Coyote

by David L. Foster

  She realized they would not last—not nearly as long as they had at the first fire doors, at least, and perhaps not more than a few more seconds. If one of them fell, or slowed too much, the number of thumpers coming through the door would soon be too much to handle.

  “Bait!” she yelled.

  “What?” the voice came from right behind her, startling her. She realized that he had joined the fight, standing next to the dog and dealing with the increasing number of thumpers the others were missing.

  “Is the closet empty?”

  “Yes.”

  “Completely?”

  “Shelves and everything,” he replied while slicing into another thumper with his machete.

  “Beast,” she yelled. “Close it now!” With that she dove for the desks, arriving at the same time as Beast. Their combined weight slammed the fire doors closed quickly, though they stuck on three thumpers unlucky enough to be in the crack at the moment. A few more hard shoves, and the bodies of those thumpers either fell out or were severed, leaving the doors completely closed.

  The thumpers had not broken through the doors anyplace else yet, though there were several holes that would soon be big enough for the creatures to squeeze through.

  Soon the members of the group had dispatched the last of the thumpers on their side of the hallway, and were looking to her for new directions. The emotions on their faces ranged from worried to determined, to just plain tired. She was tired as well, feeling like she had just finished a two-hour workout, rather than a five minute fight, but there was no time to rest.

  “Mule,” she said. “Hold these doors.” He took her place, leaning against the desk as she stood to look at the others.

  “We will make our stand in the closet. There is nowhere else to go.”

  “What about the exit?” asked Bait, pointing to the boarded-up door at the end of the hallway. His mind was always more on running than on fighting.

  “Can you get the boards nailed across the exit doors off, and get outside before the thumpers come through the fire doors? She does not think you can. And once you are out there, the horde will follow. They will surround you and take you down.

  “No, here is the place to stand. In a small room they will not be able to surround us, and they can come from only one direction.”

  “How many of them are left?” asked Beast.

  “She does not know. More than us. You have seen how they act, and you know they will not stop. The only choice is to kill them all.”

  He nodded, and as she looked at the others she saw no more disagreement.

  “Mule, stay here until she calls. Everyone else into the closet.” She looked the Mule in the eyes. “When she calls, come running. They will be right behind you.”

  He nodded at her, saying nothing.

  The rest of them filed into the storage room. It was several yards down the hallway, so she hoped that would give the Mule enough time to put some distance between himself and the thumpers when it was time for him to join them.

  Jogging to the storage room, she heard buzzing sounds from a few of the guest rooms she passed. The horde had broken past the boarded up windows in those rooms and was working on the doors to the hallway. She hoped the doors would hold a few minutes longer.

  As she entered the storage room, she saw that Bait and the Professor had followed her instructions. The room was bare, with even the shelving removed and thrown into the hallway. What had once been a well-organized storage room was now a bare, square space—perhaps their final resting place.

  “Even in this small room, we cannot let them surround us. We stand in a line, and let none of the creatures pass the line. As long as we keep them in front, we can fight them. If they can come at us from behind, we will die.”

  “Oh, this sucks,” said Bait. She voiced no argument against him.

  As she spoke, she pushed the members of the group into position. She placed Bait against the wall on the right, and the Professor against the wall on the left. They were the weakest fighters, and would benefit most from having the solid wall next to them. At first she moved Beast to stand next to the Professor, but then she changed her mind. Seeing the glazed look in the Professor’s eyes and the way he leaned against the wall, favoring one leg, she knew he would be the weak link. She placed Beast next to Bait and stood next to the Professor herself. If the Professor fell, the person next to him would have to fill the hole he left without leaving their own space. There was no one she trusted more than herself.

  She left the center spot for the Mule. He was the most heavily armed and armored, and she judged he might be able to stand and fight the longest. If the center of their line gave, there would be no recovery.

  The dog was placed behind the line. Once again, it would take care of anything that slipped through their defenses. The dog was to be their last defense against being surrounded and attacked from behind.

  “Ještě jednou,” she told it. “Chraň nás.”

  She looked up to see everyone staring at her. They were frightened, as they should be.

  “‘One more time, guard us,’ is what she told the dog. Now you all must guard each other.” She looked at each one of them in turn. “All of us—together.” She saw them look at each other now, and saw them stand straighter. It would have to do. There was no more time.

  “Mule!” she called. “Get in here!”

  He did not respond, but she soon heard his footsteps running down the hallway. After that she could hear the sound of the fire doors slowly being pushed open and the scrabbling of the first thumpers to pass through those doors behind him.

  The Mule came quickly through the storage room door, skidding to a stop as he took in the room and the rest of the group arrayed before him.

  “Stand here,” she said, pointing to the spot at the center of the line that she had picked for him.

  He moved to his spot as she stepped forward to close the storage room door. It would not hold for long, but it would give them time to prepare.

  She looked at her ragged group, already tired from the work it took just to get here. She saw little hope in their eyes, but little fear either. The Professor still looked like he wasn’t sure where he was. Bait and the Mule looked worried but determined. Beast just looked angry, as if he were getting ready to take the frustrations built up over the past few months of inactivity and pour them out onto the thumpers. That would serve him well.

  The dog, alternately panting and growling at the storage room door as the thumpers arrived and began their pounding, showed how tired they must all feel, but in its eyes she thought she saw the joy of battle as well—the animalistic ferocity they both shared. She gave the dog a small smile before turning away.

  She turned to the Professor. She pulled him of the wall where he had been leaning, grabbing his chin and looking into his eyes.

  “Are you ready for this?” she asked.

  He just looked at her, his gaze sliding off her face to drift across the walls. Perhaps he was worse off than any of them had known.

  She tugged the sides of his jacket together, zipping it up to give him what protection it could offer and shaking him around a little to wake him up. He grunted as he was forced to put weight on his leg.

  “Are you ready for this?” she asked again. “Are you with us?”

  At first she though he was not going to respond again. But then his eyes suddenly looked into hers, and for a moment he was back.

  “Ready,” he said.

  “You have to fight,” she said. “You have to stand—to hold this line. If you give in, we are all lost. Can you do this?”

  He nodded, still looking at her. “I’m ready.”

  It wasn’t much reassurance, but it was probably all she would get. She let him go, taking her place in the line.

  The pounding on the door was greater now, as it rattled in its frame.

  “Oh, shit, said Bait. “Oh this, oh shit, oh shit…” his cursing got softer and trailed off into an almost inaudible m
uttering.

  The Mule spared him a glance and a smirk. “That’s it, man. ‘Do not go quietly…’”

  He looked at the Mule. His face said he didn’t get the reference, but knew he was being teased. His muttering continued.

  Soon she saw a few holes start to appear in the door, and through those holes she could see the flashing of the thumpers’ claws as they worked to enlarge those holes. Soon they would be in.

  She looked down the line at these people who had chosen to follow her. This is where she had brought them. She should regret this end, but somehow she could not. There was a feeling inside her—a ferocious joy that left no room for doubts or for regret. They had chosen to follow her and now they would stand with her. They would fight what came through that door. They would not give up.

  She could not help the smile that came to her face, as she felt the adrenaline coursing through her body.

  “Now,” she said, her emotions making her voice tremble. “Now we will kill them all.”

  The storage room door lasted much longer than she thought it would. The thumpers burrowed two, three, then four large holes in the door before they began pouring into the room, but neither the latch nor the hinges to the door ever gave way completely, so the thumpers couldn’t flood in all at once. That ragged door was the only reason the group wasn’t overwhelmed right away.

  Still, the ones that came were enough.

  She was tired already—they all were. But they all knew their only rest would come when all the thumpers were dead, or when they, themselves, were dead. It was this knowledge that kept them standing past the point where trembling muscles could still be expected to hold them up or to swing a weapon, past the point where heaving lungs could draw in enough oxygen to meet the demands of their bodies, and past the point where the traumatized mind could take in anything more than snapshots.

  Searching her memories, only scattered sounds and images are left from that final fight. She remembers yelps of pain from the dog as well as from some of the humans as a thumper scored a blow. She remembers panting, growling, grunts, and the occasional curse word. No other words were traded, though. There was nothing to say—nothing to be communicated. Just stab, hack, kick, and repeat. Attack what came into range, and trust the others to do the same.

  Her mind holds images of each of the group members, burned into those final moments. She saw Beast twirling his spear to strike down two thumpers that were leaping over his head. She saw sparks fly as the Mule’s axe severed the metallic claw of a thumper and bit into the concrete floor below. She saw Bait, bug-eyed and panting, looking in dismay at his machete, which had broken off half way up the blade as he drove it through a thumper and against the wall.

  She saw the Professor, leaning against the other wall, his damaged leg not supporting him at all, weakly flailing at two thumpers who had jumped onto his chest at the same time.

  Stab, hack, kick, and repeat.

  The Professor was the worst off, as she had expected. At some point, she realized that he was no longer effectively defending himself, and was soaking up the attacks of the thumpers more than he was parrying them or striking back.

  She took a half-step sideways, trying as best she could to take on more of the creatures headed his way, but she could not reach them all. Out of the corner of her eye, as she fought off one, two or three of the creatures, she could often see another getting through his defenses and using its stabbing claw to open a fresh wound on his failing body.

  And yet, he still stood. Neither he nor the others gave way. She does not know how many they killed, but the dead creatures covered the floor, lying two, three or four deep—enough that she could no longer see the floor itself.

  Stab, hack, kick, and repeat.

  In her exhaustion, time became a foreign, subjective concept. She did not know how long she fought, how long she stood, how long she had struggled—only that it was a long time.

  Stab, hack, kick, and repeat.

  But everything comes to an end.

  At one point she realized the flow of the thumpers was slowing. Perhaps it was because they had to crawl over the piles of their own fallen to get at their prey. But no, that was not it. There were fewer coming through the door—that miraculous, life-saving door which still hung crookedly in its frame, limiting the number of thumpers that could enter the room at one time. Now, instead of a constant flow of lithe, dark bodies dropping through the holes, she saw the occasional gap, where a hole stood vacant for a moment or two before another creature filled it.

  Still: stab, hack, kick, and repeat.

  Soon she found herself able to look up occasionally to see what was coming. She found herself better able to deal with the number of thumpers coming at both her and the Professor.

  And then, suddenly, she stabbed one, hacked its body into two twitching pieces, kicked it away so the body would not trip her, and… no others came to take its place.

  Looking around, she saw Bait pulling his broken machete from the body of one thumper as the Mule blocked the leap of another with his arm, and smashed it to the floor with his gore-covered axe. Nothing more moved before her.

  Behind her she saw the dog, standing in its own pile of mangled creatures, stumble unsteadily over to a final, twitching thumper and shake it apart before dropping it. The dog let its head droop almost to the floor for a moment, and then looked up, looking her in the eyes. It was hurt, lifting one leg entirely off the ground and swaying in exhaustion. But in its face, she saw the wild joy and the ferocity to echo her own.

  Suddenly that joy needed to come forth. She yelled, she cried, she howled. It was a combination of exhaustion and exultation, mixing together in a roar that burst from her lungs, giving voice to the storm within. The dog joined her, raising its own voice in the same song its distant ancestors had sung over their own kills. The others looked on, all slumped against the walls or floor, not understanding. But it did not matter. She understood. She and the dog.

  When she was done, there was only silence in the room. Silence, underlined by the heavy breathing of the rest of the group. With her roaring call, the energy and the emotion that had held her upright flowed out of her, and she fell to her knees, though still she would not let her weapons fall from her hands.

  She looked to the others. They were all staring at her, though only the dog’s eyes held understanding. But they didn’t speak. They didn’t question her, and that was enough.

  All of them were staring at her. All but the Professor.

  ---

  She had noticed him sliding down against the wall and slumping to the floor, just as most of the others had done. Now, focusing more closely on him, she saw his pose was different than the others.

  The Professor was lying curled on the floor now, though not in a pose of rest or recovery. He was torn and bloody, no longer able to stand. His was a pose of ruin—of agony. The fight had cost each of them, in wounds and exhaustion. But, already wounded when it began, the fight had cost the Professor much more. Maybe everything.

  He was not dead—not yet, at least. Instead, he twitched, quivering, taking sucking, gurgling breaths as his many, deep wounds bled onto the ground beneath him. His clothes were torn and ragged, and beneath them shone redly wet flesh and bone, ripped and punctured, exposed to air it was never meant to see.

  Shuffling forward on her knees, she crouched by his form, thinking, hoping, that he might be unconscious, but he was not. He was aware of every gaping hole in his ruined body—every twitching nerve as it dutifully sent its message of pain to his brain, letting him know what had been done to him.

  He looked into her eyes, and one hand grabbed onto her ankle as she crouched next to him. Then the hand let go, as if in his distress the Professor still remembered she would not want to be touched.

  “Help me,” he said.

  She looked at him solemnly. “She cannot help you.”

  He looked at her and they shared an understanding: they both knew he would not survive this. Then he c
losed his eyes for a moment. When they opened again, she saw certainty on his face.

  “I wanted to tell you,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I got it wrong.”

  “She doesn’t understand.”

  “About what’s next. About what we’re doing. That’s what I’ve been thinking about all winter. Ever since this started, I’ve been focused, thinking about surviving, about rebuilding. We have to. We can’t just stay alive. You know that, right? We have to rebuild the world we had.”

  He looked at her, perhaps expecting an answer, but she remained silent.

  “Those of us that remain, we… We are all that’s left. It’s our job, now, to put society back together. Maybe, maybe even better than it was, huh? Maybe we can skip things like prejudice and greed this time. Maybe, if the right people are there to say the right things.”

  Again he paused. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth and he tried to spit, wetly, working to clear it from his throat. He didn’t seem like he wanted a response from her this time. He was just marshaling his thoughts—and maybe trying to gather the strength to say what he wanted to say as his body continued to bleed.

  “You’re one of the right people, you know?” She frowned at this, but he continued, rushing to push past any objections she might voice. “You don’t think it, but you are. You’ve taken care of us, even though you didn’t want to. You’ve seen how the others follow you, even when you wish they didn’t. These are the leaders we need—leaders who are focused on what needs to be done, what is best, not on how to keep themselves in power.”

  Again he stopped. His speech was obviously costing him, but she would not stop him. He had nothing else left.

  “And I still believe that, but… but I got some of it wrong. Beast is right, too.”

  At this, she raised her eyebrow.

  He tried to smile, but it quickly turned into a grimace, then a wet cough, shaking his poor body and causing new spasms of pain to run across his features. When he had recovered, he continued.