WOLF EYES – human animal

(CD/LP, Sub Pop)

“There is something out there, I can feel it” says Max, right behind me, gripping his axe with fear while I clutch the double barrel shotgun to my chest. The axe is all he has left, except for the pants and the rotten shirt he has on. We stare into the darkness, as if there was an answer out there, but there is just a ghastly pounding, the echo of something big and awful happening and now and then a scream. Of pain or fear. I know that we will have to get out of this doomed building in time, before the gangs arrive. Us three will never stand up to them. Joining them would mean joining the cannibalism, the murder, the violence, the brutal daily fight against anything that looks weaker than yourself. I vowed to myself to spare a bullet, always. But I know that the tiniest spark of life has an enormous power from the slaves and human stock I have seen downtown when the gang bosses paraded. I saw the eyes of the leaders picking and the eyes of the stock being picked. Pain covered in lethargy.

A soft breeze carries a rotten smell through the glassless windowframe, sometimes supported by the essence of ghastly evil. A small noise comes from the rubble of debris behind me as Isabell stirrs in her agonic sleep. The weakest goes to sleep first. That is our rule. The gangs have different sets. Out there it is the other way around.

Off in the distance something is burning; I can see the faint glow of the fire. It is either quite close and small or far away and huge. It is hard to make out because the smog doesn’t set anymore, not even at night, not even during rain. The rain turns everything into sludge, covers the walls with inches of dirt. But during the rain nothing moves, nobody leaves the shelter they are in. So you are safe, in a way. I guess the fire is far away. Nobody in their right sense would dare to make a fire just to warm themselves. The light draws all kinds of beasts.

Yesterday the preacher spoke about the beast of prey, the apocalyptic and ravenous monster with seven heads that will come to draw a line of blood over the earth and a bow of fire across the sky. Of the nearing days of thunder and noise, when amidst a herd of ghastly mutations three black riders will apear on burning machines, covering the heavens and everything they touch with their eyes will fall dead and wither away in seconds. He is a mad man. But one thing is true. The beasts are out there. I have seen their shadows. I have seen what they leave behind. Corpses. Remains. Blood and traces. That is why I never sleep.

I motion to Max to keep calm. To stay between Isabell and me and in the right distance to the boards we have covered the entrance to the room with. Is it safety or a trap? Max comforts himself with the thought that he will take with him at least parts of what might come to him, practicing blows and strikes with the axe. As if it would make a difference. I still have hints of days when it used to make a difference, of action movies and dystopic novels, but it is all gone, vanished in big explosions, deadly fumes and poisonous clouds that covered the sky. At first people spoke about how things came about, but week after week they stepped down the pyramid of civilization and remembered the instincts of their most ancient ancestors.

Some days ago we almost had it. I have no idea how we escaped the gang, a small one, just twenty or thirty human beings, covered in rags, dirt and oil. I had smelt them before we saw them and then it was all haze, fear, a blurr of ideas, running, breathing, visions and shots fired. Everytime I fired their screams became louder, we ran and ran and suddenly they were gone. As if we had disappeared. We looked for cover in this deserted building project, the roof torn off, walls caving in. In one of the cellars we found the carcass of an old lady, almost intact except for the rats and in her closet some boxes with canned food. We figured she had all those cans but no opener and afraid for her live to ask for an opener, fearing her confidence might be betrayed and she killed for the food, she starved to death. Ironic. I think. Thanks to Max axe we enjoy a full stomach at the moment.