Dog Catcher
It was Greyhound who gave us the news. He was almost skeletal from the methedrine, his mangy skin stretched too tight on his skull, becoming a permanent teeth-baring rictus. His dark eyes glittered from the depths of his eye sockets. Quicker than any of us, he’d been able to get away from the Hunters.
We’d sent out a patrol of six. Greyhound was the only survivor. This had happened three times now. The first patrol had just never returned. Greyhound was the only survivor of the last two patrols. He was unfocused, twitchy, and haunted. His speed habit looked like it was going to kill him soon. He kicked in his sleep with nightmares of death. He’d howl himself awake and claw with a whine at the satchel that kept his drugs.
We were a loose pack born of necessity rather than familial links and mating pairs. Our kingdom was nearly gone. It was possible that we were the only ones left. No one answered our howls.
Twenty-six dogboys in the fen and eighteen bitches. Three of the women were ready to litter. They were treated like fragile sheets of glass. With them lay the hope for our race. Cross-breeding, once frowned upon as deeply as lone wolves, was now a necessity. No pure races would survive this purge if any of us survived at all.
It was Killkennel in the moving cities that was tracking us down and putting us in the Extermination Pounds. We could give ourselves up for lobotomization, training, registration and eventually be given to a human as a bodyguard or a pet. The only other option was death.
We wild lycanthropes were being taken out of the gene pool.
tags
We’d sent out a patrol of six. Greyhound was the only survivor. This had happened three times now. The first patrol had just never returned. Greyhound was the only survivor of the last two patrols. He was unfocused, twitchy, and haunted. His speed habit looked like it was going to kill him soon. He kicked in his sleep with nightmares of death. He’d howl himself awake and claw with a whine at the satchel that kept his drugs.
We were a loose pack born of necessity rather than familial links and mating pairs. Our kingdom was nearly gone. It was possible that we were the only ones left. No one answered our howls.
Twenty-six dogboys in the fen and eighteen bitches. Three of the women were ready to litter. They were treated like fragile sheets of glass. With them lay the hope for our race. Cross-breeding, once frowned upon as deeply as lone wolves, was now a necessity. No pure races would survive this purge if any of us survived at all.
It was Killkennel in the moving cities that was tracking us down and putting us in the Extermination Pounds. We could give ourselves up for lobotomization, training, registration and eventually be given to a human as a bodyguard or a pet. The only other option was death.
We wild lycanthropes were being taken out of the gene pool.
tags