Twig

by wildbow

  “Go,” I said.

  He went, running, feet splashing in puddles of water.

  Lillian was about halfway down.

  “You lied to him,” Jamie said.

  “Would you rather I told the truth?” I asked.

  “If you’re going to get him involved.”

  I shook my head.

  “Which leads me to ask… what are you up to?” Jamie asked. “You weren’t just getting rid of him or making trouble.”

  “I’m going inside,” I said, starting for the door. “Tell the others if they’re wondering.”

  “That’s not what I’m asking,” Jamie said.

  But he didn’t move from his spot, and I was already gone.

  I passed under Lillian a second time, peeking up her skirt a second time, more to needle her than out of any lingering curiosity. The big door was, as it turned out, locked, and I wasn’t able to bypass the big padlock any more than I could bypass the latch of the window above. But the door rolled on wheels, and the wheels fit in ruts, a long, shallow channel.

  I headed to the end of the door opposite the lock, and I pushed the full weight of my body against it. The lock rattled, heavy.

  I tried a bit more pressure, pushing, and the door tilted, the bottom corner closest to me rising out of the channel. Gripping the door, I lifted it up and away, wood scraping concrete as I created a triangular gap.

  I slipped inside, my eyes immediately going to the hayloft, the upper floor.

  Helen was there, sitting with one foot propped up, both hands in her lap to keep her skirt pressed down. Her face was still expressionless. Half of her attention was on me. Half was on the creature. There was a rain barrel beside her, rigged so it hung over the edge of the hayloft, collecting the water that ran in through the makeshift gutter, feeding a steady stream down into containers below. Runoff from those containers fed into the corner of the building. A drain from when the building had been a warehouse, keeping the goods dry.

  I studied the papers on the desk. Water from one of the windows above spat down. Barely large enough to qualify as drops, but they dotted one paper, making ink bleed. Sketches of the beast. Notations on structure and anatomy.

  One of the texts on a table beside the desk was hand-made. Pages had holes in them, and a cord was laced through, tying them to the heavy leather cover. With care, I paged through the thing.

  One being, knit together from several. The better traits of each, all drawn together. References to Wollstone’s texts, to the ratios of life, and to the volumes of genetic code for Felidae and Eunectes Murinus.

  A whole chapter on digestive enzymes. Diagrams of the thing’s fangs, which I had glimpsed as it devoured the mother cat, with labels for the reservoirs of venom that wasn’t true venom. It was enzymes, much like the ones bugs used to dissolve their meals before supping them. Notes suggested that the feature helped with the digestion of any and all food.

  Little doubt of what this thing had been engineered for.

  My finger traced the labels of glass containers, bottles and vials. Blood, bile, cerebral fluid…

  Venom. I’d expected it to be green, but it was clear, in a glass container with a murky exterior, about as tall and wide as a wine bottle, though more cylindrical.

  There was a noise at the door, and I took a long step to the side, toward the shadows beside one of the big wooden containers for water.

  Only Lillian, followed by Gordon, passing through the gap. Gordon was the largest of us, and it was a particularly tight fit for him.

  I continued paging through the text.

  Diet.

  My eye traveled down the list. Meal times, meal sources, meal sizes.

  Pig carcass.

  Dog carcass.

  Pig carcass.

  Scavenged meal, unknown type.

  Pig carcass.

  Pig carcass.

  Scavenged meal, dog.

  It wasn’t fully grown, but it was close, and it grew fast. Two meals a week.

  I recalled that it had eaten the cat, and then looked back at the entries.

  Forty pounds, sixty pounds, forty pounds, est. one hundred pounds… I noted the numbers, and tried to find the pattern between those numbers and the meals.

  I moved ahead a few pages until I reached the first partial page. Room left for more entries.

  Last meal, just over two days ago, goat carcass. It was hungry already. Quite possibly getting ready for one last growth spurt. The more recent meals were larger.

  Gordon was crouched, peering at labels on bottles. He saw me looking, and tapped his nose, then pointed at the bottles

  I nodded.

  I tapped the book, getting his attention, and stepped away while he read the entries.

  He didn’t have much of a chance to read.

  There was a sound outside, violent, of things falling over. Chaos.

  I could picture Jamie’s hiding spot, the way the door had been propped up. This was a warning.

  “Hide,” Gordon whispered.

  You don’t have to tell me, I thought, but I held my tongue.

  Very carefully, I closed the book. I shifted the angle to return it to the position it had been in. My eye swept over the room.

  Water on the floor. Did it matter?

  No. There was no time, besides.

  I slipped into the shadowy crevice between the water tank and the wall. Gordon and Lillian were already gone. Helen, who had been above, watching everything, was now gone. No doubt hiding behind the water barrel, a step away from where she had been.

  Four seconds passed before I heard the lock rattle.

  The door’s wheel slammed back down into the rut as it was pulled to one side, but there was no sign of concern or suspicion.

  He closed the door behind him, and the sound of something being dragged joined the sound of hard shoe soles on the wooden floor, marking his progress across his makeshift laboratory.

  “Damned beast,” he muttered. “Where are you?”

  He made seemingly deliberate noise as he cleared a table, then dropped his burden on top of it.

  I heard a grunt, his, and the smell of blood filled the air.

  The amount of light in the room shifted. I judged it to be the beast’s bulk blocking the light from the windows above.

  “There you are,” he said.

  With swift strides, he crossed to the water tank I crouched beside. He wasted no time in dipping his hands inside, splashing water as he swished his hands inside. Some of the water that slopped around the top of the tank splashed down on top of me.

  I was close enough to touch him.

  There was a scuffle and a thud as the cat-snake creature touched ground, eager to get to its meal. Its creator was already at the desk, picking select vials, dabbing a bit on his wrist, then rubbing his wrists together.

  I thought of Gordon’s gesture. Touching his nose.

  Scents?

  Pheromones.

  It was how he controlled the beast he had made.

  I could see him as he tidied papers, only periodically glancing over his shoulder. He hummed. But for some stubble on his chin, he looked like a gentleman, with a four-button vest under a butcher’s apron and an ankle-length raincoat. His hair was sandy, parted to one side.

  I could see the creature raise its head. The meal was in its mouth, and it was angling its head to let it all slide down its gullet.

  Its creator used a pair of tongs to collect a bloody sack. I took it to be the sack the creature’s meal had been in. Another pig, perhaps.

  He disappeared from view.

  A rustle.

  Then the tongs clanged to the floor. The beast changed the angle of its head.

  “A child?” the man’s voice was touched with incredulity.

  There was a commotion, a scrape of steel on concrete as a foot dragged on the tongs.

  I remained where I was.

  The struggle continued, intermittent, as he backed up, the desk of papers to one side, the table of b
ottles to the other. He had a carving knife to Gordon’s throat. Presumably the same one he’d used to cut open the creature’s meal and get its attention.

  “Two of you. Are there more?”

  Gordon was silent.

  “I’m asking you!” the man was angry, outraged. “Are there more? Girl! How many? Tell me or I cut him!”

  “A few,” Lillian said. “Four.”

  “The noise outside. That was one?”

  “Five, if you count him,” she said, her voice small.

  “Do not play games with me!” the man roared. “Show yourselves! Each of you!”

  I exhaled slowly.

  I stepped out of the gap by the water tank.

  Helen was above, at the hayloft. Standing by the edge. Lillian was closer to the door. She and Gordon had been hiding in or near a garbage bin.

  The beast was relaxed, having just eaten its fill.

  “Children?” the man sounded incredulous.

  He wasn’t wrong. At thirteen, Lillian was the oldest of us. Gordon was only twelve as of last month.

  “Yeah,” Gordon said, his voice strained. The man had his throat caught in the crook of one arm, exposing his lower throat.

  “An infestation,” the man said. “My experiment didn’t root you out?”

  His eye traveled over each of us in turn. I saw the faintest crease appear between his eyebrows.

  He seemed to come to a realization. “You’ve covered yourself in something. So it can’t smell you. This was premeditated.”

  I met Lillian’s eyes. I jerked my chin. Pointed at her with my hand.

  The easy, natural interactions and cooperation that followed from years of working together weren’t there with Lil. She was new. A recent addition to the group.

  I almost thought she got the wrong idea, until she opened her mouth.

  “Yes,” she said. “We… heard about you.”

  “Heard what?”

  “That there was something loose in the slums. It was eating pets. It ate a man that was sleeping outside.”

  “No,” the man said.

  “Yes,” Lillian said. “There are witnesses.”

  “The witnesses are wrong,” the man said.

  “You let it go out to find its own food,” Gordon said, his voice still strangled. “You couldn’t afford to keep it fed as it grew this large. You let it feed on strays. Which it did. Except one of those strays was human. It’s in the book. Meal, unknown type.”

  I edged around behind the man.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve studied its leavings,” the man said, ignoring the label. “Nothing human.”

  “Nothing conclusively human, you mean,” Gordon said. “But you aren’t able to identify all of what it ate.”

  “You!” The man raised his voice. He sounded more emotional than before. “Up there! Girl! Stay put.”

  Helen froze where she was.

  “You’re a killer,” Gordon said, more insistent. “We were calling you the snake charmer.”

  I edged closer to the table.

  I didn’t make a sound, but the snake charmer sensed trouble before it arrived. He wheeled on me, the knife dangerously close to Gordon’s throat.

  I lunged in the same movement, seizing the big bottle. The venom. I held it high.

  “You don’t care what happens to him?” the snake charmer asked.

  “I care,” I said. “That’s why, if you cut him, and if it looks like he isn’t going to be okay, I’m going to throw this at the both of you.”

  The snake charmer’s eyes darted around. He couldn’t watch all of us at once.

  “Move!” he said. “Go around. I want you as a group.”

  I didn’t budge.

  “Move!”

  “No,” I said.

  “It’s over, snake charmer,” Gordon said.

  “That is not my name!”

  “It’s a name they’ll give you,” Gordon said. “They’ll make you a monster. It’s what the Academy does. Dehumanizes the dangerous ones. You can’t get all of us, not with the way things are, here. Some are bound to escape. They’ll tell people, and those people will find you. You know the resources the Academy has.”

  “No,” the snake charmer said.

  “You don’t know?” Gordon asked.

  “This is not my fault,” the snake charmer said. “The Academy… this rests on their shoulders, not mine. You can’t enroll without showing your skill, and you can’t show your skill without experimenting, but oh, no, they don’t allow that, do they?”

  “There are ways,” Lillian said.

  “No!” the man barked, “No! Not nearly enough. The world is changing, and they’re deciding the course. They’re putting us in this situation, where risks have to be taken. Gambles have to be made, or history will continue to be made, names attached to great discoveries, and the rest of us? If we’re lucky, we get left by the wayside. If we’re not, we’re just fuel for what they’re setting in motion.”

  “I’m a student there,” Lillian said. “I just started, but… I’m enrolled. First year of study. Not them. Just me.”

  I could see the man’s expression twist. Incomprehension. Comprehension, which was almost worse. Hatred for a thirteen year old girl.

  Then rage, not a clean, pure kind, but one that only drove him further into a corner.

  His hand tightened on the grip of the knife.

  I figured out the destination he was arriving at before he did.

  I arrived at my own, and I mustered up some courage.

  Very deliberately, I grunted, heaving the bottle of acid at the snake charmer.

  He heard the grunt, but so did Gordon. With the snake charmer’s attention caught between Lillian and me, Gordon found a chance to protect his throat, keeping the knife from cutting.

  The bottle flew lazily through the air. Gordon ducked, head down, and the snake charmer released him.

  The man caught the bottle in a bear hug.

  He stared down at the container.

  All the same emotions he’d felt for Lillian, now aimed at me, progressing much faster this time. Incomprehension, comprehension, hatred, rage.

  Directed at me.

  I backed away, stumbling, falling. I covered my face as he swung, using the waterproof cloth to try and shield my body.

  He didn’t throw at me, but at the floor. The chance of me catching it was small, but by throwing it at the floor, he could guarantee that the bottle would shatter into a spray I couldn’t possibly shield all of myself from.

  The pain was sharp, at first, droplets touching skin, immediately breaking it down. Then it burned.

  The horrible coldness was worse, because it suggested dying nerves. All down my arms, and one side of my face.

  I screamed.

  The creature turned its head, but didn’t move.

  The man turned, wheeling on the others. Gordon was ready, already closing in, taking advantage of the short moment it took the snake charmer to adjust his grip on the knife, so soon after heaving the bottle.

  A tackle, shoulder into the man’s gut, taking advantage of smaller size and a good physique. Gordon drove the man back.

  Gordon was the hero, golden haired, noble, likeable. Talented.

  When he broke away, letting the snake charmer stumble back two steps, recovering balance, Gordon had the knife in hand.

  The beast rose to its feet. Sniffing.

  I managed to stop screaming, going as still as possible.

  It still edged closer to me. Interested.

  Still hungry, I noted.

  Helen acted. Tipping over the barrel.

  Drenching the snake charmer, washing away his charm, the pheromones.

  “Brats!” the snake charmer spat the word. “You little shits! You think you have control of this situation?”

  “Your experiment is trying to decide between you and Sylvester over there,” Gordon said. “You smell, he’s bleeding. Both are tempting.”

  The sn
ake charmer made an incoherent noise.

  “Thing is, if you start bleeding…” Gordon said, trailing off. “You’ll suddenly be a lot more tempting.”

  “Try it,” the snake charmer said.

  Gordon did. He approached, and the snake charmer tried to grab him.

  The man’s hands only grabbed clothes. A hood and cloak meant to keep the rain off. Gordon let him, and ducked low, the clothing bunching up around his neck and upper chest.

  Gordon sliced the snake charmer’s stomach. A shallow cut.

  Another grab, wrestling Gordon, trying to overpower with strength, seizing one arm.

  Gordon let the knife drop out of one hand, falling into the palm of another.

  He cut the back of the man’s left knee. When the man fell, screaming, Gordon cut the other knee. He skipped back as the snake charmer fell.

  The snake stirred, its attention no longer predominantly on me.

  I could see the snake charmer realizing the same thing I had minutes ago. He knew his experiment. He knew how it hunted. It scavenged, sniffing out prey. Blind, it reacted to noise and smell. Minimizing the noise one made was vital.

  Given the situation, however, staying silent spelled the man’s doom. Already, his creation was sniffing him out. He smelled of blood.

  “Pheromones,” he said, knowing how dangerous it was to speak, that every sound helped him lose the tug of war that let the creature decide between devouring him and devouring me. “Let me—I’ll come with you. You can take me in. You win.”

  Nobody moved or responded.

  He used his arms to pull himself forward, progressing toward the table. Each motion drew more attention from his beast.

  Foot by foot, he closed on the table, and each sound was akin to a fisherman’s line, reeling in the beast.

  He reached the table, struggling, and he raised himself up, using one hand to drag a leg forward, propping it under him. Reaching across the table—

  Gordon kicked the leg of the table, hard. The table shifted a foot, and the snake charmer collapsed.

  “No. Please.”

  The snake charmer looked at us. At Gordon, then Helen, who loomed above, perched on the hayloft. At me, as I glared at him, my face burned. At Lillian, who was sitting in the corner, hands over her head.

  Who was not one of us.

  “Please,” he said. “Not like this.”

  Helen’s expression didn’t change. Gordon shifted his position, placing himself between the snake charmer and the table, arms folded. I remained where I was, limp and breathing hard.