Notes: More of Zebra. Just, doing things, existing, whatever.

Make more compact. MORE compact.

Start building the “is something coming for them” tension earlier.

It wasn’t raining, but it really wanted to.

The sky hung low, bloated with tumorous clouds. The air was dry and cold and brittle, in a way that made breathing painful. An icy breeze built itself up into a brief gale before tripping and falling back into smaller (but no less enthusiastic) gusts, gathering momentum and losing it over and over again. It rolled around the streets, eager to grow up into something big, and meaningful, and dangerous.

In Ripton, there were only two people available for the wind to pick on, and it did with gusto, nipping at their heels and cutting through their jackets. Katters and Zebra passed from street-lamp to street-lamp, weighed down by both the cold and the heavy sacks they had slung over their shoulders. The splashes of light seemed to get brighter, but, of course, it was an illusion — they approached the edge of civilisation, and the world grew darker.

“Do you have the flashlight?” Zebra asked when they reached the end of the road. The last street-lamp was a ways back, leaving them in almost pitch darkness.

Despite her gloves, Katters’ hand was frozen, claw-like, around the handle of a large, heavy-duty flashlight. She depressed the switch, illuminating the woods before them in something that was almost like sunlight.

“This is the worst,” she said. She dropped her bag over the “DEAD END” bars that marked the end of the street and the beginning of the wilderness, then followed it. “It’s cold, these bags are heavy, it’s cold, and it’s going to rain.”

He followed her. “We can’t leave this stuff in the basement. The smell was infecting the rest of the house.”

“They would have stopped smelling eventually.”

A dirt path stretched out into the woods, leading from the DEAD END, in a loop, back around to the General Snow Memorial Park. Katters and Zebra left it immediately. They slipped in among the trees, where they would never be found.

She grinned behind her scarf. As a reptile, she was bundled up more heavily than Zebra, who got away with nothing more than a thick, charcoal-coloured coat. She was in coat, scarf, cap, and had a pair of heatpacks stashed in her pockets for good measure. She faced him, turning on her heel and walking backwards, still grinning. “Although, I mean,” she said, “it could be argued that they stopped smelling the moment they died.”

He glared at her, first confused, then annoyed. She backed into a tree and dropped the flashlight.

He snorted. “You deserved that.”

“Wasn’t worth it.” She rubbed the back of her head, padded though it was by her trapper hat. “Damn near had me seeing stars.”

She picked up the light, waving it erratically over Zebra, herself, and the trees. He hadn’t stopped walking, and she had to jog to catch up with him. The light bounced in front of her, throwing him into sharp, saturated relief and casting long, dancing shadows all around them. In addition to his bag, he had a shovel propped up on his shoulder, and it reflected the light back at her in brief flashes.

“How far out, you suppose?” she asked when she’d caught up. She held the light steady, now, and the shadows stopped dancing.

“We just got here.”

“Yeah, but.” She shifted the weight of the bag on her shoulder. “It’s cold, and these bags are fuckin’ heavy.”

The bags looked like stuff sacks, but made of a thick, durable material. Their contents jutted and bulged against the sides in disconcerting ways, making them uncomfortable to carry. Katters’ jabbed into her spine with every step she took, taking detours occasionally to stab her in the ribs or side.

“We’re still too close to town,” he said.

“Have I mentioned that it is cold?”

The wind had less room to play here than it did in the wide, open streets, but it tried its best. The trees creaked, and rustled, and sang with the wind’s efforts. Every now and again, it managed enough oomph to knock Katters or Zebra into each other, and each time they would push the other away with a rough shove.

“Sure,” he said, stopping suddenly. He dropped his bag but didn't break eye-contact with her, though he probably couldn't see anything anyway with the light in his face. “We’ll stop here, if you want to.”

She shuffled her feet. Far-off pinpoints of light — the reflective eyes of nocturnal animals — stared at her and waited for her to make a decision. “No,” she said, finally. “You’re right, we’re too close to town. We should keep going.”

He picked up his bag and started walking, again. “Thought so,” he said. “Let’s just get this done. Do it right, and we won’t have to worry about it for a while.”

“I was perfectly happy not worrying about it at all before you decided our closet skeletons were offending your delicate sensibilities,” she said, throwing her hand up and walking on sashaying tiptoes for a moment, to illustrate what she thought of his sensibilities.

He snorted again. “They were bothering you, too.”

“Not enough to do anything about it for at least another few days.”

“It’s going to rain, soon.” He looked up, but the clouds, the dark, and the trees all blended together into a uniform blackness that was impossible to decipher. “They say it could rain for weeks.”

She scoffed. “Like they know.”

“They know more than you.”

“Nah.” She tilted her head back, too, but closed her eyes. “Feel that. This storm’ll be all bark. It’ll wear itself out in a few hours — maybe a day — and then it’ll pass on. We’ll have sun again in three days, tops.”

“You’re about to walk into another tree.”

She stopped so abruptly she almost fell anyway, doubling over to keep her balance. Her bag slid from her shoulder, swung around to hit her in the chest, then escaped her grip and dropped to the forest floor.

“The bag wants us to stop,” she said.

“The bag is wrong.”

The bag smelled. It was easy to ignore while the bags were behind them — the smell disappeared in the cold and blended in with the rotting-compost smell of the undergrowth. But when it fell in front of her, it released a fresh dose of the odour, wafting up to her face. The smell was almost sweet, and had a biting, chemical quality to it, like a mild cleaning agent.

She hefted the bag back onto her shoulder and they got back to walking.

“Hey, Zeebs,” she said after a while. “You ever wonder if maybe we should, you know, stop?”

He glanced over at her. “Stop what?”

“You know.” She shrugged the bag higher on her shoulder, wincing as it poked her side. “Stop.”

“I thought we agreed, we can’t leave these lying around the house.”

“No, I mean all of it. The killing, the desecration, the cannibalism. Maybe we should call it quits.”

He dropped his bag. “This looks good,” he said. “Kill the flashlight.”

She turned the flashlight off and dropped her own bag next to his. “You gonna answer my question?”

He un-shouldered his shovel and stabbed the blade of it into the ground. The soil was cold and dry, and digging it would be hard work. “What would we do?”

She walked around him so he was between her and the sacks. She couldn’t smell them from over there, just the dirt, the plants, and the oncoming storm. She sat down. “I dunno.”

“If we weren’t doing this,” he said, pulling up the first shovelful of dirt. “What would we be doing?”

“You mean, like, if we hadn’t met? I suppose I’d be a doctor.”

He sniffed. “No. Not if we hadn’t met, if we just stopped all of this. Maybe went our separate ways, maybe stuck together — but if we closed shop tomorrow and never looked back. What would we do instead?”

She thought. “I kind of always figured we’d keep going until we were caught. Or died. So, I don’t know. But maybe we don’t have to keep going until we’re forced to stop. Maybe we can stop on our own.”

He stopped digging, leaning against the shovel. “You’re not answering my question.”

“I did. I said I don’t know.”

“Do you think you can stop?”

“Sure. Not killing people is easy. Loads of people do it.”

“You’re not loads of people.” He rubbed his hands together, then resumed digging. “You already stopped once, and then you started again.”

“What would you do?”

“Skip town.”

“Why?”

“That’s all that’s keeping me here. The shops. You. If I didn’t have that, there’d be no reason to stay.”

“You’re being weird.”

A rough edge came into his voice. “You’re the one going soft.”

She kicked at his foot. “I am not soft!”

“Right, you’re only a quitter. You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if you stopped. You didn’t know what to do with yourself when we met. This is all you have.”

She went quiet.

“Here,” he said. “You dig for a while.”

She stood and he passed her the shovel. He sat down.

“You don’t really want to quit,” he said, quieter, gentler. “You like it too much.”

“I guess.”

“You’re just cold. You’ll get over it.”

She dug in silence, scooping shovelfuls of dirt out of their new hole. Once the hole was two or three feet in diameter, she started digging down.

“We should go to Denny’s,” he said, after a while. “When we’re done.”

“Did you hear that?” She paused, looking out into the woods.

He followed her gaze. “You mean the thunder?”

She frowned. “Maybe,” she said, and started digging again. There’d been a low, deep sound, faint and distant. It could have been thunder.

“It’s going to rain, soon.”

“No shit.”

“We should hurry.”

“Listen.” She pointed the shovel at him. “You wanna take this back? You don’t think I’m digging fast enough, maybe you should be the one diggin’.”

“No, thanks. I’m good.”

She grabbed him by the sleeve and dragged him to his feet. “Nah, you know what? I think it’s your turn again, anyway. I gotta warm my hands back up.”

He sighed, but took the shovel and her place. She stood for a minute, her hands wrapped around one of her heatpacks, and stared off into the distance. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and she could make out the silhouettes of trees all around them. There was constant movement and sound as their branches shook in the wind, but there was something else that was bothering her. Something she couldn’t quite pick up on.

The animals were gone. Had taken their eyes and hid them somewhere.

She sat down.

“I’m starving,” Zebra said.

She looked away from the trees. His hair hung in front of his face and over his shoulders, muddying his silhouette. “Yeah,” she said. “I could dig Denny’s. This is hungry work.”

The rough che, che, shhf noise of the shovel meeting and moving dirt filled the space left behind whenever the wind died down.

A familiar hollowness settled itself into Katters’ chest and she put the heatpack away. She unzipped her jacket down to her sternum, to gain access to her vest pockets, and pulled out a pack of Spread Eagle cigarettes.

“Shit,” she said, fishing for the lighter she could remember leaving on the bathroom counter. “Hey, Zebra, you got a light?”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Didn’t ask if you smoke.”

“No. I do not have a light.”

She put the cigarettes back. “Well, there goes that plan.”

“Bored?” he asked. “I can think of something for you to do, if you need to occupy yourself.”

“Your turn just started. Get a couple feet down and I’ll have another go.”

The sky lit up and she started counting. When she got to three, thunder tore through the clouds, ripping them open and signalling the start of the storm. Rain poured down, heavy and sudden.

“It’s raining!” she shouted over the white noise of the rain.

He jumped out of the small hole they’d managed to dig, which was already full of water. “God damn it.”

“We should have brought umbrellas!”

He walked over to where she was sitting, which was somewhat sheltered by the branches above. Still, the ground had turned into mud, and they were both soaked through.

“So this sucks,” she said. “Probably we should pack it up and come back later, when the rain’s passed.”

Another flash of light, another crack of thunder.

“Zebra?” She stood and put a hand on his shoulder. “We gotta get out of this. Come on.”

“It might let up if we wait.”

“This is what we call a bad plan. Unless you want to die of hypothermia, or get struck by lightning.” She turned the flashlight on and he winced when she shone it at him. “Me, I don’t plan on dying of exposure any time soon, so I’m going home.”

She took a step toward their bags, but he grabbed her wrist and she turned back to him. “Wait—”

“I can’t stay out in this, Zeebs. It’s too cold.”

That sound again — felt, more than heard, rumbling behind the rain and the wind and the thunder. It curled up in the hole left behind by her addiction, making a home in her chest.

“Fuck,” she said. “You really don’t hear that? Come on — I’m going home, with or without you.”

She walked over to the bags, picking one up and slinging it over her shoulder. She grabbed the other, too, and let that one hang at her side. Already, the cold was making her woozy, and she had to stand there for a moment to find her balance.

“Why don’t you leave them,” he said, “and I’ll finish it when the rain stops.”

“What? No, come back with me.”

“It just seems like a waste to come all the way out here for nothing.”

“Yeah, but.” She didn’t want to admit that she was afraid to go home alone, that she was worried she wouldn’t make it.

Zebra blew hot air into his hands and rubbed them together. She had moved the light from him and now couldn’t really make him out from the trees, but she thought he was staring at her.

“Fine,” he said. “Let’s go.”

She slumped a little, relieved. “Here,” she said, holding a bag out to him. “Take one of these.”

“Do you remember where we came from?”

“Yeah, it’s that way.” She gestured with the flashlight, shining a path through the trees and the rain. They started walking, sludging through the mud mixing beneath them.

The drone in her chest had boiled over into anxiety, which was useful because without it she may well have passed out where she stood. It kept her awake, kept her tense, kept her moving despite the ice weighing down her limbs.

And there it was again, the noise. Getting up under her feet. Running up her spine. Stirring at the base of her skull and buzzing her teeth. Whatever it was, it was closer, now.

“Fuck,” she said.

“We should be at the street, soon.”

“Yeah. Yeah, soon.”

“Do you still want to go to Denny’s?”

“What? Are you serious?”

She flipped the light back to Zebra’s face. He winced and pushed it away. “I’m still hungry,” he said. “I could eat a horse.”

“Or a zebra?”

“I’m serious. Do you still want to go to Denny’s, or someplace?”

“The only someplace I want to go is home. We can’t go anywhere with these bags, anyway.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.”

The wind howled behind them and pushed them forward, onward, into the wall of rain. It was a solid sheet, stopping even the flashlight from illuminating more than a few feet ahead. They had to trust they were going the right way. Had to trust that Katters knew where they were going.

“God,” Zebra said. “I’m starving.”

“I hear you. I’m pretty hungry, too, but I’d honestly kill for a cigarette.”

“I guess we’ll just eat at home.”