The Caitlin Chronicles Boxed Set

by Michael Anderle

  They explored the factory one more time, studying the floor and looking for any possible idea of where the others might have gone until they were forced to take a seat and weigh their options.

  “Do we just head back?” Belle asked.

  Vex considered this. The idea made him angry. “And what? Remain as babysitters to a town that can handle itself? I’d rather offer myself to the Mad right here and now.” He leaned down and hovered his hand in front of the smashed-up skull of a Mad on the floor.

  “Ew, stop that,” Belle said, slapping his hand away. “What other choice do we have?”

  A shadow passed in front of the open door of the factory—a small, fast movement that immediately caught his attention.

  “Did you see that?” Vex asked, standing and holding the hilt of his blade.

  “What?”

  “Something moved out there.”

  Belle rolled her eyes. “Probably another Mad.” She cupped her hands to her mouth. “Hey! You out there. Show yourselves!”

  “Is that helpful?”

  Belle shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  Sure enough, something appeared in the doorway. Half a small head showed at first. One golden eye was soon followed by the other as a small wolf cub poked its head towards them and sniffed the air.

  Belle waved her arms excitedly, squealing as she did so. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”

  Vex chuckled at the ridiculousness of her movements. “Women,” he muttered.

  “Aw. C’mon, you big softie. Even you’ve got to admit he’s adorable.”

  “How do you know it’s a he?” Vex asked, squinting to try and get a peek at the cub’s private parts. He took a small step forward, and the animal disappeared.

  Belle slapped his arm. “Nice one. Now you’ve scared it away. Can you treat anything gently, or is it all about brute force with you?”

  “Try me in the bedroom. Maybe you’ll find out then.” He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows lasciviously.

  “I’d rather piss on a fire ant hill then lie down,” Belle replied, bending to the floor and clicking the side of her mouth. “Here, boy. Where’d ya go? It’s okay.”

  Sure enough, the eyes appeared again. A tongue lolled out the side of the cub’s mouth, and it stepped fully into the entrance. Its eyes flicked from Belle to Vex and back again before it lowered its head to its front paws and hopped around excitedly. Its tail wagged furiously behind it.

  “He’s so excited! Look,” Belle said, the glee on her face unbelievable. “Quick, have you got any food?”

  “Hold on, let me just pull some out of my ass,” Vex said dryly.

  Belle glared at Vex. “Oh! Hold on,” she said as she dashed up the metal staircase.

  Vex was left momentarily with the cub. The minute she left, the pup seemed unsure of what to do next. Its excitement wavered. It cocked its head and stared intently at Vex to the point that, for a moment, he felt sure the cub was reading his soul. There was something unnerving in that look that he couldn’t quite understand. Something almost familiar.

  “Here!” Belle said, returning suddenly with one of the half-finished tins of SPAM from the foreman’s office. She scooped some out with her fingers, closed the distance between them and the cub, and presented her hand on the floor.

  “What is that stuff?” Vex asked, his face creasing in disgust.

  Belle studied the tin. “Processed meat—whatever processed means.”

  The cub took a careful step forward. Then another. Belle made hushed noises to reassure it. Sure enough, not a few seconds later, the animal lapped eagerly at Belle’s hand.

  “Oh-my-holy-crap, it tickles,” Belle said, biting her lip and trying her best to stop her body shaking.

  Vex stepped sideways and looked under the cub. “Okay, so he’s definitely a he.” He nodded his confirmation.

  As soon as the cub finished the food in Belle’s hand, she instructed Vex to add some more. He disappeared for a few minutes, then returned to pile four tins beside her. It wasn’t long before the wolf had finished them all. When he was done, he hopped up into Belle’s lap and licked at her face.

  “Ew, do you have any idea where that tongue has been?” Vex asked.

  “I’m sure I’ve kissed worse. Did you meet the guys in New Leaf?”

  It took a moment for Vex to realize that the ‘guys in New Leaf’ included himself. He feigned offense, rolled his eyes, and watched as the puppy covered every inch of Belle’s face in excited, wet, sloppy kisses.

  “I don’t think this brings us any closer to where we need to be,” Vex said, unable to hold himself back from reaching forward and tousling the cub’s fur. “But I have to say he is damned cute, though.”

  “Maybe we do just head back,” Belle suggested. “After all, if Caitlin really wanted us to come with them, she would have said so. There’s little we can do from here without any kind of track or scent to follow them. I mean, what’s the alternative? Hole ourselves up in here and create a new clan?”

  Vex’s eyes lit up.

  “No,” Belle retorted, slapping the idea away before it could percolate. “Look, we’re not going to be able to find them from here. We’re not trackers. We don’t have Kain’s Were nose or Ma’s vamp senses. Let’s cut our losses, head back, and fight harder to go on the next escapade.”

  “What makes you think there’ll be another escapade?” Vex said grumpily.

  “Come on,” Belle said, nudging him gently with her shoulder. “It’s Caitlin. There’s bound to be another escapade. There’s more adventure in her than SPAM in this cub’s stomach.”

  For the first time, Vex realized the pup had stopped licking Belle. He now stared straight at them both, his ears raised and head cocked as if listening to every word of their conversation.

  “What? What is it, boy?” Belle asked.

  The wolf jumped off Belle’s lap, sniffed briefly at the floor, and ran back to the doorway where they had first seen it. Just beyond the entrance, they could make out the trunks of the trees surrounding the factory.

  “What do you think he’s trying to tell us?” Vex asked.

  “He’s asking us to follow,” she said with a certainty that took him by surprise.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you could speak wolf.”

  “You’re forgiven.” Without looking back, she followed after the cub. He sniffed the ground again and darted towards the edge of the trees, waiting patiently for them both.

  Vex caught up with Belle.

  “He needs a name,” she said.

  “How about Bongowinger?” Vex suggested. “Or Cub?”

  Belle turned to him and placed both hands on his shoulders. She stared intently into his eyes. “Okay, let me rephrase that. I’m going to name him because you have the creativity of a paralytic woodlouse.” She turned and stroked her chin. A second later, she raised a finger to the air and her eyes lit up. “Yes! That’s it.”

  “What is?” Vex suddenly found himself jogging after Belle as she took off after the cub. The wolf leaped into the air, then darted ahead into the forest.

  “That’s it, lead the way, Scout. Show Mama where to go.”

  Mama? Vex thought as they disappeared into the trees. Since when does naming a wild animal suddenly make you its mama?

  The Broken City, Old Ontario

  Izzy led Caitlin and the others through the labyrinth that was The Broken City. The name seemed apt. This place really was a shit-hole.

  “I don’t get it,” Caitlin said as they rounded a corner to meet yet another road littered with debris from the old world. Rusted cars, fallen posts, and shattered glass created an eerie abandoned landscape around them. “You’ve got a fence around the entire perimeter of the city, and yet you keep yourselves shut inside an old library. Couldn’t you clean up the city and reclaim it as your own?”

  Izzy sighed, but it was Oscar who answered. “It’s not quite that simple, Kitty-Cat.”

  Caitlin cringed at the use of her nickname b
y these strangers.

  “For years, our community lived in the library, slowly expanding to take residence in the other buildings. We had plans. Dreams.”

  “Well…Alicia did,” Howard mumbled at the floor.

  “Alicia?” Tom asked.

  “Alicia’s the head honcho. Our leader,” Izzy said. “It was Alicia who first began to build the community before any of us came along. It’s because of her that we even exist at all and haven’t been eaten alive by wandering Mad.”

  Every town needs a leader. Caitlin sighed, staring up at a building taller than any she had ever seen. She could only imagine how tall it would have been before its collapse. Forty, maybe even fifty stories tall, she decided.

  “The township grew. Life began to blossom,” Izzy continued. “We built the fence to keep the Mad out and held regular watch around the perimeter. Weeks and months passed in peace as Mad found themselves used as nothing more than target practice by those who stood guard on the fences. Crew members were assigned to dispose of the bodies and keep the place clean. It was a time of hope and prosperity—as much as that can be said in this world.”

  “So what happened?” Laurie asked as she stepped carefully over a loose pile of rubble. “By all accounts, you should be thriving. This city should be yours. It should be called the—”

  “Fixed city?” Joe suggested, firing a grin at Laurie.

  “Sure. Let’s go with that.”

  They reached the place where the buildings ended and the grasses began. Ahead of them, the earth sloped upwards towards the large hill they had descended in their original approach. Jaxon sprinted forward and began to bark, waiting a few feet back from the fence where four Mad stood clawing and reaching through the chain links.

  The chain links bowed inwards as their eyes lit up at the sight of the humans, but there was no threat that it would break. Izzy pulled out her rifle and aimed it at them.

  Laurie placed a hand on the barrel and lowered it. “Save your ammo. Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

  She pulled her bow from her back, nocked an arrow, and with a speed that impressed them, shot all four. Three Mad went down. Only one remained standing, caught in the fence where the arrow which had pierced its eye was stuck between the chain links.

  She strode forward, reached through the fence, and took her arrows back from the Mad’s flesh.

  “You were saying?” She turned back to Izzy, who seemed mildly impressed.

  Isabella joined them at the fence and looked out beyond it. “Yes. We were safe…for a time. But somehow, they still got in.”

  “Who?” Tom asked. “The Weres?”

  Dwight spat on the floor. “Hideous, scavenging vermin.”

  Izzy nodded. “They came as a pack, friendly at first. We let them integrate with our community, share our food, offered them shelter. But that didn’t last too long before their leader got greedy. Wanted power. He gave the ultimatum that, unless Alicia surrendered power to him, they would pick us off one-by-one.”

  “And then came the battle,” Oscar said. “Humans versus Weres. They attacked at night, but we fought back. The city was slick with rain and blood, but we fought boldly. Bravely. We had the one thing that Weres feared more than anything in these days. The only thing that could really help us match the strength of the UnknownWorld.”

  Caitlin raised an eyebrow. “Which is?”

  To her surprise, it was Joe who answered. “Guns! Yessir, without guns, those varmints would win in an instants, yes?”

  Izzy grinned. “Your little man is right.”

  Joe’s face fell at her words. He folded his arms and huffed.

  “We managed to force them back. United, we stood, and we thought we had driven them back into the hills, away from our home. But then, as the years passed, strange things began to happen. Disappearances. Deaths. Whispers of their return.”

  “How?” Caitlin said. “If the fences were manned and your guards were on alert, how did they get back in?”

  Izzy looked at the floor and kicked a bunch of dirt away to reveal a manhole cover.

  Caitlin gasped. “They’re below the city?”

  Izzy nodded. “Hiding, like rats.”

  “Then the solution is easy,” Tom said. “Flush them out. Fill it with fire. Do something drastic to kill them off. You’ve got them cornered, guys. Trapped. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.”

  Caitlin slapped his arm. “Great idea! You realize Kain could be down there with them, right?”

  A look passed between Izzy and her men.

  “It’s not that simple.” Oscar nodded to the manhole cover.

  Tom understand. He knelt down, gripped the edges, and tugged. When it didn’t budge, he screwed his face into a determined expression and heaved with all his strength. Veins poked from his muscular arms as he gave it everything he had to pull the lid off the city’s jam jar. After a minute or two, he gave up, sat down, and huffed. “Damn.”

  “They’ve sealed themselves in. There’s an escape hole somewhere, we’re sure of it. We just don’t know where.”

  “If they’re trapped, how do you know that they can escape?” Caitlin asked.

  Izzy looked down at the hole, a sadness washing over her face. “Because, one-by-one, our children keep going missing.”

  Laurie clapped a hand to her mouth. “That’s awful.”

  “What’s Alicia doing about it?” Caitlin asked.

  Izzy shuffled on her feet. “Well, that’s part of the problem. Alicia’s down there with them. They took her some nights ago.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Sewers, The Broken City, Old Ontario

  Kain couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  They’d converted the hell out of the sewers. Not all the rooms were dingy and wet and disgusting, they were now in a converted space that might even be called comfortable.

  A large room with a domed ceiling and torches illuminating every corner hosted what Kain could only describe as some kind of creche. There were at least a dozen kids of all ages running backward and forward, chasing each other around and playing tag with a Were whom Kain recognized as Cynthia—a woman who had been one of his only true friends and confidants beneath the city.

  Not to mention the sex… Yow!

  Cynthia ran now, chasing a young boy with dark skin and a mop of afro hair on his head. Her long gray hair bobbed in a ponytail against her back, and her face was careworn and lined with wrinkles. Yet that didn’t mask a gentile kindness which radiated from the woman no matter which angle you watched her from.

  As she followed the boy on a trajectory past Kain and Geralt, she stopped, noticing Kain for the first time.

  “It can’t be…” She drew a startled breath, her eyes wide. “No…you’re back?”

  “Couldn’t stay away, Cynth.” Kain grinned, his arms closing around her as they embraced like old lovers meeting in a field of daisies.

  Kain felt a hard arm pull him back as Geralt broke the pair apart. “Enough of that. You two lovebirds can fuck later, but keep it off my time.”

  Kain cocked his head, wondering for a moment if Geralt knew about their past.

  “Cynthia. Show Mr. Sudeikis the project,” Geralt growled.

  Cynthia paused a moment, a wave of shame falling across her face.

  “Now, woman,” Geralt instructed. He spoke no direct threat but with a tone that suggested any other choice but obedience would be a bad one.

  Cynthia nodded, turned, and walked through the throng of children. Along the way, most of them recoiled and stepped away from Geralt as he passed, though a few of the younger ones tugged at Cynthia’s shirt and begged her to play. She declined these kindly with a smile and promised them twice the games later.

  When she reached a door at the far side of the room, she dug into her pockets and withdrew a large bunch of keys. Fumbling a little, she selected the one she needed, turned it in the keyhole to the satisfying sound a lock clicking, and creaked the door open.

  They
followed her into a small tunnel in which Geralt and Kain were forced to stoop to pass. At the end was another door. Cynthia used the keys again and opened it.

  At this one, she stood back and let Geralt and Kain move in front of her. Howie and Madeline waited in the tunnels behind, a torch in one hand and weapons in the other.

  “After you,” Geralt said, waving Kain inside.

  He walked forward slowly, listening to the sound of scuffling. Something hard and small tapped against the bricks and echoed around the chamber. When he stepped inside, he almost screamed as several shapes came sprinting at him from the shadows. Five silhouettes of creatures bounded towards him.

  Kain was knocked to the floor as the animals attacked his face with licks and whines. He counted them in the torchlight. Five cubs—three wolves, one bear, and a puma.

  They were the cutest things Kain had ever seen, all fluff and paws. He rolled around on the floor for a moment, stroking their backs and picking them up one by one, ignoring the small scratches on his arms from the cubs’ ever-growing claws. When he picked up one of the wolf cubs, he noticed that the patterns on the fur were similar to his own when he transformed. A kind of mottled grey. He looked into the creature’s eyes and saw the amber ring around the eyes.

  Amber? Ah, shit.

  Kain lowered the pup to the ground and stood back up. He felt Geralt’s eyes burning into him. The brute stood with arms folded as the realization dawned on Kain.

  “These are...” Kain began, but somehow, he couldn’t seem to actually voice the truth.

  “Yep,” Geralt said proudly. “Five conversions from human to Were. Five fluffy little proofs that our methods can still work. That we still have the means to continue our legacy.”

  “And can they…”

  “Transform?” Geralt’s pride faded somewhat. “No. Not anymore. To begin with, they could. We converted this batch little more than a week ago, waited as the process took hold, then watched as the little fuckers discovered their powers and transformed between their forms.”

  “So, what happened?”

  Geralt looked at the cubs with a mixture of hate and annoyance on his face. “Cynthia. Care to explain?”