Beasts of New York | Page 6

him if he did. His only hope was to keep
running. He ran so hard and so fast that after crossing the wasteland he
very nearly ran headfirst into the mountain.
Patch stopped just in time and looked around, breathless, amazed at
what he had just done. Having reached his destination he did not know
what to do next. This was a new and alien world. The ground was
entirely concrete; he couldn't see a single blade of grass on this side of
the wasteland. The mountain before him was a perfectly vertical wall of
rock that reared into the sky far higher than any tree. There was
wasteland on two sides; behind him, the wide barrier he had just
crossed, teeming with death machines, and to his right, a narrower
offshoot that ran deeper into the mountains, occupied only by
stationary death machines along its edges. Patch wondered if they were
dead or only sleeping. He hoped for dead. At least there were a few
trees along the side of this narrow wasteland, although they were small
and withered, their trunks were caged with bricks, and they were
spaced so far apart there was no sky-road. Between some of the trees,
in the distance, Patch saw a few piles of what looked like big, shiny
black rocks.
There were no other animals, only a few passing humans. But while
these humans did not approach Patch, they seemed to be directing their
attention towards him. This made him very nervous. Humans were
huge and unpredictable. Some humans who entered the Center
Kingdom spilled food all around them, but the younger ones often tried
to attack squirrels, and all of them smelled extraordinarily strange.
Patch sniffed the air. Beneath the thick acrid fumes of the death
machines and the alien scent of humanity, he smelled danger. He
smelled dogs. Upwind, to the north, across the narrow wasteland, three
large dogs leashed to an old human were approaching. Patch hoped the
wasteland would forestall them -- but as he watched, the dogs began to
cross. And then the lead dog saw Patch, and its eyes lit up like flames.

"Kill you and eat you!" it howled ecstatically. "Kill you and eat you!"
The other dogs joined in. "Kill you and eat you! Kill you and eat you!
Kill you and eat you!"
Patch didn't stop to listen. Dog conversation was always the same.
Patch scrambled for the nearest scrawny tree, and raced right up to its
crown.
"Kill you and eat you, kill you and eat you, kill you and eat you!" the
dogs howled at him, while they tried to pull their human towards the
tree. But the human, while old, was still a massive creature, and to
Patch's relief it pulled the homicidal dogs along until they vanished
behind the corner of the mountain.
Patch looked around. He stood atop a sickly tree, surrounded by
mountains and wasteland. Beneath him, a death machine shuddered
into motion and roared forward, and Patch realized to his horror that all
those machines that were not moving were not dead, only sleeping, and
might come to life at any moment.
Patch was starving, but worse, he was so terrified he could hardly move.
He wished with all his heart he had never crossed the wasteland into the
mountains. He saw and smelled no food here. And he did not dare
descend from this scrawny tree. There was no safety below. Between
the mountains and the line of death machines beneath him there was a
slightly raised strip of concrete, in which the trees were set; but it was
perfectly apparent to Patch that the death machines, with their terrible
rolling feet, could easily rampage down this narrow strip too if they so
desired. Nowhere and nothing in the mountains was safe.

A Welcome Discovery
"Patch!" a voice chirped. "Patch, is that you?"
Patch looked to the sky and his heart filled with relief as a bluejay
fluttered downwards and settled on a nearby branch. Nothing dispels

fear like the unexpected arrival of a friend.
"What are you doing here?" Toro asked, amazed.
"I came to get food," Patch said. "You said there was food here."
"There is. Just down there." Toro pointed with his beak deeper into the
mountains. "Inside those black things. Around them too, sometimes."
"The rocks?" Patch asked doubtfully, but as he looked, he saw the skins
of what he had taken to be rocks fluttering in the cold wind.
"Some of them are full of food. Food falls right out of them. Go on
down, I'll show you."
"Go on down," Patch said, even more doubtfully.
"It's perfectly safe. Just follow me," Toro said.
The bluejay launched himself into the wind, angled his wings into a
slow gliding turn, and came