Free Benighted by Kit Whitfield

that you didn’t mean to. You did. You’ve got to be more careful.”
    “I know.” Marty glares at his fists and slouches down in his seat. I could go on in this vein for a while, and I probably should. There’s no excuse for that kind of mistake. The trouble is, it was a mistake. We all make them. There’s just no good way of doing this job.
    “Anyway,” Marty mutters. “It worked.”
    “What?” I turn to look at him, and he sits glowering at his feet. “Marty, did you do that on purpose?”
    “No.”
    “Did you do that on purpose?”
    “No.”
    Toby is silent in the back. There’s only the sound of the engine and Marty kicking his feet on the floor, and nothing else. I open my mouth to tell him to stop it, then decide against it and change gears instead. The thud of the gearshift is the loudest thing for a mile around.
    “It won’t do, Marty,” I say.
    “It was an accident,” he says. He sounds upset.
    “I know. But parents can sue over injured juveniles. It’ll mar your record just as you’re starting out. Next one, we do absolutely by the book, okay?” I think of the wailing as the pole knocked the boy’s head.
    I see Marty come close to saying, Whatever. He doesn’t. He stretches out his fingers for a moment, then says, “Yes. I’ll be careful.”
    “Good for you.” I half smile at him, nod. He’s a smart boy.
    We drive for an hour in silence, back into Sanctus. Toby doesn’t howl in the back. He crouches, silent, calling no attention to himself. Marty taps his feet in a regular rhythm and stares out ahead of us at the blank road. Whenever I look at him, I see the wall of trees behind him, the woods. The first layer is visible, with monochrome bark and ragged branches; they quiver a little at the edges and make no sound. The shadows they cast in our headlight twist and slice by us as the beam passes them. After the first layer, nothing. A few shapes are visible, branches and ivy, braided into each other so you can’t judge distance, and shadow overlays shadow in a deep tangle so I can’t see more than five feet in.
    For a while, we have rain, a few heavy drops that trickle down the windshield and then stop, leaving the air chilly and close.
    I’m beginning to think it might be a quiet night when there’s a bleep from the tracker and we both look toward it. An ugly, shining clump has appeared on the screen. It doesn’t have the appearance of a single figure: its shape is amorphous, like two, three, four objects close together. It’s in the park, it’s near us. It shows up left of center on the screen. Which means that I’ve got to turn the van around, head into the woods and make my way carefully through the black and gray trees.
    “Two,” I say. “Maybe more.” Marty bites his lip; his hand drops to his gun with the motion of the van swinging around. I don’t think he’s noticed he’s doing it.
    The way the woods are planted, you can drive between the trees, at least most of the time. Twigs crush under the slow-turning wheels as I drive forward, barely at a walking pace. The van rocks to and fro on the uneven ground. When it rocks, I can hear it grate at the joints, make sounds of wear: it turns into a machine, just a mechanism that’s liable to damage. The wheels creak as I tug the steering wheel to and fro, jostling our way around the trees. It chills my fingers, and I find I’m staring down at them. I might not have them all in the morning.
    “Marty.” My voice crackles in my mouth. “Listen, this is going to be a tough one.”
    “I know.” His head is ducked away from me.
    Stopping the car, I unfurl my still-whole hand and reach out for the radio. “This is Galley, car thirty-two, Galley, car thirty-two, calling from Sanctus Park, Sanctus Park.”
    “Yes?” Josie’s voice comes over. She must have been sitting at the switchboard all this time. She’s so hurried she’s panting.
    “We’ve sighted a group, size unknown. Is there any backup