by TJ Klune
Yes.
“Recent?”
A hesitation. No.
“Lucas?”
Bad Dog cocked his head. Smells Different?
Cavalo nodded.
No. He hasn’t been here.
Cavalo sighed. It’d been a long shot, but he hadn’t stopped himself from hoping. He pulled his pack to his front and dug through it, pulling out a rough shirt Lucas had worn before the attack on Cottonwood. He held it out to Bad Dog, who sniffed at it, ears twitching. He looked up at Cavalo with dreamy eyes. Smells Different.
“Find,” Cavalo said, the command sharp.
Bad Dog’s eyes cleared, his body becoming rigid and tense. His nostrils flared, and his tail twitched. He turned around and kept his nose close to the ground, walking farther down the causeway.
“You sure about this?” Richie whispered as they followed Bad Dog.
“No,” Cavalo said in a low voice. Then, “About what?” This was stupid. They didn’t need to talk. Not here. Not now.
“It’s not… I mean….”
“Spit it out.” Why? Why? Why?
“Bad Dog. You.”
“What?”
“People… talk.”
“That so.”
“Yeah.” He sounded scared. “You can talk to him? Like, for real?”
“Yes.” The hallway ended up ahead at an intersection. Left or right.
“Doesn’t that—”
“Richie.”
“Yeah?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Richie did.
The bees laughed and asked him if this was how he made friends. Cavalo told them he didn’t care about that. They called him a liar.
Bad Dog was trained well. Knew his corners. He stopped before he crossed into the next hallway, pausing a beat to listen and scent the air. Once he was sure it was clear, he stepped into the next causeway.
Cavalo pressed himself against the wall and peered around the corners. Left led down another long empty hallway. Right ended at a metal door, a large circular handle in the middle. Bad Dog seemed to dismiss the door, but Cavalo couldn’t. The bees were bouncing in his head, and he needed to make sure.
He grabbed the handle and pulled. Nothing happened. Used both hands, wrist be damned. Wouldn’t turn. Motioned for Richie to try. The door looked rusted, the small window glazed over so they couldn’t see through. Richie grunted with the strain of it, but the handle wouldn’t budge. “No go,” he said, face red from exertion.
Cavalo turned away from the door. If they couldn’t open it, chances were the Dead Rabbits hadn’t been through there. Maybe at one point in the clusterfuck Cavalo called his life, he would have been curious as to what was on the other side of the door. Not anymore.
They turned back and headed the opposite direction, Bad Dog a few feet in front of Cavalo and Richie a few feet behind him. Cavalo swept his gaze back and forth, cataloging everything he could take in. The cracks on the wall. The flickering lights that snapped with the buzz of electricity. The dripping water. Richie’s ragged breath. Bad Dog’s panting. The metal grating squeaking beneath his feet. His own traitorous, thunderous heart. The bees started to take wing and he—
Bad Dog stopped. A low growl, hackles raised. He lowered his head toward the floor. Cavalo wasn’t sure where the threat was coming from. The causeway seemed to stretch on forever. There might have been doors on either side farther ahead or a branch off in a different direction, but he couldn’t tell.
He looked behind them, and Richie’s eyes were wide with fear. The first hallway they’d come down was too far back. The walls on either side of them were smooth, the heavy pipes laid over them spaced inches apart.
There was nowhere to hide.
“Keep down,” Cavalo hissed. “Keep quiet. Move.”
He didn’t turn to see if Richie followed him. He held the knife at the ready. Bad Dog moved hunched to the ground, lips curled back, teeth bared.
Cavalo could hear it now. A loud, metallic sound, as if something heavy was dragging along the floor. He ground his teeth together as it grated his ears.
He wondered, as he sometimes did, if it was the coyotes from all those years ago. When he was DEFCON 1. He knew it was impossible, but he almost expected a group of them to turn some corner farther ahead, blackened tumors hanging fat and low as they stalked toward them.
But then a voice came, farther down the hallway somewhere. Just a single voice, light and clear above the screech of metal, singing the same word over and over again: “Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty.”
And it was getting louder.
“Pretty, pretty, pretty.”
A door, up ahead on the right. Different than the one behind them. This one was a regular metal door, a rusted circular knob on the right. An illegible sign in the middle below a frosted window. It’ll be locked, the bees said. It will be locked, and they will find you, and pretty, pretty, pretty.
He could hear the footsteps now. There had to be another break in the causeway somewhere ahead because he couldn’t see anyone yet.
If the door was locked, they’d be found. And for the first time in a very long time, Cavalo allowed himself to be human when he threw out a prayer to whoever would take it. Let this work, he thought wildly as he reached for the door.
The handle wouldn’t turn.
No.
“Pretty, pretty, pretty!”
He twisted the doorknob savagely. Something snapped inside the mechanism, and it turned in his hand. He pushed on the door as slowly as he dared. It scraped briefly along the floor, and the hinges whined. To Cavalo, they were the loudest sounds he’d ever heard, but the pretty, pretty never faulted, and the footsteps never quickened. The air that hit them from the room was stifling and fetid.
No, Bad Dog said. Bad smells. Bad smells. He tried to back away, but Cavalo grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and pulled him forward. Bad, bad, bad, he muttered as his tail curled under his legs.
Cavalo followed him in. The room was dark. He could see the faint outline of chairs and desks pushed into a far corner. He ignored them, turning so Richie could make his way in. Once he was through, Cavalo closed the door as quietly as he could. The door clicked into place.
Bad, bad, bad, the dog whispered.
“Pretty, pretty, pretty” came a muffled voice. The sound of dragging metal grew louder.
“Oh my God,” Richie said in a choked voice. His breaths were quick and light, edging toward panic.
“Shut up,” Cavalo hissed at him.
The smell in the room was overwhelming. High and sweet and cloying. He’d smelled something similar once, back in his wandering days. A library, the books rotted into clumps on the floor, covering bodies whose skin had stretched tight across their faces. Cavalo never learned how they died, but he never forgot that smell, the way it invaded his nose and made his eyes water. There were bodies in the room with them. Several of them. They’d probably died years before, their skin hardening, mouths open.
Cavalo stood, his back to the door, trying to see through the dirty glass of the window. Years of dust and skin particles created a film covering the glass, and he could barely make out the shapes of pipes along the other side of the causeway. He kept his hand tight on the doorknob, pressing his weight against the door, just in case.
He held his breath as he waited.
Cavalo saw him then. Just barely. A faint outline through the dirty window. A shadow, and nothing more. A staggering step. A pause. Muttering of pretty, pretty, pretty, and Cavalo wanted to scream because it was said with such insanity, and it sounded so familiar, because it sounded like bees. Like the Dead Rabbit was roiling with them.
He should have seen it coming. A room that hadn’t been opened in so long. No ventilation. Dust and flecks of skin in the air. He should have known.
“Pretty, pret—”
Richie sneezed.
As far as sneezes went, it was a quiet one. Muffled. It didn’t even echo across the room. Cavalo turned his head toward Richie. R
ichie’s hands covered his mouth and nose, his eyes wide. He shook his head as a tear fell onto his cheek and came to rest against a finger on his right hand.
“Pretty?” the Dead Rabbit asked sharply outside the door.
Cavalo tightened his grip on the doorknob.
Fingers scraped on the outside of the door. A touch. A caress. Nails scraping against metal.
“Pretty,” the Dead Rabbit muttered.
Cavalo turned his head back toward the window. His neck popped, and he was sure it was the loudest sound he’d ever heard. His cheek pressed against cool metal. The Dead Rabbit was trying to see through the glass, his face pressed against it, nose flattened and eyes wide. He opened his mouth wide and pressed his lips onto the glass. A tongue came out and left a wet strip. Fingers tapped an irregular beat as the hand lowered.
Cavalo felt the first moment the Dead Rabbit touched the doorknob. A tiny thrum in his good hand. It did not twist at first. The Dead Rabbit moved the doorknob up and down. Side to side. Bad Dog backed up slightly, coiling himself down, preparing to leap should the door open.
The Dead Rabbit licked the window again, his tongue almost black against the film. The faint outline of teeth, rotting and sharp. Saliva dripped down the glass, leaving dirty tracks. “Pretty,” he breathed and rubbed his face against the window, smearing grime into swirls. He pressed his cheek against the glass, one eye wide and searching, trying to see into the room. Bad Dog and Richie were hidden in shadow.
The Dead Rabbit pulled away.
Cavalo didn’t allow himself to breathe.
The doorknob rattled again.
And then it turned.
Cavalo hadn’t realized his hand was sweating until he felt the doorknob start to slide under his fingers. It felt greasy. Warm. He took in a shuddering breath and brought up his other hand. Bad fingers. Bad wrist. He gritted against the pain as he held as tightly as he could. He turned and propped his shoulder up against the door, pressing it as hard as he could.
The pressure on the doorknob released.
“Pretty.”
And then it turned again.
Noise, from below him.
He opened his eyes and looked down.
Richie. Pressing his hands against the door, steeling himself to hold it in place.
The doorknob jerked in his hands. Slipping until he squeezed tighter. His wrist screamed.
The Dead Rabbit let go of the doorknob. Slapped a hand against the glass. Dragged fingers along the saliva. “Pretty,” he said… and then moved away. The metal dragging sound resumed.
Cavalo waited a beat. Two. Looked down at Richie. Motioned him up. They traded places without a word. Cavalo pushed Bad Dog back. Richie kept a hand on the doorknob. Cavalo raised his good hand carrying the knife.
Held up three fingers. Paused.
Richie shook his head frantically.
Cavalo glared at him.
Three.
Richie nodded and licked his lips.
Two.
The sick-sweet smell of the room filled Cavalo as he took a deep breath.
One.
Richie opened the door in one smooth motion.
Cavalo didn’t hesitate. He never really had before in his life. Not when he was under the bees, submerged into the cold. He knew he was a killer. A murderer. He knew he was not a good person. He knew what waited for him when he finally died, if he could believe in something such as burning in eternal fire. He killed people. Some of them might not have deserved it. He was a monster. But he never hesitated. Not when it counted. Not when he slipped below the surface.
The door opened. Cavalo moved. Three steps and he was out in the hallway. Looked right. Nothing. Left. Dead Rabbit walking down the causeway, muttering prettily. Dragging a heavy metal pipe behind him, chipped and bloodstained.
He wanted to kill, the bees were telling him to kill, and it would be easy. Kick to the back of the knees. Knife to the back of the neck. Spine severed. Quiet. Easy.
But even in the bees and underneath the cold, Cavalo knew he needed this Dead Rabbit. Dworshak was big, and they’d come into this place with only the faint glimmer of a plan (and really, if Cavalo had let himself dwell on it for too long, he would have realized there was no real plan at all). This Dead Rabbit might know where Lucas was. He might be able to lead them directly to him. Cavalo needed him.
So even as the hand holding the knife twitched, wanting death, revenge, and chaos, instead he smashed the handle on the back of the Dead Rabbit’s head. The Dead Rabbit stopped with his pretty, pretty, pretty and grunted, falling to his knees. The pipe fell to the floor. The Dead Rabbit swayed on his knees. Cavalo grabbed him underneath his arms and pulled him back toward the doorway. The Dead Rabbit was rank and sweaty. His feet dragged along the floor, his arms heavy at his sides.
“Get the pipe,” Cavalo snarled as he pulled the Dead Rabbit through the door. Richie scrambled through, tripping over the Dead Rabbit’s legs. He cursed as he skinned his hands on the floor. Then he was up and out. Cavalo propped the Dead Rabbit up against the wall, pushing him upright. He heard Richie drag the pipe back in. “Shut the door,” he said as the Dead Rabbit lolled his head to the side, grimacing.
Richie did, and they fell into darkness.
“Light,” Cavalo snapped.
Richie fumbled with his pack and pulled out a small electronic lantern, one of the few that had been left in the prison. Blue light spilled out into the room, and Richie moaned quietly.
Because Cavalo had been right about the reason the room smelled the way it did. Shadows crawled around the room, but enough light caught the five bodies in the corner, all huddled together, arms around each other. Two adults on the outside, curled in. Three children in the middle, flat on their backs. An old gun on the ground. Dark smudges splattered on the wall. The floor. Pieces of their ending flitted across Cavalo’s brain, but he was still drowning in the cold, and the bees pushed it away.
The Dead Rabbit groaned.
He knelt next to the Dead Rabbit, who watched him with wide, wet eyes. “Do you know who I am?” he asked quietly. Their faces were so close Cavalo could smell his stinking breath.
“Pretty?” the Dead Rabbit asked in a whisper. “Man. Man. Bad man.” He clicked his teeth together rapidly, as if he were trying to bite.
“That’s right. I am a bad man. And I will do bad things to you unless you tell me what I want.”
“Pretty,” the Dead Rabbit said. He was crying, fat oily tears that streaked his dirty cheeks. But even through the tears, he was smiling. His mouth was rotting. Missing teeth. Gums blackened. Radiation poisoning, though not too far along.
“Lucas,” Cavalo said. “Where is Lucas?”
The Dead Rabbit laughed and sobbed and cocked his head. “Lu… cas?” He clicked his teeth together. “Patrick. Said. Bad man.”
“Anyone out there?” Cavalo asked Richie.
“No. I don’t think so.” He sounded as if he skirted along the edges of panic.
Cavalo set his pack on the ground and reached inside, grabbing a corner of a threadbare blanket. He cut a long strip and balled it up. “Where’s Lucas?” he asked again.
“Pretty!” the Dead Rabbit cried, mouth stretched wide.
Cavalo shoved the cloth into the Dead Rabbit’s mouth as far back as it could go. The Dead Rabbit choked and tried to grab Cavalo’s legs. Cavalo dropped down, picking up the heavy pipe from the floor. Before the Dead Rabbit could pull the gag from his mouth, he brought down the pipe on the Dead Rabbit’s left knee. The bone cracked wetly. The Dead Rabbit’s eyes bulged, and he screamed into the gag, the sound muffled and quiet.
“Where is Lucas?” Cavalo asked again. He lifted his foot and stepped on the broken knee, grinding the bones together. The Dead Rabbit jerked, hands skittering at his sides.
He stepped off and pulled the gag from the Dead Rabbit’s mouth.
“Bad man,” the Dead Rabbit said weakly, blood draining from his face.
“I’ll do it again,�
� Cavalo said. “Your other knee. Your arms. Your face. Your fingers. I will break every bone in your body and make sure you’re awake while I do it. Tell me where he is.”
Cavalo was cold. He was calculating. He was willing to go as far has he needed to in order to get what he wanted. That had never been a problem before.
And Cavalo had never been one to underestimate an enemy. He thought he knew how to crack the blubbering man below him, how to break him until he told Cavalo everything he needed to hear.
So what happened next took Cavalo by surprise. The Dead Rabbit reached out toward him with shaking hands. “Please, pretty,” he cried. Cavalo took a step back. The man fell over onto his stomach and tried to crawl. Cavalo raised the pipe again.
The Dead Rabbit pushed himself up on his hands.
He smiled and stuck out his tongue. It was dark and looked rough. He gripped it in his teeth. And then the Dead Rabbit smashed his chin onto the cement floor as hard as he could. Cavalo heard his jaw snap, his teeth grinding together. His tongue fell out of his mouth in a gush of blood. The noise the severed muscle made when it landed on the floor caused Cavalo’s gorge to rise.
“Jesus Christ!” Richie moaned, backing away as far as he could. Bad Dog growled loudly as the Dead Rabbit rolled over onto his back, blood spilling from his mouth as he cried and laughed and gurgled.
The man had bitten off his own tongue rather than tell Cavalo anything. Cavalo had underestimated him. And the rest. He would not do that again. He crouched down next to the Dead Rabbit, whose face was a bloody red.
“Gah!” the Dead Rabbit cried at him.
Cavalo said nothing as he brought the knife down into the Dead Rabbit’s right eye, pushing it to the hilt. The Dead Rabbit twitched and then stilled. Cavalo pulled the knife out, the Dead Rabbit’s head falling back against the floor with a wet thunk. He wiped the blade off on the Dead Rabbit’s coat. He stood and reached for the door. “Let’s go,” he said. He didn’t look back.
deus ex machina
CAVALO DIDN’T want to admit it, but they were lost.
He thought maybe an hour had passed since they’d entered the interior of the dam. The causeways split off into different directions, and Cavalo couldn’t tell where they were anymore. He’d always had a keen sense of direction, but being hidden away under a mountain of concrete and steel had fucked with that, and he couldn’t be sure they were any closer to Lucas than when they started.