Dead Men’s Rules

Written By: Cheyanne Larinan

Once upon a time in a village isolated by mountains and ocean cliffs, there was a family of four. Daddy called the oldest daughter Pup and so she was. The youngest daughter was called Baby and so she was. Mama exhausted most of her time with Baby and Daddy used up his days with Pup.

Pup’s first present was the bolthead from an arrow.

Mama wasn’t surprised by it and knotted the arrowhead into a necklace with her softest twine. Pure silver and wicked sharp, it was a cold reminder against her chest of what Pup needed to be.

As Daddy’s oldest child, Pup became the inheritor of an old tradition that even Mama didn’t know about.

Her lessons began as a toddler when he’d taught her knots before letters. As a child, she was taught to outrun him and hide in the hollows of trees. When she asked Daddy what she was running from, he just told her to run faster.

And now, barely a teen, he was teaching her to shoot a gun.

The shotgun was heavy the first time Pup held it. Her hands were still small, barely able to get a grip on the barrel. She lined up her shot, a hand-painted hay target, and fired.

The side exploded. Far from the bullseye.

“C’mon, Pup,” Daddy had said. “You need to be able to hit anything that moves. Things that are faster than you or me.”

“Like bears?” Pup asked, still unsure of what exactly this training was for.

Daddy’s mouth set into a grim line. “Let’s go check the traps, Pup. It’s about time we start supper.”

The second time Daddy took Pup out to shoot, the season had begun to turn. Fiery orange erupted on the leaves of the trees surrounding their forest home. The green and grey feathers of the quails were more vibrant now, easier to spot. Daddy had her aim at one.

“You need to be able to keep the family safe.” Daddy was watching her closely. Everything from her form to her breathing.

Pup lined the shot, pressing her baby-round cheeks against the butt plate. “I know.”

“The town is counting on you, too.”

“The town?” She looked at Daddy.

“Take the shot.”

She did. The quail flew away in a flurry of feathers and flapping. “Daddy, why do I have to protect the town? I get Mama and Baby, but...”

Daddy got on his knee, meeting his daughter’s gaze. One rough hand closed around Pup’s shoulder, forcing her to meet his eyes. He looked tired. “Listen, Pup, bad men come ‘round these parts. When trouble comes to town, you need to be able to defend against it. Understand?”

“What kind of trouble?”

“You’ll know when you’re older.”

Daddy was almost right.

As winter began to lay smooth coats of shining, crystalline snow, it became harder to take Pup out for her lessons. The chill alone could be a death sentence for one so young, and hunting when the animals wore winter pelts was suicide. Daddy set traps and Mama used this time to teach Pup math, writing, and sewing. Pup was bad at all of it, but Baby who was a child just four years shy of her sister, excelled.

“You can’t even hold it right,” Baby giggled, taking the sewing needle from her sister.

Pup scowled, so unused to the small, delicate movements of indoor work. She would have been jealous if she hadn’t known how much Baby envied her for spending time with Daddy. If only Baby knew what her lessons were.

As per usual, Mama cooked up yesterday’s hares. As per usual, Baby read by the fire. As per usual, Pup was practicing her knife throwing. Time ticked away to black.

Daddy didn’t come back that night.

Pup stayed by the door with her knife, but Mama pushed her to get into bed, not wanting her daughter to catch a chill. But even wrapped in furs she’d hunted and homemade blankets that smelled like her mother and sister, Pup couldn’t sleep knowing her father was out in the wilds, knowing it was her job to keep everyone safe. That had to include him, too. Right?

Pup crawled out of bed and wormed her way into Daddy’s spare hunting jacket. She snuck the gun from its place off the mantle and slipped out into the snow. It was deathly still. So quiet the plastic pinch of her bare footsteps ricocheted off winter withered trees.

Steam rushed from Pup’s nostrils and mouth as she ran. The mice didn’t skitter, nor did the foxes laugh. Not even the owls were performing tonight.

Darkness swallowed everything in front of her, making it impossible to see more than a few yards in front of her. The moon shone above, but her borrowed light was not enough. Pup wanted to call out to Daddy, but she knew that would attract something far worse than Daddy’s anger.

Pup searched through the night, her bare feet blistered with frost, fingers numb and cheeks swollen from the cold. The metal bolt around her throat stung each time it bounced on her chest.

Only when the sun rose, bleeding color onto the pristine blanket of winter snow, did Pup find Daddy.

He was holding his side, limping away from the house. A trail of red followed him.

“Daddy?” Pup whispered, her words a trail in the air.

Daddy froze. “You should be in bed.”

“You didn’t come home.” She breathed.

Daddy didn’t turn to look at her. “Couldn’t.”

Pup took a hesitant step forward. “Did you get lost? I know the way—”

“No, Pup. I can’t go home.” Daddy’s voice was a growl unlike anything Pup had heard before. Strange and twisted like the way shadows played tricks on the eye.

She didn’t take another step toward him.

“Did you drink too much again? I’m sure Mama will be cross but—”

“Do you have the gun, Pup?”

Pup’s stomach churned. She didn’t like how he asked that. “Yeah.”

Daddy’s shoulders slumped with relief. “Good.” He turned to face her then. Red slashes cut through the face that used to give her good night kisses. Claw marks tore the flannel he used to wrap around her shoulders when it got cold. The boots he’d promised to gift her for her sixteenth birthday were torn open.

His hair looked rougher, matted almost. Big teeth jutted from his mouth, lips pulled back in an unflinching snarl. His eyes bulged in his head the same way a raccoon corpse did when it was about to blow. His eyelashes were crushed with frost, hot tears leaving streaks of ice down his cheeks.

Pup was silent.

“Don’t be scared, kiddo.” He’d never called her that. “Just make sure you don’t miss, okay?”

“What are you talking about?” She took a step back, her numb grip on the gun tightening.

Daddy’s brows drew together, his strange growly voice somehow soft and warm like she remembered whenever he treated her wounds. “I’ve been bit, Pup. Can’t hold on much longer.”

“Bit by what?” Pup’s voice was beginning to shake as much as her eyes stung. She resisted the urge to wipe them. Last thing she needed was her eyelashes to freeze.

“You know what.” Daddy huffed, his breath steaming in the air. “I’ve been training you to kill them since you were as small as Baby.”

Pup did not respond.

Daddy continued as if she had. “Make sure you listen to your mother. And don’t tease Baby too much. Never drink on an empty stomach.” His voice was thick. A drop of snot slipped from his nostril.

Pup raised the gun. Her hands should have been shaking, but they rose perfectly, treacherously aimed at the same man who’d taught her to use it.

He fought off tears but they kept pouring from his eyes, “Full moons are a bad omen. So are ravens. Melt my jewelry if you ever run out of money for the good ammo. Check the traps before you head home every day, even if you didn’t reset them. They’re still dangerous.”

Pup’s fingers still couldn’t wrap all the way around the barrel.

“Don’t cry, Pup.”

“I’m not.” Her voice sounded just like Daddy’s. She couldn’t see her father anymore, his brown shape blurred into the trees, eyes heavy with hellfire sorrow she wouldn’t set free.

Daddy’s mouth lifted slightly, almost a smile. “My shed has everything you need. I know I haven’t always been the best, but I did everything I could to make sure you stay safe when I’m gone. I need you to be brave, kiddo. I need you to shoot me. You understand that, right?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Good, good.” He closed his eyes. “And Pup?”

She didn’t speak, locking a shell into the barrel.

“I love you.”

Pup fired.

She watched her father’s body until the color of the sunrise drained to yellow. She didn’t know what she was waiting for, but it never happened. Icy stillness blew through her. She couldn’t feel her feet and her nose was red and numb. Daddy had taught her that when the body was cold it sucked all of its heat to the center to keep the organs warm, sacrificing fingers, toes, ears, and noses in the pursuit of staying alive. Painful, painful sacrifice.

Pup touched the bolt head around her neck. Then, she walked home.

Pup returned to her lessons, diligently practicing each day as if Daddy was still drilling her himself. Mama told her she didn’t need to push herself, but she was mostly talking to herself. Getting used to a new name was challenging enough without daughters grieving for their father. Mama was now Widow.

Pup had never told Mama what happened, but Widow didn’t need her to say a word. Daddy had told her this was always how his story was meant to end. And after Widow’s story finished the same way all people’s stories did, Pup would meet the same fate. This is how all stories that begin with “once upon a time” must end—never at all.

It had been ten winters since that day. Pup was an adult now. Unlike Baby, who was no longer a baby but a Prodigy, Pup wasn’t interested in courting or parties or shopping. Pup had one job and she spent every waking moment making sure she did it well. She followed Daddy’s every footstep, shadowing the same bars of his youth right down to the brand of whiskey she always saw him drinking. One day there would be trouble and she would be ready.

One day a group of rowdy men arrived at the town’s only bar—Fang & Teeth—Pup was ready. With a finger of whiskey in her belly, Pup lowered her head from her place at the bar as they entered, bringing the bloody reek of death and malevolent musk.

Daddy had never explained what he meant by “men like me” until this moment when a riot’s worth of men stunk up her favorite drinking joint. The great threat she’d been taught to fear was here. She imagined the trail she’d find. The carnage these men left in their wake. Severed arms and open-mouthed severed heads and wrecked carriages all pointing the way to Fang & Teeth.

Pup put her hand on her gun, a pistol because the shotgun wasn’t allowed in town.

The men laughed loudly amongst themselves, pushing at one another as they snarled and snapped at patrons to get out of their seats. Chairs scraped across the floor, boots pounding in the chaos.

Pup counted how many bullets she had in her gun. Thirteen. Not enough.

“Hey pretty lady,” a wolfish voice said, “what’s a thing like you doing all alone.”

There was a wall of historic weapons. Using one shouldn’t be too different from using the rake back at home. Probably. Would a barrier of rust prevent the metal from working? Only one way to find out.

Pup set her cash on the table.

“Hey, I’m talking to you,” the man snarled.

Pup fired. Before the silence of the bang could direct every head in the room her way, she fired again. And again. Thirteen times in total at twelve heads. And when her gun clicked, she snapped the butt against the nearest bastard’s face and made for the rack of weapons.

Roaring filled the room, boots pounding as the chase began.

The pack was hunting on her heels.

Just one weapon would be enough. The full edge of the spear was lethal in trained hands and Pup was one of the best. Her calloused fingers wrapped comfortably around the spear’s shaft and in one, fluid motion, it created death in the first predator.

Pup resumed her duty.

Blood splattered her jeans and torn boots, smeared the bar’s floors and walls, and stained the wolfish shapes left by the corpses.

This duty, the most important thing Daddy left for her, was the same as Widow providing for her daughters or Prodigy repairing holes in clothing. Just another chore to do, one only Pup was capable of.

The men tried to bargain with her. They tried to attack her. They tried to turn her. Pup was unmoved by it all, their dying screams holding the same weight as moth wings. None of them could get a claw on her.

When Pup was done, she put the spear back on its rack and exited the bar.

The bartender sobbed from where he hid.

Outside, a young man who stunk of cloves and tobacco glanced her way. He was crouching, unperturbed by the massacre, protecting his cigarette from the cold.

Pup was out of bullets and put her weapon back. She had nothing to kill this one with. If she turned her back to go inside, he could kill her from behind. Walking home to get the shotgun was also not an option.

“You look like you wanna kill me.”

Pup did not reply.

“S’okay, I get it. We kill your best men and your littlest kids and your hard-grown crops. I’d wanna kill me, too.”

Daddy’s voice sharply warned Pup to kill him. That one more of them dead made all the difference.

The young man wouldn’t stop talking.

Pup lifted the lucky bolthead on her neck, snapping it off its chain, the razor edges of it cutting into her palm. Good enough.

When Pup arrived home that night, her sister fussed over her dirty hair and her mother made her favorite—chicken stew with hare bones.

This was home until Pup or Prodigy had their first offspring, then their traditions would be passed down once again. Mother to child or aunt to niece. Stories that begin with “once upon a time” are doomed to repeat. The characters in a story are none the wiser.

Cheyanne Larinan became serious about writing after winning numerous awards in the Phreanor Writing Contest. She has a BA in creative writing from William Jessup University. During that time she worked with Metonym Journal as its social media manager and fiction editor (2020), after submitting her short story THE GOLDEN INCUBUS, published in Metonym (2019). Her short story DEAD MEN'S RULES won second place in adult fiction at Earl Warren Showgrounds (2024).