Yonder

Chapter Three

        When the sun rose to the red-orange sky, Echo woke up to an empty room. Felix was nowhere to be seen, but his bag was still by his bed. She quickly checked her bag and her knife was gone. Echo frantically called out for Felix and scoured the house for him until she looked out the front door.

        “God damn,” she whispered. Felix was inside the barbed, fenced area where the dogs were. Echo slowly walked out. All of the dogs had duct tape around their mouths but they were all calm and playing with each other. What made Echo quicken her pace was seeing fourteen separately dug holes. Five were already filled. Two with the infected people they’d killed the day before and three filled with dead dogs. The other nine dogs were as calm as could be despite having their muzzles bound. They were hideous creatures but Echo felt their loneliness. Apparently so did Felix.

        He was sitting by the sixth dog, stroking its matted and gross fur, talking to it. He still hadn’t noticed Echo, so he continued to talk to the dog as it slept on his lap. Felix took his shaking right hand and picked up Echo’s switch blade that was just next to him. He slowly raised it to the underpart of the dog’s muzzle and gently moved its head so he wouldn’t stab himself in the process. The dog kept asleep. A second later, the large knife was through the dog’s head. It tensed up then was limp like the rest of the dead.

                Echo frowned and stepped towards Felix and kneeled down. He was trying to pull the knife out of the skull, but was shaking too much. Echo softly put her hands over his and helped him yank out the knife. She quietly put the knife down and picked up the dead dog, graciously placing it into the next open hole. With Felix still sitting there, Echo squeezed through the hole Felix had cut through the barbed fence and carried out another sleepy dog. She finished up the last eight dogs and headed back inside, packed the canned food and can-opener, a couple bottles of water from the broken-down fridge, grabbed their bags from the upstairs, and walked back outside, all with Felix sitting by the fourteen graves. He had covered up all of them with the extra dirt. Echo finally spoke.

        “Come on,” she held her hand out. Felix sniffed and grabbed the switchblade first. He closed the knife and handed it to Echo. She put it in her bag but kept her hand out. Within time, Felix finally grabbed the hand and the two of them found a dirt path leaving the driveway. They followed it on their way to what they prayed would be civilization.

The entire walk, Felix could do nothing but think. He had drunk half a bottle of lukewarm water and half a can of refried beans. Echo finished off the other half.

“You did good this morning, Felix,” Echo smiled, playfully punching the boy in the shoulder as he handed over the water and beans. “I’m mad you didn’t let me do it, though… But you taped their mouths and I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

            Felix kept his head down. “I buried them, too…”

Echo nodded. “Yeah you did bury them. Why’d you do that, though?”

            “Why’d I bury them?”

            “Why’d you kill them before I was even awake?”

            Felix shrugged. “I did it because you’re not always going to be there and I almost got killed by that Bird yesterday-.”

            “-But you didn’t-!”

            “And I almost missed that dog that tried to get you-.”

            “Which you didn’t-!”

            “-On top of countless other times! I’m the dude in this… partnership. I should be the strong one, but I can’t even write my own name.”