Please Do Not Taunt the Octopus Read Online Free Page A

all the mobs in the area, stacking up infected humans, deer, and raccoons like cordwood. I’d been sending my people farther and farther to collect test subjects, because we just couldn’t find them near the lab. But none of that made me feel like taking the risk of going out into the green.
    A gunshot sounded from straight ahead of me, followed by a strangled yelp from—“Joe!” I didn’t pause to think about what I was doing. I just charged forward, racing into the wood with my head down and my heart pounding wildly. My own pistol was strapped at my hip. It wouldn’t help me against, say, a zombie bear, but a zombie bear wouldn’t be shooting at my dog.
    I broke through a wall of green into a small clearing, formed by a collusion of tree roots ripping up the ground and making it inhospitable to further growth. The surrounding brush was dense and tangled, pulling at my clothing even as I tried to shake it off. Joe was standing in the middle of the clearing, legs set in a wide-splayed “guard” position, a growl resonating up through his massive chest. His ears were completely flat, making him look more like a small bear than a large dog. It would have been a heart-stopping sight if he hadn’t been my dog, and if my heart hadn’t already been struggling to recover from the shock of hearing that gun go off.
    He was growling at a large tree, his eyes fixed on its branches. I looked up, trying to see what had him so upset. It was probably human. Joe sometimes got excited about squirrels and bunny rabbits—I tried to stay out of the way when that happened, since no amount of scientific detachment could make the sight of a mastiff crunching on a rabbit’s skull pleasant—but those didn’t usually carry guns.
    “What do you have, boy?” I asked, trying to estimate the lines of sight from the tree to where I was standing. “Did you startle a trespasser? Is that what you did, boy? Did you come out of the bushes and scare some poor local kid who was just looking for something they could eat? Or did you find yourself a looter? The difference between a looter and a trespasser is about eight bullets, by the way.” I raised my voice, abandoning the pretense that I was talking to my dog. “We don’t mind people passing through, but I assure you, we’re not that easy to rob.”
    Big words for a woman in jeans and a T-shirt. Whoever was in that tree didn’t have to know that, and Joe definitely helped me present a terrifying public front. Most people aren’t accustomed to dogs anymore. When your family pet can turn you into the walking dead with a single bite, most people decide to go with goldfish.
    “That’s a dog .” The voice was female, and ageless in that way some women have, a combination of innocence and experience that could have come out of a throat aged anywhere from seventeen to seventy. She sounded affronted, like Joe’s existence was somehow an insult to her ideas about the world. “You have a dog .”
    “Yes,” I said, tracking the sound of her voice until my eyes lit on a spot high in the tree. She was there. She was hidden by branches, and might not have a clear line of sight on me—but then again, she might. It was hard to say, without being able to see her hands, and the way she was holding her gun. “You shot at my dog.”
    “He came up out of the bushes at me! He was going ow-ow-ow-ow !” Her onomatopoeia for the sound of Joe’s bark was shallow, restricted by the span of her rib cage, but it was surprisingly good: I would have recognized that bark anywhere.
    “Yeah, he does that when he’s running around his own backyard. It means he’s happy.” I didn’t move. “I know you have a gun. I know you took a shot at my dog. Do you have any more bullets? Because if you take another shot at my dog, I will have to return fire.”
    “Is he a good dog, or a bad, bitey dog? I don’t think I should have to leave bad, bitey dogs alone.” The woman in the tree sounded genuinely curious.