I Come with Knives

by S. A. Hunt

  “Help!” Joel shouted into the morning stillness, trying to wrest his arm away. “They’re gonna kill me! Help me!”

  “Ain’t nobody gonna kill you, y’idiot,” growled Bowker, hauling the back door of the police cruiser open and bundling Joel inside. To his relief, the lieutenant didn’t bang his head on the roof on the way in.

  “Help!” Joel shrieked, and Bowker slammed the door in his face.

  He was on his side. He wallowed and kicked to a sitting position and pressed his forehead to the window so he could see Fisher and Kenway come out of the comic shop, the tall veteran supporting, almost dragging Euchiss. Next to Kenway, the policeman looked like a little boy. Euchiss sat down on the exterior windowsill, hunched over and cradling his head in the bowl of his hands.

  Cool wind breathed through the mesh partition in the cop car. The front windows were rolled down, so Joel could hear what they were saying. “Opie! What the hell happened to you?” asked Bowker, hovering over the other cop.

  Euchiss looked up, squinting into the sun. “I fell.”

  “You fell,” sneered the lieutenant.

  Euchiss gave him a glare that could melt steel. Joel was abruptly all too aware of who wore the pants in this partnership, even though the physically imposing Bowker technically outranked the redheaded patrolman. “Assaulting and evading a police officer,” said Lieutenant Bowker, turning his attention to Fisher. “Your brother’s got his plate full, ain’t he? Would you like to explain why you were hiding him?”

  Instead of taking the bait, Fish leaned into the passenger-side window of the cruiser. “I don’t know what happened to my cat, but I’m gonna follow you to the police station and bail you out. You can explain on the way home.”

  “Ain’t no bailin’ me out. They ain’t gonna put me in jail,” Joel said, pleading with his eyes. “They’re gonna take me somewhere and put a bullet in my head.” He thrust his knee up for emphasis, wincing at the stab of pain. “They already tried to shoot me once. They’re gonna—”

  A look of irritation dawning on his face, Bowker pulled another zip-tie out of his patrol belt and came up behind Fish.

  “Hey, no! No!” cried Joel.

  Fisher started to turn, but the lieutenant had snatched one wrist and twisted him back around, pressing him against the side of the car. “You’re fit as a fiddle, huh?” the cop asked, zip-tying his wrists together.

  “Whoa, the hell are you doing, dude?” asked Kenway. “Fisher ain’t done anything. Hold up.”

  “What are you doing?” asked Fisher. “Let me go—”

  “Arresting you for harboring a fugitive and resisting arrest.” Joel leaned back as Bowker opened the door and crammed Fisher inside, piling them on top of each other. He wriggled backward, trying to get out from under his brother.

  “When I get out of these cuffs,” said Fisher, “I’m going to kick your ass. And then I’m calling my fucking lawyer.”

  Joel pressed himself against the opposite door; Fisher looked feral, like he wanted to rear back in the seat and kick him to death. The situation was almost funny, if it weren’t so dire—reminding him of sultry summer evenings in their parent’s car as children, Mama and Daddy in the front seat, Joel and Fisher in the back. Stop touching your brother! Don’t make me turn this car around! His head tilted back and he licked dry lips. “My leg is killin’ me. Look, man, I didn’t kill your cat. I swear to God it turned the garbage disposal on by itself. I don’t know why, but it did.” He looked up and nodded toward Euchiss sitting on the windowsill holding his head. “And that guy,” he said, in a confidential mutter, “is the serial killer I got away from. The one Bowker called ‘the Serpent.’”

  Fish stared. “That guy? But he’s—”

  “Yeah, a cop. Like I told you, they’re all in it together. They’re workin’ for those witch-bitches out in Slade township. The ones that lived across the street from the Martines. Maybe Mama wasn’t so crazy after all.” Joel shifted in the seat, inching his fingers up to the waistband of the jeans he was wearing. He pulled it down, revealing the right cheek of his ass and the scar on his skin. “I’ll be damned. It all makes sense now.”

  “What does?”

  Bowker’s cellphone rang, cutting into their conversation with the theme to Bonanza. “Y’ello.”

  Glancing pointedly down at the ass-cheek he was displaying, Joel said, “Look. The brands Mama burned into our asses when we were kids. They were ‘protective runes’ like what that Robin girl’s got tattooed on her chest.” A four-lobed Y about an inch long had been scarred into the flesh of his right buttock. An algiz. The middle lobe of the rune was longer than the other two, making it look like a rooster’s footprint. “Robin Martine called it Al-Jazeera.”

  “The Arabic news network?” Fish winced in confusion. “What have they got to do with this? That woman’s daughter is in town? You been talkin’ to her?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know, maybe your cat committin’ suicide was those witches tryin’ to do something to me, and this thing on my ass saved me. Maybe I was supposed to kill myself and Selina got it instead.”

  Fish pursed his lips, giving him a wry look.

  Hanging up the phone, Bowker told Euchiss, “Change of plans.” The redheaded scarecrow got up and put on a pair of sunglasses. “Boss called and gave us a job to do. Come on. We got to go down to the pound and take some cats out to the drainage. For some reason, all of a sudden, Cutty wants us to nix every cat they have.”

  “What about these two?”

  “We got bigger chickens to pluck. They can help us.”

  “Chickens?” Kenway asked, face darkening. “No, I want to talk to you two. You guys are making a mistake.”

  Ignoring him, the pear-shaped lieutenant lumbered around the back of the cruiser and got into the driver’s seat, and Euchiss plopped down on the passenger side.

  “What about that guy?” asked Euchiss, jerking a thumb at the veteran as he put on his seat belt. Joel glanced out the back window and saw Kenway standing in front of the comic shop, a keyring full of keys in one hand, looking confused and increasingly furious.

  “We’ll take care of him later. We ain’t got the room in the car for his big ass, anyhow. And to be perfectly frank, I don’t relish the idea of trying to put cuffs on that big blond bastard. I get the feeling he could skull-fuck both of us at the same time with his hands in his pockets.” Bowker put the car in gear and backed out into traffic. “He’ll be all right until we get back, he thinks we’re goin’ to the station. When we get done with this, we’ll grab somethin’ quick to eat and come back here, have a word with him.”

  “What if he comes to the station?”

  “Well, then, we won’t be there, will we, dumbass?”

  Euchiss turned and glared at Joel through the partition screen. Joel stared back, wary. “I bet you thought that was funny, huh? Runnin’ that treadmill with me standing on it?” Euchiss asked, venom in his voice. “I think I mighta got a concussion.”

  “What, you expect me to be sorry about it? You had me chained up in a garage. You were gonna cut my throat.”

  Euchiss pointed a jittery finger at him. His lips stuck together as he spoke. “Blood for the garden, asshole. Forget cutting your throat—I’m gonna string you right back up and cut your head clean off with a hacksaw like one’em raghead terrorists. Won’t that be—”

  “Hey, enough of that head-cuttin’ shit,” warned Bowker, backhanding him across the chest and jamming a finger at his face. “We ain’t no damn Taliban.”

  Discomfited, Euchiss turned around and folded his arms, sitting back like a little boy throwing a tantrum.

  The lieutenant shook his head. “You can pitch a fit if you want, son—I don’t give a rat’s ass who y’know. But I got lines, and you steppin’ on ’em. My mama raised me to be a God-fearin’ man, not no heathen savage.”

  “God-fearin’ men don’t do what you do,” said Joel.

  “Did I ask you for your opinion?” Bowker snarled over his shoulder
. “I ought to shoot you right now for what you did last night with that scattergun. But we got things we got to go take care of, and you can lend a hand. You’ve been voluntold.”

  Restaurants and gas stations scrolled past the windows in a parade of colorful logos. They drove west along Broad and south onto Main, cutting through the heart of the downtown commercial district. Lunchtime traffic surrounded them in a scrimmage of lights and steel.

  Fisher pressed them. “Where we going?”

  No answer.

  * * *

  The police Charger slithered through downtown Blackfield, passing the university and its thirteen-story library, leaving the surface streets for more and more obscure neighborhoods. Bowker’s convoluted path cut through subdivisions Joel had been to a number of times, mostly to buy weed.

  Dealers and sex workers milled up and down the sidewalk in front of run-down tract houses with boarded windows, and weeds sprouted from the walls of abandoned, broken-eyed factories. Convenience stores with iron bars on the windows. Grimy, slat-sided cottages on overgrown lawns strewn with dirty toys. A googly-eyed old woman in a nightgown stood at the roadside with an oxygen tank, screaming gibberish at passing motorists.

  Exposed hips of granite jutted from hillsides. The lieutenant finally slowed and pulled into a side street that wound into a wooded area, and the houses became fewer until there were none at all, only dead brown trees reaching for the sky and leaf-litter on rolling hills.

  Just when Joel thought they were leaving the city altogether, the car grumbled into a gravel parking lot. A metal sign zip-tied to a chain-link fence told him they had arrived at Blackfield Animal Shelter. The only other vehicle was an unmarked box truck. Bowker pulled in, over to the side, and the two cops got out, letting themselves into a large brick building. Euchiss came back and opened the cruiser’s trunk, taking out a hunting rifle. Joel wasn’t sure what caliber, but it had a bolt action and a scope. He took out a box of cartridges, slammed the trunk shut, and disappeared into the shelter.

  Once they were gone, silence fell over the car, broken up by indecipherable garbage honking out of the police-band radio. Fisher’s eyes were full of fear and confusion. “What are we doin’ at the animal shelter? Didn’t they say something about cats?”

  “Beats me. I don’t even wanna know.”

  “What were you saying about protective runes and witches and Robin Martine?”

  His forehead pressed against the window at an angle, Joel tried to see through the windows of the shelter’s main building. Inside the fence enclosure was a labyrinth of chain link: smaller pens for individual dogs. From where he sat, he could see dozens of large-breed canines: Rottweilers, German shepherds, a small army of pit bulls.

  “Well, according to what Robin Martine told me, the witches’ magic is guided by words and symbols.” Joel went on to explain to his little brother what Robin had told him and Kenway in the truck after leaving the hospital. “The symbol branded on our hips is the same one tattooed on Robin’s chest. It protects you from their magic, like bug spray protects you from mosquitoes, I guess. Hell, I don’t know. But I think it has something to do with your cat committing suicide.”

  Fish gave him a death glare.

  “No, I’m serious. According to her, the witches can sacrifice cats and send their souls into people, creating zombie slaves. And the symbols on our asses kept us from getting enslaved.”

  “Supposing I believe this bullshit,” said Fish. “If that’s true, and some witch made my cat sacrifice herself, where did—” He bit off the end of the sentence, as if he’d tasted something sour, his face twisting briefly in anguish, “Where did Selina’s soul go?”

  Joel had no answer.

  The two of them sat in frustrated, anxious silence.

  After what felt like half an hour, Bowker and Euchiss finally came out. The lieutenant went to the far side of the building, opening a large swing-gate in the fence. Euchiss carried the hunting rifle out to the box truck and reversed it into the enclosure, disappearing around the building.

  Bowker came toward the cruiser, pulling his pistol.

  As he walked, he pulled the slide, loaded a magazine, and let the slide drop forward, ch-clack! Joel’s heart jumped into his mouth, but the cop stood next to the car, staring out into the woods and rubbing his goatee.

  A few minutes later, the self-styled Serpent strode out of the enclosure and Bowker opened Fisher’s door, while Euchiss opened Joel’s. “Get out,” growled the killer, pulling him up by his armpit. Joel staggered, the gravel bruising the soles of his bare feet. “You try anything and my buddy blows your brains out.” He dug in his pocket and came up with a utility knife, whipping it open. Joel flinched, but Euchiss held him fast, cutting the zip-tie cuffs.

  Then he twisted Joel around by the shoulder and shoved him toward the animal shelter. “Walk.”

  Joel rubbed his wrists. “What are we doing?”

  “Did I say talk?” Euchiss cut Fish’s cuffs, then pulled out his Taser and loaded a fresh cartridge. “We’re going to perform a little manual labor. Miss Cutty wants us to load a bunch of cages onto this truck and carry ’em out to the quarry.”

  The four of them went into the chain link enclosure and around the back of the building, down a gravel path to where the box truck had been backed up to an open door.

  As they approached, Joel could hear the yowling of cats from inside the shelter. Inside, they were met with a pitiful sight. Maybe two hundred wire kennels were stacked in a spacious concrete room, six to a column, small, more like raccoon-traps than kennels. The raunchy smell of cat feces made an eye-watering murk of the air, and an army of tiny paws reached through the gleaming bars like prisoners of war in a medieval dungeon.

  “Jesus,” said Fish.

  “Start loading these cages onto the truck,” said Euchiss.

  “What are you gonna do with ’em?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” The redheaded killer urged him on with the Taser. “Zap zap. Get to work.”

  The polished cement floor was ice-cold and marble-smooth under Joel’s bare feet. He went to the nearest stack of kennels—this one only three cages high—and laced his fingers into the bars, lifting it up. The fluffy cat inside reached out and pinned his hand with a paw, pleading in a smoky voice. “Yowwwww.”

  Joel glanced at Bowker. The lieutenant tucked the corners of his mouth back in a mean, imperative smile. Go on, now, do what you’re told.

  16

  A couple of hours later (without his cell Joel couldn’t tell, as though constant access to his iPhone had damaged his perception of time), the two brothers pushed the final kennel into place.

  Surprisingly, all but three of the cages fit in the back of the truck. Euchiss took two of them and put them in the cab up front. Bowker urged Joel and Fisher into the cargo hold with the cats and pulled the rolldown shut on them.

  The air stank of cat piss, and the space they were confined to was only the last couple of feet of the compartment, a gap two feet wide, nine feet tall, and seven feet across. Joel sat down and listened to the officer put a padlock through the handle, which was a feat in itself, because the darkness was a near-unbearable chaos of agonized groaning and keening. He leaned back against the wall and rubbed his face in exasperation and fear. The cats were too loud to talk to Fisher, so he closed his eyes and tried to think.

  Prayers seemed trite and useless. Joel thought of himself nominally as a Christian, but he hadn’t been to church since he was a teenager and was always at a loss for words when someone asked him to say grace over dinner. It was no different today as he rode blind and disoriented back into the hustle and bustle of urban Blackfield, but the irony was not lost on him that if he’d gone to church that morning (it being Sunday), he probably wouldn’t be in this mess. Who thinks to look for a fugitive in church?

  Once he’d exhausted his reserve of plans and mental preparations—daydreaming about leaping out at Euchiss when he opened the back of the truck,
usually getting shot or Tasered for his troubles—he played around with the visual of Fisher’s cat killing itself, turning the scene over and over in his mind like a Rubik’s Cube. The way the cat had hunkered down and stared at Joel. The fixed gaze of a predator watching for movement, sizing up a target.

  Where did the soul go?

  The truck drove a shorter route than the one they’d taken in the police cruiser, but more circuitous. He counted at least seven stops, four of which were at traffic lights (this was determined by the fact the driver only made a cursory effort to stop at stop-signs). The animals never stopped yowling. If anything, it only got worse, increasing whenever the truck paused and the engine quieted.

  The Tylenol was wearing off, and his leg radiated heat through the bandage, throbbing and aching.

  He had actually dozed off when the truck’s horn blared. An engine somewhere off to their port side revved, rising in volume, and then, WHAM!, an incredible force slammed into them, throwing Joel onto his hands and knees at Fisher’s feet.

  Someone had sideswiped them. The tires barked a squealing tremolo, EEEEE-E-E-E-E! Wire kennels toppled over in a riot of metal and screaming animals. The offending vehicle crashed into them again, partially caving in the wall and knocking down cages. Lasers of daylight streamed in through pinholes bashed into the side of the cargo compartment. Joel scrambled toward Fisher, and the man dragged his brother into his lap, clutching his head in powerful arms.

  For a few seconds, Fish’s cologne overpowered the cat-stink. If I live through this, I’ll never bitch about him doing keto again. I’ll do whatever he wants.

  Bowker managed to keep the truck more or less on the straight and narrow, but some sort of structure collided with the right side and scraped endlessly down the fender like rolling thunder, drumming at regular intervals, a giant metal heart, boom-boom, boom-boom.