I like walking my dog at night. I hate running into other people.
Like everyone else, I try to avoid crowds since the Kansas City Flu. No one is certain how it passes from person to person, or if it really came from Kansas City, but we all know it didn’t come from a pig in China or a monkey in Africa. It’s American born and here to stay and lives in people. So my dog is of great comfort and companionship, while encounters with other night walkers are possibly fatal.
The street lamps still come on at night, though. Or most of them anyway. So me and the stranger see each other from a ways off. Maybe hoping it will be someone we recognize from the Beforetimes, me and the approaching stranger don’t turn away from each other, but move to opposite sides of the wide street. That’s one good thing about the slow apocalypse we find ourselves in – there’s no traffic.
We get close to each other in one of the dark hallways between burned out streetlights. The stranger clicks on a flashlight and hits me with it, kind enough not to shine the light in my eyes, but glancing the beam up and down my body. Probably checking for weapons. I don’t blame them; people have been killing each other over the stupidest things. I read about a shootout in the only Walmart left in town that’s inciting incident was an argument about the last tube of toothpaste. And everyone seems to have a gun. The firearms industry is one of the few that still thrives.
I’m not carrying, though. Owning a gun would be a bigger danger to myself than anyone else these days. So I take my hands out of my pockets and let the light sweep over us, holding Cujo’s leash, his high whining the only sound to be heard. The stranger clicks off the light. We don’t say anything and pass each other without word.
He’s about three steps behind me when I drop the leash and reach into my back pocket for the collapsible baton. It’s light and quick, but steel-cored, so when I bring it down on the stranger’s head it knocks them cold. I hit them a couple of more times while Cujo murders their tiny chihuahua. I can’t blame him. He hasn’t eaten in days.
I move quick, going through the stranger’s pockets, grabbing their wallet and whatever might be valuable. I find the pistol and throw it into the woods, then roll the body off the road. It looks like there’s enough cash for some grocery’s the next time my phone rings and I’m told it’s my turn to go to the ration station.
They really should have done down another street.
See the author’s published work here.
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