Coyote

by David L. Foster

  “What if we do know where they came from?” asked Beast.

  They were all silent for a moment.

  “You’re talking the Bible now, right? Armageddon?”

  “Yep,” said Beast, looking around the camp fire. “Somebody’s gotta say it, man. I’m no preacher and no expert, but what else could it be?”

  “All kinds of other things,” said the Mule. “What makes you think this is God’s work?”

  “Like I said, I’m no preacher. I pretty much only know what I heard from my Grandma at home and from when she took me to church. But she was a God-fearing woman—had Jesus in her heart. She used to say that all the time.

  “And the couple of times I remember her talking about the end times, well this just about fits it.”

  “How?” asked the Mule.

  “Well first off, there’s the monsters and the death all around, all of a sudden, and not caused by anything as far as we can tell. It’s like somebody just decided this should happen.”

  “Ok…”

  “Then,” continued Beast, “there’s the people. Where’d everybody go? We’ve seen bodies, but not many. Not the thousands of people that used to live around here. So where are they? All disappeared, just gone. All good people, with Jesus in their heart, taken up in the Rapture, as my Grandma used to say.”

  “What about you?” asked the Professor. “You believe in God, right? You believe in Jesus? Why weren’t you taken?”

  “I believe in Jesus, and I even pray to him sometimes. But I’m no good person. I’ve done some stuff in my time, and it’s no surprise I wasn’t taken up to heaven.”

  “And the rest of us?” asked the Mule.

  Beast looked around the group, hesitating. After a moment he moved on. “My Grandma used to say ‘all the good people with Jesus in their heart.’ Now I’m nobody to judge you all, but I’m betting there’s a few of you with a list of sins in your past,” here he looked at Bait with a wry smile, “And I’m guessing there’s others of you that aren’t religious at all. So I think none of us made the cut.”

  The group was silent for a moment. None of them argued with Beast’s judgement of their characters.

  Bait was starting to look pretty nervous. If this were the answer to what was happening, he’d been left with the short end of the stick. “So what now?” he asked. “We’re just screwed?”

  “I’m not totally sure on that,” answered Beast. “I think there’s seven years of trials and danger, something like that, and then we get another chance to prove that we’re worthy. Oh, and also I think Satan or the Antichrist will be trying to lead us astray all that time.”

  “Well, shit!” cried Bait. “Seven years of this crap? Plus the Antichrist?”

  Beast just shrugged. He had no comfort to offer.

  Bait turned to the others. “What about you guys? What do you think? Is this God screwing with us?”

  The Professor and the Mule both looked to her, but she had no interest in joining the conversation.

  Getting nothing from her, the Professor took it on himself to answer.

  “Well no offense,” he said, glancing at Beast, who shrugged and made a gesture showing he took no offense, “But I’ve never been religious, and I’m still not. So no, I don’t agree with Beast’s ideas.”

  “Me neither,” said the Mule with a smile. “I’m still taking aliens.”

  Bait looked at her. “Come on, Coyote. You’ve got to tell us what you think.”

  She considered the matter. “She thinks there are things out there that want to kill you. She thinks you’ll probably die tomorrow, and the big answers won’t matter. She thinks you should eat some food and get some sleep.”

  Bait just stared at her, and the Mule gave a chuckle. She knew it wasn’t uplifting or comforting, but that was not her concern. Let somebody else mother them. She just wanted to survive.

  Her comments did end the nightly speculation, though, and the others turned to more practical concerns.

  They all sat around the fire, scavenging through their packs and selecting what their meal would be that evening. Some discussed their options and there was a certain amount of trading. It reminded her of the lunch room when she had been in elementary school. As she had done then, she kept her food to herself and didn’t participate in any of the haggling.

  For her own meal, she first pulled out a can of green beans, which she ate half of and then offered the rest to the dog, which was lying next to her on its stomach, head up, alertly watching the goings-on around the fire. The dog sniffed the beans, and gave them a tentative lick, but decided they weren’t of interest. After a few minutes she took the beans back herself and finished them. The next thing to come out of her pack was a can of refried beans. It seemed tonight was all about beans. She ate half of that can, then placed it in front of the dog as well. The dog seemed to find the refried beans more interesting and spent some time holding the can between its front paws as it shoved its nose inside the can and licked at the beans. It stopped after a few minutes, though, losing interest while there were still a few clots of beans at the bottom. The dog just wasn’t very hungry. It must be finding other things to eat as it explores ahead of us each day, she thought. She wondered what it might be finding.

  She looked at the now-abandoned can of refried beans sitting between the dog’s paws. There was still food in there, and she was still kind of hungry. She didn’t want to open up a whole new can of something though… She reached out to the can.

  Just as she touched the can, the dog exploded into a snarling, snapping ball of fury. She yanked her hand back, thinking the dog was protecting the beans, but she was wrong. The dog had turned away from her and the beans and was snarling at Bait on the other side of it. Bait, for his part, was yelping and rolling away in the dirt as the snapping teeth of the dog snapped shut just short of his head and his hands again and again, too fast to track.

  The rest of the group stopped their conversation, a few of them looking around to see what danger the dog might be warning them of. After the initial charge, the dog stood still, ears back and teeth showing, as it growled at Bait.

  Soon they all realized it was only Bait the dog was growling at and not some other approaching danger.

  “What the fuck, man?” asked Beast, looking from her to the dog, to Bait and back to her. She just shrugged. She didn’t know why Beast expected her to explain what was going on between the dog and Bait.

  Bait looked up from the ground where he had come to rest, thinking the question was for him. “I just wanted to pet it!” he said.

  “What did you do?” asked the Mule.

  “You know, it’s a dog, so—it was just sitting there, I was sitting next to it, and I gave it a little scratch on the neck.”

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

  “Yeah no shit, now!” responded Bait.

  They all looked at each other for a moment. Suddenly Beast let loose a great laugh. Soon he was followed by the Mule.

  “Hey, this isn’t funny!” protested Bait. “That thing’s vicious!”

  This got the Professor laughing as well, and even she smiled a bit. They all sat down again, even the dog rejoining the circle, though now Bait was leaving about two feet of space between himself and the dog.

  The incident and the laughter seemed to have broken something loose from the group—a weight had lifted from their quiet campfire, and conversation rolled more naturally around the group.

  First it was mutterings about cans of food people had spilled during the fuss, and then it became more inconsequential chatter. At one point the Mule spoke up again.

  “Did you see the teeth on that dog?” he asked no one in particular.

  “Shit yeah,” responded Bait. “I almost died!”

  Beast laughed. “You did not. The dog was just warning you off, man. If it wanted to bite you, you’d be bit.”

  Bait looked at the dog, and the dog looked calmly back at Bait, seeming to agree with Beast’s
statement.

  “Yeah, but did you see it’s actual teeth?” asked the Mule again. “Those are not normal,” he said. “They were, like, all shiny or something.”

  “You’re right,” said the Professor. “They were silvery. Not normal, white, dog teeth.”

  “Maybe it was the firelight,” suggested Bait. “I didn’t see anything.”

  “That’s because you were busy peeing your pants,” quipped the Mule, getting a laugh from the others. Bait frowned, but had no response.

  “I wanna see,” said Beast. “Get it to show us its teeth.”

  He was looking at her, but she just looked back. She wasn’t interested in trying to make the dog do tricks.

  The Mule spoke up, “Bait, touch it again!” he suggested.

  “Screw you,” was Bait’s only reply.

  “Maybe just make it growl at you,” suggested the Professor. Apparently he wanted to see as much as the others.

  “No way, man. I’m not touching it again,” said Bait.

  “Don’t just reach out and touch it,” suggested Beast. Just put your hand out, real slow. The others all looked at Bait, liking the suggestion.

  “Why don’t one of you do it?” he asked.

  After that, there was silence for a moment.

  “Because you’re Bait,” she responded. Now she was curious, too.

  Everyone seemed to think it was decided now, and they just quietly watched Bait.

  “Real slow,” suggested Beast. “Just reach out.”

  Bait continued to frown, but after a few moments he started to move one of his hands towards the dog.

  The dog noticed right away, and though its head continued to face the fire, its eyes were turned sideways, looking at Bait. As Bait’s hand crept forward, the dog began to emit a low growl, which made Bait freeze.

  “C’mon, now,” said the Mule. “Don’t stop there.”

  Bait withdrew his hand to the groans of the others. Then he moved his feet underneath him. Crouching now, looking ready to run, he slowly started to reach his hand out again.

  As before, the dog remained facing forward but tracked Bait with its eyes. Slowly, Bait’s hand approached the dog, and slowly the dog’s growl built in volume. The rest of the group sat perfectly still around the fire, completely wrapped up in the scene playing out before them.

  When Bait’s hand got about a foot away from the dog’s mouth, its lips began to twitch. Still, though, nobody could yet see the dog’s teeth.

  “A little further,” whispered the Professor quietly.

  Bait gave the rest of the group a fearful glance, seeming to say you owe me for this with the rolling whites of his eyes. Again he began to move his hand towards the dog.

  Finally, when he was maybe eight inches away from touching the increasingly agitated dog, everyone could see its teeth. They were not the dirty white teeth of the dogs they had all grown up with as children. These teeth were a shining silver, glinting in the firelight as the dog raised and lowered its lips around them. These were not teeth. They were polished, metal weapons, and the group sat staring, fascinated.

  Bait’s hand gave one more twitch, which proved too much for the dog. Its growl turned into a snapping bark as it twitched its head in Bait’s direction, snapping its jaws closed on the air three times before Bait could react. Each snap with those flashing teeth gave a glimpse of the dog’s mouth, ending with a solid, snapping sound as the jaws came together.

  Everyone in the group jumped, gasping at the sudden action. Bait sprang completely up and away, giving out a nigh-pitched yip of his own as he scrambled back, following that with a stream of profanity.

  This set the others to laughing again, and even the dog soon relaxed now that Bait was no longer reaching for it.

  “Did you see that?” exclaimed Bait. “Silver! It’s teeth are fucking silver!”

  “I don’t think it’s silver,” responded the Mule. “I read a post once about military dogs and police dogs, and how sometimes people will cap their teeth with titanium, I think it was, to make them stronger—to make sure they don’t damage their teeth when they’re attacking somebody.”

  “Jesus,” said Beast. “Really?”

  “It makes sense,” answered the Professor. “If you’re going to be siccing your dog on the bad guys, why not give it stronger teeth? And when it’s mouth was all the way open, you could see normal, white teeth in the back. It’s only the front ones—the ones used to tear and to attack—that are coated in metal.” He gave the dog a speculative look, then turned to her to continue. “That’s no family pet you’ve got there. With the vest, we pretty much knew it was a police dog or something, but with the way it listens to you, and the titanium teeth and all… That’s a military dog. It’s a weapon.”

  They all stared at the dog for a moment, soaking in the idea that what they’d had in their midst all this time wasn’t the familiar thing they’d thought it was. This wasn’t the all-American pet. It was a weapon. And weapons were dangerous.

  “C’mon, Bait,” said Beast, breaking the tension. “If the dog were gonna eat you it would’a done it by now. Come on back and sit down.”

  “Yeah, added the Mule. “Maybe give the dog a little hug as an apology.”

  “Oh, hell, no,” said Bait, still several paces away from the fire. He walked to the other side of the group and plopped down between Beast and the Professor, making both of them scoot over. “I’m not sitting next to the metal-toothed psycho dog.”

  She just smiled at him.

  6

  They were up and walking again in the morning. The walking order seemed to have settled into a permanent line. The dog roamed ahead, sometimes trotting down the center of the road, sometimes darting into the brush at either side, but always coming back. It seemed to understand its job as a scout. Every once in a while it would pause, and the rest of them would pause as well. She was usually fifteen or twenty yards behind the dog and would slowly creep up to be even with it, looking in the direction the dog was looking, trying to sense what had disturbed it. Bait, the Professor, and Beast were usually behind her by a few yards, but would stop in their tracks when the alert went up, putting hands to their weapons and forming a loose circle that the Mule would join when he caught up. He was the slowest of them, laboring under his heavy pack, but she did notice he wasn’t as slow now as he had been when they started out.

  The group would pause like this, each in their self-appointed spot, wondering what was coming—could be nothing, could be the death of them all.

  That day, though, it was all false alarms. After as few as two minutes or, once, as long as fifteen minutes, the dog would give itself a shake, rattling the loops on its armored vest, and continue, with all the humans falling back into line behind it. She pondered what it meant that some of the last surviving humans were being led by a dog.

  Around the middle of that day, they passed a deserted ski resort on the right, and then signs for a town called Government Camp. The town was just off the main highway and could be seen through the trees, but she felt no urge to investigate it. After their visits to previous towns they were each carrying as much in food and supplies as they comfortably could and had no need of more. And what else could there be in another town besides more danger?

  Less than half a mile past Government Camp, the highway crested a rise and they came to a Y in the road. To the left, the road narrowed and moved steeply uphill, following signs for Timberline Lodge. To the right the highway curved away, sloping gently downhill, following signs toward other distant towns. Here the dog stopped, looking back at her, as if inquiring what her desire might be. Perhaps they weren’t truly being led by a dog after all. But that left her as the leader. Even though they might be a group, she was still uncomfortable with the notion of being a leader.

  Still, she did not stop to look back at the others. She turned left, towards Timberline Lodge. An idea was forming.

  The rest followed without comment, as she had suspected and feared. Was it odd
that they followed a sixteen year old girl? In the old world, it would have been. And it certainly wasn’t anything she desired. Here in this new world, though, things were different, and the others had made their decision freely. The consequences would be on their own heads.

  They had been hiking up this new, steeper road for only about half an hour when the dog stopped again. As before, each member of the group came to a stop. She began to creep up to where the dog was, and the others formed a loose group a few yards behind them in the road. This time, though, the dog’s nerves were more evident. Its hackles were raised, and it spread its paws, getting low to the ground, ready to fight.

  Before she could reach it, the dog broke out of its stance, turned to her and in less than a second had taken up the exact same stance, but this time next to her knee, still looking to the woods on both sides and growling low in its throat.

  She took a step back, and the dog matched her. Step by step they both worked their way back to the group, now formed up shoulder to shoulder in the road. Silently, as if they had practiced it a thousand times, the group made room for her and for the dog, until they all stood there in a small circle, one pair of eyes looking out in each direction.

  They waited, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. The dog’s growling increased, becoming a slavering bark, like they had only heard once before, when the giant thing had come crashing through the trees at them in the campground a few days ago.

  “Drop your packs,” she said, as she worked her arms out of her own pack and brought her rifle off of her shoulder, raising it, ready to fire. She heard rattling and shifting behind her as the others dropped their packs and prepared themselves for what was coming. The dog left her no doubt that something was indeed coming.

  He seemed uncertain, though, where it was coming from. He looked left and right, to both sides of the road, as he barked and growled, occasionally even turning to bark at the trees behind the group as well. Still, they could not see what he sensed.