Coyote (22 page)

“Yes!” cried Bait, giving Beast a high-five. “We’re having hamburgers!”

Suddenly the smile dropped from Beast’s face and he looked worried.

He grabbed Bait by the shoulders, turning to look him in the eye. “You gotta go back in there man.”

“What? No way, dude. It’s gross in there!”

“You gotta. You gotta go in there, and you gotta find cheese.”

Bait looked at him a moment, and swallowed. “Cheese,” he said, almost to himself. The desire in his eyes was evident.

“Ok, you’re right. I’m going in.”

Beast slapped him on the back, propelling him toward the freezer. “That’s it, man. Find the cheese.”

Bait disappeared once more into the freezer and they all could hear him shifting things around as he searched for cheese. Beast stood in the doorway, watching his progress.

Soon Bait’s voice came from the freezer.

“Hey, how come I’m in here? Why aren’t you looking?”

Beast just smiled and shook his head. “No way, little dude. It’s gross in there.”

Bait did find cheese. He also came across a bag of onions that didn’t seem any worse for the wear. The Professor and the Mule took on the cooking duties, while the others found plates and napkins, and opened ketchup and mustard packets. The soda machines didn’t work, but they each were carrying water to drink. After living on whatever they found in abandoned pantries for so long, the details didn’t matter. They were having cheeseburgers in a restaurant.

In about half an hour, the group sat around a table in the dining area, eating what may have been the last cheeseburgers in the world.  And she had to admit they were a group now. They were together. She didn’t know why, or how it had happened despite her efforts to avoid getting entangled with others, but she could see it happening around the table as they all ate.

There would be no walking off and leaving them on their own. From now on, they would face what came together. She found herself smiling as she ate her cheeseburger, stale bread and all, with juice running down her chin. She would never grow attached to these people, but it was interesting having them around.

Knowing the meat would not last now that it was out of the freezer, they stuffed themselves, eating all they could while they had the chance. Each of them ate at least two cheeseburgers, stale buns and all, while the Mule and Beast managed to eat four apiece, though they both could only eat a few bites of their fifth burger.

When no-one could eat more, they all sat back in their seats, full, reluctant to have this moment end—reluctant to leave. Each looked into the eyes of the others, not saying anything, but all thinking the same truth. The world, such as it was, was still out there, waiting for them. They couldn’t stay. If they stayed, something would find them. Better they moved out and found it, first.

---

And so the moment did end, and they did move on—once again strung out in their line of travel, once again working their way along the highway. Again, they were watchful, looking for what the next unpleasant surprise might be. But did they have their eyes out for a different reason: not to evade things, but to find them? She was not sure what their goal was now. Were they hunting the things that had invaded their world, or were they still hiding from them? Perhaps she would take what came, and go from there.

It turned out, though, that she didn’t need to make that decision any time soon. A whole day passed, the dog trotting in front of the group, scouting for trouble and the rest of them strung out behind it. Nothing threatened them.

They kept moving, stopping for a lunch that consisted mostly of the last of the hamburgers grilled over a hastily constructed fire in the center of the road. The nostalgia was lost, though. Now the burgers were just meat—something to keep a person going.

What followed was a long day of walking. That night they camped, still not running across anything threatening, in a campground. It was a small campground next to a small creek—just two or three spots for tents with two or three matching iron fire pits. She didn’t even notice the name on their way in.

They chose to all crowd into the middle of the three camp spots. She was tempted to point out that there were two other perfectly good spots to each side but didn’t want to get involved in the conversation. Instead, she watched them all lay out their spots in a circle around the fire pit. They were high on the side of Mount Hood now, and it grew colder in the evening. The sleeping bags they had scavenged a few towns back would be welcome that night, just as the warmth of the small fire they started was now.

Once they had settled in it was, as usual, Bait who got the conversation going.

“So round two,” he said. “Where’d the monsters come from?”

“Monsters?” asked the Mule, “Really? Like, things with tentacles that live under your bed?”

“Yours had tentacles?” asked Beast, while at the same time Bait responded with “Yeah, monsters. What else are you gonna call all these things?”

“He’s right,” added the Professor. “If we don’t know where they came from, then we don’t know what to call them. And nothing is really more generic than just ‘monsters.’”

“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.”