Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse(89)
Maxim considers investigating if his building is safe now, but he decides to steer clear of it.
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Maxim makes no special effort to keep up with or follow the dog, and soon they’re no longer wandering together. He’s grateful to her, and he knows where to find her if he wants to see her again, but for now he concentrates on finding lodging for the evening. He settles on a one-level rowhouse that’s been completely trashed, but has plenty of bulky furniture, which makes it easy to barricade the doors and windows.
He sleeps deeply, through the night and well past sunrise. His slumber is haunted by vivid dreams: surrealistic montages of physical violence, sexual fantasies and fears, cannibalistic orgies, cities being run over by swarms of invading monsters.
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The three big scabs on Maxim’s cheek indicate his wound is healing. It’s still a little sensitive, but no apparent infection. He settles into his new home and his new routine, which is not that different from his old routine – scavenge for food, clothing, and supplies; explore the remains of the city – except that he has abandoned his survey, having lost his notes when he was forced out of his previous lodgings, and that now he makes a point of spending part of every day with the dog family in the Granville Island playground. The pups love to play with him, and he has developed a strong bond with the mother. The father, the Labrador, accepts him passively, neither encouraging nor discouraging his presence within the pack.
With increasing frequency, Maxim feels as if he is being followed. He vacillates between being worried about his safety and dismissing the sensation as paranoia.
When he returns home from today’s visit with the dogs, he finds his door open. Warily, he goes in anyway. There’s no one else in the house, but there’s food left on his table: apples, berries, lettuce, other leafy greens he can’t identity, and some dead fish – a better haul than he usually manages these days. He eats everything.
The next day, he again finds food on his table. And the next. And the next…
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Maxim decides to stake out his old apartment building. It’s easy enough for him to hide unseen among the trees and keep a vigilant watch on the front door. Although Maxim has abandoned his formal survey, to satisfy his curiosity he still observes and surreptitiously follows the people he encounters in the course of his daily wanderings, but no one has ever led him back here. Are the invaders still here? How many of them are there? Who are they?
The instant he sees the first one of them emerge from the building, Maxim realizes that he already knew, that there had been just enough light to dimly make out the one who had raided his former apartment. But it had been easier to pretend not to have seen, to pretend not to know.
Like most mammals, they come out at dusk. There are nine of them. Are there more who stay behind while the others go hunt and forage?
Mammals. Yes, they are mammals. They are primates. Perhaps they are even human. But are they persons? Are there more groups of them elsewhere in Vancouver?
They wear no clothes. They’re furry, like monkeys or apes. But they walk fully erect on their hind legs, like humans. Some of them carry sticks, which they partially use as canes. Their fingers end in sharp claw-like nails, the sight of which makes him touch the scabs on his cheek. None of them are very tall; in fact, Maxim, himself of less than average height, is taller than any of them. Their frames are broad and muscular, though. Their heads, feet, and hands all seem disproportionately large. Big. Maxim snickers silently to himself: The Bigfoot people really do have big feet. Maxim thinks that Bigfoot is a stupid name, though. Sasquatch is better, and that’s what he’ll call them.
The question reverberates in his mind: Are they persons?
Cro-Magnon DNA dominates the stew of primate genes that make up Maxim Fujiyama. He wonders how close or how far to his own genetic makeup these Sasquatches are. Maxim is convinced that, yes, they are human, but they are differently human than he is, more differently human, more alien than any human he has ever seen before.
There’s a gust of wind, and the odour hits him; a stench similar to the one when his previous apartment was broken into. Maxim’s senses become hyper-alert to his surroundings. He turns his head toward the source of the wind: there’s a Sasquatch standing at an angle behind him, approximately a metre to his left.
Maxim yelps in surprise and fear. He runs away as fast as he can, but he’s distracted and careless; he trips on a loose paving stone. He skids on his scabbed cheek, and it starts bleeding again. It’s only a superficial scrape, but it stings sharply. He picks himself up, his heart beating furiously. He looks back. The Sasquatch has made no move to chase him. It’s a female and particularly small. Their eyes meet, and she darts away, vanishing from Maxim’s view before he can figure out in which direction she has fled.
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The next morning, the Rottweiler is waiting for Maxim outside his door. She accompanies him around the city. Since he gave up on the survey, Maxim’s explorations of the city have been more playful, more random, more fun. Yet a part of him feels restless and rudderless, as if he were waiting for something, some change. But he knows there is nothing to wait for.
Today, the Sasquatch makes no effort to hide herself. She follows the two of them from a safe distance. Maxim sees her on rooftops; across the street, crouched on the hood of derelict automobiles; watching them from ahead, then running away as he and the dog approach.
The Rottweiler sees the Sasquatch, too. The dog tenses every time she sees or smells her. Maxim pets her when he notices her change in attitude; the Rottweiler never barks at the Sasquatch, but occasionally she does emit a low grumble that doesn’t quite reach the level of a growl.