Traveling Merchant (Book 1): Merchant

by Seymour, William J.

  Merchant pulls himself up and yanks as hard as he can. Sharpened steel rips from leg and sprays blood across the wall.

  The Chosen falls to his knees. Blood pools around him.

  A primal rage erupts from his throat. Tendons and muscles stretch along his shoulders and neck. Eyes bulge as he tries to get back to his feet. Blood gushes as destroyed muscle rolls into a ball.

  Merchant turns and swings again.

  Ax splits skull in half. The killing end buries itself deep and both of the Chosen’s eyes split apart.

  Weapon is pulled out again.

  The Chosen is a bloody mess. His body does not fall.

  Merchant rears back and swings again. Like chopping wood, the blade cuts clean down to breast bone. Blood soaks victim and murderer.

  Merchant does not pull it back out. Three hundred pounds of dead weight hits the floor.

  “My fucking God,” Cherry Red mutters in horror.

  Merchant turns, and she is standing in the doorway. Her pistol hangs loose in her hand.

  “Why are you here?” Merchant demands.

  Red looks at him, his body covered in gore from head to toe and the body that lays split in half on the floor.

  “I-I decided to check on you when you didn’t return,” she says. “There was so much chaos the guards left the gate wide open. I kind of walked myself in.”

  “You were supposed to wait until I brought Elizabeth. Get us all the hell out of here.”

  Red takes a look at the body, puts her hand to her mouth to hold back the vomit, and then turns back to the hallway.

  “Well, we don’t have as much time as we thought,” she says.

  “What do you mean we don’t have time?”

  Merchant steps up to her, and the woman backs away. Her skin is ghostly pale except for the green of her face, her red hair dulled.

  “He’s coming. We might have a couple of days at best.”

  A bloody hand falls on her shoulder, and she struggles to stand on her feet.

  “Who is this he?”

  “The…” Cherry Red stammers. “The one who demanded I bring you down into the ravine. He’s looking for us.”

  “She’s right,” Snake-Eyes says. The ghost materializes and sits down on the Chosen’s warm body. He picks at the dirt beneath his nails. “I can feel him drawing closer. Whoever it is, is not happy. For once, I’d say we do what the bitch says and get the fuck out of here. Even dead, I don’t want to be here.”

  “Not until we find Elizabeth,” Merchant says.

  “Ah!” A woman’s voice shouts from the last remaining door in the hall.

  The voice is primal and hoarse. Like a banshee going berserk.

  Merchant shoves Red out of the way and throws himself into the door. The door cracks and the frame bends. Ignoring the pain, Merchant throws himself against the barrier, and the wood splits into a dozen pieces.

  He falls into the room and catches himself before he steps into a mess as bad as the one he created himself.

  Blood is everywhere. On the walls. On the ceiling. A woman kneels over a man, a piece of broken wood soaked with blood and gore stabs down over and over.

  “What the fuck?” Cherry Red asks.

  Merchant ignores her.

  He walks over to the woman who does not notice him. The stake is dull but she continues to stab. He grabs her hand, and the weapon falls from slender fingers.

  The Father lays beneath her. His chest is nothing but a soft pulp where small bits of the ground can be seen through his back. A look of shock and fear stretches across his face, and his eyes are dead and dull as they stare at Merchant.

  All the strength and fury that fueled the violence drains from the woman. She slumps, and Merchant wraps an arm around her.

  She weighs nothing in his arms. Tears streak across the blood that covers her body like mud. Her hair is heavy and wet with gore. Her sobs are deep and shake her entire body.

  “Is that Elizabeth?” Cherry Red asks.

  The woman in Merchant’s arms convulses and screams in agony.

  Merchant looks up and notices the body lying on the floor in the corner.

  Elizabeth, blood pooling beneath her, lays silent in the shadows, alone. Her shirt and jacket is stained red, but her face is peaceful. From what he can tell, it may be the only smile he has ever seen on her face.

  The woman in his arms curls into his shoulder and holds him tight.

  Merchant nods to the corpse. Red looks and shakes her head. She does not say a word.

  “Ah, fuck. I liked that one,” Snake-Eyes adds.

  The ghost never fucking stays quiet.

  A moment passes. The chaos of the village outside fades into the distance. A silence settles over the living and the dead. Smoke, thick and acidic, burns their lungs.

  “We need to get out of here. It may not matter to them, but I sure as well don’t want to burn down here,” Cherry Red says.

  Merchant looks to the door. Dark clouds, thin and high against the ceiling, roll through the hall. He turns to the girl in his arms.

  “Can you walk?” he asks.

  She does not open her eyes. Her arms pull her tighter. Death’s dirty touch reeks from her body.

  Red steps over and places a gentle hand behind the young woman’s head.

  “Here, you come with me. Our big man here has some unfinished business he has to take care of,” she says.

  Alexis slips from Merchant’s arms, and with wobbly knees, leans heavily against Red. Merchant wipes his hands as clean as he can before he gently removes Elizabeth’s body from where it lays in the dusty corner of the room.

  Together, they head to the hall, following the path out and leaving the horrors of this village behind them.

  Twenty-Five

  Today

  Thin streams of gray smoke lift slowly into the morning air. Tiny wisps, nothing more. The village was saved, only the arena of death was destroyed. Men stand guard, pacing and making their rounds along the gates that have shut. Watchful eyes search the horizon for danger, and the people inside continue with their lives under new leadership and with a renewed faith.

  Cherry Red watches them like ants from atop the hill. A cold breeze carries the brisk ice of new fallen snow, and she pulls her jacket tighter against her skin. Part of her wishes all of them would have died in that fire. Her brother would have liked to have known they died miserably. But he also died miserably, yet she still lives. Shivering, she turns around and stares at the big man who has not moved in over an hour.

  “So, what are we going to do now?” Red asks.

  Merchant looks at the dirt mound, the soil dark and as broken up as he could make it. Callouses burn on his hands, and the shovel he carried from the arena sits dented by his feet. His shadow sits heavy over the shallow grave, dark and menacing.

  “I head west. You go wherever you want to,” he answers.

  A bird cries as it circles in the sky above. Winter robins looking for food in a world of white, a single patch of fresh earth the only blemish for miles.

  “Hey, you aren’t leaving me out here by myself. Not after what you did,” Red says.

  Merchant looks back at the grave. She’s finally alone. No one will bother her here. He tells himself this is what she wanted, but for the first time, he isn’t sure.

  His hand is unsteady as he reaches into his pocket. The cards, bent and crumpled beneath miles of torture and abuse, wait deep within the fabric of his pants. Pulling them out, he takes a look at them. The Queen of Swords and Death.

  How fitting.

  Opening his bag, Merchant drops them in.

  His burden will be heavier now. A million more steps to go and so many more lives resting on his shoulders.

  “Do what you want,” he finally says. “I go west until I find the city that touches the sky. A lot of people are going to die before I get there. One of them could be you.”

  Cherry Red looks back at the village, and then to the bright snow in the north. The sun
is a murderous glare across the wastelands, and the plains are empty and flat.

  “Look, I know we’ve had our differences, but we make a good team,” she says.

  He turns to her. Flakes of infection cover her neck and the left side of her face. The skin is red and angry where it isn’t pale, and her hair is a bright carrot in the afternoon light. Shrugging his shoulders, he turns away.

  “Plus, I have a better chance with you than I do on my own out here. With him chasing us, two sets of eyes are better than one, right?”

  Merchant hefts his bag across his back and treks toward the Interstate. Cherry Red does not move, at first. She hesitates, but he does not stop. He doesn’t speed up either. Slow and steady.

  “Hey, come on. You’re all I’ve got left. I’m a dead woman if I don’t come. Even if it gets me killed, I have a better chance with you than I do with them,” she says.

  She hikes a thumb back at the village, which already fades into the distance.

  “Their fate is what they make of it. I didn’t come here for them,” Merchant says.

  Red looks at him. Then back to the world ahead.

  “Part of me wonders what would have happened had you come looking for them instead of Elizabeth.”

  He looks down at her. Bundled up, walking by his side, it reminds him how young she really is.

  “And the other part?” he asks as they continue to walk.

  “Too afraid to know,” she answers.

  Merchant smiles and continues on. For the first time in years, he isn’t alone. And thinking about it, part of him remembers what it feels like to have someone there, walking beside you, sharing life through its ups and downs.

  Two sets of boot prints make their way through the snow, going west toward the setting sun.

  In the distance beyond the recovering village and its new pregnant leader, a rumbling follows.

  A legion of hunger, an army of hate. To the west, they will go. They will not stop until he is found. Nothing will end until he is stopped.

  Twenty-Six

  Four Years Ago

  Interstate 80 is deserted. Dark clouds, a mix of risen moisture and the lingering remains of bombs pollute the air. The east coast of America burns with the devastation of war from Canada to what remains of Florida. No one knows what has happened in the west. All communication was lost within days of the first attack. Rumors say the Midwest is a wasteland lost to the souls of the damned.

  Families fight each other. Brother against brother. Father against son. The civil war of two centuries ago is nothing compared to what has been ignited. Bombs and weapons used to threaten other countries into thoughts of peace fly through the air and detonate over friendly ground.

  People die by the millions. The government is dissolved in the unregulated belief military order is the best option. Time will tell if that was the correct decision but, for the moment, it has also fallen.

  City states are destroyed and others rise.

  Disease spreads through the world. A sickness that drives the victims mad. Bodies deteriorate, hunger increases. People; men, women, and children, become animals. They search and tear at everything for their next meal. Animalistic functions increase as their ability to reason is eaten away by the invisible parasite.

  They are monsters. Driven to feed until death.

  What remains of the media calls them the infected.

  Still human.

  Still alive.

  They are better off dead.

  Merchant stands with his boots on the road, facing west into the fading light that ignites the horizon in a bloody red shroud. His Army bag sits strapped over his shoulder, empty and light. The bodies of two infected lay crumpled in the ditch. Steam escapes from their corpses as warm blood cools and muscles harden.

  Cars and scattered parts litter the road. Technology is failing faster than it was built. Electricity is scarce and hoarded by the masses that survive within the cities.

  The asphalt, like the world itself, is broken into deep cracks and fissures that will never be fixed. Gravel scatters through the waist high grass the grows unattended along the side of the road, and the smell of poison and death is in the air. Civilization is a wasteland. The Dark Ages have returned. Diseases beyond infection have returned with a deep-seated vengeance. People die of measles and tuberculosis. Cancer is all but forgotten behind constant hunger and the threat of violence.

  Merchant shrugs his shoulders. His muscles are tight, but his wounds are healed.

  “There is a long road ahead of you, Merchant,” the woman says.

  She appears beside him. The top of her head reaches his shoulders. Her skin is flawless, and she stands barefoot like a child on a warm summer afternoon. Even at night, her skin radiates a light that burns away the darkness and ignites a fire in his blood.

  “More than two thousand miles,” he answers.

  She smiles and nods.

  “Even more lives than that will be touched before you get there. They wait for your arrival, though almost all of them won’t know it until you are there.”

  He looks at her. A warmth spreads through his body, but he pushes it away. The anger that feeds the strength in his body kindles, and he stokes the fire.

  “What will these people give me in return for my help? How will they know who I am?”

  She turns to him. Her smile is childish and filled with secrets.

  “Your services are special, Merchant. People must give what is most precious to them, for what they ask demands an even greater price.”

  He frowns. She is playing her games again.

  “Money means little now that the world has fallen apart.”

  The woman turns back to the road ahead.

  “There will still be some use for coins and other forms along the way, but you are correct. You always were a quick study. Their payment will not be in money, and anyone who believes that money is their most precious belonging, your services will not be adequate.”

  “Then what will I be asking for?”

  “What is most precious to you, Merchant?” she asks. “Is there a possession you still have in what little remains of your life that you would never give up unless it was for the greatest of rewards?”

  Merchant looks to the west. The sun is below the horizon, and the red blood of the retreating day is only a fingernail above the darkness. He reaches into his pocket. The cold metal of a broken necklace burns the skin of his hand. Gritting his teeth, he takes hold and pulls it out.

  “They were all I ever had and all I ever cared about.”

  The silver horse dangles on the delicate chain that hangs from between his fingers.

  She smiles and places a gentle touch of her hand on his wrist.

  “You now understand what those who seek your help will be willing to give. Now, carry this with you always for your desire has not yet been met,” she says.

  Merchant goes to place the necklace back into his pocket, but she wraps her fingers around his forearm. The grip is strong and holds his arm still. She shakes her head no and points to the bag that hangs from his shoulder.

  He growls and pulls the Army strap away, and the canvas hits the pavement. The smell of smoke and dried blood radiates from the old material.

  Opening the top, unlatching its single plastic button, he looks into the sack. Empty and dark, the opening is the great maw of a shark ready to swallow everything whole.

  The silver of the pale horse reflects into his eyes. He doesn’t want to let it go. Images of his family flash through his mind. Their smiles. Their laughter. A white hot furry explodes within him.

  With a glare, he turns back to the woman. She smiles at him and looks down at the waiting bag.

  She gives him a quick nod of her chin.

  Merchant drops the necklace.

  “Good, now never let it out of your sight,” she says and turns back to the road ahead.

  Wrapping the strap on his arm, Merchant pulls up on his sack to steady himself for the first steps of
his trek.

  A thousand pounds threatens to pull him over as the bag falls back to the ground.

  “What the…” he mutters.

  She chuckles.

  “The hopes and dreams of all those who survive these times will not be an easy burden, Merchant. Did you think they would be light upon your shoulders?” she asks, her words light and inquisitive.

  “But how?”

  “Don’t ask so many fucking questions, asshole,” the Dog Breaker says.

  His ghostly form waits near the edges of the shadows. Half his head is caved in, and his eyes are removed, but his bastard mouth still works.

  Merchant grits his teeth, but doesn’t turn around. The pressure of the strap across his shoulder burns his skin.

  “They’ll follow me, won’t they?” he asks but does not look at her.

  “Until the end of times, Merchant. You will be their keeper as they will be your burden. When the road ends, and you find what you are looking for, they will finally find their peace. Not until that time will you be allowed to forget.”

  He shifts the bag across his back and realizes how much lighter it has become.

  “Forget what?” he asks.

  The woman disappears as fast as she appeared.

  He stands alone on the road. The darkness of the night complete, and the sounds of nighttime insects and the scurrying of animals lost to the hunt fill the air.

  “What you are, Merchant. Soon the world will know what you are,” the woman’s voice says.

  Merchant begins his trek. Boots crunch gravel and grit, the sounds lonely and hollow in the night. He takes his first steps along Interstate 80. In search of the city that reaches the sky, Merchant travels west. Ghosts and the burden of a thousand lives sit heavy across his back and follow his every movement.

  Cold hard determination sustains him. Hatred and anger drives him.

  He will not stop.

  He cannot be deterred.

  The road is his market, and across a world lost the depths of Hell, death is always open for business.

  THE END