Game of Cages

by Harry Connolly

  At the top of a rise, the trees and underbrush suddenly thinned. After fifteen feet of gentle slope, the ground flattened into the fairgrounds. Farther out there was a ring of halogen lights on poles set in a circle, and all the lamps were on. The locals were setting up the fair, although my view of them was obscured by the whitewashed buildings and a set of bleachers.

  To my left was the high-peaked church. The back door was open, letting yellowish light into the yard. From this angle, I could see a little house behind it.

  To the right were more woods, open fields, and darkness.

  I shone the flashlight down into the mud. The sapphire dog’s trail split into three directions, just like on the Wilbur estate. On the left, the trail led across a muddy patch and then into the high grass beside the church. In front of me it led down the slope, and to the right it went through the bushes.

  Crap. I ignored the footprints that led to the right into the underbrush—if the predator had avoided that sort of cover for this long, I doubted it would take it up now.

  On impulse, I started down the slope toward the fairgrounds. The footprints were more difficult to find among the tree roots and hard soil of the hill, but they were there. They led straight out into the grass.

  Maybe if I’d grown up a hunter, with weekend trips into the woods with deer rifles and orange earflap caps, I could have followed the predator’s tracks across the newly mown lawn. But I’d grown up on baseball and video games. I couldn’t find the trail or even tell if it ended suddenly like the ones on the Wilbur estate.

  I didn’t like the way this looked. So far, the sapphire dog had been drawn to people and buildings. It had fled from its captors, sure, but it had gone from one house to another, feeding and controlling the residents.

  The only people on the fairgrounds were the ones out in the lights setting up. If the sapphire dog was going to go for them, it would have had to angle more to the left, not straight ahead into the dark open space of the lawn.

  I scrambled back up the hill. The left-hand tracks pointed directly toward the church and the open, lighted door. I followed them.

  After about fifteen feet, the tracks disappeared. As expected. The grass was unmowed and dripping wet. By the time I was halfway there, my pants were soaked from the knee down.

  A pickup truck backed up to the open door, and a short, wiry man began unloading boxes from the bed and carrying them inside. I switched off my flashlight and I walked toward the open door, the ghost knife in my hand and the gun in my pocket. On the near side of the church was a neatly mown lawn. On the far side was a cracked asphalt parking lot.

  The night must have been darker than I thought; the man unloading the truck didn’t notice me until I was close enough to tap the edge of the truck. I startled him. He was wearing a clerical collar and had the quick, limber movements of a karate teacher.

  He looked me up and down. I could see by the light shining from the inside of the church that his expression was carefully neutral. “If you’re looking for money,” he said, “we don’t have any. We’re a rural church. If you’re hungry, though, you’ve come to the right place.”

  I looked into the bed of the truck. It was half full of grocery bags of canned food and boxes of premade stuffing. I glanced down at my clothes. I was still wearing the shirt Yin’s men had torn, and I supposed my eye was still ugly.

  “I’m not looking for food or money,” I said. “I’m looking for a dog.” Maybe it would have been better to say it was my dog, but the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. “It has fur that’s been dyed blue, and it’s sick. Contagious, actually.”

  “Contagious?” I had his attention. “I haven’t seen any dogs running loose, and I’ve been driving around picking up donations. I can make a couple of calls, though. Help me carry some of this inside, and we’ll see what we can do.”

  He grabbed two grocery bags in each hand and turned his back on me, confident I’d follow. I looked around but didn’t see the predator. I picked up a crate filled with boxes of muffin mix and went inside.

  It was a wide, shallow room filled with cheap metal shelving. Almost half the shelf space was filled with food donations. There was a second door nestled between the shelves. A dead bolt held it shut. A chipped wooden desk stood in the corner. A cheap portable stereo on the edge of the desk played seventies disco.

  Had the sapphire dog come in here? The room was lit well enough that I could see the pastor didn’t have a white mark, and there were no discolored circles on the walls.

  The pastor reached up and scratched the ear of a pudgy, long-haired cat. “Those muffin mixes go there.” He indicated a high shelf.

  I set the crate there. “If you see that blue dog, don’t go near it. In fact, stay far away. I’d be grateful if you would spread the word.”

  I started toward the door. One circuit of the church should tell me if the sapphire dog had gotten in through the walls; then I’d check the house. If I didn’t find anything, I wasn’t sure where I’d go next.

  He took out his cell. “Let me make a couple of calls.”

  I nodded. “Be right back.”

  Outside, I played the flashlight across the lawn but didn’t see anything interesting. I walked around the truck, then the church. There were no openings the predator could have used and no dark circles that indicated it had gone through the wall.

  I was on my way to the house when the pastor came out of the church. “Are you Ray?”

  “I am,” I said, still walking.

  “I’m Aaron,” he said. It seemed weird to think of him by his first name instead of Reverend Surname, but what did I know? Maybe he’d invite me in to play Guitar Hero. “I spoke with the manager down at the fairgrounds. No one down there has seen your dog, but they’ll keep an eye out. Also, Steve Cardinal asked you to wait here for him. He’ll be over as soon as he can.”

  I nodded, but I wasn’t about to wait, not if the sapphire dog was as close as I thought. I wished he hadn’t said the dog was mine, though.

  I walked around the porch, shining the light on the base of the walls. It wasn’t until we reached the far back corner of the house that I saw it: a dark circle on the brick beneath a kitchen window.

  “Crap.”

  “What is it?” Aaron knelt beside the mark.

  “Don’t touch it,” I warned him as he reached out. “I need you to get away from here.”

  “Is it in my house? I have … I have family inside. Loved ones.” He looked jumpy.

  “Leave them to me,” I said.

  “You said your dog was contagious. Will they have to be quarantined? Does your dog bite?” His voice was going high with stress.

  “Aaron, go to your truck and stay there.”

  He turned and ran back along the house, then vaulted over the porch rail with the ease of a gymnast. I shouted his name, but he was already at the door. I ran after him, but I heard the door close and lock before I could even reach the porch.

  I climbed up over the rail after him, but much more slowly. Maybe I should take up parkour, if I survived.

  I dropped the flashlight into my pocket and took out the gun. I slid the ghost knife between the door and jamb, then hesitated. The pastor and his family didn’t know me; I didn’t want to charge into his home with a gun in my hand. I put it back into my pocket and hoped I wouldn’t get killed because of it.

  I cut through the locks and pulled the door open. The house lights were on but the place was completely quiet.

  “Hello!” I shouted. There was no answer. Had Aaron found the sapphire dog already? Maybe not. Maybe he was in his room hiding his porn.

  I crept into the living room. The couch was covered with stacks of newspapers and old travel magazines. There was an uncluttered easy chair by the fireplace and an empty office chair beside the desk. The biggest piece of furniture in the room was another four-foot-high cat playground. The room smelled like damp carpet and cat litter. What family did the pastor have in here?

  The kitchen wa
s cleaner but didn’t smell any better. The trash overflowed with pizza boxes and teriyaki take-out cartons. There were three kitty-litter trays in the corner.

  The sapphire dog wasn’t in there, either. The back door was locked and the basement door had a discolored circle at the bottom.

  I twisted the knob and jiggled the door. The discolored circle collapsed into a billowing cloud of dust. The sapphire dog must have entered the basement and come up through there. I went back into the living room and found a flight of stairs leading to the second floor. I started up, avoiding stacks of cheap paperbacks by the rail.

  I heard something slide upstairs and called Aaron’s name. Again, no answer. Footsteps sounded above me.

  I rushed to the top of the stairs. There were three doors up there, and one was partly open. That was the bathroom, and it was dark. I went through the door on the left.

  It was the master bedroom. There were clothes all over the floor. Below the window was a double bed with piles of dirty laundry on one side. Three big cats stared at me from under a clothes bureau.

  Damn. The pastor didn’t have a family in this house. He had run toward a predator because of his damn cats.

  I raced into the hall, then into the other room. It was storage, with banker’s boxes stacked against the walls.

  The window was open. I rushed to it. The pastor had climbed down the porch roof and was already on the lawn. He opened the door to his truck, and something low and blue slithered into the passenger seat.

  I reached for the gun in my pocket, but it snagged on my jacket and clattered to the floor. I cursed at myself as I picked it up. It was only a second’s delay, but it was long enough for Aaron to get into the driver’s seat.

  I looked down at him. He looked up at me. Just before he closed the door of his truck, I saw by the cab light that he had a single white dot on his forehead.

  He started the truck and began to back away. I put two bullets into the grille, then two more into the front driver’s corner, where the battery should be. Aaron slammed the truck into reverse and did a one-point U-turn onto the church parking lot. I emptied the gun at his tires, but I’ve never been what you’d call a crack shot. I was pretty sure I’d missed the battery, too.

  The truck labored onto the street. I ran through the house and out the porch door. The pastor’s taillights turned onto the road toward town. At least he’d left the fairgrounds. I sprinted across the grass and parking lot. I was never going to catch them on foot, but I hoped the truck would break down before the sapphire dog could reach another victim.

  I ran out into the road and jogged after them, but the truck was already out of sight. Headlights appeared behind me and I stepped onto the shoulder of the road. An ambulance screamed by, with Steve Cardinal’s car close behind. I waved to him, and he stomped on the brake, screeching to a halt.

  Justy was in the passenger seat. She rolled down the window, but it was Steve who spoke. “What in heaven’s name have you been doing?”

  “I saw it! It just caught a guy in a blue pickup.”

  “My God. Who?”

  “Aaron. The pastor. I don’t know his whole name. I damaged his truck. We need to catch him before he finds another ride.”

  “Well, get in then.”

  I pulled the back door open and climbed in. He stomped on the gas before I could get fully into his car. I yanked my foot inside just as the car’s momentum slammed the door shut. I fussed with the seat belt. Steve was talking. “Reverend Dolan’s a good man. He’s forthright and strong in his faith. He grew up here. When he was a boy—”

  “Don’t write his eulogy yet.” I didn’t say that the pastor wasn’t important. It was the sapphire dog that mattered.

  “It’s not a eulogy. He’s a strong man. Maybe he’ll resist it.” Steve was quiet for a couple of seconds, then said: “I’ve been to the estate.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been to the Wilbur estate. No one was there. Everything was locked up and dark, but I found where they’ve been holding it all these years. I found the plastic cage with all the lights. Was it the plastic that kept it trapped?”

  “No,” I said. “It can go through plastic.”

  “The lights, then. It was the lights that held it all this time?”

  “Maybe. There are a couple of things you need to know about, though: there’s a girl named Shannon at the Conner house. She’s all alone there.” Justy took out her phone and began typing out a text message. “The adults are all dead or … damaged like Penny. And I saw Regina Wilbur in town. She had a shotgun. You might want to—”

  “There!” Justy suddenly shouted. “I saw brake lights.” She pointed toward a gravel turnoff on the right.

  Steve slammed on the brakes. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Steve backed up and turned onto the path. “Where does this lead?” I asked.

  “Back to the fairgrounds.”

  The road curved to the right, then led downhill to connect with the fairgrounds parking lot at the opposite side from the church. Justy finished her text message without glancing down at her phone.

  “There’s the truck right there,” I said, pointing into the lot. The blue pickup was parked crooked beside the cluster of vans, trucks, SUVs, and other vehicles. Steve slowed down, approaching the scene carefully.

  Now that I was closer, I saw just how blindingly bright the fairground lights were. The workers—volunteers from town, I assumed—had already constructed two huge tents, not as large as circus tents, but still big enough to house dozens of disaster victims, with two more ready to be erected. The canvases had been painted in different designs: red with white snowflakes, white with green Christmas trees, that sort of thing.

  Everyone was working. They were unfolding canvas, connecting pipes, uncoiling electrical cable, whatever it took. No one was standing around watching. No one was fighting. Two people stopped and embraced while a third person rested a hand on their shoulders, but that looked like grieving. The predator wasn’t there.

  In the far end of the parking lot, half hidden among the trees, was the Neon I’d rented. I hoped Catherine was there and that she was okay. I’d check later, if I had the chance.

  I saw a shape move behind a van. “Stop. Stop!” I said, unclicking my seat belt and opening my door.

  “Heaven’s sake, stay in the car.” Steve’s voice was tense.

  I didn’t. He chirped the brakes as I climbed out, nearly dumping me on the ground. I ran around the edge of the parked cars, then dropped low.

  Christ, the asphalt was cold. Why hadn’t I used my plastic to buy gloves? I peered under the cars, looking for moving feet and, maybe, a glimpse of a blue leg. No luck. I scrambled to my feet and peered through the car windows. Still no luck.

  Steve had circled around the cluster of vehicles. He was too close, only ten feet from the pastor’s pickup. He should have known better. It occurred to me that I could use him as a distraction, as a wooden man, but I rejected that idea. I wasn’t here to sacrifice innocent people. I wanted to save them, not destroy them.

  Several of the builders had noticed me creeping around their cars and stopped working. “Hey! Fella!” someone shouted. Six or seven of the workers began walking this way. Crap.

  I was about to ask about a dog when Steve’s reedy voice cut through. “Have any of you boys seen Pastor Dolan?”

  That question stopped them cold. The man in the front, wearing a wool-lined jacket and hunter’s cap, waved an arm vaguely behind him. “His truck broke down. Esteban is giving him a ride somewhere.”

  I looked across the field in the direction Hunting Cap had waved. Midway down the tree line, there was a break in the woods. It was another feeder road.

  “You saw that?” Steve asked him. “You saw the pastor get into his truck?”

  “Yeah,” Hunting Cap said. “He was carrying something in his arms, like a load of laundry or something.”

  I was already running toward the car when Steve cal
led my name. Justy threw open the back door for me and yelled: “If you see either of them again, keep away! Let everyone know!” I climbed in and slammed the door shut. Steve raced down the slope across the grass toward the second feeder road.

  The seat belt was difficult to click with the bumps and jolts of the uneven ground, but I managed it. “What kind of truck does Esteban have?”

  “Cube truck,” Justy answered. “He’s a plumber.” Her tone was clipped. Steve hissed as he jounced around behind the wheel.

  We reached the feeder road without breaking an axle, and Steve slowed. This road was made of mud and ruts. We had to be careful, or we were going to be stranded.

  I wondered whether we’d find Aaron or Esteban in the truck when we caught up with it. So far, none of the people who’d been marked by the sapphire dog had wanted to share.

  We hit a deep pothole, and the whole frame jolted. Steve slowed even more, which frustrated me even though I knew it was the smart thing to do. I hoped that whoever was driving the truck was less sensible and had stranded himself.

  It didn’t happen. We eventually reached a two-lane asphalt road. There were no taillights visible in either direction.

  “Town is to the left,” Steve said. He turned that way, really giving it gas.

  I knew the road to the right also led to town, although it was a longer drive, but fair enough. I sat in my seat, staring ahead. The road twisted and curved, but there were no turnoffs. Eventually, we came to the top of a rise and I could see the lights of Washaway below.

  “There he is,” Justy said. I saw a pair of taillights speeding toward town. Steve stomped on the gas, and for once I wished we were in a genuine cop car with lights, sirens, and everything. We zoomed down the hill, taking a long, slow curve at twice the speed the top-heavy truck could manage.

  Justy turned around and stared at me blankly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “At Big Penny’s, I wasn’t ready. I ran—”

  “Don’t worry about it. You didn’t do anything wrong.” I meant it. She looked grateful, then nodded and turned around.