Withered + Sere (Immemorial Year Book 1) (32 page)

He could not look away.

I can kill you
, Lucas said.
The bees want me to kill you. I am a Dead Rabbit. I am a clever monster. Psycho fucking bulldog. I can kill you so easily.

“I know.”

Lucas sat back up but kept the knife at Cavalo’s throat. He nodded his head toward Bad Dog. His eyes narrowed accusingly.
You lied to him.
In your story. That’s not what happened.

“No. It’s not.”

Why?

“Why did I lie?”

Yes.

“Because the truth makes me as bad as you.”

Speak the truth. Now.

“I don’t owe you anything.”

Tell it!

“Why? Why do you care?”

The Dead Rabbit’s mouth opened in a silent snarl. The knife cut deeper.
Now!

“They came,” Cavalo said. “They stood below the lookout. I went down. I fell, and the rifle got knocked from my hand. I was so sure they had my son in the sack, so sure that he was still alive and that somehow, they’d found him and taken him from me. I was going to hurt them. I was going to make them pay.

“I stood, grabbed the gun. They turned and looked at me. They had big knives on their sides, but they never reached for them. They asked me who I was. I told them to give me back my son. They asked me where I’d come from. I told them they had to the count of five. They laughed. Out of everything I can remember the most, I think it’s that they laughed. They weren’t scared of me, not like I was of them, even though I didn’t show it.

“I didn’t make it to five. Between three and four, I squeezed the trigger twice. Head shots, both. They were so quick that the Dead Rabbits fell at the same time. They were so quick that I didn’t realize what I’d done until it was already over.”

Cavalo closed his eyes.

“They didn’t fall on the bag, and I ran toward them, calling for Jamie. Jamie. Jamie. Answer me, Jamie. Tell me you’re okay. Tell me you’re all right. But he wasn’t there. I opened the bag and inside was this dog, this little fucking dog who was
not
my son, who was
not
Jamie, and I picked him up and held him against my chest, and I was going to smother it. I was going to smother that little fucking dog who was not my son, who had made me believe it
was
my son, who had made me kill two men for no reason other than I was losing my own mind and was haunted by ghosts that do not exist.

“But then he bit my finger. With his little puppy teeth. Not hard. Not mean. Not to hurt. But to let me know he was
there
and that he knew
I
was there. And he was just a little guy. A little guy with big paws, and he bit my finger and pulled on it because we were both
there
.

“So I didn’t kill him, even though it might have been a mercy. I’ve survived this long by some grace of God or Devil. But it won’t last long. Soon, I will die, either by my own hand or someone else’s, and he will go too, either by broken heart or bullet. Or teeth. I should have ended his life then so he won’t have to die by the hands of your people. If they got him, they would eat him. They would eat his flesh from his body and his eyes from his sockets, and it won’t be fair.”

Cavalo opened his eyes. “So yes. I lie to him. I lie to him because I know what he wants to hear. I lie to him because I know what
I
want to hear. But I know the truth. There were three monsters standing underneath the lookout tower that night. One just happened to be worse than the other two.

“I buried them. While the puppy slept in my coat at the top of the lookout tower, I dragged the two Dead Rabbits away and buried them under a tree. On them, they carried the skins of other dogs. A big one and three little ones. Probably his mother and siblings. There was quartered meat in another bag. Probably his mother and siblings. I don’t know why they kept him alive. But they did. So I buried them. Not out of respect. So he wouldn’t see them.”

Cavalo felt hoarse. He doubted he’d ever spoken in his life as much as he’d spoken this night. He closed his eyes again and waited for Lucas to make his decision.

The knife at his throat.

The weight of Lucas above him.

And then, the scrape of lips against his.

Cavalo opened his eyes.

Lucas, only inches away.

Lucas kissed him again. It was chaste. Dry. Catastrophic.

The bees screamed.

Cavalo reached up and grabbed the Dead Rabbit’s head. Held it. Forced them both not to move. Lucas breathed out, and Cavalo breathed him in. Their noses bumped. Their lips brushed together again. By accident or design, Cavalo did not know.

They stayed that way for a time. Eventually Lucas pulled the knife from his throat. He fell to Cavalo’s side, settling between man and dog. He rested his head on Cavalo’s shoulder. The hand holding the knife lay on Cavalo’s stomach, the blade pressing against his navel.

They watched each other. Cavalo could see the anger and the rage still burning in Lucas’s eyes, but he no longer thought it was directed solely at him.

But it mattered not, at least not right then. The snow globe had been shaken, and Cavalo was lost in a swirl of bees.

It only took minutes for the Dead Rabbit’s eyes to close, and he slept.

For Cavalo, it took longer.

father, may i?

MUCH LATER,
after everything was done and the smoke had cleared and people started to bury their dead, Cavalo would look back and realize with grim certainty that the beginning of the end of his life in self-imposed exile began with that kiss. It would not be the primary cause; no, it would be another who would see to that, and in a quite spectacular fashion. But it was the kiss that Cavalo would always believe was the start. For the rest of his life, he would wonder, in the dark of night, if that kiss had not occurred, would all that followed have been different?

Of course, it wouldn’t matter by that point. What was done could not be undone, and for all the lives lost, for all the destruction that followed, hindsight would do nothing but haunt Cavalo. A man may try and escape his past, but it is his past that shapes who he has become. Cavalo would be a man defined by his past. For as long as he’d run from it, it’d only been steps behind.

So it was that kiss. That devastating, unexpected kiss.

Cavalo didn’t know then where it would lead. If he did, it’s lost in a haze of bees if he would have done anything to stop it. But he didn’t know. He couldn’t know. In this impossible time, this impossible future where the world had been all but destroyed, seeing the future was nothing more than fantasy. So no, he didn’t know where it would all lead.

But he would.

He woke that morning in the lookout, the knife pressed firmly against his stomach, the Dead Rabbit’s head resting in the crook his neck. Every breath Lucas expelled felt like fire across Cavalo’s skin.

What is this?
he thought through the bees.
What is this?

He did not know.

The blade pressed into his stomach. He felt the tip dimple his skin. He looked down and saw Lucas staring back at him, a scowl on his face.
What did you do to me?

“Nothing,” Cavalo said, his voice rough with sleep. “You came at me.”

I could kill you right now. If I wanted to.

“You could.”

The knife pressed harder.
You would bleed out here.

“I know.”

He pursed his lips and buzzed.
The bees are loud today.

“Mine too.” And they were. Disjointed, they flew into each other, bouncing. Colliding. It hurt his head and made his skin crawl.

The scowl eased into a frown. The pressure of the knife lessened.

From the other side of him came a loud yawn.
I’m hungry
, Bad Dog said. He rose to his feet and stretched. The dog looked down at Cavalo and Lucas and tilted his head. His nose flared once. Twice.
You smell like Smells Different
, he told Cavalo.
That’s new.

Knife be damned, Cavalo pushed Lucas away. The Dead Rabbit did not protest. Instead he smiled that terrible smile.

“It’s time to go home,” Cavalo said. He began to pack.

IT WAS
Bad Dog who noticed it first.

They were half a mile from the prison when he stopped. His back arched, his tail twitched. His ears perked up and he stared straight ahead, his rigid stance awkward.

But Cavalo knew his friend. They worked together well. He stopped and signaled for Lucas to do the same. The Dead Rabbit didn’t protest.

Cavalo listened but heard only the sounds of a snow-covered forest. He recognized the trees, though they were hidden.

“What is it?” he asked the dog quietly.

Don’t know. Smells. Haven’t smelled them before. Maybe….

Cavalo waited.

Maybe it’s nothing.

“You sure?”

The dog relaxed, but only just.
Think so.

A bird called out.

A clump of snow fell from the tree.

The sky overhead was still blue, but clouds were coming from the west, over the Deadlands. They were fat and gray. Angry. The storms were coming back, just as SIRS had said.

They needed to hurry.

Something prickled in Cavalo’s head. He couldn’t quite grasp it. Couldn’t place it. Unease, maybe. It felt… off.

“Let’s go,” Cavalo said. “Storm’s coming.”

And so they went. No words were spoken in this last half hour. Cavalo listened and watched Bad Dog. Lucas stared off into the trees. Bad Dog never lost the rigidness of his spine and shoulders. He was not distracted by little animals that scurried away from the ferocious hunters. His eyes darted back and forth.

Cavalo half expected the prison to be under attack when he arrived. To rise over that final hill and to see his home nothing more than a smoldering ruin, the grounds pitted and scarred from explosions.

But it still stood, as it had for the last hundred years. The shadows were growing longer as the clouds approached.

They reached the front gate, and Cavalo felt like he was being watched.

Lucas turned and followed his gaze.
You too?

“You feel that?”

Lucas nodded.
Something. Don’t know what.

“Yeah,” Cavalo muttered.

MasterBossLord!

Cavalo looked back over his shoulder. “What?”

The dog had his nose to the snow.
Here. Here. Here. Look. Down. Here. Here.

Cavalo saw them, then, in the snow. Leading up to the gate. There’d been no new snowfall overnight, so they hadn’t been covered. He didn’t know how long they’d been there. And worse of all, they didn’t come up what was left of the main road that led to the prison. No, they came out of the forest.

From the west.

A set of footprints. Out of the trees. Up to the gate. Through the gate, and into the prison.

Cavalo frowned. He could hear the hum of the electricity from the fence. Whoever this was had somehow worked around it, though Cavalo didn’t know how. The footprints stopped at the gated entrance in front of the speaker box and then continued into the grounds.

As if SIRS let them in
, the bees whispered.

“Hank?” he asked Bad Dog. “Alma?”

No. Not BigHank. Not AlmaLady. No one from the big town. Different. This is different.
Then, he did something Cavalo had never heard him do. He tilted his head back and howled. Cavalo felt his skin break out in gooseflesh. It carried across the snow and bounced off the buildings. It was a mournful sound, a lonely sound.

“Bad Dog,” he said.

Tin Man
, the dog panted.
Tin Man.
He started for the gate.

Cavalo moved without even thinking, grabbing the dog by the scruff of his neck, pulling him back before he could touch the fence. The dog whined in his grip, and Cavalo pulled him close, wrapping his arms around the dog’s chest. “You’ll get hurt,” he said harshly into the dog’s ear. “Stop! Listen to me!”

Tin Man! Tin Man.

“Bad Dog! Down!”

The dog struggled and did not listen. He was heavy. Cavalo was losing his grip.

Tin Man. Tin Man
, the dog said over and over.

Lucas appeared before them, putting himself between the dog and the fence. He reached down and grabbed Bad Dog’s snout, pulling the dog’s face up to his own. They were mere inches away, and Cavalo was about to tell Lucas to get back before Bad Dog snapped at him, when Bad Dog stilled. They stared at each other for a time, both breathing in and out. In and out.

Then Lucas arched an eyebrow and shook the dog’s muzzle gently.
What is it?
Lucas asked.

There’s someone in there
, Bad Dog said.
Someone came here and went inside.

Cavalo relayed this when Lucas glanced at him.

“Who?”
he asked Bad Dog.

The dog shuddered slightly.
He smells of burnt trees and death. He came from the dark across the line, and he’s in there with Tin Man. My friend.

Lucas turned and looked at the barracks. Cavalo could see the color drain from his face.

“What is it?” Cavalo asked.

He held up a hand to Cavalo, palm out.
Stay here. I’ll go
.

“Like hell.”

The Dead Rabbit’s eyes narrowed.
I am faster than you. I am stronger than you. My bees are louder.
He pulled his knife from his boot.

“This is
my
home,” Cavalo said.

Stay here.
He turned and started to walk toward the fence.

“You don’t know how to get in.”

He stopped.

“The fence is electrified. All the way around.”

The Dead Rabbit pointed at the speaker box without turning.

“You can’t speak.”

His hands curled into fists.

“You need me.”

Those words were out before Cavalo could stop them. They hung in the air between them, and Cavalo had time to remember the scrape of dry lips against his own.