Coyote (10 page)

Leanne, trapped under the man all this time, began to push at the floor, eyes wide, covered in the blood that had poured from her attacker, scooting backwards away from the savagery. The dog, wound up by the violence and seeing a possible new threat, gave something between a growl and a bark, snapping its teeth and taking two steps toward the woman, whose eyes just got bigger as Leanne frantically tried to scoot away.

Seeing what was happening, she spoke urgently to the dog from where she still held to the man she had tackled. “Stůj. Ani krok.”

As she said this, she loosened her own grip on her assailant, rolling his limp form off of her and coming to her knees. The dog calmed, backing down, and she looked to the rest of the room.

Three of the strangers lay on the floor: the one she had just disposed of, the one the dog had dealt with, and the one felled by the Mule’s blow with the bat. The others had run out the door, and she saw no further sign of them.

She looked to the dog, the fur on its chest clumped and matted with blood, ears up, fangs standing out in sharp contrast to the wet, dark red of its muzzle. The dog was alert, ready, even pleased. It had done what it was made for. Despite the pain in her arm and her own exhaustion after the fight, she understood what the dog was feeling. She felt it too—that savage joy. Perhaps this was what she was made for.

She looked to the Mule, but he was not looking at her. Instead, he stared down at the bat he had used. The joy of the fight did not show in his face or his stance.

She looked at the Professor, the captured revolver held loosely in his hand, and at Bait, still in the same spot in the corner where he had been when she entered. They stared back at her, seeming bemused, as if they were unsure what had happened.

Finally she looked at Leanne. She was pressed back against the far wall, legs splayed before her, covered in the blood of others, much like the dog. But the woman’s pale skin and wide eyes told a very different story than the eager gaze of the dog. There was no ferocity in her gaze—only fear.

Watching Leanne and looking again at the others, she began to realize there were different sorts of people in the world, and that each would have to adapt to the new rules of survival. Maybe some never would, she thought, glancing again at Leanne. Those that couldn’t would be unlikely to live long.

“This is a lesson,” she said, looking at each one in turn. “In this world, the monsters are not the only source of danger.”

None of them responded as she picked herself up and, followed by the dog, made her way out of the house. When she spoke, she had been referring to the strangers that had attacked them. Much later, she was told that the others weren’t so sure to whom she was referring—the strangers or herself.

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The others took some time to reorganize themselves and eventually all filed out of the house, looking packed up and ready to move on. Bait and the Mule had gathered their meager possessions and come out first. The Professor came out a few minutes later, stuffing an extra shirt into a backpack, both of which he must have found inside the house. Leanne was last. She had made some attempt to wipe the blood off of her face and hands, but still wore the same bloodstained shirt.

A few of them also raided the barn, with its collection of tools and implements. This, of course, came with its own share of cries and comments when they found the body of the fat man, but nobody was feeling brave enough to ask her for details.

Leanne found a small crowbar that she stuffed into the top of a child’s backpack she had taken from the house. The Mule looked like he was keeping the bat he had taken from one of the strangers, and she was pretty sure the Professor had kept the gun he had ended up with at the end of the fight. Bait went into the barn and came out with a machete strapped to his waist. Unfortunately, the shotgun that the fat man had been carrying turned out to be unloaded and broken, so it was left behind.

She had to admit that arming themselves better was a good idea. She had kept the knife the man in the house had stabbed her with, which fit pretty well in the sheath for her old knife, last seen in the shoulder of one of the strangers as he ran away from the house. After taking a brief look at the many tools and items stored in the barn she picked up a hatchet, which ended up resting in its own sheath on the opposite side of her hip from the knife.

At last, they were all gathered and ready to move out. Some looked more ready than others, but it was not her concern. She put her back to the house and moved down the driveway. The rest followed.

That day they walked. It was the beginning of what she soon realized might be a pattern for many days to come, maybe for all her days. Walk in the morning until people are tired, stop to rest a bit and eat, walk in the afternoon until a place to shelter for the night can be located. Stop to scavenge along the way, if a good opportunity comes up. Keep moving, keep surviving. For now, it was enough. But would there come a time when she wanted something more?

She headed east again, down the same highway they had arrived on yesterday, still walking towards Mount Hood. She started off at a good pace, but after just an hour, some of the others started to complain, and she was forced to slow herself. Leanne looked like she was physically all right, and Bait looked like he could go all day. But the Professor was obviously not used to much exercise. Skinny as he was, his shape was more about his genes than his exercise habits. And the Mule, still lugging an overloaded pack he would not admit was too heavy, was beginning to lag.

She kept walking, but a little slower. The rest of the group chatted, or stared ahead, looking like they were on a vacation. She kept alert. She and the dog. She kept her eyes roving back and forth, close and far, checking both sides of the road. The dog kept his ears and nose in use. Twice she stopped as the dog growled at something no one else could see. Once the dog stopped growling after a few minutes and seemed willing to continue. Once the dog did not.

That time, the dog was looking to the right of the road, at an isolated stand of trees. She could not see into the trees. Anything could have been in there. She moved left, following a nearby drainage ditch across a field, and the others followed. She walked at a crouch, allowing the dog to lead. After a time, the ditch came to a fence line. She judged that she was far enough away from the threat, as the dog was no longer looking nervously over its shoulder, but had returned to its normal sniffing about. She turned east again, following the fence line for maybe a half mile, and then angled back to the road. She came back to the road perhaps a mile past the stand of trees the dog had objected to.

With this delay, it was another two or three hours before another town came in sight. By now, not only were the Professor and the Mule struggling, but Leanne was starting to lag as well. No matter. If they could not keep up, she certainly wasn’t planning to wait. She did slow her pace just a bit though.

At the edge of town, the Professor called out. “Hey, look over there! It’s a motorcycle shop!”

She looked where he was pointing, and he was right, but she did not see the point of his interest. Turning away, she continued to walk.

“Hey wait a sec,” he said, “We should look in there.”

“She does not need a motorcycle that does not work,” she responded. At the beginning she had tried to start a few of the abandoned cars she found, but nothing happened when she turned the keys. She had seen no running cars or motorcycles since the Fall. They had gone the way of anything electronic.

“No, not the motorcycles. But there will be other useful things in there. Accessories. Come on.” With this he turned, taking a few steps toward the glass windows behind which she could see shiny new motorcycles waiting for people who would never drive them.

The others looked at her, seeming to wonder what she was going to do. It irked her, this willingness of theirs to be led. She frowned, and stepped toward the store.

“Come on,” she told the dog. “You will check this for us.”

She came to the doors of the store, looking through and seeing nothing that looked out of place. There were no broken windows and everything inside looked neat and orderly. She looked at the dog. He just looked back at her, seeming content enough. At least he sensed no danger here.

Pushing at the door, she found it unlocked. That answered the question of how they were getting in. She stepped inside, looking around, and along with the dog worked her way toward the back, creeping slowly past rows of motorcycles and racks of clothing and accessories. Again, she found nothing out of order.

“It seems safe,” she said, turning to the group.

“Excellent,” panted the Professor, wiping his brow and dropping his small pack as he came in. The others followed suit, entering the store and divesting themselves of what they carried. When the Mule shrugged his pack to the ground he let out an audible groan and bent at the waist for a moment.

She gave a small smirk that nobody saw, and turned to look about.

“So you are here,” she said to the Professor. “What did you want?”

“It’s a motorcycle shop, and motorcycles tend to crash, right? That means all the accessories they sell here are more durable than most things.” He walked over to a shelf full of boots, picking one up to point out its features. “The boots, for example. Tough, rugged tread on the soles, reinforced toes and heels, and some even have bracing along the shins and double-thick leather along the calves. All designed to help the owner out when the motorcycle crashes, tips over, or whatever. But now, in our new rough-and-tumble world, way more useful than loafers, right?”

He pointed to his own bedraggled-looking shoes. Good for a day teaching class, maybe, but not meant for much else. It was a good point.

“Then,” he continued, “Look at your jacket.” He pointed to the olive-drab jacket she wore, found in a largely picked-over army surplus store weeks ago. It was grubby and had small holes in several places, as well as a rather large tear at the top of the right arm, where she had been cut by the stranger’s knife earlier in the day. Now the jacket was stained with her own blood, as well as that of other people and things she had encountered.

“That jacket has, I dare to say, reached the end of its useful life. But look here,” He strode to another corner of the store, in which racks of jackets, mostly leather, hung awaiting customers that weren’t going to come by any time soon.

“I think these jackets might be better than anything else you’ll find out there,” he said, pointing to the world in general outside the store. The jackets, like the boots, are designed to protect the wearer when he crashes. They won’t do anything for you if you hit a wall at ninety miles an hour, but if you lay your bike down and skid along the road, the jackets are reinforced along the back and the sleeves so that they take the grinding of the asphalt instead of the wearer’s skin. All of them will have thicker leather than the average jacket. Some are warmer, some lighter, many are waterproof, and some even have actual Kevlar plates or chain mail hiding under their outer layer of leather.

“In fact,” he continued, gazing speculatively at the dog’s vest, “I’ll bet your dog’s jacket there has something pretty similar underneath. Kevlar sections or some kind of plating—I’ve read that military and police dogs have that to protect them from knives and such. And with the way the world has turned, well, the dog is better dressed for what’s out there than you are right now.”

She realized that the Professor had a point. Her beat-up jacket needed replacement anyhow, and it had definitely not given her any sort of protection when she had been fighting with the strangers. Perhaps the Professor would be useful after all.

Saying nothing, she dropped her old jacket to the floor and turned to the racks of jackets to begin examining them. The others seemed to take this as a cue, and several of them said complimentary things to the Professor, thanking him for his smart thinking as they began rifling through the store’s offerings for themselves.

A few minutes later, they were all pawing through the store’s goods, trying things on, and chatting with each other in hushed voices about what they were finding when Bait spoke up.

“Hey,” he suddenly yelled, making everyone flinch. “Why are we whispering?”

They all turned to stare at him. “Come on,” he said, “what is this, a library? It’s too fucking creepy walking around this empty place as it is, and all your hushed little voices are just adding to it.”

“You’re right,” said the Professor in an interested tone. “There is something kind of quiet and spooky about this place.” They had all been feeling it. Aside from the absence of other people, the store had a concertedly deserted air that was getting on everyone’s nerves, but that none of them had fingered until now.

“Music,” said Leanne. Now all eyes swiveled to her. She looked nervous at the attention and cast her eyes to the ground.

“You know,” she explained. “There’s no music. Every store you go into, there’s always music.”

“She’s right,” said the Mule. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been in a store that didn’t have some sort of background music playing.” He looked up at the ceiling, locating the round speakers that would have pumped music into the room before the Fall. “I wonder what kind of music they played here?”

“Country music,” said Bait with a smile. “I’ll bet you a dollar it was country.”