Luis says to Josh, “Are those assholes doing what I think they’re doing?”
The Tree laughs, beams an I-thought-you’d-never-ask smile, and says, “You want to stop this virus? You need to give it less places to jump to, right, Doc?” He says “Doc” as though it’s a slur. “Quarantine the humans, cull the animal vectors. Sorry to say, pets are animal vectors. It’s not nice work, but—” He lets the “but” hang, lets it linger. It’s typical, reactionary, barbaric reasoning, all too familiar, and historically proven to fail time and again.
Dan starts the engine and backs up slowly. The truck bed vibrates under Ramola’s feet.
Ramola says to the Tree, “Killing healthy animals has never been effective in halting rabies outbreaks. Vaccinating them has.”
The truck’s horn blasts twice and simultaneously the truck stops short, pitching Ramola, Josh, and Luis toward the bikes and rear gate. Ramola keeps her feet but the two teens stumble and fall next to the bikes. There are two more horn blasts, loud and piercing. Ramola scrambles back to the cab and peers through the rear window. Dan and Natalie are arguing. Ramola knocks on the window then realizes there’s a sliding panel of glass about the width of her head surrounded by a black, metal frame. She works it open.
Natalie presses the horn one more time with her left hand, and points out the windshield with her right and says, “Big bad coyotes.”
Two mangy, battle-scarred coyotes trot down the road toward the truck. One is considerably larger than the other. The big one trots with a noticeable limp. Ramola stands for a better look over the cab. The longer she stares at the bigger animal the more she is convinced, despite the improbability, it is the same one that dove into their ambulance. The sight of this sick, wounded, undeterred animal fills her with near-incapacitating dread and awe; an emotional-level recognition, or reconciliation, that the gears of the universe will always grind its adherents—apostles and apostates alike—in its teeth.
The Tree whoops, shouts, “Game time!” and fist-bumps his partner. They leave the trailer and walk into the middle of the road, in front of the truck, readying their crossbows.
The coyotes’ front shoulders are in a permanent up-shrug, heads lolling low to the ground, their mouths dripping saliva. They snarl, bark, and cry. When their weaving paths overlap they snap at and bite each other, which doesn’t slow their progress. They continue inexorably forward as a recombinant organism, driven by their relentless new instinct.
Ramola says into the cab, “Dan, we can still go, correct? Surely your friends can handle this,” hoping it’s the right thing to say to get the truck rolling again. Her hand taps a hurry-up SOS on the cab’s roof.
Natalie says, “Where coyotes? There coyotes,” and laughs.
Dan begins backing up again, aiming for the mouth of the yellow house’s driveway.
One of the camo men shouts, “Dan, you’re gonna miss the fun part!”
Two men, including the one carrying the hunting rifle, trot down the opposite shoulder, toward the approaching coyotes. Josh and Luis have pulled out their own weapons and are conspicuously quiet.
As the truck’s rear end crawls up the inclined drive, the men at the yellow house back away from the front door, shouting and pointing at one another. The front door opens and the dog’s barks increase in volume exponentially. A tan-and-black blur launches from the darkened interior of the house, knocking the man in the animal control shirt onto his ass. It’s a muscular, broad-shouldered German shepherd, jaws snapping, white-and-pink spittle spooling from its mouth. The dog pivots right and attacks one of the shovel-carrying members of Dan’s group, clamping onto his left calf, biting its way higher up the leg. Undaunted by two solid shovel blows to its side, the dog forces the flailing, screaming man to ground. With his quarry down, the dog tears into his neck and face.
A white man, presumably the one who opened the front door, follows the dog out of house, lurching between the flags and onto the stoop. He is as tall as the Tree, but likely at least a decade younger, and he is awash in blood; arms, legs, torso, cheeks splashed and stained red. There’s so much blood on him it can’t all be his, though some of it must be, as one leg of his joggers is torn and so too one of his shirtsleeves. He shouts, “Where you come from? You must say,” repeatedly, but it sounds like one word, and with improper intonation, as he sets upon the animal control officer on the stoop, who is caught in mid-attempt to regain his feet. He has no chance. The mauling is brutal and efficient. The infected man rains hammer blows upon the officer’s head, then grabs and briefly lifts him so they are face-to-face, biting his neck and cheek before dropping him to the ground. As he coughs and frantically wipes his mouth (making gargling noises that to Ramola’s ears sound like he’s saying “from hell”) the infected man kicks and stomps the head of the animal officer, who, but for arms and hands fluttering helplessly, doesn’t move.
Too stunned and frightened to come to either man’s aid, the third of the yellow house’s exploratory group yells for help and backs down the slate stone walkway toward the drive. He does not move quickly enough. The dog and the infected man converge on him. Fangs, hands, and teeth.
The truck is stopped. Everyone is shouting, including Ramola. Luis and Josh bounce on their heels, asking if they should jump off the truck and help, but the attacks are so one-sided and final the outcomes are decided as soon as they begin. Ramola grabs one of each of their arms, anchoring them to the truck bed for a moment, telling them, “No!” and “Stay here,” and “You can’t help them.” Then she crouches by the open cab window and shouts, “Go, go, go!”
In two strides the German shepherd bounds from the walkway and into the drive. It leaps against the truck, clawing and scratching at the metal. The dog lifts onto its hind legs, its bloody front paws and barking, snarling head hanging over the side panel. Josh swings his wooden staff and connects, but it’s a glancing blow the dog shrugs off. If anything, the staff strike antagonizes the already-frenzied animal. It hops up and down on its rear legs, trying to push its bulk over the side and into the bed.
The truck’s engine finally answers with its own roar and lunges forward. Only Ramola is prepared for the sudden acceleration as the teens are sent backward. Luis smartly goes low and down, squatting in next to the bikes and in front of their gear. Josh fights to remain standing, using his staff as a balancing pole. Ramola holds on to the open frame of the rear window and watches out the windshield.
The truck charges into Bay Road going too fast for the change in pitch (from elevated drive to flat road) and for such a tight left turn. Two men, including the one with the hunter’s rifle, are unexpectedly in the truck’s path, either caught in mid-retreat or running to the aid of the others at the yellow house. The surging front grille clips the rifleman, sending him rolling onto the opposite shoulder, and the swinging fishtail of the truck bed slams into the second man, batting him airborne. He lands bonelessly on his back.
Dan jams on the brakes. Ramola is pressed flat against the cab’s rear window. The bikes, gear, and Luis slide up the cargo bed. Josh cries out as he tumbles over the driver’s-side wall, his dropped wooden staff drum-rolling on the pavement. The stopped truck is a diagonal slash across the road’s center lines. Dan opens the door and gets out of the cab. Luis grabs both loops of the water bottles and climbs over the side of the truck to Josh, who is on his knees, rubbing his chin and checking his hand for blood.
Natalie’s door flies open, recoiling to halfway-closed on its hinges. Ramola reaches through the rear window, grabs a fistful of sweatshirt at Natalie’s shoulder, and yells, “No! You are not going anywhere. Close the door.”
Natalie turns her head and offers Ramola a dismissive, completely out-of-character sneer. She twists out of her grip, leans out of the truck, and pulls the door closed.
The dog is already biting, shaking, and thrashing about the prone man in the middle of the street. It quickly moves on to the rifleman on the road’s shoulder, gnawing at the hands and arms bunkering around his head. The man’
s groans turn to high-pitched screams. The rifle is strewn between the truck and the man. Ramola puts one foot on the sidewall, considering a mad dash for the gun. The dog turns and unleashes a volley of barks as though it hears her thinking.
There’s a high-velocity whoosh and an arrow chunks into the rifleman’s right hip. His screams increase in volume and are pitched at a frequency that rattles the truck’s loose rear sliding window in its frame. He reaches for his leg, and as the dog takes advantage of the opening, burrowing into his unprotected face and neck, his cries quickly weaken to watery gargles.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” shouts the other camo man, Richard or Stanley, Stanley or Richard; he holds his aimed crossbow in front of his body as though memorializing the ill-fated shooting pose.
The Tree is ten feet behind his partner and engaged in a struggle with the larger coyote. He swings his crossbow like a cudgel at the animal’s head, which is clamped down on his pant leg. Despite the arrow sticking out of its left shoulder, left leg limp and dangling, the coyote’s ferocity and the effectiveness of its attack are not compromised. The Tree is in danger of being chopped down. The smaller coyote is twenty or so paces beyond them, lying dead in the road, three arrows sticking out of its pincushion body.
Having quickly dispatched the rifleman, the German shepherd, its dark coat gone darker with blood, sprints for the other man in camo. Its speed and might is as mesmerizing as it is frightening. Teeth bared, focus singular, there’s almost a sense of joy or freedom in the bounding, athletic attack; it is finally fulfilling a long-ago animal promise, one that will not be broken.
There is a chorus of yelling on the other side of the truck, but Ramola only has eyes for the rifle on the ground now that the dog is entangled with the other camo man. She climbs out of the truck, jumping down to the pavement. The weapon is only steps away, but time slows as though she is running in a nightmare; the distance expands, the ground upon which she runs becomes a bog. She snatches the rifle by its stock and quickly points the barrel out and away from her body, preparing for an attack. But she is not really prepared, as she’s never shot, much less held, a firearm. Both camo men continue to grapple with the two animals. The German shepherd is upright, full weight coiled on its hind legs as though two legs are indeed better. Its front paws scratch and probe the man’s chest, pushing him backward and dangerously off-balance; the rabid animal has already re-learned the imperative to get his opponent to the ground. Even if Ramola were comfortable shooting a weapon, she does not have a clear shot and fears hitting one of the men.
Behind her, Josh and Luis are yelling to each other. She turns and takes two running steps. On the other side of the truck, the rampaging infected man run-walks in that now familiarly awful broken gait, but he is retreating from Luis instead of advancing. Luis has both sets of water bottles hanging around his neck. Two bottles are in his hands, and he splashes spooling waves of water at the infected man. Josh, his chin bloodied, is a couple steps behind Luis and halfheartedly carrying his wooden staff.
The infected man yells, “No!” and he sounds teary, desperate. He says, “Please,” splitting the word into two, overexaggerated syllables. Pluh-eeze. He coughs, gags, and he waves his hands.
Luis shouts taunts and expletives as he splashes more water. He quickly sheds one empty bottle for the next full one, forcing the man to continue backing his way down the street and away from the truck. “Get in! Get in,” Luis commands, and he climbs over the rear gate. Once inside he throws more water at the infected man, who has stumbled beyond Luis’s range. Josh is likely concussed, given how slowly he moves. Starry-eyed, he stands at the back of the truck all but ignoring Luis offering a hand, urging him up.
The infected man wipes his face, working it over like it’s a stubborn mask that won’t come off, his hands webbed with blood, saliva, and mucus. With each pass of his hands over his nose and mouth, he says, almost conversationally, “I smell the blood.” When his arms abruptly drop to his sides and he locks eyes with Ramola, her personal barometric pressure plummets. Dizzy and nauseated with fear, she lifts the shaking rifle, steadying the stock against her right shoulder, trying to convince herself to shoot. Aiming low, for a leg and not for a kill shot, she pulls the trigger. The kick isn’t as strong as she anticipated, but she still misses badly; the bullet rips through the yellow house’s row of hedges at least ten feet to his right. He rushes toward her. An ecstatic, beatific smile, a zealot’s smile, splits his face.
Somewhere, way too close to her left, the German shepherd bays and howls, as though in victory.
Josh charges out from behind the truck and hacks at the infected man’s left knee with his wooden staff. The knee buckles. He doesn’t fall but is brought to a halt.
Ramola runs toward the truck. Natalie’s door is still thankfully closed, and she is an impassive, darkened shape behind the tinted passenger window. Dan stands in the truck bed, urging her on. Aiming for the junction of the cab and the bed, Ramola throws Dan the rifle and then, using the rear tire as a push-off with her left foot, she jumps. Simultaneously, she pulls herself over the side and tumbles into the cargo bed. Quickly scrambling onto her feet, she finds the scene outside the truck has fast-forwarded, or skipped frames, like the virus has gone quantum and is infecting reality itself.
There is an arrow sticking out of the infected man’s right shoulder. He tries to pull it free, but his blood-slicked hands slip off the shaft. Josh leadenly backs away, one halting step at a time, and wipes his bleeding chin. He’s not wearing his helmet; it must’ve fallen off in his tumble out of the truck. Luis is still where he’s supposed to be, where he was before Ramola climbed into the cargo bed, and he is in the same position, offering a hand to Josh. The German shepherd is latched onto the Tree’s left forearm and it yanks and pulls the man in an undulating circular arc. The other man wearing camo lies on the pavement, curled on his right side, posed like the fox they passed earlier, blood and bubbles geysering from his mangled neck. Dan is crying and has the rifle aimed at the infected man, and he shoots. A red splotch explodes between the infected man’s shoulder blades. He sinks to the ground, bending his legs, extending his hands, as though he’s choosing to sit, to rest, to lie down on his stomach and put his head down. Josh now faces the Tree and the dog. Instead of joining that particular fray he stays on course, walking backward until he knocks into the truck. He drops to one knee, right below Luis standing with his hand out, forever out. The big coyote appears, wrapping around from the other side of the truck like it’s a shark that has been circling for as long as Ramola and everyone else lost track of it. Or maybe it’s returning from the yellow house’s front yard or driveway after it wandered over there to finish off anything that needed finishing, and now it’s coming back, coming to where it is meant to be. Josh doesn’t see the big coyote (where coyote, there coyote) and its arrowed shoulder and one limp leg and three-working legs and its long, thin snout, which opens, opens wider than should be possible, showing its red mouth and its white teeth. It strikes high, biting Josh in the head, teeth fishhooking into cheek and ear. The sick, wounded coyote isn’t as strong and powerful as the berserker dog, the scythe reaping through this group of men. The sick, wounded coyote is nearing its end. Josh boxes the animal’s ears and punches the body. The sick, wounded coyote releases and limps away, pained whines alternating with choking sounds, as though the tongue is blocking the throat. The coyote briefly sniffs at the body of the rifleman and transforms again into the smooth shark, swimming and disappearing into the brush. Ramola and Luis jump down to the street and rush to Josh’s aid. They each loop an arm through one of his arms. Josh isn’t yelling or screaming in pain. He has both hands over his eyes and he cries. He sobs and he bawls and he wails; the chest-hitching, breath-stealing tears are of a bottomless, bereft, hopeless grief. Ramola and Luis are crying too and they say, “It’s gone” and “Let’s get out of here” and “I’ll take a look.” They do not say, “It’ll be all right.” They lead him to the rear gate that
Dan drops open, and the three of them lift Josh (openmouthed, incapable of words) into the cargo bed. Ramola steps up onto the gate, afraid and suddenly sure she’s too late and the German shepherd is behind her, in midair, eager to show her all its teeth. The rear gate closes, she spins around, and the dog is not there. The Tree is still in the road, standing next to his camo partner but not looking at him. He leans and wavers, a weeping willow in an autumn wind. He cradles his arm, the crossbow an offering at his feet. His head is down. A weary penitent. Beyond him, the dog’s dark shape recedes as it sprints down Bay Road, triumphantly barking in full throat, running so fast it could be floating.
The truck is finally moving. Dan is driving, Natalie in the passenger seat, and Ramola, Josh, Luis, the Tree, and the bikes and gear arranged in the cargo bed like puzzle pieces. It’s a matter of minutes before they will arrive at Five Corners and the clinic.
Using a disinfectant wipe, Ramola finishes cleaning Josh’s facial wounds, a constellation of small red holes leaking a watery red. She doesn’t tell him what she said to Natalie only hours ago, that a quick and thorough cleaning post-exposure is sometimes enough to destroy the virus. The Tree, sitting with his back against the rear gate, his arms around his knees, refuses her help when she offers. Ramola only asks once.
Luis is in Josh’s ear, keeping up a manic one-person banter about the clinic and vaccines and rides to hospitals and help, getting him help.
Josh holds his bandanna against his cheek and says, “Hey, um, Doctor Ramola, that, um, person you know who got bit in the arm.” He pauses, leaving space to signal and honor that he’s talking about Natalie in code.
“Yes, Josh.”
“How long before, um, that person became infected and, like, showed signs?”
Ramola tells him the truth as she now knows it. “Less than an hour.”
“And the closer the bite is to the brain, then, it’ll take even less time.”
Survivor Song Page 18