Title Yet To Be Discovered (Part 4) Poem by Mike Smith

I hurriedly made my way back behind the counter and found what I was looking for, a door. As I opened it the chorus of barking beasts reached the front entrance. I could hearthem struggling against the reinforced window, jumping as canines will and using their front paws as a sort of battering ram. I had some trust in the boarded over window, but not much. Time was of the essence.
I grabbed the heap of dead clerk from behind the cash register and was able to lug him inside of the back room before closing and locking the door behind me. There was a light switch on the right hand side of the door. Half to my surprise this did illuminate the room and fill it with the buzz of old fluorescent lighting. I did some exploring and quickly found everything I wanted. I'm not sure where the plan came from, only that it had came, and the idea of it playing out brought a wicked smile to my lips.

Dismembering the clerk was a nasty business, but this guy was at least my size and maybe bigger. If you've never carried true dead weight then the term doesn't mean a lot to you, but I was of above average strength and it was everything I could muster even to get him to the stairs, let alone up them. So, using a bladed end of my club I spent a minute or two hacking off either leg at about the mid thigh, all the while trying to drown out the butchery by focusing on the voices of the ravenous mutts still trying to gain entry into the store. These limbs and the other items I'd chosen went along with me up the stairs, two flights and then through another door. Just as I'd expected, stepping outside of this door landed me on the flat asphalt roof. I peered over the edge of the wall and saw the dogs, now with a full-on shiny puddle of drool below the pack of them at the thought of making me their next meal.

I took the D-con packages from the back room below and counted them up. Some 75 packets of concentrated rodent poison. Either this store had went through a serious mouse problem or the owner was one of those stingy guys who buys in the type of bulk it takes half a lifetime to use because you save a few pennies on the dollar. I was grateful for it either way. With the spike on the handle of my club I drove holes interspersedly into the bait and emptied several packets into each wound. I had no idea how much rat poison it might take to kill one of these viscous hounds, or how long it might take to drop one of them if the dose was in fact potent enough. One thing was certain, it definitely wasn't going to do them any good. At any rate, the poison wasn't so much for them as it was any later to dogs who might come around.

I approached the ledge and lifted my respirator up above my nose giving a nice shrill whistle to grab their attention. Their eyes were all on me at once, tails wagging, jaws chomping and flinging endless stores of drool every direction. I tossed the first hunk of bait making sure to get it as far from the storefront and into the road as possible. It flew off the roof and landed somewhere just beyond the centerline thumping to the ground with a sickening 'Squish! '

The mutts erupted upon it. I couldn't believe how fast they shredded the thing to pieces. I kept note though that it did seem there were at least two and maybe three of the dogs who didn't get much of anything to eat of the first leg. As I launched the second poisoned appendage I made an effort to stick it right on top of those yet unfed. It was mutilated before ever hitting the ground. While they frenzied over the meat I grabbed the nearly full bottle of grain alcohol from the roof below me and shoved the clerks brain riddled bandana halfway into the hole. Thumb over the opening I shook the bottle twice before lighting the bandana's exposed end. Once the flame had taken I heaved the burning cocktail into the center of the bloody pack and watched in delight as each of their coats engulfed into a ball of fire.

The noises those wretched hounds made reminded me briefly of when Brock, the family dog all those years ago, had run into the road and been struck by a soccer mom's minivan. A twinge of pain hit me from the back left of my skull at the thought. Nonetheless, their helpless cries were music to my ears. A symphonic orchestra of justice. I could feel a mad smile imprinted on my face. When I realized I couldn't suppress it, I began to fully consider what all I'd just done...

I could just as easily have chosen a high powered rifle from the store below and picked the dogs off one by miserable one. But that wasn't good enough. No, I wanted them to suffer. To feel their excruciating demise, as Bentley had, and god knows how many before him. Once I'd seen that desire actualized it struck me that I'd become part beast myself. Equally capable of atrocity as any other survivor in our twisted planet. The scariest part was, I wasn't at all ashamed by this. To be truthful, it felt good. The real shame, I remember thinking, was that there wasn't another bottle downstairs. I could've used a drink.