The Last Thanksgiving

The Last Thanksgiving

The cold wind blew through me, whipping around my back to slip inside my coat and eat away at my body heat. I could feel it trickling away, bit by bit. The fire wouldn’t last, I knew. Neither would I, if I didn’t find better shelter, or warmer clothes. My feet lost feeling over an hour ago, and propping them next to the fire did little good.

I’d stopped for the night under a small rock outcropping just off the top of a bluff. This part of the Wastelands offered little to no cover—no trees, but some underfed brush sprouted from cracks in the sediment, determined to flourish in the face of dwindling resources. Much like me, I suppose.

I turned a land lizard on my makeshift spit over my puny fire, not impatient for dinner but resigned to the fuel it would offer me. Out in the dark, something howled and I shivered. I told myself it was the cold, but my spine knew I was lying. I turned the spit a little faster. Funny how we compensate for what we can’t control.

The moon was an undefined light hanging snug behind several layers of cloud and smog, the pollution lingering from the Post-Industrial days. Light was fading, temperatures falling, and life on this planet reacted with greed and hunger worse than anything history had recorded before. Survivors were stingy by necessity, and when the creature out in the night howled again, I almost welcomed it. One of us would be dinner, and I didn’t care much which one of us held the fork and knife. The lizard began to scorch, and I pulled the spit rod from the stand, blowing on it and nibbling at the gristled flesh with my lips pulled back.

Footsteps padded on the sandy rocks just outside the feeble circle of light. A snort sounded, and then a few snuffles, as if the night hunter was scoping out its odds of success. I growled, showing my teeth. Silence. I returned to my barely edible meal. The flames had dwindled further, barely reaching above the circle of rocks surrounding them. The heat had drawn further in, too, leaving me alone in the cold with only my shabby patchwork coat and my bitter heart to keep me warm. I hated this world. I hated being alone and cold, and angry all the time.

Granny Hopkins had read to us when I was a kid, when I still lived in the Shelter. We would all gather and sit on the ground, and she would read stories written on paper, tied into books. The one I remembered best was about a pig and a spider on a farm. Didn’t make sense, but I loved the food, and the changing seasons. I listened to the descriptions of “slops” and spit filled my mouth. And the sunshine, how green the plants were. Worst of all, I wished for friendship like that. The kids I knew, we’d fight each other for a scrap of leather. Or a handful of dried peas. Nothing came fresh, nothing came free. And nobody gave away anything out of friendship. I had the scars to prove it.

That damned hunter sniffed around again, this time closer. I could make out its shape. Lean, low to the ground, sneaking on all fours. This was a bad one. Strong. As soon as it decided to hit, I was done. I thought of that story, of the pig jumping around to impress his spider friend, of his desire to please. How lonely he was. I stood up from the fire, wobbling a bit on my numbed feet, and turned to face the dark. I opened my coat, holding the flaps wide, releasing the rest of my stored warmth, and called into the dark.

“Happy Thanksgiving, you son of a bitch.”

The last thing I remember was how hot my blood was, gushing over my face as I laid on the cold ground. I rested my hands on the beast’s shoulders as it fed. I welcomed it.