Lioness

“Always forgive your enemies-nothing annoys them so much.” -

Oscar Wilde

So it came down to this. 

Her foot itched where the barb wire had sliced it clean open. Though it couldn’t exactly be called “clean” anymore. The rusted walls of the warehouse roared back her own curses as she shifted the bandage slightly, careful not to let the dust, singed and intersped with fulgurite glass, grate into the smarting wound. 

For a moment, looking back to the rat poison on the rotting shelf, she almost thought such a discovery to be some divine mercy. Nearly soporific, the acrid odor teased her, so tantalizing was the promise of sleep, of repose from this life amongst tetanus-festering tin and rabid rats and the other radioactive retches of hell. They had had a can of the same brand back at the house in Calgary, under the sink, back when there was a sink. Hiding from Brandon after she had seasoned his steak, her neck contorted against the gelid pipe and her petite frame displaying its one seeming benefit, she used to think the rat on the label was teasing her, so smug in its machiavellian smile. Look at the man you’ve made your husband. Its sing-song words matched the beat of his footsteps in her head as he sauntered around the kitchen, yelling her names a couple of times before taking his steak and dragging it back into the den. She remembered reading somewhere that lionesses are the exclusive hunters in prides, dragging back gazelle carcasses through the hot African dirt just to lay them at the males’ feet and watch them feed like pigs, their vicarious eyes ravenous when their mouths could not be. Figures.

In the light of the setting sun streaming in through the shattered window, that rat’s stupid grin could almost be called saintly, the buckteeth of Peter beckoning her toward the gleaming gates on a cloud.

But it’s near sundown. She set the can back down. He’ll be expecting me back any time now.

Don’t be stupid, the rat countered. Thinking of him, always thinking of him. He can find his own damn food. Once more, she saw her knuckles whiten against the crimson label, right over the rat’s lips.    

She felt her other hand close around the warm, soft rolls in the threadbare satchel, the two she had found baking in the sun among the ruins of the grocery store. Brandon would never allow her to buy them before, one finger pointing to the package of golden, fluffy bread and the other directed toward her stomach. 

How he would stuff his face with them now, she thought, anything, if it meant he could cling to this crummy planet one second longer, no questions asked, with or without me in the equation. 

But, Brandon wasn’t here now to collect his dinner. 

Being so close to the site of the plant at the time of the explosion, the rolls were bound to be heavily irradiated, but Death was just a whisper away anyway, so what the hell...the rat poison had to wash down something….

But then there was the pilot, back at camp. He was expecting food too. Had she just stepped right over him, withered and dusty, a mummy with epaulettes, by the dried crust of the river bank, would she have spared herself the fiery serpent twisting in her stomach now, or merely prolonged its presence? In the past three hours, Brandon had likely already charmed the fool into some semblance of friendship, buying himself the first seat behind the cockpit if and when the pilot fixed the plane. How easy it would be to simply trade places with him, one soul for Brandon to degrade for another, relinquishing herself to dust, both the blue powder in the can and the scorched sand beneath her feet, as the pilot took all her problems away in a flying metal coffin likely to wreck within the first five minutes it was off the ground. 

A quick and painless death for a vile and painful man. 

Too easy, the rat on the can sneered.

* * *

“What took you so long?” Brandon winced slightly as he sat up, the small twist forced on his broken leg filling some small hole in her throat sweetly. She sucked on the saccharine feeling, struggling to repress the smile behind the meek mask that had for so long been her face.

She pointed to her limping foot and then moved past him, his stertorous curses the wonderful entr’acte of her life now. She had almost made it beneath the lean-to too when she felt his hand, once so meaty and hard, cuff her ankle. To think it had broken her jaw a year ago, only to be demoted to this fragile leaf, trembling in the wind beneath her. She could snap it with her boot if she wanted to.

“Didn’t happen to make yourself the slightest bit useful, did you?” he spat. In reply, she only flung down her bag beside his battered leg before tossing him a roll after a quick inspection, satisfied that no residue remained on the shiny surface of the brioche. “Good girl.”

 Contented, he let her pass, needing both hands now to hold the bread as he began to wolf it down, pausing even to wipe the crumbs from his whiskers and lick them greedily from his fingers. 

Good boy, the rat said from within her satchel.

On the other side of the lean-to, she met a waterfall glistening in the sun, the cloud of perspiration spreading like a tidal wave across the tan shirt of the pilot as he crouched beneath the plane’s shattered skeleton. 

“Hungry?”

“Only for a way out of here,” he responded, turning around to meet her as she tossed him the roll. Plucking it from the air smoothly, he threw it back, the gentle glide of his arm as it drew back betraying some juvenile athleticism. “You should have it. You look….exhausted.”

“So chivalrous, even in the apocalypse.”

“Being a gentleman never goes out of style.” He threw the roll back again, this throw a little firmer. Kneeling back under the plane, he set once more about twisting some nut into place, each turn of the wrench with increasing gusto. “Besides, you already gave me the last of your water.”

“You’re our only chance out of here. Got to keep you alive for something, don’t I?” she chuckled, retreating into the shade underneath the plane beside him, rediscovering a level of excitement she hadn’t felt since college.

“Speaking of keeping alive, how’s that husband of yours? He didn’t look so hot last time I was out there. I think his leg might be infected, and, with a break like that, he wouldn’t have very long.”

She adored the flutter her heart gave as she inched her hand closer to his, pressing the roll back into it tenderly. 

“Something tells me he’s still got a little while. It’ll be tough for sure, but he’s always been a fighter.”

“Brave man indeed to live here in the first place. I knew some folks a while back who claimed that they wouldn’t step foot in this town so long as they lived, lest their teeth and hair start to fall out and their organs start to glow.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of the old rumors about the plant, how ironically trivial they all seemed now. In fact, she could recollect bringing them up to Brandon when they first moved in. He just asked when the steak would be ready. It had been a long ride from Quebec and he was already missing the fish fillet she used to prepare for him there, right along with the venison from Regina and the ham from Ottawa. But, as she reminded him, meat was a small price to pay for freedom from nosy neighbors who were all too willing to call the police when Brandon got upset. 

Her reverie was broken as her stomach let out a strangled cry, her very esophagus seeming to crack as she looked at the empty canteen and candy wrappers besides the toolbox, the ones she had so altruistically left whole for him this morning. Refusing his final offer of the roll, she couldn’t help but look at it just one last time before she departed, imagining the sweet release of air that would come from the first bite. Paired with cool butter and a pinch of salt, it would be divine. 

But, the men would need their strength for what was to come, as would she.

“Goodbye, Earl.” 

“See you later, Nala.”

* * *

The sky still bore the look of cool oblivion as she packed her bags beneath it, rebandaging her foot before she set out for the final time. Even as Brandon sang his moaning agony to the twinkling stars above, their judgements cold and aloof from the other side of the galaxy, the moon above still seemed so genial, her own private pearly sun to light the path along the dusty road that lay ahead. 

Reaching down to collect the flashlight, she felt Brandon’s clammy palm clap around her wrist, the squeeze weak and pathetic even amid his dying desperation. 

“Is that damned pilot almost done yet?” A bit of spittle flew down from his shriveled lips.

“Why so hurried, my love? Feeling alright?” She wretched her hand away and towered back above him. “Here, have some water.” She flung the canteen back down to him, snickering slightly as the dolt bumbled to catch it.

“I know it was small, but I really thought that the roll would have pacified you for longer.” 

The heat of her blood, so fresh and free flowing, seemed to dissipate as she heard his moans become interrupted by a long, dry laugh.

“I know your brain is small, but I really thought that you wouldn’t have thought me to be so stupid,” he croaked. The painful beat of his parched tongue against the remains of his teeth evident in every cackle, he held up the remaining half of the roll in one hand and the can of rat poison in the other. “I spit the rest out, so don’t even think that you still have something on me. And you can damn well believe I’ll tell him as soon as he comes out here, just what my wife has tried to do to her poor husband. See how he fancies flying a murderer, won’t you?”

Slowly, she made her back back to him, the dust becoming quicksand as she felt that old fearful paralysis returning with every footstep closer. She damned the hand that shook as she pulled the rag from her back pocket, calculating how much chloroform was still apt to be on it. It had been three days since she had pulled it from the janitorial closet in the rubble of the plant. 

With one swift movement, she struck, delighting in the fresh terror spilling in his eyes as their skin touched, her hand grazing his neck. Wrapping the remains of the roll tightly, she replaced the rag in her pocket and scooped up the satchel, glad to have the rat beside her once more, someone intelligent to talk to.

“Funny you assume he’s coming back out.” 

“Wha….” Brandon slumped back against the lean-to, only to grab his leg with the greatest alacrity once she kicked it as she walked toward the mouth of the road. 

“You didn’t really think I would be that merciful, did you? No, only Earl earned that. And to think that you were so stupid as to spit out the last sustenance you’ll ever receive from me. More for me, I suppose.” She clicked on the flashlight and turned toward the road, letting the moonlight baptize her as the cloak of her shadow fell behind her. “As for me having something over you, darling husband, you forget a simple fact: I can walk.” 

“Nala, wait, please, God n-”

“Enjoy your water, Brandon.” And, with that, she walked away.