by Alex Bratton
“Why not?”
“It’s wrong. And illegal.” Mina regretted the words as soon as they came out.
Doyle snorted. “What are they going to do? Call the police?”
“Just… don’t.”
The rain poured harder, pummeling the tin roof.
“Why did you come in here then?” he asked. “Go and wait outside if you want. Or be useful and see what you can find.”
After weeks of living outside, Mina didn’t care to rush back out into the rain. She walked around the cabin, opening closets and drawers without removing anything. In the small bathroom, Mina stared longingly at the corner shower, fantasizing about hot water and shampoo. She turned the tap, but no water came out of the faucet.
“The pump’s not on,” Doyle said, standing in the doorway. “Wrong kind of generator. It must have fried with everything else.”
“Still,” Mina said, “at least we’re out of the rain for a bit, although this place is small for a vacation spot.”
“It’s just a hunting cabin,” he said as he walked away.
In a drawer beneath the sink, Mina found a new toothbrush still in its packaging. She pulled it out, put it on the counter, and then searched for a tube of toothpaste. No luck.
Purposely avoiding the mirror, she looked out the tiny bathroom window, throwing it open so she could enjoy the sound of the rain on the leaves outside. As she turned away, something moved at the corner of her vision, drawing her back to the sill. The dense undergrowth behind the cabin rustled, and a large brown dog emerged, sniffing the back bushes. Mina whistled. The dog, some kind of hound, jerked its head around at the cabin, listening. Mina whistled again, this time standing squarely in the window. When the dog saw her, it bounded away into the bushes. Mina sighed and closed the window.
“What the heck are you doing?” Doyle asked from the doorway.
“I saw a dog.”
“A dog?”
“Outside the window but it ran off.”
“I would too if you whistled at me like that.”
“Very funny.”
The cross mood that had overshadowed their interactions the last few days momentarily lifted, and Mina smiled. She left the bathroom to walk out onto the porch with Doyle to look for the dog.
“We could stay and wait for whoever lives here,” he said as they scanned the dripping foliage.
Mina secretly hoped the person who lived in the cabin was gone for good, but she didn’t speak the thought aloud. Instead she said, “I never thought I’d pass up a soft bed and roof over our heads, but no. What if he starts shooting at us when he comes back?”
Doyle nodded slightly. “You’re becoming more cautious, at least. About time.”
The rain slowed to a drizzle, so they left the cabin and spent the rest of the day scrounging for food. Eventually, they split up, Mina wandering off to forage. She plodded through a dense patch in search of berries when she noticed the dog again, bounding through the wet foliage, nose to the ground. Mina followed it, easing through the wet underbrush below the cabin. The dog led her down a steep embankment, forcing Mina to slide down in the mud, grabbing trees and rocks for support. At the bottom, a natural spring bubbled out of the hillside and filled a small depression between two large boulders. The dog went around to the other side and began to scratch at something on the ground. Mina slid around the rock to get a closer look.
“Hey, buddy. Whatcha got there?”
The dog backed away from Mina and wagged its tail. Mina looked down at the place where it had been scratching. A man dressed in camo lay at the foot of the rocky outcropping. Still alive?
Mina hurried over. A second too late, she realized she was wrong. His bloated body crumpled at an awkward angle as if he had fallen. The smell coming from him stung Mina’s nostrils, and she turned away, trying not to retch.
The dog whined, and she reached out. It backed away. She tried a different tactic.
“Sit.”
The dog nervously wagged its tail.
“Come,” she commanded.
The dog’s lip curled as its teeth bared. When it snarled menacingly, Mina retracted her outstretched hand, but the dog wasn’t growling at her. Mina turned to see Doyle standing a couple of yards away.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
The dog continued to growl at Doyle with its hackles raised.
Mina looked back at it. “I think I found the hunter from the cabin. Must be his dog. It led me right to the body.”
She heard the sound of a gun click and turned again. Doyle had aimed his rifle at the dog.
It snarled.
“It’s just scared!” Mina said.
“Get away from it.”
Mindful of the gun in Doyle’s hands, Mina dared not get closer to the animal and instead tried talking to it in soothing tones. “It’s okay, buddy. No one’s going to hurt you.” The dog gave a short bark and snapped at her. She quickly took a step back. “Don’t shoot it! It’s protecting its owner.”
Doyle lowered the gun for a second to reach for Mina’s arm, to pull her out of the way. The hound lunged. Doyle grunted as the heavy dog latched onto his right arm, pulling him to the ground.
The gun flew into the wet leaves, and Mina scrambled for it. Unable to reach the knife on his right hip, Doyle held off the dog with his left hand, but it quickly released his arm and lunged for his face instead. Doyle gripped the loose skin around the dog’s neck with both hands and pushed it back, rolling it to the side. Man and animal struggled. The dog bit anywhere it could, latching onto Doyle’s shoulder, terrifyingly close to his neck.
Mina had the rifle now, but she hesitated, afraid of hitting Doyle.
“Grab it!” Doyle yelled as the dog clawed at him. She dropped the gun and launched herself at them, grabbing the dog by the scruff to haul it off. The dog rounded on Mina with its teeth bared.
In the next second, Doyle had his knife in hand and had thrust it into the animal’s ribcage. The hound stopped mid-attack, twisting and falling to the ground with a sharp yelp. Standing, Doyle picked up the rifle. The dog snarled again. Mina turned away as he shot it.
When she looked back, Doyle bled profusely from his arm, and blood soaked his shirt near the shoulder. He must have twisted his ankle at some point, too, because when he spun around to walk up the slope, he grabbed a tree for support with his good arm. Mina took one more look at the dead man and his dog and hurried to help Doyle. She placed her hand on his back, giving Doyle support while she grabbed trees to pull herself up. They slowly reached the place where Mina had spotted the dog. From there, Doyle limped on his own back to the cabin.
As they climbed the steep steps, Mina instinctively put her left arm around Doyle’s waist to help him up the stairs, her other hand on his chest for support. At the first step, however, a rushing noise filled her ears, and the stairs swam in front of her. They abruptly came back into focus, yet she saw the image of the snarling dog as if it were on top of her, attacking. Startled, she shook her head to clear it and grasped the railing for support.
Doyle frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just a little lightheaded.” She tried to smile, but as soon as she wrapped her arm around Doyle again, the hound reappeared. When Mina grabbed the railing for the second time, Doyle disentangled himself from her and hopped up the stairs on his own, reaching out a hand to pull her up the last two. At the top, she felt better, like nothing had happened.
“Must be tired, I guess. That dog…” she trailed off.
Doyle looked at her strangely.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said before going inside. He hobbled around the cabin, opening drawers and cabinets. Mina, having already explored to her heart’s content, went to the bathroom and came out with a first aid kit.
Doyle eased himself onto a stool at the kitchen counter while Mina pulled out gauze and antiseptic wipes. She proceeded to clean his arm, pressing a bandage to the wound to stop the bleeding. The dog’s
teeth had shredded his skin in several places but not as badly as Mina had feared. No large chunks of flesh were missing. She packed on gauze and wrapped it tightly.
When she’d finished, she reached for Doyle’s torn shirtsleeve to look at his shoulder. He stood quickly, brushing away her hand.
“I can manage.” He stuffed the antiseptic and gauze back into the kit then grabbed one of the hunter’s t-shirts off the couch before limping to the bathroom and closing the door. A second later, the lock clicked.
Mina called through the door, “Are you okay?”
Doyle ignored her. Irritated, she stood at the kitchen sink and scrubbed the blood off her hands with more force than was necessary.
When Doyle emerged from the bathroom, he looked a little better. Moving stiffly, he glanced at Mina as he hobbled to the couch.
“I’m sorry,” she said hesitantly. “I’ve never seen a dog attack like that before. Do you think it had rabies?”
“No. Just a scared, starving dog.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” she said again.
Doyle examined the gauze on his arm. “Where did you learn to bandage wounds?”
“My godmother was a nurse. It’s something she had to do for her two sons more than once. They were always getting hurt. Did I not get it right?” Mina sat on the other end of the couch and faced him with her legs drawn under her.
“No, it’s perfect,” he admitted. “Your godmother?”
“I lived with my godparents for a few years.”
“You and your brother?”
“No, he was already off at college.”
“Why did you live with them?”
Mina propped her head on her hand and said softly, “I told you my mother left. I was eight then. Dad passed away from cancer when I was fourteen. Lincoln was twenty.”
“Were you close to him?”
“I visited him a lot when he was in grad school, before I went to college myself.”
Mina wondered where her godparents were now, but she didn’t dwell on the thought long. She wanted to look ahead, not behind, and thinking about her family only added to the weight in her chest.
Instead, Mina turned her attention to Doyle. He laid his head on the back of the couch with his eyes closed and his bandaged arm propped on a pillow. A new wave of regret washed over Mina, and she stood and walked to the bunk beds. If she had left the dog alone in the first place, Doyle would be okay, and so would the dog.
Even though there was plenty of daylight left, Mina lay on one of the bottom bunks. Her body relaxed into the thin mattress. She fell asleep without meaning to, and when she woke, the cabin was dark. Doyle slept on the other bottom bunk, his head close to hers. A blanket covered her, but she didn’t remember reaching for it. She pulled it closer around her shoulders and went back to sleep.
In the morning, Mina woke first. Doyle always got up before her, so she watched him carefully for a moment. His chest rose and fell softly, his breathing regular. Mina went outside to lean on the porch railings. The porch faced due east, and soon, it flooded with yellow sunshine as the sun rose over the ghostly mist covering the valley. The door opened, and Doyle joined her, combing his fingers through his unkempt hair before leaning on the railing beside her. She smiled at him and turned back to the sunrise.
“I wish we could stay here,” she whispered. Doyle took a breath as if he was about to comment, but she preempted him. “No, don’t tell me why we can’t. I just want to enjoy standing here, looking at this view.”
Doyle furrowed his brow but held his tongue. Mina breathed in the scent of wet earth as the sun warmed her face. She ignored Doyle for a while, enjoying the quiet. Finally, she looked at him.
“What are we doing out here?” she asked quietly. “What’s going to happen to us? I think about that man and his dog, and I wonder if that’s how it will end. He was prepared. He had shelter, food, water, and he died. No matter what we do to survive, ultimately it won’t be enough.”
Doyle rubbed his chest. “You didn’t know that dog would attack. Don’t give in yet. Things can change.”
“How? How can they change?” Mina didn’t want to argue with him. If he held some hope, she wanted a piece of it.
Doyle glanced at her hand resting on the railing then turned back to the sunrise and said, “It’ll get easier.”
“I can’t figure you out. You’ve saved my life and protected me when I made stupid mistakes, all at your own expense, yet you act like you can’t stand the sight of me. Why even bother?”
Mina wasn’t surprised when Doyle didn’t answer. He studied his bandage as if he found it interesting. Blood had soaked through the gauze during the night. Now, it was dark and dried. At least he wasn’t still bleeding. She didn’t know much first aid beyond what she had already done.
“I’m going down to bury that man’s body today and the dog’s,” she said.
Doyle sighed. “I’ll go with you. Don’t argue. You seem to be attracting trouble lately.”
This time, Mina needed all day to find rocks to pack up the hill. After watching her for a while, Doyle hobbled over to the dog and covered it with the stones she’d brought. When they finished, Mina found a small sharp rock and scratched an epitaph into the boulder above the mounds:
A man who inspired loyalty beyond the grave
And his best friend who made the ultimate sacrifice.
“You were right,” the male hybrid reported. “There’s a large camp over the ridge. A thousand, maybe fifteen hundred people.”
“Armed?” Calla asked.
“Most of them.”
“Then that’s where we need to be. The rogues won’t have been able to resist an armed camp. They’ll be there, trying to take control.” Calla rested in the low crook of a fallen tree, one boot on the massive trunk, the other dangling off the ground. Her dark hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail that accentuated her high cheekbones and pale skin. The three hybrids waited for the signal to move.
“Will they really want to control the humans? We weren’t created for that.”
“You know as well as I do,” Calla said, “that in the absence of someone to lead them, the hybrids will go looking for power. When they aren’t controlled, they seek to control.”
Calla silently expanded her thoughts into the afternoon sun, feeling her way through the trees to what she wanted. What she yearned for. She needed Dar Ceylin to witness her crush the tiny rebellion without his help. Calla dreamed of him showing up too late to get the glory.
No answer, though. She sensed only those with her, no one else.
“Dar Ceylin’s not coming,” one of them said.
“You underestimate him,” she replied.
“Such confidence,” he said scathingly. “I do not believe he couldn’t catch Halston.”
Calla’s voice darkened. “He’ll be here.”
The hybrid did not argue further.
Calla slid off the tree and checked her laces. Then she left. The three followed her, wading into the shade of the trees in complete silence.
“Are you going to summon the Condarri?” one of them asked hours later.
“Not yet. I want to be sure we’ve found all the rogues first. I will hunt them down one by one if I have to.”
They hiked in silence again, the world growing dark. At midnight, Calla halted. The smell of hundreds of campfires wafted down the valley.
“Fools,” the one on her right said.
“It makes no difference. They’re not what we came for.” Once again, Calla reached out to sense her surroundings. There. An answer. Not Dar Ceylin but someone else. Unguarded, surprised. Williams.
Then, he disappeared. The three next to her sensed him, too.
“If Williams doesn’t meet us?” one asked.
“Then he is dead where he sleeps.”
Before dawn, she sensed him again. The burly, red-haired man found them as they broke camp. One of the three pulled his gun and stood behind, closing off the newcomer’s exit.
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Calla stood. “Why did you not immediately respond?”
“I didn’t know it was you,” Williams answered.
“Liar.”
Williams shook his head as he eyed the gun. “There are others in this camp, but I haven’t found all of them.”
“Then you are worthless to me. You’re only trying to save your own skin.”
“No. The rogues plan to unite in West Virginia! And I can give names. Halston.”
“So Halston is here.” Calla fought to conceal her eagerness. “And?”
“And another.”
“Who?”
Williams laughed. “I’m not telling you yet.”
“Traitor!” Calla drew her knife, dark-steeled and superbly sharp.
“No. Survivor. I’m not certain who it is yet, but he’s here. If he weren’t rogue, he would have made himself known.”
“And if you were rogue,” said one of the others, “you would intentionally lead us astray.” He drew his knife as well and held it to Williams’s throat. “Why didn’t you report this camp already?”
“Why haven’t you reported it?” he shot back.
“Enough!” Calla commanded. “We will return. When we do, I want names and your allegiance.”
“You already have that. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“We’ll see,” she mused. “I will give you a chance to prove yourself because you are in a unique position to be useful.”
Williams said, “Until you return, then.” And he left.
“How do you know he won’t run?” asked the one to Calla’s left.
The clouds shifted, allowing a shaft of moonlight to filter through the trees. She angled her knife to catch the light. “Because if he does, I’ll find you first and make an example of you for all to see.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re going to follow him.”
He nodded, grabbed his gear, and headed after Williams into the new dawn.
Two days passed, and Calla grew weary of waiting and summoned her man back to her. They had stayed hidden near the human encampment, sheltering beneath a thick stand of trees.
“The rogues in camp seem nervous,” her spy said. “No one is showing himself. Maybe Williams was lying.”
