Coyote

by David L. Foster

  It was a two-story house, and they filed up the porch and trooped in. She did have the good sense to send the dog in first, but it sensed nothing amiss. When they were all in, the Professor closed the door behind them, wedging it shut with a stuffed chair, and the others headed into the living room. They settled into whatever chairs and couches they found with a collection of sighs and groans.

  Looking around, she guessed it must have been the house of somebody’s grandmother. There were knick-knacks lining all the shelves, pictures of several generations of children all along the walls, and, to top off the image, lace doilies on the end tables and on the arms of the couches they sat in.

  After a few minutes of welcome rest, she became restless. She felt too exposed, sitting in the living room, looking out the bay windows onto the dark street outside. She pushed herself up out of the chair she had fallen into and looked around. After entering the front door, they had turned right, attracted by the chairs and couches of the living room. To the left of the front door was a set of stairs leading to the second floor. She went up the stairs.

  What she found was just as unremarkable as the rest of the house. The stairway came out toward the back of the house, facing the doors of two bedrooms. They looked rather un-used—probably guest rooms, maintained in the hope that the grandchildren would visit someday. A hallway ran toward the front of the house. On one side was a railing looking down into the stairwell. On the other side was a door to a bathroom, followed by a door into what turned out to be a rather large master bedroom, taking up the front corner of the house. In this bedroom was a large bed, a sitting chair and chest of drawers, and, against the far wall, a fireplace. Everything was pristine and undisturbed. No clothes on the floor and the bed neatly made. She wondered where the grandmother had gone to—what had happened to her. Was grandma back in the gym at the high school? But she cut that thought off. She would never know, and it didn’t matter anyway.

  Curious, she wandered over to the fireplace. It was a gas fireplace, and she saw that there was a pilot light still burning. Somehow, the city’s supply of natural gas was still flowing, evidently not needing any maintenance or intervention from humans in the last few months. She wondered how all the people working for the gas company would feel about this evidence that their jobs may have been truly unnecessary.

  Squatting in front of the fireplace, she turned an iron knob and the fire sprang up in a cheerful imitation of burning logs, providing a flickering illumination to the room and, soon, adding warmth to what she now realized was turning out to be a chilly night.

  Standing, she took herself back downstairs. The others were still in the same positions she had left them in, except for Leanne, who she could not see. The noise of a cupboard closing at the back of the house made her assume that Leanne was in the kitchen, probably scavenging some food.

  “You should move upstairs,” she said. “Down here you are too exposed.” She gestured to the large bay window by way of explanation. If they could see the street out front, then it stood to reason that anything in the street could see them, as well.

  However, none of the people downstairs looked excited about moving. They were, perhaps, too tired to really care.

  “Upstairs,” she repeated, “Now. There are beds, and also a working fireplace.”

  That seemed to do the trick. Each of them stood, gathering their packs and possessions, filing past her up the stairs. As the Mule passed her, she put a hand up to stop him. He did not stop soon enough, and she had to step back two paces, lest he accidentally run into her hand.

  Finally seeing the signal, he gave her a bemused look. “Go to the kitchen,” she said. “Help the woman.”

  For a moment, it looked like he would protest, but then he seemed to acquiesce.

  “Yeah, I guess we could all use some food, huh?” Then he turned to the kitchen.

  She, in her turn, followed the others upstairs, where they had gathered in the master bedroom.

  The whole group settled into the one room, surrounding the fireplace. Bait and the Professor dragged mattresses in from the other bedrooms.

  She turned to the Professor, interrupting him as he was dragging the last of the mattresses into a semi-circle in front of the fire.

  “Why bring the mattresses in here?” she asked. “Would it not be more comfortable in the other rooms, to sleep without the chattering and the snoring of other people?”

  “Well,” he said, looking rather surprised by the question, “the fire is in here and the other rooms would be cold,” but his face told her that was not the whole reason. She could not understand this desire to huddle in a group, but it was strong in the others. Didn’t they see how much trouble people were? How could they attach themselves so easily to people they had just met? She thought about pointing out how foolish this all was, but she was too tired to care. They all were.

  Settled around the fireplace on a collection of mattresses and blankets from all over the house, eating and drinking an assortment of things that Leanne and the Mule had brought upstairs from the kitchen, the scene looked like nothing more than a slumber party, attended by oversized and somewhat grubby children.

  It was not a comfortable place for her. This kind of social gathering was just the thing she had avoided in her previous life. She had been a loner and liked it, and she had no plans to change her ways after the Fall, either.

  But these people, they seemed to have no sense of the peace and freedom that could be gained from being alone—from avoiding all the obligations and fuss that came when you got close to others. It was like they needed to be a part of a group—a herd instinct rising to the top of their personalities when the comfortable veneer of civilization was stripped away. Why did she not share this feeling? What was so different about her? Was it that she was adopted? Was it the things she had lived through before being adopted?

  She put these thoughts aside, as they were unlikely to lead to anything useful, and stood, pacing around the back of the large master bedroom just so she wouldn’t have to sit with the group any more.

  She had noticed the woman, Leanne, giving her glances from time to time, and now Leanne rose and followed her to the back of the room. Leanne walked over to her and paused, looking down as if waiting for something.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but…”

  “No more ‘I’m sorry,’” she interrupted.

  Leanne looked up, startled. “What?”

  “You are always apologizing. ‘I’m sorry for speaking up,’ ‘I’m sorry for bothering you,’ ‘I’m sorry for being here.’ No more.”

  Leanne just looked at her. She did not understand.

  “What are you truly sorry for? Are you sorry for being a woman? For being raised as a polite little girl who should not interrupt, make a fuss, or be a burden? That world is gone, and not all changes are bad ones. You do not have to be the weak one, the burden, or the one who apologizes. No more apologizing for who you are.”

  The woman still looked at her, but now with a different light in her eyes. “I think I see,” she said. Perhaps she did.

  Leanne then looked down again, this time at a few drops of blood on the ground, then up a little, noticing one that slid off of her fingers and down to join others on the floor.

  “That’s why I came over here,” Leanne said. “You’re hurt.”

  “She is.”

  The woman moved toward her, reaching out to take the jacket off. She stepped back.

  “She does not like to be touched.”

  “Oh, come on. You’re still bleeding from a wound that happened way back this morning. It needs to be treated.” Leanne stepped forward again, reaching out.

  She jumped back, sending a hard glare to the nurse. “She does not like to be touched!”

  There was silence around the fire. Everyone’s eyes turned to the pair.

  Leanne’s eyes got big. There was an apology starting in the woman’s eyes, but then it faded. Leanne frowned. “Do you like to bleed?”


  She continued to stare. “She does not mind.”

  “Do you like to be weak?”

  Anger burned in her eyes as she stared at Leanne. “No.”

  Leanne put her hands out to the side. One hand held the medical satchel. “I can fix it.”

  She continued to stare at her erstwhile nurse for a moment, and then looked away.

  Without another word she shrugged her shoulders, letting her jacket drop down around her hands, and revealing the bandana she had tied around her upper arm earlier in the day. It was soaked through with blood—some old and dark, and some a bright, new crimson. She shifted her stare forward, looking at the wall in front of her.

  Her arms were tense and immobile, muscles standing out under the skin. Her whole body was rigid.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Leanne stepped forward to look at the wound. Leanne untied the bandana, looking at the fresh line of blood welling from the wound.

  “I’ll need to stitch it,” said the woman, looking to her for permission.

  She did not reply.

  Then Bait spoke up from behind her. “You can do that? Stitch people?”

  “I was a nurse,” she replied. “We had to learn how so we could assist the doctors.”

  “Well it looks like you’d better do it now, while you’ve got the chance,” replied Bait. No one else spoke. She still stared forward, tense.

  Taking out her implements, the woman began to stitch. Aside from the occasional flinch as the needle pulled at her flesh, the patient never moved, and never spoke. She merely stood, her stare fixed away from the group.

  Finally finishing, Leanne swabbed an antiseptic ointment over her work and wrapped the wound in fresh gauze, then stepped back. “That should do it, I guess. God, I don’t have any of the things I really need. But at least it shouldn’t bleed any more… not too much.”

  She shrugged her jacket back on and turned away, taking a few steps to a corner of the room, where she sat in an open chair. She didn’t say thank you. She has never said thank you.

  ---

  The rest of the group had remained silent through the stitching too, and now they all looked a bit at a loss for what to talk about.

  “Well, now we have a medic,” said the Mule.

  “That’s right!” cried Bait. “Welcome, Medic!” Somehow all of them could hear the capital letter at the beginning of the woman’s new name.

  The woman smiled gratefully at them both and sat back down with the group. Soon the idle chatter was flowing again when suddenly the Professor, who had stood up to look out the window, called out.

  “Hey! There’s a light over there!”

  For a moment the group was stunned, trying to take in the news. Then there was a great rush for everyone to plaster their face to the window the Professor had been looking out of.

  She stood too, walking close to the window but staying a few paces back of the group, out of touching range.

  In the house across the street, there was indeed a light. She looked up and down the rest of the street, as far as she could while standing back from the crowd at the window, and saw no other lights. Then, while they all wondered at this, the light faded, becoming almost invisible.

  Nobody spoke, each probably conjuring their own thoughts about what that meant. Then the light grew brighter again. This happened several times. Dimmer, then brighter. They all stared, wondering what it meant, and what could be happening.

  Then, just as the pattern was becoming predictable, the light got brighter than it ever had, and could finally be seen as a glowing ball, approaching the window of the house. When she saw the vague outline of a person carrying the glowing ball of light, she realized it was a candle, and that someone was moving around one of the upstairs rooms in the house across the street with it. Soon the candle approached the window, shining out in the darkness.

  It stayed still this way for a moment and then moved, turning sideways, finally facing back into the room. Now they all could see that it was illuminating a person, standing in that room across the street, holding the candle, shining it up into their own face.

  It was obvious that the person had seen them across the street, had been signaling them, and now that he was sure he had the group’s attention, was shining the candle on themselves for the group’s benefit.

  Which, she realized, left the question of what the group was supposed to do about it.

  They could not distinguish any features of the person from this distance—solely that it definitely was a person, and the shape looked generally male, if somewhat smaller than most men.

  Suddenly she was surprised by a light blossoming right below her, amongst the group in their own room. The Professor had pulled out a candle of his own, and was lighting it, most likely intending to signal back. She lunged forward, swinging her arm and knocking the lighter he had been using out of his grasp.

  He looked at her, stunned.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Signaling back, of course,” said the Professor.

  “But who are you signaling?” she asked.

  He just stared at her.

  “You don’t know who this is, across the street,” she explained. “Is that person more like you, or more like the people you met in the farm house?”

  “Hey, she’s right,” chimed in Bait. “Maybe we shouldn’t be attracting attention, you know?”

  “But that’s another human over there!” argued the Professor. “We can’t just ignore him. Who knows how many of us are left? Not many, by my guess.”

  Then Medic entered the discussion. “I think he’s right. We can’t just ignore another person. Where’s your faith? Before the Fall, I always believed that given a chance, most people were decent. I still do.”

  “This is not about being decent or kind. There is no space for that,” she countered, looking at both Medic and the Professor. “And this is not a discussion. If you wish to go make new friends, do so. Walk over there tomorrow and see who you find. She does not care. But do not draw attention to this room, where she is.

  “Do all the foolish things you want, but do not put her in danger.”

  “Hey, listen,” said Bait. If there was talking going on, he had to get involved. “I think Coyote’s right. I mean, none of us know who that guy is across the way. Is he alone, looking for companions or help? Is he luring you over there so the rest of his group can jump you? We just don’t know.”

  The Professor was not satisfied. “We don’t know until we find out. Will you let your baser suspicions rule your actions? Or is there still a place for human decency in this world? I, for one, vote for the latter. It is, quite frankly, our moral imperative to make contact with and to support whatever other survivors we can find.”

  With this, he stepped over to his meager possessions, putting on his jacket. “I’m going to go find out who that is across the street. And if he’s amenable to it, I’m going to bring him back here, share some of our food with him, and prove to you that there are good people in the world.” He gave the group a significant look. “And if I’m wrong, it’s just as well, because then I don’t want to live in this world anymore.”

  “I’ll go too,” said Medic, bending to retrieve her jacket and medical bag. “Maybe he needs medical attention.”

  “No way, man,” said Bait. “Count me out. Those zombies from the pile of bodies in the gym are probably wandering around outside by now. We’re not that far away from the school, you know. Plus, Coyote’s right that we don’t know if that person over there is someone we even want to meet. Plus whatever other horrible things are wandering out there in the night.”

  “Me neither,” said the Mule. “I’m not going out there in the dark. And,” he looked at Bait with a roll of his eyes, “there are no zombies.”

  “Fine,” said the Professor, a look of disgust on his face. “We’ll let you know what we find.”

  She spoke up. “You will not.”

  Nobody had noticed her moving while they were h
aving their debate, but now she stood directly in front of the door, the only practical exit from the room. The dog stood next to her.

  “You will not leave this room tonight. You will not attract the attention of what might be out there, human or other.”

  “What do you mean?” asked the Professor. “Of course I will. There’s another person out there, for God’s sake. And for all we know, he needs our help!”

  “You will not leave,” she said. Her stance made the threat in her words obvious.

  “You have to right to do this!” yelled the Professor.

  “There are no rights,” she said calmly. “No rights, no justice, no ‘moral imperatives.’ There is survival and nothing else.”

  She knew that the Professor would not challenge her physically, not while she still had the blood of the last person to cross her under her fingernails. To her, all his talk was just that: talk—empty noise running though his vocal cords, as meaningful as the wind rattling the tree branches.

  She relaxed her stance, standing straight. “Tonight you all will stay here. Tomorrow, when she moves on, you may go where you wish.”

  That took the wind out of his sails. Medic turned away without a word, settling down on one of the mattresses. The Professor stared at her for a few minutes, then gave in, turning away to his own mattress. He was muttering things under his breath that no one asked him to repeat.

  The others, Bait and the Mule, just watched, and nothing more was said on the subject.

  That night she slept on a pile of blankets laid out in front of the doorway, with the dog at her feet, on its own pile of blankets. Nobody left the room. Bait turned the fireplace down low, muttering about the light attracting attention as the others all settled in to sleep. The light across the street shone for a quite a while longer, alternating between being held up to the window and turning back to illuminate the face of the person across the street, but nobody responded. Eventually, it, too, went dark for the night.