by T. J. Klune
HE IS NOT WHAT HE SEEMS.
NONE OF THIS IS.
LOSE SOMETHING, CHARLIE?
James Cavalo was not a stupid man. Yes, he’d made stupid decisions in his life, decisions that had caused people to die, but he was not a stupid man.
His son was dead.
Claire was dead, because when was a tree not a tree?
But there were others.
A robot.
A dog.
A clever monster, a clever cannibal.
He dropped the note.
He looked toward the night sky.
A tornado of bees spun above him. He opened his mouth, and they flew down, fighting and crawling down his throat, and he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t—
He shot up, gasping for air. “Easy,” he heard a voice say near his ear.
He opened his eyes.
He was in the prison. The cot in the cell.
He groaned softly at the pain in his back. His head. His wrist. Everything hit at once, and he felt nauseated. He closed his eyes again and waited for the room to stop shaking.
“Is it bad?” a gruff voice asked from beside the cot. “The pain.”
“Not the worst I’ve felt,” Cavalo said through gritted teeth.
“Set your wrist as best we could. A splint of sorts. Break isn’t bad. Considering.”
“Considering?”
Hank sighed. “Considering who it was doing the breaking. He could have done much worse. I think he was holding back.”
“Doesn’t feel like it.”
He opened his eyes at the sound of Hank’s laughter. It was bitter but unexpected all the same. “I suppose it doesn’t. But at least you still have a hand. And are alive.”
Cavalo flexed his wrist carefully. Flares of pain in all directions. But it was Hank’s words that hit him the most. “And how is it that we’re alive?”
“They left.”
“All of them?”
Hank nodded.
“Why?”
“Should they not have? They got what they came for.”
Lucas, Cavalo thought, and it threatened to send him spiraling into the cold. He held himself above the surface. Barely.
He frowned as he pushed himself up. “He could have told SIRS to turn off the outer defenses. Taken us that way. But instead, he—”
“Took the one thing he needed most,” Hank finished for him. “Without risking any more of his people. You should have told him.”
“Told who?”
“Bill. About the audio. He’s beside himself.”
“He’s lucky I haven’t ripped his fucking head off,” Cavalo snarled.
Hank stared at him hard. “Because he was supposed to know? Any of us were? Tell me, Cavalo. Did you know Patrick had control over SIRS? You must have if the audio had been cut.”
He was so close to slipping under. The bees demanded it. “He shouldn’t have been touching a goddamn thing here. None of you should be. You shouldn’t even be here.” His voice was cold. He didn’t do anything to stop it.
“Cavalo—”
“No,” he retorted. “I never wanted this. I never asked for any of this. All I wanted to do was be left alone until the time came when I could no longer move, and that would be the end. I didn’t ask to have you people come here. I didn’t ask to be your goddamn savior. I didn’t ask—”
“To care about him as much as you do,” Hank said quietly. He didn’t look away. “To care about us, even if we didn’t deserve it. I know you never asked for any of this, Cavalo. But somehow, it was given to you anyway.”
He slipped into the cold. There was rage in his heart and murder in his voice. “I never cared about any of you. Leave before I decide you’re all more of a liability than you’ve already been.”
“You lie,” Hank said simply.
“Do you want to test that, Hank?” His voice was low and dangerous. His thoughts were stark and staccato short. Fist to nose. Fingers to eyes. Snap the neck.
“Cavalo.”
“Hank,” Cavalo growled.
“I lost my son yesterday.”
Cavalo breached the surface and gasped a shuddering breath.
“Do you want to know what I thought when I watched Deke get his head blown off?”
Cavalo shook his head. He’d never wanted to know anything less in his life.
But Hank didn’t care, because Hank said, “I thought about how funny his face looked.”
Cavalo took a breath. It hitched in his chest.
“His face looked funny,” Hank said, “because of the look of surprise he had. Like he couldn’t believe a bullet had just gone through his head and out the back. How shocked he was that a little piece of metal the size of a coin had broken apart his skull plate, sped through a mass of tissue that held every memory he’d ever had. He hated surprises. Hated them. Even when he was a little kid, he despised being surprised, even if it was supposed to be for a good thing. It made him nervous. It made him edgy. The wait. The anticipation. But even if we hid it from him, he still hated when we sprang it on him. It made him feel out of control. He didn’t like not knowing what was ahead. What was coming. Everything had to be planned out to the last detail and had to go exactly as planned.
“So he must not have thought he could have died. Even though you told us we would. Even though deep down we knew we would. But there’s a difference between being young and told you’re going to die and being old and hearing the same. When you’re older, you know it’s inevitable. When you’re younger, you know it’s a fallacy. Delusion. Because you can’t die when you’re so young. You can’t die by surprise. But he did. And that was the thing I thought when he was falling to the ground, that he must have just hated it. Not the fact that he had died, but the surprise behind it.” Hank stopped. His breath was ragged in his chest. He closed his eyes.
“Hank—”
Eyes flashed open, and Cavalo could see the warrior underneath the dark grief. “Are we going to get him back? Lucas.”
Cavalo looked away. “It’s suicide.”
“We’re dead either way, right?”
“Probably. Maybe not today. But soon.”
“Then we go knowing we’re going to die.”
Cavalo looked up at his friend. “Then why go at all?”
Hank leaned forward and took Cavalo’s uninjured hand in his own. “Because I don’t want to be surprised by death,” he said. “If it’s going to take me, then it will be on my own terms.”
“Aubrey.”
“She’ll follow you.”
“She’s just a girl.”
“And Deke was just a boy.” Though Cavalo knew Hank hadn’t meant that.
“I can’t be responsible for that,” Cavalo choked out.
“Then let us be responsible for you,” Hank said, squeezing his hand tight.
Cavalo struggled to breathe. It was too much. All of it. Everything. He didn’t know how he’d gotten to this point in his life, where a man whose son’s death rested at Cavalo’s feet comforted him. Held him. Gave him strength. Cavalo knew he’d been a coward for much of his life. He had done terrible things. Hurt innocent people. And yet, salvation, of a kind. Holding his hand.
“Dworshak?” he said in a quiet voice.
“Dworshak,” Hank agreed.
“Smaller the better.”
“Figured. You. Bad Dog. Me and Aubrey. Alma. Bill and Richie.”
His rage burst again at Bill’s name. Hank waited as he pushed through it. Once he’d swallowed it back down, he nodded and gave Hank one last chance. “Stay here,” he said. “With your daughter. Live for Deke. For her. You may be surprised at what happens.”
“I fucking hate surprises,” Hank said, and the smile he gave was all teeth.
ARE WE going to get them back? Bad Dog whispered to him in the early morning hours. Neither of them had been able to sleep.
“I don’t know,” Cavalo said, unable to lie but unable to be more honest.
SIRS no
t a bad guy?
“No.”
He hit me.
“I know.”
Got crazy eyes.
“Yeah.”
Bad Dog huffed. Cavalo waited to let him work through it. Finally, Not a bad guy. Tin Man is my friend. We’ll get him back.
Cavalo kept his hands from shaking. It was a battle he almost lost. “Okay” was all he said.
And Smells Different.
“Okay.”
MasterBossLord?
“Yeah?”
We’ll get them back.
He held his friend and waited for morning.
dworshak
THE SNOW held off as the group of six people and one dog followed the road east. Cavalo wondered if it was a sign.
They could have easily gone by way of Cottonwood, but there was an unspoken consensus to avoid it at all costs. No one knew if the Dead Rabbits had taken it over or burned it to the ground. Cavalo thought of Deke lying in an empty house, the blanket across his body probably frozen to his coat and face, the ice crystals a red that was dark and deep.
They didn’t speak much. There didn’t seem to be anything to say, and all Cavalo could think was I am Lucas I am Lucas I am Lucas. His wrist hurt. His back hurt. His ankles hurt from the snowshoes on his feet. He’d hoped they wouldn’t need them, but there were drifts that Bad Dog would disappear into every now and then, causing him to bark in frustration until Hank lifted him out.
The others spoke behind him in low voices, as if they didn’t want to disturb him. He set a punishing pace but knew it would take at least another day before they’d get to Dworshak. He tried not to think about what was happening to Lucas and SIRS. But they were there, images flashing of blood spilled and wires ripped from robotic chests. Every step he took was a struggle, but it was getting him closer. He was under no illusions about what would happen. He just wanted to take out as many of them as he could before then.
Light was starting to fade when Cavalo heard the sounds of a river and knew they were near what used to be Kamiah, Idaho. There’d once been a rusted sign, but it’d fallen years ago and was buried somewhere under the snow. Kamiah was empty. Had been for a long time. Nothing much swam in the river these days, and what did surely wasn’t edible. A few small buildings still stood, but ceilings had collapsed and walls had fallen down.
But it was the river that Cavalo focused on. The sound of the water. The crack of ice along the edges. Clearwater, it’d been called. Before.
And it led directly to Dworshak.
They were quiet as they approached Kamiah. They’d all seen the snow trampled down before them, a pathway leading toward the buildings that still stood.
“Anything?” Cavalo whispered to Bad Dog.
He raised his snout, nostrils flaring. Yes. But faint. Old smells. Fire and dirt. Blood.
Cavalo told himself the blood could be from anything, not just Lucas.
Kamiah was empty, as it’d been for a long time. There was evidence all over that people had recently been there. It smelled ripe and wild. Dark maroon stains in the snow and floorboards. The smell of smoke from blackened extinguished fires. Charred wood. Discarded clothing. Cavalo went into one of the buildings near the river’s edge and found bodies of four Dead Rabbits piled in the corner. They hadn’t started to rot, but it was close. Wide eyes and torn limbs. One of them was slumped against the wall. A man. Cavalo could see part of his rib cage poking through shredded skin. It was white and wet. His tongue poked through the stiff split of his lips. Arms laid at his sides, hands hooked into claws.
Cavalo turned away. There was nothing for him here. None of them were Lucas. There was a brief stutter to his step, but that was all.
And then from behind him came a shuddering breath. Ragged. Painful. And close.
He whirled, dropping to a knee, bringing up his old rifle. He ignored the sharp flash of pain in his wrist, the pull and ache of his muscles.
The man against the wall took another breath. Not dead after all.
He raised his head. His hands clawed the ground at his sides. “Hurts,” he said with a grimace. “It… hurts.”
Cavalo leveled his breathing. Calmed his heart.
And submerged himself into the cold.
He stood, shouldering the rifle. The man grinned up at him, and dark blood dripped from his mouth over his chin. “I… know… you,” he said. He coughed, and a thick plug of mucus fell onto his leg. It looked like he’d spat out his tongue. “You….”
Cavalo stood. Leaned his head side to side to crack his neck. Pulled Lucas’s knife from the scabbard at his side. He could hear the others moving outside. He needed to make this quick before one of them came in. Or Bad Dog caught his scent. Everything already smelled like blood and death in here. He was just going to add a little more.
He walked to the Dead Rabbit. Stood above him. The man looked up. He was no longer smiling. In fact, he looked very afraid.
Cavalo knelt beside him. He reached out with the knife and dragged the tip gently over the Dead Rabbit’s cheek. The man shook. “You took from me,” Cavalo said quietly.
“Patrick,” the man said, and a bubble of blood burst from his mouth, misting his nose and chin. “He is… God. He is… Death.”
“I will kill your god,” Cavalo promised him and the bees cried happily in his head. He curled a hand around the back of the man’s neck.
“You can’t.”
“Watch me.”
“Daddy,” the man said, eyes going wide. “He’s not who he seems. Mr. Fluff said—”
Cavalo didn’t let it continue. The knife went up between the fourth and fifth ribs and into the heart. The man tensed beneath him. His head jerked back. His mouth opened obscenely wide, but no sound came out. Then he exhaled and died.
He pulled the knife out. Wiped it against the Dead Rabbit’s coat. Sheathed it. Stood and walked out of the house.
Hank was standing near the river. He looked back at Cavalo. “Anything?”
“A body. Nothing else.”
Hank turned back toward the river.
THEY BUILT a fire in one of the buildings that seemed the sturdiest. The roof was gone, so the smoke drifted out into the sky. Cavalo lay with his head resting on his pack. Bad Dog dozed at his side. Only Hank was still awake, the others curled under thin blankets.
Above him, there was a shift in the clouds. The stars blinked coldly in the dark space around them. His breath caught in his throat, and Cavalo had never felt so small in his life.
Hank must have heard his choked breath, as he looked over at Cavalo with concern in his eyes. He followed Cavalo’s line of sight and saw the stars for himself. “Would you look at that,” he whispered. “Been a while.”
Product of the nuclear holocaust. Or so the stories went. Perpetual cloud cover with minimal breaks. Sometimes he could feel the sun on his face. And sometimes, like now, he could see the stars above. He wondered if it was a sign. He wondered if he even believed in signs.
“Do you think they know?”
“Who?”
“The others. Back at the prison.”
“Know what?”
“That we aren’t coming back.”
Cavalo shrugged. “Maybe. They have hope. Or they had it. I don’t know what they have anymore.”
“We all did,” Hank said. “Hope is what keeps you alive when everything else goes to shit.”
Cavalo snorted. “Poetic.” One star was bigger than the others. Brighter. Cavalo desperately wished he could know its name. He hoped it wasn’t Wormwood.
“They’ll be okay,” Hank said. “I hope.”
“Maybe.”
“Do you know the Nez Perce?” Hank asked him.
Cavalo shook his head, unsure about the quick change in topic.
“Indians. Native Americans. From Before. Hundreds of years ago. All of this land used to be theirs. All the way up past Dworshak and all the way down past Cottonwood. I found a book on them once. In a library that had been left behind. Most of
the books were rotten and illegible. Some could be saved.”
“Where?” Cavalo asked, because Hank didn’t like to talk about what happened before he came to Cottonwood. About Deke and Aubrey’s mother. Life in their Before.
“Far from here,” Hank said, still looking at the stars.
Cavalo didn’t push. It wasn’t his place.
“They had a story,” Hank continued. “About how man came to be. I remember reading and thinking I’d never heard anything more beautiful.”
“What was the story?” Cavalo asked.
Hank sighed. “A long time ago, before man ever walked the earth, a monster came from the north. He was a gigantic monster, and he ate everything he could see. All of the animals. The little ones. The squirrels and the raccoons and the mice. The big ones. He ate deer and elk and the mountain lion.”
There was a Coyote, Hank said. He couldn’t find his friends anymore, and it made him very angry. He decided it was time to stop the monster.
Coyote went across the Snake River and tied himself to the highest peak in the Wallowa Mountains. Then he called out to the monster who stood on the other side of the river. He dared the monster to try and eat him.
The monster charged across the river and up into the mountains. He tried as hard as he could to suck Coyote off the mountain with his breath, but it was no use. Coyote’s rope was too strong.
This scared the monster. He decided to make friends with Coyote, and he invited Coyote to come stay with him. The monster was clever, as monsters often are. But so was Coyote.
One day, Coyote told the monster he would like to see all of the animals trapped in the monster’s belly. The monster agreed, and he ate Coyote. The monster was very clever.
When he went inside, Coyote saw all of his friends were safe. He told them to get ready to escape, and began to work. With his fire starter, he built a huge fire in the pit of the monster’s stomach. Then he took his knife and cut the monster’s heart out. The monster died a great death, and all of the animals escaped. Coyote was the last one to leave.
Coyote said that in honor of the monster’s death, he was going to create a new animal: a human being. Coyote cut the monster up in pieces and scattered the pieces to the four winds. Where each piece landed (in the north and the south, in the east and the west) a tribe was born. It was in this way that all the tribes came to be.