Ancestor

EPILOGUE

HE STOOD ON the dune ridge, left paw up and against his chest, watching the prey float away on yet another noisy thing. The wind blew into his face, carrying their scent. He wanted the skinny prey, wanted to tear them to pieces, but now for a new reason.

That reason? Baby Moos-A-Lot wanted to kill them. He wanted revenge. They had killed his brethren and his leader. But he didn’t want to eat them because for the first time in his short four-day life he wasn’t hungry anymore.

One of the skinny things had stung his mouth with the stick. He pushed his thick tongue against the spot, feeling where a tooth was not. It had also stung him in the paw, so bad it was hard to walk. Baby Moos-A-Lot hadn’t been able to keep up with the others. He’d arrived just in time to see the leader fall into the water. Fall in, and not come back up.

Hatred. Hatred for the skinny prey, and it felt much, much stronger than even his worst hunger pangs.

A noise behind him. He wheeled, bared his gap-toothed maw, ready for a three-legged charge.

But it wasn’t a skinny thing. It was one of his kind. Scorched black skin covered the right side of its head. The right eye was a hollow socket rimmed with wetness. There were more burns on its right shoulder, down the side.

He was upwind and hadn’t smelled his own until now. This close, however, the rich stench of scorched fur and burnt flesh filled his wounded nose. He also recognized a signature scent: no other of his kind would smell quite like that. If there were any others of his kind left.

And he smelled one more thing, a smell that affected him in an exciting new way.

It was the smell of… a female.

THE RED SQUIRREL stopped and stared at the treasure trove.

A pile of pinecones.

She smelled the seeds inside. So yummy. And she was so hungry.

There were other smells, too. The smell of a dead animal. The smell of another squirrel—faint and strange, but still there.

She looked up, eyes scanning for the silhouettes programmed into her instincts: small head close to wings, long wide tail, the silhouettes of hawks and owls. Nothing. She scurried a few feet closer, then stopped again.

Now she smelled a new smell, a strange smell. Some kind of animal, but one she’d never known before. Anything new made her want to run. But such a pile of pinecones! So much food!

She moved closer. The pile of cones sat near a hole in the ground next to a small white tree. A hole like the rabbits made. And next to the hole was a shiny thing just a little bigger than the squirrel herself. Like a piece of tree branch, but thicker, smoother. The round sides were a dark red, with spots of white like the snow. The sun glinted off its top. That sight made her more hungry, because usually when she saw that shiny shape, nearby there were crinkly things with salty food inside.

Movement.

She scrambled away, then stopped and looked back. Movement behind the pinecones. The fluff of a squirrel tail. One of her own, already eating the pinecones! But those were her pinecones!

She sprinted in, came around the pile to drive the competitor away.

A glimpse of horror—nothing but a tail! Danger! She turned to flee, but felt a stabbing pain in her back. She squealed and tried to run, but something lifted her into the air. Her feet kicked on emptiness. She twisted her head to attack the pain in her back, bit down on something hard.

Even in her panic, she recognized the taste.

Bone.

A bone, long and thin like a stick. At the other end was the unknown animal that produced the new smell. The squirrel couldn’t turn all the way around, but she saw glimpses of white skin and a head covered in long, heavy black fur.

The creature holding the bone was dragging her into the hole. Darkness covered her, just the spot of light shining in from above. Her little feet dug into dirt and scrabbled, pushed, clawed, but it made no difference. The thing in her back pulled her down and down, the stench of death grew thicker.

She saw big, curved white bones scored everywhere with gnaw marks. She was inside something dead. The pain!

The spot of light seemed so far away. She felt something grab her, hold her. She squealed and squealed. Her head thrashed, she snapped her jaws, anything to escape, to survive.

Crushing pressure on the back of her neck. Her body stiffened, then relaxed. She felt a chunk of herself torn away. Small mouth opening and closing, tiny breaths slowing, she finally stopped moving enough to see her surroundings.

She saw the torn, meatless corpses of her kind, stacked into a neat pile of fur and bones.