The baby wakes him, chuntering in her crib - the little teeth pushing slowly through the thin of skin her gums making her short-tempered and fractious. Silently beside him his wife rises to offer her breast. Grey light slides uneasily behind the curtains, he doesn't know wether to get up or not - the alarm clock says it's five-thirtyish - he's got the option of another hour or so's sleep. Then the baby vetos the decision by refusing to return to the land of nod. A ball of softly flailing limbs pushes him off the edge of the bed and into his slippers.
The baby's wails awaken him. The fire has burnt down to a dull orange glow amid a heap of blue-grey ash. His woman shifts under the heap of furs and draws the infant closer, pushing her chapped nipple to his fumbling lips. The baby's cries soften and cease. An ember pops and hisses. At the cave-mouth the cold dawn sky brightens the rock and air sharp with Autumn grazes his cheeks. He rolls out of the furs and stretches, sinews popping in his neck and old scar-tissue across his back twanging tight. Strapping his feet and ankles with swathes of hide, chewed and pissed on, he strides out to the mouth of the cave, to consult with the other men.
Bracing his fingers across the nape of his neck he swivels his shoulders round and about as he clunks down the stairs to the kitchen. His eyes hurt from lack of good sleep and his belly rumbles. He hopes, he suspects vainly, that there is milk left over in the fridge for cornflakes. A cat meows somewhere from the depths of the house; he's not the only one up early. His suspicions were right - the fridge is devoid of milk. Emergency sandwich time. He juggles hard cheese and mayonaise, lettuce and bread; a tomato gets dropped to splat on the tile. Colateral damage in the war against hunger.
The meat from the last hunt is finished. The men decide to first visit the stash from the last kill they'd hidden a few hours walk distant. They hope to find the half-carcass of the great-tusk still resting, shallow-buried in the permafrost, untouched by the scavengers and the long-tooths. They take up their chipped axes and fire-hardened short-stabbing spears and march out in rough single file. Only Twisted-leg stays behind with the womenfolk to guard them from harm, or decoy away any large animals.
The cheese he finds is covered in soft aureoles of off-white mould. He bins it and hunts through the back of the fridge for a can of Tuna. Something winds itself around his ankles and purrs. Staggering he grabs the nearest surface to steady himself and roundly curses the cat for trying to kill him. Dealing out slices of bread like playing cards he smothers each in mayo and flattens out a layer of Iceberg on the top. Busy hacking at the can with the opener he fails to notice the cat which leaps stealthily up onto the Dishwasher behind him.
Most of the meat at the stash is rotten, animals or perhaps just the wind has shifted the snow off the tops of the stacks and the weak sunlight has set maggots writhing in the half-thawed flesh. Old pad marks are scattered around the site, but none they think are new. The men use their spears to prise off the top sections of the buried carcass in the hopes that the deeper layers remain untainted. Sweat starts out of their skins despite the deepening cold. Intent on uncovering the food, they fail to notice another shadow converging on their own across the snow.
Finally levering off the top of the can he sets it to one side for a second to hunt the knife. Quicker than he can turn or lift a hand the cat leaps onto the surface and buries its muzzle into the can, rough pink tongue busy amongst the chunks of fish and oil. Exhaustion and hunger flash into anger and he slaps the cat off the kitchen top and onto the floor, the cat taking the tuna can with it - spraying ruddy hunks of fish all across the terracotta. A paw whips out the rake the back of his hand as he bends to retrieve the can. Furious now he sweeps up the cat in a crushing embrace and heaves it out onto he back porch, slamming the plate glass slider in its frenzied little face. A sudden elation sluices through him and he grins and waggles his fingers derisively as the cat leaps vainly at the handle. Victory.
The long-tooth is on top of one of the men before anyone hears it; its great bladed inscisors hooked into the man's chest just below the collar-bone; its huge, musclar hind legs raking out the mans bowels in great arcs of blood and shit. Leaping back the men surround the great cat and prick at it with their spears - the blunt points scraping along the cat's fur as it shakes its head and roars - amber eyes darting, seeking weakness, seeking fear. Tripping over his own feet the man falls backward, bruising his tailbone in the hard-packed ice. It is only happy accident that brings his spear up, its butt slammed into the ground with the force of his falling body. In the same instant great cat leaps - its body blotting out the wavering sun above him. He smells its musky sweat and sees the light caught along the edge of its claws. The spearpoint takes the beast in the belly and punches out right through its spine, leaving it writhing spastically above him, until the haft of his spear bows then breaks with a splintering of wood to drop the dying cat onto him, his face pressed into its dirty fur. The man beneath soils his breeks convulsively either in relief or fear, he cannot tell. The others pull him out from beneath the corpse and then begin to butcher the big cat, now strangely small in death, with chipped flint sharp and shiny.
He pulls on his clothes and goes to work. The traffic is light and the parking lot empty. He swears he will come into the office early every day from now on. The day passes without event, and a little tediously - the colleague normally sharing his workspace absent, ill aparantly, flu. He hopes he doesn't get it and finishes all the stuff in his in-box in record time - working without the usual rigmarole of distractions and banter. He leaves early, whistling as he manoevers his car out of the now congested lot. Even stops to buy flowers on the way home, so great is his joie-de-vivre. He puts his key in the door and turns the lock softly, hoping to surprise his wife.
The cat's flesh is diseased they say, some thread-like worms in its lungs and liver. Useless. The meat from the stash will only fill one sled. His leg hurts: his knee twisted beneath the cat as they fell. They decide to load up his sled and send him back alone while they continue on to forage along the game trails till near-dark. He grunts at this dubious wisdom but accedes. Thankfuly the journey is without incident, beyond stopping at a fast running stream, still filled by off-flow from the glacier, to wash out his shit. The camp is strangely quiet as he approaches, womenfolk huddled over their skins, scrapers moving rhythmicly, but their eyes all slither away from his. He cannot see his woman among them. Throat hoarse from the wind and the cold he gives no holler of greeting as he reaches the cave mouth.
The house is quiet until he reaches the bottom of the stairs. Then he hears his wife's rough breathing and the familliar groan and squeak of their bed. Dropping his shoes he mounts the staircase cautiously, his feet slow and clumsy on the steps.
Over the low moans of the wind he hears the rough sounds of his woman's pleasure. As his eyes adjust to the gloom in the cave he sees the shape of her spreadeagled across the furs, twisted-leg's heavy buttocks thrusting at their junction. The baby gurgles in the furs nearby. He wonders now, if his son is really his. Intent on their union, neither of the lovers notice as he heaves a frozen length of meat from the sled, heavy and jagged with splintered bone.
Dragging up the stairs like a man on the way to the chair, he nears the open door of the bedroom he's shared with his wife for eight years. In the nursery to the left he hears his daughter shifting in her crib. Through the mirror on the vanity table he sees his wife folded over on the edge of the bed, her hair plastered across her face by sweat and sperm. And his colleague, looking remarkably spry considering his bout of flu: working his tongue into her as she grinds her cunt into his face. He knows there is a gun on his side of the bed. Two strides and he's there.
...Continued...
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