Life After People: Best Friends

Mankind has only been gone for a week and already the animal kingdom is beginning to reassert its authority over the world. The bats, once controlled by mankind's spraying, airplanes, and boomerangs, have multiplied unchecked and overwhelmed their natural predators. Vast swarms of them swoop around gothic cathedrals and take up residence in newly abandoned factories.

Domestic cats able to escape from houses have taken up residence in museum ships parked along rivers and in harbors. They prefer tall ships and sailboats, but any vessel will make a good home for the time being. Unlucky cats will share the hulls of submarines with hungry pythons and cobras that prefer submarines for the introspective solitude they offer.

Trapped inside abandoned houses by their missing owners, the world's dogs will struggle to find food. Those dogs lucky enough to be outside may help those dogs inside escape. Once loosed on the streets, the dogs will remember their previous lives and pile into forgotten cars to await drivers and rides that will never come. When the cleverest dog starts the first motor, dogs will come from hundreds of miles around to see and learn the way of the car.