What Blood Leaves Behind (The Poison Rose)

by Beaumont, Delany

  When I get close I hear William say, “We’re not going.”

  My stomach clenches, blood pulses into my head. “Not this again. You are not doing this to me.” My voice rises and William looks around nervously. Except for the sound of the wind chopping the surface of the river, whistling through the bridge’s steel beams, the night is still, nothing human, nothing animal to disrupt it.

  I stalk up to them fast the last few steps like some beast of prey, stomping in my boots, swinging my arms. They both scrunch down as if about to be attacked.

  “You—are—a—worm, William,” I say, snarling out each word. “Did he convince you, Tetch? That was fast. What about saving Aiden’s life? What about Jendra, William? I thought you wanted a chance to see her. You think she still cares enough to pay you a visit?”

  They look at each other, standing closer than they ever would under normal circumstances. I think for a moment about Stace, brave and stoic, staying by Aiden’s side, far tougher at her young age than these two will ever be. My smidgen of respect for Tetch has vanished like the traffic that once poured across this bridge.

  They say nothing in response. I imagine them mulling over the possibility of trying to run. One could surely get away while I was tackling the other, dragging him or her with me across the river. Tetch and William do appear to be sizing each other up, trying to decide who can sprint faster, who has a better chance. I’m close enough to knock both of them down but there’s no way I could hold onto both.

  My left hand reaches for the rifle I would have had slung over my shoulder in the past. Its absence confuses me for a second. Walking with these two out into the empty city at night has taken me back to a sense of my former freedom for the first time since being captured at that motel on the outskirts of Raintree. It seems like an eternity has slipped by since I first saw the

  Black Riders.

  But, unlike that first encounter, I’m unarmed. Foolishly unarmed.

  I think of swiping a knife from the kitchen but William guesses what I might do and warns me. He tells me right before we leave, looking me up and down as we stand waiting for Tetch to meet us on the school’s front steps, “If you want the medicine, do not bring a weapon.”

  I have bundled myself in a bulky ski parka I found in a back room of the Orphanage, a dusty dirty thing much too large for me. “God knows what they’ll do if they see you walking free,” he says. “But if any of us approaches them with a weapon, they’ll for sure…you know.” He draws a quick finger across his throat.

  Then I do something crazy. I start speaking louder and louder. “If you try to run, I will grab the first one I can get my hands on and drag you over the bridge with me. You know you can’t both escape. And when we find Needle or whichever one we find, I will tell them that it was whoever runs off who is responsible, who sent us from the Orphanage. I will tell them that the coward is the one who set me free.”

  By now I’m almost screaming, words tumbling out of my mouth in a ferocious rush. William is squirming, trying frantically to figure out what to do. Tetch stares at me open-mouthed.

  I am determined to scare them, bully them into going with me.

  As soon as I stop yelling, only the low moan of the wind sweeps back to fill the night. All three of us, I know, are now alert for the splutter of a motorcycle engine coming to life from the far side of the river or for another, equally ominous sound to crack the stillness.

  “Why didn’t they just let you fall into the river,” Tetch says, just loud enough so I can hear her. “Jendra should have dropped a bigger stone on your cage.”

  It’s such a hateful thing to say—so ugly, so raw—that it takes my breath away. I thought we had bonded in some small way over Aiden but her fear and her self-absorption clearly win out over any deep human feeling.

  “Shut up, Tetch,” William mutters, scanning every direction, eyeing me warily as if I might start braying at the moon. “Don’t agitate her. She’s crazy. She’ll do anything.” Then he heaves a big, exaggerated sigh. “Let’s just go and get it over with.”

  “I will do anything,” I say, biting my words off hard but not quite shouting. “Anything I have to do to protect the ones I care about. But you two wouldn’t understand that.”

  Then I lower my voice but still speak with fierce intensity. “Even when the one you love, Tetch, is dying. And the one you cared for most, William, has gone someplace where you’re afraid you can’t follow.”

  “Shut up.” William screeches the same stupid command much more loudly than he intended to. He jams a hand in his mouth and looks all around again.

  “Jesus! All right, we’ll go,” Tetch says. Her voice, too, is loud and William pushes her and she shoves him back. “What difference does it make now? We’re screwed anyway. I’m sure they’ll find us. Not just Needle. All of them.”

  And they both stalk right past me, heads down and shoulders hunched, hands in their pockets. I follow close behind.

  Two

  What blood leaves behind is this hollow, empty world. A shell of a thing. No communities, no societies. Cities barren and crumbling.

  Animals roaming wild that either flee from us or try to kills us.

  Cities filled with all the stuff of civilization, nearly all of it beyond the ability of any of us who remain to ever use again. All of it rusting, rotting. Less salvageable, more weed-choked with every passing year.

  As Tetch, William and I step off the bridge’s walkway, the tallest buildings in Raintree rise up before us, huge lanky monsters that loom and tower and reach out to us with their enormous moon-backed shadows. It feels strange as we hurry down the off-ramp from the bridge and finally set our feet on a downtown city sidewalk. It should be familiar—a short distance from the Orphanage—but it’s like we’ve reached an unknown country.

  But I’ve walked here all on my own this time. Not locked in a cage on the back of a truck.

  We skirt the edge of Riverfront Park, now an overgrown jungle. I stop and look back at it for a moment, trying to remember where the fountain was that I once spent a summer day splashing in long ago, my parents watching from a nearby bench. It’s impossible to tell. The only visible sign that there was once a park here are the ruins of the last carnival held in Raintree, some of the rides still lifting their metallic arms above the weeds, all of them topped by the enormous spokes of a Ferris wheel, a few gondolas still dangling from its rim.

  There is the smell of moisture in the air from recent rain and a low bank of fog creeps in to huddle over the river.

  William takes the lead, hurrying us along. He’s moving fast now. He takes time to stop at crosswalks although there’s no need, cocking his head this way and that like a bird listening for an unusual sound. He relaxes just a little when we’re able to shelter in the deep wells of shadow between high rises along the main business streets, no longer passing through wide open spaces like we were near the park.

  We start to creep through the blocks I had caught glimpses of when I was being transported in the cage. It’s darker, harder to see in the narrow canyons between the tallest buildings. We walk in the middle of the street, sidewalks too littered with refuse to be passable. A slim pathway has been cleared in the middle of all the garbage, as if a large truck was used to slam aside ruined vehicles, furniture, clothes, appliances—every kind of human-made debris.

  From far, far away the howl of some sort of canine creature rises above the hills. The first animal sound I’ve heard since leaving the Orphanage.

  William stops and says in a tense whisper, “It’s so weird.” I’m a step or two behind him, trying to keep up while also trying to keep myself from tripping over scattered garbage or bumping into the side of an overturned car.

  “What is?”

  “It’s so…quiet. That wolf or dog or whatever it was reminded me of what’s missing.”

  All three of us stand still for a moment. We’ve reached the intersection of Broadway and Main. Across the street from us an enormous sign dangles, slant
ed asymmetrically above the prominent brow of an old theater marquee. It’s in the shape of a long ladyfinger cookie, half the size of the building behind it. I can make out dead neon letters that spell vertically from top to bottom, “Raintree.”

  And he’s right. It’s spooky, the wind cutting around the corners of buildings the only real sound. That and another cry from the wild dogs. Tetch stands beside us, silent, staring ahead and frowning, a hood pulled tight over her head, focused solely on making her way through these cluttered streets.

  William nudges my shoulder and we start walking again. He begins to chatter, like if he keeps talking he might be able to still his jitters. “Usually you can hear something. Someone on a motorcycle exploring or Bodie’s van. Sometimes we can hear them screaming or shouting or singing or…”

  But his chatter puts Tetch on edge. “Shut it, William!” she hisses at him, then looks around, spooked by the echo of her own voice.

  The wind picks up with a stinging gust, whips my hair back, throws grit in my eyes. The Raintree sign creaks and groans as we pass beneath its shadow. We scrutinize it, notice that it’s kept above us by only a few remaining clamps and bolts, imagine what would happen if it fell.

  Tetch’s command silences William. I also feel no urge to talk, concentrate on the jumbled street we weave through, occasionally prodded by William to cross an intersection or turn in a particular direction at a corner.

  “It’s not far,” William suddenly pipes up. “Just around—”

  Then it happens. The stutter, the bark of an engine igniting. All three of us duck down as if we’ve been shot at, swiveling our heads in all directions but the noise is not that close, probably half a dozen blocks away or more.

  “God,” William says, standing straight again and wringing his hands. “We can’t be here.” His voice rises into that panicky whine of his which grates on my nerves more and more every time I hear it. He looks as if he’s about to dart away but I snatch his arm tight, my fingers digging into his scrawny bicep.

  I shake him, growling, “You must have known they’d be somewhere around here. So let’s keep moving. We have to finish what we’ve started.”

  “Yes,” Tetch says, suddenly alert and voluble. “If we get there, we can act like we brought something for Needle. Like he asked us to come. They won’t bother us if Needle sees us first.” Her words fly after her thoughts as she tries to reason the situation out using what little knowledge she has.

  “But what about her!” William tries to pull away from me so hard he nearly knocks me off my feet. He’s losing control. “She shouldn’t be here.”

  He succeeds in breaking my grip and sprawls back, his rear slapping the wet pavement. He points at me with his arm crooked at an odd angle and an index finger extended. It’s a strange, melodramatic gesture that reminds me of Needle with his long, tapered, micro-thin white fingers as they pointed to the body of Gideon where it lay on its slab.

  Tetch is also backing away from me as William scrambles to his feet, looking like he’s about to take off in a full-tilt run back the way we came.

  But at that very moment an accelerating engine shrieks from nearby. It seems impossible it could have come so close to us so soon. Headlights sweep the cross street behind us and a motorcycle roars past, the rider invisible behind the single headlight’s cool, blue-white glare.

  It’s obvious the Riders could close in on us at any time. They know we’re here, on this side of the river, but maybe not yet exactly where we are. We may still have a few minutes left to reach our destination.

  At that moment I realize that I’m not frightened so much as plain angry. I can feel my plans falling apart. I’ve been so determined to complete this mission that I haven’t let myself think much about what might happen if I fell into Moira’s clutches again.

  And I can’t afford to start thinking about that possibility now.

  “Damn it, come on,” I tell them. “We can’t go back. Run if you want to but if I don’t catch you, you know who will.”

  They both know I’m right. They both know there is only one way to go. Better Needle finds us then these others.

  Anger gives me a boost of strength, strength I now need to ignore the quick internal flashes of the cage dangling over the river, the cage set close to the bonfire, the dank cellar of the Orphanage. The threats Moira’s made. All the blips of instant nightmare the sound of a motorcycle revs up in my head. I curse the time I’ve wasted on our journey listening to Tetch and William bicker and waver.

  The high whine of another bike’s engine intensifies from several blocks away.

  William darts back to me while staring over his shoulder, backs into me, willing and wanting to touch me now, deliberately pressing his back against mine. He’s breathing hard, hyperventilating.

  Tetch has turned to us from a few yards away, her face still a pale blank circle, moonlike, haloed by the hood of her sweater.

  For unknown seconds none of us move. The chuffing of the motorcycle fades into another street farther on. William takes slow, deep breaths, trying to calm himself. He steps back and turns to look at me. He nods ever so slightly. We both glance at Tetch and, without another word, we continue on as a unit.

  It’s impossible to pick up our pace on these streets. It’s too dark and there’s too much junk everywhere.

  It takes three more long blocks to find the building we’ve been seeking. It turns out to be brick and nondescript, looking burned out and ancient. It once housed a store front with an enormous plate glass window long since smashed down to a few jagged shards. I inhale the redolence of mildew, of decomposed food, of the spore of countless animals that have visited the space over the years—wafting out from the chaos of shadows inside.

  William has stopped, staring at a dented steel door in a recessed space just off the sidewalk. There is an old intercom to one side with the names of former tenants dark smudges crisscrossing a faded display.

  “This is it,” he whispers, although there’s no need to explain what I’ve already guessed.

  “What do we do? Bang on the door and wait for somebody to open?”

  He shakes his head urgently, obviously not wanting me to raise my voice. “It’s not locked. You pull it open and go inside. It’s never locked.”

  He and Tetch watch me intently, expecting me to make the first move. I reach out to the rusted door knob and give it a yank. At first the door resists but then, with an agonized cry of rusted hinges, I work it open just far enough for us to squeeze inside.

  It smells so fusty indoors, moldy and stale. “This place must be as old as the Civil War,” I say softly.

  I hear William’s voice coming from right behind me. “We have to go upstairs. There’s a big old staircase back here.”

  We walk by pressing our hands against the wall of a narrow corridor, feeling our way back into complete darkness. I hate the feel of the mildewed wallpaper, of the dank spider webbing that rakes against my face, my hair. Our feet clatter across hard, damp-spattered marble. “This is awful. Why do they make you come here?”

  “They must have wanted a space the animals couldn’t get into,” Tetch says.

  “It’s hard to breathe.”

  “Wait until we get upstairs,” William says.

  “What do we do when we get there?”

  “We drop the stuff on a table and wait for Needle. He looks through it, asks us some questions and we leave.”

  “But we need stuff. We’re not dropping anything off.”

  “Then I guess we wait to see what he says.” He’s trying to sound blasé but his voice cracks on the word “wait.”

  William suddenly reaches out and I feel him fumbling for my hand. He’s trembling, his hand alive with the shakes. I’m amazed that after all our squabbling and tussling he turns to me for comfort. I’m tempted to toss his hand aside but I can’t. Despite all that’s happened, I can’t be that cruel to a terrified boy.

  He keeps me from moving, paused in the deep darkness of this fr
ont passageway. I want to keep going. I want to get it over with. But William reminds me so much of CJ or Terry when they’re scared.

  I don’t want to have to force him. I don’t want to deliberately hurt him. I don’t think I could unless he hurt me first. I picture that large crescent-shaped scar above his eye like someone had torn a strip of flesh away as easily as if they were peeling an apple.

  “Do you think we’ll see her?” I hear his small voice say. His hand is squeezing mine tight, the only way it can keep still.

  I shrug but realize he can’t see me. The question annoys me because it’s so pointless. “How would I know, William?” But I’m aware that the chance of seeing his old friend might just give him the courage to continue on.

  “What’s she like now?” he says, undaunted. “What did she look like, when you saw her with Moira? Did she say anything? What did she act like?” He keeps his voice low but it’s insistent, pestering.

  I hadn’t told him much about that night, other than the fact that she was there. Why has he waited until now to ask me all this? He must be aware of how needy, how fragile he sounds.

  “I barely got a glimpse of her.”

  Moira and Jendra, the visit they paid me late at night in the dorm.

  For a few seconds Moira waves the beam of light at the body of the girl standing next to her. I blink hard, trying to see beyond the glare that feels like it’s been burned into my eyes. It is Jendra—the face the same shape, the hair the same color. Except that the color of her skin is different, like she’s wearing the pasty pancake makeup of a cabaret singer.

  “Moira!” Jendra yelps.

  I finally say to William and Tetch in the dark below Needle’s room, or wherever we are, “We’ve got to keep moving.” I ease my hand away from William’s sweaty palm.

  They continue to make me lead the way even though I have no idea where I’m going. Finally the toe of my boot clumps against the riser of the first stair. I take a nervous first step up and manage to grab a handrail that still seems firmly connected on my right.