Red Sorghum

carbine. ‘Douguan, why can’t I hit what I’m shooting at?’ she asked.
    ‘You’re too eager. If you take careful aim and squeeze the trigger, you can’t miss.’
    Father and Mother were watching the path in the southeast corner of the field, a two-foot-wide white scar in the earth. The troops emerging onto this path were led by our dog Red, whose thick coat shone after his rich diet of human corpses. His legs had grown firm and muscular from all the exercise, and the battles with humans had put a keen edge on his intelligence.
    The fog-shrouded paths were quiet when the sun’s red rays began to light up the sky. The canine forces had dwindled after a month of seesaw battles, so that the dogs lying among thecorpses probably numbered a hundred, and a couple of hundred others had deserted. Their combined forces now, in the neighbourhood of 230, tended to run in packs, and since Father and the others were becoming better marksmen all the time, the dogs always left behind at least a dozen corpses after each frenzied attack.
    They were waiting for the dogs’ first sortie of the day, like people anticipating the arrival of food on the table. Noticing the rustling of distant stalks of sorghum, Father said softly, ‘Get ready, here they come.’ Mother silently released the safety catch on her rifle and laid her cheek against the rain-soaked stock. The rustling movement flowed to the edge of the marshland like an ocean wave, and Father could hear the panting dogs. He knew that hundreds of greedy canine eyes were fixed on the broken and severed limbs in the marshland, that the dogs’ red tongues were licking the putrid remnants caught in the corners of their mouths, and that their stomachs, filled with green bile, were growling.
    As though on command, more than two hundred of them broke out of the sorghum field, barking madly. The fur on their necks stood straight up; bright coats glistened in the fog. Wang Guang and Gimpy opened fire as the dogs ripped the flesh from the corpses with single-minded ferocity. The wounded dogs yelped in pain, while those that had been spared continued to tear frantically at their prey.
    Father took aim at the head of a clumsy black dog and pulled the trigger. The dog yelped as the bullet shattered its ear. Then Father saw the head of a spotted white dog explode and the animal crumple to the ground, a piece of dark intestine still in its mouth. It never made a sound. ‘Beauty, you hit it!’ he shouted.
    ‘Was it me?’ she squealed excitedly to Father, who had lined Red up in his sights. Hugging the ground as he ran, he streaked from one patch of stalks to another. Father pulled the trigger and the bullet whizzed past Red, barely missing his back. He picked up a woman’s bloated leg in his razor-sharp teeth and began to eat, each powerful bite making a loud crunch as the bone shattered. Mother fired; her bullet struck the dark earth in front of Red and spattered his face with mud. He shook hishead violently, then picked up the pale leg and ran off. Wang Guang and Dezhi wounded several dogs, whose blood smeared the corpses and whose whimpers struck terror into the hunters’ hearts.
    When the pack retreated, the hunters closed up ranks so they could clean their weapons. Since they were running low on ammunition, Father reminded them to make every bullet count, emphasising the importance of eliminating the leaders of the pack. ‘They’re as slippery as loaches,’ Wang Guang said. ‘They always slink away before I can reload.’
    Dezhi blinked his rheumy eyes and said, ‘Douguan, how about a sneak attack?’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Well, they have to go somewhere to rest,’ Dezhi said, ‘and I’ll bet it’s near the Black Water River. After stuffing their bellies, they probably go there for the water.’
    ‘He’s got a point,’ Gimpy agreed.
    ‘Then let’s go,’ Father said.
    ‘Not so fast,’ Dezhi cautioned. ‘Let’s go back and get some grenades. We’ll blow ’em up.’
    Father, Mother, Wang Guang, and Dezhi split up to follow two separate paths made by the dogs in the muddy earth, which had turned springy from all the claws that had passed over it. The paths led straight to the Black Water River, where Father and Mother could hear the roar of water and the sounds of the dogs. The paths converged as they neared the riverbank to form a broad single path.
    That’s where Father and Mother met up with Wang Guang and Dezhi. And that’s where they spotted