Deadliest of the Species

by Michael Oliveri

  With any luck, most of the cats and birds would be dead by morning. That would give them a little more freedom to move about town and the woods. If all went well, they hoped to rest up in town tomorrow night, in a real bed.

  At the sinkhole, they paused at the perimeter of the trees and surveyed the clearing. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, they sprinted across the clearing and scrambled down the slope to the cave entrance. They lifted away two of the covering boards and set them aside. Bart hopped in first, then Tim lowered himself in and scattered loose dirt and rocks over the boards. He then carefully lifted and swung them into place over the hole, careful not to dump their contents. Through the small gap that remained he heaved more dirt upon the boards, especially toward the edges to conceal the angular corners.

  “If we were smart,” Tim said, “we would get some glue and coat the boards good. Then we wouldn’t have to worry so much about covering up behind ourselves.”

  “It won’t matter after tomorrow,” Bart replied, already making his way deeper into the passages.

  “Provided we live through tomorrow night.” When the really rough stuff begins, he added silently. He crawled behind Bart.

  “I was trying to be optimistic. No point in being down about it.”

  “Yeah, I suppose so.” They made up some sandwiches and ate in silence, then settled in for the night. Having grown accustomed to the cold, hard ground, they fell asleep quickly.

  * * *

  The young ladies of Rapture, as they walked to school the next morning, discovered the dead cats first. Some found their own cats, while others found their friends’ or neighbors’. Almost without exception, the youngest of the girls ran home to their mothers in tears. Within a half hour, their mothers made their way up and down the streets and gathered the dead animals. They emptied what little remained of the antifreeze into the sewer grates and discarded the Tupperware containers in nearby trash bins. They planned to cremate the cats in the early afternoon while most of the children, having been calmed by their mothers, went to school.

  One party of women made their way to the motel to look for more cats, and noticed the peculiar silence and lack of activity in the surrounding trees. They stopped their cars and climbed out to investigate. Some gasped and some shrieked when they found the flock of crows scattered beneath the trees, all stone dead. Some rested on their backs, their feet thrust into the air, while others lie sprawled, their wings spread to their full span.

  One of the women noticed the bits of spoiled meat spread around the morbid scene. She crouched down and looked closer, and noticed the slight sparkle of some kind of powder in the meat. She knew the same men that poisoned the cats must also have seen to the fate of the ravens.

  Before long, the commotion in the neighborhood woke Gretchen and she went outside to find out what was happening. Perhaps wisely, she decided she should be the one to notify Alexandra of the events. Without bothering to change from her nightclothes, she drove to Alexandra’s house and filled her in.

  As expected, Alexandra burned with anger. She sat at the table, but with a few words and gestures she sent fully half her glassware flying around the kitchen and, piece by piece, smashed it into the wall, ceiling, or floor. One dish caromed off the side of a cupboard and smashed through the kitchen window.

  “Fucking murderers!” she hissed after bits of shattered glass covered most of the kitchen floor.

  Gretchen took it all in stride, fiddling with an unlit cigarette. Such outbursts were not uncommon from Alexandra. She winced a few times at the noise, but knew she would be unharmed. When the tantrum passed, she finally spoke. “How do you want to handle it?”

  “Get as many of the girls together as you can. Blanket the entire town. Search house to house if you have to! If they’re not found, dig up the entire forest!”

  Gretchen rose from the table. “You got it.” She felt no less anger at the loss of the cats and birds than Alexandra, but she blamed herself and the other women as much as Wilder and Josephsen. The past year had been quiet, even considering the arrival of Timothy. The coven grew rather lax in their day-to-day administration of the town, and now they paid for it.

  She also guessed the men were just getting warmed up for the real revolt. The cats and the birds were only the first casualties.

  Gretchen went outside and lit her cigarette, only half aware of Alexandra’s curses raging on through the dosed door. After a few drags, she got back into her car. She planned to pick up a few of the girls, go home and change, then get started.

  If they did not find the men responsible by nightfall, she would have to talk Alexandra into preparing for further violence.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Gus just started cracking eggs into a pan for a late breakfast when the knock at the door came. He went to answer it immediately, though already his visitors pounded impatiently and started the window rattling. He worked quickly to release the multiple locks and twisted the handle, only to have the door kicked open. It smashed into his face and he stumbled against the wall. Three women pushed their way in as he slid down the wall to the floor. Tears flooded his eyes. He clamped both hands over his bleeding nose.

  “Check the back rooms,” one woman barked. The other women went through the kitchen, then down the hall. “You,” she said, turning to Gus. Her beady eyes gleamed with anger. She pushed her hair out of her eyes as she leaned down over him. “You were at the church last night. What’s going on? What are you men trying to pull?”

  “N-n-nothing! I swear! I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Panic gripped him. Oh God he did not want to die…

  “Bullshit! Don’t lie to me!” She grabbed the front of his shirt and thumped him against the wall for emphasis. “You left the church and killed those cats, didn’t you? What’s next? You going to come after us?”

  Gus barely kept his bowels from releasing as he made his best attempt to shrink into the wall. He squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away as more tears mingled with the blood pouring down his face. “We didn’t do anything! You killed our friends! We were praying for them!” Pain rattled his brittle bones, and a sudden headache flared in the back of his skull. He feared he was having a stroke. Unsure of how much more he would be able to take, he hoped she would give up soon. He would hate himself forever if he inadvertently turned in the others.

  She slammed him against the wall again, even harder this time, and stood. “If I find out you’re lying. I’ll personally come back and cut your balls off.”

  The other women returned to the living room. “There’s nobody else here. The place is clean.”

  Gus tried to gauge the woman’s reaction. She glared at him for a moment, then drew back a foot as if to kick him. He flinched and attempted to scrabble back out of the way, but he had nowhere to go. She watched him for a moment, then lowered her foot. She made a scissor-like gesture with two fingers, spat on him, then stormed out with her companions in tow.

  Gus pushed the door closed with his foot. He slumped against the wall and cried. It took him several minutes to regain his full composure and stop hyperventilating. His head and chest still hurt like hell. He used the sofa arm to get back to his feet.

  If the women knew he was part of the group at the church, they probably knew who the others were as well. And if one of those guys turned Bart and Tim in to save their own asses…

  “I’m coming, Bart,” he said as he stepped into his shoes. “Don’t worry old friend, I’m coming.”

  He could not do much more than warn him, but at least that would give Bart and Tim a fighting chance. He grabbed his jacket from the couch and went outside. He looked up and down the alleyway to make sure the women left, then hurried down to the car. He pulled into traffic, where carloads of women patrolled the streets and moved from house to house. Despite nasty glares and suspicious glances, he made it to the edge of town without incident.

  Most of his friends called Gus’s car an “old boat,” but at times like this he was glad he
had never traded it in. The newer coupes would never make it over the curb and onto the grass like he now did. He accelerated gently across the grass, trying not to leave too obvious a trail.

  He had been out to the cave only once, but figured he could still find the Jeep trail out to the cliff face. A hundred yards in, however, and he suddenly found out why they called it a Jeep trail. His front wheels rolled into a shallow dip and the undercarriage of the car dug into the ground. The weight of the “old boat” locked it firmly in place. He tried rocking back and forth to get out, but the more he hit the accelerator, the deeper the wheels dug into the ground.

  Cursing, he killed the engine and pocketed his keys before leaving the car. He looked around to make sure nobody spotted him, then moved off on foot. He moved as fast as he could, but at his age that amounted to little more than a slow, barely-maintained jog.

  * * *

  Tim woke up screaming in pain. He clutched his groin and rolled on his back. His cries echoed up and down the passageways.

  “What’s the matter?” Bart asked, his voice panicked. Tim barely heard him rummaging through the darkness for a flashlight.

  “It would appear our plans are going as we hoped, and Alexandra has found out about the cats.”

  “That’s great!”

  “Thanks a lot, you dick,” Tim muttered. He loosened his pants in a futile attempt to lessen the pain.

  “I meant ‘great’ in regards to our progress, not your balls,” Bart replied, grinning in the darkness. “Sorry, man.”

  “Fuck, this hurts,” Tim went on. “First she gives me the stonies. Then, she gets pregnant and I wind up with the blue balls. Now this. I should just lop ’em off and hand ’em to her!”

  Bart, unable to help himself, burst out laughing.

  “Thanks again for that overwhelming support,” Tim said through clenched teeth. Still, the humor of their exchange struck him and he laughed as well. The pain reasserted itself with a twinge. “God damn it that hurts!”

  “I wonder what’s going on in town,” Bart said, changing the subject for both their benefits.

  Tim laid on his back, spreadeagle, and found that the pain, while still considerable, was not as bad as when he sat up. “You would know better than I. I may have lived with her for nine months or so, but all I could tell you is she is very devoted to her beliefs and has one hell of a temper.”

  “Well, now that you put it that way…” He considered for a moment. “I would say that there’s a manhunt going on. Obviously she’s pissed, and now she wants us dead. If we get caught, there’ll be no mercy.”

  Tim grunted in assent, then closed his eyes and did his best to forget the pain.

  As the soft echoes of their conversation faded, he heard another sound. He sat up and cocked an ear to one side. “You hear that?”

  There was silence for a moment. “Hear what?” Bart asked him.

  “Shh. Keep listening.”

  For several moments they heard nothing. Bart took in a breath to speak just as an echo reached his ears. He shifted gears. “Sounds like somebody shouting,” he whispered.

  “Yeah.” Reluctantly, Tim got to his feet and refastened his pants and belt, then groped for the narrow passage that opened onto their alcove. He cocked one ear toward the opening. “There it is again. Somebody’s calling us.”

  “Oh, shit,” Bart proclaimed, not bothering to whisper. “That’s Gus! If he’s shouting from the entrance, and we can hear him all the way in here…”

  “…then how far is his voice carrying into the forest!?” they finished together. “Let’s go!” Bart flicked on the flashlight. It grew dim on their last set of batteries, but Bart did his best to aim it ahead of Tim. Both men fervently hoped they got to Gus before somebody else did.

  * * *

  Sharon Ryback, an up-and-comer in the coven soon to be an inductee into the Inner Circle, served the twins in various manners, assisted Gretchen with various tasks, and dutifully obeyed any other orders by the rest of the members of the Inner Circle, She shed no tears when her abusive husband was killed shortly after their arrival in Rapture, and she poisoned her twenty-year-old son several years later when he became involved in the protests. She raised her daughter according to the Earth Mother’s teachings and, now that her daughter came of age, she made sure the girl took her proper place in the coven.

  Alexandra held the remaining vote to allow her admittance. Sharon just needed to make sure she gained favorable status to the coven’s de-facto leader.

  And what better way to do that than personally track down the errant stranger and bring him to Alexandra, especially now that she wanted him so badly?

  When she saw the old man from the grocery store’s car (she never spoke to the man, and never bothered to even get his name) stuck in the narrow track through the forest, she got excited. The others already fingered him as having been in attendance at the mysterious prayer meeting before the poisoning of the animals. Why else would he be in the forest other than to find his co-conspirators?

  “This way, ladies,” she said to the six women accompanying her. She waved a hand over her shoulder for emphasis. “It looks like we’ve got somebody that will lead us straight to our troublemakers.”

  “Er, shouldn’t we get some help? Or something?” a young woman named Melinda asked. She graduated with Sharon’s daughter, and by some miracle she made it into the coven. Melinda had little stomach for most of the witches’ activities and practices, and even the idea of bloodshed made her squeamish.

  “Fine. Go back to town and tell the others where we’re going. I’m sure we’ll manage without you.”

  “Okay,” Melinda said, visibly relieved. She must have missed the note of scorn in Sharon’s voice. She ran back up the path toward town.

  Sharon briefly considered shouting at or threatening the girl for her cowardice, but was happy just to have the girl out of her sight. Melinda would likely be of very little use in the inevitable violence when they found the men, and she thought it best word that word got to Alexandra as soon as possible. Sharon wanted her to be there when she came out of the forest with the men in tow.

  She led the others deeper into the forest. At various points in the path they found the grass had been worn away by the passage of the utility Jeep. It should have been clear to the old man that his car could never make it this far into the forest. It occurred to her then that she really had no idea where the path ultimately led, or even if the old man even followed it to its terminus. She saw a few other points where a vehicle may have made it through the trees, but there saw no sign of any passage. At least not recent, anyway.

  The cliff wall, barely visible through the canopy of trees, loomed higher and higher and still there was no sign of the old man. Or anyone else for that matter. She reconsidered the wisdom of allowing Melinda to spread the news that they found the rebellious men when she heard the high, whiny voice crying out in the distance.

  “The Earth Mother has smiled upon us, girls,” she said cheerfully. They continued forward, and several more of the old man’s cries gave her a good idea of his direction. She led them toward the shouts at a dead run, oblivious to the thorns and brambles pricking at their clothing.

  * * *

  “Shut up!” Tim shouted as he rushed through the narrow rock passages.

  “Gus! Stop yelling!” Bart yelled behind him.

  Despite a handful of bruises, some badly scraped knuckles on Tim’s left hand, and a banged shin on Bart, they made it to the cave entrance in what surely made record time. Sunlight stabbed through the opening and into their eyes as they closed on the hole, still calling out to Gus.

  “There you are,” Gus said, oblivious to their breathless urgency as he stood over them. “I was starting to worry.”

  “Are you nuts?” Bart demanded, leaning into the entrance pit and shielding his eyes against the light. “You’ve probably got half the town bearing down on us with all that shouting!”

  “Well what did you want me to
do?” Gus demanded indignantly. “I can’t climb in there! I’ve been out here nearly half an hour! I had to get steadily louder to catch your attention! Besides, how do you think I feel out here in the open?”

  “A lot better than we would be if someone caught you and snuck up on us while we slept!”

  “Hey!” Tim said sharply. “What’s done is done! Gus, what did you come here for?”

  As Tim and Bart pulled themselves out of the cave, Gus quickly outlined the situation with the dead animals and the angry witches. The news of the house-to-house searches being conducted concerned them, mostly because it put a number of other men in danger. Unlike the two of them, the others did not have a place to hole up until things blew over.

  “Sounds like we were right,” Tim commented. “Now what?”

  “We go forward as planned,” Bart told him. “Gus, get back to town as quick as you can. Try to spread the word to the others that things will continue as planned. These searches are only a setback, and most of the guys should make it through alright.”

  “What if they impose a curfew on all men? Like last time?” Gus asked.

  “If they’re still willing to go on with the plan, they’re not going to worry about some silly curfew.”

  “I suppose,” Gus said, though he did not sound very convinced.

  Tim wondered if the old man’s confidence faltered. “C’mon. Let’s make sure you don’t have any surprises waiting for you up top.” He and Bart climbed made their way up the slope of the sinkhole with Gus between them. Gus panted and wheezed, but he managed. They crossed part of the clear space between the hole and the forest before sending him on his way.

  “Be careful, now,” Bart told him. “And take your time. We need you to get word back to the others.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Gus grumbled. He moved for the trees muttering under his breath.

  “Christ,” Bart spat as they turned back.

  “Relax,” Tim told him. “He was just trying to be helpful. Besides—”