by Coty Schwabe
and he felt sleep tugging at him.
He shook his head. No, I’ll miss the coyotes if I do…
10
Burk awoke to the sound of howling.
It took a few seconds to become fully cognizant of his surroundings, but when he did, it came with resounding clarity. Months of forced sobriety had sharpened his senses tenfold, though dehydration dulled the edge.
In the moonlight, the shadow of a desert dog came through the front door. Burk quietly got to his feet, and drew his revolver, making slow, light steps across the store’s checkered linoleum floor.
Three coyotes were working on Lenny’s carcass when he came to the door. For approximately four minutes, Burk studied their movements. Every now and then, the youngest of the three, a mere pup, would glance in his direction. Burk would stare back from behind the glass. Then the pup would go back to eating, and Burk would let out a sigh of relief. The others appeared to be its parents, based on size, creating a rather small pack.
When he deemed that the coyotes had eaten enough to slow them down, Burk sprang into action. He threw the door open, and before he’d even cleared it, the coyotes turned tail, sprinting.
Burk opened fire with the revolver, unloading all four of the shells. The first missed. The second, struck the largest coyote. It went down in a heap.
The third also missed. The fourth took down the mother with a soft growl. The pup ran off into the distance, disappearing into the darkness. Burk shot his fifth and sixth rounds, forgetting they were empty, and was rewarded with soft clicks.
Burk grabbed his boots, put them on hastily, and started walking towards the fallen dogs, dispelling the shells as he did so. Two coyotes wouldn’t make much of a dinner, but his appetite was not so big these days.
He reached the dogs, and was about to skin them there, but a quiet howling, almost whimpering, stopped him. The pup hadn't gone as far as he’d assumed; or it had come back. The howl was depressing – disheartening even – and Burk could almost feel the dog’s pain.
But it was a dog. How much could it really understand?
The depressing noise chilled Burk so much that instead of skinning the parents there, he grabbed each one by the scruff and trekked back; all the while, trying to escape the continuous howl of a young, newly orphaned coyote pup.
11
Burk tossed the coyotes in a heap outside the gas station, next to Lenny’s half-consumed body. He went inside, and searched around in the bindle for the lighter he’d seen earlier. When he found it, he snatched up the candle for good measure and went back outside.
12
Upon his return to the bodies, he was surprised to see the pup had returned, licking the wounds of its parents, whimpering all the while.
Burk’s hand went to the revolver, but he didn’t remove it.
The pup looked up at him, and made that sound that created an incredible dissonance inside him.
“Go on. Git,” he shouted. The pup didn’t budge. “I said git!” He stomped at the pup, and it only took a single step back. “Damn you, go!” This time, his hand pulled the revolver and he aimed at right at the dog’s face. “You want to end up like your parents?”
The pup regarded him a pair of magnificent, blue-grey eyes and uttered a simple whine. The pup was grey from head to tail.
“Damn it! Just go!” This time he kicked a clod of dust at the pup, sending it back. The pup trotted off, making that noise that Burk had grown to hate in such a short time.
13
Burk decided to start the fire before skinning his prey.
He went to the back of the building. The propane tank was empty after all according to the gauge, so kindling would have to do. He found nothing. There weren’t any trees in the immediate vicinity, so he’d have to come up with something else. A good amount of desert brush grew around, and if that’s what it came to he’d use it, but Burk had found that desert brush didn’t last very long.
Burk retreated to the gas station interior to find something flammable. The aisles were metal, and appliances were out of the question. His eyes fell to the counter. Probably particle board or some other fake wood. It would burn but not very well. How to break it down?
He scanned the room. Nothing stuck out, so he checked the storage for something, and saw the desk.
Even better.
14
Burk tipped the desk over with great effort. Even this small task was fierce work for his tired, aching body. He kicked the legs until they snapped off, and confiscated the drawers, dumping the money and shells on the ground and something else he hadn’t seen.
A half-empty bottle of Mick Dickenson Texas Whiskey rolled onto the floor. At the mere sight, his mouth wanted to water (though no saliva came). The urge to guzzle it down came so strong, Burk had to grit is teeth and clench his fists to keep conscious control. In a blazing instant, his thirst returned, and surprisingly stronger than it had been all day. He didn’t notice, but his tongue ran across his cracked lips, awaiting the pleasures of such fine a drink as this.
Burk plucked the bottle from the floor. He stared at for a few long seconds, his hand going to the stopper. Then, before he could open it, he smashed the bottle against the wall. Glass shattered in every direction and the amber liquid ran down to the floor in thin rivulets. The sweet, sticky scent churned his stomach, begging for him to just lick the wall. The whiskey berries taste like whiskey berries! He bit his tongue. Idiot.
He swallowed, but nothing went down.
Once the desk sat bare upon its head, he kicked the hollow frame until it broke off into several large pieces. When only the desktop remained, he hauled the wood outside in armfuls.
15
He piled the wood a stone’s throw from the station, and once he had a pyre ready, he attempted to light it with the candle. Against the wind, the candle proved no match, and even snuffed itself out.
A feeling of complete and utter foolishness washed over him. He hadn't supplied a catalyst.
He went to the closest pump, and clicked the handle. Nothing emerged from the nozzle. At the second pump, he repeated this ritual and was rewarded with a few tiny drops. Burk thought for a moment, then retrieved two cotton shirts from the clothes pile. He twisted one into the end of the nozzle. He then took the other, and wrapped it around his hand.
With the hunting knife, he sliced into the hose, and sawed away until he cut completely through it. He used the shirt in his hand to cover the hose, and poured what little contents dripped out onto the shirts. Very close to nothing remained of the gas, but it was enough to create tiny damp spots on each shirt. The thought occurred that he could have used the whiskey, but what was done was done.
He took the shirts back to the wood pile. Burk wiped down some of the wood with the shirts, hoping to transfer the gas particles to the wood. He then tossed the shirts into the center of the wood, and attempted to light it with lighter.
Click-click. The lighter made sparks but no flame. He clicked it again and again. Nothing but sparks. He was about to smash the lighter when he remembered an episode of one of those survival shows before the Wrath. Lauren loved to watch those things. What did it say? Something about ear wax and empty lighters.
Burk tore a sleeve off of one of the shirts. He twisted it and cleaned out his ears, covering the tips in earwax. His stomach rumbled, forcing him to work faster. Finding an old magazine on the gas station floor, he scraped the top of the lighter on the magazine cover several times until the flint had become a tiny, black powder. Using the earwax, he gathered up the powder, and took it back outside.
He stuck the lighter to the powder and whoosh, the shirt caught fire. He tossed the sleeve on top of the gasoline soaked ones, and the flame raged within seconds. He set a few light pieces of wood over the shirts, and the fire grew.
Feeling pleased with himself, he caught the pup watching him from a far. It had stopped whining, that was nice, but it refused to leave. Burk ignored the pup and went about his business.
16
> Burk dragged the desktop outside next to the fire. He cooked the meat over the fire, using his old shotgun to drape the meat over. The gun got incredibly hot after only a minute of use, and he had to wrap a pair of jeans around the handle to hold it. When a piece of meat had finished cooking, he tossed it onto the desktop. It was like cooking carne asada – the meat was cut into long, thin strips.
Once the meat was cooked, Burk ate. The meat melted in his mouth, the seared edges a tad crunchy. He savored it. Worlds better than eating it raw, and the only meat he’d had in days.
The pup watched from where it lay. Burk tossed a piece to the pup, but the young coyote didn’t even flinch. It looked at the meat, then back to Burk, and it was then that Burk realized what he’d done.
“Sorry, friend. But we all gotta eat.”
The pup whined in response, and Burk went on eating.
17
When he’d eaten a half dozen strips, he saved the rest for later. Content, he laid on his back, staring at the stars overhead.
The world was different now, a desolate lonely place, with survival being its key element. Many people had moved on before the Wrath, but not people like him – oh Heavens no, not him – and it seemed only the lowest of the low had been spared. But why?
Despite the state of the world now, the stars came as an anchor to him. It seemed that part of the Wrath had been like that old chicken story; that the
