I moved to the back of the room, where the bench had been. At the cold wall my hand brushed a smooth wooden handle. I clutched at it, expecting to find a dowel or discarded furniture leg, but instead came up with a small ax.
The head was dulled, but I clutched it like it was Excalibur itself.
My son was screaming in blind rage, tearing at the workbench. If he didn’t kill me I would try to disable him.
He thrust his way into the room and I lunged at him, hitting him in the shoulder. It was a glancing blow, the dull ax head sliding aside, but it was enough to bring him up short, and I lifted and brought the ax down again. I felt the blade go into his shoulder this time. He wailed in agony and drew back.
Blood poured from the wound. He turned his head, his mouth gouging wildly at the open slash. His face had lost all traces of intelligence or cunning; his eyes rolled up into their sockets, showing milky yellow. He keened, a sound like the whistling of a high-tension wire.
I advanced on him with the ax, turning the head to the flat side. I meant to break one of his legs or arms if I could, and thereby incapacitate him to the point where I could truss him up again.
He suddenly left off his blood sucking and turned all of his attention back to me.
Time hung suspended; his eyes rolled back down to bright yellow and then he rushed me.
The next moment will live in my memory forever.
I froze; he leaped, as graceful as any ballet dancer; there was a beauty in the way his claws were poised at a precise angle before him to rip my throat and chest out.
I stood unable to move, as hypnotized and resigned as any weaker dog that bares his throat to his victorious enemy.
And then he saved me.
I saw his eyes clear from madness to humanity. It lasted a mere second.” But in that instant he pulled his claws back and turned his mouth aside. I still do not know if he uttered my name, in a guttural wrench of pain, or not. I think he did. But then he slammed into me, knocking me down with the force of his body.
I do know that he said one word, “Go,” as he threw himself away from me, howling in new madness, and then he disappeared through the doorway. I heard him on the stairs, and then he was running through the house, and in another moment his cries were mingled with those of the others of his kind in the Moon’s night.
I lay unmoving for the next five minutes. Though I owned my own life, I felt drained of life. I felt a madman in a nightmare. I believe I lost my mind for a while. The terror of the last few days, the lack of sleep and proper food, the magnitude of my siege, all these combined to bring the animal in my own nature before the man. I recall pacing the length of the cellar, brandishing my tiny weapon and daring any wolf to come near; I remember falling into a slumber at one point, only to visit a world of horrible dreams no better than reality. When I awoke, my madness had only grown. I remember standing at one point with my back against the cold of the cellar wall, the ax blade turned to my own throat, my eyes turned with unreasoning hate to the cold knife-light of the Moon. Why live in a world of madness? I reasoned. Why live in a world that had taken my wife and transformed my son into a monstrous, perverted caricature of all that is considered human? I would remove myself from this nightmare from which I could never wake.
The blade of the ax touched my neck; I recall that distinctly. But I did not draw the blade. Instead I slid down the wall and sat hunched against its cold concrete, crying like a child. I prayed that one of the beasts would wander in and find me then, and accomplish for me what I could not accomplish for myself. With weeping irony, I thought of one of my own lines of poetry: Oh, man, art thou not God in image and deed?
Gods indeed, who could not even ensure their own destruction when preferable to living hell.
Weeping, I again pressed the ax blade to my throat. My eyes wandered to the wire-screened window of the workshop and saw night retreating, day approaching. The howls had stopped—even in madness I had survived the night. No matter, I vowed; tonight would bring another Moon, and for all I knew I was the only man left on an Earth of wolves. I would show them who was God; one deep swipe across my neck—
And then, as if in miracle, the radio upstairs in the living room crackled into life with a single word:
“Attention.”
I went upstairs and listened.
CHAPTER 8
The Voice
By the time I had stumbled to the top of the stairs I was myself again. But the radio was filled with silent static.
I stared at it in disbelief; for a moment madness descended upon me again. I had imagined the voice, I thought. I took the stereo receiver in my two hands, lifted it from its shelf, and prepared to dash it to the floor.
Then the voice returned, startling me, from out of the speakers to either side of me.
“Stand by.”
I gently put the radio down and stood back.
The voice was relieved by static; almost immediately, another voice emerged from the speakers.
He sounded cocksure and tentative at the same time, with the kind of “aw, shucks” persona Gary Cooper often played in the movies—the war hero suddenly pushed in front of a microphone and, consequently, millions of people.
“I don’t really know how to begin,” he said; this was followed by a pause and what sounded like a small hiccup. He resumed, “But here it is. Truth is, we don’t know what’s left. But we do know what’s gone. The President’s dead; so’s the Vice President, Speaker of the House and most of Congress. Most local governments are gone, too, which means the big cities are nothing but chaos. We got all this from Washington, before the last transmitters went there.
“Truth is, I don’t know if anybody’s listening to this or not. I’m betting somebody is. I can’t believe we’re the only organized bunch still getting anything out over the air, but we’ve been sweeping the bands for two days and there’s nothing but a few amateurs left out there. And they’re dropping off one by one, as power goes down or the wolves get ‘em. Seems the fur-faces like to bust up any equipment they can get their hands on. We followed a few shortwave guys in Europe and one from Japan, but they’re quiet now, too. From what we gathered, things are the same all over.”
Again he paused to make that strange hiccup; I could hear him whispering to someone off-mike and then he came back on.
“So here’s where things stand. Far as we know, we’re the only game in town out here. Reason for that, if anybody wants something to lift their spirits, is something that Washington classified as a national security matter—but heck, since Washington doesn’t really exist no more I guess that don’t mean slap. Even so, good American that I am, I ain’t gonna tell you what it is except to say we got a few tricks up our sleeves out here in the desert.
“So the welcome wagon is here. Anybody without fur on his ass who can find Kramer Air Force Base is welcome, and especially, and this is important, so listen up, we need Proctor and Baines, who are out there somewhere, real bad. Anybody comes across ‘em, bring em on in.” He gave a short chuckle and that weird, short hawking sound. “Damn it, Wyatt and Doc, get on in here, we need you to finish these friggin’furballs off and get us straightened out again. Heck, I only got enough chewing tobacco left for another week”—again the hawking sound, a spit of tobacco juice, I now realized—“and you know how mean-tempered I get when I ain’t got my chaw.”
The mike went silent, and I thought the message had ended when the voice erupted again; I heard whispering, then: “They say I forgot to tell you who I am. Don’t see that it makes a difference, except if it’ll get me my chaw, but, heck, this is Lieutenant Jimmy Rogers, United States Air Force.”