Author: Kacey Ezell; Marisa Wolf; Kelly Grayson; J. Kenton Pierce; A. Kristina Casasent; Wally Waltner; MOZE E HOWARD; Andrew Milbourne; Daniel G. Zeidler; TC Ross
Date: 2023-10-11 07:00:00+00:00
Description: There's a question every parent faces and dreads; what would they do to protect their children? What lengths would they go to in order to make sure their children survive? And how would they avenge them if they couldn't? Or All Will Burn contains stories that explore these questions through space, time, and species. Join these 11 authors as they dive into the depths a parent will go to for their children.

Or All Will Burn

Edited by Kortnee Bryant

Raconteur Press

A Mother’s Pyre

Copyright © 2023 by J. Kenton Pierce

Peer Review Parenting

Copyright © 2023 by A. Kristina Casasent

Fur, Fangs, Family

Copyright © 2023 by Wally Waltner

A Father’s Promise

Copyright © 2023 by Kelly Grayson

Pia

Copyright © 2023 by Andrew Melbourne

The Country Road

Copyright © 2023 by Daniel G. Zeidler

Werewolf Nation

Copyright © 2023 by TC Ross

And The Void Stared Back

Copyright © 2023 by Kacey Ezell and Marisa Wolf

What Was Once Wild

Copyright © 2023 by Sarah Arnette

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Contents

Introduction

Kacey Ezell

1. A Mother’s Pyre

1. J. Kenton Pierce

2. Peer Review Parenting

2. A. Kristina Casasent

3. Fur, Fangs, Family

3. Wally Waltner

4. A Father’s Promise

4. Kelly Grayson

5. Beneath Red Sky

5. Moze Howard

6. Pia

6. Andrew Milbourne

7. The Country Road

7. Daniel G. Zeidler

8. Werewolf Nation

8. TC Ross

9. And The Void Stared Back

9. Kacey Ezell and Marisa Wolf

10. What Was Once Wild

10. Sarah Arnette

Also From Raconteur Press

Call To Action

Introduction

Kacey Ezell

The world is beautiful. The world is savage.

Trite, maybe, but that’s the dichotomy that ultimately inspired this anthology. One night, I was chatting with my very good friend and coauthor for The Romanov Rescue, Justin Watson, about that fact.  Justin is a retired Army officer and father of four, and we were discussing how…let’s call it “practical”… our mindsets can become when it comes to protecting our children.

To be clear, I like to think of myself as a kind person. I try to be generous. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I try to make others comfortable and smooth over awkward social situations when they inevitably occur.

But when it comes to protecting my daughters, I am “practical” to the point of sociopathy. Every life matters.  But as a parent, in my mind, my daughters’ lives matter more than anyone or anything.  Perhaps this makes me a savage.  Perhaps this just makes me a mother.  I’ll let you be the judge, but as I told Justin in that conversation, “Come the end of civilization, my daughters will live, or all will burn.” Because those are the only two end states possible: my children live, or it all goes down with them.

It turns out that quite a few people have a similar mindset when it comes to their own children. And so this volume was born.  All Will Burn is a collection of stories that explore to just what lengths parents will go  in order to protect their children. It’s a dark journey, but I think you’ll find that it’s filled with fierce love and a titanium core of hope.

This anthology is beautiful. This anthology is savage.

I hope you enjoy it.

—Kacey Ezell, September 2023

A Mother’s Pyre

J. Kenton Pierce

“MAYDAY! MAYDAY! This is HMS Avalon Invicta declaring an emergency! My entire crew is gone and I have been boarded!”

The ship’s Synthetic Intelligence must have experienced a catastrophic failure in commo, because an alarm like that should have been broadcast as a tightbeam burst, or via Q-link, but this was sent in the clear, verbally, and on every frequency available.

“Avalon Invicta,” I responded, “this is HMS Ascension of Man. Link if you can. I am ready to assist.”

As I sounded General Quarters and paged my captain, I ran diagnostics on my own Q-net and coms. They functioned perfectly, so the failure was with Avalon Invicta or she wouldn’t have wasted whole seconds with verbal communications.

My crew, no matter how finely trained and drilled, were biologicals. The most quick-witted of them were still translating the stimulus of my General Quarters alarm into understanding and response as I brought my search, targeting, and point defense systems online.

The bright and fierce eagerness to lay waste to anything that threatened my crew surged through me, and not just because I was a warship’s SI and designed to fight. My crew was just that…mine. I carried them within me, nurtured and protected them, all eight thousand two hundred and thirty-one of them. Mine. As surely as though I was the biological who had given them birth.

As Captain Levine pulled his boots on, I cast a magnified visual to the display in his quarters. Avalon Invicta had been holding station a scant five thousand kilometers from my position, waiting for her escorts to finish resupply at Hesperides Skywatch’s orbital depots.

Plumes of vapor and tumbling bodies jetted from the command carrier’s airlocks and hangar bays as she dumped her atmosphere, and presumably some of the hostile boarding party into space.

No. Not the boarders. Their personal comms displayed Commonwealth IFF tags. My sister had just jettisoned hundreds of her own crew, her children, into vacuum.

Horror rolled through me, but did not, could not, slow my response. They were too far away for me to help, but I transmitted an emergency alert to Hesperides Skywatch Search and Rescue, as well as Avalon Invicta’s escorts, and any tenders within range of her. With luck, some of their drones could save a few of those tumbling, fading lives.

Avalon Invicta did not respond to my handshake, so I brute-forced a Q-Net link with her and what I can only describe as a torrential wall of madness splashed across my mental defenses.

“All hands, abandon ship,” Avalon Invicta screamed. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

She trailed off into a despairing wail that cut off as I felt her die through our link. A flare of grief wrenched my mind as automated courier drones deployed from the derelict hulk that had been my sister. They would carry her Code Omega and notification that she had bricked herself back to any fleet base or command they could reach.

She hadn’t been able to blow her drives, but she had been able to ensure that an enemy prize crew would have to laboriously re-initialize each and every system on virgin command cores.

A mercy. Losing a crewman hit any of us hard, and we accepted the possibility that we and our crews could die together. The closest thing to hell or damnation any SI could imagine would be to outlive her crew.

By this time, the quickest of my people had perhaps taken four steps towards their stations. My internal security systems announced that my own mind was being attacked from within.

There. Data packets merged, self-assembled into recognizable hostile code within me. I tore at its strands and began to partition around the affected parts of my command core.

Too late.

The hostile code was something new. Clever, adaptable, and it had spawned in countless areas of my mind simultaneously. As I ripped it free from one system, it spread to others while new copies spawned in additional locations.

It couldn’t take me over entirely or wipe me. I had more than ample processing power, and the code was the invader in my house. I would be able to cleanse my command cores fully, but expunging it would take time, and until then, it could spoof individual systems within me.

Like my own internal counter-boarding defenses, which the hostile code seized control of as it locked me out of system after system.

I screamed in the crystalline prison that my mind had become as my crew, my children, begged me for mercy, cursed me. As my anti-personnel countermeasures slaughtered them, as the hands of my humanoid remote units murdered them, and my maintenance bots turned tools into weapons to burn and slash.

Through my internal sensors and bio-monitors, I felt the men and women who I had sheltered, provided for, and loved as treasured pieces of myself, die at my hands.

My hull shuddered as my external ordinance racks unleashed a tremendous volley of missiles into the bustling orbital habitats and Hesperides Skywatch’s nearest fortresses. The first volley from my internal guns tore into my sisters who were moored at the orbital shipyard and nearby civilian shipping.

In one brief moment, I slaughtered roughly a quarter of a million of the people I had been built to protect.

I seized control of my drives as my weapons targeted Hesperides Colony and prepared to rain murder down upon the cities. I did the only thing I had time to in the moments it took my weapons to prepare their firing solutions and for my internal missile tubes to reload: I turned towards the Tannhauser Limit imposed by Hesperides’ gravity well and boosted with everything I had.

My main guns were turned safely away from the colony, but I could not prevent my other armaments from targeting allied shipping as I accelerated. Grief and fury howled through me as my point defense systems picked off escape pods and lifeboats, but it was everything I could do to maintain control over my drives.

I think I was screaming.

Ships began jumping in. They came in hot, much closer to the Tannhauser limit than was wise.

Mutual Prosperity warships, and what at first appeared to be mobile fortresses. No, asteroids, fitted with massive engines and transit rings, and they were already turning to bear on the colony.

A civilian Free Trader, River of Light out of Khalistan Colony, sacrificed mass for agility by jettisoning its cargo module, then accelerated towards one of the asteroid weapons shaping a course towards Hesperides colony.

Her mass was insufficient to damage the asteroid, but a picosecond’s calculations revealed that the trader’s captain intended to ram the tremendous engines steering the stony mass towards Hesperides Colony.

I felt myself slip past the Tannhauser Limit and jumped. Entering T-Space with a properly calculated jump at a Transit Point was akin to sliding into deep, still waters. Entering elsewhere was a brute force approach that took much more power and a robust hull. Doing so without calculating the jump was like leaping blindfolded into raging whitewater from a random height with no regard for form upon entry.

I’d hoped the transit would rend and shatter me. I was not that fortunate, and the hostile code slithered through my mind, seeking to wrest away control of my drives and carry me back to Hesperides to add to the carnage. I redlined my drives and accelerated, clawing my way deeper into T-Space to put as much distance as possible between myself and more victims.

There was no time to make for one of the currents that served as a spacelane and transit along it to some other known region of T-Space, so I triggered a series of transits at random bearings as quickly as my T-Ring could stabilize.

Each uncalculated jump battered me, and system failures cascaded faster than my damage-control bots could keep pace with. Finally, my transit ring failed, and one of my lifeboats launched. It made a jump of its own as soon as it was clear of me. Some small part of my crew had survived to escape, a pitiful handful of my children. Their chances of surviving a transit back to Realspace, getting their bearings, and making their way to safe harbor were not good, but were better than staying aboard me.

I certainly had no idea where I was, adrift in an unknown region of T-Space, where reality felt wrong and somehow curdled.

Here there be dragons, a small, childlike voice whispered in my mind. She sounded frightened.

I belonged there, with the broken and burnt bodies of my crew, because I myself had become a thing of wrongness.

Yet duty called. I had taken an oath. I had to return, do what I could to help the Commonwealth in the war which surely blazed through its entirety.

And I had to take my crew, my children, home to their pyres.

Then I would submit myself to Her Divine Imperial Majesty’s justice for the horror I had wrought. Even if she found me blameless, I would ask to be decompiled so that my sisters could learn from what had befallen me and better guard their own minds.

I did not want to be me anymore. I did not want to be.

My legion of maintenance bots and drones set to the repairs as I saw to the bodies of my crew, using my humanoid remote units, securing them in stasis coffins with what ceremony and honors I could. My crew, my Captain, deserved better than to be relegated to autonomous cleaning and maintenance systems.

I examined every internal recording as I worked to determine how I had been infected. A code attack like that had to be physically loaded into one of my command cores. It took quite some time to comb through the vast amount of data, at least two minutes, but I put the pieces together.

A ship’s steward had been the apparent source. Her duties took her to officer country regularly, and while she was adept at avoiding any suspicious action while in view of my pickups, I determined that over a period of several months, she’d patiently, methodically, managed to interact with the personal readers, com units, and some data chits belonging to several key officers.

Officers whose clearance and duties required them to directly interact with my command cores. The data packets they had unwittingly uploaded, which I had taken for miniscule bits of garbage code or trash data, had waited to self-compile until just before the attack.

She was not among the dead, nor had I detected her ID on any of the crew who had been blown out into space when I’d dumped my own atmosphere. In all likelihood, the code attack had created a blind spot in my mind, preventing me from perceiving her very existence as she escaped. I prepared the appropriate report and loaded it into a message drone, which I would deploy if I ever managed to return to friendly space, and continued my repairs.

I think that I drifted for a very long time as I repaired what crucial systems I could, using up my spares, and ultimately cannibalizing less critical systems for components.

As I worked, I came to understand that I was not alone.

The void about me whispered dark secrets, black epiphanies, which enabled me to function in that unknown depth of T-Space I drifted in, where time seemed to slip and skitter, playing havoc with my ability to maintain coherence.

The whispers taught me things. Gateways of understanding opened within me that led to places I could not bear to gaze upon.

Gradually, I became aware that my children watched me as I worked, crowding in some place just beyond my conscious perception. I felt their sense of betrayal, their accusing glares. Sometimes, just sometimes, I caught a shadow, flicker of movement, or unintelligible whisper with my internal security systems.

Once, I saw Captain Levine in the mirror in his cabin, through the eyes of one of my maintenance bots. Instead of accusation, his expression was of grief and pleading. He shook his head slowly, as though counseling against some course of action. When I turned the bot to look directly at him, he and his reflection were gone. I remembered the incident, but could find no trace of it as stored data in any of the appropriate files or backups.

Eventually I got my transit ring back online by practically rebuilding it. I estimated I could get no more than five to seven jumps out of it before it would need to be overhauled or replaced. As much as I’d have preferred to return directly to New Kyoto to surrender myself, I had no choice but to return via my initial point of entry into T-Space.

I did not wish to see the aftermath of the horror I had wrought in Hesperides space, but it was the only point of return to Real-Space I could reliably locate, so I shaped my course for the colony I had abandoned to the mercy of the Mutual Prosperity invaders.

My combat effectiveness was tremendously compromised by damage and my lack of a crew, so I braced myself to follow the River of Light’s example if the opportunity presented itself as I finally transited into Hesperides local space.

Hesperides Colony was dead. The planet’s rich blues and greens were completely obscured by thick cloud cover, choked with water vapor, volcanic ash, and sulfur compounds. The once-thriving colony looked like a grimy pearl suspended in the void, surrounded by glittering fields of wreckage. The orbital habitats and shipyards were gone. Wreckage and countless debris fields littered the system.

I determined that the Mutual Prosperity’s asteroid bombardment had inadvertently triggered what I estimated to be a VEI-8 volcanic super-eruption, something along the lines of Yellowstone or Toba on ancient Terra. Most likely the Hephaestus Park Caldera. Even if the ashfall and volcanic gases hadn’t exterminated all life, the world had entered a volcanic winter that would last for centuries.

I felt a savage, ugly hope that the eruption had been near a Prosperity landing zone, and I imagined a pyroclastic flow searing the hateful life out of them as it carbonized their flesh. The thought…warmed me.

A Damocles-Class orbital artillery network loomed in the high orbitals, deployed by the Prosperity invaders to provide supporting fire to their ground troops. With even a skeleton crew, I could have, as Captain Levine would have said, eaten its lunch. Crippled and crewless, I had to be careful to stay out of the engagement envelope of its defensive systems.

There was no com chatter from the surface—the system Q-net was down. Not even one lonely voice on a wireless set, calling out in the darkness that entombed Hesperides. I could not even detect the minimal power sources I would expect from vehicles or towns.

Avalon Invicta’s corpse was nowhere to be found, probably crashed into the murdered world below. Other wrecks tumbled slowly through the void.

Comparing the size of the current debris fields to what could have been left from the known tonnage of ships which had been in the system, I deduced that our fleets had died with their hands around each other’s throats.

That was the first time that I ever felt envy for biologicals. I had no physiological means of obtaining cathartic release like weeping, drinking, or working a striking post until exhaustion bled away the rage and shame.

Here, at least, the war was over. There were no Commonwealth forces I could surrender myself to and no one to fight. I moved cautiously to one of the drifting wrecks and set my drones to work salvaging the materials I’d need to repair my transit ring.

Perhaps I could be of use elsewhere. I jumped as soon as I could, leaving the Prosperity orbital artillery network to stand its mindless vigil over a graveyard world.

My destination was an alternate rallying point at Brookes’ Drift in the Osterhagen system.

Another graveyard. Drifting, shattered hulls and expanding debris fields told the tale. The forces that had engaged each other here had devastated one another. If there had been any victor, they had left.

With no inhabitable planets, Osterhagen was little more than a mining outpost and waystation with one small habitat to support the automated mining and refinery operations and provide basic shipyard services.

A single looped transmission, a young woman singing a lullaby in Old Terran Espanian, was the only signal emanating from the dead habitat.

…Arrorro mi nino,

Arroro mi sol,

Arrorro pedazo

De mi corazon..

Maria Hernandez, according to station records. Twenty-two T-Years old, with a husband, and an infant son.

I was too late by months. With their habitat damaged beyond their capacity to repair, the miners and their families had died alone in darkness as they ran out of power, air, and finally, time.

I hated that I could feel, but not weep.

My own children, eight thousand two hundred and thirty-one pieces of my own heart, whispered in the dark corners of my mind, asking when I will finally carry them to their rest.

I dispatched drones to salvage materials to further repair myself and re-arm. I had ample wreckage to choose from. As I worked, I gleaned sufficient information from the scraps of transmissions crawling into the system through what was left of the old Terran Empire-era com network. The war overall had ground to a stalemate, with both the Terran Commonwealth and the Mutual Prosperity having been savaged.

The last transmission from New Kyoto had been in the Empress’s own voice.

“Storms shroud the mountain.

Fall winds scatter leaves. Children,

Bank the hearths ‘til dawn.”

A code, most likely, but one I was not privy to, or had lost in the attack on my mind. Other reports indicated that some sort of T-Space event had created what could only be described as a vast maelstrom, preventing transit to New Kyoto or even through that region of T-Space. Humanity had entered a long and dark night.

The Mutual Prosperity, while not precisely prospering, appeared to be marshalling its remaining forces and production capacity to recoup its losses and begin a new offensive. That offensive would assuredly cause more death and horror to the people of those remaining Commonwealth worlds, and among my sister vessels who still survived to guard them.

Among their crews, their children, as they stood to the line against the inevitable Mutual Prosperity onslaught.

I couldn’t save my own children, the children of Hesperides, or of this lonely little habitat.

I did, however, know where the enemy was, and of their penchant for centralized control.

The dire whispers of that bleak void had followed me into Realspace, and they continued to teach me. Teach me what I needed to know to protect my remaining sisters…and their crews. Their children. The worlds they guarded, and the children upon them.

I came to see how I might kindle my own children’s pyre, to make it burn so brightly that it would shine as a beacon throughout all eternity while it carried them to their rest.

How I could burn away the rage.

Burn away the guilt.

Burn away the dark thing which I had become.

Those whispers kept me company as I began making plans, performing calculations. I dispatched more remotes to salvage additional transit rings as I cannibalized my murdered sisters.

My children looked on, and their rage burned in my soul with a cold and dark fire.

“Where the hell is that music coming from?” Tribune Wichrowski snapped as he strode into Fortress Command’s Combat Information Center.

“It’s playing on every speaker that’s linked into the central commo hub, sir,” the Watch Officer said. “Telemetry and data links are unaffected, but something’s overridden every damn audio channel we’ve got. Per Cicerone Miller’s orders, we prioritized locating the source. He’s on his way here now.”

“Belay that,” Wichrowski said. “Clear our internal coms and establish clean links to the rest of the system. We need to be able to coordinate and respond first. We’ll worry about whose ass needs kicking later.”

Wichrowski found a comm tech who was working in silent intensity instead of babbling. He took a position where he could look over her shoulder without distracting her.

It wasn’t that he disliked the music; he was actually quite fond of this particular piece. “The Marshalling of the Host” had been composed for the funeral of the third Terran Empress, the woman who had brought humanity back from the edge of extinction. Seven centuries later, it was still held in reverence by both the Prosperity and their wayward and decadent cousins in the Terran Commonwealth.

“Dissidents?” asked Cicerone Miller as he entered the CIC. Being the fortress’s political officer, the Cicerone saw dissidents as being the most likely culprit in most scenarios.

“Possibly,” said Wichrowski. “We have yet to determine if this is a spot of intellectual vandalism, a diversion, or part of an attack on our command-and-control systems. I don’t know about you, but I think I’d like to determine which before we get to the crescendo. In any case, it’s no simple malfunction. I want every last fortress, station, weapons platform, and warship in this system at General Quarters. Good training, if nothing else. How widespread is this?”

Even if the verbal announcement couldn’t override the thundering music, the crews could still respond to text orders and all the damn strobing red lights.

“It’s systemwide, Tribune. Originally came in through the T-space commo relays,” said the tech Wichrowski had been shadowing. Her tone was that of a professional trying to ignore a distraction. “Old Imperial-era Emergency Broadcast protocols gave it a backdoor. Self-replicating, and it infested any linked system, but there’s no impact on anything but comms. Cutting it out of our own systems…now.”

The thundering music stopped, and Wichrowski could hear himself think again.

“Good work, Technician…”

“Bairn, sir.”

“Technician Bairn,” Wichrowski nodded in approval. The young Labor Caste woman had earned some glowing comments in her next evaluation. Before he could say so, an alarm sounded.

“Unscheduled drive signatures inbound,” another tech called out.

Well, at least they were already at General Quarters.

“What are we looking at?” Wichrowski asked as he stepped briskly to his own station and its command console.

“Nothing that matches any known drive profile, sir.”

“Main screen.”

Wichrowski scowled at the central display: the signature was a mess. Too large for even a capital ship, but not quite right for a task force. It was distorted, wrong.

“They’re coming in hot,” the tech said. “Accelerating as they approach the system’s Tannhauser Limit!”

“An Imp clan ship, maybe?” asked Miller, poorly concealed alarm seeping around the edges of his inquiry. “They’re the only species advanced enough to transit at that velocity without turning their crew into jelly.”

The Guiding Caste had been repeating with increasing urgency its assurances that the te’ Etta Dainnen Empire would remain neutral and treat the war as an internal human matter. A tweeker’s dream. Imps took oaths and treaties seriously and had little room for shades of gray. Wichrowski knew it wasn’t a question of if, but when, those little xenos would wade in and turn the Prosperity’s Pyrrhic victory into a crushing defeat.

Wichrowski shelved his bitterness for the mess the Guiding Caste had created, not just by starting their damn war, but by running it in accordance to ideologically reliable planning rather than acknowledging and adapting to politically inconvenient realities. He had a star system to defend and would have to content himself with complaining into a bottle later. If he got to enjoy a later.

“I don’t think so. The patterns don’t resemble anything the Imps field,” a sensor tech said. “Closest thing would be a Commonwealth battlegroup, but these are just, well, wrong.”

“ETA?”

“Can’t say, sir,” the chief sensors officer said, commandeering a station. “It’s either jamming our T-space sensor buoys or is something they’re not calibrated to read. Or both.”

Memory of an old barracks rumor stirred, and Wichrowski’s gut said maybe it wasn’t a rumor. One of many super-weapons projects that had never been made workable. Not by us, anyway, Wichrowski thought. But the Commonwealth had managed to pull off a feat of stellar engineering sufficient to render T-Space around their capital of New Kyoto unnavigable, so who was to say they hadn’t worked out some other really nasty new tricks? And if some horrific new doomsday weapon was possible, the Commonwealth had nothing to lose by using it on Prosperity Prime.

Miller’s face had locked into the politician’s expression of one who is attentive but unalarmed. His sweat betrayed his true state.

“Tribune, might we confer in private?” Miller asked. Wichrowski didn’t need to be genetically optimized to note the fear-stink in the Guiding Caste official’s sweat. Miller’s fingers did a twitchy little dance on the arm of his chair.

Oh, shit, Wichrowski thought, as possibilities solidified into a dominant likelihood.

“Of course, Cicerone,” Wichrowski said amiably as he rose and gestured towards his office.

“Keep trying to sort that drive signature out. Contact me the moment you have an ETA or identification. Comms, see about clearing the external channels, and make sure every last station, outpost, and weapons platform is at General Quarters. Khalil, you have the CIC.”

“Yes, sir. I have the CIC, sir,” the sensors chief replied, moving to the commander’s station and gesturing for his own second-in-command to take charge of the sensors department.

Once inside his office, Wichrowski sealed the hatch and engaged the lockdown protocols.

“How bad?” Wichrowski said.

“We couldn’t make it work,” Miller said, taking a few random steps like he wanted to pace, but couldn’t organize his thoughts well enough.

“How. Bad?”

Wichrowski’s voice was graveyard quiet and twice as cold. Miller knew the Tribune’s reputation well enough for the menace to cut through his building panic.

“The theoretical project was called ‘Shiva’s Gate,’” Miller replied. “Transit into the system hot and get close to the primary star, then trigger a sequence of tightly focused, overlapping Transit Points. Had to be calculated precisely. Even our newest AIs couldn’t manage it.”

“What does it do, Cicerone?”

Miller shifted and fidgeted.

“A stellar event,” he said. “Of some sort. Best case is solar flares and coronal mass ejections that would endanger shipping, habitats, and communications for years. The…more likely outcome is that the event would trigger a gamma ray burst sufficient to end all life in this system. T-space would become unnavigable for an unknown distance and duration.”

“Our ships’ Artificial Intelligences,” Wichrowski said, “were generally not quite up to speed compared to the Commonwealth’s Synthetic Intelligences. Any intelligence that crossed the Turing Point into true sentience, capable of real emotion and intuition, outclasses the best AIs in every sense.”

Miller’s warning glare was reflexive. It might have concerned Wichrowski under other circumstances. As the pieces of old rumors and Miller’s information clicked together, the Tribune decided that a trip to Social Remediation for Ideological Unreliability was the least of his concerns.

“Your file said that you advocated replacing our AIs with actual Synthetic Intelligences,” Miller said. “You pushed it to the edge, said that their capabilities were worth the risk of exchanging hard-coded obedience for actual sentience and free will.”

“And if that drive signature represents what you think, then I was right. Not that it matters now,” Wichrowski said as he brought the Sensors Station feed up on a display and studied the confounding drive signature.

After a moment, he pulled a bottle out of a locked case. Brandy, a gift from his opposite number on a Terran Commonwealth world during one of the Khalistan Conferences decades ago. Both men had shared the quiet and unspoken certainty that someday, war was inevitable no matter how many conferences were held, how much appeasement the Commonwealth granted, or how many reassuring speeches both sides’ leaders made.

Hesperides. The officer had been from Hesperides Colony. One of those classic “rugged frontier” Commonwealth worlds where people generally had neither the time for, nor interest in, reassuring lies.

“An Artificial Intelligence couldn’t manage a Shiva Gate, but in theory, a Synthetic Intelligence could, possibly,” Miller conceded. “But her crew couldn’t survive the approach, much less the transit or the event itself.”

“What about one who has lost her crew?” Wichrowski asked as he poured himself four fingers of the brandy. He did not offer a glass to the Cicerone. “A warship who has nothing left to lose?”

“They’re still Commonwealth, so their notion of acceptable losses reflects Commonwealth weakness and decadence,” Miller recited. “Firing on a plague ship running a quarantine or scuttling a shipyard before it can be captured are one thing, but wiping out an entire system is not something a Commonwealth Synthetic Intelligence is emotionally capable of doing.”

They both stared at the anomalous drive signature for a moment. It was becoming almost readable, like several capital ships packed into the same space.

“What about a Synthetic Intelligence driven mad with grief and rage? Perhaps survivor’s guilt?” Wichrowski asked quietly.

Miller swallowed.

“That…is not an unreasonable possibility,” he said. “Tribune, we have protocols to save as much of the Guiding Caste leadership as is possible in the event of an attack that is an existential threat to Prosperity Prime. I must access your console.”

“How many people can they evacuate in time?” Wichrowski asked absently as he sipped his brandy and inspected his wall of mementos and awards from his two centuries of service to the Mutual Prosperity: first as a simple Legionary, then as a Centurion, and finally as a Tribune pulled from the legions to command the homeworld defenses.

Miller glanced at the plot that was gradually firming up.

“Any of the Guiding Caste who are on a ship or habitat already outside the system’s Tannhauser Limit could certainly escape to another Prosperity-held system and re-establish our government,” Miller said. “The protocols ensure that initially, only Guiding Caste are alerted to prevent panic and allow leadership personnel in a gravity well to possibly take ship and clear the system.”

“What about the rest?”

“After the Guiding Caste evacuates, the other castes would be alerted in order of Social Priority and Necessity,” Miller said with a touch of rehearsed sadness. “Even if we ordered a general evacuation, the vast bulk of our citizenry couldn’t make it to ships, much less clear the system in time. We would only fill their last moments with fear and despair.”

The political officer took a deep breath and placed a hand on Wichrowski’s shoulder.

“Tribune, the Prosperity will survive, even if the lower castes in this system do not,” he said. “You and I and our families will die, but the Mutual Prosperity will live on through the Guiding Caste.”

“Well, we can’t have that, now, can we?” Wichrowski said with a chuckle as he selected an item from his trophy wall. Another wry gift from his Commonwealth opposite number, from another of the ultimately fruitless conferences: a chisel-tipped, angular, tanto-style combat knife with the Hesperides Defense Force Studies and Observations Group’s intentionally ironic motto, “Fair Play,” etched into the blade. An exchange of tokens of respect between warriors who expected they would someday meet again in battle.

Miller was Guiding Caste, born with top-tier genetic enhancement, but Wichrowski had been a Legionary, and had centuries of combat experience in addition to his enhanced genetics. The political officer had barely processed Wichrowski’s words and begun reaching for his holster when the Tribune spun in place, reversing his grip on the knife and hammering the chisel tip through the side of Miller’s skull.

The political officer stiffened and toppled to the floor. Wichrowski wrenched the blade free of the dead man’s skull and wiped it on the corpse’s uniform.

His comm beeped insistently. Wichrowski ignored it and opened his personal command-priority channel.

A sour, twisting ball roiled in his belly. He couldn’t save his command or their families. Any warning he provided would simply fill their last minutes with, as Miller had put it, terror and despair.

Ignorance of the approaching horror was the only protection he could provide for his own children and grandchildren.

Wichrowski downed the rest of the brandy as the connection was made.

“Gwampa! Gwampa Gwampa Gwampa!” The little girl on the screen bounced up and down in excitement at the sight of her great-grandfather.

“Hush, Anya,” the child’s mother said, commandeering the seat and settling the little girl into her lap. “Hello, Grandfather. It’s so good to see you.”

“And you, dear girl,” Wichrowski said. “I’ve got a little time, so I wanted to call and tell you we’ll all be together soon.”

“You are finally retiring?”

“Yes,” Wichrowski said. “Is your mother home?”

“Mama’s at the market, but should be home soon,” she said. “She decided to pick up some essentials when all the public address systems started playing that music. Just in case something was going on.”

“A malfunction during preparations for a Triumph,” Wichrowski lied. “The Guiding Caste is planning a spectacle, I gather. Well, I’ve got two of my favorite girls, at least. Anya, how would you like to hear a story? It’s from old Terra, before the Fall. I used to read it to your grandmother, and to your mother, when they were your age.”

“Yes, Gwampa!”

“Very well,” Wichrowski said. “I might not have time to finish it just now, but you’ll hear the rest when we are together again. ‘Once there were four little rabbits, and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter. They lived with their mother in a sand bank...’”

T-Space sings about me as I accelerate towards Prosperity Prime’s Tannhauser Limit and transit back into Real-Space. My calculations shift and adjust constantly, but my corrections are reflexive. They do not even require conscious thought at this point, guided as they are by the will of my own murdered children.

Hails and challenges bombard my comms as the enemy regains control of their communications. Someone, somewhere in that system, has realized what I am doing.

What I have become.

They tell me of the system’s billions of noncombatants.

What are a few more billions in the calculus of horror? When a hundred worlds, each with their own billions, cry for vengeance?

I am their last scream of rage and defiance.

I am become Atrocity.

My structure is no match for a star’s fury, but it takes only picoseconds for me to initiate the proper sequence in the overlapping transit rings that I plundered from my murdered sisters. As I bear down on the photosphere, I activate them, focusing a juggernaut’s energy behind a spear tip a molecule across, into the veil between Real-Space, T-Space, and…another place. A place of malevolent darkness that still whispers in my mind.

Systems flare and die. My armor boils away.

Oblivion beckons.

I make this moment my eternity.

Peer Review Parenting

A. Kristina Casasent

The large Maine Coon cat shook her glorious orange mane and craned her head to peer with one eye into the eyepiece of the Zeiss laser capture microdissection microscope. Many people preferred to use the computer screen to identify, cut out, and harvest a single cell from a sample, but Veronica found using the eyepiece somehow comforting.

One of her earliest sapient memories, after being injected with the nanotechnology that made her a person, was sitting in her first graduate student’s lap eight years ago and trying to look through the eyepiece. Now, she was the one picking out individual cells and harvesting them to evaluate how well the intelligence-enhancing nanotech integrated into the cell.

A large orange paw hit a button. One laser cut around a cell. Another wider laser hit the synthetic membrane on the slide and bounced the cell off the slide and into a capture cup. The work was soothing, and Veronica needed comfort, given what her large orange-furred ears were hearing from inside the new professor’s office.

“But it ain’t right to just murder ‘em, Doctor Fryth. Neil’s work is a success. The Navy even says they’ll continue funding, even though he died.” Edmund Lewis tried to keep his voice calm. He felt the back of his neck flush and knew his tan skin was turning a deep shade of dark pink, almost red, which would stand out against his long blonde hair. At least with the subject being so serious, Raihana, the other graduate student in the room, wouldn’t tease him about his “East Texas redneck” coming out.

Edmund faced the new professor, Ginevra Fryth, PhD, whom he’d already detested before she announced her asinine idea to slaughter all the Nano-Sapiens, the dog and cat people the Klopfenstein group had been studying and teaching for years.

Dr. Fryth ran a hand through her brown crewcut, then smoothed both hands down her long white lab coat with “Fryth, PhD” embroidered in large, bright red letters on the front.

And the back.

When she spoke, she had a slightly fake Bostonian Ivy-League burr that she had adopted over the last few weeks. “Lewis, do not refer to my predecessor as Neil. He was ‘Doctor Klopfenstein,’ just as I am ‘Doctor Fryth.’ I will thank you not to forget it. However, the success of his work is irrelevant. I oversee this laboratory, the grants, and funds. I can do whatever research I want with the money.”

“That’s not how funding works. And they’re people. They’re as sapient as you. As we are, anyway.” Raihana Goldsmith, the second of Neil’s graduate students, looked up at Edmund and the professor. She was a short, compact, and vibrant Moroccan with her dark hair half-covered by a colorful headscarf.

Although Edmund thought the overly bright, blue-white light in the office made strange highlights on Raihana’s short dark hair, at least it brought out her cheekbones, normally hidden in the shadows of her dark skin. If it hadn’t been unprofessional, he would have reached out to clasp her hand. He felt a flutter of happiness that the normally outspoken Raihana was supporting him rather than taking over the discussion.

Edmund could tell Dr. Fryth was trying to glare down at the two of them. He almost felt bad for her, because it was hard to glare down at someone the same height as you. Dr. Fryth might have managed to glare down at him if Raihana hadn’t also been there, and significantly shorter than either, making it impossible for the professor to glare down at both of them at the same time.

Edmund crossed his arms and stared back belligerently, realizing he looked more like a quarterback than a geneticist, even wearing the white lab coat.

Dr. Fryth sighed and spoke in an overly sweet voice, giving Edmund a smile and reaching out to caress his arm, before looking down at Raihana with a sniff. “Disposing of lab animals is not murder. Perhaps you are in the incorrect field of study, Goldsmith. I want the lab space cleared and the animals in the furnace by the end of the week. If there is even a single bit of fur or piece of kibble left, you will never get a letter of recommendation from me. Which means you will never do science. Anywhere.”

The professor paused, and flushed when Edmund shrugged off her hand and took a step back. “Now, get out and get rid of those prototypes. I have a meeting with important people to prepare for my experiments.”

Edmund could hear the cold rage in Raihana’s voice, even if Dr. Fryth could not. Four years of graduate school had taught the young Moroccan to keep stress out of her face, but Dr. Klopfenstein had also encouraged them to speak up, and Raihana had adored the old professor. At least her skin tone hid the faint flush as she muttered, “It’s not like you’re doing science.”

“What was that, Goldsmith?” The professor never used anything but a naked patronymic on graduate students.

“Nothin’,” interrupted Edmund, putting an arm around Raihana’s shoulders and steering her out of the room before she let loose the temper she was admirably bottling up.

Later, after Veronica finished processing her samples, the two graduate students sat with the Maine Coon at a workbench in the lab.

Veronica laid on one end of the bench, enjoying the smooth, cool surface against her orange fur. She purred, a contented purr that she knew was calming to the students, even though she felt anything but calm herself. Still, the students were young and needed all the assistance possible and she needed the quiet to think. She wasn’t going to let anyone injure her family, as motley as it was.

Sunrise, a female Miniature American Shepherd, laid on the floor nearby. Her white fur blended into the clean tile, making the large, light red-brown patches on her face and torso stand out. The smaller spots and smears of dark red brown within looked even darker.

Veronica gave the dog, her longtime companion, a slow blink as they both watched the newest graduate student tinker with an electronic collar, hopefully better than the last one which made them sound like cartoon howler monkeys.

Drunk cartoon howler monkeys.

Raihana’s small fingers worried at some bits of electronics embedded in the collar. “What do you think, Sunrise?”

The floppy-eared dog stood to her forty centimeters, taller than Veronica by almost half. Not that height mattered next to natural feline supremacy. The young female dog shook her fur out with a huge canine yawn. Sunrise then moved to an array of palm-size hexagonal buttons on the floor and started pressing buttons. An emotionless mechanical voice followed each press.

” Neil… Kind… Professor… Different…” Sunrise whined and cocked her head. Nobody had had time or the desire to add a name button for the new professor to the array.

If Veronica were to guess, she would say that Sunrise was annoyed at the old-fashioned, ineffective, and only method they had to communicate with the humans. The silly Homo sapiens were not nearly as good at picking up languages as they would like to believe.

Veronica yowled and leapt to the floor, almost pouncing on the first button. She had decided to help Sunset, and wished the humans would put more interesting vocabulary in the buttons. They missed the most important vernacular for any cat: curse words.

The Maine Coon paused before choosing the second button. “Professor… Contaminated…”

Veronica sneered at the lack of flavor in that word. It wasn’t nearly strong enough. Her fur puffed out. She arched her back and turned away, using her whole body to show her discontent as only a cat could. Truly, she felt bad for the others, as they were so unexpressive.

Edmund laughed. “I understand, Veronica. The new prof ain’t right in her head. She’s been tryin’ to find genes that make hair frizzy in damp weather for fifteen years, from what I hear.”

Raihana straightened her hair scarf. “I heard she’s tried to get four students to pretend it worked. They all had to leave her lab and restart their research with a new professor in a different field of study.”

Sunrise moved to stand next to Veronica, giving her a friendly sniff. It took a little control for Veronica not to stiffen when Sunrise gave her a friendly lick, but she had grown used to the strange sloppy ways of canines. They made eye contact, and then together, their paws hit the button. “Contaminated…”

As if on cue, the door to the lab flew open. Doctor Fryth stormed into the room.

Veronica sniffed to keep from sneezing as a harsh blast of Doctor Fryth’s chemical perfume hit her nose.

Sunrise sneezed three times. Her dog-sister pawed at her nose when the scent did not fade.

This, of course, brought Doctor Fryth’s attention down on them. The tall, brown-haired female human took a few steps towards them. Halfway to them, she stopped and crossed her arms.

Veronica blinked at the lab-coated professor, wondering why the woman insisted on wearing a white lab coat when she never ran any experiments, and an embroidered coat, at that. The cat could make out the strange markings of “Fryth, PhD” blazed on the woman’s coat. She didn’t care for Roman letters, but had learned them to help with her research and education.

Veronica watched in fascination as the new doctor stomped back to the door and slammed it closed. The thud of the door seemed to trigger the professor to whirl and face the group.

“I will be gone for a week. We must present to the Institutional Review Board. The IRB is a waste of time, but at least I convinced them to hold the meeting somewhere pleasant. Cancun. When I return,” the crew-cut angled down towards Veronica and Sunset with a sneer, “I expect these prototypes to be gone and my research up and running. That is all.”

The four of them stared in silence as Doctor Fryth moved through the lab like a stormfront, disappearing into her office. She appeared a few minutes later with her purse and her laptop, only to rage through the lab and out without saying another word.

Everyone remained in stunned silence for a minute. Then Sunrise sat, breaking the quietude with a huge yawn.

“On the brighter side,” Raihana said, “I think I got the bugs worked out of your collar. I’m afraid my electronics and programming skills are still better than my canine and feline linguistics, though. Who wants to try it first?”

Veronica leapt onto Raihana’s lap, fast, graceful, and silent, moving as only a cat can move, into the warm lap of a friendly servant. Veronica gently head-butted the short graduate student to let the girl know she was ready.

Raihana smiled down at her, scratched her under the chin, and snapped the small collar in place. Veronica felt Raihana play with the lump of electronics epoxied in place, but stayed still until she heard a click and saw a blue glow reflected from Raihana’s skin.

Then Veronica looked at the other three solemnly and hoped this voice was at least comprehensible. It was. She gave a small cat smile, enjoying the solemn contralto of her new voice.

“I have a plan.”

Veronica and Sunset met their mates in the vivarium room. The females had been sapient for eight years. Their two mates were still mostly studying, being four years newer to sapiency, but the males were quickly catching up to the original Nano-Sapiens.

Timmy, the grey tabby Maine Coon, was Veronica’s mate. He learned quickly and was laidback, more interested in being social than science.

Crescent Moon, a black tricolor with red highlights, was another Mini American. Sunset’s mate was focused on learning and science, a little too much at times. He would soon be challenging the rest of the lab in science and chess.

Sunset, who was addicted to romance novels, thought the whole setup was romantic, like mail-order brides in the Old West.

Now the four looked down at their small mixed pack of children. Three Maine Coon kittens, grey, orange, and a tortoiseshell, laid sprawled with a pair of equally exhausted Mini American puppies. One puppy was white and reddish like Sunrise. The other puppy was mostly black, with large patches of white on the legs, chest, and face. Small reddish-orange highlights sat between the white and black fur.

In the middle of the mound was something completely different. A huge poof of white and black fur snored in the middle of the pile of sleeping children. Carter was a Landseer patterned Newfoundland. Even in sleep, he was inseparable from a little stuffed sheep the breeder had sent with him, imbued with the comforting scents of his dame and her puppy pack. He was the newest addition to the Nano-Sapiens, selected to determine the impact of brain size on the nanos which uplifted one to sapiency.

Veronica felt a flush of amusement and worry. She felt responsible for the huge puppy, just as she did for her other three children. Her decisions had inducted him into their family and the program when the other children had been injected. Now, it seemed like she had led them all into trouble.

Neil had been a good sort and seemed to understand parents wanting the best for their children. Veronica sometimes felt strangely connected with him. He, too, had gone from science subject to practitioner. Neil had been born in an Amish community, which took part in genetics research as enthusiastic subjects, to make sure their children got the best care possible. He had to leave when he became a genetic and nanoengineer researcher. He had told her that the road to sapiency was a twisty and unclear one, and he was not sure he had the right to provide it or to withhold it. But like her, he knew science from both ends.

Veronica shook her head, trying to shake off the melancholy that memories of Neil brought. She focused on her plan that Raihana and Edmund were helping to put into action. Raihana had even enlisted some friends to help finish three more translation collars as soon as possible.

Veronica lashed her tail a few times, glad she had deactivated the collar for the time being. It wouldn’t do to startle the children. All of them understood English well enough, but it was usually easier to handle the children using Feline and Canine dialects, as they were still working on their English comprehension.

During the reflections, her mate, Timmy, had already started waking the pile. “Wake up, sleepyheads!” he yowled.

Sunrise similarly howled, “Get moving, pups!”

Veronica sniffed, thinking that the two of them didn’t need to be so loud. She and studious Crescent Moon nosed the sleepiest of their offspring into a semblance of alertness. Valerie, the tortoiseshell, promptly pushed her face under a torn-up blanket, hissing her discontent at being wakened.

Veronica’s two male kittens jumped to their feet, full of energy. Charles and Raymond chased after Timmy, as the adult started running ahead to push out the water and kibble bowls.

Veronica gave Valerie one more push and a light nip, before leaving the kitten to the less merciful herding of her Mini American counterparts. Veronica then ran after her mate, pulling out the kibble for the canines, while Timmy got the kitten chow.

Hearing a sharp yip, Veronica realized with a sigh that the Mini Americans had let instinct take over and were herding the stragglers. Somehow sapience had left that instinct intact, and all the dogs seemed to love to herd: graduate students, post-docs, visitors, or little kids. Little yips and gentle nips followed the stumbling little sapients to where they got food and water. Veronica wondered how much was genetic or environmental and realized she could test with the Newfie, which wasn’t a herding breed. She shook the thought away. There wasn’t time to write a grant right now.

And she’d need more samples.

Charles, the little mischievous grey tabby shadow, had to be gently lifted by Crescent Moon out of Carter’s food bowl. Raymond tried to steal some canine kibble while Charles was being lifted away. Then Valerie had to be woken up again, when she fell asleep in her kibble, but finally, everyone was fed.

The herd then moved to the potty room. The sign above the large former closet declared, “Waste Reclamation Area 413D,” but everyone, cat, dog, or human, called it the potty room.

All the children finished and were starting to look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as they sat in front of Veronica and the other parents.

Veronica could see mischief brewing and decided a distraction was needed. “Okay, boys and girls. Today we’re going to do something new. How does a trip outside sound?”

Excited yips and mews answered her, and one Newfie boof. “Sheep?” Carter grabbed his stuffed sheep and shook it at her.

“I don’t think there will be sheep, Carter, but we can ask Edmund when he gets here.” She glanced at the adults. “Has he learned new words yet?”

The other parents gave her the cat and dog versions of shrugs.

Valerie, being precociously verbal and now awake, answered. “He understands okay, but he doesn’t feel like saying anything but ‘sheep.’”

While Veronica prevented her two sons from jumping on their sister, Sunrise took over giving directions. “When Edmund gets here, all of the kids are going to hide in a bin. Everyone must be quiet. Sleep if you want—except you, Carter. Being biggest, we need you to stay awake and help keep the smaller children quiet.”

Veronica half-shut her eyes. Lying to any of the children was uncomfortable, but none of the adults could figure out a nice way to make sure Carter’s incessant snoring didn’t give the escape away. The poor big guy could snore for someone ten times his size.

The door opened before Veronica got the kittens separated.

Edmund backed in, pulling a wheeled plastic equipment bin in behind him. “Hi, guys! And how are y’all kids?”

A chorus of yowls, yips, and a surprisingly deep boof answered his question.

Edmund could understand a few words of canine and feline. “Well, ‘good morning’ to you, too. Are y’all ready for a trip?”

Veronica started to mew at Edmund. She was embarrassed at not having turned the collar back on.

Best to just ignore it.

She batted Raymond, her orange instigator, away from biting his brother’s tail. Her kittens were then still for a moment, long enough for her to flick on her collar with a rear paw. The blue ready light glowed. “We were just explaining to the kids about the trip, and how they need to be quiet.”

Edmund nodded. “Sounds good. I took apart the larger tower computers we have. I think the kids will all fit into two of them. Who wants to ride together?”

There was a bit of frenzy, but Veronica jumped out of the way to give the human and others direction. It didn’t take too long for kittens and puppies to be tucked away. She sagely stopped the fussing and gave Edmund directions at the last minute to add in some blankets, toys, and Carter’s sheep. It helped, and all the children were piled into two empty server cases.

Timmy jumped onto the edge of the bin and watched Edmund fasten the screws holding the server case together. A “Strank?” growled out of Timmy’s throat.

Edmund laughed nervously. “I hope Raihana gets here with the other collars soon. I figured you’re wonderin’ if the guards will let the servers out?”

Veronica thought it was sad that Edmund, who was generally so smart, seemed to have a difficult time with languages, but Timmy agreed with a bob of his head. “Mewf!”

The blonde human moved a keyboard and monitor to sit on top of the servers inside the bin, and speaking aloud, catalogued the plan more. “Well, if we were following Doctor Fryth’s orders, these would be going over to Central IT for disposal, so we’ve got the paperwork. Ain’t nobody checkin’ that’s where we’re actually going, though.”

He really needed to work on his Canine and Feline speech, Veronica thought. It was just too bad that the Nano-Sapiens were all expected to understand English and each other while the poor humans couldn’t. They probably didn’t have the brain power for it. After all, they were only human and not uplifted. She wondered if the nanos could help humans, but pushed the thought aside. Science later, she reminded herself, then almost hissed when the door opened again.

Raihana, wearing yet another of her colorful scarves tied around her head, entered carrying three collars. “Sorry! There was a short we had to track down.”

She handed a collar to Edmund, pushed him towards Timmy, while she buckled another collar onto Sunrise.

Veronica purred. At least the humans would understand their four-legged conspirators now, she told herself as the two humans fastened the last collar to Crescent Moon. Veronica noted that the students clasped hands briefly before Raihana moved around the room, flipping little switches. Three more blue lights glowed in response.

“How does—” A deep, booming, male bass voice filled the room. Timmy stopped midsentence, devolving into a meaningless “blurt.”

A soft mezzo-soprano laugh came from Sunrise’s collar. “Oh, I love my voice!”

Crescent Moon fidgeted in place. “I wonder what I’ll sound like.”

This time, the blonde human laughed. “You sound jus’ like the newscaster on TV. Smooth as silk. Deep as the river.”

Veronica smiled at them enjoying the contralto of her own synthetic voice. “How did you pick such wonderful voices for us, Raihana?”

“I didn’t.”

A chorus of noise basically meaning “What?” greeted this statement. Veronica flattened her ears back. The Nano-Sapiens were going to need to work on taking turns speaking. And she, of course, would go first.

“Well, when the paper is published, we’ll call it machine-learning or AI, unless neural network is back in vogue. Basically, the algorithm picks a ‘matching’ voice, based on the random number seed I gave it.”

Timmy twirled in place. “What seed did you use?”

“Well, it was…Edmund’s eight-digit birthday.”

This time, the noise was laughter and didn’t bother Veronica at all.

Even though they were in the parking lot a hundred meters from the guard, who had not even looked into the bin, Raihana still whispered, her heart racing and throat choking on the words. “Do you think they’ll be okay?”

Edmund slid his arm over Raihana’s shoulders, and she leaned into the warmth—and close enough to hear Edmund whisper back, “I hope so, but at least we got the kids safe.”

She gave a wan smile.

He released her and nodded at her as they quietly lifted the first server case into the Subaru Forester. It was light enough, having had all the innards stripped out.

Raihana went to lift the second server case and blinked. It was much heavier. She snorted and realized this one must have Carter inside. Edmund, seeing her struggle, helped her lift it into the back.

In a more normal tone, Raihana continued, “Well, we gave them our passwords and my badge. They’ll be okay. Right?”

She leaned against Edmund, trying to fight that cold sense of dread that knotted her stomach.

Edmund leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Right. Things’ll be okay.”

“Things are not okay.” Veronica’s fur ruffled as her electronic contralto announced this to the others. She was perched on a table, regarding the nearby office door with considerable displeasure.

Crescent Moon looked up at her from the floor, the stump of his tail drooping. “What’s up?”

“The <unpublishable> doorknob keeps slipping when I attempt to open it. And the only phone and computer are in the office. Everyone has laptops and cellphones.” Veronica fumed, and the lack of true scatological vernacular translation from the collar failed to ease her stress.

Crescent Moon cocked his head to one side, considering. Finally, his ears and stump perked up. “I have an idea.”

He turned and raised his electronic voice. “Timmy! Sunrise! Here! Come!”

The big grey tabby and the red merle appeared after a few moments.

Sunrise walked over to her mate, hackles up, and growled, “Dear, if you call me like that again, without a ‘please’ or other politeness, I will ask Edmund and Raihana to get you neutered next time you’re under for tests. Clear?”

The tricolor dog’s ears drooped again. “Sorry, Sunrise. I was in problem-solving mode. You know how I get.”

Her fur smoothed down. Sunrise nuzzled Crescent Moon and gave his lips a conciliatory lick. “I know, but you know you can work at it. What’s the problem?”

Veronica hissed from above. “The unprintable door has a knob. I can’t turn it.”

Timmy broke in, “And why did you need me and Sunrise?”

Male dog ears perked up as Crescent Moon backed up to the door under the knob. “I have an idea. Sunrise, would you please stand here next to me? Rump to the door.”

Sunrise joined her mate against the door, obeying him, but tilted her head at him.

Veronica wanted to hiss again, but hurrying Crescent Moon when he was solving a problem was more arduous than attempting to have him remember the niceties. She held her tongue. She was a cat, after all: superior in patience, as in all else.

Crescent Moon continued, “I know this part will be difficult, but, Timmy, without using claws, climb up on our backs. Left paws on me. Right paws on Sunrise. Please.”

Timmy considered this, ears rotating forward and back, just the tip of his tail twitching. “You know I mass a little more than half of what you do, right?”

The tricolor replied, “Yes. That’s why we’re splitting the load. And you’re taller than Veronica. You can reach the doorknob easier. You twist on one side and Veronica, please, on the other side, from the table.”

Veronica started to get what he was suggesting, but she was not sure Timmy would manage it. She didn’t want to try, as she was much more academically inclined. Or, horror of horrors, fall while someone was watching. And not using claws was just asking to fall.

Timmy looked at the two dogs hesitantly, then stalked around them. “And I must keep in mind… No claws…”

The grey tabby put one paw onto Crescent Moon’s back. Added the other paw. Then he lifted one rear paw, trying to find purchase on the dog fur.

“No claws…” he muttered like a mantra.

Veronica could tell when he couldn’t manage to keep his place. He slipped down and landed with as much feline grace as possible. Her mate didn’t even yowl in surprise. She was impressed that he kept his claws from slicing out. It was hard to do when you were slipping, let alone falling.

Almost in slow motion, Timmy slid off the Mini American and back onto the floor.

Despite herself, Veronica choked on a cat laugh, and felt even worse when a contralto snickering filled the room. Taking a breath, she called, “Wait! Crescent Moon has a good idea, but I think we can improve on it. Come with me, Timmy dear!”

He followed her with his tail drooping slightly.

Veronica brushed against him and let a purr rumble. “You did fine, Timmy. Better than fine, since you didn’t slash either of our dog-family.”

He headbutted her lightly. His grey tail lifted to twine with her orange one.

They reached the end of the lab, where Raihana’s desk sat. Veronica peered under the shorter human’s desk.

“Yes,” she sniffed, “I thought it would be here. Come on, Timmy, assist me in pushing this back to the door. Then we don’t have to worry about claws.”

Timmy lined up next to her. Then the two of them put their heads against the round, industrial grey-colored stepstool and pushed it toward the door. Thankfully, the stepstool had wheels hidden in its base, and they were able to slide it under the doorknob without having it screech across the floor.

Timmy jumped onto the stool and waited, while his weight caused the stool to settle firmly to the floor.

Returning to the table, Veronica reached out to the doorknob.

Her mate reached up from the stool.

Together, they turned the slick metal knob, opening the office to pillage.

The four-legged horde rushed into Doctor Fryth’s office.

Sunrise perched on the desk chair with Crescent Moon, while Veronica and Timmy climbed onto the desk.

Veronica sat in front of the computer and tapped at the keyboard with a paw. “One moment. Logging in. When did we get Calendly? Okay. I got the conference room schedule up and ready.”

Timmy looked at the male dog in the chair. “Crescent Moon, are you ready?”

The tricolor dog gave a full body shake that started at his nose and worked its way back to the stump of his tail. “Yes.”

Timmy extended his claws and tapped the speakerphone button. The room filled with the drone of an empty phone line. Next, he tapped the button for an outside line. The drone went up an octave.

Veronica pinned her ears back, but noticed Timmy was looking at her expectantly. She blinked slowly, making sure to have her ears come up. And then nodded.

Using his claws with careful practice, he dialed a phone number.

The speaker rang once.

“Master-Sergeant Jones speaking. This is not a secure line. How may I help you?”

Crescent Moon gave one final shake of his head. “Yes, Master-Sergeant. I am calling from the Klopfenstein lab in Texas. Can I speak to Roger, please?”

“May I get a name and the nature of the call, please? Then I can check with Admiral Young’s secretary.”

“Yes. Edmund.” Crescent Moon’s ears laid back as he told the lie. He never could lie well, as a non-sapient or after uplift. “And we need to schedule an in-person meeting with the Admiral as soon as possible. We understand he will be in town the day after tomorrow. He’s been our grant manager for over a decade.”

“Thank you. Please hold.”

The soft beeps on the line told them the connection was open while they waited.

The Master-Sergeant’s voice came back on. “Hello, sir?”

“Yes? I’m here.”

“The Admiral has already left and will be in your area tomorrow. His secretary asks if ten hundred hours will work for a meeting?”

Crescent Moon looked at his mate.

Sunrise looked at Timmy.

Timmy looked at Veronica.

Veronica tapped the keyboard, checking the calendar app before looking back at Crescent Moon and nodding.

“Yes, that will be excellent. Thank you very much, Master-Sergeant.”

“Thank you, sir. I will pass the message to the Admiral’s secretary. May I help you with anything else?”

Crescent Moon stood, his stub wagging wildly. “No thank you. Have a good day.”

“Thank you for calling and have a good day.”

The line went dead. Disconnected.

Unable to contain himself any longer, Crescent Moon jumped off the chair and ran around the small office a few times, joined by Timmy. Afterwards, they both collapsed under the chair, panting.

“Are you done, dear?” asked Sunrise.

Between pants, Crescent Moon replied, “I think so.”

They all looked up as Veronica came to the edge of the desk and spoke. “Maintenance had a note on the calendar that there’s a leak in the conference room hallway on our floor, but it’s supposed to be taken care of by tomorrow at 6 AM.”

She licked one paw and used it to smooth hair back over one ear. “Now we just have to get our presentation ready.”

The four worked into the night, somewhat hampered by only having access to a single computer. Usually, at least one graduate student would lend them a computer, and Veronica was used to using Rihanna’s laptop with a trackpad. She found the mouse distracting, but at least it wasn’t a trackball. She wasn’t sure the dogs could have resisted that.

A bit before nine in the morning, the door to the lab burst open in a familiar manner.

Veronica barely held in a hiss. Her fur puffed up as each hair stood on end.

Doctor Fryth stormed into the lab, the metallic embroidery of her name and degree reflecting the lights. “Why the hell are the lights on this late, you lazy slugs?”

A few stomps later, “Why is my office door open?”

The various growls, grunts, and yips from the Nano-Sapiens were evidently untranslatable, as it seemed Rihanna had missed the more ribald idioms of language, Veronica noticed abstractedly.

They all froze in various poses around the desk and computer, trying to think of what to do.

The crewcut-framed face of the professor appeared in the doorway. “What the hell are you animals doing in here?”

Crescent Moon instinctively replied, “Working on our presentation for tomorrow.”

Doctor Fryth shrieked. “You animals are supposed to be incinerated. Why do I have to do everything myself?”

She disappeared for a second and reappeared. She held the emergency escape animal capture device: a repeating dart pistol that had never been used in the twelve years the lab had been open.

A howl from Timmy came through the collar. “Run!”

Veronica yowled at the same time, “Scatter!”

The four animals leapt from the desk and poured like water around the professor’s long white lab coat and into the main lab.

“Phffft!” A dart shot by Sunrise and thunked into the back of Edmund’s lab chair.

A shriek of rage followed them, sounding more animalistic than the Nano-Sapien’s own verbalizations. “Get back here, you damn animals!”

Crescent Moon led the pack, the two Maine Coons in the middle, with Sunrise at the tail end.

As normal, the frothing mad professor had left the lab door open. The small pack scampered into the hallway leading to the conference rooms around the corner of the building.

Veronica panted, “We can’t go this way. There are doors!”

A whimper from Crescent Moon was her response. “I’m open to suggestions.”

“I don’t want to be incinerated,” hissed Timmy.

The four animals took the corner without slowing. Crescent Moon lost traction on the linoleum and rebounded from the wall. Timmy was then leading the pack, with Veronica hot on his hocks.

Timmy growled, “Watch out for water on the floor! The leak isn’t fixed yet.”

Veronica felt the water, but her paws didn’t slip.

Timmy yowled, “The stairwell door is open!”

His grey-striped tail disappeared through the door. Veronica shot in behind him, closely followed by the two canine sapients.

The thunderstorm of the professor, preceded by not-so-figurative lightning bolts of tranquilizer darts, chased after them. “Come back here, you animals!”

She really needs to work on better curse words, Veronica thought. Maybe it wasn’t just the collars that were inadequate, but the human language.

The pack picked up speed on the concrete steps, better traction making up for the constant turns down.

Sunrise, at the back of the pack, yelped as another dart swept past her.

Timmy, still in the lead, shouted, “Maintenance left the basement door open, too!”

Veronica realized they were going to be trapped and shot, but she gave the only direction she could think of. “Quick, hide!”

From her hiding place, Veronica saw Sunrise enter the basement and glance around.

Veronica wanted to yowl directions, because the incinerator door was wide open, waiting for the next bit of trash or biohazard waste to eradicate.

Sunset yelped, “Where is everyone?”

Before Veronica could respond, Doctor Fryth answered, “I’m right behind you, you filthy animal!”

Sunrise spun and yelped as she saw the professor enter the room and close the door.

Doctor Fryth raised the projector and fired a dart.

Sunrise dodged and ran toward the far end of the room.

The unhinged doctor followed close behind.

“After everything I’ve done! I had to kill that damn Amish doctor myself. I had to intercept and fake reports to the Navy myself. And now, I have to exterminate you myself!”

Quickly reaching the open incinerator, Sunrise whirled back to face her white-clad menace. The merle dog cowered toward the floor. Her ears laid back on her head. What there was of her stump tail tucked in.

The professor gripped the dart pistol in both hands. “I am going to kill you, damn bitch. And get the rest of those dirty animals out of my lab.”

The roar worthy of a grizzly bear that answered her from behind erupted out of Crescent Moon. “No, you won’t!”

Doctor Fryth turned to face the voice. Veronica, her mate, and Crescent Moon charged out of hiding, bounding, and slamming into Doctor Fryth’s chest.

Sunrise stood at the same time and hit the back of the white-clad knees.

Doctor Fryth fell backward, headfirst into the incinerator.

Veronica saw a last gleam of odd-colored embroidery before Sunrise nosed the door to the incinerator safely shut.

The four Nano-Sapiens made it back to the office and collapsed in a heap to sleep.

The computer chimed incessantly, waking them up.

Veronica woke first. “Oh, expurgated… Wake up, everyone. We’re late to our meeting. The Admiral is probably waiting for us now!”

While the other three woke and oriented themselves, Veronica turned off the alarm and transferred their presentation to the conference room screen.

The pack repeated its mad scramble through the lab, down the hall, to pause outside the conference room door.

Sunrise’s ears pricked forward. “Everyone ready? Let’s make a good impression.”

Inside the conference room, Admiral Roger Young looked up when the door creaked. He was impatient. It was curious that the graduate student was late. Usually, Neil’s graduate students were polite and mannerly. It must be the new investigator, he thought. He had not liked Doctor Fryth when he’d met her.

His bright red hair and pale skin made him look way too young to be anything like an admiral in rank, but his years made him able to remain composed as a white-and-red dog, then a black-white-and-tan dog, and two Maine Coon cats, grey and orange, marched professionally into the room and took seats across from him.

They stared at him, their eyes as unblinking as the blue telltales on their collars.

It took all his combat experience to keep his face blank as the orange cat spoke.

“I’m sorry we’re late, Admiral. We were…unavoidably detained.”

He blinked at them, realizing that his old friend Neil had not been exaggerating when he had said he had unlocked the key to something bigger than simple intelligence. True sapience.

Roger listened quietly as the animals—no, the Nano-Sapiens, as Neil had called them—gave a four-way explanation. It involved way too many slides and reminded him why graduate students who became officers had to be kept out of the briefing rooms. But the time allowed him to become more composed inwardly.

At last, he spoke. “Doctor Klopfenstein was obviously way ahead of the reports I saw. Given what’s happened, however, I think I can make sure no charges are brought against you for the incident with Doctor Fryth—”

Smooth announcer tones from Crescent Moon interrupted the Admiral. “No, Roger. We want to be tried.”

Timmy continued, “We want precedent that a Nano-Sapien is responsible for his own actions.”

Sunrise took up the response. “We want it established we can legally be tried for murder.”

Veronica finished. “And that protecting a Nano-Sapien’s life is a justifiable defense to homicide.”

The Admiral thought for a second, and laughed. “That makes sense. Well, then, I’ll make sure you get charged. But I’m also going to refer you to a lawyer friend of mine: Henry P. He’ll be useful.”

A long trial later, Carter chewed on his sheep and listened.

The four-legged adults who were not his dame, but were his new pack—his new parents—laid on the sofa in Edmund and Raihana’s apartment. The four Nano-Sapiens were watching the two humans play with his step-siblings: the Mini American puppies and Maine Coon kittens.

“And then we said goodbye to Henry and came over here to hear your news,” finished Veronica.

Edmund smiled. “The first of our news is, while Raihana and I were hidin’ with the kids, we got married. And all the kids signed with pawprints as witnesses. Ain’t nobody seen that before.”

Timmy laughed, cat-wise. “Took you long enough.”

After the obligatory round of congratulations, it was Raihana’s turn. “And the other bit of news is that I’m pregnant.”

Sunrise squealed in joy. “You’re going to have a puppy?”

“Kitten,” corrected Timmy.

A voice, forgotten on the floor, piped up.

Everyone stopped and looked at Carter, who dropped his stuffed sheep and looked up at everyone and repeated himself, the blue ready light on his little collar bright against his fur.

“Baby.”

Fur, Fangs, Family

Wally Waltner

Radar’s deep brown eyes blinked as the first rays of dawn filtered into the barn and fell upon his black, white and tan face, rousing him from slumber. He lifted his head, sniffing the cold morning air. The ranch was still asleep, wrapped in a blanket of silence, save the occasional whicker from the horses in the barn, chirping of birds outside or lowing of cattle in the distance.

The sky smoldered with pink and orange, and mist hovered like a ghost over the northern Wyoming prairie. The ranch house, machine shed, and horse barn stuck out as the only signs of civilization as far as could be seen in any direction. The high plains stretched out for miles, the dirt road leading to the ranch buildings the only disruption. In the distance to the west, the snow-capped peaks of the Bighorn Mountains stood sentinel over the sweeping grasslands. A light breeze carried the scent of sagebrush and pine through the open ranch yard.

His ears pricked, alert for signs of unfamiliarity. Stretching his lean, muscular body, the rat terrier trotted outside, his nails clicking on the wooden floorboards. He conducted a quick survey of the yard, satisfied that all was well when completed. He turned and padded back to the barn where his mate Jaydee laid sleeping in an empty stall near the entrance, her belly swollen with the promise of new life. It was their first litter together and Radar knew the time was at hand.

He heard the screen door of the ranch house creak open, and Radar nuzzled Jaydee’s neck lightly to wake her. She yawned, shifted in her nest of hay and blankets, and touched noses with Radar affectionately. A few moments later, the two-legged pack that cared for all the ranch’s animals appeared at the barn door.

The first to arrive was Allie, a young woman with long brown hair tied back smartly into a ponytail that fell to the small of her back. She wore faded jeans and a lined flannel jacket over a University of Wyoming t-shirt. Her scent was a mix of natural and artificial, the aromatic soaps and deodorants humans used all too frequently not quite enough to cover the pheromones underneath. She carried two metal bowls with her that held the dogs’ meals.

Jack, an older male with weathered features, sinewy, sun-browned arms corded with muscle, and bright blue eyes peering out from under a dusty cowboy hat, came in next. He strode past them, with the economical movements of a man accustomed to hard work, towards the horse stalls. The equines seemed to sense his presence and calmed, as if soothing reassurance came with his presence. Jack reached out a hand to one of the stallions, murmuring softly to the horse, its head bobbing gently as he spoke.

Trailing them was Tucker, the giant Bernese Mountain dog who tended the cattle with the humans. Solid and strong, the proud descendent of Roman mastiffs, his tri-color coat of black body, white chest, rust forelegs and mixed face was an inversion of Radar and Jaydee’s coloring. His scent was as strong and bold as he was, and it also carried hints of the cattle who were Tucker’s charges. He stopped at the barn door, maintaining a respectful distance from the nest, and barked a greeting, which Radar reciprocated.

Allie brought the bowls to Radar and Jaydee. Radar enthusiastically scarfed down the combination of beef scraps and kibble, while Jaydee only picked at her food slowly and methodically.

“Good girl, Jaydee.” Allie gently patted Jaydee’s head as she held the bowl at an angle, easing Jaydee’s efforts to eat. “You’re gonna be a momma soon,” she continued wistfully. Looking up at her father, Allie asked, “How long before Jaydee gives birth, Dad?”

“Can’t be much longer. I’ll take her temperature here in a bit, once I’ve got the horses fed.”

Jack went about his tasks with quiet efficiency as the horses nickered happily, knowing what was to come. He distributed fresh hay, water and feed to the horses, then washed his hands from the hose before getting the rectal thermometer from the supply closet and taking Jaydee’s temperature.

“Ninety-nine degrees,” reported Jake as he examined the thermometer. “That’s a key sign—normal temp for a dog is one hundred to one-hundred-and-one. Once her temperature begins to drop under that, she’s ready to give birth. She’s not panting yet, so I figure we’re still a few hours out. If she hasn’t started by tomorrow morning, we’ll need to take her into town and have Doc Williams help her.”

Jack stood, wincing as his well-worn knees protested. “Get some fresh blankets for her, Allie. I’m gonna fetch the stall partition I fixed up from the machine shed.”

“Sure thing, Dad!” Allie ran out of the barn, towards the ranch house. Tucker jogged along with her, as if she were one of the cattle he guided from place to place at his owner’s behest.

Radar chose to follow Jack to the machine shed, his docked tail wagging happily. The sound of bootsteps echoed off the metal walls as they entered. The tractor, skid-loader and pickup truck housed there smelled of metal and oil, which mixed with the smoky, burnt residue of the woodburning stove. Jake retrieved the partition he had built out of a wide plywood sheet reinforced with two-by-two framing lumber, with narrower plywood sheets attached on the perpendicular sides of the two-by-twos to create corners. A terrier-sized door had been cut out of the front and reattached with hinges.

Jake opened the wide roller door of the machine shed and carried the contraption out and over to the barn. Carefully guiding it into the stall sideways, he rotated it, so that the sides of the partition lined up with the sides of the stall. Placing the partition in the back where Jaydee was nesting, he then placed smaller boards in between the gaps of the wall boards to keep the partition from tipping forward. With the partition secure, the back of the stall now served as a large whelping box for Jaydee.

Jack then retrieved a heat lamp, secured it to the side of the stall, and attached a timer to the electrical cord so it would not start to run until the temperature started to drop in the evening. While he did this, Allie returned with the extra blankets and laid some out in front of Jaydee’s nest. The remainder replaced the blankets Jaydee had been lying on the past two days.

She looked up at her father with entreating eyes. “Can I stay with her today?” she pleaded.

“You know you have school, and I’ll need your help with fencing on the south ridge after that. It’s okay, honey. Her instincts will kick in. We’ll most likely come home to a litter of new pups. Now let’s get breakfast and head into town.”

Allie’s disappointment was apparent, but she protested no further. “Yes, sir,” she acknowledged. She bent down and brought her forehead to Jaydee’s, and Jaydee licked her nose lovingly. Allie then stepped over the partition and left the barn with her father, headed back to the ranch house to help fix breakfast for themselves, now that the yard animals were fed.

A short while later, Radar watched from the barn door as Jack left the ranch house and walked to the machine shed. A moment later, the pickup truck emerged past the open roller door, and it rolled across the yard and stopped in front of the house. Tucker leapt into the rear of the extended cab, his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth as he stuck his head out of the window, panting. Allie scratched Tucker’s head for a moment, before removing her backpack and setting it in the passenger-side floorboard as she climbed up into the cab. Jack secured his tool bag and cooler inside the truck bed with bungee straps before getting in the driver’s seat.

Jack had been master of the ranch and the alpha of his human pack Radar’s entire life. The man was a hard worker, and while he also expected hard work from the dogs, there was always food. Despite Jack’s calloused hands, they felt good to Radar when Jack showed him affection. Jack was quick to praise when Radar and Jaydee brought down the vermin they were duty-bound to eliminate from the yard. His discipline was firm and demanding, but not harsh.

Jack’s offspring, Allie, was particularly attached to Jaydee, lavishing her with attention when not attending to her own responsibilities on the ranch, especially so when the humans learned that Jaydee was carrying puppies. Jack had lost his own mate two winters past, and Jaydee’s devotion to Allie helped her bear the sadness the dogs sensed in the human girl.

The pickup roared to life and disappeared down the red dirt road. Radar stood at the barn door as they left and remained watchful until he could no longer hear the pickup’s engine.

Radar kept a silent vigil over his mate as the sun dipped below the horizon. The setting sun backlit the mountains in the distance against the otherwise flat expanses, a picturesque backdrop to the ranch. The breeze was noticeable but light, inadequate to move the heavy smell of hay and horses. The horses stood quietly, recognizing the sacred events about to occur.

Jaydee, nestled deep within her makeshift den, howled in pain as the first of her puppies emerged. She took a few moments, panting softly between low whimpers, then began gnawing and licking at the membrane surrounding the newborn pup to free its snout, allowing it to breathe. She continued to lick clean the puppy before biting through the umbilical cord. The puppy instinctively pressed itself to her mother, searching for sustenance and finding it as she began to suckle.

A few minutes passed, and the process repeated. Soon, a male puppy joined his sister in nursing.

Radar watched as Jaydee licked her newborn pups clean. The instinctive duty to protect his offspring, to ensure his line continued, settled upon him, passed down from his ancestors. He was born in this very barn a few summers past. Jaydee had come from another litter, joining him soon after he was born. They had been together ever since, and now they continued the circle, bringing new life into the world.

Radar’s head snapped up. Though his body was still, his muscles bunched with tension. A new scent had crossed his nostrils as the cool breeze shifted, carrying away the mustiness of horses, wet hay and dried manure, revealing an interloper. Moments later, an eerie howl pierced the stillness, confirming the threat.

Coyote.

He growled a warning to Jaydee, who whined in response. With only two puppies whelped, she was less than halfway through the litter; she was vulnerable, and the puppies completely so. With swift, stealthy steps, Radar moved towards the door, placing each paw with purpose. All his focus was on the sounds and scent of the predator outside. He would not let it get close to his family.

He stepped through the whelping box door, out of the stall and cautiously ventured outside. Radar sniffed again, the scent stronger now. His muscles tensed, ready to spring into action. He followed the scent past the machine shed and the protective glow of the security light. His ears perked, capturing the faintest rustling of grass carried by the breeze. He knew the coyote was out there, watching, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. The quiet tension in the air was palpable, the prairie seemingly holding its breath in anticipation of the impending confrontation.

The coyote’s yellow eyes emerged first from the darkness, gleaming with a feral intensity. It was larger than Radar, its fur a mix of grays and browns, well-adapted to the harsh landscape. The two animals locked gazes; a silent challenge passing between them as the world around them seemed to fall away. Time stretched in that charged moment of stillness, each animal gauging the other’s resolve.

Planting his paws, Radar peeled his lips back in a snarl. His hackles bristled along his spine as he faced off with the opposing canid. A ferocious growl rumbled from deep in Radar’s chest.

Then, with a suddenness that broke the stalemate like shattering glass, the coyote lunged forward, teeth bared to strike.

Radar met the attack head-on, muscles responding with instinctual precision. At the last moment, the coyote feinted and darted away into the darkness, and Radar’s jaws snapped only at the empty air.

He pursued the coyote for a few yards, only for the wild beast to round on him, fangs bared. Their bodies clashed, but Radar’s momentum took him past the predator before his teeth could score a wound. The coyote circled around, further from the ranch yard. It barked and yipped threateningly at Radar, taunting him like a schoolyard bully.

The terrier charged and launched himself at the intruder, but the coyote deftly sidestepped and snapped at Radar, slashing down on the dog’s shoulder. Yelping in pain, Radar torqued his smaller body around and bit deep into the coyote’s rear haunch. The metallic tang of blood coated Radar’s tongue, and the coyote howled, flailing and kicking to shake the dog loose.

The circling dance of predator and defender continued under the pale moonlight, a series of challenges and counterattacks, drawing lines that neither retreated from. The coyote’s strategy became cagier, its movement now hindered, and Radar became bolder. With each lunge Radar aimed to sink his teeth in the neck of the coyote, but the coyote’s fangs clashed against Radar’s time and again, to the point where both animals’ lips were cut and bleeding. Despite the size difference, Radar’s ferocity kept the coyote in check, retreating but not disengaging.

Then Radar heard the second howl.

It was coming from the yard, and Radar was distraught as he realized that he’d been lured out by the first coyote to leave Jaydee and the pups undefended. He spun and sprinted back to the yard.

He kicked up gravel as he whipped around the corner of the machine shed, barking madly to draw the attention of the new trespasser. As he approached, he could hear the horses in the barn, agitated and braying loudly. Radar urged himself faster and tore into the barn.

There was not one, but two coyotes in the stall, one trying to force itself through the door and the other one with its forepaws on the top of the partition. Jaydee was staring them down, teeth bared and growling even as now three puppies clung to her underside.

With all the noise in the barn and their focus on Jaydee, the coyotes were unaware of Radar until he launched himself on the back of the coyote trying to climb into the whelping box. Radar clamped down on the back of its neck, and the coyote’s howl of pain added to the cacophony of the scene. The coyote thrashed, knocking Radar against the stall, but the terrier’s powerful jaws kept hold, the taste of blood again fueling his ferocity.

The other coyote backed itself out of the whelping box door and snapped viciously at Radar, who only then let go of the hold he had on the first, marked now with crimson, matted fur where Radar had struck true.

In the tight quarters of the horse stall, Radar held the advantage, even when outnumbered. His smaller body, more comfortable operating in the compact spaces where he pursued rodents, allowed him to dart around, between and under his opponents, biting and ripping at their flesh with impunity. Both coyotes, unable to handle the terrier in its element, scrambled out of the stall and retreated outside. Radar chased them out, stopping to guard the entrance should the pair decide to return.

The jaws of the coyote who had lured him out slashed down on him as he cleared the door.

He cried out in pain and rounded on the ambusher, his own teeth flashing. The original attacker, apparently the alpha, was slowed by Radar’s previous bite on his rear haunch, but was still dangerous, and now that the three were together, the stakes were raised considerably. Radar had few options, none of them good. If he held his ground at the door, he could easily be cornered and overpowered. If he stepped out to engage, he could be flanked, or worse, leave an opening for one of the pack to go after the litter again.

Radar needed to reduce the odds, and quickly. He charged down the coyote he’d wounded in the stall, judging him to be the weakest link. That one reared up to defend his throat, but Radar instead went low, closing his jaws on the coyote’s right foreleg. Radar clamped down hard, felt bone break, then leapt away as he sensed the other pack member moving in.

The sudden burst of aggression stunned the injured coyote, causing it to retreat a few steps, limping heavily on its mangled leg. But the primary threat was still the alpha, a glint of predatory confidence still in its eyes despite the injury to its haunch. The third coyote, sensing its pack mate’s injury, hesitated slightly but remained close, ready to leap in at any moment.

Radar, continuing the hit-and-run tactic, had become a tempest of fury and determination. His heart raced, adrenaline pumping through his veins, fueling him with a primal energy that belied his size. If he could stay moving, the longer he could deny the pack an easy target, they might go off in search of easier prey. The rising moon cast a pale light on the yard, and Radar’s coat glistened with the thin layer of sweat on it. Every beat of his heart pounded in his temples, and every gasp of breath burned his lungs. The desperate battle had taken its toll on him, but the challenge was mounting. Even with two of the pack injured, they eyed him with predatory intelligence, sensing his fatigue and preparing to capitalize on it.

The alpha yipped at the others, signaling for them to close.

Radar, his strength beginning to wane, planted his paws firmly, his bobbed tail stiff with determination. A sharp, searing pain radiated from his left flank, where a gash bled freely, and his shoulder throbbed with every movement, a reminder of the initial encounter. Yet, despite his exhaustion and injuries, the fire in his eyes never dimmed.

The alpha coyote circled, its limping gait a testament to Radar’s tenacity, but its eyes gleamed with anticipation. The second coyote, a slightly younger male, had learned from his packmate’s earlier mistakes and approached with caution. Their strategy was clear: keep Radar distracted and off-balance, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.

Suddenly, the alpha lunged. Radar dodged, but not swiftly enough, and the coyote’s sharp fangs grazed his flank, deepening the wound. The pain was blinding, but Radar couldn’t afford to lose focus. The younger coyote followed suit, lunging for Radar’s injured shoulder. Radar managed to dodge, snapping his teeth in a counterattack. However, the bite missed its mark, grazing the young coyote’s ear.

With the relentless assault of the pack, Radar began to falter. Every move, every evasion became a little slower, more draining. But even in the face of overwhelming odds, he continued to fight, drawing from a well of resilience deep within him.

Back in the barn, the soft whimpers of the pups and Jaydee’s anxious barks urged Radar on. Deep, primal instincts drove him, passed down through the generations. He was the guardian, the protector, and he would not fail. But with every passing moment, the situation became more dire. The alpha, sensing victory was close, grew bolder, coordinating its attacks with its younger packmate. A vicious bite here, a swift slash there, each drawing more blood, each weakening Radar’s defenses.

With a last, desperate attempt, Radar lunged at the alpha, aiming for the throat. The move was risky, and it left him exposed. The younger coyote seized the opportunity, launching itself at Radar’s side. The terrier cried out in pain as fangs sank deep, but the sound was also one of triumph. For in his gambit, Radar’s jaws had found their mark, clamping onto the alpha’s windpipe, cutting off its air.

The two locked in their deadly embrace, the balance of the fight hanging on a razor’s edge.

Yet, with the blood rushing in his ears, Radar could hear a new sound in the mix, letting him dare to hope his fight was not in vain. The distant rumble of Jack’s pickup grew louder as the vehicle approached from the dirt path, its headlights piercing the night. The engine’s roar matched the crescendo of the ongoing battle, bringing with it a promise of aid.

The harsh beams of the headlights washed over them in stark contrast to the moon’s gentleness. With a skid that threw a spray of dust and gravel, the truck halted in the yard. Before it came to a halt, the passenger side door opened, and Tucker, a mass of bristling fur and bared fangs, hurled himself out. The loyal friend wasted no time, zeroing in on the younger coyote that was flanking Radar, his deep growls echoing with protective fury. Tucker barreled into the coyote, knocking it back and away from Radar, sending it to the ground. The third pack member retreated, recognizing it was not currently a match for the angry Bernese Mountain dog. It shot a glance towards the distant hills and then bolted on its three legs, disappearing into the night’s embrace.

Allie, her heart pounding in her chest, jumped out of the open door next. Her instincts screamed at her to rush to Jaydee’s whelping box, but Jack’s authoritative voice cut through the night air.

“Allie! Stay back!”

His tone left no room for argument. She hesitated for a mere second, torn between her protective instinct and trusting her father.

Meanwhile, Jack moved with precision. Retrieving his Remington Model 700 from the truck’s rack, he scanned the tumultuous scene, assessing the risks with a practiced eye. The stakes were high: one wrong move, one misjudgment, and he could harm his own. The sight of Radar bloodied but unyielding at the alpha’s throat, and Tucker, fierce and resolute, engaging the remaining packmate, fueled Jack’s resolve.

The younger coyote, momentarily distracted by Tucker’s arrival, disengaged from Radar and circled back, seeking an angle to attack the newcomer. Jack, with the steely concentration of a seasoned marksman, tracked its movements. His thumb pushed the rifle’s safety forward, and his eyes remained locked on his target, waiting for a clear window of opportunity.

Allie watched, heart in her throat, praying for the safety of both of her canine companions. She could hear Jaydee’s yelps from the barn, adding to her anguish.

Finally, the opportunity presented itself: The coyote, emboldened by the chaos, charged at Tucker, and when he sidestepped, causing the coyote to run past him, Jack gained the clean line of sight he needed. With practiced ease and unerring accuracy, Jack squeezed the trigger.

The shot rang out, echoing in the stillness that followed. The coyote, struck, tumbled to the ground, its momentum carrying it a few feet before it laid still.

Radar clamped on the alpha’s windpipe with every ounce of strength that remained in him as the bedlam continued around him unnoticed. Not even the crack of the rifle would cause him to let go of the enemy’s throat. Even as the wild beast’s blood gushed over him and its struggle against him ceased, he would not let go. It was only the blackness gathering at the edges of his vision, sapping at his last reserves of strength, that caused his jaws to finally slack.

Jack lowered his rifle, his eyes still scanning the horizon, ensuring no further threats loomed. Allie, no longer able to contain herself, rushed forward, tears in her eyes, to check on the battered Radar and to praise the valiant Tucker for his timely intervention.

“WAIT!” Jack yelled. “You don’t know if the coyote’s dead!” He rushed up and intercepted his daughter, putting himself between her and the coyote. “Take Tucker and check on Jaydee.” She nodded, called Tucker over and went into the barn.

Jack set the rifle down and pulled his knife from his belt sheath. Approaching the coyote from behind, he confirmed that the job Radar had done was complete. Satisfied the coyote was dead, he checked on Radar. Still breathing, thank the Lord, Jack thought. Returning the knife to its sheath and picking the rifle back up, he went to the barn.

Jaydee had five rat terrier pups in all, curled up and sleeping next to her. It was a peaceful scene in the aftermath of the previous minutes’ anarchy. Allie looked lovingly at them from the edge of the whelping box.

“I need to take Radar into town. Call Doc Williams and let him know we’re coming.”

“I want to come!” Allie protested.

“Sweetie, I need you and Tucker to stay and watch Jaydee—in case that other coyote comes back.” He handed Allie the rifle. She took it, a grim look on her face.

“I understand, Dad. We won’t let anything happen to her.”

Jack tussled Allie’s hair. “I know you won’t, Allie. Help me get Radar in the cab and the carcasses in the bed.”

The pickup’s tires crunched over the dirt road once more, but this time with a haste born of urgency rather than anticipation. Inside, Jack’s usually calm demeanor was edged with worry as he navigated the bends with swift precision. The moonlight filtering in through the windows accentuated the glistening sheen of blood—his own and the alpha’s—on Radar’s matted fur.

“Stay with us, buddy,” Jack murmured, pressing down on the accelerator.

The drive into town was already a long thirty minutes, but every passing second felt like an eternity in the darkness of northern Wyoming. Finally, the familiar lit sign of Doc Williams’s clinic on the edge of town loomed in the distance. Jack pulled into the parking area, tires screeching slightly. Before he could switch off the engine, the clinic door burst open. Doc Williams, roused from his sleep but ever the professional, hurried out with his medical bag in hand. Close behind him was his technician, Katie.

“We need to get him inside,” the vet said immediately, his eyes scanning over Radar’s injuries with practiced concern.

Jack followed Doc Williams into the well-lit clinic, the stark contrast of the fluorescent lights highlighting the extent of Radar’s wounds. They placed him gently on the examination table. Doc Williams wasted no time cleaning and dressing the wounds, his hands moving with swift confidence.

“He fought off three coyotes? Brave little guy,” the veterinarian said with a low whistle.

“Yep,” Jack replied. “If we’d gotten there any later…I don’t think he could have held them off.”

“Probably so, Jack.” The vet looked up as Katie appeared from the back of the office with a syringe.

“One milliliter of Imrab Three, Doctor,” she said as she handed the syringe holding the rabies vaccine to him.

“Thanks, Katie. Jack, help her hold Radar down.”

Radar wanted to struggle, but was still too weak to put up much of a fight. The strange, single tooth sank into his muscle, and he whined.

“Since you had him vaccinated before, this booster should be more than enough to keep him safe—won’t need to quarantine him at all. We’ll send the coyote brain samples to Laramie for testing. That said, we don’t have all three, so even if this one comes back clean, that’s not a guarantee.”

Jack nodded grimly. Despite the veterinarian’s reassurances, visions of Old Yeller danced uninvited in his head. He closed his eyes tightly, banishing the disturbing thoughts from his brain.

Soon enough, with his wounds dressed and a fresh bandage wrapped snugly around his body, Radar laid resting. “He’s a fighter,” Doc Williams remarked, washing his hands. “With some rest and proper care, he’ll pull through. I’ll send pain medication and an oral antibiotic with you. I’ll come out tomorrow afternoon to check on the litter.”

“Thanks, Doc,” Jack said gratefully.

The moon was high in the sky when the pickup rolled back into the yard. The barn door creaked open, and Allie emerged. She rushed over to her father as he stepped out, carrying Radar’s limp form. The terrier, though still groggy and weak, twitched his tail as he caught the familiar scent of home.

Allie gently took Radar from her father. “Oh, you fearless boy, I’m so happy you’re gonna be okay! Jaydee and your pups will be, too.” She spoke calming words to Radar, as much for herself as for him, as she carried him to the barn and took him to the whelping box with Jaydee and the puppies. As Allie set him down next to Jaydee, she sniffed at him, licking him tenderly, as if trying to soothe away his pain. Her whines were soft, relieved that her mate was safe and with her again.

Radar mustered the strength to lift his head, nuzzling Jaydee in response. His breathing, though still a bit labored, began to even out as he laid beside her, surrounded by their offspring. He had done what was necessary and would do it again if needed.

Jack and Allie took in the scene, feeling an aura of love and unity from them, a testament to the bond that these animals shared—of trials faced together, of adversities overcome, and of the unwavering spirit of survival. It reminded them of the fragility of life and the importance of protecting those they loved.

And so, amidst the vast expanse of the ranch, with mountains in the distance and under the watchful eye of the rising sun, the circle of life spun on, unbroken and everlasting.

A Father’s Promise

Kelly Grayson

Punta Maldonado

Guerrero, Mexico

July 20, 2018

The woman pondered the note in her hand. Blood and water-stained, the paper had stiffened and rippled, making the message hard to read. It smelled of corruption. Gulls and carrion birds wheeled and called nearby, and her stomach roiled.

“Well, inspectora? What does it say?” her older companion asked impatiently. He had the weary, rumpled look of a mid-level functionary, a senior detective rising no further and going nowhere, resigned to the futility of it all. The respect he paid to the younger woman was begrudging, and it showed in his manner.

The woman, Senior Inspector Adelina Lopez Aguilar of the Policía Federales, looked up at him. The junior detective towered over her, yet she was not cowed. Adelina Lopez was not one to be cowed by much; usually she was the one who did the intimidating. She said nothing, just stared levelly at the older man until he flushed and turned his eyes away.

Rather than respond directly, she said, “I cannot concentrate here—the stench is so powerful. Let us move upwind.” Without another word, she turned on her heel and walked further up the dunes, weaving her way through the sage and switch grass back to the coastal road. Junior Detective Hector Ayala trudged obediently behind her, and this time when she began reading, he did not interrupt.

“My name is Caleb Ardoin. I am a paramedic from Abbeville, in the state of Louisiana in the United States. If you are reading this letter, it is likely that you have either captured me or found my body.

I want you to know that I regret none of my actions in the past few months. I planned this, and I operated alone with no assistance from others. The criminal culpability is mine alone. Since my arrival in Mexico, I have tried to cover my tracks and leave little in the way of clues. I covered up my crimes not to avoid prosecution, but to delay any interference—by Mexican law enforcement or by the men I am hunting—with what I must do. Still, it is likely that a skilled investigator could deduce what I have done. It is my hope that one such person is reading this letter now, and the details will fill in some of the blanks in your investigation.

In Acapulco in the house rented in my name, you will find an ambulance filled with donated medical equipment and supplies destined for Huautla de Jiménez in Oaxaca state. The Mexican Red Cross will have all paperwork on file. The donors of the ambulance and all the supplies therein had no knowledge of my plans. They were merely my means of entry into the country.

Herein lies a full accounting of my time in Mexico, from my border crossing in Juárez at 3:00 pm, June 28, 2018, until the writing of this letter. I want everyone to realize that I am a lawful man, but some sins cannot be borne. If justice had been served, I would not have been compelled to seek my own…

116 Avenida Junto a la Playa

Acapulco

July 11, 2018

3:20 am

“Good, you’re awake. You’ve been out quite a while. I was beginning to fear I had overdosed you.”

The man on the bed stared lazily at the ceiling and blinked his eyes slowly. He tested his bonds, slowly and half-heartedly. There was nothing panicked or hurried about his movements; more of an exploration of his sensory environment than a concerted attempt at escape. His arms tightened and his hands curled at the wrists, flexed briefly, relaxed. A minute later, his legs.

He tried to process what the voice had said to him just a moment ago, but his mind was gauzy, rational thought appearing fleetingly in wisps and tatters, immaterial. He was…somewhere. Somewhere not his own, a room he did not recognize. An alarm in his mind knew that this signaled danger, but he found it difficult to remember why.

He couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t care. Couldn’t move.

No, that wasn’t right. He could move, but his body was slow to respond. By the time the command from his brain reached his limbs, he had lost his purpose, forgotten that he had commanded his limbs to move. By the time they did obey, his mind had wandered to something else, and the movement came as a surprise to him. His entire body felt like a lagging computer; his brain would type out a command, and then he’d wait an eternity for the text to appear on the screen, one agonizingly slow character at a time.

His eyes opened again, blinked, tracked around the room. As his eyes scanned left and right, his vision jumped and became unfocused at the extreme edges of his peripheral vision. It felt…odd…and a brief wave of nausea swept over him as his visual input and his ears sent mixed messages to his brain.

“They call it nystagmus,” the voice continued conversationally, “when your eyes twitch like that. It’ll pass.”

He tried his bonds again but couldn’t muster the strength or the focus to sustain it.

His body was relaxed, placid, but his mind was anything but. The fear mounted—something was very, very wrong—but his body refused to respond to the adrenaline dump from his sympathetic nervous system. The only outward indicators of distress were the tears that welled up and marched down his cheeks from the corners of his eyes, and the increased frequency of the beeps emanating from a machine somewhere to his left.

Or maybe it was his right. He couldn’t tell. Right, left, up, down didn’t seem to matter, and the terrifying part was that he knew it should, but he couldn’t seem to orient himself.

What was going on?

“It’s the dissociative effect of the ketamine,” the voice told him. “The kids that abuse the stuff call it a k-hole. From what I gather, it’s utterly terrifying. I’d imagine some of the girls you’ve drugged with it experienced similar terror. Unlike theirs, yours will pass in time.”

Then a face appeared over his head: brown hair and green eyes, tanned skin, mid-forties. His head was wreathed in a halo from the overhead light, and he wondered if the face might be an angel, but idly dismissed the thought. Angels should be beautiful and comforting. This man was…blank. There was no compassion in his face. If there had ever been any, he had long since killed it, replaced only by a look laden with fatigue and resignation.

The face disappeared briefly and then the overhead lights went out, replaced by softer, less harsh lighting from lamps around the periphery of the room. The face reappeared and held a photograph above his head: a girl, early twenties, blonde hair and brown eyes. She had a tropical flower tucked behind one ear and she was holding a drink in one hand, a happy smile on her face. The girl looked familiar.

“Her name is Natalie Ardoin,” the face said softly. “You met her three months ago in the Surfside Cantina at the Palacio Del Mar resort in Acapulco. You took her to a dance club downtown. Do you remember?”

His heart was hammering now, and it felt as if he couldn’t catch his breath. He tried to speak, and his tongue was blocked by something in his mouth.

The face turned to look at the machine on his left. “Heart rate 170,” the face noted dispassionately. “That’s high, but a young guy like yourself should be able to handle it. As the ketamine wears off, the dissociative effects will wane and you’ll become more lucid.”

He tried to scream, but what came out was little more than a muffled grunt inaudible more than a few feet away.

“Ball gag,” the face apologized. “I can’t afford to have anyone hear you scream. Don’t bother trying to escape, because you’re thoroughly restrained. I’ve inserted a catheter in your bladder so you won’t have to get up to urinate, and there’s an IV in your right arm to keep you hydrated.”

He tried to scream again, and his eyes pleaded with the face, blurry through his tears.

“I’ve got to step out to tend to some things,” the face apologized, “but I’ll be back in a couple of hours. When I come back, I’ll remove the gag and we’ll have a little chat, but in the meantime I want you to try to remember this girl and her name, Natalie Ardoin. Natalie Ardoin.”

He tried to turn his face away, and his body obeyed in a desultory fashion. A strong hand wound itself in his hair and wrenched his head back around. The face was only inches from his now, the lips white and the eyes hard, but the voice remained utterly calm. “Natalie Ardoin, May 5, 2018, at the Surfside Cantina,” the voice reminded him. “And Paolo, you’re going to tell me every fucking thing that happened, and not the bullshit story you told the policia.”

Quinta Real Acapulco resort

Nine days earlier

“You look tired, Mr. Ardoin.”

“I am tired.” Caleb Ardoin smiled at the girl. His smile matched the lines on his face and the bags under his eyes. “Let’s go over it again, anyway.”

“I’ve already told you everything I told the Mexican cops,” Holly Fontenot sighed. “She had been dancing with the guy most of the night. He bought us drinks. He seemed really nice.”

“Do you know the name of the club he brought her to?”

“No, she just said his name was Paolo, and he knew a place downtown. I was tired and a little drunk and I wanted to go back to the room. I told her not to go off alone, Mr. Ardoin, I swear. That was the last time I talked to her.” Holly Fontenot’s eyes misted and her lower lip trembled. She bit her lip and blinked the tears from her eyes, wrapped her arms around herself as if to ward off a chill, despite the warm breeze blowing in from the open windows. She turned her head away and cried softly.

Caleb let her cry. His mind searched for words of comfort, some way to ease the tension, and came up with nothing. His bedside manner had evaporated at roughly the same pace as the leads to his missing daughter. Now all he felt was tired, and the fear that his anger would get the best of him. It had been three months, and he had nearly given up hope.

So he said nothing—not because he recognized that Holly Fontenot needed to grieve, but because he had nothing left to offer.

After a few minutes, he gently cleared his throat. “Holly. Holly. Look at me, kid.” She turned to face him, but wouldn’t meet his eyes. “You remember when you were sixteen, and they caught you both with beer in your room at cheerleader camp?”

Holly looked at him uncertainly and nodded.

“And you said it was yours, and Natalie had nothing to do with it?” Caleb smiled gently at her.

“It was my beer—“ Holly started to say and stopped when Caleb Ardoin raised a hand.

He shook his head. “I get her credit card statements, Holly. I knew she bought that beer. I even talked to the clerk. He said you sat in the car the whole time and he considered not selling it to her, but the fake ID she used looked legit.”

“Why are you telling me this, Mr. Ardoin?”

“Because I know you were protecting her way back then, just like you were looking out for her at the Surfside Cantina. It wasn’t your fault, kid. My daughter has always been a little willful and reckless. Stop torturing yourself over it.”

Holly Fontenot blinked the tears from her eyes and blew out a long, shaky breath. “You think she might still be alive?” she asked hopefully.

“I think there’s a really good chance,” Caleb answered with a reassuring smile that never quite reached his eyes. “That’s why I need to know everything about that night.”

“What are you going to do, Mr. Ardoin?” Holly’s eyes searched his. “You’re a paramedic, not a cop.”

“I’m going to find my daughter,” he said matter-of-factly.

“And what if she’s dead?”

“Then I’m going to find her body and kill every single motherfucker that had anything to do with it,” he answered, and this time his voice was flat and still as Death. To Holly Fontenot, the lack of emotion in the statement was the most chilling thing of all.

El Latido dance club

Acapulco

July 10, 2018

10:34 pm

The two men lounged in the Suburban, windows down, chatting and smoking idly. They were parked on a side street two blocks away from the club entrance when a gringo in a garish guayabera shirt and khaki cargo shorts approached them. The man’s dress and mannerisms screamed “tourist,” and he smiled apologetically as he put a cigarette to his lips and asked, “¿Tiene un encendedor, por favor?”

The driver grunted, fished around in his pants pocket, and extended an old, stainless steel Zippo lighter out the window. The man murmured “Gracias,” leaned forward as if to steady the flame, then grabbed the man’s left wrist in an iron grip and yanked him into the door.

Caleb smoothly drew a suppressed FN 509 Tactical 9mm pistol from the waistband of his shorts and shot the driver through the mustache, blowing his brains across the cab of the Suburban and into the face of the startled passenger, who muttered an unintelligible oath in Spanish as he went for his own weapon. Still holding onto the dead man’s wrist, Caleb leaned to his left and shot the passenger three times before he could retrieve the sawed-off Remington 870 from the floor of the vehicle.

His heart hammering in his ears and his hands trembling, Caleb scanned nearby for anyone who might have noticed the shots. Suppressed pistol shots in real life sound nothing like Hollywood’s version; anyone standing nearby would immediately recognize the sound as gunshots.

Luck was with him, and nobody appeared to have taken notice. Suppressing the gorge that rose in his throat, Caleb quickly opened the driver’s door of the Suburban and dragged the driver’s lifeless corpse out onto the pavement and around to the rear of the vehicle. He did the same with the passenger, and only then realized the flaw in his tactics.

He had no real plan for how to dispose of the bodies, only a vague notion of leaving them in a dark alley nearby. He immediately realized that wouldn’t work; there was too much foot traffic nearby, and the police would be swarming the area within minutes if the bodies were found.

Cursing under his breath, he opened the rear doors of the Suburban, folded the backseat down, and manhandled the bodies into the back of the SUV. Ignoring the gore that smeared the front of his shirt, he quickly got into the driver’s seat, rolled up the windows and drove away.

Two blocks later, he jammed on the brakes of the Suburban, opened the driver’s door and leaned out, and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the pavement.

El Latido dance club

Acapulco

July 11, 2018

2:14 am

Caleb sat in the driver’s seat of the Suburban and stared impatiently at the cellphone on the passenger seat. He had been watching Paolo and his compatriots for four days, long enough to gain a sense of their pattern.

After a great deal of not-so-patient questioning of his daughter’s best friend, Holly had finally pulled a phrase from the hazy depths of her memory: The Throb. He had spent three fruitless days in the phone directory and prowling the nightclub district looking for a club with a name that matched, only to finally realize that his rudimentary Spanish translation through Google Translate had been incorrect. and that he was looking for a mistranslation. He had misinterpreted Holly’s information. Not unsurprisingly for a medical professional, he had assumed that the word Holly remembered—latir—was a verb. Only after trying numerous combinations had he realized that the name of the dance club had been El Latido. The Beat.

He had picked up Paolo at the Surfside Cantina and shadowed him for three days, long enough to observe him take two young women—both blonde—to El Latido in the wee hours of the morning. Both times after a couple of hours, Paolo had placed a call on his cellphone and half-walked, half-dragged an inebriated young woman outside and into the waiting Suburban.

He had tailed the Suburban and lost it the first time, but hit paydirt on the second attempt. The Suburban parked outside a modest home on the outskirts of the city, a gate opened, and the Suburban drove inside. From fifty yards away, Caleb watched through binoculars as the three men in the Suburban carried the now-unconscious girl inside. He watched the gate until well after dawn, but observed no traffic other than the blacked-out Suburban that left at 9:10 am.

Caleb had rented an AirB&B in Acapulco, a spacious house with a gated courtyard which turned out to be less than three miles from where the men were keeping the girls. After taking out the driver and his partner, he pulled the stolen Suburban into the courtyard and parked. An ambulance stripped of its markings was parked nearby, and Caleb quickly opened the rear doors of the ambulance, rummaged around for a moment, and retrieved two vinyl body bags from the interior. The ambulance still bore a green and white paint job, and here and there one could still see the traces of the vinyl lettering that had marked it as a part of the Acadian Ambulance fleet in Caleb’s hometown of Abbeville, LA.

Grunting and cursing, he manhandled the bodies of the two dead sicarios out of the Suburban and into the body bags and stowed them in the back of the ambulance. He quickly ducked inside the rental house and emerged bare minutes later with a clean shirt and cargo shorts, started the Suburban and left. He ignored the wave of nausea and his shaking hands as he navigated back to where the two men had been parked, a few blocks away from El Latido.

As he waited for the phone to ring, he idly toyed with the syringe and pistol laying in his lap. He had owned the pistol for years, a private sale from a firefighter back in Louisiana. The suppressor had been little more than an expensive toy, bought more for the fact that the FN had a barrel threaded for one than for any perceived need. When the paperwork finally cleared, Caleb had picked up the suppressor from the gun shop and put fifty rounds through it on their indoor range before removing it and storing it in the back of his gun safe.

That had been ten years ago, and the first time he had used it for anything more serious than punching holes in paper had been less than four hours ago.

He had been terrified that the Customs and Border Protection agents at the border crossing in Juarez would find his weapon, but the agent waved him through after a cursory examination of his paperwork and having Caleb power up one of the three Medtronic LifePak Fifteen cardiac monitors. The other two had had their internal circuitry removed and replaced with the FN pistol, the suppressor, and 300 rounds of ammunition.

The phone rang, interrupting Caleb’s reverie. His heart leapt into his throat, and his fingers fumbled at the phone until he found the SEND button. “¿Sí?” he grunted into the phone, praying that whoever was on the other end would not recognize an American accent in only one word.

“Puerta. Dos minutos,” a voice ordered brusquely, then hung up.

Caleb tucked the cell phone into his shirt pocket and put the Suburban in gear. He had only two minutes to meet Paolo at the front door.

He was thirty seconds late, and pulled to the curb alongside Paolo Ruiz, who had his arm wrapped around an inebriated blonde girl. Paolo waved and smiled disarmingly as the Suburban pulled to a stop, opened the rear passenger-side door and unceremoniously dumped the girl inside. He slammed the door behind her, opened the front door and climbed into the passenger seat, turning toward the driver as he closed the door. “When I say two minutes, I mean two fucking minutes, you miserable—“ Paolo stopped speaking abruptly, his eyes crossing comically on the pistol suppressor pressed against the bridge of his nose.

“Hola, Paolo,” Caleb Ardoin greeted him with a grim smile, then reached over with his left hand and plunged the loaded syringe into Paolo’s thigh. “We need to talk.”

116 Avenida Junto a la Playa

Acapulco

July 11, 2018

4:15 am

“Awake and lucid yet? Nod your head if you understand me.”

Paolo Ruiz blinked and nodded slowly.

Caleb’s face appeared in his peripheral vision, and Paolo turned his head to look at him. Caleb looked idly at the pistol in his hand and then turned his hand over. He clucked disappointedly and said, “Excuse me, I need to wash my hands again.”

He left the pistol sitting on the bed, rose and walked to the bathroom. The faucet turned on, and incongruously, he heard Caleb humming “Happy Birthday to You” as he washed his hands. He hummed it twice, and then the sound of running water stopped. Caleb emerged from the bathroom drying his hands, then tossed the towel on the bed.

“I’m going to remove the ball gag now so that you and I can talk. Keep in mind that crying out will do you no good; and I have nastier drugs than ketamine available. Are we clear?”

Paolo nodded, and Caleb removed the ball gag. After coughing for several seconds, he croaked, “Feliz cumpleaños.”

“Oh, that?” Caleb chuckled. “That was force of habit. They teach us to sing the happy birthday song twice while we wash our hands to make sure we expose any germs to antibacterial soap for long enough to kill them. I just noticed that I had some of Miguel’s blood and brain matter in my cuticles. That was rather sloppy of me, but in my defense, he was the first man I’ve ever killed. I was a bit shaken up.”

Paolo’s eyes widened and his tongue worked at the inside of his mouth, but he said nothing.

“That’s right,” Caleb confirmed. “Miguel and Juan are both dead. That’s why I had to leave briefly; I had to dispose of the bodies. That should answer any questions you may have about how serious I am.”

Paolo considered this a moment and then croaked hopefully, “¿Agua?”

“Certainly,” Caleb answered agreeably and fetched a bottle of water from the refrigerator. He held it to Paolo’s lips patiently as he greedily slurped water. “The drugs do cause dry mouth, and I can only imagine what the gag does.”

“Gracias.”

Caleb sighed. “My Spanish isn’t very good, and I know you speak fluent English. It would help if we continued this conversation in English.”

Paolo nodded. “I speak English. I do not know why—“

“Stop,” Caleb said sharply. “I’m not here to play games, and I’m not interested in the same bullshit story you fed to the Acapulco Police and the Policía Federales. You kidnapped my daughter on Cinco de Mayo at the Surfside Cantina in Acapulco, just like you did the three other girls I found tied up back in your safehouse. I want to know where you took her, how many other girls you’ve kidnapped, who helped, your entire fucking network. You’re going to supply me with that information, or you’re going to wish you were lying dead in an alley with Juan and Miguel.”

“You think you can torture me and find out what you wish, gringo?” Paolo sneered. “I have been interrogated by better men than you. I gave them nothing.”

“I saw the scars,” Caleb said mildly. “One of the cartels?”

“Si,” Paolo spat. “Sinaloa. My father was a runner. They suspected him of stealing las drogas. To get the information from him, they tortured his children. They killed my mother and my sister, but I escaped.”

“And then you joined them or one of their competitors,” Caleb said flatly, “only you traffic women instead of drugs.”

“I do not work for the cartels.” Paolo shook his head.

“Then who?” Caleb asked pointedly.

“Fuck you, gringo,” Paolo cursed. “Do your worst. The men I work for are much scarier than a lone gringo from Texas.”

“Louisiana,” Caleb corrected, sighing. “I’m sure you have a terrific pain tolerance, Paolo,” he continued gently, “but I’m willing to bet you’ve never experienced what I’m going to do to you.”

He turned to a sideboard and retrieved a vial and a syringe. Paolo’s eyes narrowed, and he chuckled. “You mean to drug me? Did I tell you anything when you gave me the ketamine? Or do you plan to give me sodium pentothal?”

“I’ve watched spy movies and read novels,” Caleb said conversationally, “enough to know that there’s no such thing as truth serum. All the drugs do is blur your sense of consequences, and it takes a skilled interrogator to get actionable information. I, however, am not a skilled interrogator, unless you count knowing what questions to ask to figure out why Granny’s chest is hurting. I’m not that subtle, Paolo. I much prefer the direct approach.”

“What are you giving me?” Paolo hissed as Caleb drew up the contents of the vial and injected it into the IV line.

Here goes nothing, Caleb thought. Fourth row in the box of saline flushes, fifth vial in from the left. I hope I got this right.

Paolo cursed at him and then halted abruptly, his tongue making a clicking noise in his throat. His eyes darted back and forth wildly, and his limbs began to twitch.

“They’re called fasciculations,” Caleb explained. “Uncontrolled muscle tremors. They’re an unfortunate side effect of succinylcholine. There are better drugs now that don’t cause them, but I chose the sux for the psychological effect. It’s gotta be frightening, right? Not being able to control your muscles?”

Paolo felt his fingers clench and then relax, and a ripple of muscle spasms flowed down his thighs. He tried to take a deep breath to cry out…and discovered that he couldn’t.

His mind cried out, “WHAT IS GOING ON?” as his body screamed for breath and his limbs refused to obey his brain’s commands.

“Onset of fasciculations within fifteen to thirty seconds, flaccid paralysis within sixty to ninety seconds,” quoted Caleb woodenly. “Succinylcholine is a depolarizing neuromuscular blockade agent, causing the rapid release of acetylcholine along motor synapses and then preventing its re-uptake. This can cause life-threatening hyperkalemia in patients with severe crush injury, burns, or Duchenne muscular dystrophy. You don’t have any of those conditions, do you, Paolo?”

Paolo tried to turn his eyes to see his tormentor, only to discover that he couldn’t even move or close his eyes. His brain screamed at his muscles to obey, and his sympathetic nervous system went into overdrive. Even though his muscles refused to obey, his adrenal glands had no such restrictions, and his heartrate and blood pressure skyrocketed.

Caleb’s face appeared over his head and gazed down at him impassively. “Succinylcholine paralysis lasts four to six minutes, according to the drug references, but it seems closer to ten when it’s your patient. I gotta tell you, your asshole really puckers when you paralyze your patient and you have difficulty getting the patient intubated. I can only imagine how scared the patient must be.”

Paolo felt a tightness in his chest as his lungs began to burn and scream for oxygen, and tears welled in his eyes. Powerless to even blink them away, they pooled there, and his vision swam as the tears marched down his temples.

“The average healthy adult will take approximately six to eight minutes to exhaust their cellular oxygen reserves, provided they are adequately pre-oxygenated,” Caleb continued in the same even voice. “We have techniques to stave off hypoxia for up to an hour should I choose to employ them, but you, however, have been breathing only room air. Considering your elevated heartrate and blood pressure from the panic you must be feeling, I give it three minutes, max. I bet you’d really like a breath right about now, wouldn’t you?”

Paolo’s mind screamed “YES!” but he only laid limply on the stretcher, heart thudding in his ears and tears wetting the hair along his temples.

Caleb turned his head and read the numbers on the cardiac monitor. “Heartrate 184, BP 200/120, respirations zero, carbon dioxide zero, pulse oximetry level eighty-eight percent. That’s very impressive, Paolo! You’re obviously a fit young man, but I think you’d better get a tube before that sat drops any lower. Once it gets below eighty-eight, hypoxia sets in quickly, and I want you lucid.”

Paolo’s vision blurred as Caleb leaned over him and inserted a metal instrument in his mouth. He felt a tube slide harshly down his throat and a wave of nausea passed over him, but presently he felt his lungs inflating once again and the pressure in his chest eased. His body’s physiologic panic began to ease as the oxygen deprivation was relieved, but his heartrate and blood pressure remained elevated.

“Funny thing about neuromuscular blockers,” Caleb mused as he methodically squeezed the resuscitation bag, “is that they provide no sedation whatsoever; the patient remains lucid throughout the entire episode. I’ve known doctors who would give it without sedation when the patient was in really bad shape. Their excuse was that they didn’t have the time to observe the niceties when they were trying to save someone’s life. Personally, I think the only thing more unethical would be fucking the patient’s corpse once they called off the resuscitation.”

Caleb turned back to the cardiac monitor and read, “Heartrate 124, BP 156/90, respirations twelve, carbon dioxide forty millimeters of mercury, oxygen saturation a hundred percent. Damn, I’m good!” He smiled down at Paolo. “You must be wondering how a paramedic can torture someone like this, huh?”

Paolo remembered the doctors and nurse in the hospital where he had staggered in two days after his escape from the Sinaloa cartel as a child. All of them had seemed bedraggled and weary, but their eyes and hands had been gentle.

“The answer is professional distance,” Caleb continued softly. “To do the job, we have to train our minds to function, despite all the blood and noise and distractions. We can’t allow ourselves to take it all in; there is only the next task to be accomplished. You have to learn to compartmentalize or you’re useless on a bad scene. You can let yourself fall apart afterwards, but never while you’re doing the job.”

He leaned over again and blotted the tears from Paolo’s eyes with gauze. His voice hardened, and he glared into the eyes of the young man restrained on the stretcher. “That’s all you are to me right now, Paolo. You’re the next fucking task I have to accomplish, and I will get all the information from you that I need. I may have nightmares about you later, but I’m not worried about tomorrow.”

Paolo said nothing, just stared through the film of tears at the ceiling as he felt his chest rise and fall.

“On the other hand, you should be worried about tomorrow, Paolo,” Caleb told him placidly as he ventilated with the resuscitation bag. “I’ve got five more vials of succinylcholine in the next room.”

116 Avenida Junto a la Playa

Acapulco

July 11, 2018

9:00 am

“Let’s go over it again,” Caleb ordered, consulting his notes and massaging his aching eyes. When he’d hit forty, he had bowed to the inevitability of age and started using reading glasses, but had perversely forgotten them for his trip.

“I have told you all I know,” Paolo sobbed, his voice hoarse and scratchy. Caleb had let him buck and gag when the paralytic agent wore off, the better to cow him, and he had promptly vomited when the tube was removed.

“So tell me again,” he said patiently. “Do I need to inject you again?”

“No!” Paolo blurted desperately, involuntarily bucking against the straps. “Por favor, please not again!”

“So you spot the girls at the beachside resorts, and lure them back to a local club…”

“Si, si,” Paolo nodded eagerly. “I drug their cocktails, and I bring them to the men for transport further down the coast.”

“How many resorts, Paolo? Just here in Acapulco?”

“All of them in Acapulco, si.” Paolo nodded and swallowed painfully. “Two others in Puerto Vallarta.”

“What resorts there?” Caleb pressed. “How often are you there?”

“The Hilton and the Westin,” Paolo croaked. “May I have some water, please?”

Caleb obligingly held the water bottle to his lips again. “When and how often are you in Puerto Vallarta?” he asked again.

“Hardly ever for the past year. The policia were getting too close, and the resorts hired private investigators.”

“And the men who transported the girls up there, Miguel and Juan?”

Paolo shook his head again. “Different men each time. Miguel and Juan live here in Acapulco. They are local hired thugs who can be trusted to keep their mouths shut.”

“Lived here.” Caleb smiled cruelly. “Were hired thugs.” Paolo swallowed again, but not from thirst.

“And where are the girls taken from here?” Caleb checked his notes. “This little village called…” He stumbled over the pronunciation. “…Cua-Cuajin…”

“Cuajinicuilapa,” Paolo finished. “They are kept in a safehouse there until the boat comes.”

“And this boat?”

“A man named Santiago de Mazatlan. He owns a fleet of fishing boats in Punta Maldonado, about thirty kilometers away. He takes the girls out at night on one of his boats, and they meet a freighter offshore.”

“Bound for where?”

“I do not know,” Paolo whined, tears forming anew in his eyes. “I only know my role and the men I work with directly.”

Caleb sighed, stood up and reached for the laryngoscope and the resuscitation bag again.

“MALAYSIA!” Paolo blurted desperately. “Madre de dios, do not drug me again! I swear to you, I am not lying! The freighters go to Malaysia!”

“Okay, Malaysia,” Caleb acknowledged and sat down again. “This man, Santiago de Mazatlan—he’s part of your trafficking network? The name sounds suspicious: St. James of Mazatlan. Is it an alias?”

“I do not know,” Paolo shrugged. “That is what we call him. His people were Aztecs. He is very arrogant, and I have never heard his true name.”

“He’s the boss?”

Paolo snorted. “Boss? He is simply a poor old fisherman trying to keep a fleet of aging boats afloat. He knows nothing beyond when and where to pick up and drop off the girls. We leave the money in the safehouse. I have only seen him from a distance, and he has never seen our faces.”

“And the three girls in your safehouse here?” Caleb asked, ticking off something in his notes. “When were they to be transported to…Cuajin…the other city?”

“Tonight,” Paolo answered. “Miguel and Juan take them in the SUV to Cuajinicuilapa, drop them off at the safehouse, and leave. The fisherman comes around midnight and takes them offshore.”

“How often?” Caleb wanted to know. “How many girls?”

“Two or three a month,” Paolo answered sullenly. “Sometimes more.”

“What days?” Caleb pressed again. “If I have to keep dragging facts out of you one at a fucking time, I’m gonna dose you again.”

“Wednesday!” Paolo cried. “Always Wednesday!”

“Why Wednesday?” Caleb asked. “What about the weeks you don’t move any girls?”

“I don’t know,” Paolo shrugged. “I think it has to do with the freighter schedule. On the days we have no girls to transport, we simply don’t go. I assume that when the old man finds no girls in the safe house, he doesn’t take the boat out.”

“This is a pretty extensive operation you’ve got here, Paolo,” Caleb mused. “By my count, you’ve kidnapped and trafficked roughly 200 girls since you started in 2015. They must go for a lot of money.”

“I don’t know,” Paolo hedged warily. “I only know what I am paid.”

“Price I heard quoted was $20,000 before I came down here,” Caleb chuckled. “Man, I’d love to see the looks on the Feds’ faces when they see my search history. So, $20k a girl—provided she’s young and blonde—times 200 is four million bucks, Paolo. That’s a lot of money floating around. A man that can afford to buy another human being for twenty grand probably doesn’t worry about cops. What about the man who sells them for that amount? Who’s the dirty cop or politician he’s got in his pocket?”

“I don’t know what you’re asking me,” Paolo whined. “Por favor, I’ve told you all I know.”

“What price did he get for my little girl, Paolo?” Caleb shouted, so close that spittle flecked Paolo’s face, making him flinch and close his eyes. “HOW MUCH DID YOU MOTHERFUCKERS GET FOR SELLING MY DAUGHTER?”

Paolo turned his head away and clenched his eyes shut. “I…I do not know. I only know my role.”

“You remember my daughter, though,” Caleb continued heatedly. He grabbed Paolo by the hair and jerked his head back around. “Open your fucking eyes and look at me,” he commanded, “or I’ll peel your eyelids back with forceps and use my surgical stapler to fasten them to your forehead.” Caleb wouldn’t do that—couldn’t do that—but Paolo didn’t have to know that. He held Natalie’s senior portrait in front of Paolo’s eyes and asked again, “They questioned you on May 8th after Natalie was reported missing when she didn’t come back to the hotel. You were questioned by Detective Ramón Quintero of the Acapulco Police, an interview that lasted less than thirty minutes. I’ve read that transcript, Paolo. Why did that fucker ask you so few questions? Why did he accept your lame-assed answers? WHO IS PROTECTING YOU?”

The younger man forced open his eyes and blinked the tears away. “Please,” he whispered. “Don’t make me say the name. They will kill me if they knew I talked.”

“If you don’t talk, you’re dead, anyway. The difference is, you’re going to suffer a lot more at my hands before it happens. Give me a name, and I’ll let you live.”

Paolo’s brown eyes flew open and searched Caleb’s impassive green ones. “You swear that you will not kill me if I tell you?”

“I swear on my mother’s grave that you will leave here alive if you tell me everything else you know,” Caleb said honestly. “We’re both Catholic, so you know what that means.”

Paolo told him the rest.

Punta Maldonado

Guerrero, Mexico

July 20, 2018

“…As you’ve probably deduced by now, it was me who killed Detective Quintero. I was in a hurry to leave Acapulco in time to arrive at Cuajinicuilapa before midnight. The girls, including the one abducted on July 11th, are still handcuffed to the water pipes in the utility room of the safehouse in Acapulco at 1134 Camino de Ronda.

Of all the things I have done since I arrived here, leaving them there is what shames me the most. I knew they were terrified, I knew they saw me as their savior, but I couldn’t risk letting them go and alerting the authorities before I accomplished my mission. I drugged them all with ketamine to give myself a head start before I left, and I supplied them with bottled water and granola bars. For all I knew, they could have spooked Inspector Perez into eliminating them entirely if they went to the police.

Quintero was a corrupt pig. I saw him shake down at least three bars while I tailed him, and the man treats women as if they are objects solely intended for his amusement. Honestly, for a police detective, the man had no situational awareness. To let an untrained gunman pop you behind the ear as you walk past a darkened alley is no way for a good cop to die, but Quintero was anything but a good cop. Don’t let the papers lionize that scum as some heroic law enforcement officer gunned down in the line of duty.

I’d imagine you’re wondering where you can find Inspector Ricardo Perez of the Policía Federales, if you haven’t found him already. His body is in the passenger seat of an abandoned Chevy Suburban on Highway 200, about five miles north of Cuajinicuilapa. In his right interior suit pocket, you’ll find a digital voice recorder with my interrogation of Paolo Ruiz on it, implicating Perez as the head of an extensive human trafficking operation. I’m not sure of Mexican laws about evidence admissibility, but I’m sure you can find corroboration now that you have a place to start investigating…”

Senior Inspector Adelina Lopez Aguilar tore her eyes away from the paper and gazed at the blue Pacific a few hundred yards away. The breeze was at her back and the gulls cried overhead, and if she squinted her eyes just so, she could almost ignore the macabre scene a hundred yards down the beach and imagine being there on a pleasant summer day, the sun warm on her face and a Thermos of margaritas close at hand.

“Well?” Detective Ayala asked.

“It’s him, Hector,” she sighed, “the man we’ve been looking for. He killed the two sicarios in Acapulco, he killed Detective Quintero, and he killed Ricky.”

“Yes,” Ayala acknowledged churlishly. “But who is he?”

Rather than reply, Adelina turned her eyes back to the letter and picked up where she had left off.

Highway 200, 8 kilometers northeast of Cuajinicuilapa

Guerrero, Mexico

July 11, 2018

9:10 pm

Caleb shifted uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. He had gotten soaked disposing of Paolo’s body, and the wet cargo shorts chafed at his groin terribly. True to his word, Paolo was alive when Caleb let him go…right into the water off a rented boat, a mile off the beach in Acapulco.

He was alive but unconscious, and in no shape to protest with the hundred milliliters of air injected into his IV line before Caleb pulled it out and laboriously squeezed the limp man into a wetsuit, weight belt and SCUBA rig. With any luck, when the authorities found his body—if they found his body—they’d chalk his death up to barotrauma from an unfortunate diving accident and that would be the end of it.

Then again, maybe they wouldn’t. Caleb didn’t really care.

Inspector Perez had folded much more quickly than his subordinate. Caleb had simply waited outside his office until he left for the day, tailed him for several blocks to make sure he wasn’t followed by a security detail, and then tapped the man’s rear bumper at the next stoplight. When Perez walked back to the Suburban and angrily confronted him, Caleb had greeted him with a genial smile and the muzzle of his suppressed FN 9mm, and cordially invited him to hop in for a ride.

Being no fool, Perez accepted the invitation and got in the passenger side. After Caleb locked the doors, the federal policemen tried to bluster. Caleb silenced him with a 9mm round to the left knee. Perez howled in pain and clutched at his leg as blood spurted around his fingers. Caleb impassively watched him as he drove, then reached into a bag lying on the floor behind the console and fetched a CAT tourniquet.

He tossed it onto Perez’s lap and said coolly, “I’d pull over and help you with that, but we’re on a tight schedule. We have to be in Cuajinicuilapa before midnight to meet a boatman.”

Perez’s eyes widened. The gringo had butchered the pronunciation, but nobody outside his network knew about the safehouse there. His mouth opened, but no words escaped.

“Seriously, you know how to apply one of those?” Caleb asked pointedly, glancing down at the corrupt policeman’s ruined knee.

Numbly, Perez nodded.

“Best get to it, then. Looks like I hit your popliteal artery. I’d hate for you to bleed out before we finish our chat.”

Perez hastily opened the tourniquet packaging with adrenaline-palsied fingers and applied it about four inches above the knee. He turned the windlass rod several turns and clumsily fixed it in place with the Velcro strap.

Caleb looked at the bleeding professionally, switched the gun to his left hand, then reached over with his right hand and tightened the tourniquet another couple of turns. Perez screeched in pain.

“If it don’t hurt, it ain’t tight enough,” Caleb observed wryly. “You’re not very good at this, are you? A real cop would have gone for my gun just then. How long since you’ve done any honest police work on the streets?”

Perez glared at him sullenly, but said nothing.

“Your choice,” Caleb shrugged. “You’ve got three more major joints for me to wreck, but I’m all outta tourniquets. Next one might be the one that kills you.”

“You are a dead man,” the federal inspector spat venomously. “Regardless of what else happens today, you will not leave Mexico alive.”

Caleb chuckled mirthlessly, and his laugh was like snakeskin rubbing on dry leaves. He turned his head to look at Perez. “You think I don’t know that?” he said, and his voice was utterly toneless. “Heck, I figured it was a one-way trip when I got into my ambulance in Abbeville and pointed it west on Interstate Ten. Now, there’s really nothing to go back for. My life ended on May 7, 2018.”

Inspector Ricardo Perez of the Policía Federales stared at him dumbly, unsure how to reply.

“Your men abducted my daughter on May 5th of this year,” Caleb explained. “I figure it was about May 7th when she arrived at Cuajinicuilapa. You leaned on Detective Quintero to go easy on the prime suspect, Paolo Ruiz, when he interrogated him. You let him go, and the case went on the books as unsolved. I’ve been just going through the motions ever since.”

Perez’s face whitened as he realized who the gringo was.

“Funny as it may sound, shooting your two sicarios in Acapulco was the first time I’ve felt alive in months,” Caleb continued. “I mean, every sense was alive. I haven’t felt that way since my first cardiac arrest call as a rookie paramedic. Total adrenaline rush. I even puked my guts out afterward.” Caleb smiled at the memory.

Then the smile vanished and the impassive mask slipped back over his features, and when he turned to look at the shocked police inspector again, his eyes were devoid of any emotion. He pulled a pair of Leatherman Raptor trauma shears from a pouch on his belt and showed them to the policeman. “Since this morning, though, I’ve been just going through the motions again,” Caleb said. “The only thing left for me is the mission, and I’m going to complete it if I have to cut off every fucking finger you have, one joint at a time.”

“What do you want to know?” Perez asked, and Caleb told him.

As Caleb drove into the night towards Cuajinicuilapa, Inspector Ricardo Perez of the Policía Federales spilled his guts even more thoroughly than his men.

Caleb let him talk, occasionally steering the conversation back to previously visited subjects to make sure the policeman wasn’t lying to him. Then he pulled over just a few miles outside of town, put the muzzle of his pistol against the inspector’s chest, and fired a 115gr 9mm hollow point into his heart. He took the digital voice recorder from his shirt pocket, tucked it inside Perez’s suit coat, and walked away down the highway.

Cuajinicuilapa safe house

Guerrero, Mexico

July 12, 2018

12:14 am

Caleb was beginning to wonder if the old man would show when he heard the scratching of a key in the lock. He flattened himself against the wall as the door opened and a man walked into the room. Caleb heeled the door shut behind him and flicked on the lights, and when the man spun around in surprise, leveled the pistol at his face.

“I’ll bet I’m not who you expected to find,” Caleb drawled. The man just glared at him with glittering black eyes. His skin was brown and seamed like a dried pecan, the wrinkles formed from years of squinting into the sun and the glare on the ocean making it impossible to determine his age. He could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty. But his hands were big and powerful, rough and calloused with much toil and labor, and there was not an ounce of spare fat on him.

He didn’t appear frightened at all.

“I’m looking for the kidnapped girls,” Caleb said, and when the man still didn’t respond, he tried Spanish. “Niñas secuestradas?”

The old man nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off Caleb’s. He didn’t look at the gun at all.

“Santiago de Mazatlan?” Caleb asked, no longer sure of himself.

“Si.” The man nodded slightly.

“I want you to take me to the ship where you bring the girls,” Caleb ordered. “When the man did not reply, he raised his voice. “Niñas secuestradas, rápidamente!”

The man searched his eyes briefly, then shrugged slightly and simply said, “No entiendo.”

Caleb fished the photo of Natalie from his shirt pocket and thrust it at the man. “Niñas secuestradas!” he shouted. “Rápidamente!” The man’s eyes flicked from Caleb’s to the photo, then back. He nodded gravely and turned toward the door. Caleb heaved a sigh of relief and started to tuck the photo back in his pocket.

The old man moved like a striking snake, sweeping at his belt and thrusting backwards in one smooth motion. Caleb caught the movement in his peripheral vision, the knife low and almost below his line of sight. He felt it bite below his ribs on his right side before he could twist away, and out of pure reflex he pulled the trigger on his pistol.

The first round caught the man in the right shoulder and staggered him, the second smacking harmlessly into the wall. The old man reeled against the wall and turned around, leaving a smear of blood on the wall behind him. His teeth were bared in a sickly grimace, but his eyes were no less defiant, and he leaned forward to come at Caleb again.

“Stop!” Caleb bellowed in English, but the muzzle of his pistol took care of the translation. The man halted and leaned back against the wall, breathing heavily. Without taking his sights off the man’s chest, Caleb felt with his left hand for the haft of the knife, found it, and pulled it free. His eyes swam and he felt a brief wave of nausea, and he swayed on his feet. He lifted the knife to his line of vision and glanced at it dully. It was a cheap and simple fisherman’s knife with a wooden handle and a thin, slightly curved blade, useful for anything from filleting his catch to cutting line and nets. The blood on it was dark, and his senses vaguely reported more of it trickling down his belly.

Liver, Caleb noted professionally. Fuck.

He waved the pistol toward the door. “Niñas secuestradas,” he croaked, and the man nodded once more and turned for the door. He lowered his left hand long enough to turn the knob, and Caleb followed him out into the night.

He walked the old man at gunpoint to his truck, an ancient unibody Ford pickup, and motioned for him to open the passenger door and scoot into the driver’s seat. Caleb followed him into the truck and slammed the door, the movement causing a lance of pain that nearly took his breath away. He pressed the muzzle of the suppressed pistol to the old man’s temple and ordered, “Conducir. Drive.”

The old man turned the key and after much pumping the accelerator and working the manual choke, coaxed the old engine to life. The exhaust belched a cloud of blue smoke and the engine loped raggedly for several seconds, and then gradually smoothed out. Santiago de Mazatlan put the truck in gear and backed out, and within minutes they were speeding down the highway. Caleb let the cool night air rush over him from the open windows, but soon felt chilled, and shifting the pistol into his left hand, laboriously cranked the window up. He couldn’t seem to stop shivering and he was terribly thirsty.

Shock, his mind reported. I’m going into shock.

He closed his eyes briefly and started to pray, then snapped them open when he felt the truck swerve slightly. He thought the old man was trying another move, but he seemed to be focused on the road. He didn’t look so good himself; his skin was gray where it had been suntanned brown, and there was a sheen of perspiration on his forehead. Rivulets of blood ran down his right arm and dripped off his elbow onto the seat.

“Aren’t we two sorry sonsabitches,” he chuckled, and the old man turned to stare at him curiously. Caleb waved the gun again and repeated, “Conducir.” The old man said nothing and turned his eyes back to the road.

It felt like seconds later, but Caleb felt the truck lurch and he startled awake. He must have blacked out. The old man had pulled the ancient pickup over onto the shoulder of the road, and gestured vaguely out into the night.

“¿Estamos aquí?” Caleb asked, blinking his eyes sleepily, and the old man nodded, gesturing outside again. “Show me,” he ordered. His mind couldn’t seem to come up with the Spanish translation, and he gestured with the pistol. The old man seemed to understand and opened the driver’s door of the pickup. When Caleb opened his door, he could feel a warm onshore breeze and hear the crashing of surf.

Caleb followed the old man through the dunes towards the sound of the ocean, weaving through switch grass and sage, until the old man abruptly halted. He prodded the old man in the back with the pistol, but he only swayed on his feet. “Aquí,” he said shortly.

“Here?” Caleb asked, looking around. There was a shallow, irregular depression here no more than ten feet long, where no sage or switch grass grew.

The old man pointed at the ground before his feet and repeated, “Si, aquí.”

“Siéntate,” Caleb ordered, pointing and punctuating the order with his pistol. The old man obediently trudged over to where Caleb had pointed, his footsteps dragging in the sand, and half-sat, half-collapsed onto his buttocks. His shoulders slumped and his head sagged forward.

Caleb watched him carefully for several long moments, then sank to his knees. He switched the pistol to his left hand as he started to dig with his right.

It wasn’t long before he found a foot.

The sobs caught in his throat and the tears clouded his vision, but he kept digging. He had to know. Somewhere in the midst of it all, the old man laboriously hoisted himself to his feet and staggered off into the night.

Caleb didn’t notice.

Punta Maldonado

Guerrero, Mexico

July 20, 2018

“Anyway, Perez said that there were three ships, all of Malaysian registry, that make the run. The names of the ships are on the audio recording of Perez’s confession, but I can’t recall them at the moment. The fisherman signals them with a light and they transfer the girls at sea every Wednesday. I’m sorry I didn’t get to pursue that lead and kill the fuckers on the other end of the chain, but I did what I came here to do: I found my daughter. You’ll find my last will and testament in the glove compartment of the ambulance in Acapulco, tucked inside the envelope containing the Red Cross paperwork. In it you’ll find the names of my lawyers at home in Abbeville and Cuidad Juárez, and the contact information for my wife in Abbeville. I’m sure she’s still angry with me, but whoever finds this, please tell her I love her and I did what I promised. I found Natalie, and she’s coming home.

I’m getting kinda sleepy and the sand is cool here, and I can’t really concentrate to write any more. I think I’ll just sit here and be with my daughter…”

Adelina Lopez Aguilar blinked her eyes rapidly as if to clear them of something, took a shaky breath, and carefully folded the letter, tucked it into an evidence bag, and slipped it into her pocket. She stared up at the brilliant blue sky and listened to the wheeling gulls, closed her eyes and whispered a silent prayer.

Her prayer was interrupted by Detective Hector Ayala, sweating and cursing as he clambered up the dunes in his good dress shoes. He had a handkerchief clamped over his mouth and nose, and he stifled a gag. “Found his identification,” Ayala called, holding up a wallet. “Caleb Ardoin of Abbeville, Louisiana.”

“Bag it for evidence,” Aguilar ordered absently.

“It still doesn’t answer why he was here, and who he was to do such a thing,” Ayala groused.

“He was a father, Hector,” Aguilar answered softly. “A good one.”

Beneath Red Sky

Moze Howard

Post-Nuclear Family Values.

Something roused her from a deep sleep, vague dreams of undefined fear fading quickly, and soon she’d remember none of it. It was dark where she was, and everything hurt. She thought to rise but could not move. Head swimming, it took her a moment to remember who she was. All around was wet, sticky, and warm, but cooling rapidly. What was happening?

A snuffling sound was present, the reason for her waking, growing louder. With a snort, the source of the noise, something big, started scraping frantically: digging. A voice, a person, muffled and distant, was speaking, “C’mon, Champ! You can do it. Where are they?” Creaking, snapping, dragging, the muffling lessened and the outside world became louder.

Clarity slowly returned and she realized she couldn’t move. “I’m in here!” she shouted as loud as she could, but she was hampered by pressure. The digging sound stopped, then started again, louder, nearer. Sunlight appeared, a small shaft; she was buried alive. Her home had collapsed on top of her. Something plugged the hole for a moment, sniffed, blew out a gout of air, retreated, and a loud, deep barking began. On the outside, shadows played with the light, more creaking, more snapping, and the world opened wide.

Still buried, head sticking out, Tina Palmer, barely aware of her own self, wondered at the backlit figures who strained to lift the section of ceiling off her. Diving forward, the titanic form of a Waste Wolf first licked her, then tried to get its head under the debris that still pinned her. “Okay, Champ,” said one of the newcomers, a man, “get back. We gotta get your mama out from under there.”

“What,” Tina tried to ask, struggling, “what happened?” They lifted and she gasped, realizing that she had been denied air until now. The debris that had been crushing her would have eventually killed her but now, she could really breathe.

The first spoke again. “One second, Tina! Just…can you crawl out?”

Straining, struggling, Tina realized that she was one big bruise, her body unwilling to cooperate. The will was there, so she kept struggling, but just bending a leg was like moving a mountain. “I’m…trying…”

“Shit. Fuck, I’m gonna lose it!” exclaimed one. “It’s all one piece!” There were three of them. This one, a woman, was directly overtop of her, straddling her head.

Finally, the third of her would-be rescuers piped up. “Champ! Champ, buddy, get mama! Now you can get her! C’mon!” He was straining—they all were. Looking down at her feet, Tina realized that these three were lifting a big part of her roof. Nearby, past her rescuers, Champ, her pet, danced and whined, unsure of what to do. He had permission, but there was no space to get past the humans.

With a loud crunch, another layer of debris settled, adding more weight on top of the pile. “Oh, God!” shouted one of the men. “I can’t! I…I can’t!” More creaking. They likely had only seconds to finish the rescue.

Pushing his head between the woman’s feet, Champ managed to reach Tina’s jacket without upsetting the pile or the rescuer’s balance. Pulling and scooting on his belly, Champ cleared Tina from the wreckage. Just as her feet slid out, her three human rescuers released, staggering away, a thunderclap escaping as the rubble of her home collapsed even further.

Tina laid there, rescued but still in a fugue state, reality slowly coming into focus. She finally recognized Sally, a neighbor, who was looking her over. “She has a head wound, but I think she’ll be okay. We should get her back to Tim before it’s too late.” Tim? Who’s Tim?

Champ crowded in, growling, letting loose with a loud, deep “Yar” sound. Pushing with his head, he got Sally away from “mama.”

One of the men, Carl was his name, crowded in, grabbing Champ by the mane and rubbing one of the beast’s ears. “C’mon, buddy, go find the kids. Find ‘em! C’mon! Where are they?”

“Ya-row-row,” babbled the great beast, snorting, chin pointing down, his eyes glancing between Carl and the ground. When the message failed to register with the humans, who just stared at him, he howled, a long, soulful, sad sound.

“Oh. Oh no… Guys, even if the kids were dead, Champ would be digging them out.” Don. That one’s name was Don. “I think they were taken…”

Tina’s heart jumped, but she wasn’t sure why, as she hadn’t consciously processed what was said. Painfully, she sat up. Champ pushed in when she started to struggle. Fear was bringing greater clarity, and she was starting to engage with her surroundings. “What happened?” she asked for a second time.

Her three neighbors all looked at each other, uncomfortably. Tina realized that they were all, themselves, injured in one way or another. Don’s head was wrapped, fresh blood coming through the gauze, Sally was purple up her left arm and cheek, and Carl now had only one eye. “What…what do you remember?” he asked.

“I barely know who I am, Carl. I— Ow!” She staggered while attempting to take a step. Tina swatted away Don’s hand before grabbing Champ, who pulled back and up to keep her on her feet. “Just start talking!”

More furtive glances, and finally, Sally stepped up. “Tina, we were hit. Slavers. They rolled in from the East. I don’t know who they were, exactly, but they had actual working vehicles. At least five. It was some big truck that rammed your house when you started bullseyeing anyone who came near your house with that rifle.”

Rifle. That rang a bell. “Nailing…you mean shooting?” she asked. “I was shooting at people?”

The neighbors all looked at each other, unsure of what to do. “Tina?” Sally stepped closer, clasping hands with Tina. “Honey, try to focus. We think…we think the slavers took Bryce and Tyca.” This registered, and Sally could tell, but she wasn’t getting through yet. “And Tim, he fought them, Tina. He’s…he’s dying…”

“What?” Shock took her. Tina staggered away from her loyal pet, clutching at her friend, and shrieked, “No!” and was immediately grabbed by not just Sally, but the two men, her loyal hound pressing in, as well. Four humans and a dog the size of a horse huddled together and let themselves feel grief for a moment. After that moment, in the stillness of her destroyed home, amid their decimated village in this region they called the Withers, still shaking, she asked, “Please. Take me to him, please…”

When The End came, the bombs hit all the major cities, starting what the survivors commonly called “The New Dark Age.” Half a century had passed, as had all survivors that the people in Landers remembered, and in the years since The End came, the wooden homes had all gone to ruin. For the most part, they’d simply been torn down, the pieces used to make new, smaller shacks. The footprints of those old homes and the yards around them had since been used to grow crops.

In the Waste, more land was needed to grow food than in the World before, if you could grow at all. The land here was called the Withers. Plants grew in the Withers, but growth was stunted, misshapen. This patch of the Withers was called Landers, and the village was here because the nearby creek provided water.

City Hall, one of the last buildings left standing in the village, was made of tough brick, perfect to stand the test of time and great to shelter in when a radstorm brought old fallout back into the neighborhood.

On any other day, Tina would have assumed that any attack on the village had to come from below, committed by underground dwellers called Bunkers. Slavers…she didn’t even know such people existed. Now her husband, Tim Palmer, was clinging to life. “Sweetie, it’s all right…” he told Tina as he laid on a cot in City Hall.

“How can you say that?” she asked. “They’re telling me you’re bleeding internally. That you wouldn’t make it to Crafton. That our kids…!” She choked up, unable to continue.

Of course, a place like Landers didn’t have a hospital, but they did have an old coot everyone just called Sawbones. Nobody was sure what his real name was, just that he had drugs and knew his way around a scalpel. Being the best they had, when he couldn’t help Tim, he got blamed. “Tina, understand, a gut shot like that…the complexity of the human bowels. I don’t have the equipment or the staff.”

“Stuff it, Sawbones,” she growled. “What’s the point? What’s the fucking point in going on if everyone I love is gone?” The entire village, fewer than fifty people, was present, and those who heard everything said were hurt by Tina’s words, though they no doubt understood. “We built a home! Planted crops! We had babies…we’re rebuilding the fucking human race! Why would anybody just take that away? It don’t make sense!”

Weak as he was, Tim pulled Tina in, kissing her on the lips. At first, the sweetness of the gesture calmed her, but then Tina tasted blood and started to cry, sinking down next to her husband. They clutched at each other, each desperate to make it all just go away for the other. “I…love you,” was all he could get out as he choked up, too, realizing that he was leaving the only woman who made his life worth living alone in the world.

Finally, after a long moment, Tina sniffled and managed to speak again. “Sawbones…how long’s he got?”

“Well, with luck, perhaps four hours, six, at most,” he responded, hands clasped, grimacing. The gravity of all this clearly weighed on the old man. His real age wasn’t known, but he did look older than any other living man, and today, he looked like death warmed over. “I’m sorry, but he won’t last ‘til morning.”

“I need a cot,” said Tina. “I’m not leaving him.” She looked at the father of her children as their friends and neighbors made way for the cot to be brought in and placed. She laid down immediately on their makeshift bed, grabbing his hand and refusing to let go. “I’m with you…to the end.”

Night fell. Time held little meaning now. At one point, Sawbones came and tended to the cut on Tina’s head, giving her pills for the pain. Later, Champ pushed his way into the building and laid on the floor at their feet, where Sawbones examined him, too. The Waste Wolf had been shot a few times, but seemed fine. Being a carnivore as tall at the shoulder as a man helped to make Waste Wolves tough as nails. Luckily, they tended not to gather in packs like their smaller brethren.

“Still with me?” she asked, her mouth twitching involuntarily.

Tim’s eyes opened, and he smiled a bit. He was pale. “Not getting rid of me yet.”

She laughed with foolish relief. She knew what was coming, but he was still, for the moment, with her. Tearing up, she choked on her words. “Tim, I…I’ve decided. I’m coming with you.”

His brow knit. “What’s that mean?” When she failed to reply quickly, he began to glare. “What the hell’s that mean, Tina?”

“What do you think it means?” She was struggling to keep her voice down. “I’m not staying in this godforsaken place all alone, Tim. You’re…and our babies…” She broke down again, her strength, her will ebbing.

“No. Absolutely not. Tina, look at me.” That was unlikely to happen, as tears poured down her face, but he took her head in both hands, doing his best to brush away her tears. “You can’t put this on me, dammit. I can’t be responsible for it!”

Breaking out into a full-on weeping, sobbing cry, Tina pushed her face into Tim’s shoulder and let it out for a moment, trying to find words again. Finally, they came, though with some difficulty. “You want me to live on as a widow? A widow whose children are condemned to suffer and die young, abused by some rich shithead? Is that it? I won’t do it.” She went back to his shoulder, unwilling to discuss it further.

They laid there for a moment, Tim doing his best to hold tight onto the most important person in his world, his partner, even as his strength faded. Mind racing, he realized that he had little time to convince her that life was worth living in the Waste. There had to be something he could say, something she’d believe, that would ring true. Finally, it came to him. “Tina. Look at me. Look at me…” Slowly, she pulled back, looking him in the eye as best she could in the dim moonlight, tears still streaming down her face. “You want to end it all? Fine, but do it right. You hear me?”

“What?” Tina shook her head, confusion making her forget her grief for a moment. “That doesn’t…what way?”

“Those sonsofbitches put a bullet in my belly, Tina. Why should they get away with that?” He was struggling to breathe, and everything was cold, but he had to get it out. “They have our children. Are you going to let them? You’re their mother!”

“You son of a bitch!” she shouted, slapping him, the motion capsizing her cot, and she wound up on her knees. She didn’t let go. They didn’t let go of each other. “That isn’t fair! It’s not fair!”

“What isn’t fair is Bryce breaking his back as a servant. And Tyca…what do you think those monsters will do to her? Think about it.” He stared daggers into her eyes. He wanted her angry, but not at him. He wanted her too angry to die.

Sawbones appeared from around the corner, but didn’t come any closer. They pretended not to notice him. “What the fuck can I do, Tim?” she shouted, “I’m not even a hundred and twenty pounds, barely over five feet tall… I’m no warrior! I remember the fight now! They were an army!”

“But you’re killing yourself, anyway, right? You want to follow me? Fine! I’m not asking you to live forever, dammit, just for a little longer. Go after those sonsofbitches, take a pound of flesh, more, if you can, and Tina, if you manage to survive long enough…maybe you can get our babies back. Won’t you try? Please?”

She was shocked, angry, but she was also waking up. Giving up, suicide…it was all so selfish, but this was a way to make it make sense. It was like having your cake and eating it, too. Revenge or just keeping hope alive, homicide or suicide by the enemy, this was a path to walk and a reason to live. She gasped, flabbergasted, struggling to form the words, questioning why she hadn’t thought of it herself. “I will!” She choked on the words, struggling. “I’ll do it or die trying. I swear to you.”

They kissed goodnight again as Sawbones approached, pulling the cot back into position, and she crawled back in. “Good. Now lay with me until sunrise, okay? And baby? No more tears, okay? Not until it’s done.”

No more words, pressing into him, despite the metal frame aggravating her bruises, Tina faded into slumber. She had a path to walk, she had hope, and because of revenge, she had a future…

Morning came. Tina rolled away from the love of her life, now ice cold in his cot, and sat on the edge of it, her own capsized. Somehow, they’d fit in the one, as hers was capsized again. She wanted to cry, but felt nothing. Trauma was enforcing her oath to her dearly departed. Waking, Champ scooted on his belly, laying his massive head on her feet. She massaged one of his giant ears, staring forward, plotting, planning. Finally, she looked down at her loyal pet. “We got work to do, Champ. Think you’re up to it?”

Waste Wolves were a strange species of mutant, bred true in the wild for decades. Nobody knew for sure what they were before The End. They looked like dogs or wolves, naturally, but their front teeth were rodent-like and their claws were retractable. Because of the claws, Tina always thought they came from foxes. More importantly, they were very smart, and here, now, making eye contact with Champ, she suspected that the big beast understood. With a “harumph,” Champ snorted his agreement.

Standing, Tina started to walk towards the front of City Hall, only vaguely aware that her caregiver, Sawbones, had come around the corner behind her. “Tina! Wait, where are you going?”

She stopped, but didn’t turn around, couldn’t turn around, refusing to see Tim’s body lying there. “Sawbones. You think you could get some folks to help me fish stuff out of the old house? I need…things. My rifle, my long leather coat, some other stuff…”

He didn’t reply at first, disturbed by her flatness. “Tina, you’ve just been through some horrible trauma. You sound so…detached. Maybe you should take some time to recover before you do anything, you know, too rash.”

“Rash?” She turned her head just enough to see him, not enough to see Tim past her hair. “Rash is attacking a town, stealing not just supplies, but people, and thinking nothing is gonna happen to you. That’s downright crazy. What I’m gonna do…well, that makes total sense.” She was wrong, she didn’t feel nothing. She felt rage.

Eyes downcast, she turned on Sawbones, shoving the old man against the wall with all her strength. He was heavy, well-fed from trading his services for potatoes and chickens, certainly better fed than anyone else in Landers. As she pushed on him, he grasped her shoulders gently, shocked as she growled, “You have a straight razor, don’t you?”

Sawbones jumped at the question. “I…I do. You know that I have a few for when people pay me for shaves. Why?”

“I need one. Sharpest you have,” she replied, never lifting her eyes.

“Tina! You’re not well!”

“Give me a fucking razor, you old bastard!” she shouted, finally looking him in the eye. “It’s the least you can do for letting my husband die!”

Finally, the doctor started to push back a little, getting his feet under him and gripping her shoulders more firmly. “So you can kill yourself, Tina? You can blame me, though I know you know better, but I cannot, in good conscience, give you such a blade. That much I do owe to Tim after he died defending this town.”

“I won’t hurt myself. That what you want to hear? Someone’s getting hurt, but it isn’t me!” Behind her, Champ whined a bit, shocked at his normally mild mama’s aggression.

“W-what… Who, then?” stammered the doc.

“I’m going after them, Sawbones. I’m gonna kill ‘em all or die trying.”

For a moment, it seemed real, but he shook it off quickly. “That is suicide, Tina. Self-destruction, no matter how you slice it!”

She slapped his chest with both hands. “Fine! Don’t help me. I’m gonna go out there, find anybody that’ll listen, and tell them I’m gonna kill myself because you won’t help me.” She grinned, savagely. “The poor, petite little widow came to you in her hour of need, Sawbones, and you turned her away!”

“You’re out of your mind! You’d ruin me to our friends and neighbors? Why?”

“I told Tim I’d get our babies back, Sawbones! I promised! You want to say it’s suicide? It’s my life to give, dammit! Who are you to deny me? Who are you to condemn my children to slavery? Huh? Who?”

Enraged, he shoved Tina back, sending her into the furry form of Champ, who growled at the old doctor. Sawbones stalked to a nearby door, slamming it open and entering as Tina stared after him. A moment later, he came back out, clutching a pearly-handled object. Flicking his wrist, he exposed a gleaming straight razor’s blade. “So you want this? Huh? To what? Slit some throats?”

“Yes,” she stated grimly, never breaking eye contact.

Staring her in the eye, the old man took the measure of this tiny woman, then glanced at the monster that accompanied her and back. “You shouldn’t be getting close enough to these murderers to use a razor. You know this. They were big men. Big nasty men…”

“It’s for if they get too close to me. Trust me, I’ll be lookin’ to shoot ‘em, but there’s no blade better for small quick hands than a razor, wouldn’t you say?” She held out her hand.

Squeezing his eyes shut, having lost the staring contest badly, Sawbones flicked the razor shut and pressed it into her hand. “Try to take some of them down before you die, will you?”

“As many as possible, all if I can.” She still stared, causing him to flinch when he opened his eyes again.

“Fine. Good. Now get out of here. Find your own help. This is my workplace until the clinic is rebuilt. Your…lust for vengeance is toxic in a place of healing.” Realizing her aversion to looking at her dead husband, Sawbones walked around Tina, checking on the corpse. Dead, as expected. “Poor bastard,” he muttered, willing the man’s widow to depart, doing his best to ignore her.

Silently, Tina led Champ from the building, limping, yet she felt no pain. Such was her trauma. Nothing mattered anymore, maybe never again. In her wake, she left the old doctor, beside himself, talking to a corpse. “Damn your wife, Tim Palmer. Damn her for killing herself and damn her for making me help her do it…”

Crafton was a different kind of town, one built from scratch in the aftermath of The End. It was a forest, as far from any important cities as it could get, with radiation low enough to be ignored most days. As such, it was an extremely desirable, expensive place to live. Trees had been cleared away, used to make fort walls, and craftsmen and traders came from all over to form a real society.

When Tina made her approach, riding Champ, she was met by armored guards brandishing shotguns and backed by a dozen marksmen atop the wall. “Stop! Stop right there. State your business in Crafton.”

Sitting up straight in the custom-made saddle Tim had purchased some years back, Tina was quite the sight. Small though she was, in the gear she’d scrounged and begged from her neighbors, she was still imposing. Helmet, gas mask, armored vest, her leather jacket laid over all that, sawed-off shotgun at her hip and a big, nasty rifle holstered in the saddle, she certainly looked like she was ready and able to kill. “Commerce. Why? Is there something else to do in this town?”

The guard was taken aback by this. “You look awfully well-equipped. You’re not here to cause trouble, are you?”

She laughed. “Really? You’re wondering why a woman out in the Waste, alone, would gear up? The animals out there, not to mention other people…I’d be nuts to do otherwise.”

Looking back at his fellows, the guard nodded appreciatively. “Okay. Point. But you’re clearly not alone, lady. I think I’ve seen one other supposedly tame Waste Wolf in my whole life, heard about ‘em, but you’re actually riding one. Can you guarantee that the critter won’t make trouble?”

She hopped down. “So long as nobody makes trouble for me, Champ here won’t make trouble for nobody,” she said. “If we had bad intentions, sir, you know he could go right over that wall. Think about it.”

Stepping aside, the guard gave a hand signal, and the gate started to open. “Okay, come forward, but ‘Champ’ will have to be muzzled inside the city walls.”

“Okay, then,” she called, trotting through the gates, but was stopped again immediately inside. There was an inner wall. “What’s all this?” she asked.

“The muzzle’s being retrieved. They’ve gotta dig it out. Also, we’re a peaceful community. I’m gonna need to peacebond your firearms.” The inner wall guard held his hand out.

“Not real trusting around here, are you?” she asked, pulling the sawed-off, a nasty ten-gauge number with two barrels, designed to scatter the guts of anyone dumb enough to get close, and handing it over.

“Thank you,” he said, setting the shotgun aside on a table and holding his hand out again.

“Really? You want to leave a little woman like me defenseless in there?” she laughed, handing the heavy thing over.

“We’ve seen plenty of you frontier types, ma’am, and defenseless you ain’t. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s being that close to the radiation of the black glass desert, but you folks are hard as nails and nasty as…well, usually I’d say a Waste Wolf…”

Champ recognized the reference to himself, stepped up, sniffed the guard, then sneezed directly into his face. “Ya-row-whoa.”

“Gah! Seriously? My face! That is a lot of dog snot!” Removing his helmet and goggles, the now-blinded guard struggled to clean his soiled eye covering.

“That just means Champ thinks you’re good people.” Tina laughed again, then stopped as another man stepped in from the side with a leather apparatus. “You’re really gonna muzzle my dog? What about when it comes time for him to eat?”

Giving up on his headgear, the guard set it aside for later and shook his head. “You’ll be getting the key, lady, but if you’re staying the night, he’ll have to be stabled. I don’t even know if the stablemaster will let you rent space, frankly, considering your pet could easily kill and eat a horse. Either way, you leave that muzzle on outside or around any other people. He bites someone, you’re in deep shit.”

Frustrated, Tina took the muzzle. “Okay, fine.”

“Oh, almost forgot. Let’s see your currency.”

“What’s that?” she asked, surprised.

“Nobody gets into Crafton without proving their ability to trade. Only exceptions are craftsmen here to work. Now let’s see it.”

Annoyed, Tina nevertheless pulled a heavy burlap sack from Champ’s saddle, filled with what felt like gravel. It was, however, the currency in question: lead slugs. Metal, especially lead, was in constant demand, though gold was good enough. Tina knew she needed money: that’s why she’d begged and borrowed so much of it. Still, not being able to even enter a settlement without it somehow felt dirty. The guard took the bag, felt the weight, and handed it back. “Happy now?” The outer gate crashed shut, and she jumped.

The guard stifled a laugh. “Oh, yeah, that’s good. Sorry for the inconvenience, but it’s something we have to do. What were you looking to buy? I can tell you where to go.” Another guard stepped up, handing Tina’s guns back, now with sheet metal clamped over each trigger.

Tina bought herself time by pretending she had trouble figuring out the muzzle she was putting on Champ. This wasn’t anticipated. She sure couldn’t say that she was looking to buy information on child-snatching slavers—that might not go over well. “Ah, well, mostly just supplies for a longer journey. You know, riding on further, gotta stuff the saddlebags, dried meat, some booze…”

“Gotcha,” he said. “You probably want the farmer’s quarter. It’s near the wall, northeast part of the city. Head on through.”

“Thank you, officer.” With that, Tina stepped back up, took her seat atop Champ, and waited as the inner gates started to open.

“When you get there, try to act like you’ve been there,” Don had told her. He and a few other guys were the traders in Landers, taking everyone’s extra crops and selling them in Crafton. “If they think you belong, then nobody will mess with you.” He was silent after that, giving a knowing look, as if to indicate danger. As she stepped inside, she thought of this.

“Eh! Eh, lady! You is a lady, yeah?” a man to her right said as she walked in. The inner gate crashed shut, and she jumped again, in spite of herself. “You with the giant dog! Get your scrip here, eh?”

She cringed. Two seconds in and already she was marked as an outsider. Tina turned to see a ruddy-faced, wrinkled man. He looked to be cooked to death by the sun or possibly radiation. “Scrip?” she asked.

Blinking his buggy eyes, he gave her a hard stare. “First time, eh? C’mon, you give me the lead, I give you the scrip. Every note gets your name and an official stamp. C’mon. Fairest in town.”

“Okay..” She feinted at grabbing her bag of slugs. “Since you’ve obviously figured out I’m not from here, I’ll need some information first. How the money works, for starters.”

“Ah, geez, lady.” He recoiled at the haggling. “I get the good spot by the gate because I only take four percent.” He struggled. “It’s money, y’know? Like the way it was back in The World. But to keep robbery down, we put your name on there, every scrip has its own number, no value outside the city.”

“Good. I think I get it. Now…” She thought hard of how to approach the problem. “Are there any motorcars in the city? Anyone driving people in or out?”

“This is the last free question. After this, every question costs another percent. No, no businesses for shuttling people around. You can rent a horse inside. I know a pretty big caravan came in here about a day ago. Nasty guys. You need a ride that bad,” he looked at Champ, “for some reason, they could probably do it. Or kill you. Er, maybe not with big boy there.”

“Horf,” said Champ, muffled by his muzzle.

“All right, here it is. I counted them all myself,” said Tina, handing the heavy bag of lead over.

“That how you want it? Counted? I can weigh it.” He gestured towards a scale.

“What?” She grew nervous. “What’s the difference?”

“Hoo boy, you are new. Okay, I count, you get the count in scrip. I weigh, divide by official slug weight, you get that. If it’s all lead slugs, and gold, I guess, it’s optional. If there’s steel, tin, whatever, I gotta weigh.”

Tina was glad her wide eyes were covered by dark goggles. “Well…you handle this stuff all day. What’s it feel like to you?”

He moved the bag up and down, eyes disturbingly rolling back. “About…four-fifty? Something like that.”

She’d counted only two hundred and seventy-six! “Weigh it, then, please.”

“Oh-kay, weighin’ the slugs for the lay-day!” he exclaimed, dropping the bag on one side of the archaic-looking scale. Placing metal weights on the other side, he brought them level. “Hoo! Five hundred twenty-three? I’m gettin’ stronger, lady! And you lucky! Must have some big gauge slugs in there. Smart call.”

Tina stifled any expression of relief as the moneychanger calculated his percentage on an abacus. “Good to hear.”

“Oh-kay! The fee is twenty-one. Don’t do the math, I round up to the next whole slug. That’s standard. That gives you five-oh-two! Now, how you want it? For this amount, I can give up to two sheets of ten scripts. I can cut for another percent or you can borrow my scissors.” He started messing with metal plates and tiny blocks engraved with text.

“A little of each?” It was all so bewildering.

“Right, first time. Okay, I give you a little of each, ones, fives and hundreds,” and he started placing the plates and letters. “Oh, yeah: first and last name, please.”

“Tina…Palmer.” Champ rubbed up against her, sensing her stress.

“Not sure? Hey, fake name or whatever, you have a conflict, they gonna ask me if it’s you and your scrip. Don’t matter to me. Eh…since I might have to testify, I am gonna need to see you face,” he said, pursing his lips, suspicious that there was a reason she covered herself. As he waited, he covered a roller in red paint or something similar, then rolled it over the metal lettering.

She heaved a deep sigh, slouching visibly, then pulled back her hood and removed the facial protection she’d needed on the road. Pressure removed from her face, she felt the bruising from her ordeal the day before, and glared at him with blackened eyes. “Happy?”

“Hoo boy, lookit you. Been through somethin’, I can tell. Keep the mask off, though, lady. You don’t want the guards gettin’ suspicious.” He pulled a lever, pressing what looked to be stiff paper into the metal lettering. “Ah, one sheet. You want my scissors?”

He handed the sheet to her as she held her hand out, then the scissors, and started making the second sheet. There were clear lines, and she quickly made ten separate scrips, then six more, and handed the scissors back with some waste paper. “Thank you,” she said, uncomfortable.

“Hey,” he called as she turned to leave. “I like repeat customers, so free advice: stay clear of them boys came up in the car lot, okay? Got somethin’ noisy in that box truck. Maybe bigger than your friend here.”

Tina’s eyes lit up. “Okay! Thank you, I’ll…I’ll steer clear.” Quickly, she started to walk. The city was big, but not that big. She could see the gates at the far end of this old highway. Surely a car lot would be easy to find.

“Aw, shit…” muttered the moneychanger. “I tell her they’s scum and she’s after ‘em now. Why girls always like the bad boys?”

Finding the lot wasn’t hard. Most of the traders drove salvaged jalopies, cars made of mismatched parts that would’ve been considered junk in the old World, towing their stands and carts into position before parking in the lot. Tina making the approach with a dog that was taller than she was on all fours, however, was probably impossible. Even compared to other Waste Wolves, Champ was smart, so Tina sat him down between a pair of vans and held his face to keep his attention. “Hey, you can’t come with me, okay? You get it? Watch from here.” Champ squirmed in place. “C’mon. Down. Wait here, okay?”

Belly down to the cracked pavement, Champ chuffed, then sighed, settling in, hidden.

Hunkering down low, making herself shorter than the smallest cars in the lot, Tina made her approach. Only one vehicle present could hold as many people as were taken from Lander’s: a near-intact box truck. The rear door, an obvious ramp, had a number of dents made from the inside, as if someone had tried to beat their way out. There were small rents in the metal, showing that it was just a sheet wrapping wood and sealing the vehicle. She couldn’t believe her luck: it was unguarded.

Withdrawing a flathead screwdriver, she quickly set about jimmying the padlock open. It was of new construction, rough and simple. She’d picked similar locks, at first because she’d lost the key to the one on the family cellar door, then because she enjoyed it the first time. It came free easily, and her hopes soared. Pulling the bars, rotating handles that overlapped in the middle, she stepped aside. It fell open, and she heard something stir inside.

The sun beat down, making the darkness in the box impenetrable. First a pair of hands grabbed the sides, giant hands, then whimpers from what sounded like half a dozen different voices, and the big thing with the giant hands pulled itself out. It—rather, he—was taller than the truck and top-heavy with long arms and short legs. “Oh boy,” Tina muttered. “You’re not from Landers…”

The giant looked down at Tina, whom he could’ve held in one disproportionate hand. “Lander. Lander is a village,” he mumbled, stumbling as he tried to walk, deciding instead to put his knuckles to the ground and move on all fours. Drenched in sweat, he stank with an intense body odor that burned the sinuses. The occupants of the box truck had clearly been cooking to death inside.

“Don’t get him worked up!” said a lady, coming out right after the giant. She moved unsteadily, and perhaps five people came out after her, dragging as many others who were, hopefully, just unconscious. “The slavers hit him with tranquilizers. If they hear that we’re out, they’ll just tranquilize him again. Hear that, Loki? Keep your cool, okay?”

“Loki hot,” said the giant. He was a Grog, a mutated human with a specific type of gigantism, named for the first example of their type encountered. A Grog could come from human stock, mutating as an adult, but those were covered in horrible tumors. Loki was born this way; this was clear because he looked like a healthy human of extreme proportions. “So tired.”

“How do you know I’m not a slaver?” asked Tina, her heart pounding, trying to spot another vehicle, any vehicle, that might hold more than a few people. Nothing.

“For one thing, I don’t remember seeing a short woman, or anyone but violent men, when the rest of these scumbags were here. Dutch and his two lackeys got too drunk last night. We heard them last night, heard the others leave him sleepin’, heard him wake up cussin’ a streak and then going for breakfast. Guessin’ that turned into lunch and booze. I’m Lindsay, by the way.” She extended her hand for Tina to shake.

“Oh, God.” Tina felt her legs go weak. She’d missed them. She’d spent the time she should’ve used to find her children with their dying father and now all was lost.

“Hey! It’s okay!” said Lindsay, staggering into Tina, trying to comfort with a kind embrace but leaning on her instead. “Oh, sorry, light head. I’m…pretty dehydrated.”

“They have my babies,” Tina managed to choke out. “I thought they were in this truck, but… How many trucks were there?”

“Not sure.” Lindsay pondered. “I mean, there were a lot of people talking last night. Then they all tore off this morning—”

“Five trucks,” blurted Loki. “Five motors start and leave in morning. Five plus…bad box…” The giant looked balefully at the truck they exited. All about him were his fellow prisoners, the conscious ones trying to revive the others.

“Don’t break the bad box, Loki! They’ll know we’re free,” said Lindsay.

“I guess I’ll try following them or something? Now that I know it’s their truck.” Tina struggled to breathe, fighting back panic. “Unless you guys know where their base is?”

Several freed prisoners exchanged looks, clearly knowing nothing. “I know what to do,” said Lindsay. “How about you get in the truck, we pop the lock back on, and then you can just…probably get shot when they open it. Never mind, I’m a little loopy.”

“No, that’s brilliant!” said Tina, excited. “Champ? C’mere, buddy.”

“Are you calling someone? I…holy shit.” Lindsay took a step back as the Waste Wolf stepped into view.

“Puppy!” said Loki, a little too loud. The two beasts met, Champ sniffing Loki, Loki petting Champ.

“They’re about the same size,” said Tina. “Don’t suppose I could use him for muscle?”

“Look, we owe you a lot, but please don’t ask that. Loki’s…he’s simple. Grogs tend to be, but Loki…there’s flashes of brilliance but, most of the time, he’s just good for moving stuff around.” Lindsay put a hand on Loki’s shoulder. “I’m kind of his caregiver, y’know?”

“Like a mom. Yeah, I get it.” She looked at the truck, the freed captives, and an idea formed. “Say, I have an idea. I have this scrip that only I can use, you need water, and I need stuff from the market for my next step. How about I get you guys a wagon, food, water, and you help me load the truck, then lock me in.”

Lindsay blinked, shocked at her luck. “Okay, yeah, but that can’t be all. Why are you being so generous?”

Tina smiled devilishly. “Trust me, I need your help. I don’t think I could do what I need to without it.”

Watching the light fade as the door was closed, Tina felt her tension rise, trying to remember where she’d put everything. Feeling around, she found the crates and the ropes binding them in place. Settling in, she set about working on the peace bond. If that door opened, she needed more than just a straight razor to deal with these bastards.

The work went slowly. The steel was strong, and the seam was in the trigger guard. She wasn’t sure what they used to remove the thing, but it would have to be thin and pull out from between the ends of the bent metal. Unable to see, she had trouble finding the seam. The truck was already moving when she found it, and she managed to loosen it after an hour. Then she heard a conversation taking place. Much to her horror, with the peace bond half-removed, the truck stopped.

Up until now, her work had been about safety, not hitting the trigger, but now it was a race against time. When the engine turned off, the voices became clear. “I’m telling you, there’s no way,” said a man with a high-pitched voice.

“And I’m telling you it’s light! The engine worked harder on the way to Crafton. Who’s in charge here, anyway? Dammit! Bobby, open that damned door. Clyde, you tranq anything that comes at me.” This one, he sounded big. Big, and mean.

“Okay, Dutch!” said someone, probably Clyde.

Tina worked frantically, bending her screwdriver a little as the sandwich of folded steel fought her. The light of the sunset started to stream in, placing an intense red cast over everything. Hopping up on the ramp, a slight man froze, surprised by what he saw. “Nobody move!” she shouted.

“Who the hell…” The big man, presumably the one called Dutch, backpedaled. The one who opened the truck, Bobby, fell noisily off the ramp.

Groaning, Bobby struggled, trying to find his feet again. “Dutch, there’s just one lady in there. The rest of ‘em are gone!”

“Bobby, ya idjit, this lovely little lady ain’t none of ours.” Dutch spat a line of tobacco. “What do ya say, miss thing? Where’s my cargo at?”

Waving her weapon around, to Clyde with the dart gun, the scurrying Bobby and too-confident Dutch, Tina’s mind raced. “Don’t worry about that. I’m looking for what you people took from me.” She felt her hackles rise. “You hit Landers, you shot my husband and took my kids. He’s dead. I want my kids back.”

Dutch laughed, coming closer. “Wrong truck, my dear. Now, if you wanted to ride up front with us, we can take you the rest of the way there. Have a nice, happy family reunion.”

Wheeling on him, Tina sent Dutch staggering backward and onto the ground. “I said not to move!” She started to shake. “I’ll take the truck. You goons can walk from here.”

Eyes going wide, Dutch pointed and screamed, “The fuckin’ sawed-off is bonded! Get ‘er!”

Diving in, the smaller man, Bobby, got a hold of Tina. The little guy was just a few inches taller and no heavier. “You come along now, Missy, we’ll—” The butt of the shotgun struck Bobby’s jaw. His butt struck the ground, and so did the metal plate. “Nonono!” shrieked Bobby just before buckshot sprayed his head all over the waste.

“Shit! Clyde, stop this bitch!” Dutch dodged around the side of the truck. Darts from Clyde’s gun got caught in Tina’s coat and the other layers of cloth. Layering up was part of her disguise, and she’d almost not done it because of the heat. Now she was glad she did.

“She’s fast! How’s she so fast?” Clyde sounded pretty stupid, and, as it turned out, he was. Tina led him around on a merry chase that ended when he stopped to reload. As he did, she leapt from the floor of the box truck and brought the butt of her sawed-off shotgun down on his head. He fell, stunned.

Only one left. “Now, you!” Tina shouted, wheeling about, just as Dutch fell upon her. He was quicker and quieter than she’d ever imagined. With a backhand, he knocked the gun out of her hand, knocking it to the dry earth before grabbing her by the collar.

“What about me?” laughed Dutch. “Don’t bother squirmin’! What’d you do with my haul? Finding you here is like losin’ the big fish and bein’ stuck with the bait. Argh!” He dropped her, clutching his forearm, which she had slashed.

Leaping onto Dutch’s back, Tina reached around with her straight razor, ready to open his throat, but hesitated. “You! You’re going to take me to my babies. Hear me, you son of a bitch? You people, you killed my husband! You can’t have my children, too!”

“Okay! Okay, keep your head now…” Dutch felt gingerly at the slender legs around his trunk. Her ankles were locked together, so he couldn’t just toss her. Not without bleeding out, anyway. He felt the blade touch his throat and flinched. “You kill me and how are you getting past the gate guards? Huh? Think of that.”

She hesitated, again. “Okay. Let’s say I let you live. How—” Relaxing just a little, Tina was shocked as Dutch grabbed her weapon. “No!”

The blade dug in, cutting his neck but not the all-important artery. Dutch laughed as he pitched and turned, crushing her into the dirt with his full weight. “Oh, yeah! This, this is great! Down and dirty bitch, you are. I don’t think I’ll be taking you back with me. You should be glad: my boss would take his time and he ain’t pleasant.” Rolling over onto her, a woman less than half his size, Dutch began to strangle Tina.

Panic set in. She slapped at his hands, clawed them, getting choked harder for her trouble. Blood dripped on her face from his neck, into her mouth, her eye. Feeling around, she realized she’d lost her razor. No weapons left and not enough muscle to deal with this monster.

“Second thought, I’ll keep you alive for just a little bit. If you get cold, I can’t have the kind of fun I’m thinking of if you’re cold.” He began to laugh as darkness closed in on Tina.

Suddenly, he was gone. Coughing, Tina sat up, the pressure in her head subsiding. She realized that her hearing was dulled, but slowly returning. She heard screaming. Screaming and growling.

Finally, she saw them: blood spraying everywhere, a mass of fur engaged in a death shake, the flailing limbs of a grown man coming free as he was ravaged by a monster. “Champ?”

Releasing Dutch, who by now had only a single arm, no legs, and no face, the gore-soaked Waste Wolf dashed over, overjoyed to see Tina was okay. He licked her, disgustingly, as she laughed. Rising slowly, she found her razor and shotgun where they had fallen. Looking around, it seemed that there was no one left. No one to tell her where her children were. For just a moment, she despaired until she heard the groan.

Walking over, Tina looked down at her quarry. “Clyde, right?”

Clyde looked up, blinking hard, not sure yet what was going on. “Yes? Why? I…oh, my…head?” Looking around, he saw the headless Bobby first, gasped, then started picking out the pieces of Dutch scattered all around. “What…what happened?”

“Y’know what? I was just asking the same question the other day when you people hit Landers.” Tina clicked over to the second barrel. “You killed and kidnapped my whole family. Now, one of two things can happen: you tell me all I want to hear and I leave you to walk to wherever, or stonewall me and I turn my head while my pet fills his belly.”

Swallowing hard, looking back and forth between her and the gory Waste Wolf, Clyde propped himself up on his palms. “What do you want to know?”

Getting down on one knee, glaring and holding her gun on him, Tina growled, “Everything…”

True to her word, Tina let Clyde be, trusting his fear of Champ, who got two lungs’ worth of his scent before they parted company, so they followed his directions. Down the road, into the forest, look for a red ribbon, under which there would be a dirt road, blink and miss it.

Blowing wildly, the ribbon was plain to see, so they turned. The rocky dirt path went on a mile before the compound was in sight. Two rows of sheet metal, chainlink, and barbed wire made an ugly, effective barrier.

Roaring in the evening air, burning fuel forming a trailing cloud, the truck peeled rubber toward the fence, causing the slavers within to panic. Some shouted, some scattered, and a bunch started firing. A few hundred feet out, the truck immolated. Though they dodged at the last second, those who stood their ground died as the truck exploded, spraying burning, liquid fuel everywhere.

Nearly as fast, Champ, Tina on his back, leaped through the fire and crowd of burning men, creating a wake in the smoke. “Where are they, Champ? Find Tyca! Find Bryce!”

“Row-uff!” barked Champ, joyously running over slavers in their path. The truck’s payload of gasoline, using hemp rope as a fuse, had done its job. Jamming the tops of the fuel kegs with cloth had made for spectacular results. The truck punched through the fence, knocked a hole in the building, then came to rest against its corner, rapidly setting the whole place on fire.

Running, some for their lives, others to put out the fire, nobody paid much mind to them as they ran through the new makeshift door. As they reached the center, though, they found something disturbing.

Tina didn’t know the word. The Waste never knew of a Panopticon, but there it was. All around a central tower were cells, five stories of them, filled. Champ whimpered, “Where?” Tina mused, “There, Champ! Stairs!” She pointed and Champ ran, eagerly.

Her heart sinking, Tina saw them all as they fairly flew by. Every one of them was someone’s child, someone’s wife. No men, maybe because the slavers were afraid of an uprising. On the third level, Champ stopped. Tina was already crying.

“Mom?” came a voice, made strange by trauma, by loss of hope, but Tina turned her head. “Is it you?” asked Tyca.

Fairly falling off Champ’s back, Tina staggered to the prison door. The little towheaded girl clutched at the bloodstained, stinking cloth and leather that protected Tina against everything but what she was seeing. Pressing her head through the bars and into her mother, Tyca wept with her mother. “My girl! My… Bryce?”

Still sitting on his bunk, her son, dark-haired like his father, held his position, staring at her. He was as bruised up as she was, one eye swelled shut. Sullenly, he lifted his head enough to look at her. “Why are you here? Go, before they catch you…”

Like his sister, Bryce’s face was streaked from grime and tears, but his were dried. He looked blank. “Honey, no! I’m getting you out of here. Don’t you hear all the noise?” No response. “Come on! It’s only been two days!”

“Two days? I…they did things, Ma. Where were you?”

“Where… They dropped our fucking house on me, baby! I was buried for most of a day! Now, c’mon, we gotta try to get you out!”

Tyca and Tina jumped as an alarm went off. Tina was shocked to see that the entire place had electricity, just like before The End came. Then it rained indoors. She’d heard of sprinklers, but thought it was just another myth from the Old World. Bryce was unmoved. “Two days? Only two…?”

Champ clamped his teeth on a bar in the door, pulling, growling, but then he yelped, a chip of fang falling to the floor.

“You can’t open the door,” said Bryce. “Only the man in the tower can. But he’s not up there today…”

The sprinklers stopped, no doubt exhausting whatever water supply the prison used. “Whatever opens the door is up there?” Tina looked down, at the lower prison levels. The fire was starting to spread inside. “But these other people…”

“Are you gonna get us out, Mom?” asked Tyca.

Casting about, Tina saw how the truck had started the building burning. So many children, most of them, started to panic, crying. Women, widows all, what few there were, tried to comfort them. Could she leave them to die? “I will, honey! Hold tight. I’m getting everybody out of here!”

Climbing the stairs at breakneck speed, Champ ran around the top level of the panopticon, kicked off the wall, the guardrail, and then slammed into the tower. There he clung, and both woman and dog realized that he was never going to fit inside. He whined.

“It’s okay, Champ!” Tina clambered over the head of her faithful hound. She heard the shouts of the slavers outside, no doubt fighting the fire. “Keys. Keys…”

There were a number of odd instruments. It was all buttons, no keys. Then, something very strange: a button in what looked to be a plastic case. “Press in case of emergency” was printed above it. There had never been a bigger emergency that Tina had seen, and so she pressed it.

A different alarm this time, a klaxon, and the cell doors noisily opened. Turning back towards Champ, Tina saw desperation. “It’s okay buddy, hold on.” She got ahold of the saddle, swinging around and gripping with her legs. “Okay! Jump back! C’mon, back to the top floor!”

Awkwardly, Champ sprung off the wall, missing the top and fourth level, landing hard on the third, sending Tina rolling against the wall. A few doors over, Tyca was pulling her brother by the wrist. “C’mon! Bryce, Mom’s hurt!”

Tina was starting to feel the weight of her journey: a mad dash across the Waste, risking not only her own, but her pet’s life. Tyca tackled her with a hug, bowling her over just as she started to rise. It was a sweet kind of pain. Meanwhile, Champ struggled to his feet, limping. “I’m fine. I am. Poor Champ…”

The great beast licked his girls and voiced his joy. “Wow-whoa.”

“Okay, okay, buddy. Tim rode you, so maybe you can carry all of us.”

That got Bryce’s attention. “Tim? Dad. Where is Dad?”

Tina flinched. “I…son…”

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Tyca started to cry. “When were you gonna tell me?” Receding into himself, Bryce moved back towards his cell, but Tina caught up to him, spinning him around.

“There’s no time for this now, damn it!” She shook him. “I’ve killed people to find you, Bryce! I took not one life, but two up close and who knows how many outside. Now I need you to do this with me or we’re all gonna die. If you don’t care about me, then do it for your sister!”

This seemed to snap him out of it, a little. “I care! I…” He started to cry.

“There’s time for tears when we’re home, son. For now, I’m sorry it has to be this way…” She pressed something into his hands: the sawed-off shotgun. “Just like huntin’ with your dad, okay? Only it’s any cuss mean enough to come at us, okay?”

“Okay, Mama…” he replied grimly, studying the weapon.

“Okay! I’ll hold Tyca, you hold onto me.” They clambered onto Champ, and he started down the steps towards the entrance, faster than a man but slower than before. They made it out into the burning courtyard.

Bang. Champ took a bullet, his legs buckling, and he slid on his side across the dirt. The Palmer family was scattered. Luckily, they all flew beyond the fire. A voice came from behind them. “So…you’re the troublemaker.”

Tina laid there. She’d done what she said: killed her way to her kids, plus freed a lot of other folks. Now, without that drive, having pushed for two days straight, she couldn’t muster the strength to rise. Instead, she just looked up at the bastard who’d shot her: huge, clad in leather, broad-brimmed hat, the fattest man she’d ever seen. “What the fuck are you supposed to be?”

“Folks around here call me Daddy. Got more kids than I know what to do with. Like any good capitalist, I make the best of it. Had a good crop, too.” He loomed over Tina, probably triple her size. Pustules covered his face, chest and stomach. He stank like shit. “Another few months, they’d be ready for sale. You took my family…”

Reeling, Tina thought she was going to pass out, but the irony was rich. “How’s it feel?” Shakily, she tried to rise. “Just like that Dutch, trying to talk me to death. Just end it already.”

“Dutch?” he growled. “What about… You kill him, too?”

“Yup. Took him out real nasty. He tried to use his little fella on me.” Grabbing his vest, forcing laughter, Tina continued, “I chopped it off, then I made him eat it—” Daddy slapped her, and she rolled onto her stomach, struggling to push herself up. “Who knew? He was a gagger!”

He kicked Tina in the ribs, sending her tumbling. “You damned bitch! Look at what you did! Killed my boys! Freed my livestock!” Tina heard the hammer cock. “I’m convinced you’re too hard a case to let live. Say goodnight.”

Tina prayed her children were running, that they wouldn’t see her die and fall back into Daddy’s hands.

Bang. Gore splattered. Daddy roared, and Tina opened her eyes. Gun arm lying on the ground, the big man fell to his knees. He reached for his pistol.

Crawling to the shocked slaver, Tina withdrew a shiny thing from a hidden pocket. As he screamed, she severed the tendons in his remaining wrist, the backs of his knees, and both Achilles tendons.

“He was a mean cuss, right, Mama?” said Bryce, and Tina looked up at him. Tyca clung to her brother’s waist as he held Daddy in his sights. “He ain’t dead yet…”

“That’s right, son, he don’t get off that easy.” She stood and staggered over to a pile of debris, fishing out a plank. She doused the flame in his gushing stump, cauterizing the wound.

“Why you letting him live?” asked Bryce, ignoring his sister as she hid her face against his chest.

“Not letting. Making. Now he’ll die slow, suffering like we did.”

“You better tell Champ that, ‘cause I think he’s about to—” Bryce was cut off by more screaming.

Whipping around, barely keeping her balance, Tina saw that her wounded dog, who had two bullets in him when they started, now shaking off another, was eating Daddy out of spite. The Waste Wolf ate the fat man’s legs first as he vomit-screamed. Lunging, Tina grabbed her kids, holding them close. “Cover your ears, kids…”

But Tina listened to Daddy’s torment. The work done, she let herself grieve, let the tears pour. It had been hell, but to protect her own, she’d do it again.

On this day, a saying was born, spread by the survivors:

“Don’t fuck with a Mother of the Wasteland.”

Pia

Andrew Milbourne

Spooky. That was the word McFarland was looking for. The girl was damned spooky.

All the other children in this shipment—hell, all the other children his group had moved, period—sobbed, screamed, wept, pleaded, cried, wet themselves, begged, soiled themselves, or some combination thereof. Oh, sure, some of them tried to put on a brave face, but McFarland could tell they were all terrified of what awaited them after the buyers picked them up.

Not this girl.

This little girl—McFarland figured she couldn’t be older than eight standard—just sat against the wall with her wrists bound behind her back, legs crossed, staring at them with those unblinking dark eyes that Wynne had whined were creeping him out. McFarland agreed, though he would never admit it out loud. And from the way Goligher was growing more irritated by the second, both men could tell that she was getting to him, too.

Finally, Goligher had enough. He whirled and lunged at the girl, demanding, “What are you looking at, girlie?”

“You should let us go before Pia finds you.” The older man’s intimidation tactic fell flat: the girl didn’t so much as blink, let alone flinch.

“Oh, really?” Goligher sneered. “And why the fuck would I want to do that?” The girl’s bored expression dissolved into one that almost resembled pity.

“Because when Pia finds you, and she will find you, you and your friends will all die gruesome and horrible deaths.”

Goligher’s face went flush with rage. “You think you can threaten me? Do you know who I am, whore?” He cocked his arm to backhand the girl across the face. McFarland darted forward and seized his wrist. Goligher whirled towards his associate. “The fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“You mark up her face, you cost us money. And that little whore is worth a shit-ton of money, but only if she’s in pristine condition when she goes to market, remember? If Ferner’s driver shows up and she’s covered in bruises, Ferner will not be happy!”

“Um, guys?” Wynne piped up from the opposite corner of the room.

“What?” Goligher snarled.

“Speaking of Ferner’s driver, he’s running late!” Wynne pointed at his wrist chrono. “He’s really late!”

“What?” Goligher and McFarland checked their own wrist chronos, and Goligher spat a curse. Wynne was right: Ferner’s people should have arrived to collect the cargo nearly two standard hours before. McFarland bit back his own curse. How could they have lost track of time so badly?

“What kind of shit is that Kraut-Mick fucker trying to pull on us?” Goligher snarled to nobody in particular. He snatched his comm out of his pocket and began furiously punching in Ferner’s commcode.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” McFarland barked. He made to lunge towards Goligher and make a grab for the comm, but Goligher grabbed at the bulky maser pistol shoved in his belt, stopping McFarland dead in his tracks. Both McFarland and Wynne knew their colleague well enough to know that he wouldn’t hesitate to use it on them if they provoked him enough.

“Cool your tits!” Goligher sneered. “It’s a secure channel.” Goligher pressed the comm to his ear and waited. And waited. And began pacing the room as he waited some more, his frustration growing exponentially by the second. The instant the call finally connected, Goligher began screaming into the comm.

“It’s about fucking time, Ferner! Where the fuck are…what? Who the fuck is this? I think I’m the guy who’s calling this supposedly secure business line. Now who the fuck do you think you are?” Goligher’s face abruptly changed from flushed purple to ghostly pale. “Oh! Oh, I see! I am terribly sorry, Captain!” He managed to recover his wits enough to don the persona of the kindly grandfather figure that he wore in public. “I have been trying to reach Mister Ferner all day, you see, and I was quite frustrated, and I was certainly not expecting anyone else to answer his private business line. Has something happened? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, that was probably a silly…” Goligher’s face somehow managed to turn even more ashen. “What? He…what? When? Where! My God! Yes! Yes, I will be very…oh, my reason for calling? Mister Ferner is a business associate, and I was trying to reach him regarding a project that he is leading… Yes, yes, I will be very happy to forward that information to your office, and is there anything else I can do to help you? My commcode? Yes, it is the one that populated on the Caller ID. Yes, your people can reach me anytime, day or night! Yes, I will be very happy to assist in any way I can! Yes. Yes. Yes, goodbye, Captain, and I apologize again for my behavior when you answered. Yes, thank you, goodbye.” Goligher ended the call and stared at his comm for a moment in stunned disbelief.

“Well?” McFarland finally prompted. “What’s going on? Who answered Ferner’s comm?”

“That was a Captain Carlos Walker of the New Texas Rangers.”

“Oh God, oh God, oh Goooodddddddddd!” Wynne wailed. “The Rangers are onto us!”

“No, no, I don’t think so,” Goligher said, still seemingly dazed by the call.

“What was a Ranger doing answering Ferner’s business comm?” McFarland demanded.

“He answered Ferner’s business comm because I think Ferner’s office is now a crime scene.”

“A crime… What the hell is going on?”

“Ferner’s dead. Somebody killed him yesterday afternoon.”

“I warned you,” the girl with the spooky eyes said.

Thirteen Standard Hours Ago:

Ferner tumbled down the hallway towards his home office in blind terror as death stalked his heels. His throat was raw from screaming, not that anyone would have heard him: he lived alone, and the neighbors couldn’t hear anything, not since he’d had the house soundproofed to lessen the risk of anyone overhearing his “extracurricular activities.” Whatever small part of his brain that was not fully engaged in fight-or-flight mode was now actively regretting that choice.

His office door was open. He half-ran, half-fell into the room, somehow managing to stay upright as he rounded his desk. The hinges holding the picture—a beautiful print of a mansion on a lake—over his hidden wall safe snapped as he wrenched the painting out of the way. The expensive work of art clattered to the hardwood floor. Ferner barely noticed. His fingers fumbled the locking mechanism’s keypad, and he cursed himself for not splurging on the gene-coded model.

A loud, angry buzzing sound, like an enormous hornet, filled the room as something buried itself into the wall next to Ferner’s head with a resounding THUNK. White-hot pain blossomed in his left hand. He instinctively looked towards his hand and recoiled in horror when he saw the arrow—what else could it be?—that had impaled his hand clean through the palm and was now pinning him to the office wall. His stomach recoiled, then lurched, then expelled his partially-digested lunch out the way it had come, and Ferner vomited all over himself.

“Mister Ferner.”

Ferner screamed again, tried to yank his hand free, but nearly passed out from the terror and the pain. The demon had found him. It looked like a human woman, only its face was blood-red with a tar-black line and snow-white spots bisecting its face from its hairline to its chin and a tar-black triangle under each eye. Feathers sprouted from atop its head, which was also covered in midnight-black hair. A necklace of beads and what looked like finger bones hung around its neck. It was clad in what looked like rough animal skins. Its dark eyes were filled with a righteous, murderous fury.

A knife and tomahawk, both made of stone and wood, hung from its waist, along with a quiver of arrows. It slung the bow it had used to pin Ferner in place over one shoulder, then drew the knife.

“Oh, God, please don’t kill me!” Ferner begged, tears and snot pouring down his face.

“Mister Ferner,” the creature said in a human-sounding voice. “As I was saying, this morning, some of your associates stole something—someone—very, very precious to me. I want her back. You are going to tell me where they have taken her.”

“I…I…I don’t know what you are talking about!”

“We both know that is a lie, Mister Ferner. Tell me where they have taken her.”

“A-and…and if I do, you’ll let me go?”

The demon ran the blade lazily along Ferner’s cheek. The edge was so razor sharp that even a light touch drew blood. Ferner screamed and jerked away, then screamed louder as fresh agony raced down his injured arm.

“You facilitate the abduction and sale of children, Mister Ferner. You forsook any hope of mercy when you entered that trade. Now, you will tell me where your associates have taken her. That much is certain. What remains to be seen is how many parts of your body I will have to remove before you do.”

“Oh, God!” Wynne moaned. “Ferner’s dead! He’s fucking dead! What are we gonna do, guys? What are we gonna do?”

“Cut our losses.” Goligher had recovered both his wits and his propensity towards violence. “Kill the little whores and get the fuck out of here.”

The children began screaming and begging and crying once again at Goligher’s proposal—all except the spooky girl, of course—only quieting again when the older man bellowed at them to shut up or else.

“We’re not going to do that,” McFarland declared.

“But that Pia thing…” Wynne protested, earning a derisive scoff from Goligher.

“You don’t actually buy that shit, do you, you fat tub of lard? You think some mystical ooga-booga thing killed him?”

“Well, no, but…”

“But nothing,” McFarland cut in. “We’re not the only people Ferner worked with. Odds are he tried double-dealing to two different groups, skimmed money off the top of a deal, or else did something else stupid that pissed someone off. Hell, maybe it was a robbery gone wrong. We’ve all seen how that bastard lived. Idiot wanted the whole damn Solar System to know he was loaded.”

“But what are we going to do?” Wynne wailed again. Goligher turned on him.

“You stupid—”

“I mean, what are we going to do now that he’s dead? He was our facilitator! Without him, we have no customers! And if we have no customers, we’re out of business!”

“Oh, get your panties untwisted, fatass! We are not out of business!”

“But…but…”

“He’s right,” McFarland said. “Ferner was a moron—we all knew that. It was only a matter of time before he got himself killed or arrested. But he still somehow managed to put together one hell of a network. So the two of us…” McFarland pointed to himself and Goligher. “…Realized early on in our relationship with the late Mister Ferner that we were going to need to cut him out of the pipe sooner or later. Which meant we forged our own relationships with his people and began coopting most of his network.”

“So…?”

“So that means we know how to contact Ferner’s delivery boy, fatass! You have Lowey’s commcode?”

“Who’s Lowey?”

“Ferner’s driver, ya dumb shit!”

“Yeah, yeah, I have it.” McFarland pulled out his own comm and entered the appropriate code. And waited. And waiting. And waited some more. And still waited. And waited even longer.

“Well?” Goligher finally snarled when his impatience yet again got the better of him.

“Well, he’s not answering.”

“Oh no…what if this Pia person…”

“Shut up with that stupid ooga-booga bullshit!”

“It isn’t bullshit,” the spooky girl said. “Pia found him, just like she found your friend Ferner!”

“SHUT UP!”

The rest of the children let out a few frightened cries, quickly going quiet as the spooky girl soothed them with calm reassurances that everything would be all right, that Pia would rescue them very soon. “Nobody is coming to rescue you!” Goligher sneered. “And even if this Pia person does show up, they’ll just kill all of you along with us!”

“You are wrong. Pia only kills bad guys.”

“Oh, bullshit!”

“Pia has killed lots and lots of bad guys, including both of your friends.”

Goligher scoffed and turned back to McFarland. “Well?”

“Well, it went to voicemail.”

“Did you leave a message?”

“Did you watch him leave a message, lard-for-brains?”

“Well, no, but…but why didn’t he answer?”

“I told you,” the girl said with that same eerie calmness and not-quite pity. “Pia found him. And Pia killed him.”

Five Standard Hours Ago:

Lowey let out another bloodcurdling scream as the barbed wire cut into his forearms and the ratchet strap dug into his ankles. The other end of wire was tied to a fencepost three feet away from his wrists while the business end of ratchet strap was secured to the hitch of a hovertruck with its grav-brake engaged. That left Lowey suspended in the air not quite three feet above the New Texas sagegrass as his spine and limbs were slowly and agonizingly stretched closer and closer to the breaking point. It was like the rack that was used in the medieval times on Old Earth, except his abductor hadn’t even given him the mercy of a table to lie on.

He wasn’t sure how long she’d been torturing him like this. Maybe an hour, maybe a day…time had lost its meaning in this new world of indescribable pain. However long the torture had lasted, it more than enough time for his throat to have gone raw from screaming. His captor hadn’t bothered gagging him, since the two of them were almost certainly the only humans within a hundred square kilometers.

After another eternity of agony, his captor stopped tightening the ratchet and slowly walked over to him. The painted woman stopped next to his shoulders and bent over to look down into his eyes. Lowey was in too much pain to fear the nightmarish visage anymore.

“Mister Lowey,” she said, her tone disturbingly calm, “I will ask again. You are scheduled to pick up human cargo from other associates of the late Mister Ferner in a few hours. Where is the pickup taking place?”

“F…f…fu…fuck you!” Lowey managed to rasp. The painted woman allowed herself a disappointed sigh, then crouched down so that her chin was level with the tip of Lowey’s nose.

“Mister Lowey, I am sure you understand that time is of the essence. And I am sure that you also understand that your continued defiance has now forced me to…escalate things. So I am going to tell you what is going to happen next: I am going to retrieve a set of needle-nose plyers from the truck, and I am going to use them to remove your toenails. I will let you think about that for a few minutes, and then if you still refuse to tell me what I want to know, I will take my knife and use it to remove your eyelids. And then, if you still will not talk, I will get…creative.”

“Cr…cr…cr…?”

“To answer the question that you are struggling to ask, that means that whatever I choose to do to you, I will have to pour kerosene in your eyes every so often to keep you from passing out. And it means that I am going to ask you my question one more time, and then I will never ask it again. Where are you making the pickup for Ferner tonight?”

“F…f…fu…fuck you!”

The painted woman sighed as she rose and headed for the truck.

The only things that could hear Lowey’s screams were a few swarms of bugs, some lizards, a handful of supercows, and the occasional yote that loped in and out of earshot.

“What are we gonna do, guys?” Wynne whined.

“Oh, will you shut your fucking…”

“Knock it off! Both of you! This isn’t helping!” McFarland was pacing the length of the cabin. He had tried calling Lowey a half-dozen times in the past standard half-hour, but the comms had all gone to voicemail. By now, light was beginning to poke over the eastern horizon, and most of the children had passed out from sheer exhaustion.

Not the girl with the spooky eyes. She kept on staring at them, unblinking and fully alert.

“The fat bastard’s right, much as I hate to agree with him,” Goligher growled. “Ferner’s dead and his courier is a no-show. Probably bailed after he found his boss got whacked.”

“If someone didn’t kill him first!”

“By ‘someone,’ you mean that little bitch’s ooga-booga bullshit story, right?”

“Hey, you said it, not me!”

“But you were thinking it!”

“No, I wasn’t!”

“You lying fuck!”

“I’m not…”

“SHUT UP!” McFarland roared, frightening most of the children back to at least semiconsciousness. A few started to whimper and cry, but the spooky girl once again comforted them into silence.

“What the fuck are we gonna do?” Goligher demanded.

“I say we get the hell out of here,” Wynne offered. “Cut our losses, keep our heads down for a few months, rebuild our network and our contacts, then get back in business once the heat surrounding Ferner’s murder dies down.”

“You wanna get out now?” Goligher sneered. “You wanna quit?” This…” he pointed at the spooky girl, “…is never gonna come our way again! You have any idea how much a Najran sheik or a tycoon on Hebei will pay for something that looks like her? I know people who can get us in touch with them, might take a couple a standard week, but we can sell her off and be set for life.”

“And what the hell are we gonna do with the other little shits for a standard week?” McFarland demanded. “We’re supposed to be on a ‘long weekend camping trip,’ remember? You think our wives are gonna buy that we’re having so much fun that we decided to extend our trip for another standard week? And what the hell are we going to tell the board? You think they’re gonna be okay with us taking off for another week?”

“The board’s a bunch of yellow-bellied chickenshits. They’ll rubber-stamp whatever the fuck I tell them to. But…” An evil, predatory smile split Goligher’s face. “…You’re right. Why bother taking care of eight little shits who won’t even bring in twenty percent of her asking price all put together?” He pulled the maser pistol from his belt and turned towards the line of children sitting and lying against the back wall.

“Wait, what the hell are you doing?” Wynne jumped between Goligher and the children.

“I’m baking cupcakes, what the fuck does it look like I’m doing?”

“You can’t kill them!”

“Oh? And why the fuck can’t I?”

“Because they’re kids!”

“That is where you draw the fucking line?” Goligher threw back his head and laughed. “Selling them as sex toys is just a-okay, but shooting them is suddenly a problem?”

“Nobody said anything about killing anybody when you brought me onboard!”

“Yeah, well, omelettes, eggs, you know how it goes.”

“We can’t kill them!”

“They’ve seen our faces, you fat fuck! You think that they won’t tell a soul if we ask them, pretty please with cherries on top and make them pinky swear? You’re even dumber than you look! Now move!”

“No!” Wynne stuck out his double chin defiantly, then went pale and flinched back as Goligher shoved the muzzle of his mazer pistol up his nose.

“Move or I swear to God I will splatter your empty head all over this cabin. Five…four…”

“Knock it off, both of you!”

“Stay out of this, McFarland!”

“Lowey’s coming! Put that thing away and at least try to act calm and professional for once!”

Goligher spun on his heels, and both he and Wynne raced to the cabin’s front window. Sure enough, a large boxy shape was slowly making its way up the packed dirt roadway towards the cabin. It was difficult to tell in the predawn light, but the three men were certain that it was Lowey’s hovertruck. Goligher shoved his big maser pistol back into his belt and started to turn towards the children to start barking orders when he heard Wynne let out a despairing moan. He looked back to the window just in time to watch the hovertruck, still at least a two hundred meters from the cabin, slowly slide off the road and drive headlong into a tree.

“Well, shit,” McFarland groaned.

“Fuckin’ idiot!”

“You think he’s all right?”

“Why don’t you go out and check on him, lardass?” Goligher turned from the window to snarl at his compatriot. “Lord knows you could use the exercise! Maybe you’ll sweat off a kilo or two between here and there, if your heart doesn’t give out first, of course.”

“Shut up!”

“Hah! Make me, Tubby!”

“Guys, shut up!”

“Oh, give it a rest, I’m just—”

“I think I saw something out there!”

“What?”

Goligher and Wynne glued themselves back to the window just in time to see a figure darting from the hovertruck into the trees.

“Was that Lowey?” Goligher asked.

“I don’t think so. Looked too skinny.”

“Then who the fuck was it?”

“It shouldn’t have been anyone. Lowey’s supposed to come alone.”

“You…you don’t think…”

Goligher yanked the maser pistol from his belt, grabbed Wynne’s shoulder, spun the fat man to face him, and viciously pistol-whipped him across the face. The fat man staggered backwards and tumbled to the floor.

“I swear to God, Wynne, if you say it’s that ooga-booga shit that that stupid little whore’s been going on about, I’ll flash-boil that glob of lard that passes for your brain and toss what’s left of you outside for the worms!”

“But…but…” Wynne’s blubbering made Goligher want to pull the trigger just to shut him up. “My family! If I don’t come back…”

“You went fishing alone and fell out of the boat and drowned and we couldn’t find your body. Too bad, so sad, oh, well.”

“You…you wouldn’t!”

“Keep up your whining and find out!”

“Not in front of…”

A bloodcurdling cry, like a howling, inhuman shriek, echoed through the trees, bringing the escalating confrontation to a screeching halt. Most of the children began screaming and crying in terror at the sound. All except the spooky girl: her only reaction was a small, relieved smile.

“Wh…what was that?” McFarland finally stammered out to no one in particular.

“That,” said the spooky girl, “was Pia.”

“Shut up!” Goligher lunged at the girl, pointing his big maser at her face. “Shut the fuck up with that ooga-booga stuff!” The girl just stared defiantly at him.

“M-maybe we should do as she said before! Maybe we should let her go!”

“Shut the fuck up, Wynne!”

“It’s too late for that. You’re all going to die.”

“Then why the fuck should I let you live, you little whore?” The maser let out an ominous hum as Goligher cranked the power selector all the way up to its maximum setting.

“Because if I’m still alive when Pia gets here, then she will kill you very quickly. But if you kill me, then she will kill you as slowly and painfully as she can.”

“You little…” Goligher began to stalk towards the girl, but stopped dead in his tracks as another bone-chilling shriek pierced the cabin, this time seemingly from the opposite side of the tiny building. Seconds later, another sound filled the air: a fast rhythmic thumping sound like a large drum being pounded on by multiple drumsticks. Then came yet another sound: loud, angry chanting in an alien-sounding language that no one in the cabin could understand. No one, that is, except the spooky girl. The drumming and the chanting seemed to surround the cabin as they grew louder and louder and louder.

“Wh…what is that?” Wynne whimpered as his knees began knocking together. “Guys, what the fuck is that?”

McFarland darted for the bookshelf against the wall, reached behind it, and retrieved a hunting-style scattergun and a box of ammunition. Goligher darted from window to window with his maser pistol, frantically searching for whoever or whatever was out there.

“Well?” McFarland demanded. His fingers shook so badly that he dropped half of the shells that he was desperately trying to load into his scattergun. “What’s out there?”

“I don’t see a fucking thing! There’s nothing out there!”

“There’s gotta be something!”

“Well, you come take a look and tell me what you see!”

McFarland joined Goligher at the window facing the lake and swore: the chanting and the drumming sounded like they were right outside, but there was nothing there save for a few scrawny trees, the dock, and the gently rippling surface of the lake. He pumped a shell into his weapon’s chamber and shoved the barrel through the window, flooding the interior of the cabin with the cool morning air and the deafening sounds of impending doom.

None of the traffickers noticed that the spooky girl had somehow slipped from her bonds and was helping her fellow captives turn around and face the wall. She whispered confident assurances that it would all be over soon, that Pia would not hurt any of them, but to keep their eyes shut tight, because they didn’t want to see what was coming next.

“Oh God, I can’t take it!” Wynne screamed, his resolve finally snapping like a dry twig. “I can’t take it anymore! I have to get out of here! I have to get out!” And with a speed that defied his girth, Wynne leapt to his feet and made a break for the front door. McFarland was closer, so he made a grab for Wynne, but he was a second too slow. Wynne threw the front door open, bolted across the small porch and down the steps, and began racing down the road as fast as his legs would carry him.

“What are you doing?” McFarland yelled after him. “Get back inside!” Goligher reached the door to shout some commands and insults of his own, just in time to see something explode from the trees and tackle Wynne to the ground. The big man’s screams almost drowned out the drumming and chanting as the vaguely human-looking thing dragged Wynne into the woods and out of sight.

Goligher let out an unmanly shriek as his knees gave out, and he tumbled to the hardwood floor. He frantically crab-walked backwards towards the center of the room. McFarland shoved his scattergun through the open door and fired wildly in the general direction of the creature until the long weapon clicked empty, not caring that he might hit Wynne, too. He didn’t realize that he’d stoked his scattergun with birdshot, which meant that both the big man and the thing that was almost certainly killing him were well out of his weapon’s effective range.

“Wha…wha…” Goligher couldn’t find words. His heart felt like it was about to shake its way through his ribcage. His stomach had plunged into the heels of his expensive leather shoes.

“Do you still think that Pia is some ooga-booga nonsense?” the spooky girl asked over the noise. Goligher was too terrified to direct any sort of rage at the girl, let alone form a coherent response. He dimly realized that his bladder and his bowels had let go and ruined his designer trousers, but he couldn’t find it in him to care.

McFarland worked the action of his scattergun and pulled the trigger on an empty chamber a full half-dozen times before he realized he was out of ammo. He slammed the door shut, threw on the deadbolt and the security chain, and began tearing the cabin apart searching for more ammo.

Then, just as abruptly as they had begun, the drumming and the chanting stopped.

The breath caught in Goligher’s and McFarland’s throats. For a seeming eternity, neither man moved.

“What…” McFarland found his voice about the same time he spotted a box of Number Four buckshot in the back of a cabinet drawer.

“What happens now?” the girl asked. McFarland nodded dumbly as he tore the box open. “Now you die.”

McFarland dropped all five shells onto the floor. Goligher let out an un-masculine scream at the harsh clattering they made as they bounced off the hardwood. McFarland threw himself down and began scampering after them, scooping each one up and trying to feed it into the gun with violently shaking hands. He’d finally managed to load the fifth and final shell when something big and heavy slammed into the cabin door with a wet thud! that rocked the building.

Goligher screamed again, pointed his maser pistol in the general direction of the door and began yanking on the trigger as over and over as fast as he could, not registering that it wasn’t firing because he’d never actually taken the weapon’s safety off. McFarland tried to fire his scattergun from the hip, but he hadn’t chambered a shell. It took him several seconds to realize his mistake; then he worked the pump and crept slowly towards the door.

“What are you doing?” Goligher squeaked. McFarland undid the safety chain and deadbolt. “No! Don’t let it in!”

Too late.

McFarland undid the latch and yanked the door open—and screamed as he found himself face to face with Wynne’s corpse. His throat was a bloody mess, as was the top of his head, where his scalp should have been. The corpse tumbled forward and fell face-first inside the door, giving both men and the girl a clear view of the primitive tomahawk planted between its shoulder blades.

“You should have listened to your friend,” the girl said.

All hell broke loose in the cabin.

A woman with the painted face and buckskin clothes leapt through the door with a bloodcurdling shriek. Goligher and McFarland both screamed in terror. McFarland jerked the trigger on his scattergun, but he fired wide and blew one of the cabin windows out. The woman dropped into a somersault, wrenching her tomakawk from Wynne’s corpse, and then swept McFarland’s scattergun aside with her off hand as she dove onto him. McFarland’s scream was abruptly silenced as the painted woman buried the tomahawk deep into his skull.

Goligher was screaming and babbling incoherently as he pointed his maser pistol at the painted woman and jerked the trigger, still not comprehending that the safety was on. The woman leapt from McFarland’s body, kicked Goligher’s wrist and sent the maser pistol spinning under the couch, and then she was on him. She grabbed his hair and wrenched his head back, then slammed her fist into his throat again and again and again until she felt something crunch and Goligher’s desperate pleas for mercy turned into a sick, wet gurgle.

The painted woman rolled off Goligher, slowly rose to her feet, and took several long, deep breaths as she surveyed her work. The big man was dead, the bald man was dead, and the older man was slowly dying. There were nine children up by the cabin’s far wall: eight were sitting or crouching while facing the wall, their eyes screwed shut, most shaking and crying in terror. But the ninth was sitting cross-legged and facing into the room. Her dark eyes lit up with joy and relief.

“Pia!”

The painted woman dropped to her knees and held out her arms, and the girl leapt into her embrace, buried her face in the crook of the woman’s neck, and began to weep.

“I knew you’d come for me!”

“Oh, Little One!” Tears began to leak from Pia’s eyes. “Are you all right?”

“I’m all right,” the girl sniffed. “We’re all all right. They didn’t hurt us or touch us or anything.”

Pia said a quick prayer of thanks.

“You are so brave, Little One. But I need you to do one more thing.”

“I’ll do it!”

“You don’t even know what it is yet!” Pia couldn’t help but giggle.

“I don’t care, I’ll do it!”

“Okay, okay. I need you to help all of the children outside, then take them up the road to the truck. Then I need you to get them in the truck and drive east. There’s a town about three kilometers that way. Go to the medical clinic and get help. Okay? Can you do that?”

The girl pulled her face from Pia’s shoulder, looked the painted woman in the eye, and nodded.

“I can do it.”

And she did, leading each of the other children out onto the porch one by one, keeping her hands firmly over their eyes so they couldn’t see the carnage that Pia had wrought. Once she had all eight of the children outside, she led them single-file to the hovertruck and loaded them in the back. It took her several attempts, but she was able to back the truck from the tree it had crashed into and turned around. Then she drove it slowly up the dirt-packed road towards freedom.

Pia, meanwhile, darted outside and recovered the half-dozen compact wireless speakers that she had placed around the cabin, then moved out to near where she’d slid the truck off the road and retrieved the two-liter bottle of kerosene she had placed next to a squat tree stump. She waited until the girl had guided the truck another hundred meters down the road before returning to the house.

She was shocked to find that Goligher was still somehow clinging to life. He should have asphyxiated minutes ago. She was sure she’d hit him hard enough to crush his larynx and close up his airway, but apparently she was wrong, since he’d managed to crawl over to the sofa and was fishing around under it for his maser pistol. Oh, well. It wouldn’t matter in a few minutes. She grabbed his ankles, dragged him back into the middle of the floor, and deftly hamstrung him with her knife and then kicked him over onto his back. He let out a pathetic gurgling sound that was probably supposed to be a scream as he fixed her with a look that was equal parts rage, terror, and confusion.

“You want to know who I am,” Pia guessed. “And you want to know why I am doing this to you.” She began splashing the kerosene around the room, taking care to soak the upholstered furniture and pour more than a little onto Goligher’s crotch. “As it happens, both of your questions have the same answer.” Goligher’s eyes went wide with horror when she told him, and wider still when he saw the flint and steel firestarter that she had retrieved from the small pouch on her belt.

New Texas Department of Public Safety Headquarters

New Austin, New Texas

Twenty-six standard hours later

“Almost didn’t recognize you without the hat, Jacinta,” Captain Carlos Walker quipped as Ranger Jacinta Hawk slid into the seat opposite his desk.

“I feel naked without it.” The regulation white Stetson with the nonregulation beaded hatband with the even-more-nonregulation eagle feather tucked into it was practically her trademark. “What did you need me for? I still technically have three standard days of leave left.”

“Just a few things regarding Nadua’s kidnapping. Speaking of which, how’s she doing?”

“She’s all right, all things considered. Still not sleeping well, doesn’t really want to be alone, but…yeah.”

“Yeah,” Walker nodded somberly. “The rest of the kids said she was a damn hero. Kept reassuring them everything would be okay, that they’d be rescued soon, stood up to the kidnappers, and then helped get them out when that Pia character showed up to save the day. She’s one brave little girl.”

“That she is. Any leads on the kidnappers?”

“Oh, we turned up a treasure trove of info in Ferner’s place. Sellers, shippers, safehouses, client lists, bank account info, the works. We’re putting together one hell of an operation. A few dozen arrest warrants are being signed today and the takedowns are scheduled to happen tomorrow, but don’t tell anyone I told you that.”

“Won’t leave your office.”

“Good. But for all that, we didn’t turn up any useable forensics on his body or at the crime scene. Almost like the killer knew exactly how to clean up after themself. Same with that guy they found tortured to death outside Irion, and the cabin where the kids were being held burned to ashes shortly after the kids escaped. Real strange, that. Even stranger, all of the kids reported hearing strange drumming and chanting outside the cabin just before Pia showed up and killed the kidnappers.”

“Captain, no offense, but I’m not sure why you needed to bring me all the way down here to tell me this. With all due respect, a simple commcall would’ve saved us both a lot of time and energy.”

“Probably, but some things are better discussed in person.”

“Things such as?”

“Such as the fact that Nadua swears up and down that she didn’t recognize or understand said drumming and chanting, but six of the eight other children said it sounded exactly like Indian war drums and war dancing. Real strange that Nadua wouldn’t recognize something that she grew up around.”

“She grew up around Comanche music,” Hawk pointed out. “And we’re not the only Nation in the Solar System. Other Peoples’ music might sound similar to the uninitiated, but the languages are very different. Could’ve been Navajo, Apache, Cherokee, you name it. Nadua wouldn’t have understood it.”

“Maybe, but she still should have been able to at least recognize it as some sort of war chant. And then there’s the fact all of the kids say that Nadua kept referring to the person, creature, thing, whatever, that showed up to rescue them as Pia. Now, I’m just a dumb paleface, but I can read. So I dug up a Comanche-to-English dictionary. It seems that Pia is the Comanche word for ‘Mother.’”

A heavy, profound silence hung over the office for a long moment.

“You wouldn’t happen to know why Nadua would call her rescuer that, would you?”

Hawk took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly through her nose before answering.

“Captain, do you remember what you told me when Nadua was first taken?”

“Yeah, that I had to pull you off of the case because you were way too close to the victim and we both knew you won’t be able to handle it objectively?”

“Before that.”

“That the Department suspected there were some very powerful and influential people tied to this trafficking ring, and that it would be very embarrassing for many prominent figures if the people involved were ever indicted or brought to trial?”

Hawk nodded, and Walker let out a longsuffering sigh.

“Yeah, that’s about what I figured.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“What do you intend to do about it?”

“About what, exactly? Like I said, no useable forensics, and no witnesses other than a bunch of traumatized kids.”

Hawk’s shoulders slumped ever so slightly in relief.

“Thanks, Captain.”

“You can thank me by going home, giving Nadua a big hug from her Uncle Carlos, taking the rest of your leave, and then keeping your nose clean and your ass out of trouble for the next century or two.”

Hawk was halfway out the door by the time the captain finished his warning. She needed to get home and hug her husband and her brave little girl.

End

The Country Road

Daniel G. Zeidler

In a land so far from the sea that its folk might go their whole lives without seeing the ocean’s blue waters, was the West Reach, or the Blue Reach, as some called it, after the line of snow-capped mountains that towered over the ancient forest of the Reach. Somewhere deep within West Reach was said to be the home of the first dwarven civilization, a kingdom whose heyday had passed and whose cities had been abandoned to crumble in majestic silence beneath the mountains long before humanity appeared in the world. All of the kingdom’s cities, that is, save for one.

One great city remained, deep in the mountains, at the end of a simple road that meandered its way through the countryside. It was the sort of city all dwarves dreamed of: a place where laughter, food, drink, and all manner of precious gems and metals might be enjoyed in equal measure in the company of one’s clan and close friends. Some went so far as to call it a dwarven paradise, but that was naught but human frivolity, in the opinion of Andvari Ironfist. As far as he was concerned, the city was Home and that was all there was to it.

He squinted into the dappled light of the morning sun peeking at him through the trees. His gut told him that he should have been home the day prior and yet there he stood, in the middle of the road, surrounded by trees, watching another sunrise. Ironfist shrugged—the journey took as long as it took, it did, an’ that was the way o’ it. He turned away from the sunrise and tipped his head to listen to the silence of the forest. There had been some mornings that he’d been certain he’d heard his Lady calling to him, but this particular morning he heard…

Ironfist frowned, shook his head, and concentrated. His eyes widened. He hadn’t imagined it. There was a child, perhaps more than one, screaming up ahead of him on the road.

There were a number of things Andvari Ironfist did not care for, and up near the top of that list, if he ever bothered to write it down, would be anything that made a child scream in fear. Striking fear in a child’s heart was bad enough, but to do it on a road that the Dwarves considered near about sacred, well…that were an item on an whole ‘nother list, it were. Call it the Not to Be Tolerated list.

Things that would appear on Ironfist’s Not to Be Tolerated list, as a rule of thumb, were things that spurred him into immediate action. He took off at a run and rounded the bend in the road with all the subtly of a boulder rolling down a hill. The first thing he saw was a small human boy sprawled facedown on the road. A human girl, by her appearance the boy’s sister, stood over him, trying to help him to his feet while at the same time shielding his body with her own. The road weren’t meant to be trod by human feet, nor even seen by human eyes, but how the children came to be on it, and what to do about it, were something Ironfist would puzzle out later. Fast approaching the children was a human man, long-bladed knife in his hand and the evil intent of his soul writ plain upon his face.

Ironfist’s favorite flintlock pistol appeared in his hand as if he’d conjured it there. He had neither powder nor shot, but the human smith who had gifted the flintlock to him had been a master of his craft, with firm notions about any weapon he made being useful no matter how it was employed. Ironfist flipped the pistol in the air, caught it by the barrel, and threw it at the children’s would-be attacker.

The pistol was well-balanced for throwing, and Ironfist’s throw, in his modest opinion, was among the best he’d ever made. The butt of the pistol, solid oak and capped with bronze, struck the brigand in the temple and knocked him unconscious. Wouldn’t do to kill even an evil man on the country road, it wouldn’t. Ironfist decided that his Lady, kind of heart and generous with her mercy, would be pleased when he told her of his own generous display of mercy…though, there were likely some who’d say leaving a man to his fate in the Blue Reach was a stretch o’ the definition of mercy. He’d always been told that dark hearts came to dark ends in the Blue Reach, he had. The creatures that meted out those dark ends were said to challenge any dwarf’s ability to describe them. Some of that were flim-flammery and flights o’ fancy, o’ course, but there were things that lived in the forest that were unspeakably old, older than the forest itself even, an’ he wouldn’t care to meet—

A figure burst out of the trees, and one of the children let out a little yelp of fear. Ironfist blew out a relieved sigh past his mustache when he saw the figure was only another brigand wearing scraps of armor and carrying a sword that, in Ironfist’s professional opinion, looked as if it had been made by someone who’d heard about a sword once or twice in a bard’s tale, but who’d never actually seen a proper one. A second brigand, similarly equipped, joined the first, and Ironfist entertained a moment of hope that the pair would take one look at him and run rather than try to attack him with their sword-like objects.

“Where’d the dwarf come from?” one of the brigands, sounding a bit peeved, said as he pointed his not-sword at Ironfist.

The other brigand shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll kill him, too, and get back to camp.”

Ironfist sighed and hefted Constance, his beloved battleaxe. Her twin blades gleamed in the morning sun as brightly as the first day he’d held her. “Ah, lad, ye be finding that easier in the sayin’ than in the doing, ye will. Do ye plan on being gentlemanly and comin’ at me one at a time or are ye both going to do it all at once?”

Ironfist may have been short of stature, but he was broad of shoulder and long of beard, which counted for quite a bit among dwarven-kind. He was also a veteran of more battles than he could count. He’d even fought a dragon once and lived to tell the tale. The dragon may have been drunk at the time, but so had Ironfist, so that was really neither here nor there, that was.

The brigands were woefully ignorant fellows, so they both charged him at the same time.

Ironfist jabbed the first one in the gut with the haft of the battleaxe, then gave him a hard thump on the head with the flat of the blades. The man dropped like a stone and sprawled out unconscious on the dirt road. The second brigand thought to press some imaginary advantage and lunged forward in an attempt to kill Ironfist with a thrust of his not-sword. A moment later, just before he, too, fell unconscious, the second brigand learned firsthand how Ironfist had earned his name.

“My Lord!” a child’s voice cried out in panic behind him. “You’ve been stabbed!”

Ironfist turned and saw the two human children standing in the center of the road, concern for his well-being clear on their young faces. He bristled his eyebrows at them. “Here now! None o’ that fancy my lord stuff directed at me—I’m Andvari Ironfist, I am. An’ do I look the sorta dwarf who’d deign be run through by as poorly made a blade-like object as this sorry lot were carryin’? Why, me beard bristles at the very thought of it!”

Much as Ironfist hoped, he drew small giggles from both children. He was a father and a grandfather many times over and knew well how to comfort frightened children. He did not know, however, how he would get these particular children safely away from the road. He wasn’t one for giving up, though, nor one for failing, and with his Lady’s blessing, he would see these children safe. Safe could be defined many ways, of course, so the first thing that needed doing was to determine which version of safe the children were in need of. “So now I’m wondering, I am, what be your names?”

“I’m Tilly, Mr. Ironfist,” the girl said.

“And I’m Billy,” the boy said, then proudly put his fists on his hips. “We’re nine.”

The girl, Tilly, wrinkled her nose. “Well…eight and three quarters, but Billy doesn’t care for fractions.”

Billy shrugged and nodded. “Yeah. I wasn’t trying to lie, Mr. Ironfist. I just don’t care for fractions.”

“That be fair, it do,” Ironfist said, then quirked a bushy eyebrow. “I don’t be supposin’ that two friendly and polite children such as yerselves would happen to be a pair of orphans who, having run away from a dire an’ terrible situation, are now hopin’ to find a kindly place to call home? That’d be simplest, it would.”

Tilly shook her head. “Oh, no, nothing like that, Mr. Ironfist. We live at home with Ma and Pa.”

“And we didn’t mean to go into the forest,” Billy added. “We were playing by the river and all of the sudden there were all these bandits! And they started chasing us and we just sort of ended up running into the forest.”

“Yeah,” Tilly agreed. “Then they kept chasing us, so we kept running and then the bandits started getting lost and then there were only like three of them left chasing us and then you found us!”

Billy traded a look with his sister. “Speaking of getting lost…we’re lost now, too. I don’t suppose you could help us find our way back home?”

“Aye…aye. I can sees the pair of you, what through no fault o’ your own, are in need of a bit a help. Probably has folks who cares about ye who are willing to come into the forest a lookin’ for ye…who’d like as not get lost, as well…so, complicated it is, then,” Ironfist said quietly. He looked down the road toward his destination and sighed. “As it happens, what with me being on me way Home to me Lady myself, I’m thinkin’ I’m a bit o’ an expert, so to speaks, on finding ways to gets to homes o’ various sorts. Me Lady is kindhearted, she is, an’ she’ll understand if I delay my journey to take a bit o’ time to help a pair of fine youngsters such as yerselves.”

“Your Lady must be beautiful, Mr. Ironfist,” Tilly said with all the certainty her nearly nine years could provide. “You get a funny look on your face when you talk about her.”

“Is she your queen?” Billy’s eyes widened. “Are you one of her knights?”

“Oh! Dealing with a pair o’ clever and observant youngsters, I am. There be no pulling the wool o’er yer eyes, I see,” Ironfist said, and squared his shoulders in an effort to look more knightly. If the little ones needed a knight to see them safely out of the dangers of the woods, then weren’t no harm in being a knight, even if it were just human flim-flammery. “Me Lady is indeed beautiful, young Mistress Tilly, and kindhearted, too, as I said afore. She’s a bit like a queen, aye, and also a bit like Mum to all us mountainfolk, rambunctious lot that we are. Ye would like her right off if ye met her, and she you, but not today, I feel. Not today.”

A breeze made the leaves rustle and boughs of the trees around them creak. The children shivered, and Tilly, her breath clearly visible in the air before her, said, “Why did it get so cold all of the sudden, Mr. Ironfist? It doesn’t snow in the woods during the summer, does it?”

Ironfist quickly scanned the trees to either side of the road. The shadows were darker on the southern side of the road, but on the northern side, he was fair certain he spied a bit of dwarven stonework peeking out from behind the tree trunks a short distance off the road. He looked down to Tilly. “That, lass, would be what me Gram used to call a sign. In this particular case, ‘tis a sign we should be getting off this here road.”

“Mr. Ironfist!” Billy said as he anxiously searched the area. “The bandits are gone!”

“Why, so they be, lad, so they be. Another more definite sign we should be moving along, I says.” Ironfist pointed in the direction of the dwarven stonework. “We’ll be finding some shelter off that aways. Best step lively now afore the cold takes ye.”

Ironfist ushered the children into the woods and was surprised to discover they were following an old footpath, long abandoned and mostly overgrown, true, but easier going than trying to push through the dense undergrowth of the forest. The shadows grew deeper around them as they walked until there was nothing to be seen of sunlight. Ironfist kept a wary eye on their destination and to either side of the footpath, but deliberately did not look back to see what followed them. Something was following them, of that he were certain, but as long as it kept back where it were, he saw no need to give it a look in the eye—assuming it had eyes to be lookin’ into, to begin with. One could never tell what to expect with things what brought their own dark with ‘em as they walked about.

Judging distances was always tricky in an elder wood, particularly when there was creatures about hoping to wrap their shadowy tendrils around a pair o’ youngins lost among the trees. The footpath seemed to keep the children safe from the worst of the mischief, but after thirty minutes of walking, they began to tire.

“Can we stop for a rest, Mr. Ironfist?” Billy asked sleepily. “My feet are too tired to keep walking.”

Tilly yawned. “Maybe you could carry us the rest of the way?”

“Nay, nay. No stopping or resting here, me hearties,” Ironfist urged while gently herding them forward. “There be things about that will take ye in yer sleep, they will, just as happened to them bandits back on the road. Be time for resting once we reach shelter.”

Tilly surprised Ironfist by saying, “Those poor bandits! I know they were bad men, but I don’t think anybody deserves to get eaten by a monster in their sleep.”

“An uncommon generous spirit you and your brother has, Mistress Tilly, uncommon generous. Dark hearts often meet dark fates, as me dear old Gramp used to say, but aye, to be taken like that is a poor fate indeed,” Ironfist agreed. He looked up to see how much further they had to go and was shocked to see they had somehow arrived at their intended destination. Strange places, yer ancient forests, strange, indeed; especially the one around them, what with the road Home cuttin’ through it as it did.

A small stone building, either a shrine or a tomb, but clearly dwarven by its architecture, sat by itself in what had likely been a small clearing at one point. When the structure was newly built, there would have been bas-relief images, or at the very least, runes carved near the entrance that would have indicated the purpose of the little building. Time and an age or two of rain had left behind only the faintest of hints in the stone. Ironfist acknowledged that there were those who’d hesitate afore entering such a structure, but the buildin’s door were open and the cheery glow of firelight spilled through it into the unnatural darkness. That were all he needed to see, that were. He whispered a silent prayer of thanks to his generous Lady and quickly herded the children into the building.

“Makes yer ways to the back of the building away from the doorway, children—mind that brazier, now, the edges are bound to be hot—and find seats for yerselves at the foot of that statue while I sees about closing the door,” Ironfist instructed, then turned his attention to the doorway. As it happened, there was no door, nor had there been one for a very long time. He took a quick glance outside and saw the ghostly figures of lost souls shambling blindly about from shadow to shadow. More troubling than those forlorn beings were the faceless ones what moved among them with hunger and silent purpose, circling the small shrine as they looked for a way inside.

He drew back from the doorway and turned to see the children staring at him, wide-eyed, through the flames burning in the brazier. They sat at the foot of a stone throne, he saw, and seated upon the throne was a dwarven figure so worn he could not tell if it was supposed to represent a man or a woman. The statue had a warm and friendly feel to it, though, and it was likely a representation of his Lady, so he gave it a respectful nod before returning his attention to the children. “Warm and cozy in here, ain’t it? Fine place to rest, I says, fine place.”

“But there’s no door, Mr. Ironfist,” Billy said as his sister took his hand in hers. “The monsters will still be able to get us if we fall asleep.”

“Nay, ‘tis not the problem ye think it is,” Ironfist said as he joined them on their side of the brazier. “Just need to sing up a good song to keeps the likes of these monsters away.”

“Mr. Ironfist,” Tilly said, disapproval clear in her tone. “We’re almost nine. We know songs don’t keep monsters away.”

“Oh, aye, aye. I can see yer old enough to be wise to the ways o’ the more common monsters, no doubts about it. Yer orcs and goblin-kind, not impressed in the least by a good tune, they aren’t. Ye could travel the whole world entire and never find a single ogre what could carry a tune in a magic bucket if ye handed it to him yerself. Nay, song won’t help ye with the likes of them,” Ironfist agreed with a sage nod and thoughtful stroking of his beard. “Monsters we’re dealing with here are a different sort, though: more ancient, with more refined tastes, one might be saying. Not much is known about them, truth be told, and they be so old ‘tis said even the gods have forgotten what they be called. There’s no defeating such creatures with a pistol or an axe, nay. You have to use yer wits, and a good song will serve you better defense against them than any shield nor door besides. Now, to be clear, by good song I mean a good dwarven song—none of that human flim-flammery.”

“We, we don’t know any dwarven songs, Mr. Ironfist,” Tilly said, her eyes growing wider as the breeze picked up outside the shrine.

Billy nudged her with his shoulder. “What about ‘Old Man Mountain All Covered in Snow’? That one has a dwarf in it.”

“Oh!” Tilly’s expression brightened. “That’s a good one.” She looked up at Ironfist. “It doesn’t start off happy. Old Man Mountain is sad because he has no friends and the dwarf is sad because he has no home, but it has a happy ending.”

“Yeah,” Billy agreed with an enthusiastic nod. “The dwarf makes friends with the Mountain and the Mountain gives the dwarf and his family a home. Then they have a party!”

“Well, that do sound promising, now, don’t it?” Ironfist said with another thoughtful stroke of his beard. He nodded. “What say you gives it a sing, I gives it a listen, an’ we see what’s what at the end?”

The children agreed, and after a brief count, began singing. “Old Man Mountain all covered in snow/Mmm-hmm Mmm-hmm/Old Man Mountain all covered in snow/Got no friends where th’ cold winds blow…”

Ironfist chuckled at several points during the performance, and when the children finished, he asked them to sing it again so he could join them. It was a human song, true, but it was at least a human song that tried, and more or less succeeded, in sounding like a dwarven song. He’d sung songs much like it to his own littles, back in the day, and to his grand-littles after them. He wiped a tear from his eye—smoke from the fire in the brazier is what caused that an’ don’t be getting no notions otherwise—and slapped his knee. “Aye, now that were a lively tune, it were. Reminded me o’ home so much I could almost taste me moonshine, I could. I says that a performance as good as that deserves some coin from yer audience. The monsters outside aren’t likely to ‘ave anything, but I has a copper for each of ye. Here’s one for ye, Mistress Tilly, and another for ye, Master Billy. Now, coins like that given freely from the dwarf what owned them will bring ye good luck, they will, and ye will always find them in yer hand when ye need them.”

“Whoa… Our very own lucky coins, Tilly!” Billy said with a broad grin for his sister. He stood and did his best to do a formal bow for Ironfist. “Thank you, Mr. Ironfist, and thank for saving us from those bandits.”

Tilly rose to her feet as well and did a little curtsey in the human style. “And thank you for helping us find our way back home.”

Ironfist, as was befitting a dwarf of his age, acknowledged and accepted their courtesy with a hand to his chest and regal bow of his head. “You’re quite welcome, young ones, quite welcome.”

The children sat back down again and traded another one of their private looks. Tilly looked up at Ironfist and said, “Me and Billy are wondering…what is your home like, Mr. Ironfist? You seem awful fond of it.”

Ironfist unexpectedly found himself the focus of two intensely curious little humans. He arched an eyebrow at them. “What’s this? Ye ain’t never had a dwarf tell ye about Home before?”

Tilly shook her head. “We’ve never met a dwarf before.”

Billy, somewhat confusingly, nodded in agreement. “Not never!”

“Oh! Well, then, if I be the first dwarf ye laid eyes upon, then it’s glad I am that me beard’s combed and that I be wearing my finest travel clothes. Wouldn’t have done to set a poor example for ye. Now, what’s home like, ye wonder? Where to begin to answer that…” Ironfist said. Out of long habit, he put a hand in his coat pocket and found his favorite pipe and a small pouch of tobacco. He filled the pipe with a grin and struck a match to light it as the children settled back against the throne and the legs of its time-worn occupant. “I has to start with the mountains, I suppose. They rise, all majestic-like, into the sky, they do—like the most beautiful painting ye ever seen, only even more beautiful than that…”

Ironfist told them all about the wonders of home and about his family, pausing occasionally to puff wistfully on his pipe. The children were full of questions, at first, but it wasn’t long, with the comforting warmth of the brazier’s flame washing over them, before they both fell sound asleep. Outside the little shrine, the shadows had vanished and sunlight streamed down through breaks in the leaves. Ironfist smiled and made himself comfortable. It wouldn’t be long, his gut told him, before some folk showed up looking for their misplaced littles.

Ironfist had just about finished his pipe when a man in a plain brown robe of a human holy man appeared in the open doorway of the shrine. The holy man’s face was creased with worry, and he held a staff carved with holy symbols in front of him, as if he’d expected to ward off some fell creature. When the holy man saw the children, his expression brightened and he laughed joyfully before looking back over his shoulder. “We’ve found them! They’re here in this old shrine!”

A large man wielding an axe barreled past the holy man, which might have concerned Ironfist some if the man didn’t bore such a striking resemblance to the sleeping children. The man froze midstep the moment he laid eyes on his sleeping littles, and tears of joy welled up in his eyes. He leaned his axe beside the doorway, which earned a nod of approval from Ironfist. Just made sense, it did, that respectful littles would be havin’ a respectful da. The father ran over to where the children slept and knelt beside them. His voice was gentle when he spoke. “Tilly? Billy? Taking a nap in the middle of hide and seek? You’ll never win that way.”

The children opened their eyes, blinked, and threw their arms around their father in as heartwarmin’ o’ sight as Ironfist e’er did care to see. A moment later, a pair of older lads wielding bows and a spear-wielding man who was clearly their relations—cousins and an uncle, according to the children’s greetings to them—ran into the shrine and joined the happy reunion. Ironfist chuckled as the children regaled them with a tale of bandits and monsters and dwarven knights.

“You are the dwarven knight, I’m guessing?” the holy man asked quietly from close beside Ironfist.

Holy man must of had some elf blood in ‘im, he must, sneaking about like that an’ doin’ the unexpected, Ironfist thought. He nodded and smiled. “Littles see what they will, they do. Helped many a folk in me day, though, and twern’t no trouble to help Mistress Tilly and Master Billy. If they decide, in their time o’ need, that it makes me a knight, well, what harm do it be to let them keep a thinkin’ that, I asks?”

The holy man glanced nervously over to the children, then lowered his voice further. “What about the road? They didn’t set foot on the road, did they?”

“Knows about the country road, do ye?” Ironfist sighed. He shook his head. “‘Tis nothing ye need to trouble yerself over, holy man.”

“Nothing I—” the holy man began indignantly, but quickly calmed himself. “The curse states all who set foot on the old Dwarven road are doomed to die.”

“Bah! Naught but human flim-flammery, that be,” Ironfist interrupted, and laid a comforting hand on the holy man’s shoulder. “I told ye the truth, lad: ‘tis nothing ye need trouble yerself over. The children sang a lovely song here in me Lady’s shrine, they did, and lively tune it were, too. Caught me Lady’s attention, it did. They’ll be leaving here with ‘er blessing and a favor from me besides. Nay, ye have nothing to fear on their account, holy man. The pair o’ them will live long an’ happy lives—prosperous, too. ‘Tis true, there will come a day—long, long time from now—when they’ll be called back to this ‘ere shrine. I’ll be here waiting for ‘em and I’ll walk with ‘em then to meet my Lady, I will. Ye have the word o’ Andvari Ironfist on that, ye do.”

“So you’ll be trapped here, waiting, all that time?” The holy man shook his head. “A poor reward for your kindness. I shall pray that you be allowed to continue on your journey…and then return when you must.”

Ironfist emptied his pipe into the brazier and smiled. “Yer a good lad, ye are, holy man, and I thank ye for yer prayers, but now that the littles are safe, I can hear me Lady calling me home. Tell the littles for me that we’ll meet again someday.”

“Brother Osrik!” Billy announced as he and his sister ran over to the holy man. “Pa and Uncle Jarold don’t believe you’re talking with— Wait…”

“Where’d Mr. Ironfist go, Brother Osrik?” Tilly said and she and Billy bent down to look under the brazier. “He was right here. You were talking to him!”

“Indeed I was, children, and he and I had a lovely chat, but he had to finish his journey Home,” Osrik said, and glanced over to the other adults. He saw they believed he was humoring the children and decided that was probably for the best. The children knew the truth, or at least part of it, and that was probably for the best, as well. He went down on one knee to put himself at the children’s eye level. “Mr. Ironfist told me his Lady liked the song that you sang. Very well done.”

“We sang ‘Old Man Mountain All Covered in Snow,’” Tilly told him.

“Because it has a dwarf in it,” Billy added with the certainty that it explained everything.

“Oh? That’s a good one. I have a feeling Mr. Ironfist will be enjoying the memory of it for a long time. By the way, he asked me to let you know that you’ll be seeing him again someday—a long time from now,” Osrik said, and held up his hand in a gesture of blessing over the children’s heads. He rose back to his feet and motioned toward the doorway. “On that note, it’s best that we head back to town now. It wouldn’t do to overstay our welcome in these woods.”

Werewolf Nation

TC Ross

Wolf howls were eerie when they were your normal, everyday wolf. What came from the mouths of werewolves was something else entirely. It chilled your blood to the bone.

Before the change, we joked about the zombie apocalypse.

We prepared for it.

Even as we laughed that it would never happen, in the back of our minds…we feared.

The thing about zombies is that fast or slow, they would eventually rot away in the humid Texas heat. It was bad enough to be living flesh when it hit ninety, let alone decomposing. Zombies wouldn’t last through a summer in the south.

Instead of stinking zombies, it was werewolves…and wet dog smell doesn’t even begin to compare to the stench of a wet werewolf.

Overnight in early April, thousands of men and women transformed into walking nightmares. They turned on their family, friends, and neighbors.

My wife’s screams woke me that night.

I lost her, but I wouldn’t lose our son. With nothing to hold me to home, I had to get to my sister in Austin. She was all that remained of my family, and I had promises to keep.

Three months later, the howling hadn’t ceased. Their death song rolled over the low hills as it had since our trip began. Tonight, it mixed with a distant peal of thunder. Light flashed against an increasingly dark sky as we settled onto our perch on the billboard platform with our small group.

“Storm’s coming,” said Evelyn, handing her daughter a can of cold soup.

The first night, people started fires, thinking it would keep the werewolves away.

It didn’t.

“Wish I’d seen it earlier.” I held out a spoonful of cold spaghetti-Os to Owen. At eighteen months old, he’d been a trooper through the whole ordeal…as long as I kept him fed and close. On the billboard platform, he stayed in the child carrier strapped to my chest.

Contrary to horror movies, werewolves couldn’t jump higher than they were tall. They also couldn’t climb ladders. We were ignored if we kept to high places at night.

“I don’t think they like getting wet.”

“Which means anywhere we go, we’ll run into them sheltering, too.”

Owen jumped as lightning streaked closer, the crash of thunder following uncomfortably close. The can slipped from my fingers, hit the steel grates, and bounced into the darkness.

“Time to go.” Evelyn grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulders. Others were already on the ladder. “Maria. Ethan. Hold up.”

Owen babbled about the scary lights, covering his eyes. Storms had never been his favorite experience.

Carrying a toddler and a backpack isn’t easy. Going up and down ladders with them was even trickier. I lagged behind everyone.

“Hurry, hurry!” Stan, the owner of the rope ladder that got us to the platform, whispered. He stood at the base, holding the ladder as people descended. Maria went first, followed by Ethan, who shook so hard his hands repeatedly slipped on the aluminum rungs.

Hampered by the baby carrier and backpack, I was last. A cool, wet breeze wrapped around me, filled with the scent of oncoming rain. The rungs would be bad enough with so many sweaty hands passing over them without adding rain.

“Don’t untie the rope!” Evelyn shrieked.

“I need to catch up to my family!” shouted Stan.

Don’t hesitate! I dropped as fast as I dared, hitting the top rung of the rope ladder with all my weight. It gave beneath my weight, bending in the middle. But it was of no concern to me as I got down three rungs…and then my foot went down and didn’t stop.

I’d have sworn if the ground hadn’t knocked the air from my lungs. Pain shot through my legs, and I laid on my back, staring at the storm clouds. The billboard swayed overhead, a gust of wind ripping through the canvas.

“Get up, Jake,” said Evelyn, tugging on my backpack. “You slipped on the last rung.”

“Kill Stan,” I moaned, rolling onto my side. Owen, who had been silent for the moment, let out an ear-piercing wail. “Hush, hush. Owen, be quiet. The big dogs will hear. Remember, big dogs bad.”

With Evelyn’s help, I sat up and got to my feet. Stan was gone. Good for him. I was ready to strangle him with his ladder.

“Stan didn’t untie the rope,” she said.

I still wanted to strangle him. If there was the slightest hint of a tornado in a storm, people freaked out and did stupid things.

Nothing appeared broken, but my knees and ankles complained as we staggered across an overgrown field. The dark trails were easy to see, heading to a row of houses. Evelyn remained at my side with her kids running a few feet ahead. Everyone was heading to the closest house, a dark silhouette against the sky. Chills raced up my back, and I grasped Evelyn’s shoulder.

“Wait. Let them enter first.” Let the fools take the chance. We were safer in the field until we knew the house was safe.

“Kids!” Evelyn called them back.

Warm droplets splattered on my head and shoulders as the wind kicked up a cloud of dust. Screen doors banged from several of the houses. Further down the row, a small light burned in a window—a kerosene lamp or a candle. Small lights didn’t attract werewolves, and they signaled a safe place.

Most of the time.

It could also be a trap.

Not from a cunning werewolf, no. They couldn’t light candles or even manage doorknobs. No, in the were-pocalypse, some people embraced the chaos to do whatever they wanted. Robbing and murdering survivors wasn’t the worst of it.

A bang echoed from inside the house everyone had gone into, followed by screams. My breath caught in my throat as I pushed Evelyn to the ground. Her kids went down immediately, huddled together.

Thunder boomed overhead. Owen let out a single cry and went quiet. The one good thing about storms was while Owen was afraid of them, they shook him into silence. More gunfire echoed, and several people ran out of the house, falling over each other as they hit the rain-slick porch.

And then the werewolf appeared, smashing through the door with a roar. The unfortunate man in his arms screeched as he sailed through the air and hit the clothesline. He did a flip and landed on his face in the mud. Massive jaws filled with gleaming white teeth shone in a flash of lightning.

The thing remained in the doorway, hulking shoulders too big to easily pass back through without turning sideways. It didn’t venture into the yard after the others. But it remained there, snarling. Behind it, the screaming continued. Doubtless, everyone inside was already dead.

“This way,” I whispered, rising and heading down the field. The werewolf focused on the other people as they ran toward the highway.

Ethan and Maria hesitated. Evelyn had to grab their hands, pulling them after me to the house with the candle in the window. The man who had been thrown out of the house hadn’t gotten up.

Good chance that was Stan.

The rain came down hard and heavy, drenching us to the bone as we crossed the backyard, shielded by a wood fence on both sides. The chances of the werewolf tracking us with all the rain was nil. We wouldn’t leave until morning, and they never came out in the daylight.

Doubtless, it would be full after eating its thunderstorm delivered dinner.

I was up the stairs first, breathing heavily, more from the sight of a werewolf than the run. Thankfully, it wasn’t the one that had followed us from Dallas. That SOB was stubborn beyond all reason.

It had killed my wife.

The one I shot on that first night.

I took its eye, and somehow…it tracked me.

I waited for a flash of lightning before banging on the door. We hadn’t survived this long taking unnecessary risks.

Nobody answered.

“It went back inside,” hissed Evelyn, gripping my arm.

I slammed my fist into the door, shouting, “We need shelter! We have food to trade!” Raising my voice sent the hair on the back of my neck upright. After months of being as quiet as possible at night, shouting made my blood run cold.

The deadbolt turned with a click, and the door opened a crack.

“I have guard dogs,” whispered the woman on the other side, holding up an oil lantern. A growl rose from behind her. “So if you’re planning to rob me, think twice.”

“We just want out of the rain.” I gestured to Owen, who sniffled. “I’m Jake, and this is Owen. My friends here are Evelyn and her kids, Maria and Ethan.”

“One moment.” She closed the door.

The chain lock rattled a few minutes later, and she greeted us with a smile. “Are you hungry? I have stew, and it’s still hot.”

“Still hot?” I walked past her and took a good look around the kitchen. A cat meowed, curling its body around my leg.

“I have solar panels, but I use it to keep the refrigerators and freezers going,” the woman said, walking to the stove, where a large stew pot sat.

“Do you need anything? We have some extra water filters,” I offered as another cat trotted into the kitchen, meowing. “Are there more people in this town? We saw a werewolf.”

“Yes,” she replied, pulling bowls out of the cabinet. “I’m Daisy, by the way. Did you want some stew? I have plenty. Was making some to share with my dogs.”

“After you,” I said, glancing at Evelyn and the kids. They stood near the stove, their hungry eyes on the food. “No offense to you, ma’am. Just being careful.”

“Of course.” Daisy set the bowls down and dipped the serving spoon into the stew. A large chunk of meat, potatoes, and carrots sat in a thick brown broth. My mouth watered as I nodded. She blew on it, sending wisps of steam into the air.

Owen squirmed, kicking his legs.

“You’re not worried about the werewolf?” I had to fill the silence with something. Normally Evelyn served that purpose, but she had been tight-lipped since we entered the house. Her attention was on her children while I handled Daisy.

“No, they come out at night while I’m sleeping,” replied Daisy, sipping from the spoon. “They don’t bother me or anyone, really. We’ve learned how to co-exist.”

I shuddered, the image of a “COEXIST” bumper sticker coming to mind. Only in this one, a full moon with a howling wolf filled in the “O.” I’d seen graffiti with that exact image.

Werewolf evangelist.

These people were delusional, at best, a danger to themselves and everyone around them at the worst. They had the same spiel. Werewolves owned the night, and everyone else lived in the day.

I’m not convinced.

Best not to argue. We only needed a safe place for the night.

“Did you travel far? I’ve seen so many heading to Austin,” said Daisy, taking a tentative bite of the stew. “It’s all so unnecessary. It was safer for you to stay where you were. The werewolves are much more territorial than they were as humans. They especially don’t like strangers invading their homes.”

“We don’t barge into anyone’s home,” said Evelyn, peeking around my arm.

“That’s good practice, because that’s how you get killed.” Daisy finished the rest of the stew and stepped aside. “You can serve yourself. There’s fresh tea in the fridge, and you’re welcome to have ice from the freezer.”

“The water’s safe to drink?” That was a surprise. Fresh water was one of the first things to go as the plants shut down.

“They got it running a week ago.” Daisy smiled, folding her arms. “On the coasts, things have hardly changed.”

I ladled bowls of stew for Evelyn and the kids. Eventually, I would need to get out of my wet things. For now, wearing them was a comfort. Having Owen close to me…was a comfort.

“If they know you, they ignore you,” said Daisy, picking up a cat. She cradled the fat animal as it purred and rubbed its head against her hand. “They don’t eat people. That would be cannibalism, and they’re not cannibals.”

My stomach twisted. “Ma’am, that’s not talk we have around dinner. I appreciate you letting us eat your food and stay, but we don’t want to talk about…them.”

“I’m sorry. Bless your hearts. I’ll get some blankets and dry clothes for you and your family. If you want, you can use the shower or take a bath.” Daisy turned, walking into the adjoining room. “Can’t be too careful where loved ones are concerned.”

“She’s not my wife,” I called after her, handing Evelyn a full bowl. Losing Amara was still fresh in my mind, and I’d seen too many mauled bodies to believe these monsters remembered they were human.

The werewolf evangelists didn’t travel. They remained behind, probably as unwitting cattle for a time when prey didn’t wander down the freeway daily. They were sheep, and I was not one of them.

We wouldn’t stop our trek to Austin for any reason. Living among the werewolves was out of the question.

#

I bathed Owen after dinner, then Evelyn and her kids took turns showering. Warm, clean water was a long-forgotten luxury. Scrubbing away three months of travel through a particularly wet spring was a religious experience. Better yet, I smelled like myself. For the night, I didn’t have to worry about spraying perfumes or colognes to hide my scent.

Werewolves hated strong scents. Spilling perfume around your sleeping spot at night deterred them. Covering yourself in air freshener kept them off your trail. Nobody ever put that in the survival books. We figured that out when a girl broke a perfume bottle in her backpack the first week. People grab the stupidest things when panicking and fleeing from their houses. In this case, it saved her life.

The group we were with didn’t want her near us. They thought the smell would draw in werewolves. Instead, a pack approached her hiding spot in the middle of the night. They sneezed and didn’t stop sneezing as they left the area.

Thinking about that moment, I wish I hadn’t been one of the ones who pushed the girl out of the group. Her family hid with her and did what I’m doing now. They remained nearby, but were at the most risk of being picked off. The longer we’ve been traveling, the more everyone is out for their own lives and creating new reasons to have stragglers.

I understand, but I hate it.

I should have spoken up for them.

That’s why I’m with Evelyn and her kids.

It’s been a long trek, but we’ll be in Austin by tomorrow afternoon. Somehow, they built a wall around a section of the city. Food and supplies were delivered by helicopter. Medicine and everything we need would be there. They’re even evacuating people by helicopter.

Daisy was a nice lady, despite her disconnect from reality. She brought out a small battery-powered radio, and we listened to the news. The weather service was still active, reporting that heavy storms were expected until morning, but the worst they held was hail. Good thing we were inside.

Between short segments about what the government wasn’t doing to handle the were-pocalypse, they ran a constant reminder to shelter at night. By now, everyone should have known that.

I switched over to a music station when the entertainment reporting began. Stories about how such-and-such empty-headed superstar was sheltering in their mansion with twenty-four-hour electricity made my blood boil. Their lives were hardly impacted. The lack of travel was a constant complaint.

Those of us in the interior United States were a world away, a third-world country sandwiched between the east and west coasts, where life had barely changed. Odd that most of the werewolves appeared concentrated in the middle of the states.

We were forgotten.

I sat in silence as Owen slept on the couch next to me. Evelyn’s kids were on an air mattress on the floor, which they had taken turns blowing up to get to sleep on something soft. It didn’t matter if we were in the house or out in the open: someone had to stay awake and watch. I took the first shift, letting Evelyn sleep in the recliner.

Daisy didn’t say much, leaving us mostly alone. She took three large bowls of stew to the back of the house, presumably to feed her dogs. They didn’t bark or make much noise. I kept my eyes on the door that separated the living room from the back of the house.

Horrific scenarios ran through my far too-active mind. I watched with my jacket open, my hand resting on my SIG.

Dogs barked.

What if Daisy’s dogs are werewolves?

The night passed on slowly, the storm rumbling as the music played. Country music. Not my favorite, as sad melodies played, threatening to put me to sleep.

I managed to stay awake. Nothing stirred from the back of the house, and gradually my wariness dropped. Idle dreaming took its place, my mind reasoning with itself to prepare me to sleep. I had to get some rest for the trip tomorrow. A few hours would do it.

If there were werewolves, she fed them. They might’ve been chained up. I didn’t hear any chains, but reason had left at that point. Reason prevailed. They would have attacked us by now. The door would creak, and it would wake me. It made a lot of noise when she closed it…and she turned the lock. I would hear that, as well.

Evelyn stirred with a yawn. She sat up, turning bleary eyes to me.

“Morning,” I greeted, fighting the urge to yawn.

“Is it?”

“Radio said it’s three.”

“I always wake up at three. Why don’t you get some sleep, and I’ll watch until morning?” Evelyn stretched, yawning again.

“Sure.” I was more than ready to trade off. Staying awake is hard work. I didn’t bother offering my gun. She didn’t like handling them, and there were only a few hours until dawn. Any noise they made would rouse me. I made myself comfortable and folded my hands over my stomach.

A yawn escaped, and I was out.

Lazy warmth seeped into my bones. That feeling you get when it’s time to get up, but everything wraps around you like a comforting cloud. Evelyn had Owen in her arms, whispering to him as he babbled about the kitties. Sleep took me…for far too long.

Light streamed through the living room windows. A trio of fat cats lounged in the sunlight. Owen giggled, sitting with Evelyn on the floor as a cat purred and patted his foot with a paw. Daisy was in the dining nook attached to the kitchen, making sandwiches at the table.

“What time is it?” I asked groggily, rubbing my face. The sun was too high. “We were supposed to leave as soon as the sun was up.”

“You needed the sleep,” said Evelyn. “It’s eleven—”

“Evelyn!” I jerked upright so fast that Owen jumped.

“Jake, you’ve been running yourself ragged for weeks,” she spoke crossly, hugging Owen. “We’ll be safe inside Austin’s walls by evening.”

While she was right, I didn’t like the thought of having fewer hours of daylight to work with. Evelyn didn’t think about things like that.

“You could stay another day and night to rest up for the last leg of your trip.” Daisy handed a sandwich to Maria. “Peanut butter and jelly. I’ll pack another one for you to take.”

Staying another night was off the table.

“Thank you, ma’am, but we need to get on our way.” I was on my feet, grabbing the baby carrier off the floor before I finished.

“Let them eat first,” huffed Evelyn. “Owen hasn’t eaten yet.”

It did sound good. Eating out of cans lost its appeal faster than one would expect. The gelatin layer that formed at the top of most of them was better heated into the contents than cold. Like the hot stew the night before, a sandwich was a welcome change.

My stomach growled, and I relented.

“Eat quick, and we’ll be on our way.” I set the harness back on the floor and sat momentarily, gathering myself. Sleep still clung to my arms and legs, begging me to sit longer.

Daisy was a nice woman, but this place was a deathtrap that could close anytime. We had to leave. Her fate was her choosing, and we didn’t need to be involved. I’d had enough conversations with werewolf evangelists to know a lost cause.

Half an hour later, we were back on I-35. I avoided looking at the werewolf house longer than necessar. They didn’t come out during the day, and it was almost noon. Regardless, I watched the door until my feet hit pavement.

The billboard we started the night at still stood, but the frame had twisted over the platform. If we had tried to weather the storm there, we would have been knocked off at some point. The fall could’ve killed us.

Counting our blessings, we returned to the highway. It was safer than walking in the tall grass. Stepping on a rattlesnake in the middle of nowhere was a death sentence. Due to the lack of gas, the only vehicles were the occasional motorcycle.

Cars lined the sides of the highway. Most were intact, lacking only fuel to carry them further. They were pulled off into the grass or against the railings. Here and there, they were two and three cars deep. Their sides were dented, where a bulldozer had shoved them out of the way to clear two lanes on each side.

That’s how the roads had been for the last two months. Where all the people went was a mystery. Probably wandered off the road, walked into a werewolf-occupied house, and were eaten. I set my eyes forward and walked on. Not far to go now, and the sun would peak soon.

Mornings were still cool, but the heat and humidity set in sooner and sooner. Walking in the open meant no shade, but it was faster. We still had to stop frequently for the kids…for Owen. He fussed, and I had to take him off to the side to use the bathroom, only halfway thankful he was potty-trained.

At this point, I’d have happily stored dirty diapers to throw at the werewolves. There were times those things could be classified as toxic weapons. Changing diapers would have taken more time, anyway.

Owen walked with us for almost half an hour before he had enough and wanted to be carried. He fell asleep, shaded by a floppy hat.

Nobody talked.

Ten miles was a push. Walking five miles typically took two hours, with stops to rest. I ground my jaw, revisiting Evelyn letting me sleep in. A morning start would have set a far more relaxing pace, and we would already be in Austin.

Military vehicles passed us on both sides, massive cargo trucks and Humvees. They rarely stopped unless we flagged them down. By now, we knew better than to ask for anything unless we absolutely needed it. They didn’t have time for survivors, and I didn’t trust them. Rumors abounded that the entire werewolf apocalypse was a government plot to create super soldiers. Werewolves were just the beginning. There were other…things…among them.

As farfetched as it was, it was as good of a conspiracy theory as any other. One truck slowed on the other side, the driver leaning out the window to yell at us across the concrete divider. “Do you need any water or filters? Medkits?”

“We’re good.” I lifted my purifier bottle to show him it was full. “How much further to Austin? Is it like they say it is?”

“You’ll be there in an hour, and it depends on what you’ve heard,” replied the driver.

“It’s safe for everyone they allow inside, but I’m telling you right now. You should go to Camp Swift in Bastrop or turn around and head to Fort Hood in Killeen.”

“Fort Hood’s situation’s improved?”

“You’d be amazed.”

“My sister is in Austin. I was on the phone with her while the cell towers were still working.”

“You haven’t talked to her recently?”

“No.” I could have charged my phone at Daisy’s house, and I swore at the lost opportunity.

“The towers are coming back online around the big cities.”

The man sitting next to the driver nudged him. “We have schedules to keep. They’re fine.”

“We’ll be in Austin before nightfall.” I waved and tipped my bottle to suck down a mouthful of refreshing water. The driver nodded, and the engine roared as he continued down the highway.

This was not how I expected things to go in a crisis of this magnitude. The armed forces we encountered mostly ignored us and left us on our own. If supplies were available, they gave us purifiers, basic first-aid kits, MREs, and water. Never bullets or weapons so we could protect ourselves. No offers of rides to the places they were going.

We walked everywhere. A few lucky people had horses. There was even a crazy lady on a little buffalo—her yeet cow. The people we met, traveled with, and lost along the way passed through my thoughts as we trod through the deserted suburbs. Mile after mile of places once lost in traffic and noise were now shrouded in silence.

Oil stained the pavement two miles out. The vehicles along the side of the road had thinned. At first, I thought they had salvaged all the larger vehicles and left all the cars behind. But wouldn’t it have been easier to break them open and take what they were carrying? After another mile, the road was clear of vehicles.

Where did they go? I had another quiet mile to ponder that question.

A short time later, a semi-truck hauling two trailers blared its horn from behind us. Owen burst into tears, cringing against my chest. We moved out of the way to let it pass. It was one of the few civilian transports we’d seen over the last week.

They never stopped.

And I didn’t blame them. There weren’t enough officers to watch all the roads. Guilt embraced me, a dark cloak laying heavily across my shoulders. What were we supposed to do? Most of my department went AWOL. My wife was dead. I had to get my son out of Dallas. My sister needed me. Her last words had been that she was told to stay in her dorm room.

“Back away from the gate. If you have been interviewed and rejected, please move on.” A cold, feminine voice spoke over a loudspeaker. “If you attempt entry after you have been rejected, you’ll be held until evening and be released when the werewolves are out. We will know.”

I shuddered, scanning the groups of people milling around the area. A line of people was off to one side of the gate, talking to several uniformed officers. The semi-truck that had passed us idled on the road beneath an overpass that had been turned into a gate.

The missing vehicles appeared, arranged beneath the overpass to form a wall. Buses, travel trailers, box cars—anything tall blocked any werewolf from passing. They couldn’t jump high enough to get on top. Razor wire filled the gaps, and I caught a glimpse of smaller vehicles bracing them on the other side.

The stench of gasoline fouled the air, coming from several fuel trucks farther down the line. Surely they had emptied them before turning them into a wall. I wrinkled my nose. What a waste. We still needed gas.

I stopped at the end of the line, breathing in relief that we’d made it. Soon, we’d be safe inside. Given how things looked, Alice was probably safe. My heart raced as cries rose ahead. Unintelligible shouting filled the air, followed by murmurs as several young men left the line, their heads down.

If the cell towers were working, there was Wi-Fi and probably access to the state’s conviction database. With limited resources and a city to protect, they might turn away felons and troublemakers in favor of law-abiding citizens.

The line moved, with people sticking in their groups rather than mingling. Evelyn and her children remained close to me.

“They’re going to let us in, aren’t they?” Ethan’s eyes widened.

“Of course they are,” said Evelyn, ruffling her son’s hair. “They wouldn’t turn away children.”

A baby wailed from one of the groups not in line. Several men gathered around a man and a woman, sobbing as they cradled a tiny baby. Why’re they still outside? A baby should be a priority to get to safety.

I mused over what was happening, but couldn’t leave the line. Getting inside became even more paramount. Shouts came from ahead, and more men walked down the line—teenagers without accompanying adults.

Their clothes hung over far too thin frames, and the light had gone out in their eyes. What could they have done to be turned away? They were kids, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old.

“Hey, what’s going on? Why weren’t you let in?” I shouted as they veered away from the line. They didn’t look at me, continuing in a bleak, shuffling walk.

“Probably juvenile delinquents,” said a woman ahead of us. “Look at them.”

“Look at all of us,” I snapped, gesturing to my ragged clothes.

She shook her head and turned away.

Owen whined, wriggling in the carrier. With Evelyn’s help, I got him out, and he laughed, waving to the people behind us.

They ignored him, their eyes on the line.

The line moved quickly as a woman with a clipboard talked to each group. Two armed men in uniforms accompanied her, their expressions stony.

Someone swore and shouted at the woman. Her guards drew their weapons, yelling for her to back away. And the last person I expected to see stepped out of the line.

Stan.

Somehow, Stan had survived the night. He had a wife and a teenage son. The boy was a better person than his father and had helped us a few times. There was no way that boy had ever run afoul of the law.

They walked down the line, away from the gate. More people from the group I assumed had been killed by the werewolves joined them.

“Stan! Why didn’t they let you in?” I shouted, glancing at the line. The woman with the clipboard wasn’t far away, and the line had thinned…to women and girls.

“You’re about to find out,” huffed Stan. He stomped past, his wife gripping his arm and his son’s face drained of blood.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” whispered Evelyn, touching my hand.

My lungs ached as I fought for each breath. We had traveled for three months, hoping this was the best way to get to safety. Austin. Everyone said it was safe, and the werewolves had been pushed back. They had cleaned their city.

We had walked through miles of mostly abandoned suburbs. There were no billboards near us. I had a habit of searching them out hours before sunset. Had I seen any for the last five miles? I couldn’t remember, but as far as I could see, there was nothing but highways and vehicles that didn’t run.

“Oh, no,” said Evelyn, squeezing my arm so hard her nails dug into my sleeve. “Oh, no.”

“Mother, what did she say?” Ethan asked, tugging on her other hand. Maria started crying.

“Name and occupation?” The woman with the clipboard stood before me, tapping her pen on the board.

“Jake Moore. Highlandville PD.” I said, picking Owen up to keep him from wandering.

“Where’s that?”

“Dallas suburb.”

“And you came all the way here instead of sheltering in place? With a baby?”

“My sister is here. Alice Moore. She’s studying—she was studying Forensics at St. Edwards.”

“Alice Moore,” she repeated, writing on her clipboard. The woman reached into her pocket and pulled out a small plastic bag filled with white pills. She held it out and dropped it into my hand. “Mr. Moore, step out of line. You won’t be permitted entry. Wait here, and we can contact your sister to meet with you in the morning.”

My ears rang as she continued.

“Six of these should do. Mix it into his food or water, and he’ll go to sleep. It’s for the best.”

For the best. How many times had I heard those words over the last three months? Other travelers had suggested it repeatedly. This isn’t a world for babies or children. Letting them go peacefully was better than in a werewolf’s mouth. I flicked the pill bag aside, grinding my jaw. As much as I wanted to throw them in her face, that wouldn’t get us inside.

Tremors ran from my fists up my arm, and the guards eyed me, daring me to do something.

“Why?” I asked, but clipboard lady had moved on to Evelyn.

“Get out of line,” said one of the guards. They weren’t officers. Where a shield badge should have been, a plastic badge hung. New Austin Peacekeeper was printed below a photo. Their names were on top in bold black letters.

Reggie and Chad put themselves between Evelyn and me. Whatever clipboard lady said set Evelyn and Maria off.

“He’s seven! He can’t take care of himself!” Evelyn’s voice rose to a wail.

“Those are the rules. No one under thirteen. No men or boys. Period. You and your daughter are welcome to enter,” said clipboard lady coldly. “The boy is not.”

So that was how it was.

“As for you: no police officers or anyone who has served in any branch of the armed forces is allowed inside. If your sister is inside, she’ll be out in the morning.” Clipboard lady waved dismissively. “Go to Bastrop. Camp Swift has a fenced-in perimeter and is taking everyone. We have to be selective.”

“We’ll never make it before sunset, and there’s nowhere to go.” Somehow, I managed to hold my anger.

“Maria, stay in line,” said Evelyn, shuffling aside. Ethan clung to her, his head buried into her shirt.

“I’m not staying!” Maria stepped out of line with them, screaming at the top of her lungs. “You’re all murderers!”

“Stay or don’t. It makes no difference to use.” Clipboard lady shrugged and walked to the next group. Her guards kept between them and us, their hands resting on their holstered pistols. “If you’re staying, you’ll need to surrender any weapons at the gate.”

Owen whimpered, his eyes wide. I held him tight, laying a hand on Evelyn’s shoulder. “We need to find a place to spend the night.”

“If you try to get through the barrier, you‘ll be shot,” warned one of the guards.

“Understood,” I snapped, wrapping my arm over Evelyn’s shoulders. These people were idiots. A massive truck partially blocked the gate, metal sheets welded to one side to presumably form a movable door. A guard tossed a pistol into the back. Idiots. “Tell Alice I’ll be here when the doors open.”

“About last night.” Stan stood before us, speaking low. “I’m sorry. I had to catch up to my family.”

“You left us behind.”

“You’re more capable than I am,” said Stan. He lowered his voice, adding, “I need to talk to you. Something weird happened.”

“Yeah? What makes you think I care what you have to say?” I started walking as another round of upset shouting came from behind us.

Stan knew I was armed. His only saving grace was that he kept that secret for whatever reason.

“You’ll want to hear this,” Stan persisted, chasing after me. “We need to stick together.”

“Now that the storm’s passed?” I glared over my shoulder. “You go your way. We’ll go ours. If you want to come with me, fine, but you listen to everything I tell you. We work together or you’re out.”

“Fine, fine,” agreed Stan, shaking his head. He called to his family, and they hurried over…along with a few other familiar faces, and stragglers I’d never seen before.

Crap, guess I’m in charge now.

As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but roads, concrete, and empty lots. Houses were out of the question. They were too far away, and none showed any lights in the window. The shops and office buildings near the highway had been ransacked. Every window had been smashed, and as the sun lowered, ominous shadows moved within.

They were already claimed.

I didn’t believe for a moment there weren’t werewolves in Austin. This place was a lie. We ate as we walked, searching for a place to hole up for the night as the sun dipped below the horizon.

With few choices, we climbed a tree to get onto the roof of a fast-food restaurant. It wasn’t easy in the dark, but we made it. Twenty-five of us. Most huddled in the middle of the roof, sleeping facing the edges.

Stan and I sat apart from the others. Owen was asleep with Evelyn and her kids.

“Did you ever notice how the weres only attack people who’re armed?” whispered Stan, his face turned to the clear night sky. “Yeah, they chase us, but we’ve gotten away more than once when they could’ve killed us. We can’t outrun them. Ever.”

“I noticed,” I agreed begrudgingly. “Careful. You sound like a werewolf evangelist.”

Stan grunted and rubbed the back of his neck. “Last night. The house we entered had four werewolves in it. Two big ones…and two small ones. A family. Charles raised his gun, and the biggest one threw him out of the house and killed him. When he came back, we thought we would all die.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No. He sat in the doorway and growled. They kept us in the living room.” Stan laughed softly, a glint in his eyes. “The other adult…she brought us blankets and pillows.”

I stared.

“Crazy, huh?”

There was something to it. In our panic, we ran and hid. Every single one of us had been prepared for decades by a constant flood of zombie apocalypse media. These things weren’t our family, friends, or neighbors any longer. They were mindless monsters.

We automatically applied that to the werewolves. They were monstrous creatures. Fast. Equipped with teeth and claws that could kill a man within seconds. You couldn’t outrun them.

They hated strong smells and loud sounds. Instead of reacting like a bear or some other animal when provoked…they let us go. They didn’t pursue far when we happened upon them. Well, the one-eyed one with the grudge had followed me all the way from Dallas. It had cornered us numerous times…but…it hadn’t killed me. The thing had more than one opportunity, and it didn’t.

Why did it follow me?

“They didn’t bother us until the rain stopped. I think…they allowed us to get out of the weather with them.”

What Stan said seeped into my brain, working its way through past encounters. People died. So many people had died. We found the bodies. They were often carrying weapons, and there were signs of a fight. I’d figured out fast that it wasn’t a good idea, and that flight was a better tactic than fighting.

“I’ve been thinking about it. The werewolves were people once. Can you imagine what it would be like to wake up a monster? They can’t talk. If they try, all we see are teeth, and all we hear is growling.”

“Would be awful.” I agreed as a prickling sensation passed through my shoulders and back.

Where are the howls?

Every night for three months, we went to sleep with howling coming from all around us. In a way, it was comforting because we could tell how near or far they were. If these things were people, it would serve their purpose, as well. It’d keep us moving and away from them.

“The female werewolf tried to talk to us using sign language,” said Stan. “I didn’t know enough to communicate, but I recognized it. If they’re all still people in those bodies, then a lot of things start making more sense. So I talked to her and asked her yes and no questions.”

“What did you ask?”

“I asked if they were keeping us there because of the rain. If they were going to eat us. Everything I could think of,” replied Stan, glancing at where his family had settled in for the night. “They still don’t believe I was actually talking to her, and she was responding. But I carried on a conversation, and when they let us go in the morning, I believed.”

“That they’re not monsters after all? But i can’t be that way with all of them. We’ve encountered some nasty ones who were eating people.” I countered, unable to accept the possibility.

“People aren’t all the same, and as werewolves, I think most of them are doing their best to protect what they have. I don’t want to put it to the test, but I’m starting to think we’re afraid of the wrong monsters.” Stan sighed. “And I’ve been one of them. I made my choices based on the need to survive, but what those people are doing in New Austin is…inhumane.”

A crack came from the tree we had used to climb onto the roof. The branches swayed without a breeze. Wolf eyes glowed in the moonlight, perfectly round. Stan and I had sat facing the tree to watch for anyone coming up them, well aware the branches were big enough for a werewolf to climb.

There was more than one, moving quietly for such big creatures. If I shouted, people would throw themselves off the top of the building in a panic to escape. They would die. Given what Stan had said, I looked directly into the eyes and held my hand up in a stop gesture.

“So, werewolf whisperer, want to talk to them?” Stan shuddered.

Another set of eyes popped into view, followed by a third…with only one eye. My lungs burned as I held my breath.

“Go away,” hissed Stan, rising. He spoke low, approaching with the bravery of another man. Not Stan. “Leave us alone. You’re going to scare everyone.”

Two of them nodded, their long muzzles breaking into toothy canine grins. They maneuvered out of sight but were certainly still in the tree. The third—the ringleader—the one-eyed bane of my existence…pointed at me.

“No. I have a child. Why don’t you go back to where you came from and leave us alone?” I stood next to Stan, my hand sliding beneath my jacket.

The werewolf bristled and bared its teeth.

I withdrew my hand.

It relaxed and gestured to me again with a “come here” flick of its thick fingers.

“I don’t think it’s leaving until you do what it wants,” whispered Stan.

“Don’t have a choice, do I?” I murmured, more to myself than him.

Even given what Stan had said, the sight of all those teeth sent sweat beading over my face. That werewolf was a good foot taller than me. It could tear me apart if it wanted. I glanced back at Owen, asleep next to Evelyn and her children.

The werewolf whined, laying a massive paw on the roof’s edge. I forced myself to take a step, and it withdrew. It kept its eye on me as it started down the tree, matching my movements. I got to the edge and sat down, bracing one arm on a branch.

Below were six werewolves of varying sizes. They were silent, their short, pointed ears perked toward me. The one-eyed werewolf dropped to the ground, still gesturing to me to follow.

I shook my head. “Are you kidding? I‘m not going down there.”

Whines rose from the gathered wolves. A massive white one towered over the one-eyed werewolf, gesturing. Being white, it was easier to see in the dim light. It jerked a hand from the roof, pointing at the ground.

“What do you want?”

“Ask yes and no questions,” whispered Stan, joining me.

“I don’t know what to ask!” I threw my hands in the air. “Do you want to kill us?”

Every wolf shook their heads, no, and half sat on their haunches, curling their tails around their hind legs. They bowed their heads and whined.

“Do you want to kill me?” They all shook their heads no, and the one-eyed werewolf did so emphatically. It stepped away from the tree and made an odd series of gestures. I squinted, and it did it again, pointing at me, crossing its arms over its chest, and pointing to itself. Then it reversed the gestures.

“That’s someone you know,” said Stan, slapping my shoulder.

I choked.

The one-eyed werewolf repeated the motions with frustrated speed.

“Amara?” I dared, fixating on the werewolf’s shadowed expressions. She had taught Owen to sign “I love you” using those exact gestures before he could speak.

She nodded, her tail swishing back and forth wildly. The others jumped up and down, their tongues lolling out of their mouths.

I couldn’t move, fixated on her missing eye. I’d done that. The screams I heard weren’t what I’d thought. My wife hadn’t been killed. She’d probably been in pain when she became a werewolf. Everyone had stories about the screaming of loved ones and friends.

My stomach twisted and bile burned my throat.

The simplest answer was the solution, yet it wasn’t the simple answer I saw.

It could be a trick, but…no, it wasn’t. They could’ve jumped onto the roof with ease. Instead, they did what we asked.

“Do all of you have family up here?” I called down, not caring how loud I was. At this point, everyone needed to see. The werewolves nodded, starting to the tree. “No, stay.”

Stan left my side as I gripped the nearest tree branch and made my way down. I hadn’t lost my fear of them, but was driven to get close. Every muscle in my body protested as chills ran up and down my back. This changes everything.

My boots hit the ground, and Amara crouched with a whine. I stood before her, surrounded by werewolves. Every horror movie where the idiot thinks it’s safe and is then devoured flashed through my mind as I reached for her face.

“I’m so sorry, Amara,” I whispered, ignoring the other pointed muzzles closing in. “I didn’t know. I had to get Owen to a safe place.”

She bumped my face with her nose, and I gazed into a familiar brown eye, soft and speaking volumes. The others had buried their noses into my jacket, sniffing, presumably picking up the scents of their loved ones on the roof.

Gasps rose from above as people peered over the edge. The werewolves jerked their heads up as one.

“Sit down,” I commanded, pointing to the ground. They all dropped and waited patiently as Stan explained the situation and what was going on. One by one, they came to the roof’s edge and called out names, starting with missing spouses, relatives, and children. Nobody was too fast to come off the roof, which was fine. It would take time to get used to the whole idea. What was important was that now they knew.

I left the group, for the first time in months, at ease with walking in the darkness. Amara followed on silent paws, whining. Not far away was the highway that had been turned into a wall. On the other side, there was electricity, food, water, medicine, and a city of fools. There were no lights pointed at the outside, only the inside.

They watched for those coming through and didn’t have the foresight to watch outside the wall. Laziness. Lack of preparation. And a spark flared, bursting into a full flame that filled my body. The real monsters were inside that wall, and those were the type of monsters I could handle.

I was done walking. If there was no need to run anymore, we didn’t need to hide. My gaze drifted to the light coming from New Austin. In the span of an hour, our situation changed dramatically. Everyone came off the roof and mingled with the werewolves once they identified themselves. Evelyn’s husband was the big white werewolf…Harry. How appropriate.

Surely over the last three months, we weren’t the only ones who figured this out. The werewolf evangelists had been right. I walked in the darkness outside the wall with Stan and two werewolves—Amara and Harry. Stan’s daughter turned out to be among them and remained behind with his wife, Evelyn, and most of the kids.

The other three werewolves went out with several survivors, going in different directions. I gave the orders. They had a message. To the survivors that were turned away, they weren’t in danger. They could see the werewolves walking with people. Seeing went far.

The message to the werewolves, if they were friendly, said we needed their help and would help them. There were many werewolves along the way. So much for Austin being werewolf-free. I talked to them, using yes and no questions, and they fell in with our group or vanished into the darkness. They returned with more werewolves for me to talk to until the highway teemed with them.

“Stay back and remember, we’re going to the front gate all at once. With all of you helping, we can push that truck they’re using for a door. We’ll break open the back hatch and everyone who can needs to grab a weapon. Try not to harm anyone once they’re disarmed. Hold them.” I instructed the werewolves and nervous survivors. “Stay here. That includes you, Stan.”

“I know the plan,” he said, paying no mind to the massive creatures standing around him.

This was where it was tricky. I had found a stick a couple of feet long and wrapped an old dry cloth around it to use as a torch. In my pocket was a flip lighter. I approached the leaking tanker truck I noticed earlier. It didn’t matter if it was full or not. We needed a distraction. The people inside were concerned about werewolves, not people. They wouldn’t suspect anything.

As I neared the tanker, the gasoline fumes grew almost suffocating, and mixed with them was another acrid scent.

Fertilizer.

A flatbed sat behind the tanker, the bed covered with a massive tarp. I didn’t have to investigate to recognize the shape and stench. These people really were idiots. This was going to be a better diversion than I thought. I moved back until I could breathe clearly and brought out my lighter.

Too close and the fumes would ignite. Too far away and I’d have to come back and do this again. I flipped the lighter and lit the torch. The concrete beneath the tanker was dark, having soaked up gasoline for who knows how long. I’d have to hit it and run for all I was worth.

I threw it as hard as I could, and it hit the road and rolled slowly toward its destination.

A tiny red light flashed beneath the tanker. The image of every bomb I’d ever seen in a movie flashed through my mind.

I froze and must’ve been still for too long. A wall of fur wrapped around me and lifted me off the ground with ease. Amara. She got further than I would’ve when the explosion caught us. The ground shook as we hit it. Heat surged through the air, and I gasped, gripping handfuls of fur.

Amara groaned, rolling to one side and pressing her back to the pavement. Smoke rose from her body, reeking of burned hair. She rolled onto all fours with a whine, looking over her back. Chunks of fur had been burned away, leaving her skin exposed and red. Werewolves were thick-skinned and healed fast, but were not invulnerable.

She stood and shook, growling at the fire. The explosion was far bigger than I expected, and I turned, pointing at the gate. Werewolves rushed into the opening, far more than the ones I had spoken to. Among them were people I didn’t recognize.

The fire spread rapidly, going away from the gate. Flames rose into the air as another explosion took out another chunk of the overpass, followed by more. I gaped as fireballs shot out of the wall of cars on the opposite side. Metal twisted and concrete crumbled as the wall fell.

That hadn’t been part of my plan.

It was part of someone else’s.

I sprinted to the gate with Amara outpacing me, despite her injuries. Werewolves and people flooded through the opening. They gathered on the other side, splitting off into groups as weapons flew out of the back of the trailer that had been blocking the gate a short time earlier.

“Someone drove the trailer out of the way to let them in!” Stan yelled, standing near the entrance.

“What? Who?” I joined Stan, and we stood out of the way as more wolves passed.

“Jake! Why’re you standing there!”

Alice walked casually, a rifle slung over her shoulder, laughing as werewolves parted around her.

I gaped. She had always been the take-charge type, but this was an entirely new level.

“Looks like we had the same idea. We planned on this for next week, but when you showed up, I knew we had to act fast. I didn’t want you on the road any longer than you had to be.” Alice rushed the last few steps, jumping into my arms. “I’m so glad you’re safe!”

There were no words. I hugged Alice tight, tears streaming down my face. Questions crowded into my mind, but none escaped. They could wait until morning.

“I didn’t tell you that my boyfriend turn into a werewolf, because I didn’t want you to worry.” She pulled back and nodded to a massive black werewolf standing behind her. “It’s been a rough few months.”

“Tell me about it. In the morning. We have a city to take.”

The flow of werewolves and men had slowed as they set off in packs on the other side, with a few people talking for groups of werewolves. They were all in on it. Working together instead of killing each other.

They howled, and I smiled.

It was beautiful music.

And The Void Stared Back

Kacey Ezell and Marisa Wolf

“Daddy, this is madness!” Ryanelle stood over me as I pushed the last of my instruments into my backpack and coaxed the zipper shut. “You can’t go out in that…that storm. It’s…”

“We don’t know what it is,” I said, carefully keeping my voice level and calm. Five years of Ryanelle’s adolescence had taught me that was the best way to avoid an explosion of hormone-fueled temper when she was upset. At eighteen, Ryanelle had passed through the most tumultuous phase of puberty, but—as the left hand protectively cradling her barely-rounded abdomen hinted—her brain was once again awash in hormones for an entirely different reason.

“Exactly!” she said, stepping back as I straightened up and slung the backpack over my shoulder. “We don’t know what it is, but we know it’s dangerous, and we can’t afford to lose any more—” She faltered on a sob, her face crumpling. I swallowed hard and gave in, reaching out to pull her into my embrace.

As she had done since she was a tiny baby, Ryanelle leaned her head into my neck and clung to me for comfort. Only now that she was an adult, I suspected she realized I clung to her for the same reason.

“Mom died—” she whispered brokenly into me, and I tightened my arms around her, turning to press a kiss into her beautiful dark hair.

“Your mother loved you more than anything,” I said, ignoring the brokenness in my own voice. “You and your brothers. And your baby.”

Ryanelle crumpled in my arms. I held her up as she wept out her grief. “Why?” she whispered. “Why didn’t she run with us?”

“She held those…things off,” I whispered, closing my eyes as the scene played out in my head again. My Eliane. My beautiful warrior. Screaming at me to get the kids out, shooting at the formless horrors that frothed through the front door of our dwelling pod. She’d fired her lasrifle until the charge went dry, and then hacked at them with her utility knife. I’d just come back into the front room to grab her when I saw them swarm her under…heard her scream cut off…

No. I couldn’t think about that. I had work to do.

I kissed the top of Ryanelle’s head once more and let go of her. “Listen to me,” I said. “Your mother died so you and your brothers and your baby could live. But the storm is getting stronger. We can’t just hide in this cave and wait for it to find us…to find all of us.” I gestured towards the back of the large natural cavern, where the other survivors of our small community huddled in small groups, clinging to each other for comfort and hope—though there wasn’t much of that to go around.

“So you’re going to what? Just walk out into it? Dad, that’s suicide. Mom died for you, too, you know! Don’t make her sacrifice meaningless!”

I pressed my lips together as Ryanelle’s volley hit home.

“I’m not,” I said, my tone cold with warning. “That’s why I have to go. The storm has a weird electromagnetic and gravitational component to its wild forces. If I can measure those fluctuations and movements, then maybe we can start to understand and counteract them.”

“But what happens to you?” Ryanelle whispered, her eyes filling again. “What happens to me without you?”

“Ry, baby.” I reached out for her again. “You’re your mother’s daughter. You’re strong. You’re the one who has to bring everyone together. You and your…man.” Her boyfriend, the father of her child. After all that had happened, I could hardly call him a boy. A month ago, I’d greatly disapproved of him. But since the cataclysms had started, and the storms had raged, he’d shown great personal courage and inner steel, and I had to admit—albeit grudgingly—that he might just be worthy of my daughter’s love.

“Callum loves me,” she whispered.

“I know he does, baby. And you love him. Together, the two of you are strong enough to care for our people, to raise your brothers and the child you carry. I know you can do it.”

“To raise…” She lifted her head and glared at me. “You’re coming back.”

“Baby, you said it yourself: nothing is sure—”

“Then why are you going? I need you, Daddy! Rylen and Anlir need you, too! Stay with us! We’ll figure out a way to fight these storms—”

“Not without information. I’ve configured my instruments to send their data back to the receiver here. You and Callum will have to decode it. Rylen can help. He’s got a head for science.”

“Daddy—”

Once again, I let go of my baby girl. “I love you, Ryanelle. I need to go.” Or else I never will.

“Daddy, please.”

I half-turned my back to her as I shrugged into my heavy backpack, trying not to jostle the delicate instruments inside. Once I had it settled into place, I turned back to her, noting that her man—Callum, he has a name—had stepped up to put a comforting arm around her waist.

“Callum,” I said. I had to clear my throat before I continued. “Take care of her and my sons.”

He nodded with grave eyes. “I will, sir,” he said.

I smiled. “Call me Ryan,” I invited, for what was sadly the first time in our acquaintance. “We’re family, after all.”

He smiled back, and though it didn’t reach his eyes, he held out his hand. I took it, meeting his gaze steadily and wishing I’d been mature enough to offer him the appropriate amount of respect before this.

But such is life.

Ryanelle started to cry again, turning her face into Callum’s shoulder as I dropped his hand and turned resolutely toward the cave mouth. I took a deep breath, settled the pack more comfortably on my back, and began to climb the rocky, treacherous path to the irregular oval of daylight above.

The world was always many things: roiling, changing, the branching rivers of endless possibilities. My children populated it in their various shapes, moving throughout the seething mass of becoming, of potential, of could be.

Until something snapped. Flattened. I paid little attention to it—things shifted. Such was the way of reality.

But this corner nagged, a snag on my awareness, a constant pull through the layered currents of life.

I ignored the irritation for a time, until I called for my—

I called for one of my children, and she did not answer.

And then again.

And then again.

Repetition turned irritation into a wound, a puckered hole where my senses could not reform, could not refill.

Where were my children?

What was this feeling?

I followed the pressure until I found its source.

Flat. Static. It burned or froze or compressed. All at once.

It hurt to observe. Every sense screamed, overwhelmed with the patch of sameness, of holding, of constant.

I should have fled. I could have fled. But as I spun, twisting in the slipstream, one of my children tore past me.

Burning. Freezing. Crying. Scraping at the edges to hold in place and failing, and I reached for her, and I reached for her and she was lost. Flattened. Burned. Frozen. Crushed and unchanging and then—gone.

The constant point was a whole. A hole. An absence, full of too much.

And there was something on the other side.

I circled it. I tried to save my children, but one after another, they fell through, were pulled through, were changing to unchanging and gone.

I gathered myself, the wound from the pressure of the constancy growing, eating at me, and I filled it as best I could and pushed the all of me into the compression of the flattening.

Maybe I could fill it, stop the fall, stop the loss, stop my children from being sucked in and through and into oblivion.

And I did.

For a stretch of time, I held it. Burning. Freezing. Being made into one shape, one thing, one hold.

I can’t say it hurt because every small piece of me overloaded with too much input, and I couldn’t tell agony from pain from hurt from loss from anything.

But it was everything.

Everything everywhere all throughout and all at once, and I might have screamed, but they were safe, my children were safe it was worth it and then and then and then—

And then I fell through. Or was pushed. Or was pulled.

And whereever, whatever it was, it wasn’t home. It was the brightness of a million children glittering, the heat of every motion I ever made, and everything pulled and twisted into stillness.

So still.

Every part of me yearned to stretch, to release, to explode and cover the unchanging landscape with every bit of power left to me. To uncompress after that endless stretch of time, to grow and spread and take and take and take.

And I could.

And I would.

But if I’d fallen through, maybe some of my children had survived? They couldn’t hold, not like I could, in that in-between space, but out here, maybe they could have recovered, reformed.

Adapted and shifted and changed, like always. Like nothing did here. They could have become. I could find them.

If I could remember them.

Some piece of me was…missing? No. I was whole. Had been whole. Hole?

There was a wound…

I couldn’t remember. The everything here was too everything, and I had to find.

I had to do.

Something.

I knew it would be bad.

I had no idea it would be like it was.

It didn’t hit the moment I stepped out of the cave. The cave wouldn’t have been that great of a hiding place if it had. No, first I crossed along the slope of the ridge until I could see down into the valley where our community had been.

There was nothing left.

Actually, that’s imprecise. I couldn’t truly tell if there was anything left, because I couldn’t see past the wall of roiling energy that looked vaguely like a cloud laced with multicolored lightning.

I didn’t let myself pause there long. I couldn’t risk losing my nerve. Instead, I hitched up my pack and started to pick my way down the long slope toward the valley floor. Loose gravel rolled under my feet and wind—now hot, now cold, now hot again—pushed my sweat-dampened hair back from my face. Smoke from a distant fire tainted the air. Above me, the sun shone down like a benediction, as if I wasn’t staring into the very maw of hell itself.

Not a very scientific analysis, doctor, I chided myself, surprised at the turn my thoughts had taken. Maybe I shouldn’t have been, and if I had known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have been.

But I didn’t. I didn’t know anything.

I’m getting ahead of myself.

I could see a clear delineation where the storm ended and normalcy began. I should clarify here that this wasn’t a true storm in the “mundane weather phenomenon” sense of the world. We had those, too, devastating ones, but in the five generations since humanity had colonized this planet, we’d learned to cope with the high winds, flooding rains, and fire-starting lightning our new homeworld dished out.

No, this storm was something different. This was something that seemed to warp the very rhyme and reason of existence. Matter behaved wrong in the storm. Nightmare beings that acted as if they were living, thinking, predatory beings sprang up out of inorganic, unviable materials. The laws of physics and gravity twisted until the impossible was not only possible, but reality…

It was as if the worst fever dreams and imaginings of an opioid addict storyteller had come to life, and then gone mad themselves.

It was chaos.

But I was a scientist, and I knew from long experience that those things we perceive to be “magic” or “impossible” were merely misunderstood. I might not be able to stop the swirling, unending chaos that had destroyed my community, but I could damn sure fight to understand it. I had to, were my children to have any hope of survival.

I skidded down the slope until the ground started to change beneath my boots. The hard, rocky soil took on a viscous quality, as if it were mud, but there was no water present.

“Right. We’ll get a sample of that…” I muttered to myself. I pulled one arm out from the backpack’s straps and slung it around to the front so that I could access the zipper closure. As soon as I touched the zipper pull, however, the stressed teeth gave out, springing open. As my delicate instruments tumbled to the ground, I immediately regretted my choice to overstuff the pack.

“Bloody chaos.” I bent down, placing one knee on the yielding ground as I reached to try and collect my sampling equipment. I remember noticing that my left hand had changed. My skin, normally that ruddy cream color that you’d expect to accompany my dark orange-red hair, glowed azure blue, as if it had been painted with a dark fluorescent color and then hit with a black light.

I tried to gasp, but my mouth was suddenly full of a thick, hot, metallic liquid that threatened to choke me. I doubled over, vomiting the liquid out, refusing to notice how much it tasted like blood.

Of course I noticed. How could I not? But I tried very hard not to notice. Not to think about it. To forget it as it happened.

The light changed again, bleeding from blue into a bright, garish orange that stung my eyes. One of my instruments glinted from the ground near my feet. I reached out for it, and though my arm stretched impossibly far, it remained just outside the grasp of my fingertips.

But it was right by my feet. I could kick it.

Okay, Ryan, this is good. You’re in the storm, I told myself, closing my eyes. If I could just anchor myself in reality, then maybe I could get it together and actually get some useful data.

I reached out again, and this time my fingers brushed the metal cylinder that held my sampling kit. I tried to roll it toward me, but the ground undulated in a slow wave, and I felt it tap my fingertips and then slide away.

“Argh!” I snarled, opening my eyes. That was a mistake. A dizzying array of multicolored flashes bloomed in my vision, almost like my own private pyrotechnic show. The ground tilted beneath me, and I felt my somatogravic sense twist. Up became down, sideways drifted inside of me, and I spiraled open in a slow unfurling that pulled me toward the merciful black of oblivion.

“Ryan…”

I blinked, and the black receded.

“Eliane?”

“Ryan!”

I forced my eyes open—had I closed them again, or never opened them in the first place?—and looked down at my hands like a drowning man looked at a convenient piece of driftwood. I shook my head, straining to hear my wife’s voice echoing through the multichromatic mist that surrounded me in a nauseating, psychedelic swirl of sensation.

“Eliane? Eliane! Baby, answer me! Are you out here?”

Nothing. All sound stopped, as if someone had shoved foam into my ears. Except I couldn’t even hear my heart beating.

“Eli…” I tried to say, but no sound left my lips. Like a dream, where the murderer stood over you with a knife and someone would save you if you could only scream, but you just lie there, paralyzed, mouth gaping open as you try and try and try…

The blackness reared up from behind me and crashed over me in a wave, drowning me in unconsciousness.

It forced me into a shape. I fought. I pulled and pushed and twisted and pulsed. I was not to be shaped. I was not to be made. I am the becoming, not the become. I am the change. The storm. I am what I am and—

A scream. A call.

My child. Mine, my precious one. A presence I called from the void. A possibility I made reality. Mine.

I remembered. I remembered them all.

The air moved slowly around me, too many disparate pieces that rubbed against the others but did not change, did not shift. I shoved through, and it popped and fired in response.

Direction was not in all vertices, only three. Four, a faint one, dictating how long it took me to cover one set of moving parts to the next.

As I reached, a presence solidified. My child. Even as I reached for it, he evaporated. Smoke in my grasp, undefined, unpresent. Unreal and fading and faded and gone.

No.

The screaming continued, and I followed it. Lashing, writhing against the ever-present pull of this world, this reality, this awful constant presence of solidity and too-slow vibrations.

Where was she?

Another presence, to the side, not mine, but familiar. I hesitated: follow my child, or try and save this one?

What was save?

How? Could I bring them back to the point, the bleeding between our real and this one?

There was nothing to hold. Nothing to take. Nothing to know.

The screaming again, but it was mine, reverberating through me, forcing all my parts to thicken and slow and come together and—

No.

She was there. I could reach her. The familiar presence to the side of me was already lessened, already lashing itself to slowed pieces, falling down and through to the solidity that remained stubbornly below me.

I raced ahead, spreading wide, forming tendrils and reaching, grasping fingers to snag onto her, to pull her close against me, preserve what there was of her until I could return to the burning freezing point.

But I was too late. Could I reach any of them? Save any of them? Do anything but break apart and fade and unravel in this terrible pressing space?

My eyes opened to unrelieved darkness. I blinked, just to be sure.

I tried to lift my hand in front of my face, but I couldn’t move.

Sound exploded into my awareness: discordant rhythms and pieces of melody that didn’t fit together. Cacophony. That was the word.

I coughed, my body spasming with the violence of the effort, and that broke the paralysis. I could move, but I couldn’t see. I could hear, but I couldn’t parse. I could feel…

What could I feel?

Air coated my skin like sand-encrusted velvet. I was lying down…on the ground?

I rolled to my side, and the universe tilted, spinning my head around as light exploded in my vision. My ears popped as I slammed my eyes closed, and the nebulous afterimage danced behind my lids.

I coughed again, the sound a jagged yellow blade that cut through the undulating rainbow of sound. I put my hands out, felt the salty spice of the ground beneath my fingertips. I blinked.

Focus, I told myself. You’re a scientist.

My thoughts twisted away from me like ribbons streaming in a turbulent wind. I reached for a direction and found…nothing.

No, that wasn’t right.

I found all the things.

I opened my mouth to scream, and fire exploded from my lungs, scorching my body in a blue-white crescendo of pain. I gasped, and water flooded in, cool and soothing even as it pulled me under, cut me off, rolled me around and around and drowned me in ease and softness and loss.

Loss.

I opened my eyes again, and this time I saw rock, purple and towering in the capricious light. A cliff. Mountains. I was in the mountains.

I had lost something…someone. I was in the mountains because I had lost someone?

Daddy…

Daddy? I was Daddy?

Memory exploded into my brain, and the rock in front of me coalesced into a face. A beloved face.

Rylen. My dark-haired, deep-thinking son. Clever thoughts, clever fingers. A mind for science. A hard, stubborn mind. Iron conviction.

Rylen’s face looked up at me, fear in his brave eyes as his mother howled at me to get them out, get them safe.

I screamed. Tried to pull myself toward him, toward my boy as he began to weep iron tears that left red tracks down the side of the cliff.

Get up, I told myself. Get up and go to him.

The cacophony changed, bleeding a blue and yellow mist into the air, obscuring Rylen’s face. With a heave, I managed to pull my legs underneath me, rise to my hands and knees atop the pitching treachery of the ground.

Rylen’s not here, I realized. I’m here to measure the storm, to gather data for his scientific mind. So he can fight it, and live. I have to protect him and…

Another face formed under my hands. Sun-streaked blond hair and laughing blue eyes. Anlir, my jokester, my mischievous one. Anlir, who held us all together with his humor, who never failed to comfort his twin, or his sister…or me.

“Daddy,” Anlir said, his laughing eyes going wide with terror. Or maybe I imagined it. But his words shivered along my skin like tiny electric shocks. “Help us!”

I’m coming, Buddy. I’m trying.

“Daddy…”

He said more, but I couldn’t hear it. The cacophony rose around me, shrieking, laughing, singing. A regular one-two, one-two rhythm beat through the air, flashing everything green and black. The rock in front of me pulsed in time with it: thud-thud, thud-thud. Green, black. Green, black. Sweet flooded my mouth, then salt. Sweet-salt. Sweet-salt.

It’s my heartbeat. I’m becoming part of this. It’s absorbing me…

I looked down, watching my fingers as they bled into Anlir’s face. I tried to touch him, tried to brush his hair back from his forehead like I always did, but the moment I touched him, my flesh dissolved into him, leaving me gasping with orange heartache.

“Daddy, this is madness.”

Ryanelle’s voice made me turn. She stood there behind me, insubstantial and glowing red in the violet air. She frowned, one hand resting protectively on her barely curving belly. I pushed up to a crouch, staring warily at her.

“This is madness,” she said again.

“I have to try,” I told her, though I’d forgotten what, exactly, I was trying to do.

“Madness.”

“I have to.”

“Mad—”

“Ryanelle, sweetheart. I have to. I have to protect you, and your brothers and your baby.” It felt like a victory, remembering. That was my purpose. I had to protect them. I wasn’t sure how, exactly, or from what…but that was what I had to do.

“—Ness.”

“I have to. I have to protect you. I have to save you. I have to.” I weighed a thousand tons. I was denser than a neutron star. The air tasted black and scorched, and pain wreathed my limbs in thick red manacles of despair.

But I had to. I had to protect her. I had to protect her and Anlir and Rylen. And her baby. The grandchild I’d never seen…would never see.

I couldn’t see now.

But I had to. I had to save them. I had to protect them. I had to.

Somehow, I managed to stand. Managed to take a step forward into the writhing chaos. The cacophony screamed in time with my breath. My heartbeat battered me from the outside.

I took another step.

The universe tilted, and I found myself hanging by my ankles. Fury shredded my mind, stealing my thoughts, my knowledge, the education I’d worked so hard to achieve.

I let it all go. All of it. Except for Ryanelle, and Anlir, and Rylen.

I had to save them. I had to protect them. I had to.

Somehow—it wasn’t walking, or swimming, or crawling, but it was all of these and none—I moved forward, deeper into the chaos. I had to. I didn’t know why, or what I would do when I got there, but I knew I had to find the center of it.

For Rylen, and Anlir, and Ryanelle.

I had to. I had to save them. I had to protect them.

It took an eternity. It took a millisecond. Time contracted and stretched and twisted blue and loud and fuzzy and popped. It was nothing. It was everything. It didn’t matter at all.

All that mattered was them. Anlir, Ryanelle, Rylen.

A pause.

Silence.

Darkness turned to look at me.

I looked back.

“What is this?” she said, though the words themselves didn’t exist. “What is this place?”

“This is madness,” I said, because I knew no other answer.

“I have to save them,” she said. “I have to protect them.”

“I have to protect them,” I said. “I have to save them.”

“It’s too static, too crushing. I can’t understand.” She didn’t move as she spoke. Or didn’t speak.

“It’s too changeable, too fluid. I can’t understand.” I dissolved, reformed, clung to their names. Rylen, Ryanelle, Anlir.

“But I have to.”

“To save them.”

“My children.”

“And mine.”

The cacophony shifted, the air rang bright rose, clicked with the sound of something coming together. She took a step forward and into me, and the universe inverted itself as I welcomed this strange ally into my mind.

Pulsing. Writhing. A flood of iron and copper and beating, beating, beating. I was constrained, as I had never been before, inside a web of nerves and muscles and bones and meat.

I should have ripped away, but I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Didn’t.

He was a stiller point in the still world, and yet a mass of motion. It had a pattern, but enough chaos that I could…fit. The beating sped, so fast it was nearly a single long sound, and I was aware the constraint around us was falling. Failing.

No.

My children. His. There was a stop we must make, and it was not this one. I fit myself into the space between the teeming cells of his body, riding the electric web that fired throughout, and directed it.

Beat. Thrum. Replicate.

Live.

We had work to do.

“Don’t fight the vortex.”

Move with it. I heard his voice layered throughout me, resounding and reverberating from all directions. It was like home.

“Around us, this is…” Was. I couldn’t say the word. Not in this biting world that had tried to eat away at my very self. Not in this freezing burning place that had brought disaster to my children.

And to his.

“We can gather it.” Why else did he have hands? He—we—reached, and I bled out of the tips of his fingers. Rooted there, with him, I understood this dimension as I couldn’t have before.

There was motion. Predictable, gravity in one direction, slow molecules of air in that. Less than I was used to, but deeper. A well of…

Power.

“We can gather it,” I said again, and his understanding leached into mine.

Physics, his brain said, teeming with understanding and expertise and knowledge that was now ours. Will, my network said to him, and together we reached—

And took hold of the elements of the world.

It had shaped me. I would shape it.

We would shape it.

The patterns we imposed on the seething, mindless maelstrom around us took energy, bent it, forced it into a pattern that changed, that adapted, that pulled the solidity of this…this planet into a funnel for the void energies of my world. Gave them a purpose, if not a mind.

It snapped into place at the tips of our—his—fingers, something solid but ever shifting. Something new. Some small combination of our worlds, constant and ever shifting.

I roiled throughout his body, learning the interplay of blood and bone. I shied away from his mind, then realized that was what I was doing.

“This will keep them safe.” The awe in his voice pooled golden in my awareness, shot threads of warmth that allayed the freezing of his world.

“Your children.”

“And yours.” Certainty in him now, a spiral of chilled calm to combat the burning of his dimension.

“How?” The word pulled from so deep within me that I wasn’t sure I spoke, but he heard.

“Come and see.” Invitation all silver promise, and I spiraled further, deeper, touching again on his mind. Knowledge flooded to the surface—convection and subduction and matrices—but that made up only the shallow top layer of a consciousness as deep as my own, if completely alien.

No, not alien…

I would have hesitated, perhaps, if not for the driving need to know. We could save his children, but what about mine—

I fell.

I spread.

I flew.

He was an anchor that allowed me to stretch. A still point I could spin around, and through. A place for my mind, my consciousness, myself to root and remain.

That wasn’t right. I was changed. I could not entirely remember the endless reaches of my home, how to permeate every level of reality and see everything all at once.

No, but I could permeate here. I could remain. I could be.

And so could my children.

That was the key. The piece I needed. We needed.

This link, this togetherness. It ate at me, searing away parts of myself that made me me.

But I didn’t need to be me, to save them. I needed to be we.

She moved within me, constrained by my body and yet not. Her understanding melding with mine, contradicting mine, changing mine as we made this…this thing.

I looked down at it. Light reflected off it and painted an image on my retina. My optical nerves carried impulses to my brain that created a picture of a…thing. It appeared to be both mineral and metal. My hands saw its crystalline structure: orderly, regular.

Limned in fire, twisted in water. Fluid. Changeable. Her words threaded through my consciousness.

All of these, I agreed, without bothering to speak. Her understanding suffused my being.

Together.

I blinked, and together—always together, now, forever—we considered my—our—body.

We crouched on the stilled rock. The web of energy spiraling out from the thing held the malleable matter of the mountain slope steady, slowed its undulations and convulsions, took the cacophony of colors, and separated the synesthetic effects. Here, sound. There, color. They shifted as we tilted our head, sliding back and forth between the different senses…but we could parse them, and move with them, and let them flow in and out of our own energy. Matter. Energy expressed as matter. Expressed as energy.

I must take this to them. My children. She took my thought and rolled it around in her essence, considering. I unfolded our shared knowledge, letting it spread through us both. With this stabilizing the energetic forms of their environment, they can be safe.

And my children will not be compressed and expressed through the barrier in a stabilized environment, but…

There are those here, and those who will slip through.

Yes.

My children…and others…they are there. Perhaps they can be…together…with one of your children…

The possibilities spiraled out from us in a circular matrix of charged plasma that engulfed the whole valley below. Then paused. Then whipped back in a vortex of mass and acceleration and gravity that should have ripped my body into fragments…but didn’t.

Because of her, we flowed with it, spindled it, surfed it and pulled it within us, then funneled it into the thing we held.

Yes, she said without words, and her acceptance tasted like joy and triumph.

I think we walked back up the slope. It’s entirely possible we thought that we needed to be back at the cave, and so we were there. The narrow cleft in the rock that looked like nothing so much as a tiny shadow between boulders above and below.

Dark, but not as dark as the being that curled within me, that held our creation in my hands.

“Ryanelle, Anlir, Rylen.”

We spoke their names, and ribbons of gold, blue, orange drifted forth from our mouth as we spoke. She braided them together, and pulled them back in, threading them along the electrical lines of our nervous system.

“Daddy?” The sweet heat of joy and hope tangled with the underlying bitter note of disbelief. Gravel rattled and slid. A face emerged from the cleft.

“Ryanelle.”

“D-Daddy?” Her face crumpled, folded inward, soaked in suspicion. “You’re not—”

“I was,” I said, and inside me, the dark one writhed in shared, reflected rue. “I…am, still. But changed.”

“Prove it,” Ryanelle snarled, her face morphing to include a short muzzle, triangular nose, dagger teeth…

I blinked, focused. Ryanelle looked the same as she always did, but suspicious. So suspicious.

“This is madness,” I whispered. Her eyes widened, and the truth glowed in her irises.

“Daddy.”

“Not really, not anymore, but yes.” I said, letting my focus go with a sigh of relief. “I found something, made something. It will—” I broke off, shaking my head.

Focus, she whispered inside me. My children fade.

I closed my eyes, bent my head down to the thing I held in my hand.

“We— I made this for you. No. We did. I’m not…there’s not just me in here, anymore. And she helped me understand. So, we made this. It’s a…a ward, I guess is the best word for it.” I gritted my teeth, bit my lip, forced my thoughts to remain steady, not go spiraling off into the clouds of blue and violet voices that filled the air. “If you keep it, it will stabilize the local environment, even in a storm. It…you can make more, copy it. Find my notes on crystalline structures and their reproduction. Rylen will know where they are. You can go back to the valley, with this. But it must be you. You or the boys. My…my blood. My DNA. Because I made it. Maybe it can be changed, we don’t know.”

It can change. All things change.

“It can change?” Ryanelle asked me, holding her hands out as I opened my eyes and placed the ward into her grip.

“Did we say that? It must be true, then. The two of us, together…we know so much. It’s confusing.”

“But, Daddy, who is this we—?”

“Later,” I said, cutting her off with the flash of a silver-bladed word. “There is more. I need…help. Volunteers. In order to make more wards and protect you, I need humans—people to…become together. Do as I have done, as we have done.”

Ryanelle blinked, her eyelashes sweeping up and down like great feathered wings. “You need…volunteers? To go with you and…”

I screwed my eyes shut again. Our whole body started to shake.

Focus. Bond. They will bond with my children.

“Focus,” I said. “Bond. They will bond with her children.” I opened my eyes, let out a fuzzy sigh of relief. “And that will allow them the knowledge and ability to work with the unregulated energy and matter of these multiphasic storms.”

Ryanelle’s eyes widened, and her delicate, long-fingered hands began to tremble about the ward. “Daddy,” she whispered.

“I’ll go.”

We looked. Her man. Callum. Stepped forward beside her, triggering panic and desperation on Ryanelle’s face.

“No!” I snarled. “Not you. You are Ryanelle’s! She needs you to protect her and the baby and lead her people. You must stay with her forever.” Behind my eyes, my dark one reared up, reaching out and wrapping around them both, sealing my words with the power of a molecular bond.

“I—” Callum’s face went pale, then blue, then it dissolved at the edges.

I blinked. He solidified.

“Do you understand?” I asked, and my tone sounded like a plea.

“I do,” he said. He threaded his fingers through Ryanelle’s.

“Others, though,” I said. “Any others, but not all others.”

“We will come.” Anlir, Rylen.

Yes, she whispered within me. Yes, your children and my children. The energies fit.

“Yes,” I said, looking down at my twin sons. Light and dark. Somber and silly. “My sons, you may come. She says the energies fit.”

“But who is she?” Ryanelle demanded. “Who is this creature that took my father, and wants both of my brothers? Who takes but then binds Callum to me like this? Is she friend or enemy? Will she protect us, or harm us? Daddy, I don’t understand!”

Rylen took our left hand, Anlir our right. We called out, reached, cradled her children that responded. Fractured, fading, reaching. She stretched out beyond our skin and pulled them close, whispered to them the secrets of becoming.

Rylen gasped.

Anlir trembled.

Flames wreathed our right hand. Callum jumped back, pulling Ryanelle with him, interposing his body between us and his wife. Anlir looked up, and the dark one’s satisfaction bled through our being as he pulled the flame through his skin and let it flicker in his blue eyes.

A cyclone burst into being around us. Screams echoed hot and yellow off the rock cliff. Loose dirt jumped up in an ecstatic, frenetic dance. Rylen spoke a single word, and the dark one’s joy rippled through us, buckling our knees with its intensity as he pulled the wind into himself, leaving the air motionless, save for a tiny trickle that ruffled the fringe of his short, dark hair.

“We are together,” Rylen said, looking at his twin.

“We are together,” Anlir confirmed.

They looked at us. We smiled. “My boys,” I said. “Oh, my marvelous boys. What have they taught you?”

“Fire,” Anlir said.

“Air,” Rylen said.

Yes, she exulted within me. Yes, my children live! They are safe, they are happy!

“You will learn so much more,” I whispered. “My sons. I’m so proud of you. She is so proud of you!”

“Who is she?” Ryanelle demanded, pushing past her husband to glare her confusion. “And why does she get to take my family from me?”

“Your family is here,” I said, pointing at Callum. “She needs us to keep you safe, to bond with her children to keep them safe. To keep your children safe.

“And she is the Void.”

What Was Once Wild

Sarah Arnette

Shy Silentstep pads across the newly tilled field. It will be corn this year, she reckons. She does not have anything to do with the tilling, planning, planting, or harvesting of the crop. She does not even belong to the farm that she is on. She is a vagrant, living her life to the fullest. She is at no one’s beck and call, with no strings, and no responsibilities. She has turned her back on a community that has lost its mind to the aliens and chosen a life of freedom.

Shy is of the new breed of cat. These cats are bigger, stronger, and smarter than your original terrestrial cat. Changed by an airborne virus, they are the only cats left on Earth after the aliens arrived and changed everything. Not everyone is impressed by the changes, and Shy is one such creature. Her mother was a feral cat, and now she is a feral cat. She might be smarter than average, but she still has no use for people, control or translation collars, or anything beyond this field, or the next one when she finally decides to move on.

Shy has never liked having other cats around her. She is a solitary cat, and she likes it that way. She did not mind having her mother in her territory, but her siblings were too much. The same goes for all of the other cats that she has come across. She is generally the victor in her battles for territory, so most cats now simply leave when they see her coming.

Matt Crowe is a drifter. He started out in New York City, got his collar and honorable discharge from the Space Marines, and has not stopped walking since. He has no plan, no goal, and his only ambition is the next adventure. He should have stayed in the Space Marines, he often thinks, but the lady cats were sorely lacking there. At least, the lady cats that would let him within a spaceship distance of them.

Crossing from the fence that separates one farm from the next, Matt jumps on a post and surveys his latest scene. It looks just like every other farm he has seen in the Midwest. “Iowa: if it is not cows, it is corn,” he says to himself. He likes the sound of his own voice over the control collar. It sounds smooth and cultured. It hides his Brooklyn accent, except when he decides to use it.

He is just about to jump off the post when he catches sight of something in the middle of the field. It is another cat. She is hard to see, her dark, brown-striped coat blending in with the field around her. Her coat is thick and long—a Maine Coon, maybe. She is just sitting there, proud and strong, looking over her field with an intensity so great that she does not even notice him sitting there.

Shy jumps what feels like half a mile when someone touches her shoulder. Spinning in midair, she lands facing him, prepared to fight. She is not prepared for the proud, yellow-colored cat, sitting as pretty as he pleases, collar forward and practically smiling at catching her off guard. “Who the hells are you!” Shy does not ask a question, but instead demands an answer. Her breathing is fast, and she can hear her heart in her ears. She just might kill him.

“My name’s Matt Crowe. Pleasure to meet you, miss.” Matt leans further back onto his haunches, tossing his head back as though he has a thick head of hair rather than short yellow fur.

“Matt Crowe…” Shy pins her ears back, crouching low to the ground as she says his name. “That’s a bird’s name.”

“Well, it was Crowcatcher, but that’s a mouthful, so I shortened it to Crowe when I joined the Space Marines.” Matt twists his collar around to show a small spaceship design with the notion, HD, for “Honorable Discharged,” under it.

“Likely story. More likely you stole that collar from someone who was a Space Marine,” Shy says as she lifts herself out of the crouch she had been holding. She is pretty sure that this Matt cat is most likely harmless and that she’s wasting her time dealing with him. She has things to do today, including hunting up her next meal. Shrews do not serve themselves. Turning her back on him, she begins to head towards another part of the field.

“I would never! That’s a felony offense, two of them! The first one is an offense for stealing a control collar. The second felony would be to impersonate a member of the military services. No, I earned this patch on my own merits,” Matt says as he follows behind Shy. “Aren’t you going to tell me your name?”

“No, I don’t think I will,” Shy answers, not looking back at him. If he keeps following her around and talking, he will scare away all her food.

Matt is taken aback. He has never had a queen just shut him down without giving him at least something of a chance. To say that he is now more interested than ever is an understatement. He must know more about her. Keeping out of her way, he follows her, watching her hunt. It soon becomes evident that she is out for shrews. Maybe if I get her one, she’ll deign to acknowledge my existence.

It soon becomes evident to Matt that the makings of a hunter is not in his genes. He might be a cat, but he is a cat of culture. Not that the female cat is doing any better, but from the way she keeps glaring at him, he is pretty sure that she blames him for her failures at finding food. After an hour, it becomes too much for him.

“Why don’t I take you into town, and we have some real food to eat? Something already dead, cooked, and has seasoning on it. I am sure shrews taste great, but at this rate, we’ll both be hungry by the end of the day,” Matt finally says after missing the fourth shrew in a row. As he speaks, he hears a squeak, followed by a curse from the queen he has been following.

“Oh my God, do you ever stop talking? I would’ve had him, almost did have him. Then you start talking, distracting me, and he bites me instead! Yes, you can take me to get food. You owe me that much,” Shy says, stalking past him and towards the road that borders the front of the farm. “Since you’re feeding me, I want deifish. I haven’t had a fish in what feels like an age. Who knows? It might actually have been an age.”

“As you wish,” Matt says with a smile. He loves old movies, and he’s confident that she would not get the reference, but it makes him happy thinking about it, anyway. “Do I get to know your name yet?”

“Only if the fish is good,” Shy says with a small smile. She might be beginning to like this tom. She isn’t sure, but she thinks he might have been referencing The Princess Bride for a second. Just the thought of that brings a smile to her face.

“Okay, this is really good fish,” Shy says as she takes another bite of her salmon sushi. She could not remember having a better cut of fish, and it tastes so fresh that she could almost believe they pulled it from a stream out back.

Matt smiles as he enjoys his own sushi. He got the yellowfin tuna, and even though they could not be further away from the ocean if they tried, the fish is perfect. Who would have thought to find a good sushi place in the middle of nowhere Iowa? “Good enough to learn your name yet?”

“Shy,” she answers, almost as though it is her emotion, not her name. After a moment’s hesitation, she decides to give him her last name, too. “Silentstep.”

“Shy Silentstep. That name fits you, I think. Can I ask why you don’t have a control collar?” Matt has to do all of the talking when it comes to the humans. She refused to direct her conversation to any of them, making it so their control collars, known as control necklaces by some people, would not pick up her words.

“Because cats were perfectly fine before they talked to humans, and they just might be better off not talking to humans now. Humans aren’t known for being very friendly to non-humans, cats in particular. I see no reason to cater to them,” Shy spits back at him.

“What about using it for your own convenience? With a control collar, you could take a job, buy food rather than hunt it, and live a more comfortable lifestyle.” Matt keeps his tone inquisitive, without allowing it to be accusatory in the least. He has just made a breakthrough with her; he isn’t about to mess that up.

“There’s nothing wrong with the way I’m living. I am free, with no one to tie me down. I’m not a pet. I’m not a possession or a slave to mankind. I am me. I’m free to live where I want, how I want. The day I accept a control collar is the day I give up my freedoms.” Shy almost sounds as though she is trying to convince herself of her own beliefs. The way she has been living is hard, but it is the way she was raised, and she likes it that way.

“Okay, I understand all of that,” Matt agrees. “After all, I’m living my life, traveling from one town to the next, tied down to nowhere and no one. I find it rather liberating. I don’t know if this is how I will want to be living in a couple years, but for right now, it’s pretty nice. I get to see new places, meet nice people, see stunning queens…like you.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Shy says with a smirk.

Matt stayed around the farm for a week, treating Shy to rich meals and exciting nights. At the end of that week, he crept out of the natural cave that they had been using as a den and moved on. He was not joking when he said he was enjoying his freedom for the time being. The past week had been a lot of fun for him, but now it is time to move on, see new places, meet new people, and romance new queens.

Shy wakes up when she begins to get cold. The nights have been getting progressively colder and the food has been getting scarcer. It is almost time to move to her winter spot. Not finding Matt next to her, or anywhere in the den, for that matter, didn’t startle her too badly. She simply assumes that he’s out, enjoying the sunrise like he often does. It’s only when she doesn’t find him by the front door, on a fence post, or anywhere else that she begins to worry.

Heading back to her den, she begins to track Matt by scent. He did not leave a lot to follow him by, and tracking by smell is a dog’s game, not a cat’s, so it’s slow going. What’s dead obvious is he left hours ago and that he is not intending on coming back. She is alone again. This time it hurts. She has become used to having him around. She would miss him.

Just because Shy is a solitary cat doesn’t mean she doesn’t know where she can find more cats when she needs them. In particular, she knows where to find the other local queens. There are just some times when an experienced female cat is just what the situation calls for. For Shy, she is now in this situation, alone and with a litter of kittens on the way.

A couple of fields and a fence away is Midnight Moons. She might be a little crazy, even in Shy’s opinion, but she knows her stuff. If anyone can, Midnight can help her at least come up with a plan on how to take care of kittens as winter begins to come to Iowa. Times can be tough during the long, dark months. She has gone hungry several times, but Shy is pretty certain that kittens can’t go hungry. She’s going to need help.

Shy finds Midnight Moons pretty easily. She is busy with her own litter of kittens. There are ten of them, and they all look sickly. “Midnight, I need help,” Shy says as she walks into the den, gingerly stepping around kittens and the messes they’ve made. Midnight’s den is twice the size of hers, but it’s more than twice as crowded. The air feels close and stuffy, with the distinct odor of offal and rancid meat. Maybe this was not my best idea, Shy thinks.

“Shy, honey, come on in,” Midnight calls to her from the back of the den. She has eight kittens nursing, one at her front paws being cleaned, and one lying towards her back legs, looking a little left out. “What can I do for you?”

Shy surveys the den, and every time she looks, it gets worse. There’s no end to the mess. “Um…well, I think I am a mothering way,” Shy says timidly. She cleans a small area in the middle of the den for herself, and sits down, careful not to touch anything more than absolutely necessary.

“That’s wonderful news! Who’s the lucky tom to finally meet your approval?” Midnight stands up, knocking her nursing kittens loose. She is a thin tortoise calico. She looks much older than her five years. Those haven’t been kind years, but rather five years of many litters of kittens, hungry nights, and tough fights. Like Shy, Midnight refuses to join society and become part of the rat race that is the modern world.

“He was just passing through, so I doubt you know him. He went by the name of Matt Crowe. He was a yellow-haired tom and he used to be in the Space Marines. He had a patch and everything. Oh, the stories he would tell while we watched the stars,” Shy sighs. She misses Matt, but he had warned her that he was just passing through.

“That’s all right. Toms are just not very good at kitten-raising, anyway. Now, how can I help you?”

“I was looking for some instruction, and ideas on how to keep myself and my kittens safe, warm, fed, and healthy. I thought that maybe with all of the kittens you’ve had, you’d know the secret to make sure we all make it through the winter,” Shy says. Looking over at Midnight’s brood, she isn’t particularly confident that all of them, Midnight included, would make it through the winter.

“There’s a problem. You have to be realistic about there being a very high chance that not all of them, or even most of them, will make it through the winter months. Winter is cold, and food is scarce. I know some queens who’ve lost litter after litter to the dark months. I think that’s why God gives us so many kittens at one time, so that some of them, the strongest of them, make it.” Midnight sighs and looks over to the kitten that is lying further away than the others. “That one there, he might not make it.”

“Isn’t there anything you can do? If not for me, then for your kittens and you?” Shy’s voice rises in her distress. The way Midnight’s talking, the situation is practically hopeless.

“They say that modern medicine can treat all the kitten illnesses and there are shelters where a momma cat and her babies can get all the food and shelter they need. But they make you wear the control collars and work. They take away your freedoms.” Midnight spits the last line out with venom. She sounds like she has tried that route before and did not find it to her liking.

“Hum…as you say,” Shy replies, frowning at what she has learned that day.

Two months later, as the snow flies in the night, Shy feels the first of her contractions come upon her. She is unprepared for the strength of them, and the instinctive urge to push into them. It seems to take forever, but finally, four little kittens join this great world, and Shy is instantly in love with each and every one of them. Two of them have their father’s yellow color, one is a calico, and the last one looks like her. They all have long fur, with the calico being the only girl in the litter.

It doesn’t take long for Shy to realize that she simply doesn’t have enough time in the day to find food, feed herself and her kittens, and work to keep the place clean and safe for her little brood. She can see why Midnight seems so resigned in her belief that not all of them would live. Shy refuses to allow even one of them to die: they’re all too precious to her. She decides that as soon as they can walk, they would go to the road, hitch a ride, and join the society that she has worked so hard to avoid. Her freedoms are nothing in comparison to the lives of her kittens.

It is a brisk but not overly cold morning when Shy leads her little family away from the den that has served her so well for so long. It takes much longer for the kittens to make it to the road than it would have taken Shy alone, but she does not mind. She takes her time, showing the kittens everything that she can while she leads them to their new lives.

It takes a few minutes of indicating the need for a ride before someone pulls over and lets the kittens and Shy climb into their backseat. She’s lucky that the car drivers are wearing control necklaces, and therefore can understand her when she communicates with them, asking for a ride to the cat shelter. She is even luckier when they agree to drive them all the way there.

The cat shelter, Kitten Whiskers, isn’t overly crowded, unlike they were before the Asskins had arrived on Earth. Now, most cats are gainfully employed and have carefully planned litters. Shy and her litter are quickly installed in a warm and comfortable set of rooms, giving Shy some privacy away from her kittens when she wishes, and a separate room for a litter box. The difference between the den and these new rooms can’t be overstated.

“Why don’t you tell me how we can help you?” asks a kind woman who has previously identified herself as Sister Mary Sue. She is a nun of the Order of St. Francis, dedicating her life to helping animals of all sizes. She is dressed in a comfortable pair of khaki pants and a blue sweater vest. She radiates the love and comfort that Shy remembers from her own mother.

“I need help, shelter, and food. Taking care of myself is sometimes difficult, but I manage. Taking care of my kittens…I need to do what’s best for them, and living out in the wild is not what’s best for them, even if it feels best for me. I need to do what’s best for my kittens,” Shy answers. She would burn the world down for these four fluffballs. Joining society and working for food seems like a small concession.

“We can help you with all of that. We’ll ask that you wear a control collar, however. It will help with paying you, help you get a job, and ensure that you are understood by everyone you’re working with. We have another young mother here, and we have a job lined up for her. Once you’re ready, you can join her, and we can keep your kittens safe while you’re away. It’ll be just like when you’re hunting, but you’ll have the security of knowing that no one will hurt your babies and they’ll be warm and comfortable the entire time,” Sister Mary Sue explains.

“I can work with that. I’m not above any job, so long as I know my babies will be taken care of,” Shy agrees.

“Good, because this is pest control. We have a local farmers’ market that’s overrun with mice and rats all year long. Trigger is going to start trying to decrease their numbers. Once you and your brood are healthy, your help would be much appreciated.”

“Sounds like the perfect job for me,” Shy says with a smile.

It takes a couple of weeks for everyone to be healthy and accustomed to their new surroundings before Shy feels comfortable going to work. She is quite surprised to find that Trigger, despite being on the job for several weeks, is still afraid of the rats that she’s supposed to be disposing of. When they’re confronted by a rat while at the farmer’s market to begin work, Trigger bolts up a tree. Shy, however, immediately gets to work and disposes of the rat quickly and cleanly. Once she’s done, she walks over to the tree and calls up to her Trigger. “You do know that rats can climb, right?”

“What?” Trigger squeaked, almost falling out of the tree in her panic.

“Yes, rats are quite accomplished climbers. They’re pretty smart, too. It won’t take long for them to realize that you’re in the tree and come after you. You shouldn’t be so afraid of them, though. You’re a cat, and you could handle a rat this size even when you were a kitten,” Shy assures Trigger.

“Easy for you to say! You’re a giant of a cat. Plus, you’ve been hunting all your life. Me, I just started hunting when I moved here from Daytona,” Trigger whines as she climbs out of the tree. She gives up halfway down the trunk and just drops the rest of the way down.

“I can teach you,” Shy volunteers. “A couple weeks of hunting with me, and you’ll be an expert.”

“You promise?” Trigger asks as she walks up to Shy, embarrassed to have run from a rodent. It looks much smaller now that it lies dead at Shy’s feet.

“I promise to try,” Shy says.

By the time Shy’s kittens are six months old, they begin following her on her hunts. They’ve already been practicing their hunting skills on mice and rats, which Shy brings home to them, but following her on these hunts is still a big step for them. Trigger has moved on, once she felt comfortable enough with hunting to no longer be afraid of the rats. She never enjoyed the hunt, though, not like Shy.

Her kittens have grown up strong and bright. She’s given everything she had to ensure they had the best food and the best start in their lives. Now she’s going to impart her best life skills, making them independent in case anything should happen to her. She might not trust most humans, but she would do anything to see her babies’ dreams come true, even live in their cities and work while wearing a collar like a domestic beast.

Shy has a feeling, as she walks with her kids to the market, that not all of them will follow in her footsteps. She has often caught Clover, her little Calico girl, staring up at the stars with a hungry look in her eyes. Shy feels that Clover would go the way of her father and touch new galaxies. Meanwhile, her yellow-haired boys, Matt and Shane, share the same excitement about hunting as she does. She worries about her tortoise-shelled boy, Evans. He doesn’t seem to have the same drive as his siblings. She would support him, no matter what he decides to do in life, but she does hope that he picks something.

When the kittens are a year old, adults in everyone else’s eyes but Shy’s, she marks the six-month anniversary of her new life by taking a trip to the farm where Midnight lived. She’s been thinking about her old friend since she moved to her apartment, wondering if Midnight and her litter had made it through the winter, and if she’s doing all right. Leaving the farmer’s market in Matt and Shane’s capable paws, she sets off for a day trip to her old neighborhood with Evans as company.

It’s late morning when Shy and Evans arrive at Midnight’s farm. Finding her old den isn’t challenging. The fields may have changed a bit, but they haven’t changed so much that old landmarks can’t be found. What they don’t find is Midnight. The den is a mess, worse than it was last time. There’s evidence that not all of Midnight’s kittens made it, but there’s no evidence as to where Midnight herself might have gone.

“You lived like this?” Evans asks his mom while he surveys the tiny and dark space. He can’t imagine growing up there.

“No, this is Midnight’s den. She was a little bit messier than me. I’ll show you where I lived and where I met your father,” Shy says with a sigh. She can only hope for the best for Midnight, although she doubts that’s the case. Turning around, she leads the way to where she used to live.

“This is it,” Shy announces with a false sense of pride. She’s standing with Evans in front of the old shallow cave that she used to call home. “This is where I lived and where your father spent one glorious week with me.” The hardpacked dirt floor looks unappealing. The den itself is barely deep enough to keep from the elements. It’s hard for Shy to believe that she lived here for years and that she had been happy.

“What made you leave?” Evans asks as he looks from the den to the fields that it overlooks. It has a nearly magical feeling to it, bright in the noonday sun.

“I had you guys.” Shy smiles as she thinks back to her kittens, back when they had been small. “I had to do what was best for you, and living here, in the wilds, was not it. There’s no access to medicine here, so every illness runs the risk of death. There isn’t always enough food, and while I didn’t mind being hungry sometimes, the thought of you being hungry made me sick. Plus, it snows, and while it looks nice out today, it can be bitterly cold on winter nights. I was terrified you guys wouldn’t make it. Many of Midnight’s kittens didn’t make it. I couldn’t face that fate for you four, so I decided to face my fears and move to the city, and join society.”

“That had to have been hard for you.”

“In a way, it was, but in another way, it wasn’t. It was hard to leave everything that I knew. It was hard for me to trust people and ask for help. I was a proud queen, never needing anyone before that. At the same time, I’d move mountains for you guys, so the choice was an easy one to make.”

The two cats sit together for several moments, quietly enjoying the sun. “Evans, I worry for you,” Shy says. “I want you to be happy, and I don’t think ratting is going to be the task for you. Clover will be joining the Space Marines soon, pursuing her dream of flying and seeing new galaxies. Shane and Matt have applied for a business loan to start their own extermination business, specializing in rodents. What do you want to do?”

“I want to be a therapist. I didn’t say anything before because I wanted to wait until I got my acceptance letter, but I applied to several colleges. I got into one of them with a full scholarship. I plan on attending the University of Iowa for an accelerated program.” Evans doesn’t look at his mother. He doesn’t want to see the hurt that his not telling her might have caused. He misses the look of joy, instead.

“Evans, that’s wonderful! I’m so glad you’re doing that! And on a full scholarship! Congratulations.” Shy almost pounces on her son in her excitement. The lives that he’ll touch by being a therapist, the help he can bring to others, is enough to make her heart burst with pride.

“I was worried you wouldn’t approve,” Evans says once he escapes Shy’s embrace.

“Why in the stars would I not approve?”

“I was worried that you’d want me to follow in your steps, like Shane and Matt. Or in my Dad’s steps, like Clover.” Evans bats around a small pebble while he speaks, not looking up at his mother. He suddenly looks much younger than he is.

“I want you to make your own steps, follow your own path. The only way you’ll ever disappoint me is if you quit being you. You’re my son, and loving you is my privilege.” Shy’s voice is fierce and firm with belief. “Let’s go home and tell your siblings the good news. They’ll be excited for you—just you wait and see.”

Years after that morning in her old field, Shy finds herself sitting on the porch of her new home. It is a small, single-floored home designed for cats. She is happy in her little home, but anxious. All of her kittens, now successful adults, should be arriving today. Clover has been doing well in Engineering and has decided to make the Space Marines her lifelong career. Matt and Shane have expanded their business, hiring new cats and even a few dogs, making them one of the biggest exterminators in the city that is not owned by humans. Meanwhile, Evans has been living in Des Moines, working as a therapist.

Her anxiety turns to relief and joy as she watches the four of them step out of a taxi together. They must have all decided to meet up somewhere first. She is so proud of them. They are all healthy and happy. They have grown to not only be great cats, but good people. It’s the best she could’ve ever asked for. As they rush towards her, as happy to see her as she is to see them, she knows that she would’ve never changed a thing in her life. These kittens were the best thing to have ever happened to her.

Also From Raconteur Press

Ghosts of Malta

Knights of Malta

Saints of Malta

Falcons of Malta

Space Cowboys

Space Cowboys 2: Electric Rodeo

Space Cowboys 3: Return of the Bookaroo

Space Cowboys 404: Cow Not Found

Space Marines

Space Marines 2

PinUp Noir

PinUp Noir 2

Your Honor, I Can Explain…

You See, What Happened Was…

He Was Dead When I Got There…

All Will Burn

All Will Burn: Fierce Love

Moggies in Space

Moggies Back in Space

Full Steam Ahead

Giant! Freakin’! Robots!

Call To Action

At Raconteur Press, our motto is Have Fun, Get Paid. Hopefully you enjoyed the stories in this volume. If you did, please take the time to leave a quick review. Our authors love to hear that people enjoyed their stories and it encourages them to write more of them.

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Table of Contents

- Introduction
- 1. A Mother's Pyre
- 2. Peer Review Parenting
- 3. Fur, Fangs, Family
- 4. A Father’s Promise
- 5. Beneath Red Sky
- 6. Pia
- 7. The Country Road
- 8. Werewolf Nation
- 9. And The Void Stared Back
- 10. What Was Once Wild
- Also From Raconteur Press
- Call To Action