Today’s story is “Hot Dog” by Ben Goodridge, who wrote “Akela” for Goal Publications and “Found: One Apocalypse” for Furplanet, and you can find more of his stories on www.ben-goodridge.com.

Read for you by Khaki, your faithful fireside companion.

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You’re listening to The Voice of Dog.

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I’m Khaki, your faithful fireside companion,

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and today’s story is

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“Hot Dog” by Ben Goodridge @bengoodridge,

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who wrote “Akela”

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for Goal Publications

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and “Found: One Apocalypse”

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for Furplanet, and you can find more of his stories

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on www.ben-goodridge.com.

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“Hot Dog”

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by Ben Goodridge You could always tell the tourists in New York City based on how they reacted when one of the werewolves came bounding out of the trees in Central Park.

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Some cried out, some ran.

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A little boy took one look and wet himself copiously.

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Others watched as if staring at a traffic accident, while some moved out of the way

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and let him pass,

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nodding to him as he loped off down the trail.

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“Hey, it's okay, it's Hot Dog!”

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cried Lukey, the food-cart vendor who worked the edge of the Reservoir.

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“Hey, Hot Dog, how's it hanging?”

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Hot Dog waddled over to him,

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eyes wide, tongue lolling.

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He looked like a giant puppy.

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His tail wagged enthusiastically.

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“Hey, Lukey!” Lukey pulled a hot dog out of a compartment in the side of the cart and tossed it to him.

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Hot Dog leaped up and caught it between his powerful jaws.

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It disappeared. Lukey pulled out another hot dog and tossed it.

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The hot dogs were well past their sell-by date,

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beyond safe for humans,

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but the werewolves had no trouble digesting them.

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By now, a few lookie-loos had gathered to watch.

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Lukey liked Hot Dog because he was good for business;

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a cross between a monster and a clown,

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Hot Dog would roll on his back

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and put his feet in the air,

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trot circles around the food cart, or just bend his head down for a tussle between the ears.

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He was about as dangerous as a big dumb pet.

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Central Park had four werewolves now.

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They hadn't told anyone where they were from,

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but they'd probably split from one of the Packs near the Canadian border,

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where there were a few secluded and inscrutable villages

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hidden away among the trees.

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Once the police had their trust,

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they made themselves at home around the Ramble and the Reservoir,

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keeping fed on the trash that humans discarded.

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Hot Dog had often said

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that an entire pack could live on the food that humans threw away in Manhattan without transforming the ecosystem one tiny bit.

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Hot Dog and Fire Hydrant

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had both been interviewed on morning television,

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achieving that sort of

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background fifteen-minutes that many people acquire,

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and attracting tourists of their own

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who came to Central Park in the hopes of catching a glimpse of them,

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racing along the walking trails

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or digging through the bins.

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The police were quick to assure the public that the werewolves

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weren't dangerous,

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but choosing not to believe such a thing was part of their appeal.

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As much as they acted like squealing puppies in public,

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they were werewolves, after all,

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with all the mystery and enchantment that implied.

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They did, for instance,

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bring their religion with them from upstate,

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an earth-sniffing,

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tree-hugging paganism that considered peeing on a bush a holy act,

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and their chalk sigils

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were all over the park.

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“Mommy, can I have my picture taken with Hot Dog?”

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said the little girl,

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and Mommy said, “I think you should ask Hot Dog, dear.”

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And the little girl asked Hot Dog, who said, “Sure!

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I'll sit here, and you stand there.”

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Hot Dog sat a lot when he was out and about in daylight.

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There was something very non-threatening and innocent about sitting.

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The little girl stood next to him,

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and the camera clicked,

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and Hot Dog grinned a huge grin

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and loped off down the trail.

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If he'd charged for photos, he could have made a lot of money.

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There were over a hundred hours of him on YouTube,

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though he wasn't doing anything of interest –

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walking around, paddling about in the Reservoir,

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bathing in the fountain,

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snacking on Lukey's hot dogs.

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He was fascinating,

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and knew he was fascinating,

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and he and his three friends had taken pains to make room in their lives for privacy and secrecy.

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The police had no idea where they lived,

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not for lack of trying.

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They only cast spells at

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night, because it was quieter

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and they were more effective

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and no one would come along with a video camera

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and put them on LiveLeak.

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“Hey, look, it's Hot Dog!”

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shouted someone as he trotted along the pathway towards the Ramble. “Hey, Hot Dog!

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Hot Dog waved. It was a beautiful day,

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a hot day, and food was everywhere.

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When the day was at its hottest,

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Taxicab swam in the reservoir to cool down.

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The water wasn't very clean –

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he could get cleaner water if he needed it,

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but cleanliness wasn't as important as the open sky

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and the whispering trees.

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He loved to swim,

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loved the feel of water in his fur and pelt,

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loved to spread the fingers of his paws wide

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and run the water through them.

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He surfaced and pulled himself gracefully onto a rock,

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his sparkling body shining like a statue in the summer sun.

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He took a deep, cleansing breath

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and wiped his hair out of his eyes.

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His tongue ran over his long, sharp teeth, and he shook down...

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“Hey, Dad, look! It's a werewolf! Look at the werewolf!”

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“Hey, werewolf!” called Dad.

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Taxicab looked. Dad was about forty,

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and had the summer smell of a tourist in an unfamiliar, exciting city.

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Son was twelve, at most.

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They looked related.

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Shock of black hair, same build,

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hints of the old man's jawline in the boy's face.

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“Which werewolf are you?”

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said Dad. “Taxicab,”

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said Taxicab, hopping down from the rock.

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He ran his paws through his mane,

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making muscles move along his chest and belly.

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The City had mandated that all the werewolves wear shorts for reasons of dignity,

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and Taxicab preferred cutoff jeans,

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because they had pockets for putting things into.

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“Can we get a picture with you, Taxicab?”

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said Dad. Taxicab nodded,

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grinning. He knelt on the walkway,

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ears up, eyes opened a bit wide.

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He'd seen photos of himself that made him look like a stuffed toy,

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and it was useful to his peace of mind and privacy

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to know that photos of him betraying wide-eyed innocence

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were floating around the Internet.

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“Come on over here, son,”

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said Dad. Taxicab saw the boy standing in his peripheral vision,

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and beamed brightly at the camera.

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There was a sharp pain in his side just as the camera clicked –

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the boy had kicked him as hard as he could in the ribs,

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a roundhouse, board-splitting kick of a sort learned in the wrong kind of karate school.

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He clutched his side

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and put his other paw out to the pavement as Dad said, “Nice one, son!”

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and slapped a high-five with the boy. “Take a look!”

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“Oh, man,” said the boy,

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looking at the camera screen.

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“Look at the look on his face.

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I got him real good, didn't I?”

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“You sure did,” said Dad.

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They were walking away down the path now,

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the werewolf forgotten,

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and Taxicab clutched his side

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and heaved himself to his feet.

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He didn't think he'd broken a rib,

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but he was going to be one big bruise for a while.

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He stared after the receding family,

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an efficient, effective killing machine,

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claws and teeth and jaws capable of crushing the bones of a bull,

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he could have stripped them both to their bones in a few minutes.

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Still, he'd trained for this,

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and no anger invaded his mind.

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He closed his eyes

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and opened his mind to stillness,

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calm, quiet and peace.

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There was the smell of the water,

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there was the whisper of the trees.

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The pain ebbed. This didn't mean that Taxicab would let the pair go easily.

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However, he would not have been assigned to Central Park by his Pack

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if he was given to fits of anger over perceived slights.

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This was a dangerous job,

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and the stakes were far too high.

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He loped along the banking of the Reservoir, staying low.

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His ears twitched

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as he heard the inane chatter of a boy and his father walking through the park,

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as he passed them unnoticed,

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invisible, and silent,

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entirely the predator he was bred to be,

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not one bit the bounding puppy he pretended to be.

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A hundred yards down the path,

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he reached into his wet pocket and pulled out a piece of sidewalk chalk.

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He was downwind and had perhaps thirty seconds,

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which was ample time.

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Quickly, he drew a large circle on the ground –

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it was a perfect circle as far as any eye could tell,

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drawn with a practiced hand well-accustomed to drawing it.

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He drew a second circle in the first,

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a triangle. He sniffed,

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then drew a sign for the wind direction.

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A moment with his eyes closed,

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and he tagged off the directions –

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north, south, east, west.

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Around the edge of the circle

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he drew ancient and arcane writing,

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a language long lost to the human race and rare even among the Tribes of Animal-Men that still haunted the endless forests of the north.

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Sign for water,

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sign for wind. He whispered an incantation –

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dammit, how old was the boy?

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Twelve? Thirteen? Twelve.

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Twelve-four. He knew.

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He wrote more characters –

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numbers, this time, base-eight,

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non-Arabic digits in blue chalk on the sidewalk.

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The chalk could be any color –

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Taxicab happened to like blue.

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The sigil complete,

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the boy and his father coming around the corner and debating soft pretzels for a snack,

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Taxicab bounded into the bushes

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and effectively disappeared.

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Now was the time

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for absolute focus.

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His eyes were closed,

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but he could still see.

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Just drawing the sigil

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had drawn the magic in him to the surface,

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and his fur seemed to writhe

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and ripple with it,

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as if things were crawling under his skin.

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When he exhaled, there was a faint puff of blue smoke.

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He incanted, over and over.

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The boy stepped on the sigil without looking at it,

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and Taxicab gasped.

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Youth and arrogance surged up through him,

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a nightmare of ignorance and idiocy.

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He knew the boy's age down to the hour,

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and whispered “Dachem.”

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Conclude. Finish. Complete.

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The boy walked on.

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Invigorated, Taxicab stepped out of the bushes

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and watched them go.

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There was no sign of any change,

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nothing different at all.

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That was as it should be.

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Later that day, a California businessman asked if he and his client could have their picture taken with Taxicab.

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He agreed. All was right with the world.

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The police had, occasionally, attempted to find the den of the werewolves.

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This wasn't surprising –

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technically, they were transient,

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homeless, uncontrolled.

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Once they had demonstrated to the relevant authorities that they were perfectly capable of controlling themselves,

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the searches ended.

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Reporters still gave it a try,

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but the magic that concealed their den was too simple to be broken

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by fumbling around in the Ramble.

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Besides, the werewolves picked up trash all over the park.

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They were good business for the vendors and attracted tourists.

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Now, of course, no one wanted to chase them away.

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Hot Dog and Fire Hydrant lay against each other in their cluttered, cozy den,

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fur against fur. There were no females in their little Pack.

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Trash Can lay in the other pile of blankets,

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the one he shared with Taxicab.

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His fur was a wild patchwork of colors,

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a calico werewolf with a torn ear.

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Trash Can had made the papers some months ago after saving the life of a child

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who was being abducted from the bandstand.

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He loved children

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because he had lost his own,

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though no human knew that, or ever would.

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He read yesterday's New York Times with practiced interest.

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A shadow fell over the mouth of the den,

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and Taxicab crawled in.

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His side was still bruised,

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and he warned Trash Can to be careful as he lay next to him in the blankets.

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“Rock?” said Hot Dog,

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marinating in sweat.

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“Twelve year old boy with a hiking boot,”

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said Taxicab. Fire Hydrant winced.

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Trash Can elbowed himself up.

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“You didn't hurt him, did you?”

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Taxicab shook his head.

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“I remembered my lessons well.”

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“Good,” said Trash Can, stroking his face.

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“Did you Cast?” “Oh, hell yes,” said Taxicab,

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grinning hugely. There was a wonderful devil about him,

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a joyous evil worth celebrating.

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“I lay the sigil a hundred yards down the road.

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The connection was very powerful.”

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“Violence usually creates a strong connection,”

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said Hot Dog, elbowing himself up.

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“What happened? Did he ask you for a picture?”

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Taxicab nodded. “Waited until I wasn't looking,

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then socked me one.

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He'd obviously been planning it for months.

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It could have happened to any of us.”

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“Some humans like to keep images like that,”

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said Fire Hydrant.

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“It establishes dominance.

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A boy struck a beast twice his size and capable of unzipping him like a banana.

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That'll be worth status in his circle of friends.”

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“Well, it would, if I hadn't drained the picture for the spell,”

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said Taxicab. “They're in for a shock when they get a look at that SD card later.”

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“Still, twelve is a bit young for the spell,”

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said Fire Hydrant.

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He started tying Hot Dog's hair into braids. “What's the

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latency?” “Three years, I think.

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Besides, he was twelve years, four months, and thirteen days.

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You cast against a boy who was only twelve years, four months, and nine days, and with a shorter latency.”

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“The boy was quite far along in his physical development,”

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said Fire Hydrant.

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“At least you gave the spell a decent duration.

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Three years from now, your product will look in the mirror

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and suffer quite a shock.

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Do you think he'll come to you?”

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“I hope so,” said Taxicab.

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“I love teaching. My last sire just wandered off and joined one of the Borderlands tribes.”

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He snuggled against Trash Can and said,

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“So how many does that make so far?”

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“Seventeen for me,” said Hot Dog.

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“Eleven here,” said Fire Hydrant.

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“I've had nineteen,”

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said Trash Can. “And the boy makes fifteen for me,” said Taxicab.

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“That makes sixty two, with twenty transformations already.

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All haters of one kind or another.

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Initial reports from Iowa, Michigan, Louisiana, and Maine indicate that many of them are settling in quite well.

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Our Masters are very pleased with us, my friends.

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Our ranks are bolstered by making our enemies into our brothers and sisters.”

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He lay on his back, the pain in his side ebbing.

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“I'm so tired,” he said.

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“Post-spell malaise.”

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Trash Can took Taxicab's feet in his paws

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and massaged them gently.

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Taxicab dozed off,

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and Trash Can dozed off next to him.

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Hot Dog extricated himself from Fire Hydrant's embrace,

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and crawled out of the den

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into the gathering dusk

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to find some food.

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This was “Hot Dog” by Ben Goodridge,

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read for you by Khaki,

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your faithful fireside companion.

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Thank you for listening

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to The Voice of Dog