100-Days-in-Deadland(60)

I reluctantly held her out.

He picked her up by the scruff of her neck, looked her over, and then handed her back. “It doesn’t look injured or sick. But it’s young, not even weaned yet. It’ll probably die, no matter what we do. I don’t know much about coyotes except that they’re a nuisance.”

The pup snuggled into my arm and I scratched her oversized ears. “I’ll take care of her.”

“I can’t believe you’re bringing a coyote home,” Clutch said.

I shot him a smile. “We’re all leftovers in this world. She’s no different.” I carried her in one hand, grabbed my machete in my other hand, and started heading back into the woods. “I think she’ll fit in nicely.”

Clutch caught up and we walked in silence through the woods. Once we reached the yard, I lifted the pup. “What should we call her?”

“Ugly.”

“Har, har.” I smiled. “Jase is going to love her.”

By the time we crossed the yard and reached the house, the pup had nearly chewed a hole through my glove. Jase rode up on his bike and pointed, his head cocked. “What kind of dog is that?”

“Coyote,” Clutch replied.

Jase raised a brow. “A coyote? For real?”

“She’s yours if you want her,” I offered.

His eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

He held out his hands, and I handed the pup over. “Hey, little Mutt,” he murmured, scratching her back.

I smiled. As soon as I held the pup, I’d hoped she could help fill the void for Jase. “Hopefully, she’ll take to the powdered milk,” I said. “And you’ll need to make up a little bed or kennel for her.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said and headed off into the house.

“Make sure it doesn’t have fleas before you bring it inside,” Clutch called out, but Jase was already gone.

Clutch tried to give me one of his hard looks but failed. When his lips curled upward, I knew he’d also seen the light in Jase’s eyes.

There were too few moments like that to brush them off.

“Let’s check the gate,” he growled. “The kid’s going to be worthless the rest of the day.”

I tried not to grin as I jumped in the Jeep, and Clutch shrugged off the backpack of extra gear he always carried now and drove us down the lane. About midway there, we heard the now-familiar sound of the garbage truck.

“Those sonsabitches just won’t quit,” he muttered before gunning the engine. “Get ready.”

I lifted my rifle.

He stopped at the bend in the lane, and we got out and took cover behind the trees.

The garbage truck had stopped and was in progress of backing up. Either someone different was driving today or Sean was drunk off his ass, because the truck nearly backed straight into the ditch.

It would’ve been a lot easier for us if it had. But the driver overcorrected at the last moment and nearly went into the ditch on the other side. The back of the truck smashed into the gate, and the dump box opened. The box needed a couple more feet of space behind the truck to rotate. Terrible metal-on-metal screeching sounds ensued as the box tangled in the gate, lifting it, until something broke, and both the box and gate slammed to the ground, taking several feet of the barbed wire fence with it.

One zed caught between the box and gate was cut in half. The remaining five zeds began to crawl over it and onto the ground.

“You got to be f*cking kidding me,” Clutch cursed. “You got the zeds?”

My first shot went through a zed’s eye. “Yeah,” I said.

“Good.” Clutch walked straight toward the truck that was now trying to pull away, but it was locked onto the gate. It wasn’t an ordinary garbage truck. They’d welded metal over the wheels so we couldn’t shoot the tires. Same with the windshield and windows. With the exception of a few peepholes, everything had been covered by sheets of metal. Otherwise we would’ve shot them the first time they’d invaded our territory.

Its tires spun, trying to break free, and the collapsed gate protested.

I took down the next four zeds with easy back-to-back shots as they tried to drag themselves to their feet. One final shot took down the half of zed still caught between the gate and truck.

Clutch came to a stop less than a dozen feet from the truck. Its engine and wheels suddenly calmed. A barrel poked through the slot in the driver’s side window, but Clutch fired first. His shot was close enough to hit or scare the driver because the barrel disappeared back inside the cab, and the truck engine roared. The gate moved several feet with the truck.