Page 3 of Hero

The coyote has come back. It’s closer this time. It didn’t get scared away by the gunshot.

It’s going to make me kill it.

I raise my gun again. My hand is shaking so violently I can’t even aim.

Maybe another warning shot will scare it off.

I try to steady my hand enough to aim wide, and I haven’t yet done it when a loud gunshot from behind me makes me jump. I make an embarrassing squeal.

The coyote has dropped.

It’s dead.

Dead.

I whirl around and see Zed approaching.

Zed is my stepdad’s younger brother. My step-uncle, I guess.

I really don’t like him, and I definitely don’t want to see him right now when I’m at my worst.

“What the hell are you doing?” Zed has always been one of those lazy, laid-back, unserious men. When my mom married his brother, I was fifteen and he was twenty-two. He’d been out of high school for a few years and had a job at a local factory. He did enough work to keep his job, but otherwise, he’d lain around doing very little. Watching TV and drinking beer and going out with women.

He would always tease me. For studying all the time. For worrying about everything. For taking school and the rest of my life seriously. For staying home on Friday nights. For not having a lot of friends. For making plan after plan for achieving my goal of becoming an astronaut.

Even when the news of the asteroid broke, most of his interaction with me was laughing at me and telling me not to worry so much.

Don’t worry. That was what he’d say. Don’t worry about the entire world crumbling around us.

Nothing could have infuriated me more than that.

He’s been a little better since he and Marie, his pregnant girlfriend, arrived at the cabin to live with us. He mostly ignores me now, but that’s infinitely better than the teasing.

I still don’t like him.

I never will.

I like people who take life seriously and not only when bad things are happening.

Zed has very short hair, blue eyes, and a full, broad face. He’s lost some weight since food got scarce—just like everyone else. He used to have a thicker neck and a soft belly.

His question to me sounds vaguely annoyed but not angry.

He never gets angry no matter how much I argue back at him.

“I twisted my ankle. I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Why didn’t you kill the coyote? You’re a good enough shot now to have hit it.”

Maybe I should be gratified by his faith in me, but I’m more annoyed by his bossiness. “I was scaring it away.”

“It was ravenous. Desperate. A loud noise wasn’t going to scare it.” He’s reached me now, and he extends a hand down toward me.

I don’t—absolutely do not—want to take it. I don’t want his help with anything. I don’t like accepting anyone’s help, but his is the worst of all since it puts me at a disadvantage. But I’m still sitting on the ground, and my ankle still throbs, and I’ll make a fool of myself if I resist him. I reach up and let him haul me to my feet.

My bad ankle buckles, and I lose my balance and end up falling against him.

He smells strong. Like sweat and dirt and fish. But everyone smells now. There are no more stores to buy deodorant. We still have some soap we were able to scavenge and save, but we don’t have a huge supply, so we can’t use it indiscriminately.

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