Coyote (6 page)

The first man looks to his friend and smiles. “I only have to out-run you.”

It was an important lesson.

After lacing her shoes, she took a look around the room. Keys, phone… there was nothing else she needed. She looked around at the clothes, the souvenirs, the books, and the obligatory photos of her family tacked to the wall. It did not matter what the counselors said, or how often they said it. She was not attached to any of it. It meant nothing to her.

She left her room, heading down the hall and to the door.

She was seeing other students now, all looking frightened. Some hung together in clusters, and some wandered aimlessly. Only a few moved with any purpose, and those moved in opposite directions as often as not. None gave her a second look as she passed.

She arrived at the door to the commons, and was just about to open it when somebody else pulled it quickly open from the outside. It was a boy she knew, standing there panting. Behind him, she had time to see the mist now rolling across the grounds in force. It was like a white wall, blocking out anything more than twenty feet from the doorway.

Next, she noticed the wide eyes of the boy in the doorway. He had been running. Now he stood, panting, and quivering, looking in her eyes. She saw panic on his face.

He took one panting breath… then he was gone—brushed aside as something large and inky black rushed across the doorway and into the mist. She leaned out the doorway, wondering what it was, but saw only a quickly retreating black shadow, soon lost in the mist.

She retreated back into the hallway, jogging across the building to another door on the other side. This one let out into the school parking lot. This one, too, was full of the unnatural mist. She spent a moment peering out, looking for danger. Once or twice she thought she saw other black shapes in the mist. They seemed huge, maybe the size of elephants, but moved much too quickly for their size. Perhaps the mist was playing tricks on her sense of perspective.

The parking lot was not a safe place. But she did not think the dormitory would stay safe either, now that it was surrounded by the mist. She needed to move.

She stepped outside, jogging a few steps and crouching behind a parked car. She could hear more screaming now—a lot more screaming. And some of it was coming from inside the dormitory as well. She had been right—the dormitory was not safe.

She saw people, too: students, mostly, and the occasional adult. Most of them were familiar to her—students, teachers, and others that worked at the school. All were running in one direction or another, many with wide eyes, and many spattered with the same dark stains she had seen on the first children to flee the elementary school.

Suddenly a shape loomed out of the mist, crashing full speed into the shelter of the car beside her. She started to rise, but then saw that it was another student. This was a girl her own age. They had a few classes together.

“Ohmigod, can you believe this?” said the girl. “What is happening?”

She didn’t answer. There was no answer and they both knew it.

The girl looked at her. “What do we do now?”

Why had the girl said “we”? She may never know.

“The dormitory is not safe. The school is not safe,” she said. “Perhaps someplace else is safe. It’s time to run.”

“Oh Jesus,” replied the girl, her eyes going wider. “Have you seen those things? You can’t outrun those things.”

She looked at the girl, a small frown on her face. “She does not need to outrun those things,” she said.

She turned away from the questioning eyes of the girl and took off across the parking lot. She saw that girl only one more time.

She ran perhaps fifty yards, and then crouched behind another car to scout ahead and look to her sides. She did not want to be surprised. She did not pause long—only moments. This was not a good place to be. Seeing nothing near her, she sprinted a ways, crouching behind another car. She repeated this maybe four times before she reached the edge of the parking lot.

Finally at the edge of the parking lot, she was sprinting for the gates to the school when she heard a familiar voice calling her.

“Wait, wait!”

She paused at the open gate, one hand on the fence.

It was the same girl again, the one that had crouched behind the car with her. Now she was running, too, looking like she was trying to catch up.  Suddenly, as if their eyes were pulled at the same time, they both looked to her left. A huge, black shape loomed out of the mist, moving at impossible speed. She had a blurred impression of a dark, flowing mass, like oil that had learned to run.

The mass crashed into the girl, enveloping her, choking off the beginning of the girl’s scream. The dark mud spattered out, hitting her own clothes now, showing her how the others had gotten it on them—showing her what that grime-covered boy had seen that had been too much for him. The only sounds were a brief gurgle, and a crunch, as the blackness flowed over the other girl. The shape did not pause, did not lose any speed, and was quickly lost in the mist.

---

“After that, the story stays much the same. There was running, hiding, and a lot of walking. The details are not important, just that now she is here.”

The group was staring at her. Nobody spoke. She looked at them, one by one, as if daring them to contradict her. None did.

After a few moments of silence, it was Owen who, again, spoke up.

“Hey, well, no details lost in that telling, huh?” He looked uncomfortable, as if he was inviting her to explain further, but she felt no need to.

After that, there were a few other half-hearted attempts at starting up the conversation again, but all those attempts fell flat. Soon, one by one, they all announced their intentions to turn in for the night. Tom and his wife had the grace to share some of the blankets they had with the girl and Owen, who only had the barest minimum of supplies. They showed them to a stack of carpet samples that, when piled atop each other, made a surprisingly comfortable bed.

The teenage boy, whose name she had already forgotten, pulled a sleeping bag out of his own backpack—a larger, older-looking model that looked like it might be military surplus. The dog settled itself into a pile of packing materials, in a corner where it could easily see all the people as they slept.

She dreamed that night. They probably all dreamed. But nobody spoke of their dreams in the morning.

---

When morning came, she was awakened to the sounds of people stirring about the warehouse. Tom’s wife had a large pot of what she called Farina boiling over the camp-fire, and offered to share. Everyone accepted the offer.

That morning she learned that Farina was a sort of mush, made of fine little grains that must have started off as some kind of plant. It was bland, but filling. Before the Fall, she would have turned her nose up at it, preferring some pancakes or maybe a pop-tart. Now she ate all she was offered. She had learned to take what she found.

After finishing her meal, she mumbled her thanks to Shawna, and walked over to where she had laid her backpack and jacket the night before, cinching straps and putting them on.

“Hey, what’r ya doin?” It was Owen, unsurprisingly, standing behind her.

“She is preparing to leave.”

Owen seemed surprised. “Why not stay? There’s food, shelter, warmth…”

“This is not where she is going,” she replied. Then she stopped her packing, looking up at Owen.

“And,” she added, looking towards the unshuttered windows in the front of the store, and then the flimsy plywood door at the back of the warehouse, “this is not safe.”

“Well, where are you going?” asked Owen.

“She isn’t sure. Not here. Perhaps someplace with fewer people and stronger walls. Perhaps she will just keep moving.”

Her bag was packed, and her jacket was on. Only one more thing to do before she left. Tom and his wife had sheltered her, so she owed it to them to try, even though she doubted it would work.

Slinging her bag over one shoulder and her rifle over the other, she approached the fire where the others were cleaning up after breakfast. As she walked over, Tom, Shawna, and the teenage boy stopped what they were doing and looked at her. She looked at them all.

“You should leave,” she said.

To one degree or another, they all looked startled.

“Leave?” asked Tom, “Why?”

“It is not safe here. You are not safe,” she replied.

“Not safe? I’ve got a roof over my head, I’ve got food, and I’ve got four walls around me. Considering the alternatives, that’s good enough for now. Shawna and I are planning to wait right here until all this blows over.” Tom looked to Shawna for support, and Shawna nodded her head.

She raised her eyebrows. “You cannot hide here forever.”

“We’re waiting here until things sort themselves out,” repeated Tom.

She had known it would be this way. “Soon enough, something will happen. Something will find you. You can do as you wish, everyone can. But here, you’re only waiting to die.”

She turned away, slinging her backpack over both shoulders then re-slinging the rifle, and headed out the door. She saw that the dog was following on her heels.

She left the warehouse, crossing the parking lot and turning downhill on the main road, headed again for the rural highway she had been headed for yesterday. After only twenty steps or so, she heard a door bang open behind her. Even though it did not please her, she had expected it. She turned to see the man she had saved from the crab-things yesterday coming out the door, still pulling his hastily packed bag onto his shoulders. What she did not expect was the soft bulk of the teenage boy following him, his own larger backpack over his shoulders. She stopped, looking at them.

“I’m with you,” said the man as he approached. “Told you that yesterday.”

“Why?” she asked. She was honestly curious.

“It’s like you said. They’re gonna die in there, man. Something’s gonna catch up with them sometime, and they’re gonna die. That’s what they don’t know, man. Or maybe they don’t wanna know. They’re hunkered down, waiting for all this to blow over, right? But well, who says this is gonna end?”

Next, she looked at the teenager, who looked rather sheepish as he approached and stood in front of her, his head bowed and his dark hair falling over his eyes. He looked like he might be waiting for her to say something, but she didn’t.

Soon he spoke. “You see,” he began, “What you said back there, about them just waiting to die? It’s kind of what I’ve been thinking myself. And, well, I don’t want to wait to die, but I don’t really have a better plan, so…” He shrugged. “I figured I’d come along with you guys.”

“Always good to have an extra hand, right?” piped up the man. She frowned at him.

“You should not follow,” she said to the boy. “There is no plan here, either,” and after a brief pause, “and you will most likely die.”

The boy looked up from beneath his bangs, a stubborn glint in his eyes. “Well then at least I’ll see a little more of the world before I do, yeah? And maybe make some friends on the way.”

She turned away, beginning to walk down the road again. This was not what she wanted. She could not influence what he decided, but she wanted no friends.

“She will never be anything to you,” she said over her shoulder. But soon enough she heard his plodding footsteps joining the clicking of the dog’s claws and the man’s lighter, quicker steps behind her.

---

From the diary of the Mule:

I left the warehouse today. It was a good place to rest, but I couldn’t see my future there. Hell, I don’t know if I can see my future anywhere, but definitely not rotting away in that warehouse. This girl and guy came by, travelling together. They had a dog along, too. There was something about them… I don’t know. Something. Something that looked better than what I see in Tom and Shawna. Tom and Shawna are nice enough people, but they don’t seem to have much idea what to do next. I mean, they’ve got this old warehouse to hide in, but what’s next? I think they’re still hoping this will all end. Or maybe they know it isn’t going to end, but they aren’t ready to talk about it.

I’ve got as little idea of what’s really happening in the world as anyone else. I mean, is the whole world like this? Is everything messed up? Or if I just walk to the next town over, will I find normal life?

Hell, I don’t know. One day I’m living my life, sucky as it was, and the next day nothing electric works, most people have just disappeared somewhere, and there seem to be a million new ways to die. I remember meeting a few panicked survivors, just like me, in those first days. It was all endless speculation. Was it demons? Aliens? The Rapture? Hell, there was even one guy that was convinced all this was caused by what he called a “polar shift.” I never could get a straight explanation out of him as to what exactly a polar shift was, and how it could unleash hordes of monsters upon the world.

But at least I’m trying to deal with what I see. I bet there are a lot of people like Tom and Shawna, just kind of hoping that they can get along for a while “until it all blows over.” I swear I heard Tom say that at least a dozen times in the two days I shared their roof.