by T. J. Klune
“What?” Cavalo asked, though he already knew.
Lucas said nothing, just stared at him. He wasn’t wearing his mask today. His skin was smooth, the bruises on his face turning a sickly green. There was a freckle on the right side of his jaw. Another one right above it. Cavalo had to stop himself from reaching out to touch them.
Lucas pointed to him, his finger grazing Cavalo’s chest, then pointing back at his own eyes. I see you, he said. Watching me.
Cavalo thought about lying. He thought about turning and walking away. Instead he said, “Yeah. I know.” He stepped closer, crowding Lucas against the wall.
So many teeth in that knowing smile. You want me.
“I shouldn’t. It’s not….”
An arched eyebrow. It’s not?
Cavalo didn’t stop himself this time. He reached up and traced a line between the freckles on Lucas’s jaw. Lucas leaned into the touch.
“Why do you do this to me?” Cavalo asked.
Lucas’s smile faded. For once, he looked unsure. It made him appear impossibly young. Their faces were inches apart, and the uncertainty on Lucas’s face tore at Cavalo. He curled his hands into fists to keep from taking what he wanted. This was not the time, nor was it the place.
I don’t do anything, Lucas said. Cavalo could hear the hesitation in the voice that wasn’t there.
“You’re in my head. All the time.”
Like the bees?
Cavalo felt his nails cutting into his palms. “Sometimes, I think you are the bees.”
You think I’m a monster. You said that once. After we….
“Yes.”
Am I?
“Yes.”
Are you?
“Yes.”
Lucas kissed him, hard enough to press Cavalo’s lips back over his teeth. There was heat behind it, but there was also anger, buried deep. Cavalo grabbed the sides of Lucas’s face and slammed him back against the wall, pressing his body flush against Lucas’s. Lucas licked at his jaw, biting into the skin. Cavalo wondered what marks would be left. He wondered what others would think. He wondered if he cared.
Lucas fumbled with Cavalo’s belt. He leaned back and licked his hand before reaching into Cavalo’s pants and gripping his cock. His fingers were cold. His spit-slicked palm was hot. Cavalo swallowed down the groan in his throat. Lucas’s breath was quick and light as Cavalo kissed the skin near his ear.
“Cavalo?” a voice called from behind them.
“Shit,” he muttered, pulling away. He tucked his dick back into his pants. Lucas looked feral again, his lips wet and swollen. You want me, he said again. He grabbed Cavalo’s hand and pressed it against his own cock. Cavalo gripped his hardness. Lucas rolled his hips against his hand. Cavalo stepped away, struggling to breathe normally.
“This isn’t over,” he said darkly.
That shark’s grin was the only response.
“Cavalo?”
He turned as Hank rounded the corner.
“There you are,” he said. He paused, glancing over Cavalo’s shoulder at Lucas. “Interrupting anything?”
“No. Nothing important.”
“Ah. Are you sure? It looks—”
“What do you want, Hank?”
“They’re back. Bill. Richie. Deke. Coming in through the gates.”
Cavalo felt a bit of relief. At least they were alive. He nodded. Hank turned and headed back around the house.
Cavalo glanced back at Lucas, still leaning against the barn. He was frowning.
“What?”
Lucas shook his head. Sniffed the air. Shrugged. Do you feel that?
“What?”
I don’t know. Something’s off.
“Do you know what?”
No. Just a feeling.
“Great. That’s just great.”
Lucas scowled. Fuck off.
“I can still kill you, you know.” And he turned and walked away. He wasn’t surprised when Lucas followed. He was surprised, however, when Lucas gripped his hand, squeezed once, then let it go.
It was nothing. It meant nothing.
A crowd had gathered at the southern gate. Cavalo pushed his way through, Lucas following behind him. People parted rather quickly when they saw who it was. They may not have known what to make of Cavalo, but they sure as hell knew a Dead Rabbit when they saw one. He no longer dressed like one and he wasn’t wearing his mask, but there was that shark’s grin and the eyes that weren’t quite right.
Hank was standing at the front of the crowd along with Alma and Aubrey. Bill, his son Richie, and Deke stood next to them. All three looked road-weary, eyes wide and blown out. Cavalo hoped the distance traveled was all that was wrong, but he thought it more. Bad Dog moved around their feet, sniffing their shoes and clothes.
Bad guys, he muttered to himself. Bad guys. So many bad guys.
Not good.
“Cavalo,” Bill said tiredly. “There you are.”
He shook Bill’s hand, nodding at Richie. Deke wouldn’t look at him, eyes cast toward the ground.
“Okay?” Cavalo asked.
“One piece, ain’t we?” Bill asked with a shrug. “Suppose that’s more than can be said about Grangeville. Or so Hank says. It true?”
“Yes. They’re… gone.”
Bill sighed. “Cordelia?”
“One of the last. Went down fighting.”
“Sounds like her,” Bill said. “Tough old broad, ain’t she?”
“The toughest.”
“And this… all of this. It’s because of the boy? What he is to them. The schematics.”
They all looked at Lucas. Lucas scowled, hand going to knife.
The people of Cottonwood sighed angrily.
Cavalo stepped in front of Lucas. “No,” he said, aware of what he was doing. “Not all. It’s not just him.” Cavalo could feel a knife at his back, near the base of his spine. Lucas’s other hand gripped the back of his coat. It was almost as if he were holding Cavalo hostage. But then Cavalo felt Lucas lean his forehead against the back of his neck for just a moment, and he knew it was more than that. “It would have come to this sooner or later.”
“How can you know that?” Hank asked.
“Because of what they found at Dworshak,” Cavalo said. “Isn’t that right?”
Bill hesitated. Richie looked away. It was Deke who spoke. “He’s right. We were too late.”
“No,” Alma whispered.
“Dozens of them,” Deke said. “We were quiet. They didn’t see us. We were on a ridge a quarter of a mile away, hidden in the trees. Used the binocs. We thought….” He looked miserably at his father.
“We thought they were… normal,” Bill said. “At first. Maybe they were a trade caravan. Or a little town. Or just people who had stumbled upon the dam and reservoir and decided to try and make it work as a home.”
“But?” Hank asked quietly.
Bill and Richie exchanged dark looks. Deke stared at the ground.
“There was a woman,” Richie finally said, sounding far older than he was. “She was screaming. We couldn’t hear her, but she was screaming. I could… her face.”
Cavalo closed his eyes.
“We couldn’t stop them,” Richie continued. “There was too many of them. We wouldn’t have been—” He stopped, choking on his words. His father put a hand on his shoulder and looked at Hank with steel in his eyes.
“They brutalized her,” he said angrily. “Tore into her. There was blood. So much blood. And they laughed. They laughed as she bled onto the concrete, and they laughed when she reached out her hand to hold them back. And they hurt her. Again and again until she didn’t move. And then they….” He stopped, shaking his head. He didn’t need to finish. They all know what the Dead Rabbits did. Instead, he said, “They have the dam. The Dead Rabbits have Dworshak.”
People in the crowd behind them began to cry. They began to moan. They began to shout. And beg. And scream. But all their words were the same. Cavalo heard them speaki
ng as one, and the bees in his head exploded furiously and mocked the people of Cottonwood.
What do we do now?
He thought about pulling his gun again. It worked days before. Maybe he would actually shoot someone this time. Deke or Aubrey. Lucas. Someone. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know he’d been hoping that Dworshak had been undiscovered, that the Dead Rabbits hadn’t made it that far north. Not just hoping. Expecting. He had expected it. Even if he thought they weren’t going to survive what lay twelve days ahead, he had expected it.
“You don’t get to do this,” he said.
The people fell silent.
Bad Dog bumped his head against Cavalo’s knee. Hank and Alma watched him closely, as did the rest of the town. They feared him, but they still listened. Cavalo wouldn’t look at Lucas. He wondered who the woman had been. The one who had been torn apart. He wondered her name. Where she’d come from. Her family. If she was old enough to have been married. If she had received her first kiss. If she’d held hands with her son as he carried Mr. Fluff and laughed and laughed and laughed.
He almost did it. Almost pulled his gun. Almost shot the person closest to him. He would have kept firing until the clip was spent, and then he’d use his hands. To tear at them. Their flesh and bones. Because he was no better than any of them.
“You don’t get to feel sorry for her,” he said, his voice harsh and grating. “You don’t get to cry over her. Not after what you’ve all done.”
He could see fear in their eyes but also anger. If he pushed, it would boil over.
“We keep on going,” he said. “We have twelve days until they arrive. We stick with the plan. We work until our hands are cracked and callused, and we fight until we’re broken and bleeding. It’s the only way. It’s the only choice.”
He left them.
No one followed.
HE SAT in the vacant house in a chair in the middle of an empty room, watching the sun and clouds move. The bees crawled over the inside of his skull, and he was unable to think. That old familiar rage burned in his head and chest, that oily thing that allowed him to kill as he’d done so indiscriminately in the past. He’d left all of his weapons downstairs to avoid temptation.
He was a hypocrite, he knew. And it was not his job to dispense justice.
But the looks in their eyes. The looks that said Save us, but don’t judge us. The looks that said Help us, though we don’t deserve it. The looks that said, Protect us from the monsters, though we are monsters ourselves. Do this for us, because you are the lesser of two evils, and we have no other choice.
He tightened his hands on his thighs.
As the shadows stretched outside, he looked down toward the floor. Jamie played there. With Mr. Fluff.
“Mr. Fluff!” Jamie cried. He bounced the rabbit along the floor, as if it were hopping.
“Mr. Fluff,” Cavalo said hoarsely.
Jamie laughed, his mouth stretching wide. Bees flew out, their abdomens fat and hanging low. Jamie tried to catch them, but they flew away from his fingers. Eventually he frowned and went back to Mr. Fluff.
“You’re not here,” Cavalo said.
“Not where, Daddy?”
“Here. With me.”
“Oh. Then where am I?”
“In my head.”
Jamie laughed again. “How did I get in there?”
“You’ve never left.”
Jamie hummed. “Mr. Fluff says there are monsters. Are there monsters, Daddy?”
“Yes, honey. There are. There were.”
“Oh. Are you scared of them?”
“Sometimes.”
“But not all the time?” He threw the rabbit in the air, trying to hit the bees that flew overhead.
“No, not all the time.”
“Why?”
Why? When he was alive, Jamie had always asked why. Why was his response to everything. Cavalo had loved it, even when it’d irritated him.
“Because sometimes I’m the monster.”
Jamie stood up in front of him holding Mr. Fluff. He cocked his head at Cavalo, eyes searching his face. A bee landed on his cheek, but Jamie didn’t seem to notice.
“I don’t think you’re a monster,” Jamie said finally.
“No?”
“No. Can I tell you a secret, Daddy?”
“Yes.” Cavalo wanted nothing more.
“You can’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t.”
Jamie’s brow furrowed. “You have to promise.”
Cavalo promised his dead son.
Jamie beckoned him to lean forward.
Cavalo did. When Jamie whispered in his ear, his breath felt like the brush of insect wings.
Jamie Cavalo whispered, “He’s not who you think.”
“Who?” Cavalo asked.
“Daddy,” Jamie said. “Look up.”
Cavalo did.
The ceiling of the bedroom in the vacant house was covered in bees. Wasps. Hornets. They crawled over each other. The buzzing was a roar. Their stingers dripped with poison, and as Cavalo took hold of his son, to pull him in and protect him from the swarm above, Jamie said, “There are worse monsters than you know.”
“You need to—”
“Cavalo? Who are you talking to?”
Cavalo jerked and almost fell off the chair, pulling Jamie with him. Except his hands were empty. He looked up. There was a bare ceiling above.
It’s not real, he thought. None of this is real.
“No one,” he said to Alma as she stood in the doorway.
“Are you all right?”
“No.”
She hesitated but then seemed to make up her mind. She walked over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. “What happened?”
“He was here.”
“Who?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Cavalo.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She looked around the room. Of course there was nothing there.
“He’s pacing outside,” she said finally. “Actually, they both are.”
“Who?”
“Bad Dog. The Dead Rabbit. I asked why they didn’t go in. Lucas buzzed his lips at me.”
“It’s the bees,” Cavalo said.
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“I told him I’d go in first.”
“And he let you?”
She sighed. “He pulled the knife again. He may be fast, but he’s stupid. To try that again.” She handed him the knife.
Cavalo choked out a laugh. It sounded like a sob.
“What is he to you?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“That’s not true.”
“It’s the only truth I can give.” Even though the truth was a lie.
“I see the way….” She stopped. Looked out the window as the sun began to set.
He reached up and gripped her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t.”
She ignored him. “I see the way you look at him when you think no one is watching.”
“It’s not—”
“It is, though. You get this… look in your eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look at anyone like that before. It’s almost like you’re burning up from the inside.”
“It’s not like that.”
Her hand tightened on his shoulder. “Then what’s it like?”
“It’s….” Then, “I don’t know.”
“Cavalo.”
“What?”
“He’s a Dead Rabbit.”
“I know. But… he’s… he’s not like them.”
“He’s a murderer.”
“So am I.”
“Not like him. Not like they are.”
“I’m no better,” Cavalo said honestly.
“They’re cannibals.”
“He’s not.”
“Or so he says.”
“Why would he lie?”
Alma chuckled bitterly. “So many reasons.”
“I know you.” A last chance. A plea.
“You think you do. But you don’t.”
“What’s happening here?” Alma whispered. “How did it get this far?”
Cavalo said nothing. No words he could offer would be of any comfort. She was realizing what he’d figured out days before.
“Warren would have….” A sigh. “We’re not going to survive this, are we?”
“No.”
“And even if we did, there’s no way we could take back the dam.”
“No.”
“And even if we gave him back….”
“They’re going to kill us anyway,” Cavalo finished for her. “It doesn’t matter anymore. They have Dworshak. The reservoir. Patrick is the lock. All they need is the key.”
She moved in front of him then. He let her. She brought her hands to the sides of his head, her palms against his ears, her fingers in his hair. He took a deep breath of her. She tilted his head up. Kissed him. He kissed her back. Because it was familiar. Because it held memory. Because she wanted him to.
But it was not Alma who Cavalo thought of.
She broke the kiss. Licked her lips. Said, “Don’t tell the others. Don’t tell the others that hope is gone.”
He nodded in her hands.
She left him in the darkening room in the vacant house. Before she disappeared through the doorway, she said, “I’ll take Bad Dog with me. I’ll send Lucas in. I hope you know what you’re doing, Cavalo.” Then she was gone.
The sun disappeared.
“I don’t,” Cavalo told the empty room.
Lose something, Charlie? the bees asked.
He’s not who you think, Jamie had said.
It was only a minute later he heard a door slam shut. The pounding of feet on the stairs. Cavalo held the knife in his hand.
He knew the moment Lucas entered the room. Could feel his eyes boring into the back of his head. Could feel the room grow heavy. Knew that if he could, Lucas would be growling. It was who he was. Light filled the room too, and Cavalo knew he carried a lantern. There was a thump of metal behind him as he set the lantern on the floor.
Cavalo stayed in the chair. He didn’t move.
In the periphery, he could see Lucas circling him slowly, teeth bared, hands like claws at his sides. His took sharp, quick breaths, exhaling through his nose in little bursts. His eyes were narrowed, and even without the mask, his fury would have struck fear into a sane person.