by T. J. Klune
A jab of the knife. A gnash of teeth. Maybe. Maybe. Goddamn you, maybe.
Dangerous ground, this. Cavalo had never been one to ignore warning signs. Like the black smudge ahead that looked more and more like a black cloud trailing up from the ground toward the sky. “It’s like a joke, isn’t it?” he asked. “What came first, the scar or the tattoos?”
Maybe. Maybe. Lucas’s shoulders tensed. His back arched as if electrocuted.
Lose something, Charlie? “The scar,” Cavalo said. “That came first. Patrick wouldn’t have taken the chance of marking you only to try and kill you.”
A stuttering step. Stop, Lucas said. This is done. Billboards. Tell me more about billboards. Bones. The bones of children in the husks of cars. Why your bees make noise whenever you think of children. Tell me of that. Tell me of all of that. Just stop. Stop with your mouth. Stop with the noise. Stop making your bees touch my own. Stop it, stop it stopitstopitstop—
“How long did it take? Months. It had to be. There’s too much there to be done all at once.”
The knife flashed. Stop. Stop.
But he wouldn’t. Cavalo was tired of secrets. He’d learned too many over the past few weeks. Enough to last him a lifetime. Hank was right. He had to push. At least out here, Cavalo would be the only one to die. “His pet, huh? Sucking on your dead mama’s tit when he found you. Raised you. Cut you. Marked you.” Fucked you, Cavalo thought, and the anger that roared through him was hot and slick. It curdled his stomach. All of it did.
Kill you, Lucas said with a snarl. Kill you.
For every step Lucas took toward him, Cavalo took an answering step away. Bad Dog hadn’t yet noticed the shimmer in the air. Cavalo had. He knew what it was. What they’d find. Push now, the bees whispered. Push now before they realize what the black smudge truly is.
“Does he have the rest? Patrick.”
Hurt you. Stab you. Split your skin.
“You put on a good show. For the town. Bought yourself some time.”
Break you. Smash you. Make you bleed.
“But what happens when they find out you’re only part of the solution? That you’re not even whole?”
Hate you. Fuck you. Kill you. Lucas stopped walking. His hand tightened on the knife.
“You’ll be just another Dead Rabbit then.”
Bastard. I want to hurt you.
Cavalo turned away from the billowing smoke in the distance. Lucas was coiled, ready to spring. “They’ll see nothing but a monster. And I can do nothing to stop them.”
You should have killed me.
“So many times,” Cavalo said.
Lucas’s eyes narrowed. And yet you didn’t.
“I still can.”
You won’t. You need me.
“I don’t need anyone.”
The bees screamed. A strong wind blew along the fields, blowing up snow. It swirled around him like a snow globe.
Lucas took a step toward him. Cavalo did not take a step back.
They all need me. What’s on my skin.
“We can scan it,” Cavalo said. “Once you’re dead.”
But you. You want to touch my skin.
“Fuck you,” Cavalo said hoarsely.
Your bees give you away.
Cavalo pulled his gun. “Stop.”
MasterBossLord? Bad Dog sounded worried.
“Stay back.”
But I smell—
“Stay back!”
I hear you, Lucas said with a nasty smile, at night. You call for him. Jamie. Jamie. Jamie. He was only a short distance away from the barrel of the gun.
“One shot,” Cavalo swore. “That’s all it’ll take.”
And her. You beg her. In the night. Don’t go. Don’t take him! Please come back. Please!
“Kill you,” Cavalo whispered.
Bad Dog barked.
And Alma. I see the way you look at her. You fucked her.
“Leave her alone.”
You fucked her, but you want to fuck me too. Alma’s clean, though. Isn’t she? Not as much blood on her hands as yours and mine. We’re the same, you see.
“Stop. Now.”
Bad Dog barked again, sounding far away.
Lucas stood before Cavalo. He pressed his forehead against the barrel of the gun. Grinned. Pressed the knife on the side of Cavalo’s chest, aiming for his heart. Do it, he said, his eyes wide in the mask. Do it. Do me. Do it, and I’ll do you. We can both go. Just a little push.
Pressure on the trigger. Almost enough. Lucas wouldn’t have time to shove the knife into his heart. And so what if he did? Cavalo knew what awaited them in Grangeville. He knew what would happen from here. He knew they didn’t have a chance. Not against Patrick. Not against the Dead Rabbits. The UFSA. The Forefathers. None of them. He was just one man who wanted to exist until he didn’t anymore. That was all.
The bees swarmed in his head.
He didn’t think he had any rubber bands left to break.
The tables had turned on him. He didn’t know how it happened. The snow globe was shaking so hard Cavalo thought the glass would shatter.
Lucas, saying the things he did, even though he couldn’t say anything at all. It wasn’t real. It was all in Cavalo’s head.
It was just a matter of bees and men.
The scrape of knife and kiss.
The last half pound of pressure on the trigger. Cavalo thought Lucas’s brains would spatter prettily over the snowy southern road.
He’d wanted it before. And it was something Cavalo could give.
But that was too easy.
MasterBossLord!
“Patrick,” he said, surprised at how even his voice was, this close to death. “You were his pet. His toy. His psycho fucking bulldog. And unless you tell me what I need, I will make sure his hands fall on you again. I will give you to him myself.”
Lucas’s eyes were black. Cavalo doubted there was any part of the Lucas he knew left.
Lucas pressed his forehead against the gun barrel harder until the skin split. Blood trickled into the mask around his eyes. Cavalo pulled the gun back slightly to avoid pulling the trigger. Lucas stepped closer. Cavalo could feel his breath on his face. It was hot in the cold air. It steamed up around him, and Cavalo wanted to lick the blood from his eyes. It hit him, this dirty thing, this nasty thing. It hit him in the base of his spine, oily and hot. Lucas was right. Cavalo did want to kill him. He wanted to fuck him too. The bees told him he could do both. Fuck him. Shoot him in the head. It was simple enough.
Sex and murder reflected back at him in those dark eyes.
He didn’t know how it had come to this.
“Tell me,” he said. “Everything.”
I want to eat you up, those eyes said.
And then, a curious sound:
A long mournful howl came from behind them.
Cavalo’s eyes cleared.
Lucas sucked in a deep breath.
The howl echoed over the both of them. The hairs on Cavalo’s neck stood on end.
He turned. Bad Dog sat on his haunches, his head tilted back. He cried mournfully again. It rolled over the empty fields.
Cavalo dropped the gun to his side.
The knife fell away from his chest.
Drops of blood from Lucas’s forehead fell into the snow, little red dots melting into little red tunnels.
“Bad Dog,” Cavalo said. “It’s….”
Bad Dog howled again.
Lucas touched his arm. Pointed to his ear. What’d he say?
“Smoke,” Cavalo said. “Fire.” He closed his eyes. “Death.”
grangeville
THEY KEPT low to the ground as they covered the last few miles approaching Grangeville. They left the southern road and cut across the snowy fields. Dead wheat and shrubs poked up through the snow, brown and frozen. Cavalo didn’t think it was enough to hide their approach. If anyone was watching them from the walls around Grangeville with binoculars, then they didn’t stand a chance. There wasn’t enough around them
in the dead of winter to blend in. It was made worse when the gray clouds above broke apart briefly and weak sunlight shone through. Almost a month straight of snowstorms and the one time Cavalo needed one, the sun came out.
The plume of smoke loomed over the horizon, and as the outer walls of Grangeville took shape, the air became acrid and heavy. There was a cloying sweetness that came with the smoke that caused Bad Dog to sneeze and Cavalo to take shallow breaths. He knew that smell. He’d smelled it before. In Elko.
They came to a small hill outside of Grangeville. The two men and the dog crawled on their stomachs to crest the hill. Cavalo pushed the snow out of the way, laying his pack and bow against a small tree with black and peeling bark. He pulled his own old pair of binoculars out of the pack. “Stay down,” he muttered to Lucas and Bad Dog.
Bad smell, Bad Dog whispered to him. Hurts my nose. All smoky and bad. He flattened his ears against his skull and whined.
“I know.” Cavalo scanned the wall. He saw no movement. The column of smoke seemed to be rising from what Cavalo thought to be the town square. Whatever was burning seemed to be contained. The main gate into Grangeville was closed and secured, but there was a ragged hole farther down, the wall torn and blackened, as if something had exploded.
“Shit,” Cavalo muttered. He handed the binoculars to Lucas and pointed toward the hole in the wall. “Is it them? Your people?”
Lucas frowned as he looked down at the wall. He shook his head.
“It’s not them? The Dead Rabbits?”
He glared at Cavalo. Then nodded. Yes, but they are not my people.
“They were. And I think most people would disagree with you.”
I still want to stab you.
“Feeling is mutual,” Cavalo said, taking the binoculars back and pointing them toward Grangeville. “What’d they use? Grenade? Dynamite?”
Lucas hesitated. Shook his head. Made his hands into half circles, one in front of the other, inches apart. Put them near his right shoulder. Jerked them back. Boom, he said.
“Boom,” Cavalo said. “Rocket launchers.”
Lucas nodded.
“We’re fucked.”
Lucas shrugged.
We’re fucked? Bad Dog asked. Big boomstick?
“Yeah. Big boomstick.”
I hate boomsticks, Bad Dog growled. I hate big ones even more.
“They still here?” he asked Lucas.
Lucas hesitated again. Shook his head. Shrugged. No. Maybe. He sighed. Probably.
“We have to go down there.”
Lucas shook his head again. No. He pointed back down the hill. We have to go back.
“We have to see if there’s anyone left.”
There won’t be, Lucas snarled. You know this. You know what’s happened.
Still no movement aside from the smoke. He could see tracks in the snow through the hole in the wall, but he couldn’t tell if they were coming or going. “I know. But this is on me. And you.” And it was. Every death in the town below was on Cavalo’s head. Patrick had been one step ahead of him. He’d known that Cavalo would reach out to Grangeville. He’d known how to strike them down. Cavalo tried not to think about the last time he’d been in Grangeville, walking through the town. All those children who had been in the streets. Laughing. Playing.
I’m not going down there, Lucas said. Cavalo wondered what he was scared of.
“Then stay here.” He glanced over at Bad Dog. “You know what I’m going to say.”
Bad Dog rolled his eyes. Stay here, Bad Dog. It’s safer. I am a big bad human, and I make decisions that are dumb when I should be listening to my Bad Dog. He huffed. Stupid MasterBossLord. I go where you go.
Cavalo reached over and grabbed Bad Dog’s snout and pulled his head toward his own until their eyes met.
“You follow my lead,” he said.
I follow you, for you are my MasterBossLord, Bad Dog said.
“You listen for my commands.”
I listen to you, for you are my MasterBossLord.
“I will have your back.”
And I will have yours.
“Together.”
Together.
He let go of Bad Dog’s snout. Lucas was watching him again, a strange look on his face. “What?” he asked, putting the binoculars in his pack before shouldering it again.
Lucas pointed at Bad Dog, then back at Cavalo. He trusts you. You trust him.
“He’s my friend.”
Lucas pointed at himself and shook his head. You don’t trust me.
“No,” Cavalo said. “I don’t. Stay here. If you’re not here when we get back, you’re getting left behind.” He pulled himself up and over the top of the hill. He slid down the other side on his stomach, the heavy coat protecting his skin from the ground underneath. He heard Bad Dog following down behind him. They reached the bottom and crouched low. Cavalo scanned the wall as they moved toward Grangeville. He did not hear voices. He did not hear screams. He thought maybe the time for screaming had already passed. He could hear the creak of the wooden walls. Somewhere, a winter bird called out. His own breath sounded like shotgun blasts in his ears.
He debated the rifle. He debated the pistol. He thought of the knife. He decided on the bow. Nocked an arrow.
The hole in the wall was bigger than it seemed on the hill. The black scorch marks radiated down the wall. They reminded Cavalo of a black mask. Chunks of blackened wood littered the ground.
He pressed up against the wall. Bad Dog crowded his legs, sniffing the air.
“Anything?” he asked quietly.
Smoke, he said. Fire. Death. His ears twitched. Maybe. Inside. Blood. MasterBossLord, there’s blood.
Cavalo looked down at the ground. The snow here was dirty and flattened. Footsteps going in and out. Looked like more going out. He hoped. “Hold,” he said to Bad Dog.
Bad Dog froze.
Cavalo waited. The wall groaned. Water dripped. Wind cooled his heated skin.
The bees told him to run. Run until he could run no more.
He took a deep breath. Pulled on the bowstring. Let out his breath. Peered around the wall.
Houses. Shops. A weathervane squeaked as it spun. He pulled back. Took another breath. Let it out again. Swung his body around, keeping low. He pulled the arrow back. It scraped his cheek. Swept left. Clear. Right. Clear. Up. Clear.
It was almost normal except for the lack of activity and the quiet. It was almost normal except for the footsteps fanning out in the snow from the wall. It was almost normal except for the splashes of maroon over the snow. The walls of the houses. The boarded walkways.
Blood, Bad Dog whispered from behind him. Blood.
And it was. Trails of it in the snow, as if someone had been dragged away. Scrapes in the wooden posts that Cavalo thought had been made from fingernails. The blood on the walls looked to be almost dry. The blood on the snow looked frozen. It’d been there for some time.
They came at night, Cavalo thought.
Run, the bees said. Run. Run.
He leaned back against the wall. Released the tension in the bowstring. “Stay low,” he said. “Follow me. Move until I say. Stop when I say. Don’t leave my side.”
I will follow you, Bad Dog said. He bumped his head against Cavalo’s knee. Forever.
Cavalo knew he would. He wished he could tell his friend that it would lead only to death, that it was inevitable for Cavalo, but he knew it would fall on deaf ears. The dog was blind to any other way except following his MasterBossLord. Cavalo wondered how much longer they would last. Perhaps today would finally be the day. If it was, he hoped the bees did not follow them to whatever happened next.
Until then, though.
Pivoting on his heel, he brought the bow and arrow up. Pulled on the string. His line of sight followed down the arrow’s shaft. Four steps and he was in Grangeville. Four more and he was pressed against the side of a house. Took a breath. Stepped out.
He followed the footprints. The trail
s of frozen blood. He could see the story in them. Of doors barricaded to keep the monsters out. Of doors smashed in as the monsters swarmed. Pieces of clothing caught in the wood as people were dragged from their homes. Bullet holes. Windows shattered. An axe in the middle of a dried blood splatter, the handle splintered in half.
No bodies. No people. No voices. No screams.
That sickly sweet smell in the air.
The black smoke rising over the rooftops.
No one walked the planks atop the walls.
No one moved inside the houses.
No one called out to him as he moved quietly through the town.
No one tried to kill him as the sun disappeared behind the clouds.
He stopped, blocks away from the center of Grangeville where the smoke rose to the sky. The snow at his feet was all red now, a mixture of slush and gristle. Cavalo was sure he saw a tongue mixed in with the dirt. A finger. A clump of hair.
Blood, Bad Dog muttered. Blood, blood, blood, blood. His whiskers dripped with it, his legs a rusty red.
Cavalo knew what burned ahead. Knew what he’d find.
Run, run, run, the bees chanted.
The air was so thick. So sticky sweet. Like meat cooking on a fire.
He picked a house at random. One close to the center of Grangeville. The door had been torn off its hinges. The furniture on the lower level had been overturned. Bad Dog’s toenails clicked on the wooden floors. They passed the kitchen. Dishes broken on the floor. Blood on the cabinets. He found the stairs and went up. Passed a child’s room with drawings on the walls, the bedsheets strewn about the room.
The hallway toward the back of the house was covered in debris. On the wall to the left, red words dripping in obscene streaks: I LIKE IT WHEN THEY RUN and THESE ARE SOME GOOD EATS.
There was a photograph hanging on the wall at the end of the bloody graffito. A man and woman. A child. Cavalo couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a recent photo. Cameras were rare. A nail had been hammered into the man’s head. The glass had cracked. A human eye hung from the edge of the nail. It was small. The iris was blue, fading to gray. Cavalo wondered which of the people it’d come from.
Blood, Bad Dog whispered. There’s only blood here. MasterBossLord, there is so much blood.
“I know,” Cavalo croaked out.