The dogs despise him. There is nothing more to say on their hatred of man, for a man.

Their kennels stack atop one another from floor to high ceiling, lining the walls and surrounding Finnian. A coliseum of roaring, animalistic grievance is all this room is and all it has been, as nothing can be heard over their barks, growls, and howls. Not to mention the odor of what mats their fur.

Slim Barbara pings him on the company chat application: Marie says they bite the new heiress too, followed by a fang emoji with canines as sharp as those in the cages, and a link.

Custodian Specialization: Animal Handler Entry Guide

After some time, the dogs quiet. Everything is quiet. Finnian clicks the link, a most provoking choice, as the hounds begin their theater once again.

The link is classified. Each time he makes an attempt to access it, it tells him the same thing:

Please Submit Evidence To Prove Competency. This May Include Detailed Reports, Witness Testimonials, or Footage of A Job Well Done

Finnian groans, and a few hounds howl alongside him.

It’s half a blessing, being in this room, he considers. After orientation, they place the new-hires into the open office with desks that could be seen by everyone. A real team-building environment was the intention, but for him and his fellow newbies lost amongst the busy shuffle, it was hell. Calls for cleanups are frequent, and if they can’t latch to someone like a harpoon, people would only stare—too short-staffed to guide the greenhorns, just attentive enough to wonder when they would get to work, but exhausted enough to want some firings and replacements.

Jamie, the program manager, grants the wish as he lumbers from his office for the first time in a week and remembers that he actually should onboard the new-hires. He orders them to gather at the daily stand-up meeting that they had not heard about until then, and then he doles out their sentences.

The list was long, a dozen in all, but it ends with Finnian: Solitary confinement in the kennel room.

“Don’t matter,” Jamie says, brushing off the fact that the Custodial Association does not recognize the freshie as an [Animal Handler]. “Sedate them early in the morning work block and they’ll be calm ‘til evening. One meal a day. Water ‘em. Bathroom ‘em. In your interview, you said you spent your summers volunteering on farms. Submit that as evidence to the Custodial Association and they should recognize you.”

The leashes are all fraying. That’s all that matters.

Finnian didn’t need recognition as an [Animal Handler] to handle this. The dogs go quiet on their own, so long as he isn’t moving or breathing too loud. So, he isn’t. Unnaturally still, exhaling through the nose, refusing to acknowledge the emails about the kennel room being a circus.

Talks of mandatory overtime travel through the air vents. Some people are staying on an extra week, so instead of two weeks on, then two weeks off, they’re three weeks on, then two off. This talk is ceaseless and a little exhausting—custodians always work overtime. From federal to county, there’s always complaints. Never enough of them. Hunters making bigger messes to show off.

He won’t be an [Animal Handler]. The leashes are all fraying.

“Again,” Jamie sighs. He spreads his hands, then moves them closer with each syllable. “Se-da-tion. Sedate the mutts, man. They’re not even real dogs.”

“What are they?”

“Freaky little demon things. Spirits? Look,” he says, leaning in and whispering, sketchier than graphite. “I got no clue what those things are and it ain’t just dogs in that room, but we got ‘em on inventory and State Custodial got us marked for an inspection in three weeks, so we just gotta’ keep ‘em alive—whatever that means.”

He slowly pulls back from his lean, bug-eyed and nodding as if an implication is apparent. As if the two in the room are on one train of thought. They aren’t.

“You get me, Finn,” Jamie says. “You’ll fit in just fine around here.”

Finnian can’t decipher a single thing going on. He is back in the kennel room and considers sedation, but decides against it. However, it is the last work block of the day, so he decides to feed the dogs and potential not-dogs. The process is more guesswork than procedure, as he still does not have access to the Custodial Association’s [Animal Handler] database.

Each cage gets the same: kibble and bits. The bits: leftover meat and marrow harvested from a corpse, reanimated after a day so it was technically still fresh.

“Is this Human?” he asks one of the not-dogs, he assumes. It only grows ravenous and bashes its body against the rusty bars, so he shoves the food bowl inside.

Each creature does the same. They dig their heads into the bowls with ferocity, tossing food and water more than consuming it. Then whatever cage catches the spill eats that.

The smallest of the creatures, a baby pitbull by the looks of it, throws itself against the bars. It launches itself from side to side, snarling, slamming into its cage walls until, with a reckless strike, the cage door gives way and crashes to the ground.

The grate skids across the floor. The room falls silent. The barking beasts shift from food to the one who has found freedom. Finnian’s heart sinks.

As if testing the truth, the baby pit sticks a paw on the outer lip of its cage. With a scrappy growl, it stares at Finnian and bounds for him.

Instinctively, Finnian tosses the bits at the bitch and sprints for the front door.

He slams it hard and can feel the dog crash against it, then continue to thud rhythmically. A group of coworkers stroll by from up the hall to the beat of the bestial drummer, and they smirk like this is an inside joke. Finnian feels as if he’s the butt of it.

One of the coworkers stops and looks down. “Jamie wants you in his office.”

Straightening the uniform, Finnian knocks on the door frame and stands just outside the office.

“How’re you holding up?”

“Well—”

“There’s a gig tomorrow morning,” Jamie interrupts. “Some hotel. Should be simple—the team needs you to prep one of those creatures.”

“I’m not an [Animal Handler],” Finnian says, trying to hide the desperation in his voice.

“I thought you were a team player,” Jamie replies. “That’s what it says on your resume. Is your resume a lie, Finnian? Did you lie to me, Finnian?”

That was what he put in the soft skills of his resume. Everyone puts those in there. Team player. Good communicator. Hard worker. Problem-solver.

“No, sir. I did not lie to you.”

“Please don’t,” he says. “Look, if you even just submit the work you did today for the county, you should get access to the database for [Animal Handler]. Then you’ll find Octavia, ask her what she needs, and you’ll prep the dog. Simple.”

Finnian also put on his resume that he was applying for a field position. The only reason he mentioned spending summers on farms was for a bit of proof on his work ethic. And he hardly did any work during those months.

“That’s all, Finnian.”

“You told me I would be helping in the field. Not stuck in some room all day.”

“You are helping, but people rarely go out their first few months. Lots of studying, lots of grinding out achievements to get more access to their database. Lots of team procedures. It can be hell out there—one misstep and it’s…” He gestures with his hands in a way that can only fit the description of a magician casting a spell.

“Heard, sir.”

“I mean, let a [Hunter] get called back to the site because of a [Custodian]. Career suicide.”

“Heard, sir.”

“You really get me, Finnian.”

“We need new leashes, sir.”

“The leashes in the kennel room are fine.”

Sharply, Finnian raises a rope hanging by a literal thread. It can no longer receive the title of leash. It is a thing which dangles and twists in the air under the weight of Jamie’s gaze, who stares as if he can will the fibers to reconnect. As if he can reestablish their profession. He cannot, and they do not. They hang limply and lonely, and Finnian stares at the now limp and lonely Jamie.

“Try a chain,” Jamie says.

“I’ll consider it, sir,” Finnian responds.

A tiny television crackles to life with the daily news. Downtown, City Sanitation’s Hazardous Entity Disposal Unit is elaborately removing a creature. Difficult to identify, it is more a mass of wriggling caught in the throes of death, lashing with dozens of tentacles.

“See,” Marie tells Slim Barbara. “County is good. County is safe. City is bad. City is horrid. Look at that thing… whatever that is.”

“Parasitic autophagic tumor,” Barbara says, one eye on a book, the other on the small screen.

“Hazard pay is what it is,” Marie tells her.

“It's a big one,” Barbara responds. “Real big. City bad, but the city pay.”

One of the [Custodians] who is supposed to be in sync, moves too far to the left of their ant-like maneuvers. A tentacle lashes, knocking the worker through a shop window. It holds it up with another tentacle, and the [Custodians] scramble to rescue their coworker.

“Big hazard pay,” Marie replies.

Finnian decides this is the time to poke his head into their dorm room, as he was waiting on a time where he wouldn’t interrupt them.

“Maria.”

“Young Finnian,” she says before turning from her vanity mirror. Despite only being in her early thirties, her makeup is reminiscent of the eighties—bold, with sharp eyeliner and eyeshadow. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“I need to prep a dog?”

“Is that a question?” Slim Barbara asks.

“I don’t actually know if they’re… I need to prep a creature in the kennel room. I don’t know how.”

“I sent him a link this morning, Maria,” Slim Barbara says.

“She sent you a link this morning,” Maria says. “What’s the problem?”

“Oh, um, I’m not an [Animal Handler].”

“You can submit a form CA 2875 for authorization and say it’s job-related,” Maria says.

“Thanks…” He isn’t going to be doing that. There is another way; he just needs to find it. “And, uh, do you know anything about tomorrow’s gig?”

“Not much to it,” Marie says. “Second floor of a motel was tormented by a banshee or three. Sonic residue, emotional imprints, sleep torment, blah, blah, blah. Problem is the [Hunter] who put it down loves a big mess—not that I can knock them, the job is hard and spontaneous, but the fight did not have to spill in the hallway.”

“Oh,” Finnian says. “If it’s a big mess, do y’all need any extra hands?”

“Octavia gave me the go-ahead to bring Barbara,” Marie says. “Check with her and see if she lets you tag along. Shouldn’t be a problem, but you’ll want access to the [Animal Handler] database or something. She’s a nice boss if you’re useful.”

“I keep trying to tell people I’m not an [Animal Handler].”

The two women exchange a look before Barbara scoffs. “Make sure you tell Octavia that.”

Ambling back down the hall, Finnian peers into the kennel room through the small window. The baby pitbull is eating off the floor. It snaps at another dog who clearly wants out of its cage too, but instead, it cowers to the back.

The day is almost over. They probably need to use the bathroom.

“This won’t work,” Finnian says to himself. He takes a few breaths, then swings the door open and closes it before the pit can escape.

“Stop!” He puts a hand up, and the dog, shockingly, stops. It quickly remembers no one is in charge here and growls.

Finnian slowly moves himself to the back door, never taking his eyes off the dog.

“That’s right,” he says. “We don’t need an [Animal Handler] mark staining our record. Y’all don’t need any sedatives. Your sedative is right here.”

He keeps one hand up while the other grabs the leash near the door. Though it’s shoddy, he holds it up, and the dog stops growling and slowly approaches.

“Yeah, you know what this is. Whatever [Animal Handler] came before must’ve walked you at least once, you dumb dog.”

As the dog nuzzles against his leg, Finnian clasps the leash to the collar and opens the door. The plan is to take them out one-by-one. It’ll be slow, but it’s currently the only option right now.

As they step outside, the humid violence of summer rips them apart. The tiny pitbull bolts, the leash snapping like a gunshot—a betrayal harsher than the heat, Finnian feels.

“I hate it here,” Finnian says.