Deadliest of the Species

by Michael Oliveri

  “You better take this,” Bart said, handing him his spare magazine.

  Tim exchanged them quickly, and put the other in his pocket. He would count the remaining bullets later.

  Bart felt a surge of relief as they reached the cave entrance. The sunlight streaming through the opening called to him, the darkness of the cave suddenly oppressive and stifling. They froze, however, when a shadow blocked out the sunbeams. He feared the satyr returned, though the shadow seemed much smaller.

  “You see anything yet?” asked a female voice.

  “Not yet. You really think those were gunshots?” This voice closer, likely from the person casting the shadow.

  “Almost positive.”

  “I thought the sheriff was the only male allowed to have a weapon?”

  “That’s the way it’s supposed to work. But you know how sneaky some of these fuckers have been in the past.”

  “Should we go in after them?”

  Tim slowly cocked the hammer back on the pistol, doing his best to keep the clicking quiet.

  “No. Wait until the others arrive. All we have to do is make sure the men don’t come out. If they’ve gotten the better of Sharon and the others, there’s not going to be a whole lot you and I can do if we go in there. Besides, I told Sharon she should wait for the others. She’s so impatient.”

  Tim leaned closer to the entrance, raising the pistol but keeping out of the light. The shadow shifted as the source turned away and walked further up the slope.

  “You would be too if you were a candidate for the Inner Circle.”

  Tim leaned into the entrance and aimed the pistol up toward the open air. Bart moved to grab him and drag him back, but Tim motioned for him to back off. Bart, albeit reluctantly, stood his ground. He fidgeted nervously as he watched Tim move into a better position.

  “That doesn’t give her the right to be such a bitch. She’s almost as bossy as my husband used to be.” The other woman chuckled softly.

  Tim took a deep breath and tried to alter his mindset. Not murder, he told himself. The .45 in his grip was a BB gun, just like the one he had as a kid. He pictured the witches as Barbie dolls just like the ones he used to steal from the neighbor girls and stand against the fence as if they were criminals facing a firing squad. After one more deep breath, he sprang to a standing position, leading with the pistol.

  One woman screamed at his sudden appearance. The other turned around too late to react. Tim aimed and fired. The pistol barked twice. Tim shifted his aim. The pistol barked twice more.

  The first two shots struck the screaming women in the chest and knocked her down. The third shot whacked into the dirt wall of the sinkhole, but the fourth struck the second woman in the shoulder. She spun with the impact and fell onto her face. She yelped and clambered up the slope with her good arm and legs.

  Tim climbed out of the hole and gave chase, stomping on her back and pinning her to the ground. Before he could think about it and give himself pause, he fired one more round into the back of the woman’s head. He stepped ahead of both bodies, keeping his eyes from the sight and trying hard not to think about what he just did. His stomach gurgled. He shut his eyes against the splash of blood on his shoe and pant leg.

  “Good Lord,” Bart muttered behind him. He stepped up and took Tim by the arm. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before we manage to get ourselves into even more trouble.”

  “As if that were really possible.”

  They walked into the forest and headed toward town, careful to move around the usual paths and trails to avoid any witches on their way to help their associates in the caves.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sebastian charged angrily through the trees as he clutched the wound in his left biceps. The human’s bullet tore through his muscle and fortunately missed the bone. With the application of pressure and a little magic he stopped the bleeding, but the pain messed up his concentration too much to fully heal the wound. He made his way to Alexandra’s so she could heal it the rest of the way.

  He also wanted to protect his child. It would be born any day now, and the anxiety to at last witness the birth of a satyr took its toll upon even his nearly unlimited patience. The rebellious men made it even worse.

  The men should not have been allowed to get away with this for so long. The witches were losing the battle, and their incompetence could not be tolerated. He personally set flame to the pile of guns the women collected following the first fights years ago, and Alexandra assured him every gun in town, with the exception of the sheriff’s (who was to be loyal to the witches and help the women keep a rein on the other men), had all been collected.

  Obviously they were mistaken or they lied. And if the repair man still had a weapon, it was quite feasible that any number of the others managed to conceal their arms as well.

  Alexandra’s house appeared between the trees, and he saw she posted guards around the house as he ordered. He decided to test the guards’ reactions. The branches and brush around him rustled slightly as he approached, and to his satisfaction the three women milling about in the back yard came to investigate. As he stepped out of the brush he felt a surge of energy as they began to channel their magic.

  The surge disappeared as fast as it rose as the recognized their master and called off their spells. They bowed their heads in a proper show of courtesy and respect, though he noticed their surreptitious glances at his wound. He ignored them and strode across the yard to the patio window.

  Alexandra met him at the door.

  “Sebastian! What happened?” she asked. He pushed past her and stomped into the dining room, his hooves clopping loudly on the linoleum.

  “I’ve been shot,” he muttered angrily as he pulled out one of the chairs and sat down. She gawped at him, shocked that he entered the house.

  “The repair man has a handgun,” he said, accenting the last word with scorn.

  “I apologize.” She eased herself into a chair beside him and scooted up dose to examine the gash in his arm.

  “You look tired,” he said, noticing the dark lines around her bloodshot eyes.

  “I haven’t slept well. We’ve put every effort into trying to find the troublemakers.” She concentrated her will on the wound, coaxing his body to speed up the healing process and dose it up.

  “I see it’s going well,” he said with heavy sarcasm. “Hopefully your comrades will do a more thorough job with the capture than they did with the firearms.”

  She restrained her anger as best she could, partially out of respect and partially to prevent it from fouling her magical healing. “You do not have to rub it in my face. I’m not a dog for you to—”

  “They found him,” he said harshly, cutting her off. “A number of your witches were right behind me, and I did not hear any more gunshots as they pursued Wilder and his partner.”

  “Then maybe they’re on their way back right now, with the men in custody.”

  “Don’t underestimate them,” he admonished her. “They’re armed. They have also been hiding in a cave all this time. A cave which none of us, including myself, knew existed.”

  “No wonder we could not find them.” That explained the late night Jeep ride the men took. Perhaps it also explained some of the disappearances of other men over time. “We assumed they took shelter with some of the other men here in town.”

  “They are causing a lot of trouble. I know of the ravens and the cats.” She finished her work, leaving not a trace of the wound. He raised his arm and pivoted worked his shoulder a few times.

  “It will be only a matter of time before we have them,” she said soothingly. “This is just a nuisance. Afterwards, things can get back to normal.” She snaked a hand across his thigh and up between his legs to stroke him. He stiffened, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away.

  “No!” he said harshly, placing her hand on the table. “Not until the child comes,” he added quickly.

  But she saw the truth in his eyes, the revulsio
n at the thought of himself entering a pregnant woman. When he looked away and rose from the chair, she smiled to herself. The same thing happened every time she had been pregnant, and he always concealed his revulsion under the pretense of protecting the unborn children.

  “I’m going outside. But I’m not leaving your home. I will stay and help protect you. If they escape the other women they will come here soon.”

  She shut the door behind him as he walked outside. He walked directly to one of the women posted at the back yard. He spoke to her briefly, then she accompanied him into the trees.

  Alexandra’s elation at discovering his revulsion faded, then gave way to jealousy when she heard the woman’s squeal of pleasure from the trees. He did this on purpose, she told herself, and it was partially her own fault for turning him on.

  No matter. When they caught Wilder and his benefactors, and this blasted baby came out of her womb, he would belong only to her.

  * * *

  Archer loomed over his wife. He smoked a cigarette and weighed his options. He inhaled deeply, held the smoke for a moment, then released it forcefully through his nostrils. The cloud drifted downward to lightly kiss the top of his wife’s head before disintegrating.

  She was far beyond noticing. She still breathed, but just barely. She never regained consciousness during the two days since he beat and bound her, and he did not bother to attempt to feed her. The lowered water level probably resulted from evaporation rather than her waking and drinking it. Dried trails of blood coursed down her lip, nose, and ear, and the swollen red bruises on her face and body turned an ugly shade of purple-black.

  He thought her beautiful once. But now, pummeled hideous and likely in a coma, he compared her to a deer struck by a truck but still alive, a deer waiting for that merciful bullet through the forehead.

  Archer stubbed his cigarette out on the sink and sat on the edge of the tub. Earlier in the afternoon he considered trying to wake her and torture her some more. After further thought he decided two hours of punches and kicks and two days in a coma was ample compensation for the past several years of hell she put him through. Not to mention the years of fighting and arguments previous to that.

  How ironic, he thought, that they moved to Rapture to get a fresh start. He wondered if she felt the same way, if some glimmer of consciousness still lingered in her battered head to feel the pain and ponder the situation.

  He started to wonder how to go about ending her life, and her breath hitched. Her eyelids fluttered briefly but never opened. A few gasps later her breathing stopped completely.

  He stared at her for a moment, then dug his cigarette pack from his pocket and slapped the end against his palm a few times. He gave the pack a quick shake and extended one cigarette from the opening, a move that most made look easy but took him several months to perfect. He pulled it free with his mouth and lit it.

  His emotions ranged from pain and grief to triumph and relief in the span of two cigarettes. As he smoked the first, he shed a single tear for the woman he married, the woman he loved from the first day he met her. They had their problems, like any couple, but they loved one another and persevered. He left her behind the moment they set foot in Rapture.

  He wiped away the tear when he lit the second cigarette, and pondered the woman Rapture made her. Her disposition did a complete about face shortly after the welcoming committee invited her to one of their functions. He knew she could never go back to the woman she once was. It was finally over. He planned on killing her anyway, but the sudden growth of gonads amongst the others finally gave him an excuse to act.

  He flicked the butt of that last cigarette into the tepid, crimson-tinged bathwater. His next problem was disposing of the body. Bury her in the forest? Stash her in the basement or the attic? Burn her? Flush her down the toilet a piece at a time? A lot of that worked in the movies, but he had a city of women keeping an eye on him every time he set foot out the door. As to cutting her into tiny pieces, he doubted he had the stomach for it.

  And what if the toilet backed up? he thought with a wry grin.

  The doorbell brought him out of his thoughts. He scattered the small mound of ashes that collected beneath him with a kick, then crumpled his now-empty cigarette pack and tossed it in the garbage can under the sink. The doorbell rang again, twice, followed immediately by banging on the door.

  Archer’s heart pounded in his chest so furiously that feared it would break out and run away on its own. It was as if it knew the witches waited at the door, that they would tear it from his chest the moment they found his wife in the tub, so it figured on saving them the effort and sparing itself the pain. Archer shut the bathroom door and moved down the steps, planning to hurry out the back door and sprint to the next block.

  “Scratch that,” he muttered when he spotted the buck-toothed woman from up the block peering through the door window. She spotted him and pointed angrily at the door. He was tempted to punch a fist straight through the window and knock those teeth through the back of her head, but the movement of other shadows in the background kept his temper in check.

  He opened the door a crack. “Evening ladies. What can I do for you?”

  Bucktooth kicked the door open with surprising strength and stepped inside. “We’re searching every house. We’re looking for Tim Wilder and Bart Josephsen.” She looked up the stairs and down the halls as her companions came in behind her. “Where’s your wife?”

  “I don’t know,” he said sharply. She glared at him. “I haven’t seen her since this morning,” he continued more evenly.

  The glare continued for a moment, and he struggled to keep his expression calm. Finally, without a word, she broke it off and started up the steps. The other women disappeared up the hall to his left or into the living room to his right. He took two nervous steps backward onto the front stoop. Hearing no reaction from within, he turned and sprinted down the street.

  * * *

  Lucas idly fiddled with his badge as he climbed back into his cruiser. The seat had an uncomfortable sag in the back, pressed there from years of supporting his dead father’s bulk. He also left food and beverage stains all over the seat and dashboard. The threadbare floor mats showed worn metal through gaping holes. He often figured the only thing his father did take care of was the engine, which ran very well despite treading on the two-hundred-thousand mile mark. In a small town like Rapture, that meant a lot of cruising.

  He made his second circuit of the town for the day and paid little attention to the groups of women making their way up the streets from house to house. While he too searched for Bart and Tim—word spread quickly that the two “rebels” had been chased from their hole in the ground—his motives were entirely different. He just hoped to find them first. Or, just as well, that they would spot him and flag him down.

  When he first saw Tim, back when he slaved away at Hera’s, Lucas did not think much of him. Just another unfortunate man who took a wrong turn and who the witches would make short work of. Chew him up, spit him out, and nobody would ever see him again. He was pleasantly surprised a few days later when Tim got the better of his father in the church.

  Surprised and grateful. He felt no grief as he watched his father buried, as old Sheriff McGruder traded in his balls for a little bit of power. He bullied the men around town almost as much as the witches did, and whenever one of the women came by he buried his nose in her ass. It disgusted him more than anything else, and when Tierney and the others suggested trying to turn Lucas’s father to their side, Lucas literally laughed at the idea.

  His father forced him into the job at Hera’s, and that was the second reason he was glad Tim killed his father. Every time the women came in he had to put up with their little tricks and games, A thousand times and more he swore revenge and designed little plots in his head to kill a number of them.

  He felt ashamed that Tim witnessed the scene when Alexandra made him lick her foot. His cheeks burned red even with the memory. Once he took over
the sheriff position, things changed. The women viewed him as a fellow enforcer, keeping the other males in line as his father did. They did not necessarily like him, but at least they stopped picking on him.

  As far as he could tell they never suspected his duplicity. Several times he imagined himself cruising down the street, casually leveling his shotgun out the window and gunning down a jogging or gardening woman. He knew better than to act on such whims, but now that Tim and Bart started stirring things up again, he might have his chance. He just had to find them first, and bide his time for the right moment.

  Shadows blanketed the valley in the time between when the sun dropped below the valley walls and true nightfall. Even under normal circumstances, with the streetlamps and lit houses, it gave the town an eerie appearance. But now, with everything in shades of gray but what his headlights illuminated, Lucas shivered in his seat. The changing depth of the shadows created illusory motion, and he constantly found himself flicking his eyes back and forth down every street.

  He stopped at one corner, about to dismiss yet another shadow, when he suddenly realized it had substance and came running at the car. He squealed as it wrenched open the passenger door.

  “Lucas!” The dome light removed the shadow from Archer’s bulky form as he climbed in and pulled the door shut. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Luc blinked in surprise, then pressed down the accelerator. Archer sighed heavily, then reached over to remove the shotgun from its ring at the center of the dashboard.

  “What did you do?” Lucas asked him.

  “What?”

  “What did you do?” He nodded toward the shotgun in Archer’s hands. “I figure with you all out of breath and your hands and knees all dirty, on top of the way you quite literally pounced on that shotgun there, you’re running from the witches.”

  “You’re a much better cop than your old man ever was, kid,” Archer replied. He considered how much of the story he should share with him, and how many of the details to include. If Lucas did not have the stomach to carry out the rest of Bart’s plans, he may fall back on his sheriff role and feed Archer to the witches. He held the shotgun if Lucas’s reaction proved less than desirable. With his pistol strapped into its holster, the young sheriff could never get the drop on him. What better gauge of trust than the whole truth?