Coyote

by David L. Foster

  ---

  They all took a few minutes to clean themselves up. She began to wipe the gore from her face and hands using leaves from the bushes by the road. The man wiped his own much cleaner face and hands, then gathered a fresh bunch of leaves in his hand and approached the dog, reaching out to wipe off its chest. The dog growled when he approached, and he quickly backed off.

  “Not a very friendly dog you’ve got there.”

  She understood the dog’s clear message. “It does not like to be touched.”

  “I’ll say,” responded the man. He approached her with the leaves instead, saying “Here, you’ve got it all the way up your shoulders.”

  But she stiffened, taking a half-step back and looking to the ground, arms bent and tense at her side and fists clenched.

  “She does not like to be touched,” she said.

  The man didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah, I heard you. Definitely not a friendly dog. Useful, though, I’ll give her that.” As he finished his sentence he touched her shoulder with the leaves, wiping them down her arm. Her other hand shot out, palm forward, slamming him in the chest and knocking the smaller man to the ground.

  She took two steps forward, standing over the man and shouting.

  “She does not like to be touched!”

  He put his hands up in surrender, cringing from her anger. “Hey, hey, man. What did I do? OK, OK. No touching! No touching anyone! Not dog or girl. I get it, man.”

  She stood over him for a moment more, glaring. Suddenly his eyes went wide.

  “Oh, you mean you, right? She is you? OK, OK. You don’t like to be touched.” He scooted back a bit more, standing up and brushing off his pants. He kept talking as she watched him, gradually calming.

  “Doesn’t like to be touched, eh? Well, I guess everyone has their differences, right? Hey, you could say you were touchy about being touched, right? Get it?”

  He smiled, looking at her, as if he expected something.

  Feeling more relaxed now, she turned away, stepping over the piled bodies of the crab-things and continuing the course she had been on before meeting this man. It was darker now—time to find a place for the night. She had spent several nights up in trees, but she doubted that would safe be if more of those crab-things were in the forest. They looked as if they could climb.

  Unconsciously, the chattering man echoed her thoughts.

  “Getting dark now,” he said. “Shit, am I tired. Been running from those things since the middle of last night. They ain’t fast, but they just kept coming. I tried crossing rivers, hiding in holes, even climbing trees to lose them, but no dice. I even tried running way ahead and turning a different direction, but no. About an hour later, there they are, catching up. Jeez, I could sure use some sleep.

  “Somewhere good, though,” he continued. “Somewhere safe. Gotta have a wall I can put between me and any more of them things. Whaddya think, find a building or something?”

  She didn’t respond. She had no real interest in him or his story. She simply continued on, but it didn’t discourage him. He kept talking as they wound their way down the road. He was following her now.

  After a few more minutes of listening to him she stopped again, facing the man. He stopped his chatter, looking at her warily.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Er, walking? Just walking along. I’m coming with you.”

  She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “You are coming with her?”

  “You bet I am.”

  “Why?”

  “You kidding me? Look what this world has turned into, girl. And look at me. I can run, yeah, I can run past anyone. I thought that would be enough, being fast, being quick. It has been so far. But then the crab-things found me, and it weren’t enough anymore. They had me, man. I was about done when I found you.”

  He stopped, looking like he hoped this would explain things. She continued to stare at him.

  “Let’s face it girl, just being quick wasn’t enough for me. But you’ve got something else. Something I need. You’re vicious. I saw you back there, tearing into those things. You were smiling, girl. Smiling a vicious, crazy smile that said you hoped they never stopped coming, so you’d never have to stop killing.”

  He held up his hands as he continued. “I don’t mean that as a bad thing, neither. The things we got running around this world now, well killing seems to be the best thing a person can do with most of them. So I’m comin’ with you. It’s all about staying alive now and I’m betting you can do that pretty well.”

  She frowned. This was not what she wanted. She did not want others with her. It was enough that the dog had begun following her, but at least the dog didn’t ask for anything. People, though, people asked for things. They couldn’t help it.

  He saw the doubt in her eyes. “Hey, listen, now. It’s not like I’ll be a burden or anything. I’ve survived this long, right? That’s gotta count for something. In fact, considering the amount of folks who haven’t survived it’s gotta count for a whole lot, I’d say.

  “C’mon. You can’t go all alone in life. Everyone needs a buddy, or at least a partner. We could help each other out, huh?”

  It was the wrong thing to say. Already he was asking for things. “She is not your buddy, and not your partner. She is nobody’s buddy.”

  “Well, I can’t say you’re one of the friendliest people I’ve met recently, but I’m still with you. I don’t need friendly. I need vicious, and you’ve got it.”

  She looked at him, able to see that he had made his decision, and not seeing anything she could do about it. Not now, at least. Now she was tired, and it was getting dark.

  She turned away, beginning to walk down the road, and cast her final words on the subject over her shoulder. “You should not follow her. She will never be anything to you.”

  He didn’t reply, but she could hear his footsteps, along with the dog, both of them softly following her path.

  3

  At the bottom of the hill, not too many minutes later, they came to a building that looked intact. It was a large building, half storefront and half warehouse. The sign out front advertised the cheapest carpeting for miles. She didn’t care about the inexpensive carpeting, but was interested in the four intact walls and the metal roof over them.

  She looked around the parking lot for movement, but saw nothing. She then crossed the lot to the front door of the building. The large windows were covered in painted-on advertisements and cartoons depicting a talking carpet roll, so she couldn’t see inside. She tried the door—locked.

  That was actually a good sign. If a building was locked it meant people had time to turn the lock as they left, so they probably weren’t fleeing something that might still be inside. She walked around to the back. As she suspected, the building was intact, with no obvious damage.

  She tried the back door, rattling it. Also locked, as she had expected. She stepped back, wondering what her next step would be. Break in through a skylight, maybe?

  Suddenly, the back doors rattled and then opened outward, just a few inches. A rifle, along with one of the two hands holding that rifle, pushed through the crack. At the same time a voice within, a male, spoke from the crack. “Go away. This is our place. Get your own.”

  She tensed, crouching, ready. The rifle happened to be pointed at the man with her who, along with the dog, had been following her explorations of the building.

  “Hey, whoa, whoa!” said the man, putting his hands up and beginning to walk backward. “No problem here. Yeah, we’re leaving, man, OK? No problem.”

  The rifle’s barrel began to swing her way, and the voice came again from inside. “You too, girly. You…” it never got to finish.

  She lunged forward as soon as the rifle began to track towards her. She slammed the door shut on the rifle and the hand once, and again, drawing surprised yelps from inside. She then grabbed the hand and pulled, watching a large, overweight man stumble into the doorway.

  She beg
an slamming the door again, this time catching the man’s whole body. The dog lunged forward too, snarling and snapping at the man’s head as he fell, and then grabbing a forearm and shaking it, preventing the man’s escape. She continued to pound the door into his body. His yelps were turning into pleas.

  “No, no, stop! Please! Stop, stop, get it off! I didn’t mean nothing. You can have what you want! Stop!”

  She continued slamming the door on him, battering his body, deaf to his pleas. The dog continued to worry the man’s forearm and hold him in place.

  Suddenly the man she had met on the road was walking forward, hands out toward her and the dog. “Hey now, wait a minute. You’ve got him, you’ve got him, OK? Hold on now.”

  He was still advancing with his hands held out, palms up. Not touching, but coming close. She gave him a warning look as she paused, holding the door closed against the other man’s body.

  “I know. No touching, OK? But look, now, stop. He’s down, man. He’s no threat.” She glanced down as he continued to talk. “There you go now, just ease off. He didn’t mean nothing by it, right? No harm done to us, right? Ease up now. It’s OK.”

  The dog slowly released the arm, its jaws gradually shuddering open. It still looked threateningly at the fallen man and growled, ready to begin anew.

  She pulled the door wide open, propping it with her foot, still tense.

  The man on the floor was moaning and blubbering. The other man was still talking. “There we are, all good now, yes? OK.” He moved to the fallen man, helping him up. “Here we are, up you go now. All a misunderstanding, hey? Times are a bit stressful, I’d say. People are jumpy. You know how it is.”

  The man from inside looked very unsure of himself. Cradling his arm, which was starting to show a little blood through the torn shirt sleeves, and standing half hunched over, still in pain from the beating the door had given him, he stared at the three outside his door. A man, a girl, and a dog. He took a few deep breaths.

  “Well,” he said. His voice was low and raspy. “Well.” He didn’t look sure how to continue.

  ---

  “Well, we should come in, right?” Her skinny companion’s tongue, it seemed, was always moving. “I mean, I know we may have gotten off on the wrong foot here, but we’re not thieves or anything, just travelers. And it’s getting dark outside, right? You can’t turn a person out in the dark, no you can’t. It’s not hospitable.”

  “Well, I suppose…” started the man from in the doorway.

  “Good then. Let’s start off right, though.” The skinny man held out his hand. “I’m Owen.”

  The man inside the doorway frowned a moment more, then held out his own hand, seeming to give in to the inevitability of something. “Tom, he said. I’m Tom.”

  They both looked at her, a question on their faces. She just looked back.

  “Well,” broke in Owen. It seemed he couldn’t let a silence stretch. “She’s not much of a talker, you know? Good to have around in a fight though, as I guess you’ve seen for yourself.” He smiled. “So Tom, are you all by yourself here?”

  “Well, no,” replied Tom, still looking wary. Then he seemed to come to a decision. He stooped to pick up his rifle from where it had fallen and, carefully not pointing it anywhere near the three newcomers, stepped back from the doorway, motioning for them to follow him inside.

  “No, not alone,” he continued. “Come on in and we’ll have proper introductions.”

  Tom walked into the warehouse, and the rest followed on his heels. They’d come in a back door that let onto a large storage area. Rows and rows of shelves stretched up to the ceiling more than two stories above them, as well as ahead of them and across most of the warehouse. The shelves were filled with rolls of carpet and linoleum, boxes of tiles, and a seemingly endless variety of woods to finish a floor with. Tom led them down one aisle, taking a few turns and arriving at a cleared space toward the center of the building.

  In that space were two more people, an assortment of bags and other possessions, and, of all things, a small campfire burning on the concrete floor. The people were eying Tom and the newcomers with wary looks. They had surely heard the commotion at the doorway, and wondered what they were in for.

  Tom gave a gentle smile at the group, looking like he was trying to put them at ease. “Not to worry now. Just a bit of a misunderstanding.”

  “Oh Tom,” said a plain-looking woman getting up from her seat on the floor, “Your arm!” She rushed over to him, making frightened noises. Tom was cradling the arm the dog had bitten against his chest, and a few flecks of blood were visible against his torn sleeve.

  “Now, honey, not to worry. Just a few scratches, is all,” said Tom. Then to the wider group, “All, this is Owen and, uh… his companions, I suppose.” He stopped a moment, still flummoxed by having no name to give her. “And this here is my wife, Shawna.”

  Shawna looked at the newcomers. There was no welcome in her eyes as she looked from her husband’s battered arm to the newcomers.

  “And this,” continued Tom, pointing to another person still sitting by the fire, “is Mark.”

  Mark, it turned out, was a young man, perhaps a teenager. He had black hair, and a pale complexion. As he stood up to introduce himself he unfolded to a height well over six feet. He was big, that’s for sure, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest. But he also had a soft look about him. He had the fair-sized gut, and big thighs of a person who spent more time on a couch than a sports field. He wore a worn-looking t-shirt with the logo of the Hard Rock Café on it, and dark jeans. His unkempt hair fell over one eye as he gave a little wave, saying “Hey.”

  There was an awkward pause, and again Owen jumped in. “Hey there, all. Good to meetcha. I’m Owen.” He then pointed to the girl and the dog “These two, well, they don’t talk much but they’re good to have around, though. Saved my ass this afternoon.”

  He smiled, giving a brief wink to the girl. She frowned at him.

  “Anyhow,” continued Owen, “This one prefers not to give a name. And the dog, well,” he paused looking at the girl, “What’s the dog’s name?”

  She had no notion what the dog’s former masters had called it, and just replied with the first thing that came into her head.

  “Dog.”

  Owen’s eyebrows went up. “Dog? Really? You can’t just name a dog ‘Dog’…”

  She frowned at him again.

  “Ok, fine.” He turned and raised his hands in a shrug to the rest of the group. “That’s Dog.” Then he pulled his small backpack off his back and produced a can of beans and a packet of dried Alfredo noodles. “So what say we make some supper and swap stories?”

  The group pooled some of their food, and settled into a supper of beans, three kinds of prepackaged noodles, and some canned corn. There was plenty of food to be found in all the abandoned houses around, but it was hard to put together much of a menu.

  As they prepared the food, they chatted. At least, most of them chatted. She mostly watched and listened. Dinner was a comfortable thing, with the drone of the others’ voices, twice interrupted by laughter from the others as Owen tried to pet the dog, both times being snapped at for his trouble.

  The second time she gave him an incredulous look.

  “What?” he asked. “It’s a dog. You’re supposed to pet it.”

  She shook her head. The dog had made its opinion known clearly enough.

  As people were finishing their meals and beginning to pitch their trash into the fire, the subject of the Fall came up. She supposed it was inevitable. One by one, the people around the fire told their stories—what they had experienced the day of the Fall and how they had gotten here.

  Tom and Shawna, it turned out, had found this warehouse refuge only a day or two after the Fall. They gave no details of what happened to them that day, simply saying that they ended up on the run, had hidden in the warehouse one night, and had decided to stay. Since then they had hunkered down, only leaving the warehou
se every few days to scavenge a grocery store and a trailer park a quarter mile down the highway for food.

  Owen’s tale was rather confused by the fact that he’d been high when everything started, and his memory of events was consequently fragmented. There was a creature he insisted was a dragon, there was fire, screaming and a lot of running, but he really only had disjointed snapshots to share with them: a huge, toothy head crashing through the wall of his apartment; screaming, running crowds; gigantic shapes gliding across the sky; a woman swallowed whole. And, of course, running, running, and more running.

  Mark had arrived just a few days ago himself, having been moving from place to place after the Fall, seeking safety. He turned out to be a good story-teller once he got going.[5]

  ---

  From the diary of the Mule:

  Dear Diary,

  Heh, yeah. That’s what I wrote. As guy, especially as a teenage guy, I never thought I’d write that. But since I’m alive and lots of others aren’t, well, it just seems right to put things down. Keep a record. Note what’s happening here. I don’t know why, and I doubt anyone will ever read this, but… At least I’m just writing in this black spiral notebook I found. No unicorns and hearts on the cover or anything.

  So here I go.

  I should start at the beginning probably. Not my beginning, but the beginning of the end, maybe. The day everything fell apart. I’ve heard others calling it the Fall, and that seems about right.

  I’d been at home, alone, and hadn’t really noticed at first when things started.

  You see, I was up all night playing this game with some friends. We shut down around 4:30 in the morning, and then I went to sleep. I was totally wiped, and didn’t wake up until probably noon. I don’t know what time it was—none of the clocks were working, because, of course, the electricity wasn’t working.

  I went upstairs, and my parents weren’t home. No surprise there, since I figured they’d both be out at work by the time I woke up. So, I just kind of hung out for a while, ate some cereal (the fridge wasn’t running but the milk wasn’t warm yet, though it wasn’t as cold as I’d want), took a shower before the hot water ran out, and threw on some clothes.