The Vanishing // Jake Kiszka

Part Four

Day 430 ~ Amelia

Gunshots echoed through the canopy. Birds cried out overhead, fleeing their nests. The sound of wings in desperate flight as they tried to escape an inevitable death. And I'd never particularly enjoyed it, to see their little bodies hit the ground and have to pluck their feathers and gut them like they'd never been living, breathing creatures of the earth we shared.

But I could no longer walk into a grocery store and pick one up all nice and neatly packaged. Plucked and skinned ready to be chopped or diced. I had to watch the life fade from their eyes.

"I think I got one." Jake said, lowering the rifle from his cheek bone. "I'm getting good at this."

He was a good shot. You couldn't deny him the satisfaction he took with each kill. Never more than birds or squirrels. Anything more would have been outside your realms as a hunter. You'd never been allowed to shoot anything bigger.

"Make sure it's a clean kill." You always said it, like there was a way to absolve yourself of having to take a life.

He was starting to grow a little line of hair above his lip and on the underside of his chin. I suspected he wasn't capable of garnishing his face with anything more, but it was starting to change the shape of his face. He looked a little more rugged. Like a man who had seen some things he dared not speak of. A man who had known suffering but could still smile despite it all.

"You don't have to do this anymore." He sighed, flinging his kill over his shoulder. "I can see how uncomfortable it makes you."

He would have done anything to give me comfort. He was gentle and kind and whimsical. He didn't belong on his own, he was a pack creature. He needed validation and love, but more than that he needed somewhere to belong.

"You want me to stay home and tend the house while you go out hunting? Like a tv wife?" I jested, balking at the sight of the dead bird he carried.

"Why not?" He shrugged with sincerity. "And then I can come home after a long day and kick my boots off and say honey, I'm home!"

It had never crossed my mind that Jake would take over some of the duties I'd been doing all by myself. That he would want to carry some of the burden of our survival. I'd hoped, perhaps, that he might integrate himself as somebody I could exist alongside of without too much of a struggle.

But in truth, I was falling in love with him.

"If only the apocalypse had been of the zombie variety." I said, rolling my eyes. "You'd have had all the opportunities in the world to shoot things."

I started back towards the cabin, following the muddy path back up from where we'd found ourselves down near the lake. All the birds liked to congregate near the water. To hunt game it was the best spot in the woods. A steep incline that was always an inconvenience on the way back up awaited us, and I was eager to get back inside before the light began to fade.

"The dead are still here, aren't they?" He mused, staying close behind but far enough away that the corpse on his shoulder didn't unnerve me too much. "Isn't that what you said? There's still time."

I couldn't help but giggle at his intimation. But I was still haunted by those vacant eyes on the slab. Telling me everything I needed to know without speaking a damn word.

"I think if the dead had any plans to rise they would have done it a long time ago." I replied, "And besides, we don't need another thing roaming around out there."

We heard them at night. Howling. All the dogs that had once been docile pets in the towns and cities, wild and free like their ancestors now. Those who had survived, at least. Those that had adapted. I pitied their struggle the most. Where once they'd known nothing but love, there was only the hunt to kill instinct.