Withered + Sere (Immemorial Year Book 1) (26 page)

“Do you know who I am?” the leader asked almost at the same time.

“No.” He could hear the men crunching through the snow slowly behind him. They’d been separated. Now he only had to deal with two. The odds were better now.

“My name is Thomas. I work for the United Federated States of America. I am here to help you. But to do so, you must help me.” He pulled his gun off his back.

“How?” Cavalo asked, wondering why a man asking for help felt the need to have a gun in his hands.

“What happened?”

“When?”

“In Cottonwood. To Wilkinson. Bernard. Simon. They were good men. Well, Bernard and Simon were. Wilkinson… let’s just say he and I didn’t see eye to eye.”

“They died,” Cavalo said.

“I know. We were in Grangeville when a caravan came through after having passed Cottonwood. Told us there’d been a bit of trouble. The merchants may have underplayed it a bit.”

“There was trouble,” Cavalo agreed.

“I know
that
,” Thomas spat at him, the façade breaking. He pointed the gun at Cavalo. “I’m aware of
that
. What I want to know is
how
.
How
was there trouble?
How
did they die? Was it the Dead Rabbit? Little Deke seemed so completely un
sure
about what he saw. Poor boy.” Thomas shook his head. “If I can’t get it out of you, I’m sure I can go back and get it from him.”

The bees screamed. Something must have crossed Cavalo’s face because the remaining man behind Thomas took a step to the side to get a better angle on Cavalo. Bad Dog growled again. Thomas glanced briefly down at him.

“The Dead Rabbit,” Cavalo said.

“Yes. The boy. The Dead Rabbit. Lucas.”

They know his name
, Cavalo thought, careful to keep it hidden from his face.

“He never told me. Couldn’t talk. Throat had been slit. He was damaged.”

“The two are near the cellblock back door,” SIRS said in his ear. “It’s about to get noisy in here. Six minutes. I’ll dispatch them as quietly as possible.”

Thomas’s eyes gleamed. “So, it’s true, then? Patrick did what they say he did? Jesus Christ. I knew he’d lost it, but that far?” He shook his head.

Cavalo’s stomach dropped. “Patrick?”

“He’s no concern of yours,” Thomas said. “Tell me the Dead Rabbit killed Wilkinson. The others. Tell me where he is. If you do that, we will leave you here.”

“You’re pointing a gun at my head. It’s hard to think.”

“Probably not a good idea to piss them off,” SIRS warned.

Thomas lowered the gun. “Nothing will happen to your friends. The town. In fact, I might even be able to get them additional rations. Medicine. Toys. They’d like that, don’t you think? For the kids?”

“Would this be before or after you’d burn it to the ground?” Cavalo asked.

Thomas chuckled but didn’t answer. He held his right hand back over his shoulder, palm up. The man behind him reached and pulled out his sidearm, placing the pistol in Thomas’s hand. Thomas took a step back. Held the gun out. Pointed it at Cavalo’s head.

“They’re at the door,” SIRS said.

“Where is Lucas?” Thomas asked slowly.

“Gone,” Cavalo admitted. Cavalo strained to hear anything approaching from behind or above. He heard nothing but the snow, the crunch of boots from the men near the cellblock. The low growl of Bad Dog. The hot breath pouring from mouths and turning to smoke. His own thudding heart.

“But he was here?”

Cavalo said nothing.

Thomas raised the gun again. “I’m done with this. Now.”

Cavalo slumped his shoulders. “Shelter,” he muttered.

Thomas glanced at the gunman behind him before looking back at Cavalo. “Shelter?”

“Cavalo,” SIRS said. “They’ve opened the door.”

“Fallout shelter.” He pointed out toward the forest, hidden in the dark and snow. “From Before.”

Thomas stared at him hard. Finally, “Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Why lie?”

“You’re pointing a gun at my head,” Cavalo said again.

“Donovan.”

“Yeah?” the man behind him spoke.

“Anything about a fallout shelter on the schematics you looked at?”

Shit.

“I don’t…,” SIRS said. He sounded perplexed. “I don’t hear them anymore. I can’t find them on the camera. What the…?”

“Maybe. Couldn’t say for sure. The data was corrupted. It’d make sense, Thomas. This is backwoods territory. I’ve seen places like this before. Everyone was scared of something Before. You saw the ones in Grangeville.”

“Yeah.” Thomas didn’t take his eyes from Cavalo.

I want to kill them
, Bad Dog said to him.
They lie.

Cavalo extended his fingers into the dog’s fur. Squeezed gently.

“Oh my God,” the robot breathed in his ear.

“You bullshitting me?” Thomas asked him.

“No.”

“Do you remember what I said about Cottonwood?”

“Yes.”
Kill you.

“About Alma?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Remember that.” He looked over Cavalo’s shoulder and raised his voice. “Carter! Jacobs!”

“Cavalo.”

They were out of time. “What?” he said through grounded teeth.
Fist to throat
, he thought.
Crouch down. Secondary target will fire into primary target. Wait till weapon discharge. Take pistol. Shoot secondary target. Turn. Take out remainders.

“I’ve found Lucas,” the robot said.

“Carter!” Thomas shouted. “Jacobs! Get your asses back here.”

The snow fell.

“This don’t feel right,” Donovan muttered.

Blood
, Bad Dog said, trying to keep his voice quiet.
MasterBossLord,
I smell
blood
. It’s in the air.

“Carter!”

Nothing.

“Jacobs!”

Nothing.

Thomas looked back at Cavalo. “Who else is here?” He pressed the gun against Cavalo’s forehead.

“It’s too late,” Cavalo said.

“What have you brought here?” SIRS whispered in his ear. “Cavalo, who is he?”

“For what?” Thomas asked, voice suspicious.

Cavalo never looked away. “For me. For this place. This world.” He pressed his forehead harder into the gun barrel. “For you. You should never have come here.”

Blood! I smell
BLOOD
!

“Yo, Carter!” Donovan shouted, stepping up to stand next to Thomas. “Jacobs!”

Nothing.

“You’re down to only two,” SIRS said in his ear.

Cavalo smiled, even though inside he felt nothing more than death.

“Kill this motherfucker,” Donovan snarled. He raised his rifle.

“No,” Thomas barked. “You know what the Forefathers said. The boy. Patrick. Those are the priorities. He’s our only link. He’s the only—”

A sound, from behind.

Donovan’s eyes widened. Thomas frowned.

Both took steps forward. They stood next to Cavalo. They took another step. Then stood behind him.

He turned.

Beyond the men, in the dark, in the falling snow, stood another. His head was bowed. His rifle was gone. He took a staggering step forward. Paused. Another step. Pause. His hands shook at his sides, one arm bent at an odd angle. There was a choking sound, wet and low. Another step. Fluid dripped from his fingertips onto the snow. It melted holes into the drift. Little red holes that smoked.

Another step.

The man looked up.

Jacobs.

His eyes were wide and shocked. His face was devoid of color. He opened his mouth to speak. A blood bubble burst from his lips, coating his chin. He took another faltering step.

“Jacobs?” Thomas asked.

“Guh,” Jacobs said. “Guh. Guh.
Guh
.
Guh
!”

He fell to his knees. The snow piled up around his lap. It only took a moment to stain red.

“Oh Jesus fuck,” Donovan moaned. “What the fuck is this?”

“He’s here,” Thomas said, looking up into the night as if something could fall onto them from the dark above. “Lucas.”

Jacobs fell forward. A broken shard of wood stuck out from the back of his neck. It looked as if it was buried deep into his spine.

The barracks
, Cavalo thought.
I’ve seen that wood. It sits in a pile behind the barracks. Firewood. That’s firewood.

Donovan rushed forward.

Thomas did not.

Bad Dog snarled.
Blood. There is blood. I smell blood. I want blood.

“No,” Cavalo said quietly. “Not yet.”

Soon.

“Five minutes,” SIRS said.

Donovan knelt down beside Jacobs. He pulled the glove off his right hand with his teeth. Reached down to Jacobs. A moment later: “He’s dead.”

Thomas turned back to Cavalo. Raised the gun. “You have no idea,” he said, “what it is you have here. He is not what you think.”

Donovan stood and turned, pointing his rifle toward the cellblock. “Carter!”

Nothing.

“Carter, answer me goddammit!”

“He’s gone,” Thomas said. He didn’t look away from Cavalo. “Probably before Jacobs. Keep quiet unless you want to tell the Dead Rabbit exactly where you are.”

Donovan’s rifle jerked right. Then left. Up. Left. He stood slowly. “We don’t know Carter’s dead,” he said, voice strained. “He could still be in there.”

“Donovan—”

We shouldn’t have come here,” he snapped. “I told you this was a bad idea. I
told
you.” He took a step toward the cellblock. Called Carter’s name again.

Thomas ignored him. “How many are you?” he asked Cavalo instead.

Cavalo cocked his head. “Does it matter now?”

The gun in Thomas’s hand did not shake. “Yes. It matters.”

“Enough. More than you now.”

“You have no weapon.”

“I haven’t since I got out here. Yet two of your men are still dead.” Cavalo let his eyes flicker over Thomas’s shoulder. “Three, in a moment.”

“I can shoot you,” Thomas said. His voice was rough. Cavalo thought he was afraid, maybe for the first time in his life. “It would be so very easy.”

“I’d advise against antagonizing him,” SIRS said, sounding exasperated.

“Then do it,” Cavalo said to Thomas.

“You bloody idiot.” SIRS sighed.

Cavalo saw Thomas tighten his finger on the trigger. Not enough, but close.

“Carter!” Donovan bawled, stepping up next to the cellblock. “Fall back!”

“By order of the United Federated States of America,” Thomas said, “I order you to call him off. Get your people out here. We will take what we need, and we will leave.”

“Carter!”

Bad Dog lifted his head back and howled.

Cavalo thought he saw movement on the roof of the cellblock but couldn’t be sure.

The snow fell around them like they were trapped in a snow globe.

DEFCON 1
, Cavalo thought.
We’re at DEFCON 1.

“The United Federated States of America?” he asked. His eyes narrowed as he took a step forward. “You have no authority here. You have no jurisdiction here. You are in the wilds now. You are on the edge of the Deadlands. You know nothing of this place. You don’t order me. Not here. Not in my home.”

“Carter?” Donovan asked, flicking his gun up toward the sky. “That you?”

“Do you know what will happen to you?” Thomas asked quietly. “You kill us, that’s four. And Wilkinson and his men. That’s seven. You are responsible for the death of seven government men. How do you think that could possibly end for you? For Grangeville? Cottonwood? It may take time. It may be months. It may take years. You’ll think you’ll live your life out here, and maybe you will. Alone. In this broken place. But one day they will come, and they will want answers. They will demand you comply, and unless you want death, you will. Man was not meant to be spread. Man was meant to have rules set in place to govern them. To live by them. That is what the Forefathers will bring. It has already started.”

“Three minutes,” SIRS said. “Though, I don’t know it matters anymore. I can hear him now. On the roof.”

“Why do you want him?” Cavalo asked, no longer concerned with the gun pointed at his head. Either he’d be shot or he wouldn’t. It was that simple. “Wilkinson said almost the same thing. Why him?”

“Lucas.”

“Yes.”

“Because he leads to Patrick.”

Cavalo tried to school his face, but failed.

“Ah,” Thomas said, his upper lip curling. “You know that name.”

“Why Patrick?”

“Because of what he used to be. Because of what he is now. Because of what he could mean in the future. Whoever controls the beast controls the world.” Thomas smiled darkly. “Enough questions. Call him out. Now.”

“Carter?” Donovan called, his voice shaking. He took a step toward the side of the building.

“Cavalo,” SIRS said.

“What?” Cavalo asked.

“Now. It will happen now.”

And it did. Even though it was only a second, it felt longer. Cavalo knew there was a choice to be made, a decision to be had that would change the way his life was lived, what there was left of it. He was alive, but only just. He was human, but only just. He was sane, but so close to the edge he could feel it under his feet. Could feel the empty space of unreality in front of him. If he fell, there would be bees. And rubber bands. They would catch him, then they would break and he could swim and float in the dark and never again have a care in all the world.

But.

In his mind’s eye, he saw a boy. This boy grew into a young man. This young man grew into a monster. An angel. A demon. The sweetest smile. The darkest snarl. He spoke, a gravelly sound that thrummed in Cavalo’s chest. He said things like “I have killed” and “I am lost.”

And this boy, this man, this fucking psycho and clever cannibal had a mask of smeared black around his eyes.

It was another door, Cavalo knew. In that split second, that momentary pause in the world where the snow shook inside the snow globe, Cavalo realized it was another door.

He stepped into that unreal black space.

He stepped through that second door.

And in the prison yard, in that space between the barracks where murderers and rapists and pedophiles had all walked and lived and breathed and died, the lights flashed on, bright and harsh.