Hunger (Gone 2)

She put the truck into the lowest gear and took her foot off the brake. The truck began to creep forward.

Slow and steady, that would be the way, Lana knew. The pathway to the mine entrance was a mess of potholes, narrow, crooked, and steep.

She turned the wheel. It wasn’t easy. The truck was old and stiff with disuse. And Lana’s driving experience was extremely limited.

The truck advanced so slowly that the coyotes could keep up at a walk. They fell i

nto place around her, almost like an escort.

The truck lurched crazily as she pulled onto the path. “Slow, slow,” she told herself. But now she was in a hurry. She wanted it to be over.

She had an image in her mind. Red and orange erupting from the mouth of the mine. Debris flying. A thunderclap. And then the sound of collapsing rock. Tons and tons and tons of it. Then billowing dust and smoke and it would be over.

Come to me.

“Oh, I’m coming,” Lana said.

I have need of you.

She was going to silence that voice. She was going to bury it beneath a mountain.

There was a sudden jolt. Lana glanced into her mirror and saw the deformed, scarred face of Pack Leader. He had jumped into the back of the truck.

“Human not bring machine,” Pack Leader said in his unique snarl.

“Human do whatever she likes,” Lana yelled back. “Human shoot you in your ugly face, you stinking, stupid dog.”

Pack Leader digested that for a while.

The truck lurched and wallowed and crept up the hillside. More than halfway now.

Come to me.

“You’re going to be sorry you invited me,” Lana muttered. But now, with the mine shaft entrance in view, she found she could scarcely breathe for the pounding in her chest.

“Human get out. Human walk,” Pack Leader demanded.

Lana couldn’t shoot him. That would break the window behind her and that would allow the coyotes to come at her.

She had reached the entrance.

She put the truck into reverse. She would have to turn the truck around. Her hands were white, tendons straining, as she gripped the steering wheel.

Pack Leader’s evil face was in her way as she turned to check her backward course. He was inches away, separated by nothing but a pane of glass.

He lunged.

“Ahh!”

His snout hit the glass. The glass held.

Lana was sure the glass would hold. The coyotes had not yet grown hands or learned to use tools. All they could do was bang their snouts into the glass.

You are mine.

“No,” Lana said. “I belong to me.”

The bed of the truck crossed the threshold into the mine. Now the coyotes were getting frantic. A second coyote leaped and landed on the hood. He got the windshield wiper in his teeth and ripped savagely at it.