Matt Hlinak - DoG

Taking a break from corpse-hauling to focus on his own needs, Culann devised a system of refrigeration that he was quite proud of. He tied one end of a short length of rope to the pier and the other end to a tapped keg. The keg had some air in it, so it floated up near the surface of the water. Culann had only to pull the keg over to him to draw a beer cooled to the fifty-degree temperature of the ocean. He sat on the edge of the pier and dangled his bare feet in the water while the keg cooled. He glanced to the side and realized he was just a few feet from where he’d chucked the orb. He imagined it resting on the silty bottom, beaming out those evil rays that didn’t harm him for reasons he still couldn’t fathom. The dogs, who were similarly mysteriously-impervious, piled around him on the dock or splashed around in the water just above the orb’s resting place.

Though he was worn out and a little sick from the warm beer and whiskey, Culann had seventeen more bodies to deal with. He stood up and noticed Williams’ equipment in the pier where Culann had left it. He figured it might come in handy, so he strapped the belt around his waist. He took stock of the inventory: pistol, flashlight (non-working), walkie-talkie (ditto), handcuffs, plastic gloves, a big Swiss army knife, pepper spray, and a billy club. He didn’t know how useful any of this stuff might prove, but the belt gave him a feeling of authority, even though there was no one here to exercise authority over. He decided to wear the belt as much as possible.

Suitably equipped, he pushed the wheelbarrow down the road to Worner’s cabin.

The dogs of course tagged along. While Culann labored to lug his friend’s corpse through the door, Alphonse snatched up Worner’s dead cat and ran outside with it. Two other dogs lurched forward and clamped their jaws on the cat. All three growled and shook their heads, tearing the cat to pieces within a few seconds. A few more dogs jumped in, and soon the cat was completely devoured. Culann realized the dogs hadn’t been fed in a couple of days. He’d need to do something about that if he didn’t want them going feral and attacking him.

He wrestled Worner into the wheelbarrow and then sat on the ground to catch his breath. He glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw four neat little rows of tall, green plants growing next to Worner’s shack. As he looked closer, he realized they were marijuana plants. He smiled at the idea of Worner toking away in his little cabin just beyond the reach of civilization. Although he hadn’t gotten high since college, Culann thought maybe he’d reward himself with some of Worner’s crop once he finished collecting the dead.

He loaded Worner onto the boat with the others and then headed over to Wal-Mart Jr. to see what it might have for the dogs. This was his first time in the store, which didn’t have much. It did have eggs and milk, though, both of which were already starting to rot. In another day or two it would be impossible to set foot in the store without gagging, so Culann loaded all of the perishables into the wheelbarrow and dumped them in the water down the shore, away from the pier and his floating keg.

Fortunately, the store was also well-stocked with non-perishable items, including several big bags of dog food. There was also a good amount of meat—steaks, ground beef, bacon, and fish—that would go bad soon, so Culann loaded it all onto the wheelbarrow and dumped it on the ground outside. The dogs swarmed in, tore through the packaging and gobbled it all up within a matter of minutes. Culann went back inside and continued his survey. He found a lot of canned goods, some packaged lunchmeats and beef jerky sticks, boxes of cereal, several loaves of white bread that wouldn’t stay good for very long, as well as a whole shelf lined with gallon jugs of water.

This last item made Culann realize that the island did not have a ready source of fresh water. Before disaster struck, he’d been able to wash his hands and flush the toilet at Frank’s place, so he figured there had to be a well, but he wasn’t sure how to find it or how to get at the water. Even if he did figure that out, he wasn’t sure the water would be potable. The dogs had probably been subsisting on rainwater left over from the storm, and he was going to need to get them something to drink soon. Four dozen dogs would go through the water in the store within a couple of days. If Culann didn’t figure out a way to access the well, he was going to have to kill the dogs.

It was becoming clear to Culann that simply surviving as the sole human being on an island in the Bering Sea was not going to be easy. There wasn’t enough food and water to support him and the dogs much longer. Even if the dogs were somehow out of the equation, he didn’t know how long he could live off canned peas and Spam. If he managed to hold out for the next couple of months, he would then have to contend with winter. The sun that didn’t set in summer wouldn’t rise for a two-month period in winter.

Nothing in Culann’s life had prepared him to survive in this climate.

These thoughts depressed him. He snatched a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from Alistair’s and headed over to the dock. Fog was beginning to creep across the water, obscuring Culann’s view of the shore. He hoped the fog would keep Schuler’s and Williams’s comrades from coming out to look for them, although he knew it was only a matter of time. He envisioned waves of death as people came out to investigate and then more followed to investigate the investigators. He also didn’t relish the prospect of being placed under arrest each time and having to finagle out of the handcuffs after his captors succumbed to the orb’s power.

Overcome with the hopelessness of the situation, Culann drank half the bottle and passed out on the dock.

Culann ate a breakfast of beef jerky and Tylenol, which he washed down with half a gallon of water. He then snatched a glass from Alistair’s and went to see how his keg refrigeration system worked. The fog had thickened considerably while he’d slept.

He had a difficult time locating the rope he’d tied to the keg, but when he did, he managed to pour himself a cool beer, which made him feel better. If he could keep his beer cold without power, he thought he just might be able to solve all of his other problems.

With renewed confidence, Culann resumed loading bodies onto the police boat.

He worked hard over the next few hours, stopping only to eat lunch. It took all of his strength and several glasses of beer, but he finally loaded the last body onto the boat as a light rain began to fall.

If he was going to keep the dogs alive, he was going to need rain-catchers. He scoured the island for anything that could hold water. He found three large pots in Alistair’s, several buckets in some of the cabins, a couple of old wash basins, and then he hit the jackpot with a plastic wading pool that had belonged to little Marty. He set these all out in a row out front of Wal-Mart Jr. and hoped it would rain long enough to fill them.

Having taken care of the dogs, for the time being at least, Culann returned to the police boat, which was full nearly to overflowing with dead bodies. Since the island had been powered entirely by generators, he had no trouble locating a can of gasoline. He emptied it over the people he once knew, perhaps the last people he would ever know.

Even with the heavy fog, Culann didn’t want to risk attracting attention from the mainland, so he unmoored the boat and took hold of the bowline. He pulled the boat along the pier until he reached the shore and then he walked slowly along the edge of the water, dragging the boat along with him. The island sloped off pretty quickly, so the water was deep enough that Culann could lead the boat all the way around to the western edge of the island from shore. It was slow going, but much easier than loading all the bodies had been. After an hour, the boat was completely out of the line of sight for anyone who may have been gazing across the water from land. Culann lit a book of matches he’d taken from Alistair’s and tossed it in the boat. Flames spread the length of the boat, and Culann could almost immediately smell the flesh of his friends catch fire. It was like burnt hair, but a thousand times stronger. He took a long pole and shoved the boat away. The wind was coming from the south, so it pushed the boat along the edge of the island. Culann sat on the grass, surrounded by dogs who all stared with him as the blazing boat slipped into the fog and was gone.