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Bad Dogs Escape

By James Patrick Kelly

/SFX/ CLOCK TICKING, FADE TO

/SFX/ DOGS BARKING IN DISTANCE

SAM: Like?

BECCA: Like.

SAM: (growls like a dog, sexy)

BECCA: Like?

SAM: Like.

/SFX/ DOGS BARKING IN DISTANCE

BECCA: Lick?

SAM: (giggles) Like.

BECCA: (howls like a dog)

/SFX/ DOGS BARKING CLOSER

SAM: They’re busy today.

BECCA: Man’s best friend.

(SAM and BECCA laugh)

MEL: (in distance) Help!

SAM: Uh-oh.

BECCA: Company.

/SFX/ DOGS BARKING, CLOSER

MEL: (outside) Open up. Help!

/SFX/ PANICKY KNOCKING ON DOOR

MEL: (outside) For God’s sake, let me in!

SAM: Already with God. Leave him.

BECCA: No, let’s take a look. I could use a laugh.

/SFX/ FOOTSTEPS. WINDOW SLIDES OPEN.

SAM: Good enough to eat?

BECCA: You’re bad.

/SFX/ DOGS BARKING

MEL: I can see you in there. Hurry. Please.

BECCA: Where’s the controller?

SAM: You’re not letting him in?

/SFX/ DOGS BARKING

/SFX/ MORE KNOCKING

BECCA: This’ll be fun. Is the taser charged?

SAM: Let’s see.

/SFX/ TASER ZAP

SAM: Yep.

BECCA: I bet nine minutes.

SAM: Not fair. You can see him.

/SFX/ GARAGE DOOR OPENING

BECCA: Nine is my bet. Yours?

SAM: Way too quick. Ten minutes. No, eleven.

BECCA: Done. (calls to Mel) It’s an overhead door. You have to crawl.

MEL: (outside) What? They’re coming fast.

SAM: Crawl under!

/SFX/ CRAWLING, GRUNTING

MEL: Shut it, shut it now!

/SFX/ GARAGE DOOR CLOSING

MEL: Thank you, thank you, thank you. You saved my life.

/SFX/ STANDS, MORE GRUNTS, DUSTS HIMSELF OFF

MEL: But who are you?

BECCA: Me, Becca. She, Sam. You?

SAM: Mel Gibson, maybe.

BECCA: Our road warrior.

(SAM and BECCA laugh)

MEL: (confused) No, my name is Fish. Robert Fish. You can call me Bob.

SAM: Or I can call you Mel Gibson.

MEL: I beg your pardon, but that’s not my name. My name is Bob.

SAM: Mel. (beat) Gibson.

BECCA: You’re bad, Sam. (beat) So Mel, you must be from the vault.

MEL: The vault?

BECCA: The big underground storage thingy. All the fatcats snoozing away.

MEL: You mean the Cultural Preservation Facility? That was top secret back when … but I suppose you must know all about it by now.

BECCA: Not all.

SAM: Something about your old government.

BECCA: You people wasted everything. And then millions died.

SAM: Billions.

MEL: We tried. We tried very hard. It wasn’t as if we couldn’t see what was coming. The droughts, tornados, the economy going south. But it didn’t happen all at once. Then the Raccoon flu, the antibiotics were useless. The wheat crop failed two years in a row. Then came riots, cities on fire, madness. When we lost control we gathered the best — scientists, economists, engineers, architects into the CPF ….

SAM: CPF?

MEL: The Cultural Preservation Facility. The vault. The Congressional Committee selected a hundred volunteers to enter suspended animation pods to sleep through all the disasters. Wait, how long has it been?

SAM: Since when?

MEL: I mean, what year is this?

SAM: Pick one. They’re all available.

BECCA: My mom never kept a calendar. Did yours, Sam?

SAM: You met my mom.

BECCA: Right. So anyway, Mel, you decided to snooze while the world went to the dogs.

MEL: Everything was flying apart. We tried to save what we could. But something went wrong.

SAM: You think?

MEL: No, I mean in the CPF. The main power was rated for fifty years, then if nobody woke us up the backup was supposed to kick in. But for some reason, it’s only running at half power. Whole sections are shutting down. I was lucky, I just barely escaped being deactivated with my pod.. That was what … a couple of days ago? I’ve been wandering around until I got here. But what is this place? Some kind of fallout shelter?

BECCA: Shelter? Sure.

SAM: And you’re the fallout.

/SFX/ CLOCK TICKING, UNDER

(SAM and BECCA laugh)

MEL: I’m sorry. Do you want me to leave?

BECCA: Not yet.

SAM: There’s still time. See my wristwatches?

MEL: Umm, yes. (wary) I couldn’t help but notice all the watches you girls are wearing. How many is that?

BECCA: I have twelve. She has more.

SAM: Eighteen. Nine on each arm.

BECCA: You like? We’re collectors.

MEL: (still wary) Umm, lovely. (beat) I’m sorry, but like I said, I’ve been hiding from the dogs now for a couple of days and I’m starving. Have you got anything to eat?

BECCA: Sure.

/SFX/ RUMMAGING SOUNDS, WRAPPING PAPER CRINKLES

MEL: Twinkies?

BECCA: A snack classic. (reads) Golden Sponge Cake and Creamy Filling.

MEL: You’re saying you live on Twinkies?

SAM: Why not? Enriched with vitamins. Never go bad.

BECCA: The secret ingredient? Polysorbate 60.

SAM: Partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, sweet dairy whey, soy protein isolate.

BECCA: The perfect food.

MEL: (with mouth full) So you know about the CPF? (swallows) Does that mean you’ve seen any of the others?

BECCA: Some.

SAM: Not many.

MEL: Is there anyone else? Other survivors like you?

BECCA: Nope.

SAM: Not like us.

MEL: You can’t be serious. Where is everyone?

SAM: Dogs.

BECCA: Bad dogs.

MEL: What are you saying? That they’re all dead?

BECCA: Maybe. Sure.

SAM: Dog food.

MEL: That’s terrible. (beat) I can’t believe how quickly it all went away. Everything out there is in ruins.

SAM: Mother Nature.

BECCA: Kind of a bitch.

SAM: You pissed her off.

MEL: And it’s just you two here?

SAM: Just me and Becca.

MEL: No men?

BECCA: Ha! Five minutes!

MEL: Wait– what? Why did you just say that?

BECCA: No reason. We like to keep track of the time.

SAM: So little of it these days.

/SFX/ CLOCK TICKING

MEL: Excuse me for saying this, but you’re a little bit odd, aren’t you? I mean, the way you talk, all the watches, the Twinkies. This is going to take some getting used to. (beat) Wait, are you lesbians?

BECCA: She is. I’m just lonely.

SAM: So Mel, what were you?

MEL: Beg pardon?

SAM: If the vault was full of the best, what were you best at?

MEL: I was the Congressman from the second district in New Hampshire.

BECCA: So you selected you?

MEL: No. No, I wasn’t on the CPF committee. – I served on Judiciary but I was just starting my third term. I was picked because I was single. And healthy. And young. I was first elected when I was twenty-six. I was the only politician chosen.

SAM: An over-achiever.

BECCA: Get it done!

SAM: Take charge!

MEL: I guess you could say that.

BECCA: Then we’re saved.

SAM: Mel Gibson to the rescue.

(SAM and BECCA laugh)

MEL: I wish you wouldn’t call me that. (beat) I see you have a computer.

/SFX/ FOOTSTEPS

MEL: Does it work?

/SFX/ WINDOWS LOGON SOUND

BECCA: It’s Windows Vista, but yeah.

SAM: No internet.

/SFX/ RUMMAGING SOUNDS

SAM: But loads of CDs and DVDs.

BECCA: Encyclopedias.

SAM: Audiobooks.

BECCA: Movies. Lots of porn. Watch some?

MEL: No, thanks. (beat) Maybe later. And you’ve got electricity, obviously.

BECCA: Five generators. Gasoline powered. Ten kilowatts each.

SAM: Bunches of gas stations nearby.

MEL: Water?

BECCA: Well.

MEL: Food?

BECCA: Yummy snacks.

MEL: We can certainly do better than that.

SAM: Can we, Mel? Really?

MEL: Look, Becca …

SAM: Sam. I’m Sam, she’s Becca.

MEL: Sam, right. Sorry. I don’t know why you’ve decided not to like me, but I can’t let that matter. For the time being, we have to assume that we’re the last people on earth.

BECCA: Sure.

MEL: That means we’re going to have to get along.

BECCA: (seductively) Get along?

MEL: Make a new start.

/SFX/ CLOCK TICKING

BECCA: What kind of start?

MEL: Well, I’m thinking ….

BECCA: Think out loud.

MEL: No, it’s too much, too soon.

BECCA: No, it isn’t. Time is short.

MEL: (embarrassed) Well it’s just that you’re women and I’m a man and maybe someday … someday we might … we might ….

BECCA: Might?

MEL: You know … try to make babies.

/SFX/ TIMER DING

SAM: Yes! Ten minutes, twenty-six seconds.

BECCA: Damn!

MEL: What? What did I say? Becca, what’s going on here?

BECCA: Nothing. Forget it.

SAM: Just why would we be making these … babies?

MEL: Like I said, we’re going to have to start over.

SAM: Are you suggesting we repopulate the earth?

BECCA: With children?

SAM: It would have to be lots and lots of children.

BECCA: Go forth and multiply

SAM: One times two equals fun for Mel Gibson.

(SAM and BECCA laugh)

MEL: That’s kind of crude, don’t you think?

SAM: So we start over why?

MEL: I would say it’s our duty. To mankind, I mean.

SAM: Ah, mankind. You weren’t very nice people, from what we read.

BECCA: Lots of greed. Killing. And you left us this.

MEL: It wasn’t our fault.

SAM: No?

BECCA: So, you’re bowing to the biological imperative?

MEL: That’s not what I said.

SAM: Reproduction and survival.

BECCA: Territorialism.

SAM: Competition.

MEL: Now wait a minute. We can do better. We’ll have to do better.

BECCA: The problem with Adam and Eve-ing , Mel ….

MEL: Bob. Please.

BECCA: … the gene pool here is kind of shallow.

MEL: I know, I know.

BECCA: Genetic diversity, not so much. Inbreeding is nasty.

SAM: Just because they did it in the Bible doesn’t mean it works.

BECCA: This is real life.

MEL: Yes, of course. But what’s the alternative? Just giving up? I can’t accept that.

SAM: That’s what we were afraid of.

BECCA: Do him, Sam.

MEL: Wait, what’s that?

SAM: It’s a taser, Mel. Don’t worry it won’t hurt.

BECCA: Much.

MEL: No. Get away from me.

/SFX/ STRUGGLE

BECCA: Now.

MEL: Don’t

/SFX/ TASER ZAP

MEL: (screams)

/SFX/ BODY HITS GROUND

MEL: (moans)

SAM: (breathless) Got the chloroform?

BECCA: (breathless) Here.

MEL: (muffled moan, then silence)

/SFX/ CLOCK TICKING

BECCA: Ten minutes, twenty-six. He just wouldn’t get to the point.

SAM: You almost had him.

BECCA: Almost.

/SFX/ TWINKIE WRAPPER CRINKLES

BECCA: But you won. Here’s your Twinkie.

SAM: But you were right. (with mouth full) That was totally fun.

BECCA: You’re bad.

(SAM and BECCA laugh)

SAM: So? Hang him in the freezer with the others?

BECCA: Already? Let’s play with him some more.

SAM: You’re kidding. (beat) You’re not kidding.

BECCA: He’s kind of cute. We could tie him up.

SAM: And then what?

BECCA: He’s young. And a man. Couldn’t we train him?

SAM: Becca, these people ruined the world. They’re criminals.

BECCA: I know, I know. But it’s too crowded in the freezer.

SAM: Dogs, then?

BECCA: (sulky) Sure.

/SFX/ BODY BEING DRAGGED

/SFX/ GARAGE DOOR OPENING

SAM: (calling) Here Buster! Lassie!

/SFX/ DOGS BARKING IN DISTANCE

BECCA: Lunchtime, Bullet! (whistles) Toto! Petey!

SAM: Help us do our duty to mankind.

BECCA: You’re bad.

SAM: We’re bad.

(SAM and BECCA laugh, under …)

/SFX/ DOGS FIGHTING, THEN FADE

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Host Commentary

It’s a Flashback Friday, and I’m excited to take you back to 2011. Today we’re reintroducing you to “Bad Dogs Escape” by James Patrick Kelly.

Thirteen years ago, y’all. Escape Pod is primarily a short fiction market, but on the rare occasion, we will do something else. A sound effect here, an audio drama there. When I found out we could do a three person audio drama by James Patrick Kelly, I was on board. Kelly has won numerous awards, and has been a mentor and teacher to tons of up and coming science fiction authors.

I love the trope of a guy suddenly offering his sperm as a cure to save the world, as if one man and one or two women could save the world and not just birth an inbred family that will die after a few generations. I did wonder if these two women were the last people on earth-becca was lonely, after all- or if there were people around but these two wanted the escapees of the vault to have nothing to do with them.

The amazing computer game “Fallout” just got a TV show on Amazon Prime, and it’s fairly true to the aesthetic of the game–happy pollyanna folks secure in a vault go outside of it, and do not get a warm welcome from the people who make their living in the nuclear wasteland. Recommended, although it is quite violent and brutal. Be prepared for gore.

It’s really interesting how some stories have taken the “you can save this world, and you’re the only one!” stories and turned them into “the world is seriously broken, maybe it should die.” NK Jemisin’s The Fifth Season is like that, as is the movie Cabin in the Woods. [Spoiler. Sorry.]

Sometimes instead of saving the world, we just want to make to from day to day. while this was a cute and brutal story, it does beg the question of whether the world was worth saving.

I tell you what, if the world ended and someone came to me wanting to rent out my womb to save humanity, I’d tell them to come back when they’ve found all the good drugs. Labor? in a world such as “Fallout”, or “Bad Dogs Escape”? No thanks.

The quote we leave you with is from the Buddha: “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”