His blade hit the flank squarely, right between two ribs; it drove in to the hilt, and suddenly Lee’s hand was touching fur. He knew what he’d done, even before the dog collapsed on top of him. She tumbled once, paws splaying, then went limp.

Smoke was filling the air; somewhere, a structural support made an awful sound: teetering, then splintering. The German boy took this opportunity to scoop up as much food as he could carry. Then he was gone.

“Ripley?” Lee called.

There was smoke. Lee crawled to the dog, whose lip twitched. It was a shepherd, mostly black, with a tan bib and paws. There were straps around its midriff, and on its back, two small cages in which fluttered small white carrier pigeons. He placed a gentle hand on her neck, uselessly— foolishly, given the smoke and flame. He felt the ridgeline of a scar across her throat. That’s where her vocal cords were slashed, he thought.

“There are carrier pigeons on her back,” Lee announced. “Ripley?” he called again, but there was no response. Then he said, “I killed her,” aloud. The words were echoing, as if they’d come out of a tin can. As he glanced at the distended landscape of the dog’s belly, he understood he had a mission. His breathing thickened.

Smoke clouded his view. He pulled his shirt up over his nose, then remembered his respirator. There were nine steps to deploying it properly; Lee skipped most of them. He could breathe, a bit, through his mouth, but smoke leaked in around the goggles that were supposed to protect his eyes.

The dog had landed facing the rear of the tank, where she had recently been tethered. Lee felt bile rising in his throat, for something terrible was happening—he was watching her try to lift her head. She couldn’t quite manage; she trembled and let out a small squeak. Her body shook again. Lee followed the direction her snout had been pointing: directly under the tank.

The fire was spreading, flickers and crackles and pops were growing, but he couldn’t make himself leave.

“Ripley?”

He crawled a foot or so, toward the tank. As he did, he heard a soft, chick-peep kind of noise coming from between the massive treads. He could just barely see though his goggles, with hazy, watering eyes, that there was a hole below the tank. A pit. Its edges were raw and grooved, dug with claws. He reached forward.

Something against his heel. He looked behind him. In the bitter light, he could see that the mother dog’s jaws were on either side of his boot. Her eye was determined, bright, and able, the upper and lower lids almost meeting in final concentration. Then the eye went cloudy and the jaw collapsed.

“Good girl,” he whispered.