Withered + Sere (Immemorial Year Book 1) (21 page)

Spit dribbled out of the Dead Rabbit’s mouth, which was twisted into a silent snarl. Hatred filled his eyes. He jerked against the bars. They didn’t move. He jerked again. Nothing. He let go with one hand and reached through the bars, his hand a claw, scrabbling into empty air. Cavalo had no doubt what Psycho would do to him if he was in reach. Those wild eyes blazed now, like so much fire. It didn’t matter if he understood. It didn’t matter if he asked questions about dogs and voices. He was a Dead Rabbit. They were cannibals. They were what was wrong with what was left of this dead world.

It briefly crossed Cavalo’s mind that Psycho had given the same look to Wilkinson. To Blond and Black. He pushed this away.

“There are people I… know,” Cavalo said. “People who have helped me. People who have cared for me. More than they probably should have. More than I deserved.”

The feral thing hissed out a breath between his teeth.

“There was a man. His name was Warren.”

A second arm shot out through the bars, reaching for him.

“He was my… I knew him.”

The bees laughed and laughed.

“It might have been different,” Cavalo said. “If I hadn’t seen Alma first.”

I can’t be your second choice
, Warren whispered in his head.
I won’t be anyone’s second choice. You can’t have it both ways, Cavalo.

“And now he’s gone. Because of people like you.”

The Dead Rabbit grunted. How his eyes mocked Cavalo.

“You’ve taken from me. You’ve taken everything.”

Daddy!

“SIRS.”

“Yes, Cavalo,” he said quietly.

“How quickly could you sedate this man?” His eyes never left the Dead Rabbit.

“Within minutes.”

“And we still have the sled from last winter?”

“Yes, Cavalo.”

“So, it would be very easy to transport him.”

“One would assume so. Maybe not in your current condition.”

“But soon.”

“Yes, Cavalo.”

“And the storms have to let up at some point.”

“It does seem inevitable. Storms aren’t made to last forever. At least not physical ones.”

“And I will heal.”

“Surely you won’t die.” The robot was amused.

The Dead Rabbit stopped his reaching. He gripped the bars again and cocked his head at Cavalo.

“Then we can send him back. To the other Dead Rabbits. To this Patrick. In the Deadlands.”

Psycho’s eyes narrowed.

“We could,” the robot agreed. “But it does beg the question.”

“Oh?”

“Why did you choose to save him in the first place if you’re just going to send him back?”

“The rubber bands,” Cavalo said.

“Yes?” SIRS said. He could hear unfettered interest in the robot’s voice.

“I felt them break a long time ago.”

“Ah. So the act of saving him was a compulsive one. One made not in your right mind.”

“Yes.”

“Insanity is such an insane thing, is it not?” SIRS asked.

Cavalo did not answer him. Instead, he said to the Dead Rabbit, “Once I can travel, I will send you back. It should be soon.”

The Dead Rabbit reached out again, this time pleading. Cavalo could still see the anger simmering under the surface. This begging felt like farce. A hand extended in supplication could easily become a weapon.

“Or I could just leave you here,” Cavalo said. “In the cell. I learned once a human can go seven weeks without food before starving. Ten days maybe without water. I have done worse. Toward the end you will know what true suffering is. Death will not come easy.”

“I shall never understand humans as long as I live,” the robot said cheerfully. “So many sides. Capable of such wonderfully harsh things.”

Bad Dog looked up at Cavalo morosely.
You don’t have to do this.

“I asked a question. It wasn’t answered,” he told the dog.

Smells Different.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Bad guy.

“Yes.”

Bad Dog looked doubtful.
Doesn’t smell like bad guy. Smells Different.

The Dead Rabbit glanced between them all, calculating. His hand was still outstretched.

A wave of exhaustion rolled over Cavalo, and his knees felt weak. He stumbled momentarily but caught himself before he could fall.

“That’s enough,” SIRS said. “It’s time to go back. This can wait.”

“You don’t feed him,” Cavalo said. “You don’t give him water. Nothing. Don’t you dare give him anything.”

The robot held Cavalo by the arm. “Are you sure?”

“He can suffer. Like everyone else has.”
Like I have
.

“That’s not like you.”

“You don’t know me,” Cavalo said. His words were slurred.

The room was starting to spin, and the bees were moving like a tornado. Once, while in the middle of a forgotten forest, he came across a traveling caravan. He had broken bread with the owners, and they’d sat around a fire. He’d seen a flash in the firelight of a bauble hanging from a bag on one of the oxen. When asked, the de facto leader of the caravan had unclipped it and handed it to Cavalo. It had been a heavy thing, with a chipped plastic base that said in scraped and faded words
FUN IN SUN Y ALA KA
. A glass ball sat atop the base. Inside, a white bear sat on a sheet of ice, his paw down a hole after a fish.
Shake it
, the man had said. Cavalo had, and white flakes sprang up, dancing and swirling, much to his unrestrained delight.
How much?
Cavalo had asked. They dickered back and forth, and Cavalo ended paying far more then he should have, but he was young then and foolish, and this shiny thing, this new thing had entranced him. He never saw that specific caravan again, but that wasn’t surprising. They moved all over, as did he.

It’d broken not long after, dashed upon the floor of that haunted military compound with voices that screamed about DEFCON 1, and the coyotes had chased him away. There had been no time to stop and pick up the pieces. He’d left it in that place, and for all he knew, it still sat there, shattered upon the floor.

He felt like that now. Like that swirl of snow. Like his head was filled with water and he’d been shaken until all had been stirred up because they were going to have
FUN IN SUN Y ALA KA
, even if they were at DEFCON 1. Everything felt soft and fluid.

“I did it,” he muttered. “I broke that snow globe even though I didn’t mean to.” He felt himself being tugged gently. He closed his eyes against the vertigo.

“Of course not,” SIRS said. “It was an accident. No one thinks you meant to.”

“Paid too much for it. Went hungry for a few nights.”

What’s wrong with him?
he heard another voice say.
MasterBossLord?

“Hungry is never good,” the robot said from far away.

“It broke because of the coyotes.”

“I know.”

“I found her, after. The snow globe broke because of the coyotes, and then I found her
.
She told me… she told me….”

“What did she tell you?”

You don’t scare me, you silly man. You may think you’re scary, and you may intimidate others. You may have seen things that I can’t possibly dream of, but you don’t scare me.

“She sounded wonderful.”

“Where is she?” Cavalo cried. “Tell me what you’ve done with her!”

“Sleep, Cavalo. You need to sleep.”

He tried to push through it. “Can’t. Don’t. Don’t let me go. Can’t miss days. Too long.”

When the reply came, it was from a long tunnel, and from there, Cavalo knew no more.

“Don’t worry,” it said. “I won’t let you go.”

HE WAS
awoken later when his name was called, though he couldn’t say how much time had passed. It was dark, except for a glow near the edge of the bed. It looked like one of the robot’s video screens.

“What is it?” he asked thickly.

The robot’s eyes glowed in the dark, a fierce orange. “Something you should see. There may be hope for your prisoner yet. He certainly has surprised me.”

He sat up as SIRS brought the screen closer. His eyes took a moment to focus. His breath caught in his throat when he realized what he was looking at.

The screen showed the cellblock. The Dead Rabbit stood in the middle of the cage. A few inches from one sleeve of the jumpsuit had been ripped off. The torn fabric was tied around his wrist. Blood curled down his fingers and fell to the floor. His eyes had been covered in a mask again, but it was red instead of black. He bared his teeth at the panel recording him, and Cavalo saw them covered in blood.

“He chewed through the skin of his wrist,” SIRS said almost conversationally, as if discussing the snow outside. “I thought to stop him but figured it’d be better to see what he was doing. It seems as if he wanted to answer your question. What an odd creature he is. Oh how I have missed these little quirks of humanity! The crazies! The mentally deranged! The dangerously unstable! How I missed them.” The robot laughed.

Words were smeared on the cement wall in blood that was still wet. The brushstrokes were shaky and childlike. Cavalo mouthed the words, and deep inside the bees, in the place where the tattered remains of his sanity rested, he felt another rubber band break, as neat as you please. He barely felt it go. He thought it easier now.

Lucas!
the bees howled.
I am Lucas!

The Dead Rabbit stared into the camera, and it crossed Cavalo’s mind that he knew Cavalo was watching. The
how
and
why
didn’t matter so much. Not now. Only that he knew. And for the first time in a very long time, Cavalo felt something spark in the wasteland of his soul. The deadlands of his mind. It was a small thing, a dim thing. But it was there, and there was nothing the man could do to stop it.

face to face

IN THOSE
moments between asleep and awake, the mind is a vulnerable thing, easily manipulated. Sanity can be slippery then, and what is seen and heard is not always what is real, no matter how
real
it feels. But when a mind is already on its way out, when it’s snapping and breaking and has been doing so for years, those moments are more dangerous.

Two days after the Dead Rabbit spelled his name in blood, Cavalo awoke in the middle of the night when his dead son called for him.

Part of him knew it wasn’t real. Part of him knew it was a cruel trick of his fractured mind, much like it had been in the stunted forest. That part of his was quashed by the other part, the one that pushed through the haze and thought,
He’s here. He’s really here.

Cavalo sat up in the bed. The barracks were dark. SIRS was gone. Bad Dog was gone. He could hear the wind outside, the storm overhead.

His eyes adjusted to the dark. He coughed.

Jamie laughed somewhere in the barracks. It sounded like it came from all around. “You’re so funny, Daddy,” he said, giggling. “I am Lucas.”

“Jamie?” Cavalo asked, his voice cracking.

This is a dream
, the bees said.

This isn’t a dream
, the bees said.

“Find me, Daddy!” Jamie cried. “Find me and Mr. Fluff!”

Cavalo put his feet on the cold floor. He rose from the bed. His back and ankles cracked. His chest pulled. He paid them little attention. They were secondary to the fact that he’d opened his eyes in the barracks only seconds before but somehow now stood in the middle of a stunted forest.

It was night. The stars overhead created constellations Cavalo had never seen before. The forest around him was alive with sounds: branches moving in the wind, the loud screech of birds, the shuffle of unknown animals through the underbrush. A low fog stirred at the man’s feet.

Dreaming
, he thought.
I’m dreaming.

Are you?
the bees asked.

“Catch me, Daddy!” Jamie called out from off in the trees.

I’m dreaming
, Cavalo thought again. But that did not stop him from following his dead son’s voice.

If it was a dream, it was the most vivid Cavalo had ever had. He found himself barefoot and could feel the forest floor against his feet. The leaves crunching underneath. Cold moss. Wet rocks. The beads of water on his toes from the fog. He could
smell
the wetness around him, a dank and dark thing that enveloped him.

He was vaguely aware of the noises behind him, as if something was following him. He thought he should be concerned at this but could not find reason to be. All that mattered was that he find Jamie, to tell him he was sorry, that he was so very sorry and that he would never allow anyone to hurt him again because Daddy would make it okay, Daddy was
here
.

He pushed through the trees.

“Daddy!” Jamie said. “Guess what I found?”

“What?” the man named Cavalo asked, searching the forest wildly. “What did you find?” His words sounded broken, but it mattered not.

“Guess!”

“I don’t know, Jamie.”

“What?”

“Come here. Come to me.”