He Runs (Part One) (5 page)

              ‘Don’t worry,’ says Man to the little girl. ‘I’ll protect you. I’m all you’ve got and you need me. And in a way, I need you.’ The little girl smiles, her gummy mouth opening, her lips curling in a way that breaks his heart.

              A bark averts Man’s gaze and he turns, sees Hound scrambling over the wall, squeezing his patchy body through two strips of barbed wire.

              ‘STOP!’ screams Man. ‘STOP!’

              But it’s too late. He should’ve been watching. Should have tied the dog up but now the beast is out, snout pointed like an arrow, ready to hunt.

              Hound, although a ferocious killer, is not adept at stealth. He barks as soon as his raggedy paws hit the hard ground, sending the docile herd into a frenzied stampede. The dog catches up to a slow cow, snaps at its shit-covered tail, misses by an inch. A pair of hooves fly backwards, glance the dog’s ribcage. A trial of misjudged distances. That’s all it boils down to.

              Man’s programming tells him to run as fast as he can, get to the nearest wall and bolt over it. A fast and belated thought flashes through his mind…he should’ve stayed close to the wall. But Man, unlike many of his human brethren, has taught himself to deny his programming, to act in total defiance of the flight instinct. His method is simple and sloppy: he closes his fingers, makes two fists and closes his eyes and opens them quickly if he can. If that doesn’t work, doesn’t shock him into action, he breathes deeply, filling his lungs until his diaphragm aches. Three breathes is usually enough to harness the adrenaline that pulses through his body. It is a potent source of energy that, for a few minutes, turns him almost superhuman.

              Man holds his arms out, the baby protruding from his chest like a conjoined twin and closes his eyes. Most animals will avoid a collision and for ten seconds Man must put his faith in that instinct.

              He opens his eyes just as a rushing cow comes up on him, its back legs scuffing in dusty circles. His arms wrap around the tiny human on his chest and he puts pressure on his back foot, uses the other to spin out of the way of the marauding beast like a seasoned matador. A flurry of disgruntled cattle engulfs him but he stays light on his feet, breathing as slowly as he can, pirouetting when he needs to, using his arms to shield the baby and alternately deflect the smaller animals. He spots a clearing and moves to it, his head turning so quickly that it sends his world spinning. A glance at the herd, a brown and black mass of agitated meat and then separately, two individual animals, Hound right next to them. The dog moves in, clamps his jaws around the smaller cow, a calf, and drags it to the ground. The juvenile’s black eyes glaze over, hypnotised by a fear that it is unable to rationalise. What Man presumes to be the calf’s mother is circling, worrying the grass with her mouth and short horns, moving towards Hound in clumsy attempts to save her infant. But Hound is quick and wily, moves back and puts the calf in between them. When the mother turns around Hound bites harder, rags the calf’s head from side to side, tearing flesh. The calf makes a strange sound, a bleeting sound that is more like a lamb than a cow. The mother turns, rushes at the dog who is again, too quick. Man watches this continue until the calf’s body lies limp and lifeless, the earth around it turning cherry-red, the mother shuffling from side to side. He can see it in the beast, the heartbreak and sorrow, the instinct of a parent clawing through, an urge she acts on but doesn’t understand. Man looks at her and a tear forms in his eye. A mother’s instinct. The same instinct that Claire felt and understood and acted on when their child was taken from them. When she was pinned to the ground and her eyes looked nowhere but at the screaming girl. And she felt nothing but the pain that her daughter was enduring.

              Man can’t remember this happening but in his mind that is how the scene plays out. It’s the scene that haunts his dreams; the helplessness of love and the cruelness of nature’s envy. He looks at the cow and wonders whether she will remember this. After all, animals are intelligent creatures. He hopes she doesn’t.

              After a couple of minutes the mother gives up, trots off to the comfort of the herd and Man walks over to Hound who is licking the calf’s blood. As Man closes in the dog growls. It is his prize. His kill.

              Man steps forward and is met with blood-stained, yellowing teeth, protruding from the dog’s mouth. If a disturbed infant wasn’t strapped to his chest he would lunge at Hound, kick the dog hard with his Converse and pick the carcass up and take it to the barn.

              ‘Okay, boy,’ says Man, his hands held out in the same calming motion he offered to Daniel. ‘It’s yours. Well done. Good boy.’

              Man eases off, steps back until the dog carries on licking blood. He moves to the nearest wall, unties Emma and eases her over the barbed wire, snagging the fabric briefly on a rusty barb, and onto the floor.

              Using both hands he loosens a moss-riddled stone, feels the weight of it and walks back to Hound and the kill. The dog does not stir and the ferrous stench lingers in the air, reluctant to be moved by the wind. Man lifts the rock above his head, feels his muscles and tendons tighten like tensile wire, bionic levers designed for unspeakable things.

              He looks up; above him, high in the sky, an eagle soars, its wingspan a curved black line in front of the sun. He looks around him, sees cows huddled together, lowing sadly. He sees the stone walls of the paddocks and the farmhouse. He sees a small mountain in the distance, snow covered and picturesque and wonders why he hasn’t noticed it before. Was it always there? Or is his mind bringing him to a place of peace and quiet in anticipation of his next action. He sees daisies dotted around like abandoned soldiers and the ominous darkness of the forest. He sees a distant landscape surrounding him, its valleys protecting him from an end he does not want.

              And then she laughs.

              A bittersweet laugh, so innocent, so pure that it takes the violence right out of him. Hound is being a dog, doing what his animal brain tells him to do. But Man, he has a choice.

              The rock tumbles down with accelerated velocity, smashes against the calf’s head, shattering skull and popping the eyes from the sockets. Hound jumps back in shock, in excitement, in fear. The dog scrambles on all fours over to the wall and through the gap in the barbed wire. Man watches the dog run all the way to farmhouse where he cowers, belly down on the ground. Man knows Emma is safe for now. The dog fears him.

              Man turns his attention to the mutilated calf, bends over and pushes the stone away. As it rolls, the pressure on the animal’s skull is alleviated and blackened blood gurgles through exposed brain matter. Man has the hunting knife in his waistband, the karambit in his pocket. Removing the head shouldn’t take too long.

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With Emma hanging from his chest, he hauls the headless calf onto the large, black meat hook that hangs from the girder in the barn. He dragged the body, making sure that no blood stained his newfound clothes.

              In a jumbled pile in the corner of the barn are the tools he’ll need: butcher’s knife, filleting knife, bone saw, hammer, and chisel. When the girl is settled he’ll come back and tear the carcass into the bits he’ll take with him. By his count it’s approaching the two week mark and he knows that time is short. There were a hundred different routes out of the forest and he’s sure they’ll have tried them all. And they have the hounds. Man knows that it is blind luck that they haven’t turned up sooner. A gamble. That’s all it’s been. That’s all it ever is. Every day, even before the lights went out. Every moment, every second invested in life can take us in an infinite number of directions. Good or bad. He has become accustomed to being on the losing end of the big gamble. But this time, if he gets the timing just right, he’s quite sure that he’ll get away with it.

              A shuffling sound at the barn’s side door catches his attention. He turns, the infant swinging wildly in the sheet and he sees Hound, skulking in an ignorant stupor, his black nose twitching with the smell of blood in the air. Man turns back to face the carcass, watches as the hypnotic dripping of blood slows to one drop every three or four seconds. The earth absorbs the blood easily, an act that it has been practicing since the dawn of all time.

              ‘Come in, boy,’ says Man, using a hand to coax the dog in. ‘You were a bad dog today. But everything has worked out. You caught our supper for the next few weeks. Silver linings and all that.’

              He sees the beast creep along. Emma sneezes in her sheet and the dog jumps back, only to continue even slower.

              Man walks to the pile of tools, grabs the filleting knife and returns to the carcass. He turns his torso so that Emma faces away from the gore, although he knows that she won’t understand any of it. In a quick flash of aged steel he cuts away part of the leg, leaving a sloppy, bloody triangle in the calf’s hide. He bites a small chunk of the flesh, chews it slowly, his mouth opening slightly to let the air in. He tastes the saltiness of blood, like a mild mouth of seawater and then the meatiness comes through, fresher and sharper than normal. To him it tastes delicious; it tastes of fresh life. A couple of legs will keep him for a while.

              The warmth of dog breath passes over his knife hand. He knows that Hound is there next to him, eager for a taste of his kill. Man smiles, nods his head and offers the dog the rest of the meat.

              The marbled and bloody chunk disappears immediately and Hound sits on his back legs, paw raised to beg for some more.

              ‘Not yet. We’ll put Emma to sleep and then come back, cut this calf up and you can have a little more. And the bones are yours, too.’

              Hound cocks his head as though he’s confused at Man’s suggestion and then lies on his belly, his heavy breaths bending small, abstract blades of grass that creep up from the reddy ground.

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Man sits in a kitchen that is not his own. He eats food that is not his own. With a dog and a child that are not his own. And he smiles.

              What for, exactly, he does not know. He has no mature company, no one to appease or trick into liking him. He has a baby and a dog, both of which do not understand the world of humans.

              You see, Man knows that everything has a price. Every act of kindness, every act of evil, every act of survival. Everything has a price and these days, since the lights went out, life has the cheapest price tag.

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Man stares into her big, black eyes as he wipes lukewarm soup from her chin. An old and clean pair of Daniel’s underpants serve as a bib and already, parts of the soup have turned to crust.

              Deep in his heart there is a vacant space, an emotional abyss that he thinks was born when the lights went out. It was the first time that he ever looked inwards, the first time that he evaluated his place in the world. And looking at the child, at the beautiful, curly haired little girl he fails to understand what has drawn him to her. A paternal nostalgia drives his protection of her, coupled with the belated burden of guilt. He removed her protection from the Earth and now, to preserve what little he has left inside, he must serve as that protection. A part of him knows that he will never love anyone or anything again and this minute certainty fills him with happiness. You see, Man knows how easily things can be taken away. Life was working on him since he was spat from the womb; challenge after challenge after challenge. Unlike those optimistic, church-going types that he saw before the New World began, Man knows first-hand how easy it is to lose and how much easier it is to take.

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Man sits at the kitchen table, Emma curled up in his arms as the fire roars in between brick work. The air reeks of baby shit and talcum powder. Hound sleeps underneath the window, his legs occasionally kicking out in a dream. Man found some black sheets and hung them over the curtain rails; excellent for blocking out the fire light. Emma is snoring, at least, he thinks she is, nuzzled tightly into his chest. A glass of too-sweet beetroot wine stains his teeth and in his inebriated state he watches the fire dance in the hearth, a primordial gathering of elements. He watches the yellows and oranges mingle and reproduce at fantastic speeds, the blue flashes and sparks exploding from the logs and hitting the fire guard. He watches smoke bellow from the flames, thrown up into the chimney to mingle with night air. 

Man sips the wine and sees before him the cycle of everything he knows, the culmination of his years of experience and understanding. Everything comes from something else. Everything needs something else to be what it is and do what it does; nothing is self-sufficient. 

He smiles and laughs, wondering to himself why his brain goes to these random places. Maybe it's the boredom. Maybe it's because life is challenging in a different way to before and any contemplation outside of survival is a luxury. Most of the time when Man was outside, living day to day alongside an ornery dog, after he had left the settlement, he often thought that philosophy had no place in this new and infinitely crueller world; that thinking about anything other than the next meal was a sure-fire way to slip up. But now that he's had time to stop and regenerate, he understands the human need for something else. He knows that it boils down to our programming, our evolved sense of consciousness. We rationalise therefore we want to take rationale further and transcend the reality of our existence, contemplating a multitude of theories of why and how we came to be.