Bloody lizard tracks led out the back door, down the fortified stairs – why had they not locked up? – and out into the fields. My instincts took over and I began to follow the fresh trail before pulling up at the edge of a grove of fruit trees. Early fall leaves littered the ground.
From behind, Liza called for me and I returned to the house, all the while keeping a wary eye on my back trail.
“I’m not armed,” Liza reminded me.
“I know.”
“The children?”
I shook my head.
“Let’s check the storm cellar,” she suggested.
I didn’t know any rural pilgrims who didn’t have a storm cellar and Andy’s place was no different. Between the barn and the house was a heavy, steel-reinforced door that was set into the ground. Behind the door was an underground bunker built to keep Andy and Randi and their children safe from the violent spring storms as well as from the more obvious threat of the kitzloc.
Liza and I went to the door and gave a pull but it didn’t budge. I banged on it and called the children’s names, those that I could remember, and stood back. Not a sound. I looked at Liza and her at me. I shrugged and turned away but turned back when a click and a snap issued from the door. Someone tried to push it open from below, but failed. I reached for the handle again and gave a pull. It lifted free and the door swung open.
Below, in the darkness, six little faces turned upward. The one they called Jambo, the oldest male, looked at me with tears in his eyes and asked, “Where’s my momma?”
Chapter 23
It took a while, but we got the kids back to the Folly. I’m sure Aunt Liza and I looked a sight with a child practically sitting on our laps, sharing the front of the saddle, and two more behind, clinging to us and one another. But that’s how we made it home, an adult and three kids on each horse.
I was nervous for the entire ride home and kept looking back as well as from side to side. Liza knew what I looked for but she said nothing for fear of further terrorizing the children.
The creature was there, watching. I couldn’t see it or smell it and I certainly didn’t have a mass detector to warn me of its presence, but all the same, my instincts told me it was stalking us. I don’t know why it didn’t attack. I would have had a devil of a time getting the Vimbacher up and aimed with the children around me, hanging onto me.
And yet the kitzloc refrained from launching an attack. Was it leery of our numbers? Did it understand I was armed? I don’t know, but whatever the case, I thank God it didn’t rush us.
I was sure happy to see our house at the end of the ride.
Uncle Pat was in the yard using the sprayer to clean off equipment he’d dragged through the mud. He held up a hand and I noticed Grandpaw sitting in the shade of the porch. He didn’t rise as we approached.
Pat saw the children and turned off the water. He asked, “What’s going on here?” but I think he already knew even before he asked.
Aunt Liza halted her mare and handed the little ones down to Pat, who started shaking his head. “I was afraid of something like this,” he said. He looked at me and asked how long it had been and I told him less than an hour. He grimaced. “I need to saddle up. Don’t climb down. You’re coming with me.”
Liza suddenly looked about in a panic and asked the whereabouts of Toby and Riley. Pat said they were close, “They were just here,” he said.
“Where are they?” she repeated, sounding shriller than the first time.
Pat opened his mouth to call out their names, but both appeared at the open barn door before he had the chance. “There they are,” he said.
Liza told the boys to get into the house. “Now!”
“Are we in trouble?” Toby asked as he walked by Uncle Pat.
Favoring one leg, Grandpaw walked off the porch and, one at a time, took the three children who rode with me. My mare breathed a sigh of relief, even with me still aboard.
Pat went to the barn and I didn’t bother stepping down off my horse. Uncle Pat was quick and efficient in everything he did.
After Liza took the children into the house, and while I was waiting, I told Grandpaw I thought the lizard was trailing us.
“This one’s a wily bastard,” said Grandpaw, then he glanced at me and apologized before reminding me to stay close to Pat.
Pat led his horse from the barn and tied his kit like a saddlebag slung over one side of his horse, then hoisted himself into the saddle.
“Got a motion detector?” Grandpaw asked.
Uncle Pat nodded. He looked at me and said, “Let’s go.”
Grandpaw told us to be careful as we rode out of the yard. Pat took the lead while we headed down the hill and back to the driveway. There, he pulled up and fished the detector from his kit.
It beeped once when he switched it on and we waited as it re-calibrated itself.
The end of the long Dredelien day was fast approaching. The sun was behind the trees, ready to drop over the horizon. I asked Uncle Pat if he had his nightshades, the infrared glasses he favored. He nodded and said yes. I asked him if he wanted to put on the shades and maybe use the ear-amps as well, but he said it wasn’t dark enough yet for the shades.
“You can put on your ear-amps, if you want,” he said.
I did. I kept them in a buttoned pocket on my sleeve. The ear-amps were hearing devices that fit into both ear canals and allowed the wearer to hear pretty much everything in a hundred and fifty meter radius. That didn’t mean you always recognized what you were hearing, but I knew what a lizard’s respiration sounded like. Grandpaw said it sounded like a death rattle, but I thought it sounded more like the purring of an asthmatic cat. Anyway, all I could hear after I put them in my ears was both horses’ breathing as well as Uncle Pat’s respiration. Faintly, I could hear their heartbeats too. I took the ear-amps out again and pushed a tiny dip switch into its alternate position; the sounds I was hearing would be filtered.
Once I had them back in and while Pat was running a motion scan, I could hear all manner of things, but nothing I recognized as a lizard.
We rode on. Not long after, perhaps a kilometer down the drive, Pat suggested we cut through a field and begin moving in a circle with the house in the middle. “If it’s stalking us, we’ll turn the tables and flush it out.”
It was not yet full dark, but finally dark enough for the nightshades. We both pulled them on. Mine were fitted into a Kevlar helmet, but Uncle Pat wore his like a pair of old-fashioned glasses. He told me he had his fill of helmets when he served in the military. “Restricts my vision,” he said. “Also, I never had a helmet that felt like it fit. My head always seemed to rattle around inside.”
I laughed but he said he was serious.
We didn’t talk much while on a hunt. Excessive chatter would only alert a lizard to our presence. Of course, the horses made noise going through brush, but we tried to avoid riding through any patches.
Less than an hour after we left the house, we got a strong hit on the motion detector less than a hundred meters in front of us.
By that time, we were roughly halfway through our circle. If it was the kitzloc, and I had little doubt that it wasn’t, it had moved quickly, probably faster than I’d ever seen one of the lizards move. Additionally, its location was troubling. Like us, it appeared to be circling the house.
Uncle signaled to me for us to back off. We slowed the animals until the motion detector stopped and Pat spoke to me in a low voice. “I’ve chased this thing three nights in a row now. This is the closest I’ve gotten,” he whispered. “I think it’s circling the house.”
I agreed. “That’s what it looks like to me.”
“So why don’t we back-track and set up an ambush?”
It was a good idea. So, the plan became to find elevated positions beside the trail where we reckoned the creature would pass. “We’ll catch the damn thing in a crossfire,” said Uncle Pat, “and blow it back to where it came from.”
As quietly as we c
ould, we turned around and re-traced our path until we made it back to the driveway – not even a mile down the road, but closer to the house, close enough to see lights shining from the upper windows.
Pat and I knew the area by heart and we set up on a trail that ran half a kilometer from the west side of the house. The trail ran north and south and much of it through a gully. We took elevated, opposite positions on either side and settled in for a wait.
The night specs work like a champ. Without the infrared function, the field of view was displayed in black and white – shades of gray, really. With infrared selected, the field remained black and white, but heated objects appeared in a range of colors from blue to red to white. The only way to fool the infrared setting was for an object to assume the same temperature as any surrounding objects, but then you could still see it in black and white if it moved. So, an object could be missed if it was the same temp as its surroundings and stood stock-still. Not a likely scenario.
The waiting is the hardest part in a hunt. Sometimes, lots of times, that’s the way it must be done. When the animal has proven to be too clever to allow approach, you have to let it come to you. Grandpaw always told me to be patient. “Getting into a hurry will kill you,” he said. “Most people think moving slow is what gets you, but that’s not the case. Stay calm. Move slow. It’s like taking aim. Slow and steady gets the shot.”
Grandpaw was right, of course, but the thing is, going slow was boring. It was difficult to sit still and watch without dozing off. It’s funny how no one can remember falling asleep. That’s why I was astonished to find Uncle Pat shaking me awake at three o’clock in the morning.
“Come on,” he said, “let’s call it a night. We’ll go home and get a few hours’ rest, then get up and get after him again. That is, if you can go back to sleep.”
“I wasn’t asleep,” I lied.
“Then it was a good imitation. You had me fooled.”
“Don’t tell Grandpaw, okay?”
“Then stay awake.”
“I promise,” I said.
That was the end of our night and the end of the hunt. At least, for that day. Moving as quietly as possible (Who knew the location of the kitzloc we hunted?), we unmuzzled the horses and returned to the darkened house, which took all of twenty minutes.
After taking care of the horses, we went back to the house. I found four of the Frisco children sleeping in my room. The remaining two slept with Toby and Riley. Yawning, Uncle Pat went to the room on the first floor he shared with Aunt Liza. “Good night,” he said, then paused.
“What?”
“We have to return to the Frisco farm in the morning to, uh, you know, bury the remains. I’ll need your help. Also, we’re going to set sensors on the trail we were following last night. So…”
“I’ll be ready.”
“Okay,” he said, yawning again. “Go to sleep.” He left and I stretched out on the couch, covering myself with a homemade quilt that my own mother had stitched together. In minutes, I was asleep, but of course, I didn’t remember falling asleep.
*
A chorus of high-pitched voices startled me awake. Reluctantly, I opened my eyes to slits and saw eight children sitting around the big kitchen table. Kaliis was doing the cooking; pancakes. I became aware of another presence in the room and craned my head around to see Aunt Liza standing with her back to the fireplace, sipping hot tea, her morning drink of choice, from a cup. “Mornin’,” she said.
I mumbled back the greeting in return. She watched me until I felt uncomfortable. “What is it?” I asked.
For once, Liza seemed tongue-tied. She crossed the room and sat next to me, on the edge of the couch. “I’m worried about you,” she said.
“Worried? Me? Why?”
“The things you’re being asked to do – it’s a lot for a sixteen year old girl to take on.”
“I can handle it.”
“I hope so,” Liza said. “We need you. Promise me you’ll be careful out there.”
“I will, Aunt Liza. Don’t worry.”
“Well, I will worry. Especially when Pat says you’re falling asleep while on watch.”
I sat up. “He promised me he wouldn’t tell.”
“Pat promised he wouldn’t tell Gary. He didn’t. He told me.”
“What’s the difference?” I lowered my voice. “Where’s Papaw?”
“In the barn.”
“And Pat?”
“Out setting up sensors. He said he’d be back by mid-morning. He wants you to help him at the Frisco farm.”
“I know.”
“Well, that’s no job for you. I asked Gary if he would go instead.”
“I’ll go.” I didn’t say it with much enthusiasm. The truth is, I couldn’t get the sight of the bodies out of my mind. It’s one thing seeing dead people, but seeing dead people you know is another matter altogether. It kind of made me sick to my stomach to think about it. If Grandpaw wanted to go in my stead, I wasn’t going to argue.
The Frisco children had suffered perhaps the most traumatic experience of their lives, but there they were, gathered around the breakfast table, eating pancakes with butter and honey. They chattered and laughed with Toby and Riley and otherwise acted just like it was any other day. It was the strength of youth. I knew so because I had gone through something similar many years ago. I couldn’t remember my experience and I wondered if the Frisco children would remember theirs.
I stood and stretched and received a resounding “good morning” from the crowd in the kitchen.
Kaliis handed me a pancake. Through a full mouth, I asked about Michael.
“I put him in the basement,” explained Kaliis, “so he wouldn’t scare the children. They’ve never seen a robot.”
“He won’t scare the children. We need him.”
“Yes, I believe so as well. I tinkered with his programming a bit and was able to expand his limited abilities.”
“I wish you could expand my limited abilities,” said Aunt Liza.
“Madam, I cannot imagine anything I could do to make you more efficient.”
“Kaliis, you are such a suck-up.”
“Yes ma’am.”
I finished my pancake, washed my face, put on clean clothes, and wandered out to the barn where I found Papaw cleaning his weapons. When I entered, he asked me when was the last time I cleaned my Vimbacher. I told him yesterday. Satisfied, he nodded. He told me he was going to the Frisco farm instead of me and I told him I knew, that Liza had already informed me. He nodded again and fell silent. I watched him until he looked up again.
“You’re still wearing that bauble from Glaucus.” It was a statement, not a question, so I didn’t answer. “Well,” he said, “I suppose it’s all right to have a good luck piece. Especially if it’s working for you.” He grinned but the smile dropped quickly.
“What are we going to do with the Frisco children?” I asked.
Grandpaw used an oily rag to clean the Vimbacher’s firing mechanism. He took a breath and said he didn’t rightly know, but “one thing’s for sure. There are no orphanages on Dreidel.”
“So what happens to kids if their parents die?”
“They end up like Phineas.”
“All of them?”
“Pretty much.” Grandpaw finished cleaning the gun and slid it into a scabbard. “I wanted to talk to you about something else.”
“What?”
“This lizard we’re after.”
“What about it?”
“This one’s different.”
“Yes. It’s a black one.”
“Well, there’s that,” Papaw said, “but there’s more. This one’s smart, as smart as any I’ve ever run across.”
I agreed. We’d never had one lizard give so much trouble and cause so much havoc and not tracked it down in a matter of days.
“It’s smart,” Papaw said again, “plus, it’s bigger and stronger than what we’ve been up against in the past.”
“We
’ve killed these dark ones before.”
“Yes, and it wasn’t easy. Look, just be careful with this one. Make sure all your equipment is functional. Get some rest. We’re going to find this monster and we’re going to kill it.”
The barn door opened and Uncle Pat walked in, leading his horse. He asked if I was ready to go, but Grandpaw explained he was going instead. “Amanda can help Liza get the kids settled. She could probably use more sleep too.”
Pat slyly agreed without telling Grandpaw of my lapse the night before.
I helped Papaw tie his kit to his saddle and then gave him a boost. The old man grimaced – his leg wound from Mandalatown – and hoisted himself aboard. Kaliis climbed a footstool set next to the horse and took his place behind the old man. Grandpaw tipped his hat and reminded me “to be ready when we get back.”
I said okay and they rode out. Kaliis rode backwards and gave me a little wave good-bye.
Chapter 24
The kids literally bounced around inside the house, chasing one another, screaming, with the littlest ones trailing behind, usually crying. Riley enjoyed Jambo’s company because they were close to the same age, but Toby was almost a teen and thought he was too old to play with the smallest Frisco children, although Aunt Liza kept encouraging him to do just that. Toby resisted and asked to go outside to get away from the juvenile chaos.
The sun shined on the lawn outside and Toby stared out the big window in the family room. He was a little upset about having to share his room with three of the neighbor boys.
“No one goes outside unless we all go outside,” said Liza. “No ifs, ands, or buts.”
Some of the children heard what Liza said and begged to play in the yard. Liza balked and said she had work to do. I slipped down to the basement to see how Michael was getting on.
He sat in a chair, eyes wide open, staring straight ahead. When I came down the stairs, he turned towards me and smiled. It was a nice touch in his programming, one of Kaliis’ code enhancements.
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