I duct taped Jed’s ankles, wrists and mouth before waiting until long after dark to carry him through the woods. I didn’t want to leave drag marks and I scuffed my feet and doubled back enough times that no one would’ve could’ve made heads or tails of our trail. Jed was easy enough to haul even though he weighed more than me. Really easy. Shit floats. I guess assholes did, too. He woke up again. I was almost home, so I let him stay awake. He moaned, snarled, and tried to yell under the tape. That was Jed for you. A complainer. Bitch, bitch, bitch.
And dumb as a box of rocks. I’d given him every chance and he’d never taken one of them.
Our house was only a mile or two from the woods at the end of our long gravel lane. The nearest neighbor was half a mile away. It was nice. Quiet. Private.
Really private.
“They’ll find your bike in the creek,” I said to the struggling Jed. “They’ll think you drowned. Think your body got wedged under somewhere. Who knows? Maybe it took you all the way to the river. Everyone will pretend to be sad.” I looked back at him and smiled. “But no one will be.”
Christmas Eve. I pulled Jed through the door into the blinking lights of the Christmas tree, the stockings on the mantle, the milk and cookies sat oh so carefully on the table. Tessa had left milk and cookies out for three years now. Third time’s the charm.
Mom and Dad sat waiting on the couch for me. It was almost eleven—close to Christmas. Close enough. Tess would’ve long gone to bed. “That’s where you’ve been.” Mom shook her head affectionately. Boys will be boys.
“Anyone see you?” Dad demanded bluntly. “Any trouble?”
“Come on, Dad, you taught me better than that.” I dumped Jed at the bottom of the fireplace before going to my room. I opened my closet door and rummaged through softball mitts, balls, games I’d outgrown but never thrown away until I found it buried in a corner: the polished skull. It had been pretty stinky for quite a while, but it wasn’t the kind of stink my kind minded. I pulled the dusty red cap with the pom pom off of it and shook it out, trying not to sneeze. These were the only things left. The reindeer venison was long gone. Around the base of the skull were handfuls of white hair, once curly and soft, now wiry and sparse. It didn’t matter. It’d work. I also picked up a tattered white trimmed red jacket. At the last I grabbed the glue from my desk and went back to the living room.
“You’re a good brother.” Mom smiled, pleased.
“Yeah, yeah.” I ducked my head in embarrassment as I jammed the Santa hat on Jed’s head, draped the red jacket over the top of him and glued the hair to his chin and jaws. He wasn’t too helpful there, whipping his head back and forth. But I got the job done. I even pinned Mary Francesca’s Santa pin to the jacket. It was the perfect touch.
Hungry, hungry, hungry, but he wasn’t for me.
I picked up three cookies, ripped the tape off his mouth and jammed them in there before he could get a word or a scream out. He turned slightly blue as he choked and coughed. I thought it’d keep his mouth shut long enough.
“Tess,” I yelled. “Come on. Hurry up. He’s here!”
After a second there was the sound of feet in footy pajamas hitting the floor and she came flying out, eyes as wide as they possibly could be when she spotted Jed. “Santa! Santa! I asked you to come and you’re here! You’re here!”
Six years ago I saw Santa. Seven years ago I’d made my first kill. It soured me on Christmas when I realized there wouldn’t be any more Santas. No more surprises from the chimney. I’d finished that job. Kids, you don’t realize how permanent things are. I was sorry afterwards. Sorry I hadn’t waited for my little sister to be old enough to join in on the fun. Sorry she could never have the thrill I’d had.
I watched as Tess grinned big as her pajamas tore away and her skin twitched until fur rippled over her twisting, changing body from muzzle to tail. Her pumpkin orange eyes bright with Christmas spirit as her teeth were suddenly bright with something else as she tore into her present.
Mary Francesca’s pin went flying. Wolves were Orthodox. We did only date our own kind. It was too bad. She was cute.
On the couch a buff colored wolf tucked her head under the jaw of a larger black one. Their eyes were brilliant with pride and affection and the spirit of the holiday. Their baby’s first kill. It was always special. I rested my muzzle on my paws and watched as Christmas came back to me.
Mom said Christmas wasn’t in presents and trees, glitter and bows. She said it was in your heart and so was Santa if you want him to be. If I really wanted him, I could find him again.
Mom was right. Christmas was in your heart. And Santa was everywhere.
If you only knew where to look.
When the world ended, the very first thought I had was of my first dance. I didn’t even like dancing—damn, how embarrassing would that be? Yet there it was. That was the memory I flashed back to. That’s where some part of me considered my life starting. A dance. Or maybe it wasn’t the dance. Maybe it was the girl. I’d loved her, not that I remembered her name now. But at the time I thought I loved her. I knew I lusted after her. But isn’t that how love goes? Her skin was dusky and warm, her eyes fields of lavender, her black hair pulled up and then falling, a solemn black sea around her bare shoulders.
Okay, yeah, it was definitely the girl.
The world ended and I was still thinking with the brain between my legs instead of the one in my head. The cock ruled the roost, and I was as much a rooster in a rickety hen house and a clutch of squawking chickens. At least I admitted it. I doubt my partner would. He was all about the manners and shit that hadn’t mattered before and damn sure didn’t matter now. I cut him some slack though, because he could shoot straight, ride for hours on end without bitching too much, could cook over a camp-fire without turning a rabbit into charcoal, and, bottom line, at the end of the world, you made do with what you had.
It had been ten years ago—when it had happened. The sky had turned gray, the sun a sullen distant red and the entire world shook. I looked back now and saw that shaking for what it was: death throes. The world had died that day and since then we were nothing more than scavengers on a corpse.
They had done it…destroyed it all as if it was a toy they’d tired of, didn’t much care about anymore. Broken and tossed under the bed to not be thought of again—the same as a child. If monsters could be children.
Maybe it was partly our fault. We’d forgotten they existed more or less. We weren’t watching for them, weren’t prepared. They were nothing more than stories, legends, nonsense tales to tell little ones to put them to sleep. Long ago when we knew they actually existed, saw them, made trades that never turned out quite right, I think we learned their bite was worse than their bark, no matter how innocent they could make themselves seem. We’d learned playing games with them was the quickest way to get into trouble. So we forgot about them—the reality of them, we made ourselves forget and I think even the stories themselves would’ve disappeared in time.
But we didn’t have time. Without us anymore, they played with themselves, and not in that good way you’re thinking. Well, in the good way I was thinking. While we forgot them, they continued to play their lethal games: one side against another, alliances constantly shifting, greed for power growing, greed for gold, jewels, fruits of the earth, greed for the air itself. For the stark differences they claimed, good versus evil, righteous versus unholy, in the end they were all the same. Vicious, feral creatures who finally turned Paradise into Hell. There were only two good things about that. The first was that they managed to kill nearly all of themselves in the process. The second was we got to kill the ones that were left. Revenge wouldn’t bring back the world, but it was better than nothing. It was a damn sight better than sitting around waiting to die. We spent the final days wiping out the last of those freaks one by one.
It was a hobby. Everyone needed one. Even now. Especially now.
“At the last outpost, the guy slinging the brew said two more
riders went crazy and killed themselves. Third crew to eat their guns this month.” I shrugged. “Can’t figure why they’re in such a hurry to get where we’re going anyway. Gutless maggots. Yellow-bellied chicken shits through and through.”
Scotch took off his cowboy hat showing the yellow-blonde hair he sawed short every few weeks with his knife and smacked me hard with it. “Seven, if you do not stop speaking that way, I will end you. I’ve told you a thousand times it makes me question my own sanity.” Our horses bumped shoulders without complaint with the motion.
I grinned. “That’s why I do it.” We weren’t from around here, far from it, but we went where the work took us and this past year that had been Arizona, Nevada, Mexico—up and down, round and round. Those bastards could hide like nobody’s business. They were getting smarter and tracking them was getting harder. If I could entertain myself by talking like a gen-u-ine cowboy and drive my partner nuts in the bargain, well, hell, that’s what I was going to do.
He grumbled, but put his hat back on. It wasn’t to soak up the sweat. It wasn’t hot. It was never hot anymore. Never warm. It was always winter now, but the rays of the sun, small and bloody as it had become, would sear flesh the same as that cook-fire and rabbit I’d been thinking of earlier, especially if you were fair-skinned. I wasn’t. My skin was dark enough that the sun didn’t bother me much. My hair was darker still and I kept it twisted strands tied back in a long tail. It was easier than combing it every day or cutting it once a month. There wasn’t a lot of time for personal hygiene on the hunt, whether it was here on the western trail or up north hunting in the cities. If you had water and soap, you were lucky. If you wanted to feel warm water again, you’d have to heat it yourself.
When the Earth had stopped, nearly everything had stopped with it. I didn’t know how or what they did. Some hideous last magic, the kind of magic that if you had seen would’ve no doubt burned the eyes from your face, peeled the skin from your flesh and driven you to a gibbering madness that would infect everyone you then cast your blind screaming gaze on.
I shook my head. That was the best part of pretending to be a cowboy. Not having to think thoughts like those. No matter how it had happened, what grisly magic was unleashed, nothing worked. Cars didn’t run. Houses didn’t heat. Lights stayed dark and forever would. I didn’t much care about the cars, although they would’ve made the chases shorter. But a warm bath—to soak away months of dust and the ache of the trail, I’d have given Scotch’s right arm for that. His left too, if that’s what it took.
I patted my horse’s neck and wiped a damp hand on my pants. At least the guns still worked. I’d cut one of the son of a bitches’s throats if I had to—and I had, but just the touch of them made your flesh revolt. Unnatural. Unclean. Murderers of the world. We passed what had once been a cactus. It should’ve died in ten years of cold but it hadn’t. It had twisted and warped, turned black and wept a slime that slowly ate through the ground around it with a sizzling stench.
I looked away. We were in Hell. I’d never believed in Hell, but that’s where we were. Clearing my throat, I asked my partner, “You remember your first dance? With a girl?” I grinned lazily as the horses plodded on. “Maybe I’m jumping the gun. Maybe it was a right purty sheep, flowers in her wool?”
Scotch scowled. His face wasn’t made for it. It didn’t stop him from trying, but with a straight nose, clean jaw-line, eyes the same color the sky had once been, a scowl just didn’t take. It made him look noble and probably prettier than the girl he’d danced with. Which I promptly told him. It was a better insult than the sheep one.
The scowl disappeared and he laughed. I didn’t hear him do that much. I didn’t do it much myself, not and mean it. These days who did? “I will never know why I didn’t kill you ages ago,” he snorted.
“Because you’re not good enough,” I said smugly. “You were never able to take me down.” It wasn’t as if we hadn’t gone at it over the long years. Boys will be boys and all that crap. “Not even in racing. Your nag never saw anything but the ass-end of Pie.” Pie, hearing his name, lifted his head and rolled an eye back at me. I gave his dark neck another pat. Despite the grime of the trail, his coat gleamed as black as a ripe blackberry. Not that there were blackberries now, only the memory of the sweetness of a sun-warmed one bursting on your tongue.
“Nag? Shall we see about that?” Scotch caught me off guard as his mount took off like…how’d they say it? Oh, yeah, like his head was on fire and his tail was catchin’.
Or more like the unreal slide of ice and snow in the beauty of a frozen waterfall falling down a mountain. His coat was as white as Pie’s was black. Or it had been. He hadn’t fared as well against the dirt and grime as Pie had, but I remembered what he’d looked like before we pulled this assignment and ended up in this nightmare mess of a desert. He’d been winter incarnate. But now he was a dirty bat-out-of-hell that I sent Pie after with one loud yee-haw.
“I heard that, you bastard,” Scotch’s irritated words trailed behind him. I corrected my earlier thought. Everyone needed two hobbies. Dispatching murderers and irritating their partners.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one that heard. Someone had been waiting for us and our race was over seconds after it had begun. Scotch was galloping his horse past a rusty-red outcropping of rock when the monster took him down. The cat leaped over and tackled him out of the saddle and to the ground in a movement so fast and fluid I barely saw it. Pinning Scotch to the ground, it saw me coming and lifted its head to unleash a growl that put the rumble of thunder to shame.
But it hadn’t seen me coming after all. It had heard me. It had no eyes, not ones it could use to see. Skin was seamed shut in ugly ribbons of red flesh where eyes should’ve been. Its ears were larger than they should’ve been as was its widely splayed nostrils that sampled the air while spraying pink tinged mucus. It wasn’t a monster, no matter how it looked. It was just another victim.
I hurt for it, something that should’ve been a glory of nature, hurt to my core. And while I knew it had to eat, same as we all did, I couldn’t let it eat my partner. I hit it clean-center with a shot between those two absent eyes. I almost felt guilty, but it was fortunate to be out of this world and hopefully on to a better one. Then again, it might just be dead and there was nothing more—nothing clean and pure. The dark magic could’ve destroyed that too, but if that were true, I still thought it was better off.
I vaulted off Pie and helped roll the big cat, heavy as I was at least, off Scotch. My partner had puncture marks in his upper chest with a small amount of blood soaking through his faded green shirt, but other than that and having the wind knocked out of him, he seemed all right. He coughed and wheezed, pulling in air, as I fisted his hand with mine and pulled him up to a sitting position. “I…still…won,” he panted.
“Yeah, if the race lasted four seconds and the finish line was being eaten by a big-ass desert cat, you won. What do you want for a prize? Pie can give you a big sloppy kiss. He likes the blonde mares,” I drawled.
“Braying…ass,” he hissed and glared.
“Nah, he’s not so much for those.” I waited a minute then when he could curse me without running out of air and his eyes rolling back in his head, I heaved him up to his feet. “You all right? You want to go ahead and make camp? We’ve been on this one son of a bitch for a week now. Another day won’t hurt.”
He shook his head. “No. It’s not bad and I’m tired of this one. He’s run too far, too long. I want him dead, Seven. He’s already killed two huntsmen. Let’s make certain he doesn’t kill any more.”
“You got it.” He was right. They’d killed the world, I didn’t want to see one of them kill a single fucking thing else, certainly not us…the ones who couldn’t put things right, but could make them pay. Vengeance was all we had, and it only made me want it even more.
Once up, swaying, but up, he looked at the dead cat, maimed—changed, then shoved fingers into his hair. “Why? Why didn’t they
stay legends and fables where they belonged? Why did they have to be real? Why did they do this? Why would they destroy everything? Just…why?”
For the most simple of whys there usually never was an answer. For one like this, no one would ever know and thinking about it would only make you as crazy as the riders that were the talk of the outpost, the ones who’d eaten their guns. They’d probably thought why one time too many.
I shook my head silently, for once not having a smart-ass comment, urging him towards his mount then helping Scotch back up in the saddle. Once there he sat straight and if he was in pain, he hid it well. From the beginning, after all the confusion, the mourning, the despair, when we’d finally found a mission, coordinated, been partnered up, and sent to avenge what we couldn’t save, I’d told myself I’d make do with what I was paired with. Turned out Scotch was the best partner I could’ve hoped for. He’d never let me down. Not once. Now I did know what to say. I asked, “Did I ever call you a wuss? Wimp? Pussy?”
He took his hat I handed him and settled it into place. “Only every other day and in about a hundred more imaginative ways.”
My lips quirked as I smacked his mount on the flank. “Good. Don’t want you forgetting that.”
Then we were back on the trail. I studied the ground from my saddle for signs of our quarry’s passing. It wasn’t as if this one we were after was trying to cover his tracks any longer. He was probably too far gone for that. Two huntsmen had almost ridden him into the ground before he killed them. He’d be exhausted and desperate with us coming up behind to finish the job. Desperate wasn’t good, not with two kills under his belt, but exhausted was, and we’d use it.