Forty-seven
Caitlin rounded the hill that put Brighton
Hollow in view. She advanced slowly until a bullet whisked by. The
crack of the rifle followed and echoed for a time.
She waited for a second bullet. When it didn't
come, she started forward again, confident that Rex Logan, or
whoever was in charge, would hear her out.
Rex met her on the outskirts of town. He
looked thinner and smaller, and he had no smile for her as he
approached. There was nothing in his eyes but hopelessness, and the
apathy it bred.
"What do you want, Caitlin?"
Caitlin made no effort to hide her tears. "I
don't know why people can't shoot straight once in a while."
Rex whipped his revolver from his holster and
held it out at the end of his reach, pointed straight between her
eyes. "Is this what you came back for?"
She closed her eyes and waited. There would be
no pain, not even an instant of awareness of injury. With her
brains splattered across the snow, there would no memory of ever
having lived.
Nothing happened, and she opened her eyes to
see what he was doing. The gun in his right hand dangled at his
side. With his head bent and his shoulders trembling, it took a
moment to realize that he was sobbing.
"What difference does it make?" he said through
his tears. "Why don't you kill me instead, you fucking bitch? Put
me out of my misery."
His arm swept out behind him to include all of
Brighton Hollow. "And the rest of us while you're at it."
"You can fight back," she said mildly.
He shook his head with grim disdain. "There's
a thousand others like you in these woods, and we don't have food
for the winter. Not to worry, Caitlin. Knowing you'll get yours in
the end is the only revenge any of us need."
His accusations stripped her soul bare of any
lingering justifications for her existence. She deserved to die,
and he was denying her that gesture of mercy in retaliation for
Connie's death. All of this coming from the only man she had ever
loved.
"Put a bullet in your own fucking head," he
said. "I haven't got one to waste on you." He turned and started
to walk back to town.
"But the caterpillars will die!" she called out
after him. "There will still be people left when they're gone!"
He spun back to face her. "It's too late!"
"You don't know that for sure!"
His voice turned sinister and calm. "Caitlin,
the communications blackout ended a week ago. We've gotten word
that the caterpillars are starting to change."
The news struck Caitlin numb. "Changing into
what?"
Rex shrugged. "How would I know? Butterflies,
do you suppose? Except that when they change, nothing is heard from
that area ever again."
He threw his gun at her. She watched it spin
through the air and bury itself in the snow at her feet. "If you
want to be useful, go find out how we're all going to die."
Caitlin let him go, filled with a new and
terrible sense of apprehension. Her caterpillar trilled its
confusion, sensing her fear, but no prey in its surroundings to
justify her reaction. She reached up, pulled it loose from her
shoulders, and tossed it into the snow. She turned her back on it,
forcing it to follow after her as best it could. She then
backtracked on impulse, retrieved Rex’s gun, and stuck it in her
belt.
"Fucking bug," she muttered. She hurried back
into the trees drowning in a sense of dread, wondering for how long
her heart could beat so fast before it tore itself into a thousand
pieces.
