by R A Doty
“I’m Gabriel,” the man said, “and this here’s my son...” Gabriel turned to the boy, trying to remember his name. “Well, tell the man your name.”
Josh wanted to say he wasn’t his son, but he dared not cross Gabriel. “I’m Josh.”
Cole thought it odd that Gabriel made his son state his name. “Nice to meet you fellas. Are you from around here?”
“Can’t says we are,” Gabriel said. “We’re just passing through on our way down the coast.”
Cole was going to ask them if they ever heard of a man by the name of Thomas Steinberg, but he figured, what’s the point, if they’re not from around here. “How far down ya headed?”
Gabriel swatted a fly from his face. “Nowhere in particular. Wherever the wind takes us you might say.”
“Well, if you stay near the shoreline, in about eight miles you’ll come across some nice people. Tell ‘em Cole says hi.”
“We’ll do that.”
Gabriel took Josh’s hand and continued walking. Josh looked back and locked eyes with Colton until Gabriel pulled him forward.
Colton suspected that something wasn’t quite right with Gabriel and the boy, but he had more important things on his mind. He turned and continued his search for the Steinberg estate.
JOSH LEANED SIDEWAYS as he walked with the weight of Gabriel’s pack, hanging down his side. His neck burned from the chafing of the strap, and he wobbled slightly, his legs too fatigued to continue. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped into his eyes, the salt stinging each time he blinked.
“Can we rest for awhile?” he asked.
Gabriel stopped and faced the boy. “Rest? Why an’ hell would we stop to rest? We ain’t been walking but five miles, or so.” He turned and continued walking.
Josh swung the pack from one side of his body to the other, the shifting weight nearly knocking him over.
“Come on, boy,” Gabriel said. “Keep up.” He noticed the cottage up ahead. “That must be where those people live that fella was talking about.”
Josh was relieved to see the house. He mustered up what little energy he had left and caught up to Gabriel.
The first thing Gabriel noticed was the refrigerator standing outside and the scent of smoked fish lingering around it. He opened the door, but the shelves were empty. He traipsed up the steps toward the front door. Josh was now dragging the pack behind him.
After three knocks on the door, Gabriel stood with his hands crossed in front of his waist. He thought it would somehow make him look like a perfect gentleman. He turned quick to Josh. “Now you shut your trap and let me do the talking; you hear, boy?”
Josh lowered his head.
The door opened and a man with a rifle looked out at Gabriel. “We don’t have any food to give, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
Gabriel smiled. He knew the man was lying by the smell of the smoked meat wafting from the house, but that’s not what he wanted, not exactly. He looked at the woman standing in the background. She was the prettiest thing he’d laid eyes on in more than two years. Almost as pretty as the one he had for a good year and a half. Pity he had to slit her throat when she tried to escape. It damned near brought a tear to his eye. No, sir, food was the last thing he was after. He wanted everything else, though. The meat would be a bonus. “I’m not here for your food, kind sir. The reason I’m here is more of a favor to a friend of mine, and apparently yours.”
“I don’t have friends anymore. Now be on your way, the man said, closing the door.”
Gabriel nodded. “Sorry to have bothered you, sir. Colton must have played a trick on me.” He turned to walk away. “He does that from time to time.”
The door swung open. “Wait.”
Gabriel stopped with a smile.
“Did you say, Colton?”
“That I did,” Gabriel said, turning around.
“Why’d he ask you to come here?”
“Oh, no particular reason. He just wanted me and my boy here to stop by and tell you kind folks he says hello.”
“The man opened the door. “Please, come in. I’m Samuel.” Samuel extended his hand and Gabriel shook it.
“Please to meet you, Samuel. I’m Gabriel and this here’s my boy... Josh.” Gabriel smiled, having remembered the boy’s name.
Samuel pointed to the woman Gabriel was already ogling. “This is my wife, Elana.”
Gabriel tipped his head forward. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am. A small girl entered the room and hid behind Elana.
“And this is our daughter, Jessie,” Samuel said.
“She’s a pretty little thing,” Gabriel said, baring his rotted teeth. His eyes turned back to Elana. “Just like her ma.” Elana didn’t return his smile.
Samuel pointed to the couch. “Why don’t you and your boy have a seat.” He sat in the chair, and Gabriel sat on the sofa. Josh sat on the sofa and dropped the pack on the floor.
“So where’d you see Cole?” Samuel continued.
“Bout five, maybe six miles or so, headed north,” Gabriel said. “He said you folks were ‘bout the friendliest he’d met in quite a while.”
“Did you hear that, Elana? He seen Cole not too long ago.”
“I heard him,” Elana said. She walked over to her husband.
“What else did he have to say, anything?” Samuel asked.
“Well, I normally don’t like to impose, but he did suggest that I ask you kind folks if you wouldn’t mind putting up me and my boy here for the night.” Gabriel raised his hands in the air. “I completely understand if you say no, what with me and my boy being complete strangers and all.”
“Nonsense,” Samuel said. “Any friends of Cole’s are friends of ours. You’re more than welcome to spend the night.”
Elana glared at her husband, who didn’t notice, but Gabriel did.
“Well that’s kind of you, sir. Our feet are a bit sore, and a rest would do us both good.” Gabriel turned to Josh. “Ain’t that right, there Josh?”
“Yes, sir.”
Gabriel faced Samuel. “Don’t mind him. He’s a little on the shy side. Ain’t been the same ever since his ma died a few years back. Hell, neither of us have,” he went on, faking the best sorrowful expression he could muster up. “Sometimes I think she was the only thing holding us together.”
“You said you and Cole are friends?” Elana said, standing next to her husband.
“That’s right, ma’am. For as long as I can remember.”
Elana forced a smile. The last thing she wanted to do was to smile at this man, but it was necessary if she was to reveal his true identity. There was something about him she didn’t like. Something that went deeper than his creepy stares. She did sympathize with the boy, however. Her heart would always have a soft spot for a motherless child. She continued with her subtle interrogation. “Cole’s one of the nicest guys we’ve met in quite a while. It’s a shame he never married. He would have made a wonderful husband to some lucky lady.”
Samuel stared at his wife. A stare that clearly said, what the heck are you talking about, hon’? Cole was married. He was about to say it out loud when Gabriel started talking.
“That is true, ma’am. But that’s Colton for ya. He’s always been a free spirit. Not exactly the marrying type, I guess.”
Elana glanced at Samuel, who took exactly five seconds to process what had just happened. His attention turned to his rifle, which was propped against the wall, just inside the door. He stood and walked toward it. “This weather we’ve been having is really something else.”
Gabriel stood and blocked his path. “Don’t you folks wanna hear anything else about good ol’ Colton? He sent me all this way to check on you and that’s all you gots to say?”
Samuel continued past Gabriel. “Look, mister, we don’t want any trouble so you best be on your way.” The stab was quick and placed perfectly. Samuel felt the handle of the knife sticking out of his chest and then held his blood-covered hand in the air.
Elana screamed as he fell to the floor, which diverted Gabriel’s attention toward her. She grabbed Jessie’s hand, raced to the bedroom, and locked the door. As her daughter cried, she slowly backed up toward the bed, her hand trembling over her mouth.
Gabriel faced Josh, whose mouth was wide open, seemingly in shock. “You’d better stay your ass right there if you know what’s good for you, boy.” He then headed in the direction that Elana had ran.
Josh couldn’t take his eyes off the blood flowing from Samuel’s chest and onto the floor in front of him. He raised his feet to the couch as it inched closer, now circling Gabriel’s pack like a crimson doily.
“KNOCK, KNOCK,” GABRIEL said, tapping on the bedroom door down the hall. “Anybody home?”
Elana led Jessie to the closet and sat her in the corner. “You stay in here, honey, and no matter what you hear, you don’t open this door, okay?”
“Mommy, I’m scared.”
“I know, honey, but you’ll be okay if you listen to me.” Elana kissed her daughter on the head. “Remember, don’t open the door.”
Elana closed the door, wondering if she would ever see her daughter again.
“I know you’re in there,” Gabriel said. “I can smell ya.”
Elana searched for anything that might be used as a weapon, but there was nothing. She considered smashing the mirror over the dresser with her hand, and using one of the shards as a knife, but Gabriel’s voice distracted her.
“If you don’t let me in by the count of three, I’m liable to get real mad and break the door down. Then I might have to do something to that pretty little girl that I might just regret.” Gabriel waited for a response, and then grew inpatient. “One... two...” A wide grimace crossed his face when he heard the door opening. “Now that’s more like it,” he said. Elana backed up to the bed as he walked toward her. Gabriel stroked his lips with his hand. “Let’s say you and me have ourselves a little fun.”
“Please don’t hurt me or my daughter.”
“I’m not gonna hurt anyone so long as you cooperate.” Gabriel reached for Elana, but she pushed his hand away. He glared at her. “You’re not cooperating. Maybe I should find that little girl of yours.” He looked around the room. “I know she’s in here somewhere.”
“No! I’ll do whatever you want, just leave her alone.”
Gabriel stroked her face. “Now that’s more like it. Pretty thing, aintcha?” He unbuttoned her shirt and slipped it off her shoulders. “Why don’t you take those pants off and lie down on the bed.”
Elana did as he suggested. She glanced at the closet to see that the door remained closed.
Gabriel unbuckled his pants and reached for his zipper when he heard the gun cock. He slowly turned and saw a barrel pointed directly at his face. “Now, do you really want to do that, boy? If that gun ain’t loaded, and you pull that trigger, I’m gonna skin you alive.”
Josh tried to steady his hand and keep the sites on Gabriel’s forehead. He never considered that the gun might not be loaded. And even if it was, he didn’t know anything about guns except how to cock the lever—a quick lesson that Dan had taught him during one of his hunting stories. At this point, he would surely get a beating, but the thought of being skinned alive made him realize he would never see his mother again.
“Well, go on boy, pull the trigger.”
STEVIE HAD LEARNED many things from Cole in the short time he knew him, but the thing that intrigued him the most was how to capture animals without using a gun or bow. Nature provides everything you need, Cole used to say, and Stevie considered it a challenge whenever he had an opportunity to put Cole’s lessons to work. As he walked toward the snare he had made the previous day from a wild-grape vine and sapling, his heart began to race with excitement. What a reward it would be to catch an animal without the use of a gun. Father always worries how we would hunt once the bullets were gone, so he will be so proud of me.
As Stevie drew nearer to where he had set the trap, he noticed the leaves were scattered about and the snare was gone. He twisted and turned in every direction, but saw nothing. I’ll never be like Cole, he thought. When he turned to walk away, he heard a noise about twenty feet to his left. He ran over and saw the rabbit kicking and squirming, trying to escape from the broken grape vine. I knew that sapling would have too much spring. He reached up, grabbed the vine from a low branch, and held the rabbit in front of him. “You’re a big one.” He found a hardwood stick and smacked the rabbit’s head. When the animal stopped moving and its eyes turned black and lifeless, he flung the vine still attached to the rabbit over his shoulder. He raced home, eager to show his father.
“HEY DAD!” STEVIE YELLED, running up the path to the house. He pushed the door open and raced inside. “I got one!” His happy expression turned to terror, and the rabbit thumped to the floor. Tears welled in his eyes when he stared down at the pool of blood surrounding his father. “Dad?” He dropped to his knees and held his father’s hand. It was cold.
The house was silent with a warm breeze slipping through the door. Stevie raised his head when he heard a noise coming from the bedroom. “Mom? Jess’?” he said, jumping to his feet, tears blurring his vision. He ran through the house and stopped at the bedroom door. A strange looking boy stood at the foot of his parent’s bed with a gun in his hand.
Steven charged him. “You bastard!”
“No, Stevie,” Elana yelled, backing out of the closet with her daughter hung on her hip. But it was too late. Steven had the boy on the floor, punching his face. He stopped when a body fell off the bed and rolled on top of him. The few brains that were left in Gabriel’s head leaked onto Steven’s pant-leg.
“It’s okay now, honey,” Elana said to her son. “The boy means us no harm.” Elana looked at the boy, his eye swelling and already turning purple. She gave him what little smile she could force, considering her husband lay dead in the other room. “He helped me and your sister.”
Steven glared at him. “But he killed Dad.”
“No,” Elana said. She pointed to the dead man on the floor whose face was twisted sideways and eerily staring up through his one remaining eye. “He did.”
“Who are they?” Steven asked.
“The man said he was a friend of Coles.” Elana turned to the boy. “Is that true? Were you and your father friends of Colton?”
Josh slowly turned to Gabriel. He felt different staring at his dead body than he did at the woman’s Luke had killed. He felt no urge to cry or had any remorse for pulling the trigger. It was the first man he killed, but at nine years old, he already knew it probably wouldn’t be the last. He wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand. “He wasn’t my father.”
Chapter Seventeen
APRIL SAT ON THE FLOOR of her pen, her face a soft yellow hue from the light of Calla’s tablet. She wondered what a normal girl might write about in a journal, and all she had to do to find out was guess Calla’s password. She typed in the word SAND but nothing happened. She gazed at the adjacent wall and thought of Calla. BEACH she typed, but still nothing. She thought of the things she would like if she were permitted outside of the kennel. She typed in the word MUSIC and clenched her teeth when the response incorrect password appeared on the screen again. As she began to type in another word, the kennel doorknob rattled. She rushed to her bunk, slid the tablet underneath the mattress and jumped on the bed. As she pretended to sleep, she wondered why Calla had arrived so early. When her pen door opened, the voice she heard was clearly not Calla’s.
“April?” the voice said. “Are you awake?” After a few seconds of silence, a hand touched her back. “I’d like to speak with you.”
April recognized the voice as belonging to Calla’s friend, Sarah. Was she alone, or was she accompanied by her father, the man Calla had begged her friend not to tell? She wanted to turn and face her, but doing so would be an admission that she understood what she was saying, and she couldn’t do that until she knew if she was alone. Sarah did
touch her back, however, and that would be reason enough to acknowledge her without revealing her intelligence. When Sarah gently shook her she had no choice but to roll over. She was relieved to see that Sarah was alone.
“Good morning,” Sarah said. “I’m sorry for waking you so early.” April said nothing. “Will you speak to me?” April looked past Sarah and through the opened pen door. Sarah smiled and touched her hand. “Don’t worry, I didn’t bring anyone with me.”
April sat up and placed the pillow over her legs. “What about your father? Did you tell him about me?”
Sarah shook her head. “I didn’t. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”
“Why couldn’t you?”
“Because Calla was right. You are special. And amazing. He wouldn’t understand.”
“What would become of me if he found out?”
Sarah hesitated.
“Would he kill me?”
“I could lie and say he wouldn’t, but you’re much too smart for that. I’m sorry, April, but yes, he probably would.”
“Why am I imprisoned? Why are we all imprisoned? Did we do something wrong?”
“No. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Sarah never realized that April had no idea why she was created. How could she possibly tell her the only reason she exists is to be harvested for food. To be eaten. How could April accept that? How would anybody accept something like that?”
“Then why are we here?”
“Because you are special, April. We just never knew how special until you met Calla.”
“But, if I’m special then why would I be killed?”
Sarah had no answer. Lying to April obviously didn’t work because she was far too intelligent, and she couldn’t bring herself to tell her the truth, so when the kennel door opened and Calla entered she was more than relieved.
“What are you doing her so early?” Calla said, entering April’s pen.
Sarah smiled and stood. “Good morning to you, too. I just came by early to talk to April.”