Survivor Song(56)
One of the camo men shouts, “Dan, you’re gonna miss the fun part!”
Two men, including the one carrying the hunting rifle, trot down the opposite shoulder, toward the approaching coyotes. Josh and Luis have pulled out their own weapons and are conspicuously quiet.
As the truck’s rear end crawls up the inclined drive, the men at the yellow house back away from the front door, shouting and pointing at one another. The front door opens and the dog’s barks increase in volume exponentially. A tan-and-black blur launches from the darkened interior of the house, knocking the man in the animal control shirt onto his ass. It’s a muscular, broad-shouldered German shepherd, jaws snapping, white-and-pink spittle spooling from its mouth. The dog pivots right and attacks one of the shovel-carrying members of Dan’s group, clamping onto his left calf, biting its way higher up the leg. Undaunted by two solid shovel blows to its side, the dog forces the flailing, screaming man to ground. With his quarry down, the dog tears into his neck and face.
A white man, presumably the one who opened the front door, follows the dog out of house, lurching between the flags and onto the stoop. He is as tall as the Tree, but likely at least a decade younger, and he is awash in blood; arms, legs, torso, cheeks splashed and stained red. There’s so much blood on him it can’t all be his, though some of it must be, as one leg of his joggers is torn and so too one of his shirtsleeves. He shouts, “Where you come from? You must say,” repeatedly, but it sounds like one word, and with improper intonation, as he sets upon the animal control officer on the stoop, who is caught in mid-attempt to regain his feet. He has no chance. The mauling is brutal and efficient. The infected man rains hammer blows upon the officer’s head, then grabs and briefly lifts him so they are face-to-face, biting his neck and cheek before dropping him to the ground. As he coughs and frantically wipes his mouth (making gargling noises that to Ramola’s ears sound like he’s saying “from hell”) the infected man kicks and stomps the head of the animal officer, who, but for arms and hands fluttering helplessly, doesn’t move.
Too stunned and frightened to come to either man’s aid, the third of the yellow house’s exploratory group yells for help and backs down the slate stone walkway toward the drive. He does not move quickly enough. The dog and the infected man converge on him. Fangs, hands, and teeth.
The truck is stopped. Everyone is shouting, including Ramola. Luis and Josh bounce on their heels, asking if they should jump off the truck and help, but the attacks are so one-sided and final the outcomes are decided as soon as they begin. Ramola grabs one of each of their arms, anchoring them to the truck bed for a moment, telling them, “No!” and “Stay here,” and “You can’t help them.” Then she crouches by the open cab window and shouts, “Go, go, go!”
In two strides the German shepherd bounds from the walkway and into the drive. It leaps against the truck, clawing and scratching at the metal. The dog lifts onto its hind legs, its bloody front paws and barking, snarling head hanging over the side panel. Josh swings his wooden staff and connects, but it’s a glancing blow the dog shrugs off. If anything, the staff strike antagonizes the already-frenzied animal. It hops up and down on its rear legs, trying to push its bulk over the side and into the bed.
The truck’s engine finally answers with its own roar and lunges forward. Only Ramola is prepared for the sudden acceleration as the teens are sent backward. Luis smartly goes low and down, squatting in next to the bikes and in front of their gear. Josh fights to remain standing, using his staff as a balancing pole. Ramola holds on to the open frame of the rear window and watches out the windshield.
The truck charges into Bay Road going too fast for the change in pitch (from elevated drive to flat road) and for such a tight left turn. Two men, including the one with the hunter’s rifle, are unexpectedly in the truck’s path, either caught in mid-retreat or running to the aid of the others at the yellow house. The surging front grille clips the rifleman, sending him rolling onto the opposite shoulder, and the swinging fishtail of the truck bed slams into the second man, batting him airborne. He lands bonelessly on his back.
Dan jams on the brakes. Ramola is pressed flat against the cab’s rear window. The bikes, gear, and Luis slide up the cargo bed. Josh cries out as he tumbles over the driver’s-side wall, his dropped wooden staff drum-rolling on the pavement. The stopped truck is a diagonal slash across the road’s center lines. Dan opens the door and gets out of the cab. Luis grabs both loops of the water bottles and climbs over the side of the truck to Josh, who is on his knees, rubbing his chin and checking his hand for blood.
Natalie’s door flies open, recoiling to halfway-closed on its hinges. Ramola reaches through the rear window, grabs a fistful of sweatshirt at Natalie’s shoulder, and yells, “No! You are not going anywhere. Close the door.”
Natalie turns her head and offers Ramola a dismissive, completely out-of-character sneer. She twists out of her grip, leans out of the truck, and pulls the door closed.
The dog is already biting, shaking, and thrashing about the prone man in the middle of the street. It quickly moves on to the rifleman on the road’s shoulder, gnawing at the hands and arms bunkering around his head. The man’s groans turn to high-pitched screams. The rifle is strewn between the truck and the man. Ramola puts one foot on the sidewall, considering a mad dash for the gun. The dog turns and unleashes a volley of barks as though it hears her thinking.