The next time Sheba visited, she urinated all over the kitchen floor. Janet screamed when she found the mess, pulling her hair in frustration as the puddle crept onto the rug by the door. Tristan tried to calm her down. He stepped outside, which made Sheba howl in agony. It sounded like a child. The shrieks made Sebastian’s ears turn. No wonder her master had to tow her along on his visits. She would have alerted the entire neighborhood to what was going on. Tristan returned with a roll of paper towels in one hand, a plastic bottle of green, foamy liquid in the other, a pair of rubber gloves in his pocket, and a mop under his arm. He removed the rug and cleaned everything so ruthlessly that even Sebastian could no longer smell what had happened. The next night, a new rug greeted Daniel when he came home from work.
After that, Tristan put Sheba in the basement. If she had another accident, at least it would be easier to clean and hide. Sebastian waited for Tristan and Janet to start making their noises in the bedroom. Then he visited Sheba. She stared at him as he paced the floor. When he was within range, she sniffed his head. He wondered what her tongue would feel like, and then the next thing he knew, she was licking him from his eyes along his skull to the back of his neck. Sebastian retreated. Sheba stepped toward him, but the leash restrained her. Sebastian rubbed his head with his paws until it was dry. When he went back to her, she licked him again, more gently this time. He nuzzled against her, feeling her fur mingle with his own, and hearing her heart thud against her chest, the breath going in and out. Within minutes, they were huddled together and dozing off as though they were animals in the wild groping for warmth from other members of their pack.
SEBASTIAN HAD NEVER known what happiness was. Now that Sheba visited, he had someone in his life who understood. Someone who forgave him for who he was.
Because he was neutered, with no exposure to cats since his birth, cuddling with Sheba was the closest Sebastian had ever come to experiencing physical intimacy. But it was more than enough. The simple act of determining the positions in which they slept became a profound, almost sacred, act, every bit as complex as outright mating. Typically, Sheba preferred to be the big spoon, since Sebastian was so much smaller. Throughout their sessions, they would have to shift in order to facilitate breathing or circulation. Sometimes they were content to merely touch foreheads, or for Sebastian to rest the crown of his head on the middle of Sheba’s back. If it had been a particularly long day, they would face each other in an embrace, their legs overlapping. Sheba, being the more fidgety of the two, would normally be the first to break the pose. Sometimes Tristan and Janet would have to wake them up. The couple seemed happy to see their pets so friendly with each other.
After some convincing, Sheba joined Sebastian on his regular patrols of the house. They explored the basement together, sniffing around the old tools and sports equipment. Once, when Tristan failed to secure the leash properly, Sheba broke free and followed Sebastian upstairs, through the many rooms of the second floor, under tables, behind shelves, into closets that had been left open. Sebastian led her past his masters’ bedroom and into the far reaches of the forbidden attic. Though Sheba was scared at first, she soon found the place as irresistible as he did. It was their secret world, a conquered land. Her presence made it seem new again.
There was a moment as the summer sun was going down when Sebastian remembered that terrible thought he had had so long ago: that one day, he would die in this place. If he had shoulders, he would have shrugged. It no longer mattered if he died here, whether it was in another ten years or that very instant. Sheba’s breath was heavy on his neck. His head rested on her outstretched legs. Everything was now, in the present moment, and it was perfect.
SEBASTIAN LEARNED TO recognize the sound of Sheba’s feet hitting the grass when she played in Tristan’s backyard. There was a large tree, its branches humming with beehives, and its trunk choked by a pack of slithering vines. It may have been Sheba’s favorite place in the world. When she was there, she did not always notice Sebastian. If she did, she would bark a few times to say hello. The stray cats occasionally teased her, but she chased them away before they could unsheathe their claws.
One day Sebastian was surprised to see Hank, the dog from across the street, in the Martinis’ driveway. He walked slowly, exhausted. Sensing something was terribly wrong, Sebastian scanned the backyard for Sheba. He spotted her reclining in the shade of the tree. Hank trotted off, his eyes fixed on Sebastian. The dog’s expression suggested that he had gotten away with something.
IN A WAY, Sebastian was fortunate to not yet understand that nothing lasted forever. He was unaware of the war that was brewing while he and Sheba held each other. And when Sheba began to act differently, he failed to notice at first. After a while, it seemed that all she did was sleep. They no longer performed their cuddling ritual. Sebastian would often find her already passed out, and he would have to creep up next to her. More than once, she woke up and irritably pushed him away. He ignored it, repositioned himself, and fell asleep again.
There were other things going wrong. Whenever Janet was alone, she would huddle by the television and watch the ghostly people on the screen. It was always the same: a river of text flowed beneath explosions, people running, buildings on fire, green trucks rolling along highways, men and women with helmets marching, building bridges, demolishing things, using flamethrowers to burn massive hills of dirt. And in between all the images were videos of creatures that Sebastian had seen crawling in the grass outside the window: ants. They were always on the television, always marching in a line, sometimes covering entire fields and picking apart dead farm animals. Sebastian saw people running away from ants the size of the Martinis’ car. The monsters could walk on their hind legs, and their jaws were strong enough to lift a human at the waist. This footage went on for a few days until Daniel came home and switched it off while his wife was watching. They yelled at each other, and when they were done, Janet sat in the room by herself, crying. After that, she turned on the television only when her husband was out of the house.
By then, Michael was walking on his own. One time, he refused to go to sleep, and she agreed to let him watch. All the channels were playing the same thing now. Nothing but ants and fires. But this time, there was footage of a new creature. A pack of wolves, walking on their hind legs, approaching the camera. One of them carried a club in his hands the same way Daniel would hold a hammer. This was followed by a choppy clip of a group of animals marching alongside the giant ants. Sebastian could hear people screaming. Michael cried when he saw it. Janet shut off the television and cradled the child until he quieted down.
Soon after, Daniel began carrying cardboard boxes filled with water bottles, canned vegetables, and jars of peanut butter to the basement. One night, he hid a strange object behind the shelf where he kept his tools. It was a long metal tube with a wooden base. He placed small red cylinders into a hole in the side of the object. Then he propped the wooden base on his shoulder and aimed the tube at Sebastian, making a popping noise with his mouth. After his master went to bed, Sebastian sniffed the device a few times before giving up on figuring out what it was.
A few days passed, during which Daniel occupied the basement, his body odor lingering in a cloud around him. Sebastian took to hiding in the attic. There were trophies, old record players, photo albums, winter coats hovering on hangers—an entire lifetime’s worth of objects. But they had been sitting there for so many years. Too musty and old. They could not compete with Sheba. For a brief time, he held out hope that she was hiding somewhere in the attic. He would meow and wait for her to answer, or he would nap on an old comforter and expect her to be there when he woke up. Nothing worked.
A FEW NIGHTS later, when Daniel was away, Sheba returned at last. The ritual ensued as it always had, with Janet hugging Tristan, the two of them leading Sheba to the basement before disappearing upstairs.
Sebastian could tell right away that something was wrong. Sheba hunched down, claiming the spot for hersel
f, her paws balled into fists. She growled at him. He hoped that it was some kind of game that she was playing, so he continued walking toward her. But then she barked and bared her teeth.
Sebastian ran to the attic. He sighed and let out a meow that he hoped Sheba would hear over the moans coming from Janet’s bedroom. He thought about dying again, but the feeling soon passed.
A litany of unfamiliar sounds rattled the window. When he peered outside, Sebastian saw the ramp to the highway jammed with the same vehicles from the television: large green trucks and moving metal boxes with long tubes sticking out the front. The engines rumbled, smoke rising from their tailpipes. Though Sheba’s tree blocked the view from the other side of the house, Sebastian was sure that the vehicles surrounded the town. A siren howled in the distance. It was some kind of alarm, like Sheba crying, only many times louder. These intruders had something to do with Sheba’s behavior, he was sure. They were influencing things, making the Martinis hostile to one another, making it so that Sebastian now ate only once a day rather than twice. The children cried more. The radio no longer played music—only angry, tense voices. The television flashed monsters on the screen. Janet often sobbed while folding her hands and whispering to herself. Everything was falling apart.
Then Janet started screaming. Sebastian arrived at the basement to find Tristan running up the steps. The man grabbed a roll of paper towels and a dishrag and returned to the cellar. Sebastian crept behind him.
On the third step down, he had a view of everything. Sheba lay on the floor, panting and exhausted. Splayed out before her were three shivering puppies. Tristan frantically tried to wipe up the mess. He yelled at Janet. Sebastian could smell the fear in their sweat. They would not be able to clean up before Daniel returned.
Sheba would not look at him. She was hypnotized by the little ones.
Then the car pulled into the driveway. Tristan and Janet argued in a whisper. She put her hands on his shoulders, begging him to leave. Tristan ran out the back door as Daniel walked in the front. Janet switched off the light to the basement.
Husband and wife embraced—the first time they had done so in weeks. Upstairs, Delia started crying, so Janet went to the nursery.
Sebastian got closer to Sheba. When she finally acknowledged him, she acted as though she did not even remember her hostility from a few moments earlier. I know you, her affection seemed to say. Where have you been? The little ones were lolling about. Sebastian sniffed each of their foreheads. Then he pawed at Sheba and leaned into her warmth. With this movement, he purred to her, Don’t worry. Don’t be sad. I am strong. I will not leave you. I am strong.
After the Change, many of the animals reminisced about the time when they first achieved self-awareness, like humans talking about where they were for important historical events. This was Sebastian’s moment: a brief recognition of friendship between two beings separated by species and circumstance. He was lucky. So many others recalled watching television, or deciphering a street sign, or staring at some interaction between humans. Sebastian, on the other hand, had a true moment of bliss, a welling of joy and peace.
But it soon faded. He knew that he would lose her. She would leave with her children, and he would be trapped in this haunted house alone. There would be the familiar sounds and smells. Perhaps another child for the Martinis. There would be food and water when he needed it, along with the litter box and the square of sunlight in the living room. But there would be nothing else, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Sensing that her master was not in the house, Sheba began whining, a sort of weak squeal that escaped with each breath. Then she howled like a wolf, startling Sebastian. He told her to be quiet, that it would be okay. Footsteps approached. Janet intercepted her husband at the top of the stairs, trying to talk him out of going down to the basement. The lights came on. Sebastian’s pupils shrank into painful slits.
Daniel froze at the sight. Sheba saw him coming closer, realized that he was not Tristan, and continued howling, as if this would transform the man into her master. Janet pretended to be shocked as well.
The man went quiet. His wife asked if he was okay. He backhanded her in the jaw, knocking her to the ground.
The man grabbed Sebastian by the scruff of the neck and tossed him aside. The puppies were still prone on the ground. Janet screamed. Sheba rolled onto her feet and tried to shield her pups from danger. Daniel kicked her in the ribs. Sheba yelped. She stood on her hind legs and bit into the man’s arm. Daniel kicked her again, another hard shot to her hip. She snapped at him. Unafraid, Daniel gripped her by the neck as she pawed at him. He shoved her into a wall. The sound of it made Sebastian jump. Daniel was trying to kill her. Sheba had to run away. Taking a last look at her pups, she sprinted up the stairs past Sebastian. The man pursued her, his feet stomping against the old wooden steps. Sebastian stepped into his path. Daniel had to awkwardly jump over him. The move bought Sheba time, and she was able to run out the back door.
With Sheba gone, the man turned next to Tristan’s house. No one answered when he banged on the door. Enraged, Daniel went to his garage and returned with a bright yellow mop bucket, which he carried to the basement. Sebastian hid under the kitchen table. When the man climbed the steps, all three of the puppies were in the bucket, squeaking helplessly. Janet was close behind, begging him to stop. When she reached for the bucket, her husband pushed her away with the heel of his palm. He went into the bathroom and slammed the door. With the water running in the bathtub, Janet leaned against the wall and slid down until her head rested on her knees. She caught sight of Sebastian and began to cry.
The puppies stopped squealing.
SEBASTIAN RETURNED TO the kitchen. The door was open. He had never left the house before. It was as though some invisible barrier had locked him in for all these years. Now, leaving seemed no scarier than taking a nap in the living room. The clarity of it was so blinding that he could hardly imagine having been afraid of the outside world before. So he walked out, guided by the scent trail that Sheba had left until he lost it in the middle of the yard. He called to her but knew that she could not hear.
Behind him, Janet closed the door, and she and her husband began fighting again. Sebastian was not frightened. He did not want to go back inside. Instead, he had an urge to explore, to learn things. He had never examined a bird’s nest up close or traced the connecting lines of a spider’s web. His mind ached for more knowledge, a thirst that could not be quenched. A pack of vines strangled the tree on Tristan’s lawn. A clump of ants dragged a wounded grasshopper to their lair, dismantling the struggling creature along the way. A sad woman packed her children into a car weighed down with luggage and drove off. In the sky above, menacing helicopters and fighter jets cut through the clouds, racing toward the explosions and the great plumes of smoke to the south. Long after the Martinis had exhausted themselves with their fight, Sebastian wandered the neighborhood, cataloguing everything. He was not simply storing things away and recalling them. He was asking why.
He realized then that things did not last forever. They decayed. Or they left. Or they died. Or they were lost. Or they were taken away.
That night, while he sat behind the Martinis’ garage, the hair on his paws fell away. He was not alarmed. He simply brushed away the remaining strands, stretched out the toes into fingers, and rubbed the palms together.
More jets streaked overhead. Explosions thumped in the distance, getting closer. Sebastian climbed to the roof of the garage to see over the hedges. Miles away, a city burned. Helicopters hovered over the flames like flies above a carcass. Massive fireballs bloomed amid the wrecked buildings. Then the electricity went out in all the houses in the neighborhood. The faraway conflagration provided the only light.
Sebastian stayed up all night watching, thinking, remembering. He knew that when the sun came up, more things would change. Or be taken away. Or die.
STILL ON THE roof of the garage, Sebastian woke to the sound of glass breaking
in the house. His eyes opened. A column of black smoke obscured the city on the horizon. He turned to the house and tried to listen. Janet burst out the door. She wore a hiker’s backpack and held a child in each arm. Sebastian had never realized how strong she was.
Daniel trailed behind her. “We have to stick together,” he said, his voice breaking. This made Sebastian pause. He actually understood the words!
“We’re not staying in this house,” she said.
Sebastian mouthed the words: we’re not staying in this house.
Daniel ran inside while his family headed to the car parked at the front of the driveway. It was a silver SUV with mud streaks on the side and children’s seats in the rear.
When Daniel stepped outside again, he held the black metal tube in the crook of his elbow. “You’re not taking my children,” he said.
Janet ignored him.
“Mommy, what is Daddy doing?” Michael asked.
“Do you hear me?” Daniel said.
“Go ahead and shoot us then, Dan!” Janet said, her face puffy and red. “We’re dead anyway! Go ahead and do it!”
Daniel had no response. Blinking, his lip twitching, he leaned the tube against the side of the house and walked inside.
The girl was crying, while the boy kept asking questions.
“Get in the car,” Janet said.
While the mother fussed with Delia, Michael caught sight of Sebastian on the roof. “Mommy, look!”
Sebastian realized that he was standing on his hind legs like a man. But before Janet could see, her husband emerged from the front door of the house. He grabbed Janet by the hair and pulled hard.
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