Now the bug is beginning to understand this, too.
Emily puts her hand over her mouth, trying to force her breathing to nothing. I growl at the legs of the bug as it passes; it’s a submissive growl, I’m not challenging its dominance. It can beat a car. I cannot beat a car. The bug is boss.
The bug hisses and digs at the door. Emily shrieks. The car shakes and rocks; the window breaks.
I bite the bug’s claw. It’s hard and slimy, like a wet tennis ball. I bite and I snarl.
The bug is too big. It can’t put its claw through the car window. I keep biting it, going for the weak points in its claws. Emily screams and screams. This urges me on.
I must defend Emily.
I taste bug meat. It bleeds black blood. I have hurt it, but it keeps coming. It doesn’t seem to feel pain. Normal things would retreat when they’re bitten. This bug continues, bending the metal of the car, trying to pry open the door. I latch my jaws onto the claw and shake my head back and forth, tearing at the flesh of its joint. I bite deep.
The limb comes away. The bug flails at the car, bashing with its good claw and its stump. Thump, thump, thump on the roof.
Emily cries and I’m afraid. It’s too big. We have to run. I jump out the other window.
“Demon!”
I leap on top of the car. The bug is there. I look right into its big, weird eyes. Its mouth clacks at me as it bites.
I know how to fight. I twist and jump, biting for its neck. There’s only thick, slimy skin there. My teeth drag across it, trying to find a weak spot. I don’t find one.
The bug’s remaining claw latches onto my rear left leg. It digs in deep. I howl. It hurts!
BOOM.
Emily. She has the boom-maker. The bug falls over the car, chattering and clicking. I smell guts. I smell blood. It’s all over me. All over the car.
My leg hurts. But the bug is dead. I limp over to Emily. She’s shaking so much the boom-maker falls out of her hands.
I lick her all over. She cries a lot. She tries to wake up Emily-mother and Emily-father. But she doesn’t try for long. They’re dead like the bug.
Emily tries to break the boom-maker so she can stick new tubes in. It takes her a little while, but she manages. I lick my wound when she fixes the boom-maker again. It hurts. I can’t walk on that leg, but I have four. I’m okay. I will lick it more later and make it better.
I can smell more bugs. I can smell a lot of things.
“I’ll come back with help,” Emily says to the car. “I’ll come back with an ambulance. Bye, Mum. Bye, Dad. I’ll be back soon. I promise.”
With the boom-maker held in her hands, Emily and I leave the dead car behind.
“Everything’s going to be okay, Demon,” Emily says as another car drives past. They’re getting more common. Our car was fast. These were slower. “Someone will stop for us. We’ll get help.”
None of the cars stop. Emily and I keep walking by the road. She holds my lead in one hand and the boom-maker in the other. Every time lights come, she tries to get them to stop. Nobody does.
I walk along with Emily. My leg hurts a lot. I know Emily is scared, and I’m scared, too. I smell bugs. They’re getting closer. I don’t think Emily knows. She keeps walking along the road.
This is a mistake. We should get away from the road and hide. I know how predators think.
They go where the food is.
We keep walking. The cars are now constant. They begin to move slowly; I get scared. They’re moving too slowly. They have light. This will draw the bugs to them for sure. I keep tugging for Emily to leave the road and get out toward the wilderness, where we can be safe.
“No, Demon,” she says, tugging me back. “We have to stay with the people.”
One of the cars stops. The people inside open the door. It’s four humans, probably related. They smell of sweat and fear.
“Hey girl,” the driver says. He’s very fat. They all are. “Get in.”
“There’s no room for Demon,” says Emily. There’s barely room for her.
“Forget the dog,” the man says. “She’ll be okay on her own.”
“Demon’s a boy,” says Emily. “And I can’t go unless he comes with me.”
The man shrugs and drives away. We keep walking.
Finally, the flood of cars slows down. One of the cars far ahead has broken. The road is blocked. Now we’re walking faster than the cars. People look at us. I growl at them. They leave us alone. We pass the fat man and his fat family. I growl at them, too.
One of the cars is different from the other cars, a metal-box. There are people riding in it; I can see their faces through tiny windows.
Emily runs up to the door and pounds on it. The window rolls down.
“This is an ambulance, right?” she says, her eyes very big.
“Sorry, kid,” the driver says. He’s wearing strange, bulky clothes and a helmet. “Military use only.”
“No, no,” says Emily. “You gotta go help my Mum. She was in the army! She fought in the Reclamation; she’s back there, and she’s hurt bad.”
“Sorry,” the driver says again. “We can’t go back.”
“You have to!” Emily is shouting. “She’s in the army like you!”
“We’ll radio another unit to pick them up,” says the driver. “They’ll be fine.”
“You promise?” Emily doesn’t look happy. That makes me unhappy.
“Yeah. Sure, kid.” The driver looks down at her. “Are you hurt?”
I growl at him.
“No, Demon,” says Emily to me, quietly. I growl anyway.
“I’m fine,” says Emily. “Demon is hurt.”
“So your mother’s back there,” says the man. “Where’s your father?”
Emily points back the way we came. “That way, too. They crashed. I still think we need to go back for them.”
The man shrugs helplessly. “We couldn’t even if we wanted to,” he said. “The road that way is bumper to bumper. What a beating.”
Emily cries a bit. “My parents need help. They were bleeding. The car rolled. We hit a bug.”
“What?” The man looks concerned. He opens the door and leaves the metal-box. He slides a small box into his boom-maker. It makes a clicking noise. “What kind of bug? How big?”
“Big,” says Emily. She’s shaking a bit as she talks. I bump up against her leg to reassure her. “Like, really big. It attacked our car. Demon and I killed it.” She holds out the boom-maker. “With this.”
That seems to surprise him a lot. His voice is quiet. “You killed one?”
“Yeah.” Emily gives the boom-maker a shake. “Like I said.”
The man squints at her and pulls out a light. “The Prophets Wept,” he says, looking over Emily and me. “Black blood. Like they have.”
“I told you,” she said. “Demon bit it, and while it was distracted, I shot it.”
I did bite it. I’m a good boy.
Nobody says anything for a bit. Then he touches his helmet. “LT, I got a little girl out here. She’s separated from her parents.” He pauses. “I know, but she’s got a shotgun and a pretty mean-looking dog. She says she killed one of them.”
Another big pause. Then the man jerks his thumb toward the metal-box. “Anyone who can kill one of those has gotta be tough. Go around the back and jump in.”
Emily hesitates. “What about Demon?”
“And your dog, too. We’re getting past this shit-show. Don’t worry, we’ll keep you safe till we reach the evacuation point.”
“Evacuation?” Emily looks confused. “What?”
The man suddenly smells funny. “Just get aboard,” he says. “Let the corpsmen in the back take a look at you, and then I’ll call the rear elements and make sure they pick up your folks.”
Emily seems happy. That makes me happy. She goes around to the back of the metal-box. It slides open, extending a ramp. The inside seems cramped and smelly. It’s full of people. Emily walks up the ramp and cautiously sits on the floor. I sit beside her. The door closes, then the metal-box begins to drive; it swerves to one side, and through the tiny windows, I see it passing the line of stopped cars.