After The Fires Went Out: Coyote (Book One of the Post-Apocalyptic Adventure Series)

by Wolfrom, Regan

  When it happens I feel the anxiety, but I also feel embarrassed, like I’m a wimp for not being able to handle a few scary dreams. I think that pushes it further, my panic starts to build and then I get even more ashamed of myself and the cycle repeats.

  Fight or flight... what the hell do you fight when it’s all in your head?

  I climbed out of bed, doing my best to not wake Sara, and I found my way downstairs. From the darkness in the sky it felt like a long ways ‘til morning... I knew that for me sleep was not going to be happening again any time soon.

  I debated brewing myself some coffee, since I was dog tired but nowhere near wanting to go back to bed, but my mouth was dry so I decided to steal one of Graham’s cans of cherry cola instead.

  I sat down at the living room table, trying to calm myself by watching the lake, but the wind had picked up overnight and the water seemed more violent than usual, and all it brought me was more anxiety.

  I took out my tablet and started trying to write out some more thoughts about what had happened yesterday, but for whatever reason it wasn’t enough to beat back the stress.

  I was breathing hard, and I could feel my heart pounding. I felt more adrenaline than I’d had in my system at the height of the attack.

  It didn’t make any goddamn sense.

  It was like my own body wanted to kill me, like it wanted my shitty heart to explode like a block of C4.

  I couldn’t hold it off... I couldn’t calm down... I couldn’t keep going like this.

  I went down to the basement, gripping the handrail more firmly than normal because I felt like the whole cottage was shaking.

  I bent down to the bottom of the pantry shelves and pulled out the red milk crate. I picked up the Dora the Explorer lunch box and opened it.

  The ecstasy was what I wanted. At that moment I didn’t care if it killed me.

  I took one maple-leaf tablet and I swallowed it.

  I went back upstairs and sat down at the table. And I waited.

  It took almost thirty minutes before I felt anything, my heart still pounding and my mind racing. But slowly I started to calm down a little, and for a while I felt like everything was okay, like everything was happening for a reason, that I didn’t understand why, but that I could accept it... and I could accept me.

  It’s hard to describe exactly what it felt like, especially now that the feeling’s gone and I’m back to the same old Baptiste, always a little uneasy about the world around me. But for a few hours I was okay.

  Really okay.

  It wasn’t the SSRI and beta blocker kind of okay, like I can barely function but at least I’m functioning... it was something more... something that I definitely need to feel again.

  Sara and I took over the dining room table after breakfast, sending everyone else out so we’d have a chance to talk. It wasn’t that we were trying to keep any secrets; we just didn’t need people asking stupid questions or trying to add their own uneducated opinion about how much rice we consume in a month. Sara knows better than anyone else; she keeps the counts, and she has the stats from a year and a half, broken down by person. It’s a little creepy at first, when you realize that she actually has a different estimate for each one of us when it comes to how much toilet paper we use to wipe our individual asses. Matt uses the least, apparently, and Sara’s marked herself down as the one who wipes her ass the most... I’m old enough to know that women wipe other places, too.

  I think I’ll attach some of her charts to this journal someday.

  “We’re running low on flour,” Sara said as she stared at her tablet. “We’ll be out by August 12th of next year.”

  “Is that just us, or the Porters and Tremblays?” I asked.

  “All of us... assuming their counts are accurate.”

  I sighed. “You know they aren’t.”

  “Everything’s a guess,” she said. “I just assume the Tremblays have less than they tell us and the Porters have more... so it all evens out in the end.”

  “August... that’s a problem. A few weeks ago you were talking about eighteen months of supplies.”

  “I know... a few days ago we thought we’d be trading eggs and milk for some of the Walkers’ grain.”

  “And I’ll bet no one else has any grain or flour to trade.”

  She shook her head. “We can cut back on consumption,” she said.

  “Or we can eat the Tremblays.”

  She laughed. “But that’s a good point, actually. We don’t do much fishing... we could eat more meat and cut back on carbs. Probably not a bad thing.”

  “But either way... we’re going to run out before next winter’s over.”

  “Looks like.”

  “Goddamn,” I said. “I really wanted one year to work on getting it right.”

  She reached out for my hand. “I know,” she said softly. She gave me a smile that was almost relaxed; I knew that it wasn’t, really.

  “We don’t even have the equipment yet... and we certainly don’t have the fuel. Honestly, Sara, I don’t know how you didn’t see this coming.”

  She pulled her hand away. “Are you kidding me? I told you about this.”

  “No you didn’t... I’d remember if you’d said ‘Hey, Baptiste, we’re all going to starve’.”

  “There was nothing stopping you from taking a look at the numbers. Everybody has just as much access to the data as I do. Don’t try to blame me for the Walkers dropping out.” She furrowed her brow. “Maybe you should blame yourself for shooting out Dave Walker’s tire?”

  “You heard.”

  “Yeah... we’ve all heard, Baptiste. I don’t think anyone was all that surprised, to be honest.”

  “You weren’t there... those assholes were walking all over us.”

  “It was stupid. What you did was stupid. So now instead of blaming me for knowing how to count maybe you should focus on some kind of plan to get some crops planted in the spring.”

  “Yeah... I know.”

  She smiled again. I didn’t deserve it, but it was nice to see. “So... a plan?”

  “We’ll have to start searching. Graham thinks that we should be able to find electric motors in just about everything we need.”

  “Just about?”

  “It might be tough finding an electric combine. We don’t have enough diesel to run one.”

  “But that’s for harvesting,” Sara said.

  “Yeah.”

  “So we don’t need it to get started. And if we can’t harvest with a machine, we’ll have to harvest by hand. We may need help from New Post, but trading away half the crop is better than letting it rot.”

  “This is all assuming we find everything else we need.”

  “I know... and assuming you guys don’t run into any marauders. I think you and Graham should start bringing someone else along with you.”

  “I want Lisa to stay back... in case there’s trouble at the cottage.” And she was the only one who knew what the plan was if things went worst-case.

  “I don’t mean Lisa,” Sara said.

  “I’m not taking Matt. He’d end up shooting one of us before he hit a marauder.” Or he’d end up spending the whole time blubbering about how I don’t love him like a long lost idiot son.

  “I don’t mean him, either. Maybe Justin... or Alain...”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know... I trust Graham... I know what he’ll do... I can’t rely on those guys the same way.”

  I’d once thought I could rely on Justin.

  “Well you’re going to need to get used to them,” Sara said. “We’re stuck together for the foreseeable future.”

  “I know what you’re saying... so does that mean that we’re no longer considering that first idea?”

  “Which one?”

  “Eating the Tremblays.”

  “Let’s try our hand at fishing first.”

  I leaned over for a kiss. She didn’t seem a
t all interested, but she still let me.

  I like that about her.

  So I have a theory about Will Ferrell... the actor from the Zoolander and Anchorman trilogies, not the guy in Nevada who opened fire on a busload of migrant workers. Ferrell’s better in an ensemble cast, rather than as a leading man; the stronger the other characters, the better Ferrell does. That’s why he’s remembered for movies where he isn’t the only star.

  I used to talk about this kind of thing with guys I worked with, but now I don’t have anyone around me who’d watched a movie older than the moon base and the skinny glove fad. Sara won’t even watch movies, which is about the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever come across. So I had two choices, to either watch the stuff that Ant and Kayla had collected, or show some of the classics to a new generation. Luckily, Fiona refuses to sit through most of Ant’s slash-and-slice flicks, so that leaves plenty of room for our ongoing Will Ferrell Film Festival.

  Tonight was Zoolander 3, where they shoehorned his Mugatu character into a plot about an award ceremony; I’ve always liked it better than the second one, but nothing beats the gas fight from the original or Hansel being so hot right now.

  Fiona and Kayla joined me in the living room, and Matt was there, too, since I didn’t have a dog kennel to lock him into. I was glad to see that the girls were laughing about as much as I’d hoped. I have a theory that if I get those two laughing together often enough, they’ll start hating each other a little less, maybe even to the point of me not expecting their relationship to end in murder-suicide.

  Then came the orgy scene.

  “Isn’t that you, Kayla?” Fiona asked, pointing at the screen.

  “Where?” I said.

  Fiona got off the couch and stuck her finger at a red-haired woman in one of the hot tubs, pausing the movie.

  “My hair is blond,” Kayla said. She already sounded unimpressed.

  “Forget the hair,” Fiona said. “It’s the facial expression.”

  “That does look like you,” Matt said.

  I could see it, too. That scrunched up come-hither face Kayla makes that is significantly less sexy than her usual look, but hey... it’s Kayla, so it still kinda works.

  “So I’m just a dumb slut who loves orgies,” Kayla said.

  “Well, that escalated quickly,” I said. But none of them had seen Anchorman yet.

  “It’s like I’ve got a fucking ‘S’ burned onto my forehead.”

  “Super Kayla?” Matt said.

  “Just because I used to dance. As if that makes me... what... a prostitute?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with prostitutes,” I said.

  “Fuck you, Baptiste. I’m not a prostitute. And you guys shouldn’t fucking treat me like one, alright?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I know how to weld,” she said. “I know how to wire up a battery.”

  “Okay... still... what are you talking about?”

  “You don’t think I’m capable. You think that I’m just all ass and tits and good for nothing else.”

  “I never said that, Kayla.”

  “Well your girlfriend certainly has. I guess I’m not godly enough to contribute around here... unless I’m on my back.”

  “That’s not fair,” Fiona said. “No one’s ever said that about you.”

  “Just hear what you want to hear, then.”

  Kayla stood up and left the room. I heard her stomp upstairs.

  I looked over at Fiona.

  She looked back at me.

  “Do we just... let her go?” I asked.

  “How should I know?” she said.

  “I’ll handle it,” Matt said.

  I decided not to stop him.

  She yelled for a while, and after around twenty minutes he came back down.

  “Can we take it back to the orgy scene?” he asked as he sat down beside Fiona.

  “I’m fine with that,” I said.

  But when I saw the red-headed hot tub Kayla the second time, it wasn’t funny. I felt bad. When someone tells you just how awful they’re being treated, you always hope that you’re not one of the bad guys being described.

  But I was one of them; I wasn’t looking past the beautiful blond girl who used to tour the handful of hotels between Hearst and North Bay that had a floor for dancing. I wasn’t taking Kayla seriously.

  And that wasn’t her fault at all.

  Today is Friday, December 14th.

  The Tremblays were late to the meeting today as usual. Unlike the Porters, who always come as a unit even when I ask them not to, when it comes to dealing with the rest of us the Tremblays are generally just Marc and Alain. Sometimes I forget they both have wives and kids back in the long and flat one-story cabin up near the beaver dam, or at least I forget until I remember Marc’s wife Suzanne and that sexy way she rolls her Rs. For whatever reason, the men are in charge over there, and though I don’t know their wives that well, I’m sure it couldn’t be any worse to put them or the coffeemaker in charge instead.

  I think I’ve gone too far in the wrong direction sometimes, asking for consensus when I should have given orders. Based on the agreements Sara made, our cottage gets three votes, and the Porters and Tremblays get two apiece; I consider myself to have an unsaid veto, too, since there’s no way in hell I’d let the newcomers override us on something that matters.

  Our three votes mean that Sara and Graham make sense at these meetings, but most of the time Matt and Kayla come along, too, leaving just Lisa and Fiona to watch the cottage. More than three people is unnecessary as far as I’m concerned, but Sara doesn’t really want me harping on that.

  We were meeting at the Porters’ cottage today; they had put out a full breakfast of eggs and pancakes, which would have been a bigger gesture if the eggs weren’t all coming from our hens. But it was a nice change, and I certainly didn’t hold back when it came time to refill my plate.

  Sara chaired the meeting, just like she chairs the Supply Partnership assuming it still exists. She doesn’t do it because she likes the sound of her own voice, as lovely as it may be. She does it because she loves writing and then following the agendas, and she knows full well that the rest of us don’t. I guess if she wasn’t leading the discussion she’d be silently plotting mass murder.

  “So that brings us to inventory,” she said from her place at the head of the table, her eyes staring down on her notes. “I have a list from the Porters, but nothing from the Tremblay household.”

  “Sorry,” Alain Tremblay said. “I’ll drop something off in a few days.”

  “This keeps happening,” I said. “This is becoming a problem. I don’t like being a hardass –-”

  “You love being a hardass,” Sara said.

  “Okay then... I love being a hardass, so I can’t stop myself from pointing out that you guys aren’t taking your counts seriously enough.”

  “We don’t see the value,” Marc Tremblay said.

  “Excuse me?” Sara said. “Did you really just say that?”

  Marc just smirked while his brother Alain stood from his chair, looking as though he were preparing to give a speech. “We know there’s value in it,” Alain said, “but we have other priorities. We need firewood and we need fuel... that’s most important to us right now.”

  I decided to stand up, too. “You also need food and medicine,” I said. “We just don’t know how much you need because you’re not keeping track. Your priorities are screwed up, guys. If you run out of firewood sometime mid-winter we can give you some of the wood we're storing for next year, or hell... you can even go out and chop down some balsam fir and burn it the same day as long as you’ve still got hot embers in your stove.” I looked over at Sara; she hadn’t bothered to look up from her papers, so I kept going. “And if you don’t have fuel for your truck, you just don’t drive it. We have a cart and horses that never run out of gas, and the Porters have one of those tiny electric shitboxes that's so popular with the kids these days. We've
all learned how to share with others.”

  “Just get your counts in as soon as you can,” Sara said. “We need to stop thinking like we’re three little silos. We need to start acting like one big team. We’re all in this together, right?”

  Alain nodded and sat down, while Marc muttered something that I couldn’t make out.

  I saw Kayla roll her eyes; I think she wanted Sara to notice, too, but I know Sara wouldn’t have given her the satisfaction.

  I sat back down while Sara continued on to new business.

  Rihanna Porter raised her hand. Her husband was sitting beside her with a quiet but serious face, while her kids were messing around a little too close to the wood stove.

  “What is it, Rihanna?” Sara asked.

  “Some good news,” she said. “Justin and I found a couple tanks of diesel fuel up by Silver Queen Lake.”

  “What were you doing up there?” I asked. I checked the map on my tablet just after I spoke, and I was glad to see that the lake was pretty much where I thought it would be. People around here know lakes and rivers the way I know the streets between Dundas and Bloor; I'm not sure how they remember them all.

  “We went for a drive in our shitbox. We didn’t think there was a problem with going up there.”

  “You’d said you were going to check for batteries on 2 and 3. Silver Queen is a long way from there.”

  “We went to visit the Smiths,” Justin said. “I didn’t realize we needed a permission slip.”

  “You need to stay safe. That’s all that matters here. Maybe you don’t remember when people tried to kill us two days ago?”

  “Well, either way,” Rihanna said, “the Smiths are gone. Took both their trucks and left.”

  “They left?”

  Rihanna nodded. “They’re gone.” She didn’t seem all that concerned.

  “Did you get that diesel from their place?” Sara asked.

  “They didn’t leave anything of value there. Cleaned it right out.”