Coyote (9 page)

She did not respond, and the silence became tense.

Then Bait, behind her, responded.

“Coyote.”

They all turned to look at him. “What?” he asked, looking first at her and then at the Mule. “She’s surely half wild-animal herself, and she’s unpredictable, you’ve gotta give her that. I mean, I sure as shit can’t tell what she’s gonna do next.” At that moment, his brain seemed to catch up with his tongue, and he put up his hands in a placating gesture. “No offense, really though.”

She contented herself with simply frowning at him.

Then he added one last point. “And the way the coyote-lookin’ dog follows her around?”

To her surprise, the Mule smiled and nodded. For the first time since they had arrived at the barn, he looked like the teenage boy he was.

“Coyote,” he said to the man. “Definitely.”

---

That evening they all gathered in the barn to share their food. It turned out that the sharing was mostly one-way, as the man and woman had eaten what little they had, and hadn’t been able to leave the barn to scavenge for more. But she did not mind. There was plenty of food to be found—it was the early days yet.

She sat with them as they ate, but soon, as always, the talk turned to each person’s story of what happened on the day of the Fall, and what they thought had happened to their world. She was not interested in these people’s story. She had had enough of people when it was just the Mule and Bait following her. Now there were more people. She didn’t want to be around people—didn’t want their chatter, their needs, the things they expected of her.

She turned away, finding a corner piled with soft straw to curl up in for the night. Tomorrow she would move on, leaving all these people and their worries behind her.

---

From the diary of The Mule:

God, I’m tired. I’ve got way too much food in my backpack, and by the end of the day I felt like my shoulders were going to fall off. But what was I gonna do, admit that I had taken on too much? I don’t think so. Bait would just laugh at me. It would be good-natured, but still—laughter, at me. And Coyote, (Bait gave her that name, by the way. It fits.) well, she wouldn’t laugh, that’s for sure. But I don’t get the feeling she’d help me, either. She’s definitely a “deal with your own problems” kind of gal. And besides, yes, I can admit it, I guess it’s a bit of a teenage guy thing. I don’t want her to see me as weak. I don’t think weak people are going to do well in the new world.

Today was a long, boring day of walking. And tiring, of course, but I already covered that. The boredom broke when two things, like silver cheetahs with shells and lots of extra teeth, tried to eat us.

Yes, the things out there are real. I’d heard people’s stories, and seen the evidence of what’s happened, but, well, some things have to be seen to be believed. Now I’ve seen, so I have no choice but to believe—even if I don’t want to.

I don’t know if it was the last piece of evidence tearing at my own personal sense of denial, or the final nail in the coffin for the world as a whole, but seeing those things  made everything so… final. Now that I’ve seen what’s out there with my own eyes, everything is different. There’s no pretending, even subconsciously, that this is just some interruption in normal life. Normal life is gone. Eaten, absorbed, disappeared… just gone, like most of the rest of the people that used to live in this world. I’m not sure how to deal with that, but pretending it isn’t quite real is no longer an option.

We took those things down, though, Coyote, Bait, Dog and me. (Why doesn’t she use our real names? Why am I not using our real names? Lots of fodder for introspection there, but I’ll have to hold it for another time.
[8]
)

I have to admit, it felt good to fight back. That was the first time since all this started that I took something on instead of just running or hiding. Of course, there were only two of the things, but still. It’s good to be in a group—it gives a person options.

After we killed those things, we met two more people. One is a woman, used to be a nurse, and that’s just about all we got out of her. When Bait asked if she had family she was searching for, or what she’d done the day of the Fall (that’s what everyone seems to be calling the day the world went to hell—the Fall—so I’m making it official and capitalizing it now), she didn’t want to talk about it.  My guess is that whatever she went through isn’t something she wants to remember.

The other person, a guy, was a lot more talkative. He said he used to be a Professor of Electrical Engineering (am I supposed to capitalize all that? In fact, with most of the English teachers gone who’s going to keep track of grammar rules now?) at Portland State University. So of course, our first question to him was why nothing that uses electricity works any more. I mean, one day I’m playing video games, and then next I’m living life by candlelight—weird.

Unfortunately, he’s as mystified as the rest of us. He said at first he thought was an electromagnetic pulse, like from solar flares or from a nuclear bomb, but now he doesn’t think so. He says EMPs just mess up computer chips, making stuff not work. But now, even simple things like flashlights that run on batteries don’t work. I guess he did a lot of thinking on that the first days after the Fall, taking batteries out of abandoned cars and wiring things together, but nothing worked.

So it wasn’t an EMP, because that would have been a one-time event. It wouldn’t continue on like this. For some reason, electricity just isn’t working any more. Batteries don’t put it out, and even when he tried to make static electricity by shuffling across the carpet that didn’t even work. He says he knows enough to say that something fundamental about the world has changed, but he doesn’t know enough to say what that fundamental thing is.

He thinks the fact that electricity somehow has changed its nature or been cancelled out is probably a more fundamental change than the fact that there are monsters roaming the world now. I disagree on that point. Having no electricity makes things suck, but the monsters are trying to eat us. I’m much more worried about the monsters.

So… he’s in the same camp as the rest of us, fancy degree and all. Nothing works and we don’t know why.

He did tell us his story, though. He had lived out in the foothills of Mount Hood. He’s still wearing the clothes he had on as he was driving in to teach a class on the day of the Fall, and the clothes look like they’ve been through a lot.

He was driving along and his car just stopped working. He pulled over, wondering what had happened, when he noticed that everyone else’s car had stopped working as well. Then he saw that his cell phone was dead, too, and I guess being a professor helped him put things together a little faster than some. Like I mentioned, he figured an EMP was the only thing that could knock everything out like that.

He says that at the time, the only thing he could think of that would make an EMP happen was a nuclear bomb going off. So he high-tailed it to a farm house a few yards off the highway. There was nobody home, but the house did have a basement so he broke in and took shelter down there.

After a while he realized that there must not have been a nuclear blast, because he would have seen the light and felt the shockwave. But he didn’t leave his shelter because by then the screaming had started. It must have been all the other folks standing by their broken-down cars who were doing the screaming. The last he saw of them, they were standing around on the roadside, looking at each other and wondering what was going on. Now they were all screaming. As it went on he also heard the sounds of running, and what he called “wet, tearing noises.” It gave me the shivers, listening to him describe it and seeing the look in his eyes as he talked.

He admitted he was too afraid to leave the basement and look out to see what was happening until a few hours later, when everything was quiet. When he did go out, the people’s cars were there, but the people were gone. He did find things like purses, coats, and even one shoe on the ground. There was a lot of blood smeared on the pavement too. Whatever happened to those people, I guess I can’t blame him for hiding from it. Seems like almost all of us are here now because we did a lot of running and hiding on that day. I bet there aren’t a lot of curious people left around here.

“Around here.” That’s a loaded phrase. How far is “around here”? If we keep walking, will we find a nice, normal life going on just over the next hill? Or is the whole state going through this same hell? The whole country? The whole world? With no radios, no TV, and no internet, we can’t find out what’s going on farther away than what we can see for ourselves. It’s a really strange feeling, being disconnected like this. It gives a whole new perspective on what life must have been like before the invention of electricity, the car, and so on.

One thing I have noticed is there haven’t been any airplanes flying over us since the Fall, and that can’t be a good sign. I guess the only way to find out how big this whole thing is would be to go ahead and walk over that next hill, and see what we see. Looks like that’s what we’re doing now, so… time to go.

In the morning she woke up, ate some cold rations from her pack, and prepared to move on. She rolled the blanket she had slept under, and put it in her pack. She checked her rifle, slinging it over her shoulder, and checked that her knife was snug in its sheath. They had built their small fire on a bare section of the floor last night, and she had left her boots there to air out. As she walked over to retrieve them, she saw Bait and the Mule gathering their things together as well, looking as if they still intended to follow her.

Soon Mike, the man they had met last night, spoke up. Still sitting in the pile of blankets and straw he had slept in that night, he turned to Bait.

“What’re you guys doing?”

Bait slowed, but did not stop his packing. “Oh, moving out, moving on, looks like.”

He seemed surprised. “Where to?” he asked.

Now Bait paused, looking perhaps a bit confused himself. “Well, we’re not totally sure about that.” He glanced at the Mule, who shrugged his agreement, and then at Coyote, who was ignoring the whole conversation.

“Well, if you’re not sure, then what’s the hurry?” asked Mike. He was obviously loathe to be left on his own again.

“It’s kinda hard to explain,” said Bait. “You see, we’re going with her and, well, she’s moving out, so we are too.” He gave his own sheepish shrug, as if to acknowledge how inadequate his explanation might be.

Mike was on the verge of asking another question when the Mule spoke up. “You should come with us.” He had stopped packing and was looking at the man.

“Hey, yeah!” cried Bait, seizing on the idea. “Come with us! Shit, there’s nothing much for you here, so why not move on? Safety in numbers, and all that.”

Mike looked to Leanne, who had been quietly watching the conversation. “Doesn’t matter to me,” she said. “He’s right that there’s nothing keeping us here.”

“True,” he replied. “But we’re not really equipped to travel.”

“What about the house?” asked Bait, now attached to the idea of some extra company. He probably hoped to get somebody to chat with. “Have you looked inside the farmhouse over there yet? I bet it’s got some stuff.”

The man thought on it for a moment, then put his hands up in surrender. “Well, I guess I don’t have any better ideas.”

“Coyote,” said Bait, turning to her, “Let’s bring the Professor and his friend along, huh? Just wait a few minutes for us, and we’ll scout the house, get them some gear.”

“The Professor?” she asked.

“Well, yeah.” It seemed Bait had named the man. “The Professor and…” he looked at the other woman.

“If you call me Marianne, I’ll kill you,” she said, frowning.

Bait looked away from the other woman. “Well, we’ll give her a name later, huh? Seems like you two should get along fine, what with the friendly attitudes and all.” He smiled as he spoke, to take the sting out of his words.

“They will most likely die,” she replied, creating a collective stunned silence.

Bait didn’t stay stunned for long, though. “Yeah, the way they are now, but we’re going to go to the house, get them some better clothes, find some food, maybe even a weapon or two. Then we’ll take them along, right?”
              He had misunderstood her meaning. “Not today, and perhaps not tomorrow. But still, they will likely die.”

Bait turned to the others. “She says ‘OK, good idea,’” he said, smiling. Nobody else looked convinced, but they didn’t argue the point. They all gathered what they had, and headed out of the barn, toward the house.

On the way out barn door, the Mule looked at her, standing in the barn with her rifle over her shoulder and her pack on the ground. The dog sat next to her.

“Are you coming?” he asked.

“No, she is not,” she said.

He looked at her for a moment. “Ten minutes, OK? Wait ten minutes.” Then he was out the door before giving her a chance to reply.

She looked at the dog. Why should she wait? She had no need of these others, and she knew they would only make her slower. Besides, a group of people was a louder, more attractive target to whatever they might meet out there. She should not wait. She should move on.

She crossed to an old tractor tire, abandoned on the other side of the barn, and sat.

“She should move on,” she said to the dog. The dog did not respond.

And yet, she did wait. Ten minutes, and even a little more.

They were gone for quite some time. Finally she stood, preparing to leave, when the dog began to growl. Instantly, she was alert. She heard a scraping outside the barn door, like footsteps—heavy ones. She looked to her rifle, on the other side of the room. It was too far away, and she would have to cross the doorway to get it. Instead she drew her knife from the sheath at her belt, and adopted a sideways stance: knees bent, knife-hand away from the door, ready for stabbing.

“Potichu,” she said to the dog, and it went almost silent. There was still a low rumbling in its chest, so quiet that she felt it more than she heard it.

Soon a shadow fell across the doorway—a large one. It was followed by an even larger man. He was tall, but beyond that, he was just big. Hugely fat, he must have weighed close to 400 pounds, wrapped up in dirt-stained overalls and a ragged-looking long-sleeved shirt. It looked like neither man nor clothes had been washed for quite some time. She suspected maybe he had looked this way even before the Fall.

He carried a shotgun in one hand. Looking strangely small in his great paw, it dangled down toward the dirt at his side.

The man took great, rolling steps into the barn. Seeing her and the dog there watching him, he gave a small, high-pitched laugh, all the more disconcerting since it was coming from such a large man. Then he smiled. “Oh,” he said in an eerie falsetto, “A girl and her dog. How precious!”

She did not know how to respond, so she stood her ground, remaining silent.

The man took a few more steps toward her, looking her up and down, leering. “We’re going to have a good time together,” he said, smiling, as he reached both hands down to point at his crotch. “Me and my little friend—the both of us.”

Now she knew how to respond.

“Ho zabít!” she yelled, jumping forward and crossing to him with two swift strides, the dog following her with a roar. The man’s eyes bulged, startled by her sudden reaction. He began to bring his gun up, but she and the dog were there first. She led with the knife, driving it straight into his chest. The dog led with his teeth, sinking them deep into the arm holding the gun. The man’s forearm spasmed as muscles and tendons were severed and crushed, dropping the gun to the floor. He stumbled backwards, bringing his other hand to grip her wrist, which still held the knife buried in his chest.

The impact of the two attackers drove him backward, and he stumbled, falling to his back with a great whump. The dog shifted its grip from his now useless arm, tearing into the man’s throat instead. She held on to the knife, riding him to the ground and using the force of the fall to drive it deeper. Then she began to twist and rip with the knife, making the wound a wide and ragged thing that stretched across one whole side of the man’s chest.

The man fought briefly, but as the blood sprayed from his throat and his chest, his strength went along with it. He could not scream, as the dog tore his throat open. He could not escape, as she tore his chest open.

Soon, it was over. She and the dog backed off, watching as the man gave a last, hesitant gurgle, and then was silent, a pool of blood soaking the mixture of dirt and straw beneath him in the entrance to the barn.

She looked at the dog, its muzzle, head, and chest liberally covered with the man’s blood. She looked down to her own arms and chest, similarly coated. She began to look around for something to wipe the blood off with when it occurred to her: where were the others?

They had gone to scavenge in the house. And what were the chances they hadn’t met this man that now lay dead on the floor? Or maybe his friends?

“Tichý,” she said to the dog, as she trotted to the barn door, peering outside. She saw nothing—no sign of the people that had left to search the house, and no sign of any companions to the man lying on the barn floor.

In a crouching lope, she approached the house, the dog at her heels. It was a typical farm house, if somewhat small. Two stories, with a wide front porch and windows looking into the yard. The front door stood open, and as she approached, see could see people inside the door, but did not recognize them.

With the dog trotting silently at her heels, she ran to a bush in front of the porch, where she could see into the front window. There, she saw Bait, Mule, and the Professor sitting on the floor in a corner, while two men she had never seen before glowered at them. One had a pistol pointed in their general direction, and the other held a baseball bat.

The bush was off to the side, so she could no longer see inside the front door. But she heard the slap of a hand against flesh, and a shriek that could only have come from Leanne. It was enough for her.

"Zabít,” she told the dog, as she rose from the bushes and charged up the porch steps, readying her knife.

As she crossed the threshold she saw where Leanne was. She was under three men, directly inside the front door. One was sitting on Leanne’s chest and another was kneeling above her head, holding her arms. The third stood above her, between her legs, smiling as he unbuckled his belt. He died first.

She hurtled through the door, closely followed by the dog. She led with her knife again, driving it into the back of the standing man where it stuck. He fell, screaming, and the grip was torn out of her hand. She continued on, leaping over the man who was sitting on Leanne’s chest and barreling into the man who had her arms. As she tumbled onto the ground with him, she caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye of the dog tearing into the man she had jumped over.

She rolled over and over with the man she had crashed into, ending up on her back, with him lying on top of her. She had her legs locked around his torso, and her arms around his head and neck, pulling his face into her chest, and mashing it sideways into her breasts.

Across the room, she could see the others, both those she knew and the remaining strangers, standing stunned for a moment, all totally shocked at the sudden violence. Fortunately, it was the Mule who broke out of his trance first.

He lunged at the closest stranger, the one holding the baseball bat, grabbing the bat, and yanking it toward him, out of the stranger’s hands. Still holding the bat by the fat end, he swung it at the other stranger, hitting him in the arm and causing his gun to clatter to the floor. This seemed to stir the others out of their trance, as both the Professor and the man who had been holding the bat dove for the gun on the ground.

The man who had lost the gun howled in pain, clutching his arm. There was no more fight in him. He looked around, seeing how his circumstances had changed, and then turned and ran out the door. He was followed by the man she had stabbed first, her knife still sticking out of one shoulder as he ran.

The Professor and the other man were still struggling on the floor to gain possession of the gun. The Mule reversed his grip on the bat and gave it a full, overhead swing, coming down on the head of the stranger as he wrestled with the Professor. There was a meaty smack and the man went limp without making a sound. The Professor soon crawled out from beneath the man with the revolver clutched in his hands.

While all this was happening, she had continued to hold onto the man she was wrapped around. She could feel the ragged breaths coming out of his mouth, and was afraid he would bite her. This fear drove her to new efforts, and she began to squeeze and jerk on the man’s head and neck, wondering why he was not hitting her with his hands, which were still free. Soon she found out as a burning pain assailed her, starting in her right arm and radiating out across the rest of her body. He had stabbed her.

For a moment, she lost where she was, or who she was. She was just a savage thing, with a need to kill. Kill or be killed, there was no greater motivator. Growling and grunting, she squeezed, and jerked on the man’s head and neck, crushing him to her chest and no longer worried that he would bite. She just wanted to crush him.

She began to saw her shoulders side to side, accompanying each motion with a squeeze and a jerk in the opposite direction with her legs, wrapped tightly around the man’s lower back. She felt another pain in her arm, this one seeming more minor—perhaps he had stabbed again, but missed, only grazing her flesh.

Soon, as she continued to squeeze and to jerk, to growl and to pull, she saw that her opponent’s struggles were becoming weaker, his arms flailing and his legs kicking less often, until finally he was still. But she continued her hold, still squeezing.

As she slowed her violent struggle, ceasing her own noises, she became aware of other growling in the room. She saw the dog savaging its first victim, hearing his weakening pleas as drops of blood flew away from the dog’s ripping teeth. The dog gave a few last tears at the man he had on the floor, actually coming away with something in his teeth, which it shook and dropped, flinging it away into a corner. The man below the dog was making only incoherent moaning, gurgling sounds now, his arms weakly clutching at his torn neck and chest.