Twenty cardboard boxes in the back of that pickup.
Ten cases of instant noodles. Five of rice. Two of bottled water. One of mixed meat and vegetables. And one full of gold.
Price tags still on some of it.
They'd cleaned out a jewelry store on the way.
I hefted the gold — thirty, forty pounds of it — and had to admire the commitment. Some things are carved into a man's bones, and for these men it was yellow metal.
Though they weren't wrong. Even now, the only thing that still traded was gold.
I sorted everything into the storerooms — noodles, rice, water, meat, gold. And a pistol, police issue.
Which told me exactly what kind of places they'd been looting.
I'd done the world a favor. A public service, really.
How many concerned citizens like me were left? Any sane person saw a crew like that and ran the other way. I went out, fought them off, and even threw in a complimentary zombie package.
Kept them from hurting anybody else. I could have just chased them off my land and called it done.
No need to bait them in and finish them. But then, where's the fun?
A good person like me — pfft — a righteous, public-spirited good person like me is a rare thing.
Consider this my Good Samaritan bonus.
Otherwise I'd have to be disgusted with myself.
I accepted the loot with a clear conscience.
And then the system spoke.
Ding — base defense battle ×1 detected.
Enemies defeated: 6. Supplies seized: 20 crates. Congratulations: 26 points. Shop unlocked.
My eyes came open. A shop.
A panel unfolded in my head, stocked with goods.
Food. Medicine. Firearms. Base-building materials.
Every item had stats.
Energy bar ×1 — restores stamina instantly, staves off hunger 10 hours. Cost: 5 points.
Bread ×1 — restores stamina instantly, staves off hunger 20 hours. Cost: 8 points.
Hemostatic powder ×1 — stops bleeding, kills pain, one application. Cost: 20 points.
I flipped to the weapons tab. Every firearm I could name, and a few I couldn't — each with bonus damage, bonus accuracy.
All of it treasure. All of it out of reach.
Twenty-six points to my name.
I stared at that shop like a kid at a locked candy case. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I noticed I was actually looking forward to the next idiot who tried my gate.
Then the monitor went off again.
I crossed to the computer. Outside, the sky had gone dim; a cluster of oversized vehicles sat just beyond my camera line.
Infrared only gave me heat — people climbing out, looking around, clearing the dead off the road.
My heart lifted. Really? More free points this soon?
I watched them work, waiting for the moment they stepped onto my land — but they only killed.
They pulled every wanderer on that stretch into a pile, finished them, then opened the rear doors and let out a pack of dogs.
At that resolution I couldn't read faces or uniforms, only heat.
But I was sure about the dogs.
After the dogs were out, the people argued — I could see it in the way they stood.
Then they all got back in.
And drove off, leaving the dogs behind.
The pack watched them go — then broke into a full sprint after the trucks.
In my camera feed, the trucks and the running dogs all headed for the city.
What the hell was that?
Next morning I was up at dawn for warm-ups. No rewards for that anymore, but the body doesn't care about rewards.
Heads up: this text was scraped from its original home, and the author never agreed to it appearing here.
I was about to do a lap of the perimeter when the alarms went again.
This time I'd linked the system to my phone, so I pulled it out and looked.
Fifteen dogs on the road outside my bunker. Fourteen, fifteen — a pack.
Every one of them wearing a uniform.
They'd stopped at the exact spot from last night, and now they circled it, over and over, like they were waiting for someone to come back.
Then my phone buzzed with a public alert.
Ding — City A rescue operation initiated. Rescue vehicles entering City A. Survivors proceed to the following assembly points.
Last night's convoy had been a rescue team.
And those were their dogs.
I drove out to the edge of my land. The highway had been swept clean — the first genuinely safe stretch I'd seen in a month.
The pack was holding at the mouth of my road, all of them facing the city.
They were in bad shape. Every one of them marked — clawed, bitten, bellies torn, ears and tails missing pieces.
The worst one had both hind legs shredded to the bone, dragging the wreckage behind it on its front paws alone, eyes still fixed on the city.
I got out of the car and read the whole night in them: they'd chased those trucks into the city, hit a wall of the dead, fought, lost, and come back here.
They hadn't found their people.
And their people never turned around.
They were still waiting anyway.
"Nobody gets to choose their ending out here," I said. "You ran into me. From now on you're with me."
I bandaged every one of them. Then I looked at the worst case and swore under my breath.
Twenty points. That was a bread-and-water week in the shop, spent on one dog.
"Two-Legs. You'd better remember who saved you. That powder cost me twenty points — twenty! From now on you stay close and you behave. I don't abandon what's mine."
I kept muttering while I worked on the dying dog.
And the dog — lying there with its ribs showing — watched me the whole time with eyes that understood every word.
* * *
When the bandaging was done I brought out raw beef, bone in.
Good stuff, too.
The dogs saw it and went wild — paws digging at the dirt — but not one of them stepped forward to eat.
"Go on. It's for you."
Only then did they fall on it. You could read a week of hunger in the way they ate.
But they didn't finish. Every one of them left a piece untouched — and when they were done, they picked up the meat and ran for the gate.
I stared.
Summer saw them break for the gate and went after them, barking.
System-enhanced, she stood twice their size, with teeth ten times sharper and the presence of something that had never lost a fight.
The dogs bunched up and held their ground against her.
"Let them go."
I shook my head and walked over to Summer. "Let them—"
Bark. Bark. Bark. She wasn't having it. In her language: they ate your food and now they're running, the ungrateful little—
"A good dog doesn't need a leash."
I rubbed her head, opened the gate, and let them out.
They looked back at me once — grateful, and in a hurry — then ran.
Even the one I'd spent points on. It had a whole cut of beef in its jaws, and it went with the others.
Before it left, it circled me once, dragging its two ruined legs, and limped after the pack.
I pulled an electric scooter out of storage and followed with Summer.
They went straight back to the spot where they'd been left.
They set the meat on the ground, turned to the city, and howled. Then they circled, over and over.
Still looking for their people.
The first thing they did with food was save some for the people who'd left them.
Even hungry, they kept a piece back for them.
Something cold and hard in my chest moved.
Dogs are more loyal than people. Most of them, anyway.
Working dogs especially.
Once they give you their loyalty, they don't take it back.
I pulled Summer's head against me. "I'm sorry. For last time."
Bark — bright and immediate — and then she was shoving her head into my jacket, shameless, warm, entirely pleased with herself.
She had no idea why I was sad. She just knew I was.
I stood there a while, watching them, then took Summer home.
That evening I brought them food and re-dressed every wound.
Bark. Bark. Bark. Every single time — freeloaders eating my owner's food.
The dogs flattened themselves and took it, then crowded around me instead.
Every time I came, they'd gather and stay close for a while.
Two days went by like that.
They held the mouth of my road the whole time, watching every vehicle that passed, chasing each one for a stretch — then drifting back when it wasn't their people.
They also cleared my perimeter. Nothing dead got within a hundred yards of my land — not one.
So I brought food once a day, checked their wounds, and went home.
It happened on the evening of the third day.
I'd finished my rounds and come out to see them — and from a long way off I saw them running, all out, the way I'd never seen them run.
I climbed the broken wall I used as an overlook, with Summer, and looked.
A column of green canvas military trucks, coming out of the city.
I understood immediately.
They'd finally found their people.
The dogs went for those trucks like puppies, and the convoy slowed in confusion.
One truck at the rear stopped.
A young man climbed out of the cab and caught one of them up in his arms.
The rest swarmed him, jumping, crying, out of their minds.
One of them ran back to their old patch and came back with a piece of meat for him.
He looked at the fresh beef like it had come from another planet. And then he put the dog down.
He was hungry too. He gave the meat back, turned, and walked to his truck.
Orders from base: leave room for survivors.
Abandon the dogs.
Orders. They could hate it and still carry it out.
The dogs went for the truck.
Even from that far off, I heard the screaming.
"What the hell — there are dogs!"
"Get away! Get away!"
"They're infected!"
"Ugly things — get them off — get them off!"
The soldiers climbed back in and started their engines. The dog he'd held ran for him with the meat in its mouth — and what met it wasn't arms. It was a door.
Engines roared. The convoy pulled away.
The pack chased. They chased like something broken, and the gap only widened.
Until they couldn't.
When they came limping back up the road one by one, there wasn't a trace of that morning's hope left in any of them.
They wandered, directionless. They had no owner now.
That's the cruelty of this world. Nobody gets a choice.
Nobody throws a dog away if there's any other option. But when it comes down to people or dogs, base command picks people.
"You're coming with me this time."
I was standing in front of them.
"I told you. I don't abandon any of you. Trust me once."
I'm not a savior. I don't want people.
The beaten pack went quiet. Then one dog stepped out of the middle of them — Two-Legs, the one I'd spent twenty points on.
It circled me once, made a small sound, and lay down at my feet.
That was all it took. The rest came at once, crowding around me.
When I brought them home, the system spoke.
Ding — 15 base war dogs detected. Loyalty: 100%.
Reward: war dog health fully restored. Base defense doubled. Points: 150.
My eyes came open again.
And behind me, the base was already changing — the gate thickening, the razor wire doubling in height, the whole fence growing barbs like teeth.
Inside, the bunker was rebuilding itself — new doors, walls reinforced a hundred times over.
From the outside, it didn't look like a bunker anymore.