Name: Animal
Author: risqay

Chapter 1

He woke with a foreboding sense of something inevitable coming his way.

Ezekiel remained lying on the bed beneath a thin sheet rubbing the dregs of sleep which lingered on his eye corners, wondering if the feeling had merely been a part of the dream.

That sense, though fleeting, remained unmoving in his chest like a stone dropped beneath moving waters, sinking and coming to rest at the very bottom.

Ezekiel ran a tired rough hand down his face and rubbed his shadowed cheek, turning his face away from the partially drawn curtains where sunlight spilled bright and blinding over his face. The faint lowing of cattle in the distance echoed across the plantation.

With a drawn sigh of a worn man, Ezekiel swung his legs over the edge and braced them on the bare ground. The light shifted and fell upon broad scarred shoulders hunched forward as if braced against wind. His grip on the mattress relaxed as if he rolled his shoulders back and straightened, dull amber eyes taking in the motes of dust which swirled in the light.

The bathroom light flickered on revealing cream walls faded to a dull yellow, a bathtub with cracks along its edges and a toilet. By the sink he stood staring at his expression and, opening the medicine cabinet, we went through the daily motions of getting himself ready for the day ahead.

Pulling on a shirt and his jeans, he made his way down the hallway pausing to nudge the bucket full of water that dripped from a hole in the roof aside.

“... next week we’ll be seeing cloudy days and long rains… they say it will be good enough for the harvesters who need feed for their humans…”

The pan sizzled as Ezekiel flipped the eggs over, one hand gripping the metallic spatula and the other his mug of black coffee hot enough to burn the roof of his mouth as he preferred it. He sipped it and looked out the window at the dried grass which stood still with the stillness of air like a breath held.

Despite the forecast of showers and it being morning, the heat had settled like a lid over the earth.

He drenched his eggs with hot sauce and ate it leaning against the door frame gazing out with impermeable eyes at the plot of land that seemed neverending and the single snake of dirt road which wound its way down his land and fed into a large tarmac road.

“... plans to introduce new sources of nutrition for the depleting population is underway–”

Ezekiel’s amber gaze swept from one end of his plot which was marked by an old withering tree and towards the opposite end. It was open and had been like that for quite some time.

Yet today, a novel thought rose unbidden in the back of his mind.

A fence.

The fork scraped on porcelain as he ate the last egg, wiping the hot sauce with it and sipped his coffee mug perched on the patio.

The fence would do his plot good. Not that anyone had ever contested it. But somehow… Today it seemed like a good reason to start figuring out how to lay the fence around his land and secure it with a gate at the front.

Nothing too opulent.

Just enough to hold something back.

Or someone in.

“There’s no one here beside you.” He muttered, pushing off the frame and heading back into the kitchen.

He pulled out a notepad and pencil worn to the length of his index finger, and made a note of the necessary items needed to make the fence– a list of stuff he would eventually get during his rare visits into town– and folded the notepad, slipping it into the back pocket of his jeans.

The screen door slammed shut behind him as he walked down the front steps and took a turn towards the shed which had been locked. Inside that shed lay all his tools which he had used to fix the old abandoned farmhouse that was now his home.

Once upon a time the farmhouse had once belonged to a human family.

Once upon a time this world had once belonged to humans.

A species so common it was hard to believe that they were now rarer than rubies.

He had found remnants of their existence on the walls; frames of faces now dimmed from decades of abandonment and clothes softened to disintegrating bits by the moths. Months turned to years as he renovated the house; stripping walls and floors, rebuilding furniture and doors.

Memories of the owners had been burned in a pit. He had no reason to keep them.

Now all that was left was the roof. Something that took precedence as the rainy season began to draw nearer. If he was to preserve the work of his hands, the roof had to be stripped and redone accordingly.

With the ladder perched on his shoulder and the tools tucked beneath the other arm, Ezekiel made his way to the back of the house and placed it against the wall, head tilted back and eyes squinting beneath the baseball cap until it felt steady enough for him to climb.

The roof had seen better days.

His boots moved with certain ease across the slanted sides until he spotted loose or darkened shingles.

Setting the materials down, he began to work in a steady rhythm of pulling out the rotted shingles and layering them with aluminium beneath.

Thump

The sound of the hammer falling filled the otherwise quiet world. The sun made its way across the sky until it lingered above him malevolently. Heat seemed to rise from the roof itself and his shirt darkened along the shoulders and back with sweat.

Ezekiel moved unperturbed by it.

He paused only once to glance up as something flashes along his periphery.

A hare.

Standing on its hind legs with its head moving clockwise seeking out prey or predator.

Ezekiel rose from his kneeling position when the heat burned his knees.

He moved on to the next section of the roof, peeling away shingles like the softened covering of a rotted banana. The more he withdrew them, the more he realized that perhaps the whole roof was in need of fixing and not just particular spots.

Thump

The sound of his beating heart and the beating hammer his only companion.

Thump

He paused sitting back on his haunches as sweat slid stinging into his eyes and wiped it off with the back of his hands and lifted the baseball cap, carding rough fingers through his wet curls and placing it back on.

He reached for the caulk and began to squeeze it when the feeling returned.

Dull yet distinct and persistent enough for him to halt what he had been doing and glance up.

The road was empty.

The sky was empty with no sight of a lone wandering cloud.

A shadow fleeted across his visage and he gazed at the crow as it circled overhead, its body dark as night, and slowly carefully came to perch at the edge of his roof. Its one beady eye was set on him curiously watchful and then it cawed.

Ezekiel watched it for the few seconds that it remained upon the roof. And then it suddenly took flight revealing the small shape in the distance nearly concealed by the crow’s figure.

It was a dark figure. Wavering in the heat like a mirage and for a brief moment he believed it to be some sort of tree cut short.

Until the figure swayed to the left then right rocking side to side like a ship at sea.

Ezekiel remained kneeling and watching. His expression blank, almost curious as the animal stood in the distance. If it was approaching it was doing so at a lumbering pace.

After a few minutes he rose and stared from beneath the shade of his cap.

The figure was narrow. Slight build. And despite his discerning vision, it was near difficult to make out the animal with the distance and heat between.

Eventually he walked towards the ladder and climbed down. The approaching figure was cut out as he entered the house and poured himself a glass of cold water from the fridge. It was not until the water touched his tongue that he realized just how parched he was.

He drank long, his Adam’s apple rising and falling with each gulp.

He refilled the glass thrice more and with his thirst now quenched, walked back to the front porch whilst taking tentative sips of water.

The creature had stopped moving.

Ezekiel set the glass on the rail and leaned his forearms against the smooth wood watching.

It was close enough now that he could make out the strands of hair like a bird’s nest arranged on its head. A head that swivelled about slowly, confusedly. Finally it looked towards the house and must have spotted him for it began moving again in his direction.

This was cartoonish.

The manner in which it walked towards him as if it were a zombie or cartoon.

But as the sun gazed down on the animated figure, that feeling of inevitability thrummed.

“Why are you taking so long?”

The figure suddenly stumbled. As if tripped on something it did not see, its thin arms stretched outward weakly scrambling for purchase before falling on the ground.

A plume of dust rose about it and came to settle on its unmoving form.

He waited a few beats and finally straightened walking down the front patio steps and along the dirt road. The distance between them shortened at a languid pace. His attention moved slowly from the figure to the environment around him, perhaps expecting to see another moving in from another direction.

There was none.

Ezekiel cut through the dried grass listening to the crisp rhythmic brush of parched stalks scraping against his boots. He reached down and plucked a dried stalk, wedging it between his teeth.

His boots drew to a halt beside the figure’s face. Its breathing that was so easily labored by the sun’s heat hitched and evened out slightly once his tall shadow fell upon its baking face, obscuring it from the sun.

Ezekiel briefly looked at the dirt face then up once more, as if confirming his suspicion that there was none about.

And then he crouched low with his wrists resting on his knees.

His first assumption from the beginning was; the gender being a male.

However, up close now the bias had slowly been erased by the sight of its features beneath the murk and grime and dust. Long lashes resting on sallow sunken cheeks. Cracked lips spangled with dust and something akin to ashes.

There was an androgynous look to the creature.

Ezekiel’s eyes wandered down its face and towards the soft curve of its exposed shoulder with a collarbone fragile and sharp like the wing of a bird. His finger came to hover beneath its nostrils feeling for the dullest flutter of breath.

The stalk between his teeth rotated like the dial of a clock.

“The sun’s too hot for you to be out here.” He said.

The figure did not move.

Its hair was tangled and matted and he rounded the figure and crouched again to study the soles of its feet. Lacerations mapped the ankles and the soles were bleeding.

“You must have had one hell of a journey,” he mused somewhat amusedly then rose with a sigh.

This had all the signs of it not being his business.

Hardly had he gone three steps when his eyes snagged on something.

Ezekiel stopped and looked down at the face.

Since he had moved his shadow no longer provided solace from the sun, and now exposed to its bright rays, he watched as her eyebrows scrunched over and a look of displeasure twisted its expression.

The cracked lips parted in a murmur revealing a row of straight white teeth,

Blunt teeth.

Something cold touched his forearms, marbling them out in goosebumps.

His head snapped up, suddenly alert not for wandering creatures… but… owners.

Men in masks and hunting rifles.

Soldiers in black gear.

Anyone that knew they had just lost something precious and rare.

His head cocked to the side listening whilst his gaze remained fixed on the crea– no, human. The human that lay at his feet, on his property.

The human with a faint marking around her neck from a leash broken,

The species was so rare he had never seen one except through ancient photos or texts… and he thought he would never see one again.

But here she was. As if the universe had spat her out from its belly.

It was then that Ezekiel noticed the gnawing feeling of something moving inexorably in his direction had quieted to nothing.