Joshua Gayou - Commune - The Complete Series - A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Box Set (Books 1-4)

Or so he thought. He had not counted on how long he would have to wait in that position.

Amanda glanced up at the sky after a time, trying to find the sun but failing to do so in the thick, gray overhang of clouds. They looked fat and sluggish; unmoving. She wondered if they were looking at a fresh snowfall, wondered if they might not end up getting stuck on the mountainside. It was her first winter in her new home, and she had little idea what she could expect.

Lum blew his call again and, not long after, another call came rolling back to them out of the distant trees. The answer sounded louder this time.

“How far away are they, do you think?” asked Alan. The tip of the rifle barrel was beginning to waver.

“Mile or two, maybe?” Lum guessed.

“Oh, son of a bitch!” Alan groaned and let the rifle rest.

“I’m telling you now,” Lum warned, “you want to be ready when they come through. If you ain’t and they show, it’s all she wrote.”

“That ridgeline’s got to be four hundred yards away at the high point,” said Amanda. “How far can they see?”

Lum looked at her. “Elks’ a prey animal; they ain’t at the top of the food chain. You know how such as them get growed up to be great, big mommy an’ daddy elks?”

“I assume you’ll tell me.”

He closed one eye and pursed his lips, a classic Lum expression that said: “you think you’re sounding smart, but you’re being foolish.”

“Well, they don’t get there by bein’ stupid,” he said and returned his attention to the trees up the hill. There were a thick patch of them running up the mountainside to their left to disappear off over the rise; he expected the elk to come from that direction, though he couldn’t be certain. The mountains sometimes did funny things to sound.

Alan lifted onto his heels in a crouch and then crawled forward to lay bodily up the opposing side of the cleft. He stretched the rifle out in front of him in his prone position and balanced the fore end of the stock on his fist to keep the barrel elevated.

“Hell, this is way better, anyway,” he whispered. “I could stay like this for hours.”

“Let’s hope you don’t have to,” Amanda whispered.

“Aw’right you two, quiet already. It’s called huntin’, not runnin’ your mouth.”

They waited a while longer, periods of silence interrupted by Lum’s bugle and the answering call of faraway game. Each successive squealing cry that tumbled out of the trees above them came a little louder than the last, letting them know that they were at least on the right track. Their patience was eventually rewarded when a herd emerged from between the trees, stepping gingerly into the open. There were a handful of bulls in the group, all of them larger than anything Amanda had expected to see, with great, arching antler racks floating above their heads. They swung back and forth unceasingly, always watchful, as the smaller cows filtered out between them and stepped into the clearing. Interspersed within the females was a collection of leggy, skinny little calves, ears twitching and timid.

In the center of them all, was a great monster of a bull elk, with antlers stretching out in all directions like an old, hoary tree. The animal sounded its call; it was clear and sorrowful out in the open, with nothing to get between the source and the people down the hill. Chills crawled up Amanda’s spine at the sound of it, and she experienced a deep, keening buzz hidden just at the bottom of her hearing, like an orchestra of stringed instruments all playing the same note constantly, interminably, at a register too low for the human ear to detect; a thing felt in the spine rather than heard.

“You know where to aim?” Lum whispered.

“I do,” said Alan.

Amanda’s throat constricted, and she suffered a momentary panic when she became convinced she would call out unintentionally. Some deeper part of her knew what was coming and desperately didn’t want it to happen. At that moment, those creatures up the hill seemed like the most beautiful beings she had ever encountered. They weren’t even animals, really; they were angels disguised in animal bodies. They had to be, of course; wearing human bodies would have been sacrilege. So enshrouded, other humans happening upon them would have been undone by their baser, rutting instincts, responding in physical lust instead of the debilitating awe these creatures deserved. The bodies had to be alien, of course. Crouched there in that little cleft, it all seemed perfectly clear to Amanda why it should be so.

“Take a bull,” Lum said. “No cows. Wait for one to separate a bit an’ go broadside. Don’t rush him.”

As he spoke, Amanda saw one of them move away from the others; not the herd bull but a big one all the same. Her breathing quickened. She thought about her dismissal of Rebecca and was ashamed.

“That’s over two hundred yards,” whispered Lum. “Three hundred, maybe. Probably hold a touch high—”

The rifle crashed, and Alan’s hand was already working the bolt, spitting the empty cartridge into the snow, where it smoked. In the distance, the herd startled and ran for about fifty yards along the slope before coming to a hesitant stop, necks stiff as they listened. One bull had stayed behind, foreleg drawn up from the ground as though the hoof was injured. Amanda glassed him and could see the red spot just behind the shoulder. Steam puffed from his nose in great clouds.

“Again?” asked Alan.

“No. You’ll get too much meat all bloodshot an’ waste it. It’s a good hit. Be patient.”

As Amanda watched, the bull swayed, caught himself, and took a few halting steps forward on unsteady legs, reminding her of a newborn fawn. He stood a while longer, head lowered, and then rolled over onto his side. His stiffened legs pointed up into the air for only a moment, flinging an arc of snow that glistened in the sun, and came to a rest on the ground.

“God… damn,” Alan whispered.

“It was a good hit,” Lum repeated. “He didn’t suffer no more ’an he had to. I’d’ve been proud to get that shot.”

Alan nodded in return but did not look pleased. His face was a little pale.

Lum settled back against his side of the cleft and pulled a flask from the inside of his jacket. He unscrewed the cap and took a pull. “First time killin’ an elk?”

Alan nodded. “First time killing anything.”

Lum nodded and glanced up the hill. “Well, I’m proud of how you did it. You should be, too.” He held the flask out to the boy.

Alan reached for it but then glanced at Amanda. “Don’t tell Oscar, okay?”

Amanda’s eyebrows rose.

“He gets funny sometimes,” he explained. “Sometimes he forgets that I’m gonna be sixteen soon.”

She settled back and rolled her head around to pull some of the tension out of her shoulders; her heart was blessedly coming back down to a normal rate. “Imagine that,” she said. She looked at him dead-on and said, “Look, I’m not going to volunteer anything, but if he asks me straight, I won’t lie to him either. That’s as good as you’ll get from me.”

Alan thought a moment and then shrugged, deciding he could live with that compromise. He took the flask and had a tentative sip. His eyes pinched shut, and he swallowed convulsively, breaking into a coughing fit. Up the slope, the lingering elk raised their heads and froze in place.

The herd finally broke when the three came out of cover and shouldered their packs. The largest bull stretched out his neck and bugled out among them—a final ghost cry sent down the mountainside before they evaporated back into the trees. By the time they reached Alan’s kill, the only thing left to show their passing was the riot of prints in the snow, a few piles of scat, and the body of a great beast laid over on its side, looking impossibly large now that they stood up close to it. His snout was pressed hard into the snow due to his antlers and the angle they forced upon his neck.