Bite Me

the middle of the alley, the three dogs more or less dogpiled in front of the boarded-up window, Marvin doing his highly trained, “There’s a dead guy in here, give me a biscuit” paw scrape, Bummer barking like he was announcing the big sale event down at Yap-mart and everything had to go, and Lazarus rolling out a long, doleful howl.
    “Probably in there,” said Cavuto.
    “Ya think?” said Rivera.
    Cavuto was able to work his fingers between the sheet of plywood and the window frame and pulled it out. Before he could even set it aside Bummer had leapt through the window into the darkness. Lazarus pawed the windowsill, then leapt after his companion. Marvin, the cadaver dog, backed away, then ruffed twice and tossed his head, which translated to, “No, I’m good, you guys go ahead, just give me my biscuit. I’ll be over here—well, would you look at that—those balls definitely need some tongue attention. No, it’s okay, go on without me.”
    Marvin had a nose that could distinguish as many different odors as the human eye could colors, in the range of sixteen million distinct scents. Unfortunately, his doggie brain had a much more limited vocabulary for giving name to those scents and he processed what he smelled as: dead cats, many, dead humans, many, dead rats, many, poo and wee, many flavors, none fresh, and old guy who needs a shower ; none of which would have given him pause. The smell that he couldn’t file, that he didn’t have a response for, that stopped him at the window, was a new one: dead, but not dead . Undead. It was scary, and licking his balls calmed him and kept his mind off the biscuit that they owed him.
    Rivera shone his flashlight around the room. The basement appeared empty but for piles of debris and a thick layer of dust and ash over the floor, textured with the paw prints of hundreds of cats. He could see the movement of Bummer and Lazarus just at the edge of the flashlight’s beam. They were scratching at a metal door.
    “We’ll need the crowbar out of the car,” said Rivera.
    “You’re going in there?” asked Cavuto. “In that suit?”
    Rivera nodded. “There’s something down there, one of us has to.”
    “You’re a goddamn hero, Rivera, that’s what you are. A real, dyed in the worsted wool and silk blend hero.”
    “Yeah, there’s that, and you can’t fit through the window.”
    “Can too,” said Cavuto.
    Five minutes later they were both standing in the middle of the basement, fanning their Surefire ballistic flashlights through the dust like they were wielding silent light sabers. Rivera led the way to the steel door that the hounds were going at as if someone had duct taped it to a fox.
    “You guys, shut up!” Rivera snapped, and much to his surprise, Bummer and Lazarus fell silent and sat.
    Rivera looked back at his partner. “That’s spooky.”
    “Yeah, and praise Willie Mays that’s the only spooky thing going on here.” Cavuto was a deeply religious San Francisco Giants fan and genuflected whenever he passed the bronze statue of Willie Mays outside the ball park.
    “Good point,” said Rivera. He tried the door, which didn’t budge, but it was clear from the arc plowed into thedust and ashes that it had been opened recently. “Crowbar,” he said, reaching back.
    Cavuto handed him the crowbar and at the same time drew his gun from his shoulder holster, a ridiculously large Desert Eagle .50-caliber automatic.
    “When did you start carrying that thing again?”
    “Right after you said the v -word out loud at Sacred Heart.”
    “It won’t stop them, you know.”
    “It makes me feel better. You want to hold it while I pry the door?”
    “If there’s a—one of them—in there, they’ll be dormant or whatever you call it. It’s daytime, they can’t attack.”
    “Yeah, well, just in case they didn’t get the memo.”
    “I got it.” Rivera fit the crowbar in the door jamb and threw his weight against it. On the third push, something snapped and the door scraped open an inch. Bummer and Lazarus were up instantly, with their noses in the gap. Rivera looked back at Cavuto, who nodded, and Rivera pulled the door open and stepped away.
    A pile of shelving and junk blocked the doorway, but Bummer and Lazarus were able to thread their way through it and were in the room, barking in frantic, desperate yelps. Through a gap in the junk, Rivera played the beam of his flashlight around the small storeroom, over barrels, shelving, and piles