“First things first.” Girl said when they reached the road. “We should check out the city. Maybe we can buy some more supplies for the Farm while we’re there.”

“It might be dangerous in the city.” Intrepid said.

“It’s probably dangerous everywhere.” Val said.

“We need to keep alert while we travel.” Lucky said. “Maybe we should move off the road.”

They split up, Val, Sugar, and Axel on one side of the road and Girl, Lucky, Wickett and Intrepid on the other. Intrepid stayed close to Lucky’s side, it was clear the gray dog felt safer there. It was a short drive to the City from the Farm, but the walk seemed to take hours. Wickett was silent, moving further off the road than the dogs into the wood. Lucky kept up an easy conversation with Intrepid. The words were calm, but empty. The big dog kept his eyes roaming even as he talked to Intrepid, that strange looming feeling simply refused to leave him. It was like some giant creature was standing over him, casting him in darkness, a darkness that swirled with malice.

It was a warm summer day, only a few clouds in the sky and a bright sun that warmed their backs without being oppressively hot. There wasn’t a breeze to speak of, but much of the road was shaded by the surrounding trees. It was a curvy, hilly highway. It would have been much quicker to walk through the woods, across the hills to the City, but they kept to the sides of the road. It would be so easy to get lost. Wisconsin wasn’t some vast primeval wilderness, but much of the countryside seemed unsettled.

Axel was at the front of his group, sniffing at the ground, his head constantly moving, eyes alert. Lucky’s eyes stayed on Axel for a long moment. The big brindle mastiff was so different from the other dogs. Lucky, Val, Intrepid and Sugar were house dogs. They had people or at least had had them before the Winds came. Axel was a stray. He moved more like the coyotes than the other dogs. Paws shockingly light against the ground, setting down almost silently at an easy lope Lucky was sure the bigger dog could hold for hours on end. Axel’s tail was held at half-mast, wagging more because of his gait than because he was actively wagging it.

Behind him was Sugar, the proud flagging wag of her feathered tail. Her soft, doe eyes were taking in their surroundings with a puppy-like expression of wonder rather than the almost aggressive paranoia of Axel. She bounced along like they were on some grand and happily exciting adventure.

Val, bringing up the rear on her side of the road, wove in and out of the forest, her nose constantly pulling in the scents of the wood and the road. Where Axel was broad and thickly muscled, Val’s strength was much more subtle. She was a lithe and graceful dog, a champion example of her breed, but watching her move along the road was like watching a dangerous creature stalk its next meal.

As they walked toward the City they spread out along the road, alternating positions, covering one another and moving at a steady, sustainable pace. Girl was fidgeting as they moved closer to the city. At the top of a rise in the terrain, she could see the City stretched out before her. The glittering water of a wide river curled through the valley and bisected the City. On the downward slope of the hill they stood on, sporadic housing developments with their cookie-cutter houses popped up in the midst of the wood.

Lucky stopped at Girl’s side, looking down at the city, his pale eyes seeking any sign of what they would encounter in the city. As their eyes scanned the city laid out before them, it was easy to see that all was not right. On the eastern edge of the city, the furthest from the river, a swath of buildings had been laid flat, trees uprooted and buildings blown. Instead of a line, like a tornado or a strong wind would leave, the destruction spun out in a circular series of waves that seemed to decrease in intensity. Near the epicenter, everything was flattened, blown away from what appeared to be a single point. Acres of woodland had been flattened, cars had tumbled nose over trunk, down streets and through buildings, leaving absolute wreckage in their wake. Even from this distance, the chaos was overwhelming.

In other parts of the City, smoke billowed, rolling skyward in an abundance of colors. Here dark black, there so pale it’s almost white. Some thick, obscuring everything behind it, other plumes thin and tattered. A strong wind rolled through the canyons between buildings that still stood, stirring up the smoke, dragging trash and rubble along with it, teasing at tattered awnings and rippling through cloth and flags.

“Was it bombs?” Girl’s voice was tinny and sounded like it came from far away.

Lucky wrenched his eyes from the sight before him and turned to look up at his Girl. “Maybe.” It didn’t feel right to him. Bombs. Where was the crater where the bomb had landed? Where was the fire, the damage. “I thought it was a tornado or something like that.”

“Tornado doesn’t make sense either.” Girl said, one hand resting on one of the guns at her hip. She pointed with the other toward the flattened area of the City. “That looks like the center of whatever happened.”

Axel’s deep voice was at Lucky’s shoulder and the unexpected words almost made the multicolored dog jump. “We should go see what’s in the middle there.”

Taking two slow and deep breaths to calm his racing heart before he spoke, Lucky said, “Are we sure it’s safe to do that?”

Intrepid barked a laugh from somewhere behind Lucky. The big dog still couldn’t fully tear his gaze away from the City, it was like a lodestone that pulled at him. “Is anything safe?” The gray dog countered.

The elk gave a wet snort behind them. “I wait here.” Proud and strong he may be, but Wickett wasn’t stupid. The City was no place for an elk.

“Are there people down there?” Sugar’s voice was soft, quiet, and hesitant; like she was afraid to interject.

“Probably.” Girl’s leaf-colored eyes were scanning what they could see of the City from their vantage point.

“Maybe they know more. Or need help.” Sugar said.

“We can’t find anything out from up here.” Val said. She didn’t hesitate to crest the hill and start down the other side. Her lithe body stretched into an easy jog.

Girl groaned as she forced her tired body into a jog. “And I thought I was in good shape.” She muttered. They weren’t moving quickly, but they had covered a lot of ground already and still had so much further to go. The City was close, close enough that they could see much of it from the rise, but it was still miles away.

They spread out as they jogged toward the City, keeping far enough from one another to prevent a single attack from taking out more than one of them, it was something that they seemed to fall into naturally. Val stopped at the first driveway that broke off the highway, looking down it with wary interest. She stood with her nose lifted, sniffing at the air with a curious expression on her face.

“What do ya’ got?” Lucky asked when he finally caught up.

“I think we should investigate everything we pass on the way to the center.” She said slowly, “There’s something in the air. I’m not sure what that smell is…” She trailed off, nose working twice as hard.

Lucky tasted the air warily, ears flat and copper brows drawn together. “Smoke?”

“Not any kind I’ve ever smelled.” Axel said. “Something is burning that shouldn’t.”

“Most things shouldn’t burn.” Intrepid said, his voice just past a whine. “Fire is dangerous.”

“Everything is dangerous.” Val countered, her stump of a tail low and still.

“Fire turns on its maker.” Axel’s voice was strangely hollow. “Bites the hand that feeds it. Can’t trust it.”

Girl walked among the dogs, stroking each one gently before she started down the drive toward the first subdevelopment. “Fire can be very useful.” She said, “But you’re right. It’s dangerous. Let’s be careful.”

It was a short drive, only a few hundred feet through the dense wood. It opened into a cul-de-sac flanked by a trio of massive homes. The one furthest to the left was nothing but a pile of smouldering rubble, a wide swath of the lawn around it was nothing but ash and further out it was obviously scorched. The other two homes looked like they belonged in McMansion Hell. The front door on the center one hung open on loose hinges and was flanked by a pair of columns that held up pointless little jutting bay window and its requisite roof. The third home was sealed up tight with impenetrable curtains blocking each window.

There was an air of desolation as they stepped up onto the circle of green in the center of the dead-end road. No, thought Lucky, not desolation. It’s more than that. He let his mouth hang loose and drew in a deep breath, tasting the air. There was tension in Girl’s fingers as they burrowed into the thick fur at the back of his neck. He could feel Intrepid close behind him, but the other dogs had spread out again, ranging around the circle of grasses. They had eyes in every direction, watching warily.

“What happened here?” Girl’s voice sounded hollow.

“Someone broke that door in.” Val said.

“Or something.” Intrepid’s voice was barely above a whisper.

The hair on the back of Lucky’s neck rose as a shiver raced down his back. He stepped off the curb and into the street and then shook out his fur, sending loose hairs flying in every direction. It could take days just to investigate the sub developments on the way to the City itself. Suddenly, this job felt so much larger than it had initially. Still, he stepped off toward the one house that had the potential to still have people in it. With the dark windows and the gentle creak of the front door of the central mansion shifting in the wind, Lucky couldn’t shake that looming feeling inside him. It was like the itch of a flea in the center of his back where he just couldn’t reach it. The skin on his back twitched at the thought and his step faltered as he climbed the curb onto the front walk of the third house.