Baccano! - Volume 20 - Chapter 5

Chapter 5 Run like a Bunny

Bungalow Number 1

While the giant beast was lunging at the two Lemures, the mood in the bungalow couldn’t have been less tense.

“Nwuh? I just heard…a scream or something.”

“Yeah? I bet it was your imagination.”

“Hya-haah!” “Hya-haaaw.”

The room should have seemed spacious, but it was currently swarming with kids of all different ages.

“Forget that—how much longer until we hit the road?”

“Ask Melody.”

“Don’t you want to take it easy for another three days or so?”

“The cargo will all wash downriver.”

“We can just go to the coast and pick it up.”

“Don’t talk crazy.”

“The coast, huh…? I want to see the dolls swimming in their birthday suits.”

“Man, I can’t believe you just said that out loud.”

“I want to see ’em, too, though.” “Me too.” “And me.” “Me three!” “So do I!”

“You’re a doll yourself!” “Hey, some girls want to see girls naked sometimes!”

“What…?!” “Why’d you go and make it sexy?!”

“Okay, fine! Be my little sister.” “That made no sense!”

“Hya-haah!” “Hya-haw.” “Gyaaaah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Swarming really was the word for it: They were milling about like confused ants.

In the midst of that bizarre conversation, a few figures stood out sharply from the crowd.

Pamela and Lana were in a corner, watching the noisy group of kids. Sonia was sleeping peacefully beside them while the delinquent girls were treating Cazze like a dress-up doll.

“P-p-please stop.”

They were changing him into and out of girls’ clothes, and his face was bright red. But the girls squealed with laughter and kept right on dressing him up.

As they watched the lighthearted chaos, Pamela and Lana exchanged looks, then began conversing in whispers.

“…What should we do, Pamela?”

“There’s nothing to do, period. Whatever’s going to happen will happen.”

“But that’s leaving everything to chance!”

“I never thought I’d be hearing that from you, Lana… Well, it’s good as far as you’re concerned, isn’t it? It means we’ll be pulling that train job after all.” Pamela smiled wryly.

Lana heaved a big sigh. “Do coincidences like this even happen? Who’d have believed we’d come to rob a train and run into train robbers…”

“Obviously, they do. Did you forget about the museum incident?” Pamela said dryly. Lana sighed again.

On the train they were targeting, the web of coincidences and sheer lunacy made this seem normal by comparison—but they had no way of knowing that. Instead, they remembered the exchange they’d had a little while earlier.

A few hours previously

“So how much are you ladies planning to bleed that rich family for?” The question had come from a girl with pigtails, sleepy eyes, and a silly smile.

Lana averted her gaze, breaking out in a cold sweat. “Wh-what are you talking about? We aren’t really…”

“You don’t have to hide it. Thirty-four seconds ago, you said, ‘Besides, when I demanded the ransom, I told them, “Bring as much as you can of what you’re able to pay.”’” Giggling, the girl repeated Lana’s earlier remark with the precision of a tape recorder.

“Seriously, who are you?” Going pale, Lana turned to the side and grasped for a way out. “That’s right! You can’t prove I said anything of the sort! Heh-heh-heh-heh. It’s an amusing deduction, but it sounds like you should be writing mysteries instead.”

Lana was suddenly bursting with confidence. Sighing heavily, Pamela looked down—and the kids around them began energetically objecting.

“Nah, I heard her, too.” “And me.” “Me too.” “Be my little sister.” “Me too.” “Me too.” “Marry me.”

“And actually, uh…that wasn’t a deduction so much as an eyewitness account.”

“Yeah, nothing to do with writers.”

“Is this lady stupid?”

“Hey, dumbbell! If you call somebody stupid, you’re stupid! Be more subtle about it!”

“Good point. Then, uh… Oh. Excuse me, miss? Is there something wrong with you somewhere, physically? Especially, uh, behind your eyeballs, inside your skull?” the boy asked politely.

Lana whispered in Pamela’s ear. “Um… Is my color that bad?”

“No, but your brain is.”

“That’s mean! How could you say that, Pamela?!” Lana protested with a shocked look.

Pushing the other woman’s head out of the way, Pamela turned to the boys with a sigh of defeat. “Kids, this girl wears glasses, but she’s not too bright. You can’t expect subtle insults to work on her.” With a smile that didn’t go past her lips, Pamela gave the group a quiet once-over—then spoke a bit defiantly. “Well, what are you going to do? Send us to the cops? Blackmail us? Just so you know, the kidnappee hasn’t figured it out yet, and I don’t want to scare him if I can help it.”

She seemed to be pushing her luck, but the boys looked at one another, then started to talk it over among themselves.

“What do we do?”

“Well, obviously… What, you haven’t come up with anything?!”

“Hya-haah!”

“Shaddap! Chaini, say something besides ‘Hya-haah,’ wouldja?!”

“The humane thing would probably be to rescue the child. However, since we’re helping out with a train robbery, we aren’t really qualified to throw stones.”

“Don’t get serious out of nowhere! No one knows how to react!”

“Hya-haw!”

“Close your head, Parrot! You gotta say something besides ‘Hya-haw,’ too!”

“………Die.”

“Did you just say ‘Die’?! Was that little whisper ‘Die’?!”

“Hya-haw!”

“I—I guess I was hearing stuff.”

Meanwhile, the girl with pigtails took a step toward Pamela and leaned in close. She seemed to be enjoying herself. “What do you want us to do, ladies?”

“Huh?!” Pamela was bewildered.

The girl gave her a quiet smile. “All I care about is killing time constructively until the train robbery. So…I don’t mind going along with your plan until then.”

Had this been a lucky miscalculation as far as Pamela’s group was concerned?

The kids who’d overheard their plan weren’t utter villains, but they certainly weren’t the good guys, either.

And then—Pamela and Lana learned something else.

This gang of delinquents was planning to do what their trio had originally intended: steal the Flying Pussyfoot’s cargo.

“They say they’ve already got people on the train. It does sound hit-or-miss, but they’re being a lot more systematic than we were.”

“Hmph! I don’t know about that. I mean, I hope they manage to make it to the freight car. It’s their first time on that train; they won’t know left from right. In that case, the plan I came up with is…”

As Lana muttered, one of the delinquents slung an arm around her shoulders. “It’s fine; they’re part of the train crew. We’ve got two pals on the staff.”

The boy leaned against her, being overly friendly. Lana pried him off. “On the staff…?”

“Well, the cook and bartender on that train have been tight with us for ages! They gave us the wire about the cargo and stuff!” the kid said proudly.

Pamela sounded a little appalled. “Are you sure it’s all right to tell us that?”

“? Why not?”

“If we get picked up by the cops, don’t you think we might squeal on your group while we’re there?”

This was a perfectly natural question, but the boy seemed mystified. “Well, don’t get caught, then.”

“……”

Pamela couldn’t find a response for a little while.

During that moment of silence, the boys and girls crowded around them.

“Boy, are you dumb. Who knows whether they’re gonna get caught?”

“They could turn themselves in, too.”

“Huh?! Why?! Are you ladies gonna turn yourselves in?!” The boy sounded flustered.

Lana responded with complete confidence. “Of course we won’t! Our dream is to become the best gang of bandits in America! We won’t turn ourselves in, and we won’t let the cops collar us!”

The kids all shouted over one another.

“Oooooooh!”

“I don’t really get it, but that sounded awesome!”

“I’d expect no less…of my little sister!” “Shove it.” “My big sister, then!” “Well, okay.” “Wait, it is?!”

“How do they figure out who’s the best bandit?”

“Well, come on, by… Uh, by how much they stole, maybe…”

“They’d tally it all up?!”

“By instinct, then!”

“Instinct, huh?!” “Yeah, that’s real important for bandits!” “You’re real smart.” “Hya-haah!”

“I see… So bandits decide who’s number one by instinct, huh?” “That’s bandits for you.” “Hya-haw!”

“By the way, if you’re the best, do you get something?”

“I bet…somebody pays some kind of cash prize.”

“They do?” “I bet not.”

“Then just go steal it yourselves, huh?!”

“Whoa, why’d you get so mad?” “You make no sense.”

“Well, it’s fine! If that’s all you ladies want!”

“Hya-haah!” “Hya-haw.” “Gweh-heh-heh.”

The chaotic mass of words echoed between Pamela and Lana.

I’m having trouble following all this, Pamela thought.

Yep, this is making no sense, Lana thought.

Pamela gave a sigh of exhaustion, then looked around.

Melody and the others were still messing with Cazze on the opposite side of the room. He seemed shy, but he was smiling; not a soul had told him he’d been kidnapped yet.

Meanwhile, over on this side…

“I really do think the three of us should have matching outfits. We have to get our name out there, you know!”

“…What about going stark naked?!”

“Stark naked?! Oh… That might be novel!” Lana was blending right in with the dim-witted conversation.

I don’t exactly fit in here, but…

…this sort of thing is…kinda nice.

On that thought, Pamela gazed up at the ceiling for a while.

In the end, these boys and girls had found out about their plan.

Then, for some reason, the other group had also started telling them about their train robbery.

At first, Pamela hadn’t been able to fathom why they’d do a thing like that, but as she listened to them talk, she’d begun to understand, in a way.

No, there was no way she could understand.

After all, they weren’t thinking, period.

They were just living life as their instincts dictated.

As she watched them, something abruptly occurred to her.

So deep down, they’re like us?

Reflecting on their past—and their uncertain future—she smiled wryly to herself.

Honestly. In other words, the only one in this entire group with a stable future is…Cazze.

But there was something she hadn’t picked up on: the possibility that this boy they’d kidnapped might have the stormiest future of all.

It might not even be the distant future.

Pamela completely failed to anticipate the rough seas waiting just up ahead.

Deep in the forest Near the iron bridge

An army truck and several private cars were stopped beside a tent pitched a short distance from the railroad tracks. At first glance, the cars looked normal. However, the license plates had all been forged.

Sarges and the other Lemures weren’t indulging in small talk. Their method of killing time was the exact opposite of the one Melody’s group had opted for.

“…They’re late,” Sarges muttered, glancing at his watch. It was significantly past the time the first negotiator had been scheduled to return. Not only that, but the men who’d been sent to observe those concerning delinquents were also nowhere to be seen.

“…What is this?”

The ordinary thing to assume was that there had been some sort of trouble, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe that. When he’d seen the group in the woods earlier, they’d seemed like nothing more than a bunch of ne’er-do-wells. Naturally, he didn’t believe they had any special training or that the two scouts had blundered.

“Unlikely” doesn’t mean “impossible,” however.

Some new complication might have appeared. For example, some third party could have joined them.

Sarges thought for a while. Then, checking his watch again, he issued orders.

“…All right. Two of you wait here,” he said.

“The rest of you, come with me to Point K.”

Near the forest’s entrance

“Now then, what should we do about this, I?”

“Great question, Me.”

The twin hunters were standing with folded arms, wearing brutal smiles. They were looking at a vehicle with a crumpled bumper and hood.

Although it wasn’t in flames, it was clear that it wouldn’t function as a vehicle anymore. There was a body hanging from a nearby tree. It had been strung up with a sturdy rope, and it was breathing faintly.

The person hadn’t “survived” so much as been kept alive, just barely.

“The moment we said we wanted him to release the child, his expression changed.”

“Yeah, he screamed ‘Government dogs!’ or something.”

“To think he’d treat us, of all people, as government dogs.”

It wasn’t clear what the joke was, but the twins grinned at each other.

They’d dragged the “kidnapper” out of his truck and done a little interrogating. They’d failed to establish a discussion, though, and the man had ended up calling them government dogs until he passed out.

That said, while they hadn’t learned whether Cazze was safe or not, they’d managed to threaten the man into telling them where he’d been headed.

“Through the bungalows up ahead, beside the railway bridge…”

“Is that where the young master is? Huh, Me?”

“We can only hope, I.”

Sighing, the twins took another look at the man who was hanging behind them. Although he was unconscious now, he’d held up under their torture fairly well.

“Still… One does wonder why he called us government dogs.”

“Maybe ’cause the boss is tight with Senator Beriam?”

The moment the suggestion was made, the young men’s attitudes began to grow colder and colder.

“That means…these people think our Don Bartolo is lower than Senator Beriam. An idea as terrible as it is false. Is that it?”

“They’re making monkeys of us, Me.”

“Let’s teach them a lesson, I.”

The pair rolled their necks at the exact same time, cracking their joints rhythmically, and straddled their motorbikes.

Then, quietly, they rode away.

They were headed deeper into the forest, toward the cluster of bungalows, where a variety of “others” waited.

And so the visitors to the forest drew closer and closer.

The deep woods absorbed both malice and goodwill in equal measure, creating a unique space.

At this moment, at least…

…practically no one in it could be labeled a “good person.”

Bungalow Number 1

“Nyup.”

Sonia slowly sat up in a corner of the room, like a mollusk that had acquired human vocal cords. “Good mooorning, Pamela, Lana, and, ummm, crowd.”

“There’s not much point in calling them that.”

The girl had slept soundly, completely unaffected by the surrounding situation. Putting on the helmet she’d set down by her chest, she smiled brightly with a long yawn. “Well, so what happened? Are Cazze’s parents coming to pick him up?” she asked innocently. She still hadn’t been told a thing about the kidnapping.

Lana and Pamela wore rather stiff smiles as they tried to gloss over the matter.

“Um, I think they could get here any minute, really…”

“N-never mind that— Are you sure you don’t need to maintain and test-fire your guns today?”

“Wha—?! Lana!”

“Huh? Did I say something wrong?” Lana had already forgotten what she said, her eyes darting around behind her spectacles.

Before the kids around them could react to that remark, Pamela tried to shout something to distract them, but Sonia spoke first, in a chipper mood as always upon waking up. She didn’t hesitate, and her smile was genuine.

“Oh, right! I need to do maintenance on about ten of them!”

A few minutes later

Most of the people who’d been in the bungalow were gathered around the bed of the jalopy.

Looking rather resigned, Pamela opened the canvas back. Lana was huddled at a distance, deep in self-loathing. In sharp contrast to the two of them, Sonia was happily watching Pamela work, and the rest were observing all three of them with deep interest.

“Just so you know, these are mementos of Sonia’s family, so you mustn’t steal them or fire them without permission,” Pamela warned them.

The delinquents thumped their chests.

“We know that!”

“Trust us a little, wouldja?”

“…When they just met us?”

“No, actually, they can trust us because they just met us. The more time you spend with somebody, the more you get to see who they are, deep down, and the harder it is to trust ’em. Now, when we just met, they can trust us on pure instinct. Go on—put blind faith in us! You can even love us— Blughk!”

“Can it, perv!” “You heard him! Try to seduce my little sisters, will you!” “Die!” “‘Die’ was going too far!” “Okay then, suffer!” “Feel pain!” “Get hurt!” “I’ll fry you!” “With the fires of hell!”

“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!” “Hya-haah!” Gyah-haaah!”

The boy was getting pummeled in a way generally reserved for comedy films, but Pamela ignored him, silently unloading cargo from the bed of the truck.

Still, what are we going to do about Cazze? Will he accept that these are how Sonia remembers her parents?

Cazze hadn’t caught on to the kidnapping yet, but wouldn’t he get frightened if he saw guns?

Worried, she turned to him and wondered what she could say to distract him, but Cazze’s expression hadn’t changed a bit. He was watching her with a little smile.

Sonia had already started to take guns out of the crate, but he was unaffected.

Even the delinquents were saying things like “Whoa, are those real?!”

“Woooow. Compared with these, the ones we left back in Chicago were popguns.”

“Yeah, the machine gun Jacuzzi used was the scariest one we had.”

“Can you shoot a gun this long with those skinny arms of yours?”

“Sure I can, if I lie down.”

“Whoa! Whooooa!” “Hya-haah!”

The kids crowded around Sonia with excitement, but Cazze didn’t even do that.

Did he think they were toys or something? Did he not know how dangerous guns were?

Pamela thought it might be one of those two, and yet staying silent didn’t seem to be the best move, either. To begin with, she decided to figure out what was going through his mind.

“Um… Are you surprised?”

Cazze tilted his head, puzzled. He was still wearing that smile. “Hmm? About what?”

Something was off.

The boy’s response planted a faint yet definite doubt in Pamela.

Something felt wrong. Just…overwhelmingly wrong.

A shiver ran down her spine.

Immediately understanding what that “something” was, she tried another question. “Cazze… What do you mean, ‘with what’? You aren’t frightened? There are so many guns here…”

“Huh?”

The boy’s smile disappeared, as if he didn’t understand what she was asking. He gave it a little thought, and then his eyes widened as if something had occurred to him. He nodded, smiling again. “Yes, I know they’re dangerous.”

“…Huh? Oh, um…”

That answer seemed a little off base. For a moment, Pamela wasn’t sure what to say, but then—

—the boy’s next remark silenced her completely.

“They tell me I absolutely mustn’t touch them until I’m thirteen!”

Krikk!

Pamela’s spine creaked slightly.

Even before the words could strike her as odd, instincts born from her long years as a gambler spoke to her.

This wasn’t a Don’t get in any deeper; it’s dangerous warning.

This time, her instincts were telling her, It’s too late, so brace yourself.

Even so…

Even so, Pamela wanted to think that those instincts had been blunted by teaming up with Lana and distancing herself from gambling.

She hadn’t realized that what had actually lost its edge was her, if she was trying to deny her instincts.

Delivering the coup de grâce, the boy spoke with a childlike smile and the brutality peculiar to children.

“All the people who work for us have those!”

The forest Near the entrance

Pushing their motorcycles so that they could travel silently, the twin hunters were conversing calmly. They knew the “kidnappers” were armed now. If they rode their bikes, the noise of the engines would attract the enemy’s attention, and there might also be a wire or some other trap on the road ahead.

They’d tried to torture their victim into revealing that information as well, but he’d blacked out, so they’d decided it was a waste of time and they should focus on securing Cazze.

“By the way, I, what weapons do I have ready?”

“Great question, Me. It’s three handguns today, including backups.”

“Two knives and wire. Just one gun.”

“Packin’ light, Me.”

The two were talking as though this were an ordinary conversation, but the night was so late it was almost early again, and the forest was shrouded in eerie silence.

It wouldn’t be too long before dawn broke.

They had to reach the bungalows before morning. On the other hand, that man had mentioned the kidnappers’ main base. They could attack that first.

Still, that would be cutting it close.

After giving it a little thought, the politer of the twins spoke up. “Let’s do this, I. You take all the money.”

“Huh, so all the dough’s coming over here, Me? Meaning…”

The polite twin got out his wallet and threw a leg over his bike. “Your brother will strike the headquarters by a different route. Take care of the transaction, I.”

“On it, Me.”

Taking the money, the coarse man spoke indifferently.

“If this ain’t enough…we’ll save the young master by force, then leave the rest of ’em six feet under.”

Near the bungalows

Struck by self-loathing, Lana was immersed in solitary gloom.

“Aw, geez… Why am I like this?”

Thanks to her slip of the tongue, a group of passing train robbers had learned some information they absolutely didn’t need to know. The fact that her group had also originally been planning to rob a train was giving her incredibly mixed feelings.

“That’s right… We should have just stuck with the train robbery, like I planned. That way we wouldn’t have had to mess with the kidnapping… Oh, it’s not too late! We should hit that train!”

Switching moods in a heartbeat, Lana smartly straightened up and went around behind the bungalow.

Yes, all we have to do is use those young robbers! As a matter of fact, we can even piggyback on their heist, then flee in the confusion!

She obviously hadn’t been listening to the part where the boys were going to steal the cargo without stopping the train. Lana clenched her fists and gave a quiet little shriek. “This will work!”

“Now that that’s settled, the question is, What do we do with Cazze? Pamela isn’t into the idea at this point, and neither am I. We can just leave him at the bungalow. That’ll solve everything!”

Now that Pamela wasn’t there to shoot down her ideas, the self-proclaimed criminal genius kept her brain running at full speed.

“Wait… The first and third bungalows have our footprints and fingerprints all over them. Oh, and are the other bungalows really empty? If somebody besides those kids has seen us, things could get ugly…”

Suddenly, both her mouth and her brain cells froze simultaneously.

There was only a little light from the moon and the lamp outside the bungalow, and Lana’s surroundings were pretty gloomy.

Even so—she felt certain.

During her casual look around, she’d spotted two human figures between the bungalow and the woods, in a place that was usually out of sight.

They were about twenty yards away. If the bushes had been slightly thicker, she never would have noticed them.

After all, the pair were wearing what appeared to be military uniforms—and they were both lying flat on the ground.

“Huh… Who’s that?”

She felt as if the core of her spine had turned to ice. Her legs started trembling, and she couldn’t speak.

Bandits? Or are they the owners of the bungalows?

They can’t be the police…right?

She hesitated, wondering whether she should call Pamela, but finally decided that they might be dummies or scarecrows. Trying to set her mind at ease, she took a step closer.

Then another.

And another.

With each step, she could see the figures more clearly. Their clothes didn’t seem to be rumpled, and there were no obvious external wounds. Yet they lay perfectly still. She couldn’t tell whether they were dead or just unconscious.

Focusing on the situation in front of her instantly sharpened her senses, and she began to pick up on something she hadn’t noticed before.

What is that smell?

As she drew closer to the shapes on the ground, an odd odor began to steal into her nostrils.

It was a distinctive stench, like kitchen garbage. As if a whole lot of food had been left to rot.

Mingled with it was another, animal scent, like the fur of a wild dog.

What is this?

I feel a chill…

Her instincts must have noticed the abnormality nearby.

However, she’d missed one vital thing.

Beside the men’s bodies, an enormous shadow was watching her from the darkness of the forest.

The shadow moved slowly, lumbering, but it was definitely getting closer to Lana.

Ten more feet to go. If the enormous shadow lunged, it would reach her in no time.

Lana still hadn’t registered the oncoming shape.

Six feet.

The animal stink was getting stronger. Lana shivered. Slowly, she turned her head. She’d heard the sound of grass rustling.

Three feet.

She saw an enormous “shadow.”

A gunshot rang out near the bungalows a moment later.

A few seconds earlier

“Okay, as a test, I’ll shoot that broken branch!”

The moonlight illuminated a tree that was taller than the forest around it.

Sonia had spotted a branch that was broken in the middle, with one half dangling from the part that was attached to the trunk. It would do as a target.

It was quite a long way from where she stood, and she’d be aiming by moonlight. Even if she was wearing an army helmet, she was still a little girl. It was hard to see how she’d manage it, but Sonia took out a rifle, humming as she worked.

The guys started to place casual bets on whether she’d hit it or not, but—

—a gunshot rang out, and the broken half of the branch went spinning through the air.

Sonia staggered a little under the recoil, but she smiled when she saw that she’d hit her target. “Eh-heh-heeeh! I gooot it.”

There was a moment of silence. Then the delinquents erupted into cheers.

“Hya-haah!”

“Hya-haw!”

“Whoa… Oh man… Wow! Just wooow!”

“She actually hit that thing!”

“Forget that—she actually fired that thing!”

“A skinny little kid like her! Unbelievable!”

“I haven’t been that shocked since Jacuzzi was sobbing and blazing away with that machine gun!”

“That’s incredible. The bullet went clean through that branch just 0.00023 seconds after she fired it.”

“What the—?! Melody, you can tell?!”

“I said a random number, obviously.”

“H-hey, you little—!”

“Encore! Encore!”

“Encore! Encore!”

“Encore! Encore!”

Rather nonsensical calls for an encore went up. A bit flattered, Sonia looked around for another target.

Just then, they all heard a scream.

From behind the bungalow, a short distance away, a woman’s shriek pierced the quiet night.

Lana?! Pamela had been leaning against the truck’s canvas back, but at the sound of that voice, she broke into a run before anyone else.

When she got there, panting for breath, she saw several things.

Lana had collapsed, foaming at the mouth. Two men in military uniforms were underneath her.

There was something else: odd, compressed patches in the grass, as though something had been standing there just a minute ago.

But that was all.

In the forest

“…A gunshot?”

“It came from the direction of the bungalows, Comrade Sarges.”

“I know that.”

A gunshot had reverberated through the woods, taking them by surprise. The sound hadn’t been that far away—most likely very close to the bungalows, Sarges determined. “Let’s hurry,” he said, keeping his cool. Something must have happened.

He walked faster, feeling a little irritated. That sound… It wasn’t the model my men use.

I didn’t hear anyone return fire, either.

Now entirely on his guard, the man tsked in frustration, thinking fast.

Dammit… Are you telling me someone got them?

We’ll have to consider the possibility that the government’s dogs are here.

In the forest

“……”

The twin who’d been put in charge of the handoff responded to the gunshot with silence, but his expression instantly hardened. Still pushing his motorcycle, he broke into a run.

If that had been the sound of someone shooting Cazze dead—

—he steeled himself to slaughter the enemy, then die himself.

Near the bungalows

He—Cookie—was startled.

The young people’s cheers had drawn him out of the hut.

The air felt extremely cold, but the instincts from his circus days had won out. He’d been on his way toward the voices when he’d spotted two moving shadows.

His hunger hadn’t driven him to make a meal of them.

Ever since he’d bitten that boy Claire’s arm, he’d known that humans were poisonous.

Perhaps seeing some of them after all this time had made him feel nostalgic.

Maybe he’d remembered how he’d rushed at Claire and his trainers and knocked them over or rolled them around, and it made him want to experience that again.

There was no way to know for sure, but in any case, when Cookie sprang at the men, he had no intention of killing them.

That said, he’d made several miscalculations.

First, the people he’d jumped at in the past had been trained circus professionals.

Second, he was quite a bit larger than he had been when the circus broke up, and his weight had soared to match.

His torso squashed the Lemures flat—fortunately not lethally—and they blacked out instantly.

The sight startled Cookie. Memories of the past flashed through his mind.

Once, he’d lunged at a juvenile member of the troupe who was smaller than he was. The kid had been knocked out, and his trainer had given him a fearsome scolding.

It wasn’t clear how much he understood of what he was seeing, but he did seem to remember that if the person he lunged at stopped moving, he got yelled at. Following his instincts, Cookie turned and went deeper into the woods.

Then, remembering that not one of the people who’d been there at the time—including Claire, the ringmaster, and his trainer—was here now, Cookie shuffled back.

Straight smack into a bespectacled human, just as he heard a gunshot.

What a nasty sound.

If Cookie had used language the way humans did, he probably would have thought those words.

He’d heard that noise in the woods many times before he was sold to the circus. He had clear memories of companions shaped like him and the “prey” who lived in the woods collapsing, one after another, when that sound rang out.

Then, when the circus fought with that group they’d called a gang, he’d heard the same noise—and one of the children who’d cheered for him had collapsed, blood streaming from his leg.

The people who were making those noises soon stopped moving, thanks to Claire and the ringmaster, but the cheers had died away, and an ugly silence had filled the tent.

Cookie loathed those sounds even more after that.

I hate that noise.

With a quiet, wary growl, he fled down the road behind the bungalows.

Cookie, an enormous monster, was running like a bunny.

Lana watched the enormous thing that had loomed up in front of her take off just as suddenly.

For a little while, she trembled, not understanding what had happened.

Once whatever it was was completely out of sight, she managed to scream.

Drawn by Lana’s scream, everyone ran around the back of the bungalow. Meanwhile, Cookie ran around the front.

No one was there, though, and the cheers he’d heard a moment earlier had fallen silent.

Their scent was everywhere, and he couldn’t even track them properly.

However, he spotted something familiar.

It was a big truck with a canvas back, the same sort the circus had used to travel.

There was another, smaller truck parked beside it, but Cookie ignored it and shambled over to the big one. Either because he was drawn to the familiarity or because he couldn’t take the chill of the night wind anymore, he crawled into the back.

Inside the sheltered bed, he curled up quietly, and…

…wishing he could hear those cheers again, he slowly closed his eyes.

If grizzlies dreamed, he was definitely dreaming about the circus right then.

Of his days in the bed of a truck, traveling to all sorts of different places with Claire and his circus companions.

A few minutes later Near the bungalows

“I-it’s true! Believe me!”

“Well, um… It’s less that I don’t believe you than that I have no idea what I’m supposed to believe. What happened?”

“It was here! Something was here!”

“What do you mean, ‘something’?”

“I mean something!”

Although Pamela had managed to wake Lana up from her faint, she wasn’t making any sense.

She said she’d been attacked by something enormous, but she wasn’t injured, and no one had seen anything suspicious when they checked around the bungalows.

Still, given the two unconscious mystery men, they decided it couldn’t hurt to be careful.

“Who do you suppose these army types are anyway?”

“I don’t know! Maybe they came to hunt deer? N-never mind them—is that…that…huge something really not around anymore?!”

“For now, yes. So calm down a little, all right?”

Unlike Lana, the men in military uniforms had actually been hurt, and it might be a while before they regained consciousness. Pamela and Lana couldn’t just leave the people there, so they’d temporarily relocated them to the bed of their truck.

Meanwhile, the guys had already started preparing to leave the bungalow.

They were having to scramble after Melody said, “At the earliest, that train will be coming through in another thirty-three minutes and thirty-two seconds. We’ll need to move soon!”

“So hey, couldn’t we just go after the train’s passed through? I’m still sleepy.”

“Nah, Jacuzzi and the other guys said they were going to make sure our boats were there before they dropped the cargo. We need to be there.”

“Jacuzzi’s plan sure is a pain in the ass. If they’d grabbed the cargo before the train left, we wouldn’t need to go to all this trouble.”

“How would they steal it?”

“Couldn’t they have Donny pick up the train and throw it?”

“You think Donny’s strong enough for that?!”

“If he was, he wouldn’t need us to make a living!”

The guys’ conversation was as mindless as usual, and Melody rang her bells, warning them. “Listen up: We’ve got thirty-two minutes and fifty seconds left. It’ll take us about five minutes to drive there, so we have to give ourselves some extra time.”

“I guess so, huh…”

The eastern sky was starting to pale, but the stars still shone above their heads. In the midst of a beautiful forest scene, the delinquents bustled around, preparing to leave.

“Damn, it’s cold.”

“I bet it’ll be even colder out on the river.”

“Yeah, if it gets cloudy, we’re definitely gonna see snow.”

“Let’s borrow a ton of blankets from the bungalows. We can fold ’em and return ’em on our way back,” somebody suggested.

Everybody was in favor, and they began hauling all the blankets outside. This was a crime whether they returned them or not, but nobody present had enough of a moral compass to care in the first place. The one guy who probably would have been against it and managed to stop them was currently on the train, smack in the middle of a major incident. However, the delinquents didn’t know that, and they began loading the blankets onto their truck without a care in the world.

“Whoa, what? I thought I was the first one, but there’s already a good pile in here.” The boy who’d carried the first blankets in gave a disappointed sigh.

There was a heap of brown in the back of the gloomy truck. That was what it looked like to the kid anyway, and he tossed the new blankets on top of the brown ones.

The other delinquents followed his lead, piling more and more blankets on top of the others.

“? It smells kinda like dog back here.”

“I bet it’s the blankets. People probably let their hunting dogs curl up in ’em, too.”

“Huh. Well, it’s not like we can be picky!”

In the end, nobody saw the pile of blankets shift a little—

—and the “heap of brown blankets” let the warmth of the fabric that had been piled on top of him nudge him toward sleep.

Drowsily, drowsily…

In front of Bungalow Number 3

The kid is by the bridge, with some boys who were passing by. Put the money in this crate and float it down the river.

“That should do it.”

Writing the note on a piece of paper, Pamela took a crate from their truck, emptied it, put the note inside, and set it by the bungalow’s entrance. “Now let’s hope this throws them off…”

“What are you talking about, Pamela? What about the huge something?”

Pamela sighed quietly, interrupting Lana’s frightened questions. Her expression was serious. “The shape you saw concerns me…but something else is scaring me more, Lana.”

“Wh-what?! There’s nothing scarier than that huge thing! I guarantee it!” Lana said emphatically.

Ignoring her, Pamela went on calmly. “Listen. I remembered something about Cazze’s family. Or rather, I was reminded of it a minute ago.”

“Wh-what?”

Cazze had already climbed into the bed of the truck with Sonia. Turning back to check one more time, Pamela went on in a whisper. “I remembered the name ‘Runorata.’”

“? What’s Runorata?”

“…It’s Cazze’s last name! At least remember that much!”

“Oh— Ohhhh! Yes, that’s right! Of course I remember that! I was just testing you—ow-ow-yow-ow-ow-ow-ow!”

Pinching Lana’s cheek, Pamela sighed and went on. “The Runorata Family.”

“Huh?”

“They’re one of the biggest mafia syndicates in the East. They never show up out West, but they’re a pretty notorious gang on this coast. Not that I know any details.”

“A—a gang?” Lana’s eyes widened.

Pamela gave a wry smile that was pretty close to resignation. “Right. Which means, that big old mansion is built on a whole lot of crimes—and when we said not to call the cops, do you know what we basically told them? ‘…Don’t hand us over to the police. Judge our crime by your own standards.’”

“……”

Pamela’s sober words had made even Lana absorb the situation. She turned even paler than she had when she saw the “something,” and her teeth chattered audibly. “In other words… Um, wait, what? If they catch us…”

“They’ll cut off all our fingers, yank out all our teeth, bore out our eyes, then kill us.”

Lana almost screamed, but Pamela covered her mouth. The look in her eyes said she was already bracing for certain death.

“…And if we’re lucky, that’s all they’ll do.”

Once she’d finished getting ready, Pamela pushed a pale, frightened Lana into the passenger seat, then climbed into the driver’s seat.

Lana gazed up at the ceiling of the cab as if she felt sick. Finally, she spoke, sounding tired. “By the way…what are we going to do with those hunters? Their pulses and everything were normal, right?”

The soldier types showed no sign of waking. They were still in the bed of the truck.

There hadn’t been space to lay both men down, so they’d propped one up against the canvas side in a sitting position. They’d opened the back to let fresh air in; if they’d driven through a town, they probably would have provoked a few questions. Out here in the woods, though, there wouldn’t be anyone to see them.

“That doesn’t mean we can just leave them. For now, we’ll take them to the river. If they still don’t wake up, we’ll take them to a doctor later. Will that work?”

“…Yeah. Oh, you know, I don’t have the spare brainpower to think about this stuff.”

“What a coincidence. Me either.”

Maybe because she was preoccupied with thoughts of the Runoratas, Pamela had treated the two men rather carelessly.

If they happened to be the bungalows’ real owners, they could probably just say they’d gotten lost and had borrowed a hut for the night. The men seemed very odd for soldiers, and their guns weren’t suitable for a hunting trip. She’d taken the bullets out, though, and Sonia was currently having fun keeping an eye on the weapons.

“Still, if they aren’t hunters, I wonder if they’re real soldiers. Maybe their training was too harsh and they deserted, then collapsed here… Or they could be mafiosi who came to pay the bounty—to kill us—so I’ve tied their arms and legs. Nothing too intense, though.”

“You’re surprisingly thorough about that sort of thing.”

“I don’t want to risk leaving them when we don’t know what their deal is, that’s all.” Pamela slowly put their truck in gear, following the delinquents’ two trucks. “Now, then… I hope we manage to convince them we got threatened into making a phone call by a mysterious kidnapper…”

They were going to the river with the delinquents because she’d decided that the bigger the group, the less likely it was that the mafia would just shoot them dead. It would mean dragging the delinquents into it, but those kids weren’t ordinary citizens, either. They were train robbers. Just as traveling companions made the trip, the success of evil deeds depended on who you were with, and she planned to make the best possible use of the group.

Pamela wasn’t a good person by any stretch of the imagination, and although it pricked her conscience a little, she made up her mind to use them.

She understood that both the delinquents and her own group were like rabbits wandering the desert.

They couldn’t see what was around them. Their pasts were a desiccated wasteland, and they had nowhere to go.

That meant they had to keep searching for an oasis, at least.

A rabbit that lost its goal in life would soon disappear into the sand.

It was a lonely thought, but Pamela accepted its harsh truth with clear eyes. Quietly, she stepped on the gas.

The delinquents and the bandit gang left the bungalows behind them.

The rattletrap truck carried a bomb named Cazze.

One of the big trucks held another bomb named Cookie.

They simply drove on, bound for the foot of the bridge.

In the woods

On the way to the river, the three trucks passed a group of Lemures led by Sarges.

The occupants of the trucks didn’t notice them; Sarges’s group had heard their engines and promptly hidden in the forest.

As they watched the vehicles pass by, the men in military uniforms whispered to one another.

“Those trucks… Think they’re those kids from yesterday?”

“Probably.”

“What happened…? They don’t look like government dogs, but…”

The mere fact that they had come this way meant that the pair who’d gone on ahead had failed in their mission.

They didn’t seem to be armed. By all appearances, they were a group of common thugs. However, in the unlikely event that they actually had weapons, the Lemures’ group might not be big enough to deal with them all.

There could be National Guard troops or Beriam’s private soldiers in the backs of those trucks; the Lemures couldn’t act carelessly.

“Well, unless that smoke signal goes up, Beriam’s daughter will die either way… Hmm?”

The last truck was more run-down than the others. As it passed them, they noticed a certain anomaly.

One of their comrades who’d been sent ahead as a scout was sitting in the truck bed, propped up against the canvas cover. He didn’t seem to be bleeding, but they couldn’t tell whether he was alive or dead.

Sarges restrained his men until the truck was gone. Then he murmured without emotion, “No matter what else they may be…they’re clearly our enemies.

“We’re turning back. We’ll find out what they are, then eliminate them.”

Beside the bridge

The two Lemures who’d stayed behind were talking next to their tent.

“What sort of trouble is it anyway?”

“Search me. As long as we manage to convey our intentions to the other group, though, we shouldn’t have any problems.”

The pair were discussing the operation to retake Huey Laforet, which was currently underway.

“I feel bad for the kid, though. How old are we talking, ten or so?”

“Don’t trouble yourself about it. Growing up under the protection of a rich, powerful parent has a price. We’re about to deliver the bill—that’s all.”

“True. The kid’s fated to die whether or not the negotiations succeed.”

“Ha! Can you even call that a hostage?”

They were talking about a girl named Mary Beriam, who was tied up on the train. Unfortunately for them, though, a man was eavesdropping from the shadows under the trees, and their conversation ended up provoking him in a big way.

“Hey.”

““Huh? Wha—?!””

At the sudden voice behind them, the two men turned around simultaneously, and—

—taking a thumb to the throat at the exact same time, they both blacked out.

Granted, when they woke up a few minutes later, they’d undergo torture so rapid and effective that they’d wish they were dead.

“You were planning to kill the young master either way…?

“You kidnappers are hilarious. We’ll take a hundred days each to kill you.”