The Extinction Club Read Online Free PDF

like a gunner’s turret.
    I raised my toy blue shovel at the driver. He stopped and shut off his engine. Then gawked, mouth ajar, tongue protruding.
    « Didn’t expect to see you out here! » I shouted in French.
    He didn’t roll down his window because both were alreadydown. Frost clung to his eyelids and nostrils and his black beard was crawling with white snakes. He looked me over carefully before speaking. « Chief said there’s a new uniform out here. Animal cop or warden or shit. That you? »
    He spoke in a hayseed Québécois that took some effort to crack. « No, » I replied.
    « What you doin’ out here if you don’t mind me askin’? Huntin’? Trappin’? » The words shot out of his mouth like bullets, leaving puffs of smoke.
    « Something like that. »
    He spun in his seat, climbed out of the cab. He was a pylonic man, two and a half yards high, but with a fleshy middle: an ectomorph with a paunch. Clad in an army-green parka, camouflage snowmobile pants and Montreal Canadiens tuque—all strained, all undersized. On his feet were furry snowboots that looked like two raccoons.
    « You with that lumber outfit out by Hawkshead? » He wiped his beard and nose with a grease-covered snowmobile glove. A nose made for the nasalities of joual , sticking out of his face like a cork.
    I was about to flap my hand at the stench in the air, the smell of clothes worn two weeks or more, but thought better of it. I shook my head.
    « That your shootin’ shack? » He nodded toward the cabin while grinning with an array of cement-coloured teeth. « A bit o’ pump action on the side? »
    Seconds passed before I realized what the man was asking, realized that this was not hunting jargon. « You mean am I cheating on my wife? »
    He continued to grin.
    « No, I’m … just, you know, a hermit. On vacation. »
    The snowplower stared at me through watery pale blue eyesthat suggested ill health or imbecility or both. His arms hung with the palms facing backward, cavemanishly. « Alone? »
    Hermits are generally alone, yes. I nodded.
    « You don’t get lonesome livin’ way out here? Way off in hell-and-gone? »
    It makes up for years of pointless companionship. « Not really, no. »
    « Just enjoyin’ the rare beauties of our woodlands, that it? »
    Was that what I was doing? What did the rare beauties of woodlands mean to me? The absence of people. A system that ran perfectly well without humans. « You might say that. »
    « You one of them ? Tree-hugger? Leaf-eater? Bambi-lover? » Eyes fully open, mouth half open, he seemed to be waiting for the joke to be confirmed so he could erupt.
    « Not exactly, no. Listen, I need to get to a hospital. My shoulder, I think I dislocated it while shovelling snow— »
    « I got my rounds, eh? »
    « I’m not asking for a lift, I’m asking for a boost. My battery’s dead and I … » I took out my wallet. « I’ll pay you for your time. »
    « Everything’s out, eh? Wires down every which way. Hospital’s on emergency power. Surprised you still got juice out here … » He paused to examine footprints in the snow leading to and from my neighbour’s. Then took off his tuque and scratched his head. Bald as a stone. Ears twisted and rubbery, as if they’d been boiled. He squinted up at the cabin, shifting his head one way, then the other.
    I turned to see what he was looking at. In the front window a shadow, then the dark curtain falling back into place.
    « I thought you said … » The snowplower winked. « Put your goddamn wallet away. You got cables? Okay, gimmethree of them twenties. Where’s your car at anyway? Can’t see duck turds on a plate out here. »

    I padlocked the storm shutters, pulled the curtains shut. On my sleeping patient’s bed table, as a hedge against dangerous times, I placed my neighbour’s canister of bear repellent, stun gun and Sig Sauer handgun, hoping she had the knowledge and strength to use at least one of them. Left a bilingual note, grabbed