Gasoline | Ben Parish

1

THE quiet is loud.

You would think I would have gotten used to it by now. It's been five months since it happened – you know, the end of life as we know it. The end of everything. 

Maybe I'm being dramatic. Maybe there's hope. Maybe there's something else besides me and the rabid dog in the trees.

I can feel it watching me, feel its predatorial muscles tensing and its mouth foaming. I don't blame it for being scared. I don't run on anything but fear. It consumes me; I am a machine and fear is my gasoline. But it doesn't disable me. It doesn't weaken my judgement. If anything, it makes me sharper, helps me determine what I need to do to survive.

The dog growls lowly in warning. My breathing comes in soft pants. I stare at it through the leaves, and it stares right back at me.

There's a red collar looped around its neck. Its once well-groomed fur is matted. Its teeth are a dull white, hinting to previous care. This dog was once someone's pet. Now its owner is probably – no, definitely dead – and it wants to kill me. Whether for food or for defense, it doesn't matter. It wants to end my life.

I'll be damned if during an alien apocalypse I'm taken out by a dog of all things.

I take three even breaths. The dog does the same. It's watching me, judging me, analyzing the best way to take me down. Little does it know, I'm doing the same to it. And I'm going to win.

My hand slowly moves to fish the knife out of my backpack. I would love a gun, but they've been hard to come by: most people have already taken the available ones, because a gun beats a knife any day. But this is all I've got. I have to make the best of it. It's worked well for me so far. Plus, secretly, I like the way it feels in my hand. I like the warmth of blood spilling across my fingers as I take the life out of one of them, the ones who took everything.

I fight the urge to physically shake my head. Those kinds of thoughts are wrong. They're reserved for the minds of the aliens, not people like me. That's how it's supposed to be, anyway. But lately the line between what is wrong and what is right has become so incredibly blurred it smears onto both sides.

For example: killing is right to save your life, but wrong to take someone else's. It's right because you don't know if it is an alien; it's wrong because you don't know if it is an alien. It's right because they deserve it; it's wrong because you like it. Secretly, you like it.

That's what scares me more than the dog waiting to sink its teeth into me: the strange satisfaction in killing that falls over me. Maybe I've gone crazy. It would make sense. After all, it is the apocalypse. I have plenty of reason to have gone insane. But I have to wonder if even the insane would be like me, would be like this.

There's no time for this philosophical bullshit. I need to get this over with. My prey and I are both losing patience. The question is: who is going to make the first move?

Fido makes the decision for the both of us. He charges forward, jaws snapping, spit flying, eyes glowing. His barks ring in my ears and bounce off the trees. I need to make this fast. He's being too loud. He's going to attract some unwanted attention.

I swing my arm a second too early; his teeth sink into my forearm like a hot knife going through butter. Gasping, the weapon tumbles from my fingers.

I've never been bitten by anything besides bugs. Those are easy to crush, and the pain is only a small pinch.

This kind of pain... it's like nothing I've ever felt before. It's burning. My eyes are stinging. Bright blue stars are dancing in my vision, twirling in and out of the tree line. The blood running over my pale arm and soaking into my clothes hardly registers in my brain as mine.