Dozens of dogs formed a surprisingly orderly single-file line through the darkness of the backyard. The hole that had just been made underneath the fence was just large enough to allow one person at a time to crawl through. Some of the larger dogs needed to dig a little more with their own paws in order to fit through, and that made it a little wider for the next escapee to get out. This plan was proving to be pretty easy to carry out - maybe too easy.
"Everybody stay quiet," someone whispered. "Especially when we get out there." Even with his improved night vision, Brian couldn't make out who it came from in the blackness. Of course, if he could, all he would see was a dog's face anyway. The inky dark made it feel almost normal, allowing him to imagine that the voices around him came from humans - which all these people were, in a sense, even if none of them looked like it anymore.
"Why?", hissed another anonymous voice in response. "Nobody out there will understand a word we're saying anyway. All they'll hear is barking."
"That's exactly the problem," the first voice replied. "They suddenly hear barking, they'll know we're the infected ones. If we're going to get into that base, we need the element of surprise. The moment they realize there are dogs outside, we're toast."
Most of the crowd obeyed, not really wanting to engage in any more small talk. It was nearly silent, aside from the faint sound of claws scratching at the wooden fence and scrambling to get out of the neighborhood unseen. Then a sharp, loud whine shattered the quiet, and all the dogs - on either side of the fence - looked up. The sound was coming from far above. And a second later, it exploded into a bright burst of fire, illuminating all the canine faces below and forcing them to look at each other again. Brian could see that they were all cowering from the sudden, startling noise, paws covering ears and tails between legs. And then he realized that he was involuntarily doing the same as the rest of them.
"It's just a firework," announced a dachshund, just before the red glow faded and Brian could no longer see her face. The embers streaming down through the blackened sky were the only thing left to see. "Some jackass celebrating the Fourth a few weeks early. People, we can't let these instincts control us. We are not animals, no matter how much we might look like it on the outside. We've got to keep our human wits about us if we're ever going to-"
Her voice was cut off by the first rumbling explosion that shook the ground, and the chorus of terrified yelps that followed. Half a block down the street from the crowd of dogs, a house bloomed into a bright orange fireball, the timbers collapsing as the whole building was immediately reduced to rubble. And looking back up into the sky explained what had just happened. That was no ordinary firework. Its dozens of flaming offshoots were all hurtling toward the ground, not fizzling out into harmless smoke as they fell, but striking the neighborhood below with their full force, annihilating house after house until whole blocks had disappeared behind the flames.
"Go, go, go!", somebody started howling, and the crowd started to push forward toward the only way out in a panic. The light of the flames, which kept growing brighter and closer and hotter with each blast that shook the ground, was all anyone had to see by. The orange glow showed Brian nothing but confusion and chaos, teeth mindlessly snapping at tails, growls demanding to be let through without need for words. He pushed forward like the rest of them, and before he understood what was happening he was out, looking behind himself to see terrified canine faces emerging from that same hole.
Inevitably, another one of those jets of flame came crashing down on the roof of the nearest house, the one whose backyard they were all escaping from. The explosion was deafening at such a close range, but the damage was somehow neatly contained to that particular property. The wooden fence they were all crawling under wasn't so much as scorched. And a few seconds later, the last member of their group poked his head out of the hole, a Dalmatian who shook the soot out of his fur (getting it in everyone else's eyes) to reveal that he was unharmed. "I'm okay," he announced to the rest.
And now there was a stunned silence among all the assembled dogs. They had just witnessed what had to be all of their worldly possessions going up in flames, but here on the other side of the fence, nothing was damaged. In fact, everything looked as pristine as it had before the roadblocks went up. The streetlights still shone brightly, and the crackling flames behind them now competed with the distant noises of TVs on in homes and cars driving down roads. It was everything that they'd lost, slowly over the past few weeks and abruptly in the last few seconds, and they were reminded that the rest of the world hadn't even noticed their plight. As the rush of terror and adrenaline subsided, it started to set in to them what had just happened, their whole neighborhood destroyed in the blink of an eye. But how? And why?
"We've got to get to the base," Christine commanded with authority, and everyone else numbly followed. It almost seemed as if she had expected that to happen, while the rest of them were still processing that it was even real in the first place. Brian wondered what was really going on here. The motley crew of dogs trudged forward through a deserted alleyway, surrounded on all sides by the sounds and smells of normal humans leading normal human lives. They moved at very different paces, some already comfortable on all fours and others still waiting for their hands to finish forming into paws, some with long sleek legs and others with little stubby ones. But they all moved together through the darkness - until the sounds of some very unusual humans doing some very unusual things made the group suddenly freeze, for fear of being spotted.
The three men were gathered in a secluded corner of a neighborhood park, shielded from the dim light of the streetlamps by the trees. They were standing around a large metal device that looked like it could have launched a rocket, dressed in camouflage-green jumpsuits. And their eyes were all trained on the plumes of smoke rising from the ground a few blocks away.
"Boy, that Elimination Protocol might sound ugly, but it sure looks pretty," one of them said, staring at the destruction through a pair of green-lensed binoculars.
"You can say that again," said another, who was busy packing up pieces of equipment, clearly preparing to leave. "But I don't get how they're supposed to cover this up. This is an ordinary residential area, not a warzone."
"Oh, that's the easy part," the third replied, fumbling a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. "'Munitions accident destroys six blocks near military base,'" he read out loud from the sheet. "'135 dead.' They'll send this to the media, and it'll be all over the news by morning."
"135 dead? They even wrote the death toll in there already?", the second man asked.
"Why not?", said the one who was currently putting down his binoculars. "We know exactly how many of those quote-unquote 'people' were in there, and I doubt any of them could've survived that. They're probably already engraving the names into the memorial stone. They'll call it a tragedy, and nobody but us has to know why it was necessary."
Brian felt the fur on the back of his neck stand up. He could hear the same primal fury all around him, a chorus of growls that no longer had any equivalent in English words. The three unaltered humans in front of them could hear it, too, their heads snapping from side to side in shocked confusion as they searched for the source of the sound. One of them looked straight in Brian's direction, and he could see the whites of the man's eyes bulge out in fear. The angry, snarling dogs emerged from the shadows on all sides. They had the humans completely surrounded. Nobody was in any mood to try to count all of the dogs in that moment, but if anyone was going to guess, there were probably about 135 of them.
"Jesus Christ," said the man with the binoculars hanging around his neck, while the other two still had their jaws hanging open in terror. "Men, be ready to fire on the attackers at my command!"
The one who made unwanted eye contact with Brian finally blinked for the first time since he spotted them. "I, uh, didn't bring my service weapon along, sir."
"Me either," said the other one. "They said the only defense we'd need would be the giant rocket launcher we were carrying. Too bad it's, uh, only got one rocket at a time, huh?"
The man who seemed to be their superior officer sighed heavily. "This is why they tell you in basic to always carry your sidearm. I can't believe you both would forget that so easily..." He put a hand to his holster, only to find it empty.
"You know," said one of the underlings, just trying to break the foreboding silence as the animals circled the group, "I was picturing some kind of werewolf movie monster thing when I got the briefing. These guys just look like normal dogs! We should find some treats to calm them down with and then take 'em home with us," he chuckled.
"Good thing they can't understand a word we're saying right now," the other junior officer nervously joked. But the array of dogs grew even more furious, which hardly seemed possible, upon hearing that. A pitbull standing near him bared its teeth, then shook its head purposefully from side to side. "Oh shit," the man said. "Okay, so the briefing lied to us on at least one point. These are definitely not 'mindless creatures'. Are you sure we can't just leave them be and get our asses out of here, Lieutenant?"
"Absolutely not!", the leader replied. "They are contagious! Our mission is to stop them from spreading it further, to a permanent end. And I'm not throwing in the towel that easily. I'm radioing in for reinforcements, pronto. What, you think the higher-ups don't have a contingency plan for this exact scenario? They can form a dragnet in minutes. Not one mutt is getting out of here alive."
But as soon as he had the walkie-talkie ready to dial, it was suddenly plucked out of his hand. "If we survive this, Lieutenant, you can have me discharged for insubordination," said the man who was holding the radio away from him. "But at this point, I don't care. What were you going to tell dispatch, exactly? That we've got a hundred dogs nipping at our heels here? That we have just been exposed to the virus at a frighteningly close range? You might as well tell them to come down here and shoot us in the head! All we have to do is pretend that we did our extremely simple job correctly and high-tail it outta here before anyone asks any questions. These guys all go into hiding or whatever, and we get to go home to our families and live out the rest of our lives as pampered pets. Sounds like a win-win to me, huh?"
The lieutenant grimaced. "I think you're forgetting, Private, that we are also contagious now. And I'm not sure I like your fantasy idea in the first place. Personally, if I had remembered my service weapon, I'd be inclined to use it on myself rather than live through the aftermath of that virus." He let out a loud exhale. "But I see your point." He turned his gaze to the dogs that surrounded him, who seemed to grow gradually calmer as the men lost their hope and bravado. "People! I offer you a truce. If you refrain from mauling us to death for long enough that we can get back to our Jeep and get out of here, we won't tell anyone that you escaped. Um, bark once for yes, twice for no?"
That was met with a flurry of barks and other sounds. The officer, of course, couldn't understand that the dogs were talking amongst themselves. "Can we really trust him? What if he calls for backup the moment he gets to the car?" "He can't betray us now. You heard the other guy, they're in the same boat as us now." "But you can't expect a suicidal person to hold any of their promises. If he's got nothing left to live for, he can take all of us with him." "Oh, he's exaggerating. Once he's finished changing, he'll see that being a dog isn't that bad." "I beg to differ!"
But eventually they fell silent. And as they did, the group of dogs cleared a path, parting around the three trapped men to point them directly toward their military-issue vehicle. They all ran for it as soon as they could. Jumping into the front seat, the commander turned the keys in the ignition. The stereo blared ♪♫ We're your first, last, and only line of defense against the worst scum of the universe! ♫♪, before he ripped the old cassette tape out. They made the long drive back to their post in stony silence, completely forgetting to take the empty rocket launcher with them as they retreated. And the dogs, just as silent, continued their trek on foot to the much closer military outpost in their own town. They had one thing in common, besides the virus coursing through their veins: they were both dreading what would happen when they arrived at the base.