It grunts the proposed details of my punishment.
“Please,” I beg, as is my role in the deal-making. “Sebastian comes home tomorrow.”
Another grunt. This time, Cro-ja’s blue fur ruffles as it produces the sounds.
While the implications sink in, I blink once. Twice.
Then I nod in agreement to the terms of my latest bargain. “Yes, master, we are agreed. Thank you for your profound kindness.”
I stand, move to the kitchen, and remove my flayer from the hook on the back door. For eight months and three days I have remained whole, have preserved my body and soul. Always for Sebastian.
For a moment, I consider escape. Defiance. But then I think of my mother and the red-headed boy. Cro-ja has agreed that my soul remain whole, that I will not be turned to livestock until after my night with Sebastian. The next day, my half-soul will depart for the homeworld and my body for the ice-box. In my mind, I experience the flashes of images the Larynths have injected into our thoughts, so that we subservients cannot forget what consequences await us on the homeworld if we deviate one inch from the terms of our deals.
Though Screech would dull my pain, Cro-ja has taken an oath of purity and the pollution of my flesh is forbidden.
“I love you, Sebastian,” I say. “I hope you are stronger than I have been.”
My time is up. In front of my master, knowing I will be forced to clean the mess my own blood will soon make, I slice my left leg off, a few inches above the knee.
Since I have complied with the terms of our latest agreement, Cro-ja does not perform the livestock ritual and I am not sentenced to the ice-box. I sleep on the kitchen floor which is easier to wipe. My only thoughts are of the town square, the fountain, where I will stand as straight as I am able to welcome Sebastian and the other heroes home.
Last night, the wound took far too long to cauterize, and I kept passing out during the process. With so few of us left, no help is available for me to call.
Using an old broom as a crutch, I hobble down one lane and then another, to the north square, fighting the bitter winds and begging for the pain to abate enough for me to take my next step forward. Luckily the fountain is far enough away from the south docks that I won’t be forced to witness my mother’s stone remains.
Josephine Wells has brought her tin flute to greet our men. At the sight of my missing leg, she looks away, but I catch a glimpse of her tears none the less. She and I used to ride our bikes along the wooden docks, enjoying the rick-a-tick rhythms the wheels played on the boards, back when men here fished, women here made babies, and we humans as a race of intellectuals and scientists believed that making contact with aliens was an endeavor worth pursuing.
As the sun pokes between heavy clouds, making the white-caps sparkle as they break, the Larynth commanders appear, marching our men into the square.
I count only sixteen of them.
“No,” I say, an unwelcome outburst from what remains of my crushed spirit.
All of the gathered townspeople inhale in unison, as though they can somehow suck my dishonor into their own lungs, eliminating the slight from existence.
“I’m sorry,” I say, falling to my right knee, struggling to keep my left stump from bumping on the ground, begging forgiveness from the closest masters and enduring the endless misery of my wound.
The Larynth at the head of their military unit scrapes its mooring spike along the rock.
So this will be my fate? To be struck down in the square—a permanent fixture to adorn the courtyard like the cherubs in our fountain.
“No! Please!” A hero’s plea from the group of men.
I recognize his voice.
“Sebastian,” I manage, on remorse-stained lips.
Whether he responds, physically, to my greeting or not, I cannot tell. To look up is to insult our masters further. All I am permitted is to wait and bargain for my punishment.
Grunts are exchanged among the commanders and Cro-ja is summoned. An alpha must always defend its land or forfeit all it has won, and I say a silent prayer that my master’s beckoning will protect its lands in its absence.
While we all wait, the commanders organize our heroes into four rows of four. Each former soldier stands at full attention while the many clauses of their post-surrender punishments are detailed.
Only men who own real estate in Brigus have been allowed to return here. After the war bargains have been collectively agreed to, each soldier is assigned to his master and forced to consent to the extensive bargains made by the women and children who have remained.
When Sebastian’s turn begins, I flinch at each of the choices I have made. Hearing them all listed feels like the sentencing phase of my trial for murder. Will my husband want me now that he has learned of all of my sins?
My left leg has been oozing and throbbing, breaking my concentration. Fumbling for my lighter, I pull it out, and with a shaking hand I run the flame along the edges of the wound. Somehow, the agony of it feels right, deserved, for all of my compromises.
When I am able to return to the here and now, I notice that Sebastian is kneeling on the cold ground next to me, both of our heads bowed down. Cro-ja is discussing options with the commanders for the deal I must make, with Sebastian’s necessary agreement, for my outburst in the square.
“I love you,” he says. “I’ve treasured your picture for every day of our two years apart.”
“I love you, too, my husband.”
Though we dare not kiss, he shuffles closer so that his left knee touches my right.
My strength is failing. Soon I will not be physically able to keep my raw stump from touching the filthy ground. By nightfall, I must retreat to the ice-box or Cro-ja will punish me for allowing my flesh to rot. Even there, in the transparent prison, I will fight for what remains of my soul. But first, I will have my time with my husband. Otherwise, all of my heinous acts will forever be in vain.
“Tonight,” I say to Sebastian.
“One night,” he says. “You bargained well.”
“I’m so glad you’re home.”
“The men, the humans,” he says. “We tried to win.”
“I know.”
“They are relentless and without mercy,” he says.
I nod.
“I’m sorry about my deal with the yellow one.”
A shudder runs through my body, amplifying the pain in my stump to another level of misery. I must have missed the terms of this bargain while I cauterized the wound. Since I cannot look up, I try to recall the Larynth he speaks of.
Yes. The yellow one tapped its mooring spike into the flesh of Josephine’s brother with every stride into the courtyard. Poor Richard’s body will petrify from each contact, like mosquito bites that turn flesh to stone.
Though my Sebastian does not elaborate the details, since he assumes I heard them during his sentence, I cling to my own bargain with Cro-ja. For our one night. Considering the state of my wound, the time will be much less than a night, now, but worth my many compromises none the less. I will savor every single moment in the arms of my husband.
The humiliation of the townspeople lasts for another hour or more, all of us that make up the remains of our community enduring the bargaining process on behalf of our men who lost our war.
By the time we are allowed to leave the courtyard, Cro-ja has long since left. With any luck, it will have returned to its position as alpha. Who knows what sacrifices I will endure at the victory ceremony of another hard-fought squabble for the alpha rights to our land?
Sebastian helps me up the front steps of our home. What remains of my left leg has been oozing foul-smelling liquids for some time now, and I quickly explain how I have only minutes until I must hobble to the ice-box. Sebastian produces three pills from his pocket, stolen from a medic’s pack before he was hauled into custody.
“Only one,” I say. “Cro-ja has taken an oath of purity.”
“Enough for our time,” he says.
We find Cro-ja in the kitchen, sucking on the dog’s tail. It nods its approval of the conditions of my final deal.
My love carries me up the stairs to our bedroom.
“Welcome home,” I say as he sets me, gently, on the bed. The pill has already begun to work, for the jarring hurts less than I expect.
“I love you, Abigail.”
“And I love you, my Sebastian.”
His lips press against mine, and then we are touching each other in places we’ve forgotten exist.
All of the preparations, all of the deals, and my husband has finally come home.
When our carefully orchestrated lovemaking ceases, I close my eyes to the throbbing in my half-leg, and say, “Would you help me out to the ice-box?”
He taps me, forcing me to open my eyes so that I can see him shaking his head.
At first, I think he is being cruel, insisting I hobble out to the prison alone. But then he pulls a knife from his jacket.
“No,” I whisper. “Our souls.”
Pressing his lips to my ear, so that only I will hear, he says, “If I murder you, break the conditions of our bargains, then it’s my soul, not yours, that will be punished.”
I bite my lip, trying to make sense of his scheme. “They will find a way to torment us both,” I say, just as quietly.
“My love, I’ve fought them for two years. And I will not see you flayed one section at a time. Cro-ja will make me do the cutting, as I will be his slave in your stead.”
I nod.
“I would rather kill you quickly. And if I do us both, before he notices, then he cannot perform the livestock ritual and my soul may yet escape punishment.”
I hurry to process the details of his plan. Will my soul finally be free of this torment? How can I dwell in the kingdom of heaven while Sebastian and so many others endure infinity in the clutches of monsters? Suicide is a sin and the punishment is all too real.
Then his lips are on mine and the kiss, our goodbye, convinces me.
“Together,” I say. “If I kill you at the same moment, then we have our final hope.”
He kisses me again, sealing the terms of this, our ultimate bargain, a last vow between husband and wife.
We say no more.
Sebastian produces another knife, smaller, meant as a tool for eating, not killing, and I hold it with both hands.
One, he mouths in silence.
Two, I mouth in return.
On three, we thrust our weapons into each other’s hearts. For less than a second I hear Cro-ja shriek, as it senses the changes to its property—our souls. Then I welcome the consequences my soul has earned for all of my bargains.
MILES TO GO
Stephanie Bedwell-Grime
Air the consistency of cold soup wafted through the car’s open window.
Weston Smith hunched forward in his seat in a vain attempt to peel his sodden shirt from the plastic upholstery. In spite of the chill in the humid air, sweat ran in rivulets down his back and pooled in spreading stains beneath his armpits.
The red numerals on the dashboard clock clicked over from 2:59 to 3:00 a.m. He should have stopped hours ago. He’d stop right here and now if only he could figure out exactly where here was. An overturned eighteen-wheeler on the 401 that backed up traffic for miles in both directions had sent him in search of another route east. At least he thought he was still traveling east. The road that looked like a straight line from Kitchener to Guelph on the map snaked over half the countryside, taking him miles out of his way.
Fog hung like torn curtains in the valleys of the hilly country road. Wispy white tendrils stole the beams of his headlights, scattering it impotently back at him.
On a clear day, the patchwork of farm land covering the rolling hills would be clearly visible. Smothering darkness and mist painted the landscape in alien textures, making even the most obvious of land marks seem otherworldly. Brief moments of clearing came on the crests of the hills when the world dropped away from him in a sea of impenetrable black, broken only by a rare pinpoint of light from a house far in the distance. The inevitable plunge downhill was like driving into milk.
A rock-hard bed at some budget inn seemed more appealing by the minute. Weston pried stiff fingers from the steering wheel he’d been holding in a death grip and rubbed the sore spot between his eyebrows. The constant cycle of dark and light was giving him a headache. He glanced down at the speedometer and groaned when he realized he’d only been going 40 kilometers, for all it felt like a hundred on the downhill slopes. The half hour drive from Kitchener to Guelph was quickly becoming an hour. At that speed he wouldn’t hit Guelph until almost four a.m. He had a presentation to give at nine. A presentation he hadn’t written yet. He should have stopped, grabbed what sleep he could and made an early start of it. But how was he to know some idiot was going to hit a patch of fog and smear flaming bits of truck across the highway? With a groan of frustration, Weston slammed his foot down on the accelerator.
Fatigue dulled his fear. Miles later the blinding white and velvet black had become a predictable pattern. Weston kept the car pointed against the yellow line barely visible down the center of the road and counted on fate to keep his eyes open.
Whunk!
The sudden impact jarred Weston from his stupor. He wrestled with the steering wheel that twisted like a snake. The car shuddered as the back wheels copied the front, throwing the Honda halfway over into the oncoming lane. Bone crunched, caught between rubber and asphalt, followed by a scream so swiftly aborted it sounded like a plea.
Weston regained his composure halfway up the next rise, the momentum he’d built up on the downward slope still carrying him forward. Panting, he mentally examined the events of the past few seconds. Had he hit something? Or was the blow he imagined the force of his chin hitting his chest as he nodded off?
It was too dark to tell if he’d left anything lying in the road behind him. Lifting his foot from the accelerator, he squinted into the mirror, but the road behind him disappeared into a solid wall of cotton batten.
Fox? he wondered, desperately trying to shake the adrenaline from his system. No, bigger. Cat? Bigger still. Raccoon? Could be. Searching his memory he was certain he’d felt the sickening crunch of something large being mulched beneath the Honda’s wheels. Or was it just an apparition brought on by too much caffeine and too little sleep? He searched his memory again and found he couldn’t be sure.
The Honda coasted to a slow stop, its engine the only sound in the cottony nowhere land. Weston found he was gripping the steering wheel again, staring vainly into the wall of white. Whatever had happened, the answer lay back there. He glanced at the clock on the dash. Three thirty-five a.m. He ought to be most of the way to Guelph by now. If in fact he had been heading east instead of driving around in circles on these twisting, fog-shrouded roads. Assuming he found a motel by four, had the presentation worked out by five and hit the sack by five ten, that wouldn’t even give him a good three hours sleep. And he had to be in Montreal the day after tomorrow. He couldn’t waste the time to circle back in the darkness and the fog to find the thing he thought he’d hit was merely a figment of an overwrought imagination.
Weston pressed his foot back down on the accelerator. The Honda jerked to life. Sorry kitty, or dog or raccoon, he thought, but a man’s gotta make a living. And then a more chilling thought occurred to him.
What if it wasn’t a raccoon he’d hit? What if it was a person lying helplessly in the middle of the damp pavement, having no option other than to watch in horror as the glow of headlights crested the hill?
Conscience warred with the thought of that nine a.m. presentation. The Honda shot forward another few feet. It would be so easy to think only of his obligations and keep going. But Weston had never considered himself a cruel man, and he could no more leave a wounded animal in the middle of the road than a human being.
With a curse, he swung the Honda around and doubled back over his path.
The visibilit
y didn’t improve in reverse. Weston peered through the fog, straining eyes that already felt like someone had smeared sand between his eyelids and his cornea. He’d been most of the way down the hill, almost in the pit of the valley when he’d felt the impact.
Wet ground crept by in a yellow pool of light. His hands were sweaty now where they gripped the plastic steering wheel as he prowled slowly back through the alien, white landscape. Each column of parting fog renewed the terror of what he might find. His imagination eagerly supplied the gruesome details: a dying raccoon, desperately trying to drag itself from the road. Worse still, the vacant eyes of a dead man staring accusingly back at him. Or perhaps that he had completely lost his mind and dreamed the whole incident.
Beneath the Honda’s tires, the ground began to slope upwards. Weston breathed a sigh of relief.
Then, in the fog-shortened beam of his headlights, he saw a lump of something dark against the black ribbon of the road.
Weston slammed the car into park. Leaving the motor running and the lights on, he crept toward the black shape in the road. The car’s key alarm dinged several times, then fell silent.
Too big for a cat or a fox, he thought, stopping to examine the thing from a few feet away. The way its back hunched toward him, it couldn’t be a dog, unless the spine was broken. At least it wasn’t a person. Raccoon maybe. He crept closer. Not like any raccoon he’d ever seen. For one thing, it had no fur.
Black skin gleamed in the Honda’s headlights. Its oily, leathery hide reminded him of a whale’s. Closer now, he could make out the shape of thick limbs, a rough approximation of arms and legs that ended in some serious-looking black claws. It had no tail, and its blunt head was turned away from him, so he couldn’t clearly make out the shape of its face. It hadn’t moved so much as a muscle as he crept toward it. Even its barrel chest was completely still.
Dead. The thought was a relief to him. Whatever it was, it looked nasty. But he had to be sure. Backing slowly away, Weston scoured the edge of the road for a twig, anything, so he wouldn’t have to get that close to it.
Group Hex Vol 1 Page 2
