A yellow moon hung heavily in the sky, its pockmarked face the only thing lighting up the night. Like the moon—which looked as if it had been struck by millions of dynamite worthy explosions—the city was in ruins, and the sickly light of the moon cast everything in a ghastly, ghoulish glow. Buildings with glassless windows loomed and towered over both sides of the rubble-strewn streets; silent screams issued forth from their yawning mouths.

The gaping maws of malevolent insectoids mocked their surroundings; cracked eyes watched the streets, wary for the slightest movement. One lonesome and forlorn streetlight flickered dismally in the static air, its successive winks accompanied by a blinking noise that was picked up and magnified hundred-fold by the decrepit and war-torn halls of the broken city.

Two glittering red eyes peered out into the half twilit world, and with a flick of the wrist, a line of small, grimy children pattered out onto the street. They were lean and hungry, their hair tangled and matted, their clothes frayed and worn. These children were weary, weak, on the verge of death by starvation. But none of that mattered. Not now, not when this was such an important job.

A girl with a wicked smile led them forward down the street. Her eyes glinted red when the light hit them, and she moved in a strange half-lope, occasionally leaning down and running along on toes and fingers, her legs curled and buckled, as if she were some kind of animal.

Directly behind her was a small, emaciated boy with a thin, pale face. His black eyes were shrewd and watery and he had long, sharp buck teeth. They were yellowed and looked dangerous. His name was Rat. Clayr ran with him and his gang.

Clayr herself didn’t have a gang name. In fact, she was more of a mascot, at least at the moment. She was a sickly and pallid white color, with brilliant blonde hair bordering on white that was matted together after long weeks of neglect out on the streets. She was small and slight, and her skin had a curious slippery feel to it, as if she were covered in oily water or scales. She jogged along behind Bear, Rat’s second in command, chattering away at him, oblivious to the looks she was receiving from those ahead of her that had stopped outside a high, brick garden wall.

Bear was the largest of all the children. His frame was wrapped with an unusual amount of muscle for a twelve year old, and his skin was so dark he blended into the night. He had earned his name by surviving a fight with a black bear cub that had wandered into the city. He was the brawn, and his best friend was the brains.

Clayr generally served as lookout whenever Rat and Snake were casing a joint. (Snake was a twitchy, nervous girl with excellent lock-picking skills and an uncanny ability to sense trouble just before it arrived.) Bear stayed with her, for her protection they said, because sometimes members of an opposing gang would show up when they were on a job and Clayr could hardly fight. She was a talker.

It was a sad affair really, that children had stooped to this. But the ravages of war left no city untouched. Many adults were sickly or dead, and the children themselves were beginning to mutate from constant exposure to radioactive fallout. (Clayr herself was prone to see through things from time to time.)

Cat—the girl with strange gait and the glowing red eyes—gave the all clear from a window that she had opened; the gang moved in, their eyes hungry: food was scarce in their dying city, and what there was was guarded jealously and carefully, kept under more than just lock and key.

Clayr was chattering to herself, because it didn’t seem like the silent and intimidating Bear was listening, when her eyes suddenly zoomed in on the garden wall that surrounded the storehouse. The bricks became grainy and hazy, a bit like television static, before they faded to an odd, ghost-like gray color. The wall was translucent, though why it was like that now, Clayr didn’t know.

A pale, twisted figure cast its lean shadow over the far wall, the shape distorted strangely, so that it made a mockery of a human being. Clayr stifled a gasp of alarm as its owner meandered into view, back hunched and hands wringing together nervously before it.

It must be another child, perhaps a boy, and he was followed by four more kids, all of them looking as ragged as Clayr and her friends, if perhaps better fed. Their hair had the look of the well-kempt, and their eyes did not have that blank, glassy stare that so many others possessed.

“Bear!” she hissed. “There’s some other kids behind the wall!”

The large boy grunted, but did not move from his spot beside Clayr.

Clayr blinked and her vision returned to normal. The lonely sound of the flickering traffic light began to fill her with a sense of dread, and she idly wondered whether or not she was developing into some kind of freak, or if she was just being as paranoid as Snake.

Her mind jumped form one thought to the other, flickering randomly between things that really had nothing to do with each other. (Her train of thought was easily derailed when she wasn’t blathering on about some nonsensical nonsense.)

The kids that she had just seen behind the wall suddenly appeared in the small back garden, and she couldn’t hold back her squeal of surprise as one of the smaller, slighter characters launched himself at her as if he were tackling someone three times her size.

In a moment of pure, blind panic, Clayr screamed out for Bear, but he was busy with the other four kids. It was the gang’s worst nightmare come true: they were being raided.

She flailed around helplessly, blindly striking out with fists and feet, biting on anything that came near. When her teeth connected with the bony wrist of her attacker, she was rewarded with a flash of inspiration and an exclamation of fury.

“Hey,” she said, lying completely still. “Y’know what? I never could figure out the point to this. I mean really. Please. Just please. You’re just a mush-brain like the rest of them. How could you know anything about this? For that matter, what do I know? I’m just the mascot. Surprising, huh, that I’m even talking at all.” She shrugged and continued to blather on, blurting out the first things that popped into her head, and while she talked, she knew those around her were growing both confused and frustrated. Luckily for her, her talking proved enough distraction that Bear was able to quickly dispatch the four kids that had ganged up on him and come to her rescue.

He easily pried away the kid’s slackening grip and tossed him harmlessly aside, so that he could sit in the confused pile of children that was his gang. All five kids had slack-jawed expressions on their faces and confusion swirled in their blank eyes. It was if they were hypnotized.

“Keep talking,” Bear growled as he set about tying his prisoners’ wrists and ankles together.

The burly black boy grunted and nodded his head at her before taking up his post again.

“Tell them to sleep,” he commanded, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring out at the world, as if it had committed some personal wrong against him.

“Why don’tcha guys sleep now?” Clayr suggested. She watched in delighted amazement as all five boys slowly began to fall asleep, their heads falling to their chests and soft snores rumbling from their mouths. Bear wasn’t as stupid as they all thought, she realized as she shot him an admiring glance.

She went back to babbling happily and staring at the wall. Without meaning to, she fell silent as her vision went all hazy again and the wall became translucent once more. Only now, she could see a dog bouncing along, looking for all the world as if it were humming!

Even though everything on the other side of the smoky wall was in grayscale, it appeared as if the dog was pulsing with some kind of inner light.

“Hey, Bear,” she said. “There’s a glowin’ dog on the other side of the wall.” Bear only sighed.

When Clayr blinked, her vision cleared and her head began to throb.

“Ow,” she muttered, clasping her hand to her forehead.

The bricks of the wall went hazy gain, and Clayr could see that the dog was no longer there.

“Oh, poo!” she cried, disheartened by the fact that the friendly-looking retriever had gone.

“Oh, poo?” came an unexpected voice with a British accent. “My goodness, could that possibly be my ears deceiving me after all these long years? Did you really just say ‘Oh, poo!’?

Clayr jumped about a foot in the air when the golden retriever appeared before them from around the corner and spoke. Bear started and growled menacingly in his throat.

“Not one for speaking, I see,” the dog said.

Clayr clapped her hands in delight, like an overexcited five year old. “A talking dog!” she exclaimed in earnest, instantly kneeling down to stroke its long, silky fur. She scratched along under its chin, taking it almost forcefully into her hands.

“Oh, Bear, stop that!” she chided affectionately. “He means no harm! Do you, widdle puppy?”

“My heavens! No! Of course not!” the dog said, having some difficulty speaking through jaws that were held firmly shut. There was a slight rasp in his voice, as if his body were remembering the days that it had spoken Dog. “I was merely curious as to why a ragtag bunch of urchins had disappeared around the corner of the wall and not come back. I’ve been following them for some time; they clearly meant trouble for whoever happened to run into them next. They’ve obviously been stealing, or trading with adults to get some of the things they have. Why, just look how clean their hair is!”

“We ain’t stealin’,” Bear drawled with a thick and lazy accent, jumping quickly to his gang’s defense. “We’re just takin’ without meanin’ to return. Rat sayz it’s awright to take what don’t belong to us iffin were doin’ it cuz we need to. ‘Sides, once we take it, don’t belong to the grown-ups no more. Belongs to us.” Bear recited his lines as if from rote memorization.

“Indeed, what you say is true, young Bear, but I was in no way saying that what you are doing is wrong. We all must do things unethical in these hard times if we are to survive.”

Clayr stifled a giggle. “It’s a lawless city, Mr. Dog. Doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?

“’Sides, someone I used to know done told me that there ain’t no such thing as good and bad. There’s only percetion of what people think’s good and bad. ‘S’why I’m in Rat’s crew. He takes care of us real good, but he’s gotta do it his way. I’m cool with that because I don’t think there’s really good or bad, either.”

Bear looked totally lost, and the dog, well, it was hard to tell.

“You seem very intelligent, young pup. If things were different, I should like to see how you turned out as an adult. Perhaps you would have been a philosopher, or even a doctor.” The dog bared its teeth in a wolfish grin.

“I must leave you now,” he said. “I can smell a cat, and the old habits die hard. You know what they say: you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” He licked Clayr’s hand and bounded away, his tail waving high in the air in farewell, body starting to thrum with an eerie green light.

“That was weird,” said Bear.

“Yeah, it was,” Clayr agreed. And in the first time in the history of forever, she didn’t have anything else to say.

“Hey, Clayr, Bear!” Rat shouted, his thin, clear voice piercing above the ghostly wink of the traffic light. “Come check out the goods! There’s cheese!”

Clayr laughed. Trust Rat to mention cheese. He shared more with his namesake than an appearance.

“So why were you guys talking to that dog?” Cat asked as Bear and Clayr walked into the storehouse.

The two exchanged a glance and tacitly agreed not to say anything about it.

Bear shouldered past the smaller girl, careful of her sharp nails. His nose was scenting the air for fish.

“Well, Clayr?”

“What dog? There was only those other kids. Bear took care of ‘em. After that, it was only me and Bear. Say, when am I gettin’ my name?” she babbled innocently, her eyes wide in her face.

Cat purred in amusement. “I’ve half a mind to call you Fish, just because you lie so well. You had me half-believing I didn’t see that dog. Eve if I hadn’t seen it, my nose woulda smelled that ol’ howler long off.”

“Fish, huh? I guess I could live with that.” Clayr turned to Cat with mischief in her eyes and dancing in her smile. “You wouldn’t eat me, would you?”

Both girls cackled in amusement and went arm in arm for their share of the food, a lightness in their step. Even in such horrid times, there was still love and friendship. Besides, it would do them no good if Bear got to all the food first.

“No, Fish, I wouldn’t eat you. Can’t say the same about Bear though.” Her words echoed in the suddenly still air as she chased her slippery friend down the hall, laughter still on both their lips.

---

/Author's Notes/

I know the dog doesn't really fit into the story, but I couldn't just bring myself to cut him out. If you have any suggestions for how to improve this story, please e-mail them to me. I really appreciate it.

kkthxbai.
- TC