosions thudded miles away.
“Get inside,” Sebastian said. “We talk there.”
Daniel complied, leading Sebastian to the living room. The smell of sweat and blood grew strong. There, Janet lay on the floor beside the recliner, still clutching Delia. Michael knelt beside her. Blood leaked from her split eyebrow and dripped onto the plush carpet.
“See?” Michael said to his mother. “I told you!”
The child recognized him. Janet, dazed, didn’t seem able to comprehend what she was seeing.
While Daniel told Michael to be quiet, to be a good boy, Sebastian could not resist watching his reflection in the mirror as it moved with him. He could walk upright. And he had grown taller than his master, with lean muscles underneath his fur. His limbs were long and thin. His paws had become functional hands. If he’d had claws, he could have sliced Daniel into bleeding strips of flesh if the man tried to resist him.
Daniel sat on the couch and, for the first time, offered Sebastian a seat on the recliner. Sebastian obliged, cradling the weapon on his lap. Sitting in the forbidden chair so close to Janet, he experienced a moment of panic. But things had changed, and she was in no condition to discipline him now.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked.
“Sebastian?”
This sounded familiar. The Martinis, even the children, said it all the time. The word had once meant so many things: stop, here, eat, sit. But it had actually been his name. Sebastian. Se-bas-tee-yan.
“It’s impossible,” Daniel said through trembling lips.
“You gave me this name?”
“Yes,” he said, his eyes fixated on the ghoulish pink hands that cradled the tube.
“Are you my …” Sebastian searched for the word before finally settling on it. “Father?”
“How are you able to talk?”
“No questions,” Sebastian said. “You answer me now.”
Daniel seemed to expect his wife to say something. She did not speak, so he laughed nervously and shook his head.
“Answer,” Sebastian said.
“I’m not your father.”
“What are you to me?”
“You are—” Daniel said, pausing. “You were our pet.”
“What does that mean?”
“We owned you,” he said, almost pleading. “You were ours. We fed you, you lived here …”
Sebastian considered this. “Something has happened here,” he said. “Explain.”
Daniel nodded. His hands shook, and his bloodshot eyes fluttered in their sockets as he searched for the right words. There was an ant infestation that started in Africa and South America, he said. It began as an odd occurrence. An anomaly. Soon it became clear the ants could not be stopped. Entire cities had to be abandoned. Then the giant ants emerged, like nothing anyone had ever seen before. Practically bulletproof. Able to bite through metal. And then there were reports of animals changing shape, walking like humans. Somehow the ants had become smart, and the animals were becoming like them. Enormous towers of dirt and clay began to rise all over the globe. Scientists detected an ultrasonic signal coming from a turret at the top of each tower. The humans would try to destroy them, only to find that the ants had repaired the structures within hours. More of the insects continued to spring up no matter what the humans did. And then, out of nowhere, a massive island rose from the sea, somewhere in the Atlantic. The ants had created it. One day it wasn’t there, and the next day it was.