The Last Days by Scott Westerfeld Read Free Book Online Page B

farthest corner, a lone cat was perched high on a leaking pile of garbage. It stared down at me, unimpressed by my small army of dogs, offended by my presence in the alley. I felt tiny under its arrogant gaze—like some street kid who’d stumbled into a five-star restaurant looking for a place to pee.

    The cat blinked its red eyes, then yawned, its pink tongue curling.

    This is totally unfool , I thought. If my Dobermans spotted that cat, they’d go after it, dragging me and the whole pack deep into the alley. I could imagine myself returning seven rat-bitten, half-rabid canines to the doormen and never seeing another dime of dog-walking money again.

    “Come on, guys,” I murmured, gently pulling the fistful of leashes backward. “Nothing to see here.”

    But they were paralyzed, transfixed by the galaxy of eyes.

    The cat opened its mouth again, letting out a long, irritated mrrr-row . . . .

    And the Dobermans ran like scaredy-cats.

    They both leaped straight up, twisting around in midair, and charged past me toward the sunlight. The others followed in a mob, wrapping their leashes around my legs and dragging me stumbling into the street.

    It was all I could do to stay on my feet as the mastiff charged ahead, opening up into her full gallop. She pulled the rest of us straight out onto the road, where a yellow flash of taxi screeched past dead ahead of us. A squat little delivery van squealed around us, horn blaring, scaring the mastiff into a sharp left turn.

    We were headed down the middle of the street now, a garbage truck thundering along in front of us, the delivery van behind. We were in traffic , as if I’d decided to take a dog-powered chariot out for a little spin.

    Unfortunately, I’d sort of forgotten to bring the chariot, so I was stumbling and staggering, seven leashes still tangled around my legs. And if I fell down, I knew the mastiff would keep going, galloping along until my face had been rubbed off completely on the asphalt. Even if my face friction somehow brought the pack to a halt, the pursuing delivery van would squash us all flat.

    It was still blaring its horn, because that was clearly helping , and the two guys on the back of the garbage truck were laughing, pointing their giant-gloved fingers at me. A pair of bike messengers shot past in polka-dotted Lycra, me and my dogs just another bunch of clowns at the rodeo.

    The whole procession swerved around some street work ahead, and suddenly my feet were slipping across an expanse of loose sand. I spotted an abandoned pizza box and planted my sneakers on it. Then I was skidding, my free hand in the air, riding the box like it was a boogie board at the beach.

    Just when it was getting fun, the garbage truck began to slow, pulling up in front of a big apartment building with long, turd-shaped garbage bags piled outside. The truck filled the whole street, leaving nowhere for the pack to go.

    Our momentum stalled, and the pack’s energy wrapped itself into a tightly wound bundle of nipping and barking. By now the little dogs could hardly even stand, reduced as they were to a spaghetti mishmash of leashes and legs. Even the mastiff was tired out, her long, curving tongue lapping at the air.

    One of the garbage guys swung himself down to work a big lever on the side of the truck, its huge maw opening in front of us with a metal screech. The other jumped off and shouted at me through the din.

    “Hey, boss! You didn’t take those pooches into that alley back there, did you?” He pointed over my shoulder, but I knew which one he meant.

    “Um, yeah?”

    He shook his head. “Bad idea. Even we don’t go down there no more. Not worth it.”

    I blinked, still trying to catch my breath. “What do you mean?”

    “Didn’t you hear about the crisis? Way things are going, you got to be respectful. Let the rats have some of the city back, you know?” He laughed, patting the rumbling metal expanse with his gloved hand. “Especially if you