Wolf
The big dog answered my muttered words with a low, questioning whimper, as if he had understood every syllable.
"Whiiine. Whuff, whuff."
I approached the wolf-dog slowly, dropping to one knee and holding out my hand. His ash-gray coat was coarse and bristly, but underneath it the hard play of muscle was dense with life.
When I stroked his flank, the hesitant sway of his tail picked up speed. He didn't pull away from my touch. Instead he lifted his head and pressed his cheek into my palm. He didn't lick or roll around the way most dogs would. He showed his affection the way he did everything else — heavy, deliberate, and full of complete trust.
Then my fingertips found something that didn't belong.
A long, straight scar ran down the center of his crown, a strip of bare skin where no fur grew. I studied the wound. This wasn't a scrape from a branch or a knock against something hard. The shape and the angle of it told me at once: a bullet had grazed him.
I could see it. The day it happened. He would have thrown himself at the attacker without a second's hesitation, trying to protect his person. And in that instant a round had skimmed so close it carved a line across his skull.
Had he saved his owner, or had he lost them in the end? Either way, this dog had fought his own war in a world going mad. He was a veteran, same as me.
I ran my fingers over his collar. A small metal tag hung from the worn leather, and four letters stamped into it caught the light.
W · O · L · F
Wolf. An honest name.
I said it quietly, looking into his eyes.
"Wolf."
He reacted as if he'd been waiting for it. A whimper broke from his throat as he pressed harder into my chest, his tail beating the air like it had a motor in it. How long had he been waiting for someone who remembered his name and would actually say it?
I stroked his head again and asked.
"Wolf. You coming with me?"
He launched to his feet and bounced in place, his whole body a declaration of joy. I figured coming with me must have been a magic phrase — the kind that used to mean a walk with the person he'd lost.
I snorted a laugh and stood. Then I started back the way I'd come, an easy jog toward my rolling fortress, a new companion at my side. On a road that had been mine alone, a second set of heavy footsteps now kept time with mine.
When we reached the trailer, Wolf tensed at the unfamiliar space, but he never left my side. He followed me in, silent and sure.
I filled a big pot with water and set it down in front of him. Wolf lapped at it in a frenzy. Watching him drink and drink, I could tell it had been a long time since he'd had clean water.
I pulled a few fat sausages from the fridge, chopped them up, and dumped them into a stainless steel bowl that would serve as his dish. I set it on the floor. Wolf stayed sitting, watching my face. Drool was already pooling at the corners of his mouth and dripping onto the floor.
"It's okay. Eat."
The words were barely out before he buried his face in the bowl and vacuumed the food down. Swallowing more than chewing. Watching him, I understood all over again just how long he'd been starving.
I refilled the empty bowl with the rest of the sausage and poured hot water into a cup of instant ramen for myself. Steam curled up as I blew on it, watching Wolf already working through his second helping.
"Eat up. Tomorrow we'll go get you some of the things you need."
At the word go, he paused mid-bite, lifted his head, and thumped his tail. I was starting to understand the hope packed into that one little word.
After we'd both eaten, I decided Wolf needed a bath. I wasn't leaving the dirt and ticks matted in his coat.
"Come on. Bath time."
He hesitated when I headed for the shower, then trotted after me. When I gestured for him to stand under the spray, he took his place without a hint of resistance. Whoever had raised him had done it right.
I turned the valve to the gray-water line and soaked his coat with a lukewarm spray. No dog shampoo on hand, so I worked my own body wash into a lather and scrubbed the grime out of every inch of him. A final rinse with clean water, then I toweled him down. Drying a body that size was no small job.
"Man. This is really no small job."
When I finally finished and stepped back, the sight of him stopped me. With the dirt washed off, he was magnificent. Ash gray, black, and white ran through his coat in a pattern that carried real presence, and the hard muscle showing through the damp fur was pure wild strength.
"Damn, Wolf. You look incredible."
He seemed to know it. Tail going, he leaned in and rubbed himself against me.
I folded a few old blankets into a bed for him. Then, closing out one hell of a day, I pulled a cold beer from the fridge, sank into the couch, and cracked the can with a hiss.
Wolf had already padded over to my feet. He curled that huge body down and settled, and he did not climb onto the couch. Whoever had owned him before had trained him well. No question.
I moved his bedding into the space between my bed and the couch, then drank with one hand and searched his breed with the other. Keywords like wolf-like dog and large wolfdog breeds pulled up a spread of photos.
Then a familiar face filled the screen. The look of a wolf and a German Shepherd blended with almost surgical precision — the lean build, the ash-gray coat, those wild wolf eyes.
◈ Origin: Cross of Carpathian wolf and German Shepherd
◈ Purpose: Bred for military working-dog service
◈ Traits: High intelligence · Courage · Fierce loyalty to a single handler
◈ Note: Exceptionally large adult males can approach 110 lbs.
The photos on the screen looked uncannily like Wolf. I kept reading, and that line about the big males approaching a hundred and ten pounds settled it. Wolf was this breed. Or maybe he was something even rarer — a specimen that would blow past a hundred and ten without breaking a sweat.
I set the phone down and looked at him, lying at my feet, watching me in silence. The descendant of a military working dog and a retired soldier. We had more in common than I'd first thought. Both of us, I figured, had been built to survive this new world.
Before I turned in, I tried Dave one more time, hanging the last of my hope on the call. The same cold, empty ring came back. I set the phone down, gave it up, and switched on the TV to break the silence of the empty living room.
The world on the screen showed me, without mercy, the reality I'd been trying not to look at.
The screen cut to the Eiffel Tower. It was not the city of romance I knew. The tower's steel lattice was buried in white snow and ice, and under a sky the color of ash the Seine had frozen solid. In the streets, people gathered like ghosts around burning oil drums.
Even cities as far south as Rome and Madrid are suffering anomalous temperatures plunging below five degrees Fahrenheit, and energy shortages have effectively paralyzed major urban functions.
Canada's situation is worse. As you can see, downtown Vancouver remains shrouded even at midday in a dense mix of sea fog and volcanic ash, while in Seattle, public anger over drinking-water shortages is showing signs of boiling over into riots.
Hell. It's really starting to come apart.
I changed the channel. Another network had brought in an expert for a special panel.
"Doctor, can we call this the worst of it? Or is there a chance things get even worse?"
The climatologist on the panel shook his head, his face grim.
"Unfortunately, I've confirmed some very dangerous signs that what we're seeing now may only be the beginning."
The air in the studio seemed to drop a few degrees.
The Lakagígar eruption did not simply dump ash into the atmosphere. That colossal energy almost certainly disturbed Earth's internal pressure system — mantle convection itself. That means the planet's tectonic plates are more unstable, and more sensitive, than at any point in modern history.
In a state like this, the odds of another large-scale volcanic eruption — or a massive earthquake along a zone like the Pacific Ring of Fire — are higher than they have ever been.
If one more catastrophe stacks on top of this one, we are looking at a planetary-scale disaster scenario.
He stared straight into the camera and kept going.
"It would mean the habitable zone for human beings is shrinking. It could contract, gradually, into a narrow belt centered on the equator. Billions of people would pour into that sliver of land to claim it. And that would bring a chaos of an entirely different order from anything we're living through now."
The anchor's stunned face filled the screen. Watching it, I could see the picture forming — humanity crammed onto a shrinking scrap of livable earth, people turning into something not much different from zombies.
"Hah. Do I have to go all the way to Mexico?"
No. The Mexicans wouldn't just leave the border open. They'd use Trump's wall in reverse.
By the time I'd thought it through, the only path that made sense was to keep moving through the middle ground — the belt where The Great Winter and the war among people met and ground against each other. On top of that, the problem of stocking food for Wolf started crowding my head.
I glanced down at him, still lying there, and he seemed to catch the weight of my mood. Chin buried in the blanket, looking up at me, he could have passed for a big, gentle retriever.
"Wolf. Come here."
"Whine — whuff."
He set his jaw on my leg. I ran my hand over his head.
"Don't worry, pal. One more wolf in this hell doesn't change a thing."