“Oh no,” Mama said. “Where the rest of them at?”
“They all went home. We was all plain wore out. I’m sorry, Mama.”
“What? What are you sorry for, Tom? It weren’t your fault.”
“No. I’m sorry about… He ain’t coming home is all.”
“No, that can’t be,” Mama said, her voice just above a whisper. “He’ll be right along. He’s with somebody’s family, right? He’s bringing in the ones we lost to be buried proper.”
Sally and Larry and Tom all stood and surrounded Mama, who had lost three babies and her angel Angela and now her husband, and they all cried for her and because they lost their Pappy and brother, too.
“I ain’t believing ‘til I see him. I ain’t believing ‘til you tell me.”
“Mama, I’m telling you. Pappy’s dead.”
Then Mama cried, too.
35
Draven sat up in the shed, knowing even before he opened his eyes that he wasn’t alone. And yet, no one was in the shed with him, either. No heartbeat, no rustle of movement, no one standing in a corner attempting to hide. He savored sap and looked in the direction from which the scent emanated. In the darkness, he picked out a shape and knew it as a body. The body of a sapien male, adult from the smell. And that scent...
A wonderful scent that made his teeth ache with desire. He listened for sounds outside but heard none, none that signaled the approach of a human. He moved across the floor, wincing at the pain that still lingered in his back and hips and knees. How could they do this? Did they mean to test him, or was it some form of entrapment? He could detect no trace of poison or drugs. The body smelled clean and healthy.
Draven listened for voices in the house, but all had fallen silent. He could hear faintly the sound of someone crying, a female, but not Sally. He reached through the bars and strained to reach the boot of the man, the part that lay closest to the cage. The body had a familiar scent, but Draven had been preoccupied with pain the times he had been in the company of the local men.
No matter how he stretched and twisted, Draven could not reach the body. He sat resting against the bars for a time, thinking. He should have kept a wooden stake, but he no longer wished to die. Once, he would have hidden it and ambushed whoever came into the cage first. But if Sally could free him, he’d take that way, the one that didn’t end in his execution. He looked at the other side of the cage to where Sally liked to sit in the rocking chair.
Dragging the steel chain with him across the floor, he crawled to the bars and reached through with his normal hand. The tips of his fingers just found the end of one rocker. After several attempts, the chair turned slightly. He continued to tease it towards him with his fingertips until it moved close enough for him to grasp. Then he pulled it towards him and knelt, reached through the bars with both hands, and pulled the curved rocker from the bottom of the wooden chair. Draven had rarely seen or touched wood before he encountered this community, so he knew little of its unique properties. The ease with which it came apart surprised him.
For a substance of such deadly menace, it seemed fragile and weak. It made sense that steel could bind him, but wood was splintery and malleable. Carrying the piece of wood in his teeth, he lurched across the floor on hands and knees. He yanked at the chain around his ankle to give himself space to maneuver, then reached the wooden piece through the bars. For several minutes, he could not find purchase on the body. But he had all night, and his patience was infinite for a reward so great.
At last he managed to move the body to within reach, and he snatched the boot through the bars and pulled. The body was that of a big man, and when Draven pulled it close and uncovered it, he saw the man they called Pappy. They had wrapped Pappy in a piece of material that looked like a bed sheet and laid him on a makeshift gurney.
Draven removed Pappy’s wrapping and looked at the man’s arms. The sap had stopped flowing, and he’d cooled. Soon he would become stiff. Before that, Draven could eat. He would have to suck quite hard draw out still blood, but it would come. By moving the body into a sitting position and holding it against the bars of the cage, he could encourage the blood to pool in one half of the body. He had to remove the boots and trousers before he began his task.
Draven had never drained a human before, nor come close. He’d never even severely overdrawn a human. Pappy’s body seemed to hold an infinite supply of sap. Draven could scarcely believe a human body could contain so much. It seemed he’d consumed hundreds of rations of sap, and not the dry substitute or animal blood. A real human, although not fresh or appetizing or full of any kind of life. Still, he’d procured food, and he didn’t intend to stop until he’d eaten as much as possible.
It took him quite some time to finish. The sap seeped out more and more slowly as he drank. His jaws began to ache from biting and sucking. But when he finished, he felt better than he had in months. Letting the drained body crumple sideways onto the floor, Draven stood and found that his pains had gone almost entirely. If he’d only had food, he would have healed long ago.
An arrow of pain darted through his back when he moved too fast, and one of his kneecaps hung strangely loose, and the muscles in his back and legs felt like needles pierced them when he tensed each one, but he could move again. He could walk again. He sat and positioned his kneecap correctly, and after it had adhered to its proper spot, which took only a few minutes, he removed the filthy rag that had once been his shorts and was now his only remaining possession. His regrown hand suddenly functioned almost as well as the other.
He wanted a bath, and badly, but for now he had a clean pair of trousers. After so long in nothing but his undershorts, the jeans felt strange and binding on his legs, even though they had fit a much larger man. He tightened the belt to hold the trousers up. They hung a few inches past his feet, but he bunched them around his ankles and continued dressing. The boots fit well over his filthy feet, as did Pappy’s sweaty socks, although one of them refused to close over the ankle cuff he still wore. He took the man’s shirt, careful not to pull off a button. When he had dressed completely, he looked down at himself, absurd in the too-large clothes, and smiled. Freedom would soon belong to him and Sally, and he could buy clothes that fit. He sat and waited for her return.
The sound of the shed door opening awakened him. He covered his eyes against the blinding light and tried to rouse himself before the proper time. A woman screamed. He focused his attention on the humans and detected four heartbeats. He scented for Sally among them and found her, and her brother, and two more, male and female, both aging. Squinting through his fingers he found, as he’d suspected, the two remaining residents of the house. Mama had hidden her face in Tom’s chest, and the male sapien’s arm rested around her shoulder. He glared at Draven with frightening malice.
Draven had not planned for this, but for Sally alone.
Larry began cursing at Draven and trying to reach him through the bars, yelling about touching their Pappy’s clothes. They hadn’t noticed he’d touched quite a bit more than the man’s clothes. At least Draven had regained much of his strength. Four saps, a few hundred wooden stakes. His odds were not insurmountable.
Larry and Sally moved around the cage and unwrapped their Pappy. Mama began screaming and sobbing hysterically, and Larry attacked the bars anew while Sally stood staring at the body and then at Draven as if she could not comprehend what had happened. Tom unlocked the gate. Draven could not see well, and none of his senses remained sharp during daylight hours, but he could sense everything well enough. He remained as they’d found him, lying prone with his hand over his eyes.
Tom came through the gate with a stake raised next to his head and the keys in his other hand. He came at Draven like a madman, which he must have been to forget that Draven only wore a simple ankle chain now. Draven rose straight up at the man, and in one movement, he had Tom in front of him with his throat bared towards the three spectators. Larry came through the gate next.
“Take ano
ther step and I’ll rip his head off with my bare hands,” Draven said, pulling Tom’s head back while he restrained his body with the other arm. Tom started yelling and Mama screaming and Larry cursing. Sally just stared.
“Larry, you will step out of the cage now,” Draven said. “And close the gate.”
“Don’t do it,” Tom screamed and threw the keys. Larry caught them, although he looked as if he caught them as an automatic response rather than by intent. “Kill it!” Tom yelled. “I don’t care if it kills me, too.”
“I do not think being in here with me is a sharp idea,” Draven said. “Now, here is what you will do. You’re either going to give me the keys and let me loose, which I think unlikely, or you’re going to try to kill me. If you try, I will kill you first. I don’t want to do that. I’d rather you let me go.”
Larry backed out, closed the door and locked it. “You ain’t never gonna walk away from here alive,” Larry said. “’Specially not after what you done to our Pappy.”
“He was already dead,” Draven said. “I harmed him in no way. I only prevented something going to waste that you would have put in the ground.”
“I’m gonna put you in the ground, you creature of Satan,” Larry said, his face twisting into an angry mask. “You’re gonna wish you died a hundred times over by the time we’re done with you.”
“I see that you mean that.”
“Get out of my head, you freak of nature,” Larry said. “You can’t even read my mind, anyway. You’re bullshitting.”
“Perhaps.”
“Fine, what am I thinking, if you’re so smart?”
“You’re thinking that they may have voted to bury me at your little meeting, but you’ll never let me live another year.”
“Holy shit, Mama, I told you,” Larry said. Mama covered her mouth and stared at Draven. She must have forgotten his supposed powers of hypnosis. Though it amused Draven to toy with someone as simple as Larry, especially after the particular pleasure the man had taken in torturing him, Draven had other things on his mind.
“You three are going to wait for me to finish with this man, because if you leave him here, he’ll end up just like your Pappy.”
“You best not kill him,” Sally said. Draven looked at her, although the light framing her made his head throb with pain.
“Please close the door, Sally,” he said, and waited until she obeyed before he continued, speaking to the group this time. “Do not open the gate or it will be you instead of this…man, if that is what you can call him. And do not throw anything. Stay just as you are.”
When Draven put his teeth in Tom, the sapien screamed. Draven clamped his hand over the man’s face, cupping the chin in his palm and forcing the mouth closed by holding his thumb over the nose. Tom moaned and made awful noises. After a few minutes, Sally said, “You best not kill that man, I mean it. I’ll come in there and stake you myself.”
Draven pulled back, keeping his hand over Tom’s face. “How can you defend this thing? How can you call him a man? He raped you and your child sister. Do you think he’ll hesitate to do the same to his own daughter?”
No one said anything, and no one breathed for a moment. Then Larry spoke. “What’s he talking about, sis?”
“I don’t know,” Sally said, but she glared at Draven across the darkened room.
“Do you forget, I can read your mind?” Draven asked. “I won’t kill him, because you ask me not to, Sally. But I would not do the same for anyone else.”
“You quit that,” Sally said. “Get outta my head, too. And just ‘cause someone done some horrible things don’t mean they ain’t sorry or they’s gonna do them again. Ain’t no call to kill a man for his mistakes.”
“Do you think I cannot read his mind as well? You are too forgiving, because you among all these people are kind to all creatures, even those you despise. Your people have forgotten their humanity, but you alone pity me. Perhaps you should not.”
“I’m starting to think you’re right,” Sally said. “’Cause you ain’t acting worthy of pity just now.”
“I will spare your uncle, because I too remember my humanity. But I spare him out of respect for you alone. He deserves neither your forgiveness nor my humanity. But you do.”
Draven put his teeth back into Tom’s neck and drew until the sapien flagged in his arms. He pulled away and, after a moment’s hesitation, closed the wound. He shook Tom and said, “You’re fortunate your niece is such a good woman. Another in her position would be glad to watch you suffer and die. I would have been glad to make it happen.”
Dragging his chained foot behind him, he made his way to the door of the cell. When he’d drawn as near to the door as the chain allowed, he held Tom’s flaccid body out to the sapiens. “Come and get your own creature of Satan,” Draven said, dropping the body in the dirt.
Larry unlocked the cage, keeping his eyes on Draven. He reached through the gate and pulled Tom to safety without crossing into the cell. Mama knelt beside Tom and attempted to rouse him. He answered groggily.
Larry turned to Draven and grabbed two of the bars so hard his knuckles whitened. He pushed his face as far between them as the steel allowed and spit in Draven’s direction. “I’m gonna kill you, and I’m gonna love doing it. I made this here cage for a sumbitch like you, and I’m proud of it. Ain’t a nastier thing in creation than what you are. I hope this cage made you miserable every day you been in it. I guarantee you, you gonna be praying and begging to spend one more day in here when I get hold of you next. You best be ready to hurt like you ain’t never hurt.” Larry spit again and turned away from Draven. “Come on, you two, let’s get outta here afore he starts sucking us all dry as dirt.”
Larry and Mama helped Tom up. Supporting him on each side, they made their way out into the bright summer sunlight. Sally turned back to Draven. “What you do that for? I thought you was a decent type, a real person. Ain’t no person would do what you just done.”
“Sally. I have to eat like anyone else. And I hate the thought of your uncle hurting you.”
“Ain’t that sound just like an excuse? Here I been trying to help you out.”
“And I need to be strong if I am to help you in return. I would never have healed without doing what I’ve done. You said yourself it does not hurt so much. He will be weak for a few days. Give him sufficient fluids. But do not act as if what I did was unjustified. You have seen with your own eyes the things he did to me which served no purpose other than fueling his hatred and bloodlust. At least my cruelty is born of necessity.”
“I ain’t seeing it that way.”
“Do you see it as cruel when you kill an animal for food? No. But if you chained, starved, and stabbed it hundreds of times and broke its bones, you might.”
Sally stood at the bars next to her broken chair and looked at Draven. He went to her and reached out and touched her face. Tears wet her cheeks.
“Sally…I did not intend to upset you.”
“I reckon you gone and done it anyway, ain’t you? I don’t even know if I wanna go through with it if I’m gonna be like you.”
“You are fortunate that you have the choice.”
“I ain’t feeling too lucky.”
“Sally, you will be who you are right now. No one can take your goodness from you.”
“Save the crap. I know it was all for show.”
“It wasn’t,” Draven said, taking her chin in his hand. “I meant everything I said about you. You said to me once you were not pretty, but I see that you’re a beautiful person.”
Draven had never thought of a sap as a person before. But these saps were different. They read, planned wars and sieges on Superiors, and knew things he himself did not know. They had their own community with rules and organization and leaders, their own gruesome ceremonies. They were people, not animals.
“That sounds like a whole lotta apologizing from somebody knows he done wrong,” Sally said.
“I am sorry I have upset you,” Dra
ven said. “But I won’t apologize for what I did to your uncle. I’d have done worse if not for you.”
“It ain’t your place to hand out judgment and punishment to my family. And it ain’t your place to tell things I done told you in private.”
“I apologize. I thought your family knew.” When he kissed her forehead, her look softened. “Sally, I have come to care for you,” he said. “I never would have said those things if I’d known they would hurt you.”
“I reckon I like you some, too,” she said, and she pressed her face between the bars like Larry had and looked at Draven. He knew she meant her words differently than he had.
Before he could speak, the door flew open and Larry burst in yelling. “Get your dirty hands off my sister, you sick freak!” He plowed into Sally. Draven’s hand slipped from her face, and he stepped back. Larry stood breathing hard and shielding Sally with his body. Now, when the only danger was her affection for a Superior. When Draven had thrown stakes, Larry had used his sister for the shield.
“You okay, Sal?” Larry said, still facing Draven. “What was you doing letting him touch you? He bite you, too?”
“Uhhhh…no. No, he was talking and…I reckoned he done hypnotized me like Mama said.”
“I’m sure gonna love gutting you like a fresh kilt hog,” Larry said, glaring his hatred at Draven. “Now come on, sis, let’s get Pappy outta here afore this freakshow gets any new ideas. Don’t you worry, bloodsucker, we’ll be back to dispose of you later. Then you’ll be sorry for laying hands on my family.”
Draven had no doubt that if Sally changed her mind, Larry’s words would hold true. He already regretted what he’d done. Not for the act itself, but for upsetting the sapien who had become his unlikely—and only—friend.
36
Byron had his good nights and his bad nights like anyone else, and this one was turning out to be a bad one. He had cross-checked all the missing saps with all the missing persons, and no one had lost more than one sap in the last fifty years. One woman had reported five over fifty years, but when he checked, he found that she owned a farm with hundreds of saps, so losing five over half a century didn’t look so bad. Catchers had recovered all but one of hers.
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