cool, dark places

The man Eli ate in the sterile, rotten-smelling break room. The clerk – who had not eaten in the break-room ever, for he hated the smell of biodegrading cardboard and stinky-ass stale fucking coffee and the wonderful accord such olfactory murder struck with the nausea of the fluorescents – reasoned the man would probably be fine by himself. The skies had opened for three more days since they had arrived at the store, and in that time the clerk fed the man from the frozen stock and always delivered the blue and white pills to him. Always the tray came back, set on the photo counter with the pills untouched, and the admiration of the clerk for this particular asceticism grew.

This fellow is altogether picaresque and principled, wouldn't you say so, Sal?

The bird shifted at the sound of its name – servos whirring in the talons, actuators humming as it moved on the glove, the end result of some laudable programmer's dedication to creating a facsimile of impatience. The reassuring and muffled feel of the claws biting into the thick leather.

Yes, you would. Doesn't it make you jealous, Sal, that such an archetypal construct walks this solemn earth? The world of this man and his antiquated ideas are far behind him. I don't know how in the world I should sympathize, and yet... mmmyes, and yet.

Still talking, the left arm extended to hold the bird's perch level, he reached over to the wall and withdrew the lever-action rifle by its strap from the nail where it hung. Pistol and longarm dangling from his body – more like luggage than anything else. The brown fedora perched comfortably on his head and the long brown coat seeming to trail behind him as he went.

The doors whirred aside, and he stepped out into the clearing air. Rain trailing its ghostly, misting fingers downward to tickle the earth to the west. Every so often the petulant murmur of thunder – threats shouted over the shoulder of a bully that has raged impotently and walks sulking away in defeat despite his strength.

No amount of rain would sate the soil. Water flowed into the parched cracks of the hard earth and the cracks remained. In the silence of the morning and the sun's reluctant climb, it was already hot enough to wither a rose.

His ears followed the flowing sounds. Searched for one of the cool, dark places. Every rain was different. The rocky canals, dry most of the time, could fill unexpectedly. A rock might come dislodged – earth might shift or give. God's or the universe's or fate's randomness loosing a torrent unto any unsuspecting fool camping in the otherwise suitably shaded recesses.

He found one with a muddy low-point, the water sparkling and still. In a few hours, when the sun reached its blinding apex, the water would dry up. The earth puckering like scar tissue in the baking heat. Any creatures unfortunate enough to need water were running out the shot clock on this one. Good a place as any, Joe. You listening?

The ersatz falcon made no motion. But for the soothing hum pulsing up the clerk's arm coming from its inner workings, it might have run out of batteries.

Saladin.

The bird straightened – tinny, disembodied voice issuing from within its beak, though beneath the hood it did not move. Recite authorization code, please.

He put on a thick Irish brogue and ended every statement as a question. I am Yusuf ibn Ayyud, the Righteousness of Faith. There is no God but God, and Mohammad is his prophet. Mine shall be the doing of all good deeds.

Remove hood and issue command.

He reached up and undid the hood, pulling it away. The sleek, curved head of the creature did not look at him.

Patrol for small-class. Paint blue. Recon potential hostiles. Paint red. Execute.

The bird shrieked the recording he'd snatched from a movie, adopting the tenor voice of a battle-crazed mameluke.

ALLAAAAAAAAAAAAHU AKBAR!

A single fierce beat of the wings and it took flight, soaring up as if gravity held no dominion over it. The wings briefly eclipsed the sun, the creature's silhouette imprinted on his retina.

They were out in the forest and he was the disciplined one and the serious one and he was the one who was on task. The three others that shared his features and his voice were splintered off among the rocks and he was the quiet in the center. The rifle in his hands, lever out so the action gaped open.

Shut up Danny, nobody loves you, not even Jesus!

I'm telling Mom!

That's because you're a fag.

You stay out of this!

He kept quiet. They'd wasted the .22 long-rifle rounds, the yellow jackets, on interesting-looking rocks and whatever seemed like it needed to get shot – this was the last one. They'd flushed a fawn out of the underbrush and run from the nearby doe that came at them in retribution – his scolding falling on deaf ears.

At present, he did not think of his squabbling brothers, running around in bare feet and swimming trunks. He put out of his mind the unpleasant line of thinking that naturally followed his parents' insistence that the four of them wander off and find something to do while they... straightened up the camp. At present, all of that was noise, and the snake crawling toward his youngest sibling's ankle was the most important thing.

Above him, the hawk circled. His eyes out of focus, the rifle still hanging from the strap, not even at the ready. Always at the ready, on the strap or in his grip and sighted – ever vigilant. He saw the movement before the hawk's gaze fell upon it and the machine painted the target with a wandering blue dot. A snake, moving as slowly and elegantly as it could. Waiting at the water's edge for much the same reason the clerk did.

The rifle was up and sighted. On the front sight he'd dabbed orange-pink neon nail polish from the cosmetics aisle. The straight bar of metal shown between the dark hills of the rear sights, the gyroscopic blue dot staying for one eerie moment fixed perfectly still across the back of the unknowing snake as Saladin pulled up just so – drag canceling forward motion for tiniest fraction of a second and...

The snake's head burst and his brother shouted and jumped what seemed like five feet in the air. The serpent was crawling one moment, dead the next. An absolute and unarguable dichotomy.

His youngest brother cursing and jumping around, the others laughing at him.

QUIET!

They were.

Maybe you'll watch yourself next time instead of relying on me to use the last bullet. He threw the rifle to his youngest brother, who fumbled with it and dropped it. Come on, we're heading back.

He saw the bright blue dot as it settled on the head of the snake. He brought the rifle to bear and he had to time to see it was a kingsnake, a sharp, solid black that betrayed it when it slithered against the alkali. His rifle's report rippled out into the empty air, and he heard the effect even a little bit of residual moisture had on the sound. By the time the crack of it reached the kingsnake, it was dead. The creature was a great granddaddy – nearly five feet long, as long as he'd ever seen one of that type.

Sal couldn't lift something that large, so it fell to him to decide whether or not he wanted to go down to retrieve it. He cast his glance back to the store, sitting on the precipice. The rain had eroded the soil that settled at the rock's edge. He saw no movement there.

He reached into his coat and brought out the little ear-bud with the small microphone next to it, plugged it into his right ear and spoke a simple command to his companion.

Cancel small-class patrol.

It wasn't a treacherous journey down into the muddy canal, but it was a journey. He found purchase and made his way slowly, with the sort of exaggerated care so unlike the rest of his behavior. The reptile lay destroyed, head beside the water, with its blood and brains in a drying splatter alongside it. There could be other things in the dark, hiding in the shadows beneath the rocky overhang, clustered there and waiting to drink the water -- or like him, waiting for those who came to it.

It was within reach if he just stretched a little...

The overhang gave way beneath him and he fell down into the waterway, plunging into the mud and the wet.

Mike with his bicycle overturned. The second son – always trying to prove himself better and stronger. The front wheel had struck the unyielding muck and he'd been sent flying over the handlebars. The boy's arm was broken.

I'm fine!

Yes, he said, hitting the kickstand on his own bike and dismounting. Why don't you get up and clap your hands in celebration?

Fuck you, I said I'm fine!

Or maybe you could do a cartwheel. Come on. He reached out his hand toward his brother's good one.

Mike slapped it away, and the violence of his motion excited the break and he held it to himself and bit back angry, furious tears. He'd effectively benched his whole summer and he wanted to be angry at everybody.

I can sit here in the mud with you until you see some damn sense, he said to his brother, or I could just carry you kicking and screaming.

I'll kill you.

Yes, yes, I know. I'll bet you could take me with one hand tied behind your back. Let's go.

Finally the younger one reached up and took the elder's hand. After a while, they were walking, the injured supported by his brother's shoulder. It was half a mile down the road to the nearest phone, and the frenzied shouting they got from their mother in the emergency room was just one other thing they couldn't care about.

He was uninjured, and the snake was still recoverable. The dark surrounding him seemed devoid of hostility. He sat there in the cool and found the water to be fairly clear, at least as water went out there. Saying nothing for once, he reached down and drank of it, then leaned back up against the rocky wall of the canal.

He abided there until the sun crested and began its decline, and when he looked up, the silhouette of the falcon perched on the edge with the western sun at its back was somehow not a new occurrence, but some chilling recollection.