Shot Down (4 page)

“Family is the most important thing!” the boy said.

“Mm-hmm. And Kyle, if you find yourself feeling sad about Maybelle and Maggie—”

“It's okay to feel sad, dear,” the woman added.

“—I want you to think about all the good hunts you had in those woods with them. All the fun. We have to focus on the good when life presents a challenge.”

Someone tapped their glass with a piece of silverware. The oldest man, the pop-pop, grunted in agreement.

“The people who...hurt the dogs are still out there,” the father continued. The Captain and I looked to each other. He tilted his head away from the house—
Let's go
—and I shook mine no.

“We have to be strong for the hunt,” the father said. “And why do we hunt?”

For a moment no one inside spoke.

“Kyle?” Carter asked.

“Because...um...it's our right, as those who survived!” the boy said. “Because it's something you earn, and, uh, the weak—the weak
get
hunted. So if you don't wanna be weak, you have to hunt.”

“Very good,” the father said. “The world is only fit for the strong now, Kyle. When I was your age, just nine or ten, your pop-pop said to me—Kyle, what do you have under the table?”

“Put that away, dear,” the mother said.

“I don't have anything,” the boy said quietly.

“Give it here, Kyle,” the father said. Something clunked onto the table and started to roll. “A tracker? Son, what did we say about this? You already lost one today—”

“But Dad, it's blinking really fast!” Kyle cried out. “I bet I can find the other one—it's close!”

“Blinking?” the father said.

“Blinking?” the mother repeated.

The old man grunted harshly.

I patted my back pocket, feeling for the black disc I'd picked up earlier. Its red dot was blinking faster too.

“That's not a compass,” the Captain mouthed.

We started off away from the house, running as fast as we could without making much noise. The sounds of the family scrambling away from the dinner table followed us from inside.

Nearer to the back fence I started a full sprint. Outside the family's front door, the young boy shouted, “There they are! There!”

I looked back for the Captain, who shuffled his feet a few steps behind me and cursed. When I turned back around, a black blur dashed across my path. A man on horseback—not one of the family. He pulled the horse to a halt in front of us, yelling for me and the Captain to stop right there. He held tight to a pair of reins in each hand—one for each of the horse's two heads. The animal stomped its front feet before me and the Captain, snorting fiercely from four nostrils.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I

stared up at the two-headed horse, not believing. The man behind the reins said nothing. His hair was black and cut close. I couldn't make out his eyes in the darkness.

“Hold them there, Dennis!” shouted the father, Carter. I turned my head slowly to see him walking toward the edge of the yard, his rifle pointed at me or the Captain.

“Hands up,” he said. “Don't move.”

“I won't say I told ya so,” murmured the Captain.

Kyle followed his father at a distance. The father kept his gun raised when he reached us. He looked up at the man on horseback.

“Thank you, Dennis. I think we'll be all right for the moment. Why don't you lead Roman back inside?”

The man on horseback, Dennis, nodded and then tapped the side of the horse with his boot. They took off around the edge of the house.

“You saw that, right?” the Captain whispered. “With the two heads?”

I gave a quick nod, trying to keep still for the man with the gun.

“We saw you earlier. You're responsible for the dogs,” the father said. “What are you doing here?”

When neither of us spoke, he moved the rifle closer to the Captain's face.

“Close range,” the man continued coolly. “Even with two of you, you try anything and you're likely to lose your head. Now—what are you doing here?”

“You, eh, shot us down,” the Captain said. “Remember?”

The man's expression broke for a moment, flushed with anger. “This is my home. This is still very upsetting.” He called to his son, keeping his stare on us. “Kyle! Come over here. Don't be afraid. I want you to reach into my back pocket—the ropes are there.”

The boy edged forward and took the ropes, then carefully tied my wrists and the Captain's. With the extra rope hanging off, he tied our separate bindings together.

“Come on,” the father said. “Slowly. We're going inside.”

• • •

The hallways within the house were long and wide, lit on both sides by rows of candles. The floors below our feet were smooth wood, with rugs spaced evenly along them.

The son walked several steps in front of us. His father walked behind, still armed but with the gun at his side. Kyle led us into the room where they'd been having dinner.

The boy's mother looked frightened when we entered, but she forced a smile. “My wife, Georgine,” the father told us. “Sit down.”

The Captain and I took the two extra chairs Georgine had set out, our bound hands in front of us.

“We'd like to offer you dessert,” the father said.

“The berries come from just outside,” said his wife, nervous, still smiling. She lifted the top from a small round jar in the corner.

“I bet that's real refreshing after a big plate of people,” snarled the Captain.

Georgine's face went sour, and she focused on the fruit, making a series of scoops onto shiny little plates.

“We only hunt,” Carter said, “for
sport
.”

A grunt trailed in from the hallway, followed by the squeak of wheels. The old man entered, the one we'd only heard before.

“We got 'em, Pop-Pop,” said the young boy, speaking softly, like it was a secret.

I stared around the room from end to end. The grandfather in the wheelchair glared back at me while he parked at the table. His head was shaped like a brick, a flat face and a stiff chin. A few strands of white hair floated on top his head.

The father's jaw was square like the old man's, but ripples of blond hair topped his head. The young boy's face was rounder, like he hadn't grown into his family bones. The skin on both of them was a painful pink from too much sun.

The mother had a thin face, long cheeks, and hair that was browner than the others'. A blue-and-white-dotted apron hung around her neck. She began to put plates of berries around the table.

The Captain twitched in his seat, trying with each hand to scratch an itch underneath the bonds wrapped around the other hand. He seemed nearly finished with caution.

Georgine began to set forks in front of me and the Captain, then shook her head and went back to a drawer against the wall.

“You do dessert with most people you've tied up an' sicced dogs on, or are we sumpthin' special?” the Captain asked.

Anger flashed on Carter's face again. “We're trying to let you spend tonight with your dignity preserved. As much as we can. Don't throw it away.”

“Sorry,” Georgine said, setting down spoons where the forks had been. “Noooo sharp objects.”

“Yep, this is real dignified,” said the Captain.

I squinted at Carter, trying to make out what he'd meant. He seemed to pick up on it. He walked over to the pop-pop and set a hand on the old man's shoulder.

“My father taught me that composure, a sense of honor, self-respect...these are things by which we distinguish ourselves. What separate us from our lessers.” He looked to Kyle, and the boy nodded in agreement.

“Those things, and power. The apocalypse, the Fall, the meltdown, the end of things...whatever you want to call what happened to this country. I've always believed it was an opportunity—the ultimate in social Darwinism. The chance for those of us who deserved it to really rise above. To continue what the end of things started—to claim our place in the world.”

He took a few steps closer to me and the Captain.

“Now, as I said, we do it honorably. That's what tomorrow's all about.”

The Captain turned his head toward mine. “I know yer not very worldly, Malik, so lemme translate: this is a crazy person.”

The man kicked over the Captain's chair, and the dessert plates rattled from the crash. Kyle and Georgine set down their silverware and stopped chewing until Carter nodded that it was all right. He took a seat himself.

“You'll spend tonight in the stables. Tomorrow morning at sunrise you'll have one hour to make your way from the house. Then we'll start the hunt.”

CHAPTER NINE

C

arter walked us to the stable at gunpoint. His son trailed behind him, wheeling the old man.

“Maybe you'll meet Dennis, if he hasn't gone to bed,” said Carter, sounding bored. “Later in the season we'll usually find some migrants to fish for us and mind the vegetable gardens, but Dennis stays here all year round, tending to the horses.”

“Five whole people. The rulers of practically nothing,” the Captain grumbled.

Kyle skipped ahead to open the stable's large wooden gate, then wheeled his pop-pop inside. The air in the place felt thick, and it smelled like hay and horse dumps. Four pens lined each side, but only three horses filled them. One was the two-headed thing we'd seen outside.

Carter led us to a pole in the center of the stable floor. It stretched up to the ceiling, touching the beams under the roof. A candle stuck out from a small ledge at about twice my height, the only light in the room. It made Carter's pink skin look pinker. He placed his gun in the lap of the old man.

“Kyle,” he said, turning to the boy. “You can help me right now by running around back and getting a stick or an old broom.”

The boy nodded and ran off. As he did, the man we'd seen on the horse—Dennis—entered the barn.

“Dennis! You'll have some charges for the night,” Carter called over to him.

The man set down what looked like bags of feed by the entrance. He spoke in a low voice as he approached us. “Down to the last sacks. You know if the traders are coming soon?”

“We can only hope,” Carter said.

When Kyle came back with a broom, his father snapped it in two under his foot. One piece longer than the other. After a few moments I understood why.

The old man held his rifle on the Captain as the father untied the Captain's wrists, then tied them back up behind the center pole. Each wrist was knotted to a different end of the piece of broomstick. Then they did they same for me, with the shorter part of the broken stick. The two of us sat bound to the same pole, but our hands were too far apart to untie one another's ropes.

My eyes met the old man's and he grinned, proud and yellow-toothed.

“If we get a trouble-free report from Dennis, we'll serve you some breakfast before we release you for the hunt,” the father said as he, the boy, and the old man left the stable.

“Ah, thanks!” shouted the Captain. “I'll have the Denver omelet!”

“I admire your spirit!” Carter replied from out in the yard.

• • •

Dennis the stable-keeper walked between the horses' pens, leaving food someplace behind each metal gate. The two-headed horse chomped away with both mouths.

“What—” I started, seeing if Dennis would turn around to me. “What is it?”

“A mutation,” he said slowly. He said everything slowly, low and flat. “That's what we think. It's more and more common, if you watch the fields, the woods. Don't know why. But this is the biggest animal we've seen to get so...different. Roman's special.”

I looked up at him, waiting for more, but he had finished. After feeding the last horse, Dennis pointed above our heads, to the stable's one candle. “On or off?” he asked.

“I was thinkin' about a little light reading...do you wanna consult the horses?” the Captain said.

Dennis frowned and started to climb the wide wooden slats that took him to a bunk or a cot.

The ground in the stable was damp. I could feel the wetness seep into my pants, and I wondered where my pack was. Everything the Captain and I had left was in the family's house. Spare clothes, our cooking pan, the Matterhorn survival guide.

I thought again about the Path of Action in a Crisis. Step One: Scope Out the Scene.

Dennis was asleep—maybe. Through the stable entrance I saw the sky was black. We'd have the cover of night, at least, if we got loose.

Step Two: Take a Personal Health Check.

I was sore, but they hadn't hurt me. The Captain breathed heavily—he'd never sounded so tired—but when I asked he said he felt okay.

Step Three: Inventory Your Remaining Resources

In a stable, in any place near a house that big, there had to be stuff we could use. I pulled against the piece of broom on the opposite side of the pole, the ropes tearing on my wrists. A drop of wax landed on my head.

Step Four: Make a Plan

I turned to the Captain and whispered, “I need you to hold still for a few breaths. Then, when I say so, you stand. I'm gonna sit on your shoulders.”

“What?”

Standing up on my side of the pole, I swung one leg toward the Captain's side and over his head, so I was stacked on top of him. Seated on his shoulders, I whispered for him to get up.

“Gonna blow my knees out,” the Captain murmured.

Once he was standing, I started to stand too, leaning against the pole for balance and keeping one foot on each side of the Captain's neck.

The Captain's breathing got faster underneath me, and through my feet I felt him shaking slightly. No sound came from Dennis's bunk. Looking over my shoulder, I tried to spot the candle behind my back. Carefully, I began moving my bound arms toward the ceiling, trying to put the piece of broom that bound them in the candle's flame or right above it.