After The Fires Went Out: Coyote (Book One of the Post-Apocalyptic Adventure Series) (84 page)

She brought my meal out to the back porch, carrying it on a wooden tray that I didn’t even know we had, and luckily I chose to say thanks rather than give her an appreciative pat on the ass.

"Just one day, right?" she said.

"One day."

She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. "You’re funny when you’re drunk. But you’re also pretty useless."

"I know, lady... you might have to wait until tomorrow to try and seduce me."

I shouldn’t have said that.

"That’s sure to happen,” she said. “Now I’m going to go upstairs and lock myself in my bedroom."

I watched her as she walked back into the kitchen, but with my whisky in hand I lost track of her soon after that. I finished my dinner and then I rested a while on the couch, staring up at the hanging stained glass loon and thinking of Fiona.

I wanted to stay drunk forever. I couldn’t even remember what was so important about the eleventh of April.

I woke up after the sun had set. I found my way to the grandfather clock and saw that it was almost eleven. I didn’t feel drunk anymore, and I decided to go outside, to listen to the sounds of the lake.

I’d never have chosen to live up here, where the winter is colder than fuck and the summer is short and filled with hurricane clouds of black flies and mosquitoes.

But this place has grown on me.

As small as this world can feel sometimes, just me and Fiona, it’s also a place that can be so big that you could go out and get lost forever.

I would have lost my nerve after The Fires went out... I would have lost the will to live the moment I’d climbed out of that lake and seen the charred forest.

I would have... if not for Fiona.

There's something special about her; she’s everything I'm not, and everything I thought the world had lost. And it sounds pretty strange, but I still know that the worst can't get me as long as Fiona is here, as long as I can keep her safe.

That’s enough to keep me going. It’s enough for me to get out of bed on every day that isn’t April 11th.

And it was enough again tonight, to get me to write a new entry in this journal, instead of finishing off that bottle of whisky and throwing myself back under the water.

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About the Author

Regan lives in Winnipeg, Canada with his wife, two children, and enough animals to bleed through six layers of carpet.

You can find out more about Regan at his website:
www.reganwolfrom.com