Coyote's Last Howl - Page 1
Coyote's Last Howl
I can feel my life leaving me.
It's a dark and stormy night, like all the nights I can remember before. As I lie with my back on the alley floor, my canine ears twitch weakly with each roll of thunder above me.
My body shivers from the cold, from the rain pouring onto my already-soaked clothes, from the desire to move that thunderstorms always stir within me. From the loss of body heat that comes with having bullets lodged in your guts, every shaky breath you take killing you faster, pumping more blood through your wounds.
As I lay dying I would have laughed if I had the strength, shown my Coyote self to the world one last time. World laughed at me instead, harsh hacking gasps escaping what was left of me, agonizing me as they made my injured body quake. No voice left to scream for help, not that I deserve any. I'm no slouch when it comes to getting myself into trouble, and I know I brought this on myself. Should have seen it coming, though.
I hear that when you die your life flashes before your eyes, but all I get is lightning and pouring rain, the patter of it on my nose causing it to sniffle constantly, water trickling over my drenched muzzle. As I feel myself weakening, my senses, always better than a normal coyote's, seem to...catch up? Fall back? My vision has lost all color, the alley cloaked in the black of a moonless night, flaring to white each time lightning fills the sky. Between the water streaming onto me and the storm above me, everything reduces to shades of gray. Even my ears are failing, the crashes of thunder becoming the dull background throb of a bad hangover headache, the frantic beats of my own failing heart taking center stage.
My nose...old, faithful friend...sticks with me, maybe cause of the rain amplifying the scents around me. The trash filling the alley. The not-quite-freshness of the falling water. The smoke from the guns that were fired here so lately. Blood. My blood. Wolf blood. No, not wolf blood, his blood. His blood, and the scent of his fur. The scent of that fur that's always been something I can't handle. It's gotten the best of me every time...every time except one...and now I'm going to die next to it. Figures.
I don't so much turn my head to look at him as I do loll it to the side, grateful that my long tongue doesn't fall from between my lips. I'd like to die with some small amount of dignity, y'know? My vision shifts above me in a nauseating slow pan towards the ground, and now I can see my shotgun. Could be my brain acting up, could be...what's the word, condensation?...from the rain hitting puddles on the alley floor and steaming up, but I'd swear the gun's still smoking from when I jammed it into the wolf's gut...his gut...and pulled both barrels. As my muzzle comes to rest, he comes into view, and there's definitely smoke...or steam, whatever, doesn't matter...rising off what's left of his chest. Shotgun really did a number on him, and if I wasn't nauseous before I'm certainly nauseous now. It's gotta be his blood staining his once-impeccable-but-now-ruined suit, but with my vision reduced to color-blind, that's just a damn good guess. Before I can stop them my eyes start drifting down from the twin holes in his belly to his thighs, where I know his pants must be opened up, his cock hanging out from them, but when I realize what they're up to I use my fading strength to turn my head away. Before he falls out of view I imagine I see him twitch on the ground. Doesn't seem important. If I can't survive the bullet wounds in my chest, no way he's surviving all mangled up like he is.
Keeping my eyes open actually hurts now, but the rain spilling onto them won't let me keep them closed. Distantly I feel my body shuddering under me, and I wonder whether the rain will at least wash enough of the blood away to leave me with a vaguely decent-looking corpse. That's when I remember that my pants are down to my knees. Siphedious' last mystery, the Case of the Shivering Corpse, solved. Funny that in my last moments I'm suddenly pissed off that anyone might find me and think I wanted what the wolf was going to give me. Fucking wolves. Probably look like I was getting set to be bent over and mounted, maybe just shoved up against the wall. Perfect.
The smell of wolf supplants the rain. A paw slips under my tilted muzzle and forces me to look up again. I'm a canine, a scent-based type, and I know before I see it that I'm gonna see his eyes looking down on me, realize the weight that's come over me, almost smothering me, isn't encroaching death but him.
I look into his eyes, feel his ragged breath on me, his blood dripping over me. I smell him, his breath, his scorched and torn flesh, and realize what a fool I was thinking I'd be rid of him. It's the Trickster who's been tricked.