Pending Titles: "Wasteland Rising" or "Stray"
an excerpt

Excerpts From - Chapter I: A Good Use for Dogs

Excerpt 1.

He could smell the day and the dawn. The scent of morning and light tasted of warmth and water in his mouth and the crisp bloom of autumn air stung the insides of his nose with a downy chill. His eyes remained closed as the earthy and fresh stink of dirt rose up into his nostrils, sleep dispersing before the black behind his eyelids and drawing him into the day. The German Shepherd blinked awake, a gaping yawn twisting onto the contours of his muzzle with the sound of a high whine before he rolled onto his side in a lazy fashion.
The backyard was empty except for the black and tan dog who lounged near the fence-line and the grass grew lush here in the ends of summer, filling the air with a wild fragrance which, to the dog, smelt ripe and lulling. He was content and spoiled, overly satisfied to remain sprawled next to the white-washed picket fence which encased the yard until the Masters deemed it necessary that they should be graced with the Shepherd’s presence…and, of course, bring the dog food. Humans were rather pointless entities when they were without food. Or so the dog thought.
The day had brought with it a cloudless sky and a myriad of October light, that raw, brisk, and blonde sort of light. The Shepherd studied the sunlight which blazed across the lawn; it was vividly specked with dust particles from drying leaves and crusting plants which floated through the glossy bars of the early and slightly dusky light. Fall was edging in on the world, trimming back the green and floral beauty of spring and summer color with the gold and fire of autumn. Above the pointed tips of the fence he could even begin to see the first splashes of brown and gray mingling within the flushing leaves of looming trees.
The dog thought nothing of the coming change; let the world shift and spin. He figured it would bother him little. And with this thought lethargically blistering inside his brain the dog’s mind dulled as a heavy sleep overtook him once more.

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The wail of a distant siren rose up above the urban rooftops, blaring and angry with a howl to crush the city in a ceaseless roar. It was something of a town-wide tornado alarm, though this particular emergency siren had been created for a multitude of crisis warning usages. Luckily someone still held the aptitude to set it off, even though a crisis such as the one infecting the small shoreline city of White Port, Maine was a disaster for which the alarm system had never been created. It was basically a weather alert siren for hurricane warnings and such. The mass spread of disease had always been a dilemma humans didn’t tend to think needful of an alarm bell.
Though, whether intended for this specific use or not, Bishop the German Shepherd was none the less irritated at the fact that the siren had so discourteously woken him up. Honestly, humans and their pointless contraptions…they were such a noisy species.

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Excerpt 2.

The day was drawing in on itself now, clouds were moving in from the north as shadows began to dapple and wash out the world. The autumn warmth was fading into a gray cold, the sort which blotted itself onto existence with a blunt and stale chill. And still, at the back of the Shepherd’s mind was that inkling of something far off and ill. It pricked its way back to light every now and then, crawling from the dust and dusk of his brain and ticking away at his intolerability. He didn’t like this feeling of diluted dread, of an unknown foreboding which wouldn’t translate itself. It was simply a feeling and not a known; he didn’t know what the sensation stemmed from, only that it was kind of…wrong. As if the world were tilted just a bit to the side. Something wasn’t well.
He watched the incoming clouds rolling into the sky like dreary granite storm ships, bearing down upon the sun and swallowing the heaven. The air picked at his black marked pelt, stirring the grass around his paws and wafting away the collected scent of cat until a new, empty, and yet vibrantly encompassing smell filled the atmosphere. It was the scent of wind, changing, moving, and never having the same tang as the next gust. The silence which passed between the cat and the dog this time was less tense, instead it held within it a thoughtful quality, each animal realizing within them the lingering impression of a shift in the world. That “wrong” feeling burrowing deeper and deeper into their beings.
The cat broke the hush, her tail jerking back and forth, betraying a thought of nervousness. “Can you smell them?” A vague question, though she knew the dog would understand if he truly could smell them.
Bishop grunted and took a quick sniff, rather uninterested in humoring the cat but finding that somewhere within the confines of his idle consciousness a slow curiosity was beginning to stir.
“I can smell you fine enough,” he growled darkly, eyeing the cat with a loathsome and displeased regard. “As for this ‘them,’ what in hell are you talking about?” Bishop’s ears twitched backwards as he frowned in tentative interest, though it was hidden behind a callous and aggravated disposition.
The cat seemed almost downtrodden for a brief moment when the dog appeared unable to pick out the scent of which the cat had mentioned. However, she recovered her composed and careless personality with a slow blink of those firelight eyes and twitched an ear in the direction beyond the white yard-fence.
“The ones out there,” she stated as if the dog should have known what she was speaking of. Her eyes never left Bishop, and for a short instant Bishop had a sinking and ugly sensation that the cat could see something from where she sat. Something out and over the fence which he was unable to see beyond. Something wrong. Something to fit that feeling.
The sensation sank to the bottom of his stomach and festered lowly while a rotten sort of cold tracked up into his head. He shivered and growled in a foul manner, disliking the idea of something strange and awful lurking on the other side of his fence. He tested the air again, this time actively searching for some alien scent or ill stench in order to place a tangible idea to what the cat was talking about.