Dog Blood

rain fell in less than two hours, literally washing away scores of people and their few remaining belongings. Blocked and broken drains stopped the water from draining away, transforming many streets and pavements into stagnant lakes. The basements and ground floors of countless buildings flooded. Almost half of the military base in the municipal park was washed away, with a huge number of refugee-occupied tents being lost. Then, to add insult to injury, as quickly as the rains came, they disappeared. Thankfully the sun remained hidden behind a layer of heavy cloud for most of the day, but the summer heat and a few sharp bursts of sunlight were enough to dry out and bake the bedraggled world below. Every outdoor surface was caked in a layer of foul-smelling mud, a grubby tidemark on building walls a grim reminder of how high the floodwaters had climbed. Huge mountains of rain-soaked garbage and waste began to ferment, the insect population feeding on them seeming to multiply by the hour.
    Constant helicopter patrols continued to police the border and the exclusion zone. All scheduled missions outside the city were temporarily abandoned as, for once, the already severely depleted military forces turned their attention to the thousands of people supposedly in their care. Their orders were simple: Get as many people off the streets as possible (living or dead), then clear the major routes through town.
    Ahead of the motley collection of vehicles that crawled slowly along Arley Road, groups of soldiers on foot moved from building to building through the early evening darkness. One of the snowplow-fitted trucks was used to clear a route through, pushing tons of sodden waste toward the gutter and leaving a noxious, three-foot-high drift of garbage in its wake. Hazmat-suited soldiers followed it along the freshly scraped pavement, pulling corpses from the mire and loading them into the backs of the yellow refuse and recycling trucks that had been recently commandeered from the now-dissolved city council.
    A group of three soldiers emerged from a building that had once been a large house but in more recent years had been converted into office space. By flashlight, one of them spray-painted a simple message onto the brick wall beside the door, a message for those who followed.
     
    37 INSIDE
    6 DEAD
    20 MORE
     
    Ignoring the countless frightened questions and the grabbing hands of the refugees who surrounded them, the soldiers moved on to the next building. Thirty-seven survivors, six bodies to remove, space for twenty more inside.
    There was a sudden loud thump on the door of room 33. Mark jumped up from the space on the damp floor where he’d been trying to sleep and ran to the door, tripping over Kate’s father’s leg, which hung out of the bed. He pressed his eye against the spyhole.
    “Who is it?” Kate asked, standing close behind him.
    “Soldiers.”
    “Don’t let them in.”
    “I have to.”
    The lead soldier thumped the door again and yelled for them to open up.
    “Don’t,” Kate pleaded.
    “If I don’t open it they’ll batter the damn thing down.”
    Before she could protest he pulled the door open. Three soldiers barged through, pushing him to the side. They stood in the middle of the room, each of them shining a flashlight around, exposing every corner of the small, cramped space.
    “What’s going on?” Mark asked, positioning himself directly in one of the beams of light.
    “Assessing space,” the soldier replied, looking around, his voice devoid of interest or emotion. “How many you got here?”
    “Five of us. And five’s more than enough. There’s barely enough room as it is. We can’t fit anyone else in-”
    “Who?”
    “What?”
    “Who’s here?”
    “Me, my girlfriend, her parents, and my cousin’s wife. And my girlfriend’s pregnant. Like I said, there’s no room for anyone else.”
    One of the other soldiers made a note on a clipboard. The others continued to look around. Kate forced her way between them, stopping one of them from getting around the side of the double bed. She stood in front of him, thrusting out her pregnant belly for maximum effect.
    “He told you. There’s no more space here.”
    The soldier ignored her, moving her out of the way, then ducking down and glancing under the bed. He shined his flashlight onto the bed’s occupants, the two wizened, starving, elderly refugees shaking in fear under the sheets like characters from a Roald Dahl