I dragged the head into my lap and scored the skin to peel it from the bone. With another knife wedged as a chisel, I pounded it under the top of the skull and pried it off. The pinkish gray brain had two halves and filled the bulbous cranium. I scooped them out and scraped off the membrane covering, revealing a tofu texture. I didn’t know what an insect brain looked like, but I suspected it was very different from the human-like brain in my lap. Did it mean they still had emotions? Memories? Christ, what if they were still human, trapped in these bodies?
My mouth went dry. I couldn’t think like that. They showed no anger, no remorse. An aphid wouldn’t hesitate to kill me. Which was why I had to kill them first. I tossed the brain onto the heap of limbs. Then I washed my hands with my camel back and joined Darwin at the tree line.
We plowed east through Missouri’s Ozark Mountains. I followed Darwin up and down rugged slopes, his paws hooking around boulders and loose rock with ease. I chased him along the river way, wheezing, my calves burning. Often, he sprinted too far ahead and disappeared into the bush. Minutes felt like hours until he returned, bearing fresh water fowl.
A week passed, and I grew dependent on his low growl, his aphid alarm. He sensed them before I did. For fear of losing him again, I’d herd Darwin in the opposite direction of the threat. I knew I was just tarrying until our peacetime lifted. The buzz of aphid hunger vibrated the air. I couldn’t run from the aphids forever. I needed to test the dog’s reaction to gun fire.
“Hier, Darwin.” He ran to my side and leaned against my leg. I scratched his head and kissed the bridge of his snout. No doubt he knew more Schutzhund commands than I did. Maybe he’d been a police dog.
“Fuss.”
He obeyed, heeling as I walked along the riverbed toward an open field. The field animated with sunflowers, swishing and stretching to the summer sky.
“In Ordnung.”
Darwin took to the field, romping through the yellow blooms like an adolescent whitetail, spraying them to and fro in his wake. Then he stopped and looked back at me. He was really enjoying himself, his playfulness contagious. Focus, Evie.
I targeted the carbine on the trunk of a dead cottonwood bridging the river. Exhale. Pop.
He pricked his ears, the only thing he moved.
I sighed my relief and tramped to his side. “Sitz.”
Darwin sat on his haunches.
I raised the AA-12. Sighted it down field. Told him to stay. “Bleib.”
Exhale. Clap. Clap.
Shotgun still in high ready, I gave Darwin a sidelong glance. His eyes met mine, his body stiff with attention. My lips twitched. Wouldn’t it be something if Darwin were there because of Joel’s doing? Joel always knew what I needed. My injuries were healing without infection and Darwin kept my mind off them most days. The dog numbed my pain.
I bent and hugged him. “Well done, boy.”
With a raised hand, I sheltered my eyes from the sun’s glare and scanned the field under the Ozark highlands. The hills tinged blue under the haze of the humidity. “Where to now, Darwin?”
He bounced around me and prodded me to play. We should’ve only been a few miles from the highway. That meant we’d see civilization soon. Sweat trickled down my spine. We’d find a car and maybe sleep in a soft bed. I gathered my gear and hiked east. “Fuss.”
Darwin followed.
The sun dropped below the hillside and sketched shadows on the dam saddled by Highway 65. We climbed the bulwark and gaped up and down the highway. An old pickup truck sat in the southbound lane. Darwin wet his nose with his tongue and resumed panting.
I knew the area, had traveled that highway dozens of times. The lake was only ten miles behind us. But thanks to the August heat, the overgrown woods, the continuous stops to rest my injuries and ease the weight of my gear, it’d been the longest ten miles of my life. With languor setting in, I trudged to the truck while Darwin led the way.
The unlocked doors on the Ranger made entry easy. The missing keys offset my luck. I stripped my gear and chased away images of the truck’s prior occupant emerging from the woods and slashing me open with an insectile mouth.
I crawled under the steering column. After a few sweaty minutes of wiretapping, the engine came to life. The needle on the gas gauge swung to F. I blew out a breath.
Thank fucking God for my old Chevy. I hated that clunker when I was a kid. Had to hot-wire it to start it. Memories of hunkering under the dash, late for school, fingers trembling over the wires in frigid temperatures. Never imagined I’d be looking back on that with a smile.