The Nebuchadnezzar magazine

A short story by E.K. Anderson

Edit 1: November 25, 2025.

“I think that I shall never return,” said the Dog to his mate. 

“It’s just that the world is big–quite big in fact, and we need space, you and I. He was sure he sounded insensitive, anthropomorphic as humans were, en route to a bad break-up.

By the look in his mate’s eye, the Dog knew, she had taken it personal, as the forest adage went, “with more than a morsel of meat.”

At dawn, after a sultry walk through the pine, his ambition bordered piety. He felt aloof, with a demeanor strangely meticulous. Ivan was the scheming sort, as he’d planned this for a long time unbeknownst to his significant other. He did this sparingly, for a peace of mind–in which case his mate would look at him with subjugation. 

The forest was not his own. It had felt like it, though for the past decade or so. 

He was a runaway from a puppy mill.The manager, an egregious punk no older than twenty, beat the dogs. He named them after numbers, and confined them to staunch, wooden crates in which the Dog, and his companions remained. On those nights, when each dog was confined to his respective crateThe stink of urine and shit agitated his nostrils. The collar was a blade that cut deep into the flesh of his neck. It winced at his larynx so that he breathed in calculated breaths. This did not dissuade him from contributing within the cacophony,

They howled ceaselessly-all of them–long into the night, an unabated, disjointed unison. Soon, the sounds dissipated, one after the next like a sedated mob. 

When The manager arrived in the morning. He let the dogs out, one by one. 

Three, four…sixty nine!

6 was an old mastiff. He clouted this one in the ear. 

Seven! He kicked a cowering terrier.

When the kennel owner got to his crate Ivan peeled his lips, baring white teeth.

Then the punk went down. The dog saw only red.

Afterward, Ivan looked at his handiwork. He’d mauled the manager. warm blood eeked down his throat. He licked away strips of flesh from his chops. The punk’s face-or the remainder thereof hung like a flap adhered by several sinews. 

By that point, the ferocity left him. He’d wagged his tail, at the appraisal of his comrades, then proceeded to free them. He gnawed at the twine rope that adhered the enclosures shut. Then, the others: young and lame did the same, and followed him. 

The following day, after eating the dwindling, stale rations, they ran. It was a slow, tentative trot at first, each unsure of the other through the forest Then, together their confidence grew and the moderate gait gave way to immersive exertion. Running now, the pack yipped into the winter sky, throwing clods of dirt behind them. Dust leapt, sullying air. 

With satisfaction He led them. Brazen They wandered to the city. 

They stayed there for a time, upon a city upon a hill, the locals called Coney Island.  By day the dogs laid on the beach, and bathed on the ocean’s waters. By night they ate the remnant hotdogs, and snowcones, and hamburger meat left by locals.

They would chase one another between the island’s rusted carnival rides, the sort of of archaic fossils meant for children.

But one day a group of men got him, and the rest of the dogs scattered.

He was brought in a crate to a place the men called a Society. There, there were other dogs, other strays: of all sizes. 

An older black man had walked in. He was graying, with a shadow of beard beneath his chin. He had sought him out as a widower, after his wife had passed, and had sought out a companion.  

When the Dog was purchased, the Man removed the soot, and fleas. They cured his mange with balm. The removed the embedded collar.  Without the collar, the dog breathed comfortably, and the maggots were gone. The old man had named him, Max. 

Such craziness, the dog thought. To be referred to by a name.

After the man died, the dog had raised a litter of pups here, underneath the oak. Adjacent to the forest was a factory. And it spewed plumes, night and day.

His pups were not aware of this: they basked in the naivety of infancy, and when their mother was gone away., to be left in his fair keeping, he’d take them next to the brook. There, they’d drink and several would swim, underneath the umbra of tree. He remembered that season, the smell of it. In those days, they could do that. Unbounded.

It started with the rain. It fell as it normally did as a smooth verga running sideways over the fauna. Then the day came when the shrubs shriveled and the oak fell encumbered by it’s own weight. The first of the pups died, at the onset of it. Several more bore rashes, and come late summer–those days before Falls earlyevenings, and the briskness–the whole litter had died.

On one of his strolls, he’d encountered a man. He’d been fishing alongside a precipice. 

Despite his prowess, the man had seen him before he’d anticipated, but he did not react. No, this man was different–accustomed to dogs but he did not venture farther. The dog thought of his comrades, the ones who had fallen to the Takers: their outcome he knew not.

So he kept his distance, despite his hunger. 

It was several days before he saw the old man and his bucket of fish. This time he crept further. He made a point–this time– of masking his presence, behind a pine tree.

I still see you, Little one, said the man. His back was still turned, casting. Then he turned and smiled. 

It wasn’t the sort of smile that the Punk had given him, beset with an insidious intent. No malice was present. His face, regardless of the years was set with fixation, but his eyes were like his own. An old man with dogs eyes.

The old man did not beckon him. He didn’t even coax him, but the dog came of his own accord. 

It was just the two of them: the dog and his mate. The dogs mate, a runaway huskie from Idaho, who had joined him in the initial run from the mill.

But without a litter and subsequent prospects on the forest he had nothing.

He’d considered running away with her.

*

Ivan, had gone looking for the Man. The one who had been loyal to him, and he had been loyal to. He trotted alongside a narrow road, a place of his passing beneath a bridge. There was nothing but the howl of wind in that place, and Ivan, despite his fur grew cold. 

There was a scent in the air, a miasma, by which he could detect a rank odor. The atmosphere was grim, and the hair on Ivan’s neck raised to the brisk like burs. 

Where was the Man? He wondered. 

Where had the People taken him. Ivan shuttered to think. He shook the thick mane upon his body. 

This was when things went Southward.

He walked closer to the arch. There a figure hung by a noose and rope in the wind, swaying. The interlopers had all but left. 

He saw the Manager, a foolish sort – his face still puffed and swollen from the bite he’d rendered. The flap of skin which Ivan had bitten fell looked thick and inflated – his head like a balloon. 

The Manager was stoking a fire beneath the Man. The Man who hung as a drapery. The Man who swayed in the wind.

Then, the Manager laughed at his compadres. Some in trucks, most with strange ink upon their arms, necks, and heads. 

The Manager took a rubber tire from the scrap pile, and placed it on the fire. The log he took next. The fire grew. So hot and so fierce.

Ivan looked upon the Mob. Most were laughing, but the Manager remained silent. 

“This is the kind of thing, you live for,” said the Manager. His eyes brighted more fierce than the fire. They fire, Ivan supposed, rose to his contentment, as the flames licked at the Man’s bare toes, and then his feet, and then his denim pants.

The conflagration began almost as suddenly as its initial spark. The end within the conception. 

Ivan growled. The men, four in all, were mighty. Not the sort that appeared frail or decrepit. Their burly nature did nothing to insight fear in him however. 

There was a resolution, that he could smell in the air. A resolution in his panting, and in his tense muscles — the striations of which shown through his fur.

This then, is the end, thought Ivan to himself. This, is the end of Age, the end of a glory he could not see — but whatever it was he needed to do — he knew his next step was indeed right. 

The Dog within barked, not a harrowing whimper but an ancestral, and atavistic bay of a wolf. That was the battle cry. Then, came the charge. 

The Dog could only see within a narrow scope of his vision. He could see a flash here and there. An ember, a limb torn asunder, and perhaps entrails but that was all he saw. 

He felt the slick taste of iron conduce down his throat, a solvent by which he could only imagine as a tangible retribution. 

He could see the last of the men flaying about, some shouting as their necks gurgled with blood. Others face down upon the gravel beneath the bridge. 

Then, he heard the sound of many wolves. All of which baying, and howling, and snarling. 

The Wolves came then. Some arrived from the outskirts of the forest. Others came from the hills. 

The pack was numerous. 

“Eat,” Ivan, the Dog said. 

And they did. 

*

By the end of it, all that was left was for the fowl to eat — the carrion picking at the eyes of the People. Then, there was a sort of personhood, by which Ivan noticed in the Man. Though, he had long expired at the gallows, he could see a soft wan smile — the sort by which The Man had given him the first time he had washed him free of fleas, and cured his mange. 

It was a gentle approval. 

The dogs slept at the edge of the forest. They slept, bellies full of meat. Ivan, who had not partaken of the feast kept watch for any more of the People. He exited the forest clearing as a sentinel, but all he could see was a grayness of clouds, and the stillness of their vehicles. 

He trotted to the forest clearing, and heard a noise. 

This was of a she-wolf. He trotted most cautiously, on over to her. Making his way away from her secret enclave, as she whimpered. 

She was birthing a wolf pup, and the she-wolf, borne of silver and white fur sighed in the last grief of her burden.

Ivan waited. He did not know what to do. Whether to console, and nurture — or to depart. 

He settled on staying there for a time, and keeping his stead. He kept himself, in a sullen place of mind – between the rivalry of his own curiosity, and the urge to walk away. 

The she-wolf, he observed, was quite beautiful. Her fur shone in the pale moonlight, and struck the glimmer of starlight unto him.

The she-wolf picked up his scent. She snarled. The pup wined. 

Who goes there?

The proclamation was fierce. It was guttural, and it was loud. 

It is I, said Ivan– unveiling himself from the thick penumbra, that shadow by which the moon did not touch. It is I, the Dog that found you. 

The she-wolf’s snout twitched. Her snarl went down, and her stretched lips returned from back over her teeth. 

That is enough. She said. 

Have you been watching me? She said. 

Yes, said Ivan. I have. 

There was a brief pause between the two, as if they had picked up the same scent in the wind. 

The pup, now rolling in the leaves, and grass, and brambles uttered a whine. A sheer cry, and whimper that both drew their attention. 

Look, now, this is my son. 

Ivan looked upon the pup. He looked upon the frail whimpering form, with large paws, and smiled. He wagged his tail. 

The silver sheen of his mother, had shown and reflected upon the She-wolf herself. Like twins, this looked akin to another – all for the exception of a stripe upon the pup’s back. 

He resembles you, said Ivan. 

The she-wolf grinned. 

Very much so. She paused. 

He bares the mark of his father. 

*

The Dog, and the She-wolf became one. As mates they would frolick in the woods. They would banter amidst the meadows, and run betwitxt the trees. And the pup would accompany them. 

It started in the Valley.

He saw the People. Several now, stoking fires — the like of which were great. There were many fires on the outskirts of the forest, and vehicles — larger than he’d ever seen. 

He heard a snap from down in the valley. A tree was being cut down. He saw thick canopy plummet down, as the lumber jacks haggled it with their truck. 

The fire frolicked, and collected at the outskirts. It started off small, but the scent of the smoke in the forest was great. 

Death, he had seen this before. Ivan then turned to his mate. 

It is time. The She-wolf consoled her cub. Ivan bayed long and loud for the rest of the Pack to draw near. 

I think, that I shall never return said Ivan to the lot of them. 

I think that I shall return back where the People are, and protect this forest from here on forth. 

Yes, Ivan nodded. That is what I shall do. 

Then, the rest of the Pack whined and bayed. Some whimpered in lamentation. 

Who will lead us? Said one to another.

She will, said Ivan. Pointing his nose in the direction of the She-wolf. She will lead you. 

The Dog’s mate smiled. She gazed upon him in a way, and manner that he could have imagined her to be. Goodbye, he said. Just then, he found a better scent — this one of a man.

Venture further into the forest. Ivan told the rest. Venture where the People cannot find you. 

That is the way by which he ushered them away. 

He stood on the cliff crag. The place where the forest trees stopped growing — a lookout point from where he could see all else at the bottom. 

The fire was getting fierce now, and the People — Men in red uniforms could not contain it. There was much noise from down there, guffawing, and yelling. 

Ivan continued downwards from off the perch. If he was to stop anything at this point, it was by meeting another Man. 

He treaded cautiously throughout the bramble — waiting as he always had until he caught the scent of a man, near the fire.

Just then, he caught sight of one. A short, bearded man with a fire hose abating the fire. The man was different from the other People who had killed the Man — his owner. They numbered 6.

They had huddled in a cove. A small, ambient place – dark and murky, with a faint smell of musk 

The men who huddled there smelled of smoke and soot, and aggravation.

There was a ruddy disposition in the air, of cortisol and stress, and the Dog carried on most precariously.

“That is the way of the things; the matter of things. And in doing so, we carry on.”

“Despite?” Said the younger man.

There was a pause from the older man.

“Yes, even despite.”

“What of the lumberjacks, and the Machine men?” Said the small bearded man.

“What of them?”

The Men grew silent.

He, the man at the helm, took a drink from his flask, and looked outward.

He looked forward past the line of trees, past the horizon to a place that only he could see.

He saw Ivan. And Ivan saw him.

“There is little that we can do about the men who destroy.”

“Let them go, ” said the smaller, wan man. He smoked a cigarette. And took a long hard draft from his cigar, with eyes upon the bearded man.

“This is what we do,” said the man at the helm.

“We wait until the Machine men settle for camp.”

Another long draw.

“And then we take their guns, their hacksaws, and their artillery.”

*

The firefighters waited until dusk. Then they saw the campfires and the fire machines of the Machine men, and the blistering fires that came from their machinations. 

Ivan kept his post. He could smell the smoke in the air, and taste gasoline in the air. 

He heard the clunking of men automatons. He heard their clicks and their gears, and their motors, marching through the forest.

“There are those who embody life, but they are not of life,” said the man at the helm.

I’ll stay out here, until the Dog comes back.

That infamous nature, that quintessential place in between.

Do not worry men. The day will come again.

The hibiscus tree grew, a perennial from where Chloe was buried.