The Breeders Part 5

"Get in!" I yell.

He cries harder, shaking his head. His eyes are wide.

Gun shots crackle behind me. My panic chokes out all thought. I gotta get back. I pick Ethan up and carry him down the ladder. He cries and struggles, but somehow I get him down without dropping him. I dump him on the bench and run back to the ladder. His sobs fill the dark hole. I'll calm him down when this is over. I gotta get back.

I scramble up the ladder. Two rungs from the top, a shadow blots out the light. I peer up. With the headlights streaming behind him, it's hard to make out a face. For a moment I think it's Arn. Then the shadow turns his head and I recognize the square chin and short, dark hair.

Clay?

I stop climbing for a moment, confused. He's one of the men sent to kill my family?

I scan his face, looking for answers. He opens his mouth to speak, but shots rattle in the distance. He steps back and he's gone. As I'm reaching for the next rung, I hear a loud squawk. Too late.

The heavy wooden door falls over the entrance, plunging us into darkness. Then I hear him slide the board through the handles.

He's locked us in.

Chapter Six.

I slam into the cellar doors over and over. My shoulder blazes with pain, and splinters pierce my skin, but I pay no heed. Barking sobs like a tortured dog's escape my throat.

More gunshots clatter above, then shouting. My mind runs as I pry chunks from the doors until my fingernails break and warm blood spills down my hands. With only two rifles, a handgun and a box of cartridges, my family stands against a dozen well-armed men.

They don't stand a chance.

I scramble down the ladder, falling off the last rung. I bang into a shelf, knock over something that smashes, but I don't stop. Ethan, sobbing, reaches out for me as I run past. I shake him off. My hands scramble over the shelves, tossing out canned goods, changes of clothing, a jug of water. Dry goods tumble off the shelf as I fling them out of my way. I need something to wrench the door open, a shovel, an ax, anything. In the dark, my hands come up empty.

Overhead something explodes.

My sobs turn into keening that fills the cellar. I fumble for the ladder and pull myself up. Bas.h.i.+ng my shoulder against the locked doors won't help, but I can't stop. I smash into the wood until I see stars.

Above, everything quiets. I stop bas.h.i.+ng and press my ear to the crack in the door. The truck engines flare to life and rumble away.

Quiet. The only sound is my brother's m.u.f.fled sobbing and the throbbing of my heart. It's over. Images of my family riddled with bullet holes dance in the darkness before me. I pound my fists into the boards and scream.

Eventually Ethan pulls me off the ladder. He leads me to the bench. I curl onto the wooden surface. In the dark, I can pretend I don't exist. That I've died, too. The thought gives me a little comfort. When you're dead, you don't feel pain.

Little streamers of light trickle through the boards above. I open my eyes and watch the dust motes slide lazily through the triangles of light. Then I remember my family. The hurt hits my chest like both barrels of a twelve-gauge.

As my mind wakes, pain lights up my body. My shoulders feel like they've been run through a meat grinder. I lift my hands-shredded knuckles, splinters dug deep under my b.l.o.o.d.y fingernails. Ethan s.h.i.+fts next to me. We lie on the hard-packed earth, his back to my chest, my body curled around his. I brush his bangs off his face and swallow back the sobs. I can't wake him. Maybe in his dream everything we love isn't destroyed.

In the dim daylight, the storm cellar looks like a tornado hit. I've torn everything off the shelves. There's the broken gla.s.s from a jar of peaches. Clothing litters the dirt floor where I flung them.

I stare up at the locked cellar doors, as fresh tears dampen the corners of my eyes. What's up there? Part of me wants to crawl into a ball and never face it. A sob escapes my throat and Ethan stirs. Stop it, I tell myself. Even though my whole world's been blown to pieces, I have to pull it together. For him.

I stand up and pain rockets down my spine. I walk to the ransacked shelves. I slip cans back up into their dust rings on the shelves, pick up gla.s.s shards, fold the clothes. Beneath a pair of coveralls I find a rusty ax. I ignore the pain from my busted hands as I grip it and climb the ladder.

Ethan sits up suddenly. "What're you doing?"

I look down at him and try to smile. My face is unresponsive, so I give up and begin hacking at the crack between the doors. "Getting us out."

Ethan watches me. "What do you think happened, you know, to Mama and Dad?"

"I'm sure they're fi ..." My throat squeezes. I look down at my little brother. "I don't know." I swing the ax over and over until my hands are screaming.

It takes a half an hour to bust the doors open. When I can barely grip the ax and my head throbs enough to blur my vision, the last of the wood gives way. I push open the mangled doors. Sunlight floods my face. Squinting, I climb out of the cellar and look around.

The stillness sends goose b.u.mps over my arms. The yard is empty. Our farmhouse is silent, the back door open. Across the yard, the barn door thwacks in the breeze. A crow perches on the roof. When it sees me, it caws and flings itself into the air. Arn says crows are a bad omen. I watch the bird slash upward and feel like throwing up.

I peer down the hole at Ethan. "Stay here." I don't wait for him to protest. I steel my will and stalk toward the house with the ax.

The first porch step creaks as I walk up. I freeze. Someone might lurk inside the darken doorway, waiting to ambush me. I grip the ax handle, take a deep breath and slip through the doorway into the dark hall.

I stand in the hallway and listen with the ax clutched to my chest. There's no sounds, no sign that anyone's inside, but I can't shake the feeling that lurking behind a door someone waits to kill me. My hands tremble as I step into our living room.

Small beams of light sift in through bullet holes in the front wall. A vase is shattered and lying on the floor, yet the couch and Auntie's Victrola look undisturbed. I tiptoe forward and something crunches beneath my heel. I pick it up. It's a shotgun sh.e.l.l. I set it on my mother's sideboard table, clutch the ax to my chest and creep toward the kitchen.

When I see what's become of the kitchen, I can't help gasping.

The place is unrecognizable. The table is flipped on its side; the table top, a splintered mess of bullet holes. Gla.s.s shards from the exploded front windows litter the ground like jagged snow. The cupboards are open and their contents in pieces on the floor. I pick up a shard from the green ceramic mug that my mama drank tea out of every morning. I set the pieces on the counter with trembling fingers. Then my eyes trail toward the front window. What waits outside?

More gla.s.s on the porch. Auntie's rocker rests on its side in the empty flowerbed. But no bodies. Then my eyes find a trail of blood that streaks the porch boards and continues down the steps.

The sick panic cripples me. Whose blood paints our porch? I lean my head against the window frame and close my eyes. I can't do this. I can't search for the bodies of my family. My trembling hand smears tears across my cheeks. But, I can't leave them out there for the coyotes to pick apart. I wipe my face with my sleeve. My stomach's lined with lead as I pull open the front door.

The screen door dangles crookedly by one hinge. There's the streak of blood and one b.l.o.o.d.y footprint. I lean down and examine the smeared red stain. My mama's? I look up through the yard, expecting a body. Big tire tracks cut through the dirt where the trucks peeled out last night. Here and there, the dust is tinted deep brown. I've killed enough rabbits to know a bloodstain. A stray boot lies about fifteen yards from the porch. It doesn't look like Arn's. Hopefully one of those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds took a bullet. Hopefully more than one.

With no bodies and no sign of what happened to my family, I turn back in. What if they're wounded and hiding upstairs? As I stalk toward my bedroom, the fear of being watched settles on me again. I know that if they wanted me, they would've come down in the cellar and taken me. Unless Clay didn't tell them we were down there. But why wouldn't he?

I pull up to my bedroom and listen. Nothing but my breath, hot and fast. I push the door open with my toe, the ax held high. The door gives a loud screech as it opens.

"Riley?" A voice behind me.

"Ahhh!" I brandish the ax.

Ethan's face twists in fear.

"Jesus, Ethan!" I drop the ax and put my other hand to my beating heart. "Thought I told you to stay in the cellar."

He steps beside me until his hip's touching mine. He's carrying a rusty kitchen knife. He peers down the hall with frightened eyes. "Where's Mama and Dad?"

"I don't know, but let me handle this." I push him towards the back door.

He digs in his heels. "I can't stay down there no more. What I'm thinking about can't be worse than what's up here."

I know what he means about pictures in your head. Mine's flooded with horrible possibilities. I take his hand and together we slip quietly up the stairs.

The upstairs hallway is tensely quiet. The scuffed wood floor sighs under our weight. With shaking hands I push open two bedroom doors. Nothing. Everyone's gone. My eyes linger on the soft-bristled brush on my mother's dresser. Will she ever use it again? I stumble out of her room before the ghost of her presence suffocates me.

We head downstairs and slump on the couch. Neither of us says a word. I can't think. I can't feel. I sit in a trance. An hour pa.s.ses before Ethan's stomach rumbles. It's noon and we haven't eaten or drank anything since dinner last night.

Somehow I find the strength to stand. "Canned beans okay?"

He nods and then goes back to staring at light trickling through the bullet holes in our living room wall.

I drag myself to the pantry, but when I get there, something's wrong. The shelves are bare. I run a hand over the planking, my fingers brus.h.i.+ng past a circular rust stain. This pantry was stocked yesterday. Today it's bare. Where did it all go? There's no cans on the floor. I peer into the kitchen and then back at the shelves. It takes my deadened brain a few beats to realize what's happened. They took our food. Every canned good-the dried fruit, bread, flour, rice, carrots, apples. All gone.

The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds stole our family and now our only chance at survival.

The livestock. Banging out of the pantry, I stumble through the kitchen and out the front door. I break into a run around to the barn. I push open the barn doors.

"Bounty?" My voice breaks.

The minute I'm not greeted by her mooing, I know she's gone. And why wouldn't they take her? She's a commodity, useful, tradable. Just like my family.

I fall to the barn floor and lie in the dust. The sobs run though me for what seems like hours. Until there are no tears left. Until I'm hollow.

Sometime later Ethan's small hand slides over my back. His trembling voice cuts through my stupor. "Riley, I ... I found Dad."

By the sound of his voice, I know Arn's gone. Empty of tears, a dark numbness covers me. I take Ethan's hand and he leads me through the barn and around back. There, in the shade of our dead apple trees, is Arn's motionless body. His blood paints the ground beneath him a deep, muddy brown. His legs and arms are extended at odd angles. Someone dragged him here and left his body for the coyotes.

This is all my fault. I led his killer right to him.

As we approach, Ethan begins to shake. I stop and put my hands on his shoulders. "You don't have to do this," I say, looking into his eyes. "I can bury him myself." Can I? I'm not even sure I can take another step.

He shakes his head and wipes at the tears that trickle into the dust on his red cheeks. "He's my dad. I need to bury him."

Today, my brother becomes a man, though I would trade all I had in the world to keep him a boy.

We arrange Arn's body so it looks like he's sleeping. It gives me some comfort to see him lying back, eyes closed, arms over his chest, like he's fallen asleep in the shade. We get shovels and spend the rest of the day pouring our pain into the dirt. We bury Arn as the red sunset bleeds out across the horizon. Neither one of us cries. The grief is too big for tears.

The next days are a fog. I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Ethan pushes food at me that he's brought up from the cellar. The opened cans go uneaten. I close my eyes and my dreams are splashed with horrors. I open them and the horrors are the same, except awake I can feel pain.

When I'm awake, the guilt eats at my insides like acid. All of this is my fault. I went into town and p.i.s.sed off the Warden. I led them back to our house. It doesn't matter that I rescued Arn. He'd have been better off in jail than under six feet of dirt. And now my mama and Auntie are gone. They are likely dead or wis.h.i.+ng they were. And Ethan? I get to watch him starve to death. When he brings me the meals that I keep refusing, I can't look him in the face.

The only time I feel alive is when I think about revenge. I think of hurting the motherless b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who did this. But mostly I think of Clay. I picture myself standing over his crumpled body and aiming my gun at his chest. I thought he was a good guy. He was just setting me up so they could follow me home and take everything. Why Ethan and I are still alive is a mystery, but I a.s.sume it's a minor setback. He'll be back to finish the job, and when he does, my hunting knife will find its last victim.

That night I have another nightmare. My mother cries in the distance. I run through the desert looking for her when something shakes me.

"Ri, wake up."

I swim up out of the nightmare and open my eyes.

Ethan's gaunt face hovers a foot from mine. His black hair hangs lank on either side. Seeing him like this brings the stab of pain to my chest. I roll away and face the wall.

"Let me sleep."

He shakes me again. "Someone's here."

I sit up, heart pumping. "Who's here?" I grab my hunting knife. When I stand, the room spins. G.o.d, I'm weak. I shake the dizziness away and let anger wake up my limbs. I stalk to the front room.

An engine grumbles outside. I blow through the front door and stride onto the porch. At my feet is a package wrapped in white paper. On the road I spot a leather-clad biker on a black motorcycle. The helmet's face s.h.i.+eld is down so I can't tell who's out there. The biker watches as I pick up the package.

There's charcoal scrawl on the white paper. A peace offering-Clay I drop the package, jump off the porch and run toward the motorcycle. The sand sears the bottoms of my feet as I tear toward the bike, but I barely feel it. I sprint with my hunting knife gripped in my fist. He watches for a moment, revs the engine and takes off. By the time I hit the road, he's a cloud of dust in the distance. I pick up rocks and chuck them after him.

"Come back and I'll kill you!"

He's gone. All I can do is choke on the dust.

My adrenaline spent, my legs barely carry me back to the house. Splotches of light dance in my vision. I mount the porch and kick Clay's package into the dirt. Then I stumble up the remaining steps, slump onto the couch and pa.s.s out.

The sound of sizzling wakes me. The delicious aroma of cooking meat sends my stomach twisting. My mama cooking bacon? Then I remember.

I drag my useless body into the kitchen. Ethan's at the stove tending whatever's smelling so wonderful. I walk over to him and see two prime cuts of beef sizzling on the skillet.

"Where'd you get that?"

A smile forms on his face. "From the package. Who's Clay?"

I recoil. "We can't eat those!"

"Why not?"

"They might be poisoned." I grab the nearest fork and stab the delicious steaks. Warm red juice drips down my hand as I open the belly of the stove. I toss the steaks into the fire.

Ethan cries, "Stop! What are you doing?"

I slam the stove shut and stand in front of it. "Clay's a monster." I look Ethan hard in the eye. "He killed Arn. We can't trust him."

We watch through the slats in the stove door as the steaks crinkle in the fire. The delicious aroma turns to a charred stink. Ethan bursts into tears beside me.

"What's wrong?" I say, standing over him as he sinks to the floor.

He buries his head in his hands. I crouch down beside him and put my hand on his bony shoulder. He shrugs it off.

"Listen," I say. "I'm sorry about the steaks, but it was for your own good."