And I? What had I dared to do, that quaked that membranous sac into regurgitated whistling and broken winds?

«Idiot!» cried my host, all teeth and fists. «Out! Out!»

«Out,» I cried, spun to obey, and tripped.

I do not clearly know what happened as I fell. And if it was a swift reaction to the holocaust erupted like vile spit and vomit from that putrescent mound, I cannot say. I knew no lightning shock of murder, yet knew perhaps some summer heat flash of revenge. For what? I thought. What are you to Dorian or he to you that frees the hydra behind your face, or causes the slightest twitch of leg, arm, hand, or fingernail, as the last fetid air from Dorian burned my hair and stuffed my nostrils.

It was over in a second.

Something shoved me. Did my secret self, insulted, give that push? I was flung as if on wires, knocked to sprawl at Dorian.

He gave two terrible cries, one of warning, one of despair.

I was recovered so in landing, I did not sink my hands deep in that poisonous yeast, into that multiflorid Man of War jelly. I swear that I touched, raked, scarified him with only one thing: the smallest fingernail of my right hand.

My fingernail!

And so this Dorian was shot and foundered. And so the mammoth with screams collapsed. And so the nauseous balloon sank, fold on midnight fold, upon its own boneless sell, fissuring volcanic sulfurs, immense rectal airs, outgassed whistles, and whimpers of self-pitying despair.

«Christ! What have you done!? Murderer! Damn you!» cried my host, riven to stare at Dorian's exhaustions unto death.

He whirled to strike, but ran to reach the door and cry, «Lock this! Lock! Whatever happens, for God's sake, don't open! Now!» The door slammed. I ran to lock it and turn.

Quietly, Dorian was falling away.

He sank down and down, out of sight. Like a great membranous tent with its poles removed, he vanished into the floor, down flues and vents on all sides of his great platform nest. Vents obviously created for such a massive disease-sac melting into viral fluid and sewer gas. Even as I watched, the last of the noxious clot was sucked into the vents, and I stood abandoned in a room where but a few minutes before an unspeakable strata of discards and half-born fetuses had lain sucking at sins, spoiled bones, and souls to send forth beasts in semblance of beauty. That perverse royalty, that lunatic monarch, gone, all gone. A last choke and throttle from the sewer vent underlined its death.

My God, I thought, even now, that, all that, that terrible miasma, that stuff is on its way to the sea to wash in with bland tides to lie on clean shores where bathers come at dawn …

Even now …

I stood, eyes shut, waiting.

For what? There had to be a next thing, yes? It came.

There was a trembling, shivering, and then a quaking of the wall, but especially the golden door behind me.

I spun to see as well as hear.

I saw the door shaken, and then bombarded from the other side. Fists pummeled, struck, hammered. Voices cried out and screamed and then shrieked.

I felt a great mass ram the door to shiver, to slam it on its hinges.

I stared, fearful that the door might explode and let in the flood tide of nightmare-ravening, terrified beasts, the kennel of dying things. For now their shrieks as they mauled and rattled to escape, to beg for mercy, were so terrible that I clamped my fists to my ears.

Dorian was gone, but they remained. Shrieks. Screams. Screams. Shrieks. An avalanche of limbs beyond the door struck and fell, yammering.

What must they look like now? I thought. All those bouquets. All those beauties.

The police will come, I thought, soon. But .

No matter what …

I would not unlock that door.

No News, or What Killed the Dog

1994 year

It was a day of holocausts, cataclysms, tornadoes, earth-quakes, blackouts, mass murders, eruptions, and miscellaneous dooms, at the peak of which the sun swallowed the earth and the stars vanished.

But to put it simply, the most respected member of the Bentley family up and died.

Dog was his name, and dog he was.

The Bentleys, arising late Saturday morning, found Dog stretched on the kitchen floor, his head toward Mecca, his paws neatly folded, his tail not a-thump but silent for the first time in twenty years.

Twenty years! My God, everyone thought, could it really have been that long? And now, without permission, Dog was cold and gone.

Susan, the younger daughter, woke everyone yelling:

«Something's wrong with Dog. Quick!»

Without bothering to don his bathrobe, Roger Bentley, in his underwear, hurried out to look at that quiet beast on the

kitchen tiles. His wife, Ruth, followed, and then their son Skip, twelve. The rest of the family, married and flown, Rodney and Sal, would arrive later. Each in turn would say the same thing:

«No! Dog was forever.»

Dog said nothing, but lay there like World War II, freshly finished, and a devastation.

Tears poured down Susan's cheeks, then down Ruth Bentley's, followed in good order by tears from Father and, at last, when it had sunk in, Skip.

Instinctively, they made a ring around Dog, kneeling to the floor to touch him, as if this might suddenly make him sit up, smile as he always did at his food, bark, and beat them to the door. But their touching did nothing but increase their tears.

But at last they rose, hugged each other, and went blindly in search of breakfast, in the midst of which Ruth Bentley said, stunned, «We can't just leave him there.»

Roger Bentley picked Dog up, gently, and moved him out on the patio, in the shade, by the pool.

«What do we do next?»

«I don't know,» said Roger Bentley. «This is the first death in the family in years and-« He stopped, snorted, and shook his head. «I mean-«

«You meant exactly what you said,» said Ruth Bentley. «If Dog wasn't family, he was nothing. God, I loved him.»

A fresh burst of tears ensued, during which Roger Bentley brought a blanket to put over Dog, but Susan stopped him.

«No, no.1 want to see him. I won't be able to see him ever again. He's so beautiful. He's so – old.»

They all carried their breakfasts out on the patio to sit around Dog, somehow feeling they couldn't ignore him by eating inside.

Roger Bentley telephoned his other children, whose response, after the first tears, was the same: they'd be right over. Wait.

When the other children arrived, first Rodney, twenty-one, and then the older daughter, Sal, twenty-four, a fresh storm of grief shook everyone and then they sat silently for a moment, watching Dog for a miracle.

«What are your plans?» asked Rodney at last.

«I know this is silly,» said Roger Bentley after an embarrassed pause. «After all, he's only a dog-«

«Only!?» cried everyone instantly.

Roger had to back off. «Look, he deserves the Taj Mahal. What he'll get is the Orion Pet Cemetery over in Burbank.»

«Pet Cemetery!?» cried everyone, but each in a different way.

«My God,» said Rodney, «that's silly!»

«What's so silly about it?» Skip's face reddened and his lip trembled. «Dog, why, Dog was a pearl of. . . rare price.

«Yeah!» added Susan.

«Well, pardon me.» Roger Bentley turned away to look at the pool, the bushes, the sky. «I suppose I could call those trash people who pick up dead bodies-«

«Trash people?» exclaimed Ruth Bentley.

«Dead bodies?» said Susan. «Dog isn't a dead body!»

«What is he, then?» asked Skip bleakly.

They all stared at Dog lying quietly there by the pool. «He's,» blurted Susan at last, «he's . . . he's my love!» Before the crying could start again, Roger Bentley picked up the patio telephone, dialed the Pet Cemetery, talked, and put the phone down.