Survivor Song(57)

There’s a high-velocity whoosh and an arrow chunks into the rifleman’s right hip. His screams increase in volume and are pitched at a frequency that rattles the truck’s loose rear sliding window in its frame. He reaches for his leg, and as the dog takes advantage of the opening, burrowing into his unprotected face and neck, his cries quickly weaken to watery gargles.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” shouts the other camo man, Richard or Stanley, Stanley or Richard; he holds his aimed crossbow in front of his body as though memorializing the ill-fated shooting pose.

The Tree is ten feet behind his partner and engaged in a struggle with the larger coyote. He swings his crossbow like a cudgel at the animal’s head, which is clamped down on his pant leg. Despite the arrow sticking out of its left shoulder, left leg limp and dangling, the coyote’s ferocity and the effectiveness of its attack are not compromised. The Tree is in danger of being chopped down. The smaller coyote is twenty or so paces beyond them, lying dead in the road, three arrows sticking out of its pincushion body.

Having quickly dispatched the rifleman, the German shepherd, its dark coat gone darker with blood, sprints for the other man in camo. Its speed and might is as mesmerizing as it is frightening. Teeth bared, focus singular, there’s almost a sense of joy or freedom in the bounding, athletic attack; it is finally fulfilling a long-ago animal promise, one that will not be broken.

There is a chorus of yelling on the other side of the truck, but Ramola only has eyes for the rifle on the ground now that the dog is entangled with the other camo man. She climbs out of the truck, jumping down to the pavement. The weapon is only steps away, but time slows as though she is running in a nightmare; the distance expands, the ground upon which she runs becomes a bog. She snatches the rifle by its stock and quickly points the barrel out and away from her body, preparing for an attack. But she is not really prepared, as she’s never shot, much less held, a firearm. Both camo men continue to grapple with the two animals. The German shepherd is upright, full weight coiled on its hind legs as though two legs are indeed better. Its front paws scratch and probe the man’s chest, pushing him backward and dangerously off-balance; the rabid animal has already re-learned the imperative to get his opponent to the ground. Even if Ramola were comfortable shooting a weapon, she does not have a clear shot and fears hitting one of the men.

Behind her, Josh and Luis are yelling to each other. She turns and takes two running steps. On the other side of the truck, the rampaging infected man run-walks in that now familiarly awful broken gait, but he is retreating from Luis instead of advancing. Luis has both sets of water bottles hanging around his neck. Two bottles are in his hands, and he splashes spooling waves of water at the infected man. Josh, his chin bloodied, is a couple steps behind Luis and halfheartedly carrying his wooden staff.

The infected man yells, “No!” and he sounds teary, desperate. He says, “Please,” splitting the word into two, overexaggerated syllables. Pluh-eeze. He coughs, gags, and he waves his hands.

Luis shouts taunts and expletives as he splashes more water. He quickly sheds one empty bottle for the next full one, forcing the man to continue backing his way down the street and away from the truck. “Get in! Get in,” Luis commands, and he climbs over the rear gate. Once inside he throws more water at the infected man, who has stumbled beyond Luis’s range. Josh is likely concussed, given how slowly he moves. Starry-eyed, he stands at the back of the truck all but ignoring Luis offering a hand, urging him up.

The infected man wipes his face, working it over like it’s a stubborn mask that won’t come off, his hands webbed with blood, saliva, and mucus. With each pass of his hands over his nose and mouth, he says, almost conversationally, “I smell the blood.” When his arms abruptly drop to his sides and he locks eyes with Ramola, her personal barometric pressure plummets. Dizzy and nauseated with fear, she lifts the shaking rifle, steadying the stock against her right shoulder, trying to convince herself to shoot. Aiming low, for a leg and not for a kill shot, she pulls the trigger. The kick isn’t as strong as she anticipated, but she still misses badly; the bullet rips through the yellow house’s row of hedges at least ten feet to his right. He rushes toward her. An ecstatic, beatific smile, a zealot’s smile, splits his face.

Somewhere, way too close to her left, the German shepherd bays and howls, as though in victory.

Josh charges out from behind the truck and hacks at the infected man’s left knee with his wooden staff. The knee buckles. He doesn’t fall but is brought to a halt.

Ramola runs toward the truck. Natalie’s door is still thankfully closed, and she is an impassive, darkened shape behind the tinted passenger window. Dan stands in the truck bed, urging her on. Aiming for the junction of the cab and the bed, Ramola throws Dan the rifle and then, using the rear tire as a push-off with her left foot, she jumps. Simultaneously, she pulls herself over the side and tumbles into the cargo bed. Quickly scrambling onto her feet, she finds the scene outside the truck has fast-forwarded, or skipped frames, like the virus has gone quantum and is infecting reality itself.

There is an arrow sticking out of the infected man’s right shoulder. He tries to pull it free, but his blood-slicked hands slip off the shaft. Josh leadenly backs away, one halting step at a time, and wipes his bleeding chin. He’s not wearing his helmet; it must’ve fallen off in his tumble out of the truck. Luis is still where he’s supposed to be, where he was before Ramola climbed into the cargo bed, and he is in the same position, offering a hand to Josh. The German shepherd is latched onto the Tree’s left forearm and it yanks and pulls the man in an undulating circular arc. The other man wearing camo lies on the pavement, curled on his right side, posed like the fox they passed earlier, blood and bubbles geysering from his mangled neck. Dan is crying and has the rifle aimed at the infected man, and he shoots. A red splotch explodes between the infected man’s shoulder blades. He sinks to the ground, bending his legs, extending his hands, as though he’s choosing to sit, to rest, to lie down on his stomach and put his head down. Josh now faces the Tree and the dog. Instead of joining that particular fray he stays on course, walking backward until he knocks into the truck. He drops to one knee, right below Luis standing with his hand out, forever out. The big coyote appears, wrapping around from the other side of the truck like it’s a shark that has been circling for as long as Ramola and everyone else lost track of it. Or maybe it’s returning from the yellow house’s front yard or driveway after it wandered over there to finish off anything that needed finishing, and now it’s coming back, coming to where it is meant to be. Josh doesn’t see the big coyote (where coyote, there coyote) and its arrowed shoulder and one limp leg and three-working legs and its long, thin snout, which opens, opens wider than should be possible, showing its red mouth and its white teeth. It strikes high, biting Josh in the head, teeth fishhooking into cheek and ear. The sick, wounded coyote isn’t as strong and powerful as the berserker dog, the scythe reaping through this group of men. The sick, wounded coyote is nearing its end. Josh boxes the animal’s ears and punches the body. The sick, wounded coyote releases and limps away, pained whines alternating with choking sounds, as though the tongue is blocking the throat. The coyote briefly sniffs at the body of the rifleman and transforms again into the smooth shark, swimming and disappearing into the brush. Ramola and Luis jump down to the street and rush to Josh’s aid. They each loop an arm through one of his arms. Josh isn’t yelling or screaming in pain. He has both hands over his eyes and he cries. He sobs and he bawls and he wails; the chest-hitching, breath-stealing tears are of a bottomless, bereft, hopeless grief. Ramola and Luis are crying too and they say, “It’s gone” and “Let’s get out of here” and “I’ll take a look.” They do not say, “It’ll be all right.” They lead him to the rear gate that Dan drops open, and the three of them lift Josh (openmouthed, incapable of words) into the cargo bed. Ramola steps up onto the gate, afraid and suddenly sure she’s too late and the German shepherd is behind her, in midair, eager to show her all its teeth. The rear gate closes, she spins around, and the dog is not there. The Tree is still in the road, standing next to his camo partner but not looking at him. He leans and wavers, a weeping willow in an autumn wind. He cradles his arm, the crossbow an offering at his feet. His head is down. A weary penitent. Beyond him, the dog’s dark shape recedes as it sprints down Bay Road, triumphantly barking in full throat, running so fast it could be floating.