The Breeders Series: The Complete Box Set

by Katie French

  “Help!” I scream to the empty hills. I turn back, but my attacker is no longer the Warden. It’s Clay. “Help me!” I plead.

  I lock onto Clay’s blue eyes. I watch in horror as a sulfur green seeps into his blue irises. Clay opens his mouth and reveals rows of dripping fangs.

  I wake up screaming.

  My room is dark. My heart pistons out of control. I place my hand on it and try to breathe. Across the room, Ethan lies under a mound of tattered blankets. There are my boots where I left them beside my bed. On the nightstand, Ethan’s comic book flaps in the breeze from the window. I lie back in bed and try to relax.

  My brain begins to separate nightmare from reality, but my skin still crawls with sweat. I stare up at the vein-like cracks in the plaster ceiling. I’m fine, I tell myself. I clutch the sheet around me. I don’t feel fine.

  A puff of night air traces my sweat-drenched skin, sending shivers up my arms. My comforter lies in a wad on the floor. I stand up and cross our window to get it. Outside there’s a delicate crunch of gravel.

  What was that? I hear it again. Footsteps on the gravel outside. My pulse skyrockets. I take a step toward the open window and peer into the darkness.

  Sheer, ratty curtains hang limply over the opening to discourage bugs; through them, I scan the moonlit yard. The dead apple trees are dark gnarly slashes in the distance. The outhouse is the rectangular shadow to the right. I clutch my arms around myself and shiver. If the coyotes are prowling this close, we’re going to have a big problem. I reach around for my hunting knife on the nightstand. When I’m turning back to the window, I see the moving shadow.

  It’s a lean, dark figure slinking from the outhouse to the barn. It’s too tall for a coyote. Only one thing can make a shadow like that and he walks on two legs.

  The fear in my dream is nothing compared to my fear now.

  “Riley.” A voice behind. A rough hand that slides over my mouth. I jab an elbow backward. My attacker oomphs and the hand falls away. I turn and raise my knife.

  Arn’s hunched over, his hands wrapped around the bandages that circle his middle. I’ve elbowed him in his broken ribs. I start to apologize, but he snaps his fingers to silence me.

  “Get your brother and get in the cellar. Don’t come out no matter what you hear.”

  The gun in his hand paralyzes me.

  “What’s going on?” Ethan asks groggily from his bed. He’s propped up on an elbow looking at us.

  Arn doesn’t answer. He strides to Ethan’s bed, leans down and hugs him. If Arn is hugging, this is serious. I can’t think with the terror screaming through my head.

  “Take him now, Riley.” Arn slips out of the room and down the hall.

  “What’s happening?” Ethan sits up, alarmed. His eyes trail his father.

  “Get dressed,” I say, grabbing my own boots and coveralls.

  There’s a low whistling sound, then a crash as our front window shatters. Something explodes, rumbling the floorboards beneath us.

  “What was that?!” Ethan presses his palms to his ears.

  I snatch Ethan. He’s weightless as I tear out of our room. I shoot a glance toward the front room. The window lies in jagged pieces on the floor. Arn’s got the kitchen table flipped over and hunches behind it with a rifle to his chest. My mama crouches at his feet, slipping rounds into another rifle with trembling fingers. Auntie sits with her back to the table, the revolver clutched to her breast.

  I can’t think. I can’t breathe. I just run. I’ll drop Ethan off and come back for them. It doesn’t matter what Arn said. They need me.

  I hit the porch, barely feeling the boards under my feet. When I jump into the yard, headlights blaze from our driveway. Half-dozen men are clustered behind three trucks. They’re armed. They’re going to kill us all.

  I skid to a stop at the storm cellar. Ethan’s crying when I set him down to pull open the doors.

  “Riley,” he sobs. “What’s happening? Where’s Mama?” Snot runs in strings from his nose.

  There’s no time to comfort him. I point to the hole. “Get in.”

  He shakes his head, tears flinging off in every direction. “Not without you.”

  “Get in!” I yell.

  He cries harder, shaking his head. His eyes are wide.

  Gunshots crackle behind me. My panic chokes out all thought. I gotta get back. I pick Ethan up and carry him down the ladder. He cries and struggles, but somehow I get him down without dropping him. I dump him on the bench and run back to the ladder. His sobs fill the dark hole. I’ll calm him down when this is over. I gotta get back.

  I scramble up the ladder. Two rungs from the top, a shadow blots out the light. I peer up. With the headlights streaming behind him, it’s hard to make out a face. For a moment I think it’s Arn. Then the shadow turns his head and I recognize the square chin and short, dark hair.

  Clay?

  I stop climbing for a moment, confused. He’s one of the men sent to kill my family?

  I scan his face, looking for answers. He opens his mouth to speak, but shots rattle in the distance. He steps back and he’s gone. As I’m reaching for the next rung, I hear a loud squawk. Too late.

  The heavy wooden door falls over the entrance, plunging us into darkness. Then I hear him slide the board through the handles.

  He’s locked us in.

  Chapter Six

  I slam into the cellar doors over and over. My shoulder blazes with pain and splinters pierce my skin, but I pay no heed. Barking sobs like a tortured dog’s escape my throat.

  More gunshots clatter above, then shouting. My mind runs as I pry chunks from the doors until my fingernails break and warm blood spills down my hands. With only two rifles, a handgun and a box of cartridges, my family stands against a dozen well-armed men.

  They don’t stand a chance.

  I scramble down the ladder, falling off the last rung. I bang into a shelf, knock over something that smashes, but I don’t stop. Ethan, sobbing, reaches out to me as I run past. I shake him off. My hands scramble over the shelves, tossing out canned goods, changes of clothing, a jug of water. Dry goods tumble off the shelf as I fling them out of my way. I need something to wrench the door open, a shovel, an ax, anything. In the dark, my hands come up empty.

  Overhead something explodes.

  My sobs turn into keening that fills the cellar. I fumble for the ladder and pull myself up. Bashing my shoulder against the locked doors won’t help, but I can’t stop. I smash into the wood until I see stars.

  Above, everything quiets. I stop bashing and press my ear to the crack in the door. The truck engines flare to life and rumble away.

  Quiet. The only sound is my brother’s muffled sobbing and the throbbing of my heart. It’s over. Images of my family riddled with bullet holes dance in the darkness before me. I pound my fists into the boards and scream.

  Eventually, Ethan pulls me off the ladder. He leads me to the bench. I curl onto the wooden surface. In the dark, I can pretend I don’t exist. That I’ve died, too. The thought gives me a little comfort. When you’re dead, you don’t feel pain.

  Little streamers of light trickle through the boards above. I open my eyes and watch the dust motes slide lazily through the triangles of light. Then I remember my family. The hurt hits my chest like both barrels of a twelve-gauge.

  As my mind wakes, pain lights up my body. My shoulders feel like they’ve been run through a meat grinder. I lift my hands—shredded knuckles, splinters dug deep under my bloody fingernails. Ethan shifts next to me. We lie on the hard-packed earth, his back to my chest, my body curled around his. I brush his bangs off his face and swallow back the sobs. I can’t wake him. Maybe in his dream, everything we love isn’t destroyed.

  In the dim daylight, the storm cellar looks like a tornado hit. I’ve torn everything off the shelves. There’s the broken glass from a jar of peaches. Clothing litters the dirt floor where I flung them.

  I stare up at the locked cellar doors, as fresh tears damp
en the corners of my eyes. What’s up there? Part of me wants to crawl into a ball and never face it. A sob escapes my throat and Ethan stirs. Stop it, I tell myself. Even though my whole world’s been blown to pieces, I have to pull it together. For him.

  I stand up and pain rockets down my spine. I walk to the ransacked shelves. I slip cans back up into their dust rings on the shelves, pick up glass shards, fold the clothes. Beneath a pair of coveralls, I find a rusty ax. I ignore the pain from my busted hands as I grip it and climb the ladder.

  Ethan sits up suddenly. “What’re you doing?”

  I look down at him and try to smile. My face is unresponsive, so I give up and begin hacking at the crack between the doors. “Getting us out.”

  Ethan watches me. “What do you think happened, you know, to Mama and Dad?”

  “I’m sure they’re fi …” My throat squeezes. I look down at my little brother. “I don’t know.” I swing the ax over and over until my hands are screaming.

  It takes a half an hour to bust the doors open. When I can barely grip the ax and my head throbs enough to blur my vision, the last of the wood gives way. I push open the mangled doors. Sunlight floods my face. Squinting, I climb out of the cellar and look around.

  The stillness sends goosebumps over my arms. The yard is empty. Our farmhouse is silent, the back door open. Across the yard, the barn door thwacks in the breeze. A crow perches on the roof. When it sees me, it caws and flings itself into the air. Arn says crows are a bad omen. I watch the bird slash upward and feel like throwing up.

  I peer down the hole at Ethan. “Stay here.” I don’t wait for him to protest. I steel my will and stalk toward the house with the ax.

  The first porch step creaks as I walk up. I freeze. Someone might lurk inside the dark doorway, waiting to ambush me. I grip the ax handle, take a deep breath and slip through the doorway into the dark hall.

  I stand in the hallway and listen with the ax clutched to my chest. There are no sounds, no sign that anyone’s inside, but I can’t shake the feeling that lurking behind a door someone waits to kill me. My hands tremble as I step into our living room.

  Small beams of light sift in through bullet holes in the front wall. A vase is shattered and lying on the floor, yet the couch and Auntie’s Victrola look undisturbed. I tiptoe forward and something crunches beneath my heel. I pick it up. It’s a shotgun shell. I set it on my mother’s sideboard table, clutch the ax to my chest and creep toward the kitchen.

  When I see what’s become of the kitchen, I can’t help gasping.

  The place is unrecognizable. The table is flipped on its side; the table top, a splintered mess of bullet holes. Glass shards from the exploded front windows litter the ground like jagged snow. The cupboards are open and their contents in pieces on the floor. I pick up a shard from the green ceramic mug that my mama drank tea out of every morning. I set the pieces on the counter with trembling fingers. Then my eyes trail toward the front window. What waits outside?

  More glass on the porch. Auntie’s rocker rests on its side in the empty flowerbed. But no bodies. Then my eyes find a trail of blood that streaks the porch boards and continues down the steps.

  The sick panic cripples me. Whose blood paints our porch? I lean my head against the window frame and close my eyes. I can’t do this. I can’t search for the bodies of my family. My trembling hand smears tears across my cheeks. But, I can’t leave them out there for the coyotes to pick apart. I wipe my face with my sleeve. My stomach’s lined with lead as I pull open the front door.

  The screen door dangles crookedly by one hinge. There’s the streak of blood and one bloody footprint. I lean down and examine the smeared red stain. My mama’s? I look up through the yard, expecting a body. Big tire tracks cut through the dirt where the trucks peeled out last night. Here and there, the dust is tinted deep brown. I’ve killed enough rabbits to know a bloodstain. A stray boot lies about fifteen yards from the porch. It doesn’t look like Arn’s. Hopefully one of those bastards took a bullet. Hopefully more than one.

  With no bodies and no sign of what happened to my family, I turn back in. What if they’re wounded and hiding upstairs? As I stalk toward my bedroom, the fear of being watched settles on me again. I know that if they wanted me, they would’ve come down in the cellar and taken me. Unless Clay didn’t tell them we were down there. But why wouldn’t he?

  I pull up to my bedroom and listen. Nothing but my breath, hot and fast. I push the door open with my toe, the ax held high. The door gives a loud screech as it opens.

  “Riley?” A voice behind me.

  “Ahhh!” I brandish the ax.

  Ethan’s face twists in fear.

  “Jesus, Ethan!” I drop the ax and put my other hand on my beating heart. “Thought I told you to stay in the cellar.”

  He steps beside me until his hip’s touching mine. He’s carrying a rusty kitchen knife. He peers down the hall with frightened eyes. “Where’s Mama and Dad?”

  “I don’t know, but let me handle this.” I push him towards the back door.

  He digs in his heels. “I can’t stay down there no more. What I’m thinking about can’t be worse than what’s up here.”

  I know what he means about pictures in your head. Mine’s flooded with horrible possibilities. I take his hand and together we slip quietly up the stairs.

  The upstairs hallway is tensely quiet. The scuffed wood floor sighs under our weight. With shaking hands, I push open two bedroom doors. Nothing. Everyone’s gone. My eyes linger on the soft-bristled brush on my mother’s dresser. Will she ever use it again? I stumble out of her room before the ghost of her presence suffocates me.

  We head downstairs and slump on the couch. Neither of us says a word. I can’t think. I can’t feel. I sit in a trance. An hour passes before Ethan’s stomach rumbles. It’s noon and we haven’t eaten or drank anything since dinner last night.

  Somehow I find the strength to stand. “Canned beans okay?”

  He nods and then goes back to staring at light trickling through the bullet holes in our living room wall.

  I drag myself to the pantry, but when I get there, something’s wrong. The shelves are bare. I run a hand over the planking, my fingers brushing past a circular rust stain. This pantry was stocked yesterday. Today it’s bare. Where did it all go? There are no cans on the floor. I peer into the kitchen and then back at the shelves. It takes my deadened brain a few beats to realize what’s happened. They took our food. Every canned good—the dried fruit, bread, flour, rice, carrots, apples. All gone.

  The bastards stole our family and now our only chance at survival.

  The livestock. Banging out of the pantry, I stumble through the kitchen and out the front door. I break into a run around to the barn. I push open the barn doors.

  “Bounty?” My voice breaks.

  The minute I’m not greeted by her mooing, I know she’s gone. And why wouldn’t they take her? She’s a commodity, useful, tradable. Just like my family.

  I fall to the barn floor and lie in the dust. The sobs run through me for what seems like hours. Until there are no tears left. Until I’m hollow.

  Sometime later Ethan’s small hand slides over my back. His trembling voice cuts through my stupor. “Riley, I … I found Dad.”

  By the sound of his voice, I know Arn’s gone. Empty of tears, a dark numbness covers me. I take Ethan’s hand and he leads me to the barn and around back. There, in the shade of our dead apple trees, is Arn’s motionless body. His blood paints the ground beneath him a deep, muddy brown. His legs and arms are extended at odd angles. Someone dragged him here and left his body for the coyotes.

  This is all my fault. I led his killer right to him.

  As we approach, Ethan begins to shake. I stop and put my hands on his shoulders. “You don’t have to do this,” I say, looking into his eyes. “I can bury him myself.” Can I? I’m not even sure I can take another step.

  He shakes his head and wipes at the tears that trickle into the dust on h
is red cheeks. “He’s my dad. I need to bury him.”

  Today, my brother becomes a man, though I would trade all I had in the world to keep him a boy.

  We arrange Arn’s body so it looks like he’s sleeping. It gives me some comfort to see him lying back, eyes closed, arms over his chest like he’s fallen asleep in the shade. We get shovels and spend the rest of the day pouring our pain into the dirt. We bury Arn as the red sunset bleeds out across the horizon. Neither one of us cries. The grief is too big for tears.

  The next days are a fog. I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Ethan pushes food at me that he’s brought up from the cellar. The opened cans go uneaten. I close my eyes and my dreams are splashed with horrors. I open them and the horrors are the same, except awake I can feel pain.

  When I’m awake, the guilt eats at my insides like acid. All of this is my fault. I went into town and pissed off the Warden. I led them back to our house. It doesn’t matter that I rescued Arn. He’d have been better off in jail than under six feet of dirt. And now my mama and Auntie are gone. They are likely dead or wishing they were. And Ethan? I get to watch him starve to death. When he brings me the meals that I keep refusing, I can’t look him in the face.

  The only time I feel alive is when I think about revenge. I think of hurting the motherless bastards who did this. But mostly I think of Clay. I picture myself standing over his crumpled body and aiming my gun at his chest. I thought he was a good guy. He was just setting me up so they could follow me home and take everything. Why Ethan and I are still alive is a mystery, but I assume it’s a minor setback. He’ll be back to finish the job, and when he does, my hunting knife will find its last victim.

  That night I have another nightmare. My mother cries in the distance. I run through the desert looking for her when something shakes me.