Midian Unmade

by Joseph Nassise

  “We can’t cross until nightfall,” said Xxyzx, leaning in toward the child, touching his face for the very first time. It was as real a connection as he’d made in centuries, so much that he barely felt the word “sorrow” script itself across his chest.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Truly, I am. If she lives—”

  “She won’t.” Jon sniffed, weeping openly now.

  “If she lives,” assured Xxyzx. “We’ll go. We’ll invite her to be one of us.…”

  He held open his arms to the boy, who sobbed into the comfort of the monster’s awkward embrace. The child’s body shook with its tears, pattering against his scarred flesh, trickling over words of sadness and scorn, melancholy and anger, and mixed with the blood there to trace soft, pink trails across the creature’s skin. And in no small way, they hurt him more than Lylesburg’s curse ever had.

  “I could have helped,” Jon cried, his voice muffled. “I could have saved her.”

  Xxyzx looked past the boy’s head—took in the clean, soapy smell of his hair—and met Allyaphasia’s eyes across the room. He was uncertain whether the glance had been one of permission, or whether she’d simply come to the decision on her own, but when she stepped forward and placed her hand on the boy’s cheek, he was hardly surprised at her response.

  “And we will,” she said. “We’ll save her together.”

  10

  None of them tried to stop her; they knew it would be fruitless. None of them tried to argue that she was their guide and that without her they were lost. None of them made proclamations of love, or offered eulogies in her honor.

  Rather, they followed her up the steps to the place where the sun split through the broken boards, pushing through the shadows that fell across the floor. They watched her turn for what they knew would be her final look, hoping against hope that it might be otherwise. They witnessed Xxyzx as he edged the shadows and embraced her tenderly.

  “This is your peace?” he asked. She nodded without speaking, and he touched her face like a lover might. “And this has been mine.” He kissed her—neither brief, nor lingering—and delicately pushed her away toward the boy.

  “Move quickly,” he said in lieu of “Good-bye.” “It takes but a moment.”

  Jonathan offered his hand, looking back across the monsters in the barn, who seemed as certain as he that the world would take its death today.

  “Ready?” he said.

  Allyaphasia closed her eyes—conjured the faces of her children, whom she hoped to see again—and stepped into the sunlight.

  11

  When the Nightbreed would later speak of their history, storytellers would spin the crossing of Allyaphasia in the most romantic of ways. It was a tale designed for tears, after all, told and retold, made and remade. But it wasn’t the truth, of course—history never is—and those who’d been there to see it would have told you that the reality was much, much worse.

  She burned from the very beginning, from her first moment out among the light. It was a terrible pain, and for all her mother’s bravery—for all her intended nobility—she screamed with every step. Her skin smoked and charred. Her hands; her feet. Her arms turned red in five simple paces—a deep, sunburn tan; brown in ten; and gray in twenty. She made the walk with her eyes closed, knowing that they would burn first, hoping that her lids would protect them long enough to cross the field. She relied on Jonathan to guide her, and despite her cries and frequent stumbles, he pulled her firmly, bravely, murmuring platitudes to keep her going.

  By the halfway point, her hair had stiffened and cracked, falling to the ground like straw. Her exposed head sprouted red, pus-filled sores; her back gristled and hissed, and by the time they reached the dirt path toward the porch, her spine had become discernible beneath the half-cooked flesh.

  “A few more feet,” pleaded Jonathan. “Just a few.”

  They made it together, stumbling up the steps. Jonathan reached to pull open the screen door and turned to the creature beside him. Her right eye had blistered and burst, its juices leaking down her cheek.

  He pulled her into the living room only half alive, but her strength was evident even in her weakened state.

  “Which way?” she asked, and when he pointed to the stairs, she sighed.

  Allyaphasia crawled to the top, step by step—half pulled, half dragged by Jon beside her—and down the hall into Elizabeth’s bedroom. Jonathan pulled the curtain closed to block the afternoon sun.

  “We made it,” said Jonathan, following her to the side of his mother, and for the first time since stepping from the barn, he allowed himself to notice the tragedy that the sun had played upon Allyaphasia. Elizabeth lay there—eyes sunken, skin pale—and yet for all the damage wrought beneath her skin, she still, at least, looked human. There was nothing vaguely resembling Allyaphasia left of the creature across from him, and in that moment, Jonathan realized that he’d traded one loss for another.

  He’d come to love this woman, this monster, and he wept for her now as much as his mother. He felt somehow as if they were the same.

  As if to dispel the notion, Elizabeth muttered quietly.

  “You,” she said softly to the dream-demon. “Your face…”

  Allyaphasia looked up at those words, taking Elizabeth’s hand. “We’re not alone,” she said after a moment. “There are others here.”

  “It’s just us,” said Jonathan, thinking perhaps that she’d lost her sight completely. “The room is empty.”

  “One room is every room,” she said. “And all rooms are one room.”

  Jonathan didn’t pretend to understand, nor did Allyaphasia attempt to teach him. She simply reached for the soft flesh of Elizabeth’s arm—of which there was little, for she’d wasted much—and asked of the boy, “Are you certain?”

  He nodded, and Allyaphasia lowered her head, placing her lips over Elizabeth’s skin, and bit down as if her bite were a kiss. Two small rivulets of blood flowed down her pale, alabaster hands onto the quilted blanket that his grandmother had knitted before her passing. He wondered for the first time by how long his mother might now outlive him, or his children, or his children’s children—the missing of which had been her greatest dying regret.

  “How long?” asked Jonathan, leaning over his mother’s frail façade, when suddenly her eyes opened, meeting his own with a fire he’d not seen in months.

  “Not long at all,” laughed Allyaphasia as Elizabeth looked intently at her son.

  “Jon?” she said, the gauze of her sleep still shedding from her eyes. She touched his face, his neck, his hair—smiling, half giggling. “He sent me back,” she said. “The angel, he sent me back.”

  He kissed her, surprised at the warmth that had already returned to her body. He wrapped his arms around her neck as she winced. “Slow there, tiger. One step, then another,” she said, but she only hugged him harder.

  It wasn’t until they’d parted that her eyes fell to Allyaphasia, and before Jonathan could think to tell her not to scream—to say that there was an explanation, and then explain it—Elizabeth smiled. “He said you’d be here,” she whispered, tears welling, but not yet fallen. “That I’d know you by your eyes.”

  They were kind eyes, indeed, thought Jonathan, who asked only, “What did you see?”

  “I saw him,” said Elizabeth. “Clearly and for the very first time. The man in my dreams; the one who calls to me.” She paused, raising her hand to the marred, blackened flesh of Allyaphasia’s cheek. “He had a face like yours.”

  “Like ours,” muttered the monster, her breathing labored, her dim eyes growing heavy. “Do you understand?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “It was explained to me. And I accept.”

  Even Allyaphasia, who knew more of the world-behind-the-world than Jonathan could ever hope to learn, seemed confused by her words, but if she desired to know more, she said nothing. Instead, she turned to Jonathan, who’d made no pretense to hide his tears, and smiled.

  “Kindly, dear, woul
d you open the window?” she asked, her tired glance full of knowing. “So that I might see my son.”

  Jonathan hesitated, aware of the consequence, but Elizabeth simply nodded—a gentle, melancholy gesture—as if to give permission to them both. It was a moment between mothers, he understood, and not for him to share.

  Elizabeth’s eyes met those of the tattooed woman—as if parting at the start of a long journey—and she pulled herself back into the room’s shade and shadows. In his corner, Jonathan reached for the curtains. A slice of light penetrated the narrow slit and fell across Allyaphasia’s face. She closed her eyes against the sting and gestured him forward.

  He drew the curtains wider, enough to allow the sun to pour down onto the creature in the center of the room, and as it did so, she began slowly to unravel. The tattoos that marked her skin pulled away, peeling toward the sunlight and rising into the shape of animals. Jonathan spied a titmouse emerge from the woman’s skin, followed by a cat, followed by a snake.

  The offspring weren’t immune to the soft diffusion of sun, and as they separated and formed, one by one, they came back together in an embrace of species. They nestled into one another—taking suckle, taking safety—as the light dissolved their newborn forms, floating like ash into the air.

  Allyaphasia was almost gone now, as well, a hollow framework from which countless lives had come and gone, but she was not wholly unrecognizable. Her smile persisted to the end. Elizabeth stepped forward from the shadows, unafraid of what effect the light might have on her fading humanity, and cradled the soft, wet tissue of the disappearing woman.

  “I saw him,” she repeated. “The man from my dreams. And he spoke to me of you.”

  The Breed no longer had voice, but her mouth moved breathlessly in the pantomime of a question: What did he say?

  And with her first breath as a member of the tribes, Elizabeth told her.

  12

  When it was safe—when the sun had set—Jonathan led his mother across the field to the barn where the remaining Nightbreed paced nervously in the shadows. He helped her across the threshold and down into the crudely dug cellar where the creatures waited impatiently. They looked up curiously, their eyes passing beyond the stranger in their midst in search of Allyaphasia behind them, which she was not.

  “Our woman?” asked Xxyzx. “Did she not make it?”

  Elizabeth scanned the room with greater confidence than she had ever possessed in her human life, and with the strange audience before her, simply shook her head.

  “Such a fucking waste!” cried Jonas. “Trading her for you! We’re lost now!”

  “Not entirely,” said Elizabeth to the room, a timbre in her voice which Jonathan had never before heard. “My son and his uncle will be our eyes in the daylight; find us places to rest beneath the moon. We’ll explain it to him when he wakes,” she said of Albert’s body slumped unconsciously in the corner.

  Laughter spread among the crowd—tenuous and discordant. There were holes in their disbelief. She had put them there with only a scant few words.

  “And what of it?” asked Xxyzx. “What of you?”

  “Of me?” she asked, removing the veil from her head, revealing the shapes and mutations that Allyaphasia’s bite had conjured there. Her features had changed considerably. The bones beneath her skin had reworked themselves, re-formed, but not without regard to her femininity. In truth, strange as it may have seemed, Jonathan considered his mother to be more beautiful in that moment than ever.

  “Of me,” she began, “I died. And in death I had a vision. A man, but not a man. Like me now, a half-breed. And in that vision he spoke, and in speaking asked me to address you thus.…”

  The Nightbreed stilled, their attention rapt, and had Elizabeth known the long, suffering history of Xxyzx—upon whose skin the worst had been written—she might have been surprised to see the word “hope” appear there now.

  On the stairs beside her, Jonathan took her hand.

  “Tell them, Mom,” he whispered quietly. “Tell them what the man told you.”

  Elizabeth smiled proudly at her son, running a hand through his delicate auburn hair, and turned to the roomful of unbelievers, prepared to make them less so. “My name is Boone,” she quoted. “And these are my children. You are chosen among them. You are Cabal. And you will lead them to me.”

  And so it was that Elizabeth Adler—newest of the Nightbreed—having spoken the words, began to make them true.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Karl Alexander is an award-winning novelist and screenwriter. He has published seven novels. Two have been made into films, including the classic Time After Time. His most recent book, Time-Crossed Lovers, was an Award Winning Finalist in the 2013 International Book Awards. He lives near his hometown, Los Angeles.

  Timothy Baker is a retired firefighter and martial-arts instructor embarking on a new career in writing fiction. Having published a handful of short stories, Timothy is working to get his novel, Hungry Ghosts, into the light of day. An Oklahoma native, Timothy now lives on the stark high plains of southeastern Colorado and lives with his three cats: Gary, Spidey, and Mel. You can find his blog, Bones Along the Road, at skeletonroad.wordpress.com.

  Amber Benson is a writer, director, actor, and maker of things. She wrote the five-book Calliope Reaper-Jones urban-fantasy series and the middle-grade book Among the Ghosts. She codirected the Slamdance feature Drones and (cowrote) and directed the BBC animated series The Ghosts of Albion. She also spent three years as Tara Maclay on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She doesn’t own a television. You can find her online at www.facebook.com/amberbensonwrotethis.

  Edward Brauer is an unsettling taste in the back of your throat; a broken promise of clear skies, still oceans, and birdsong. By day he speaks the forbidden tongue of computers, nurturing the many-tentacled network of a cosmetics company. By night he cloaks himself in formless shadow and writes weird fiction. He lives with his partner, Lindsey, and cat, Savvy, in a creaky, old house on the edge of Melbourne. You might catch his silhouette vanishing around the corner of a cobblestone laneway should you visit sometime, but if you’re wise, you’ll curb your curiosity and not follow. You can find him online at www.facebook.com/edward.brauer.75.

  Longtime film critic turned novelist and screenwriter C. Robert Cargill has written for Ain’t It Cool News, Spill.com, and numerous other sites as well as penning the film Sinister and the novels Dreams and Shadows and Queen of the Dark Things. He lives and works in Austin, Texas.

  Brian Craddock is a storyteller and visual artist in Australia. He has toured the Outback of Australia and as far afield as Pakistan as a professional puppeteer, and currently works as a special-effects makeup artist for independent film. You can find him online at www.facebook.com/craddockfx.

  Ernie W. Cooper lives in Concord, North Carolina, with his fiancée and their evil, breath-sucking cat. When he’s not playing in other people’s literary sandboxes, he makes movie magic happen at the local megaplex. Find him online at www.facebook.com/ernie.cooper.33.

  Born somewhere during the latter part of the twentieth century, Nerine Dorman remembers what life was like before cell phones and the Internet. Yes, she is that old. By day she slaves away as a newspaper subeditor; after dark she makes authors weep and scribes her own tales of darkness and misery. Her book reviews and lifestyle editorial often appear in assorted South African newspapers and online. She worships at the altar of coffee, plays classical guitar, and is growing a forest around her house. One day she’ll visit Egypt. For now, she’ll dream. You can find her online at www.nerinedorman.wordpress.com and www.facebook.com/nerine.

  Kelly Dunn’s fiction first appeared in e-zines such as Necrotic Tissue and Aberrant Dreams. Her short stories have since been featured in the anthologies The Dead That Walk, Midnight Walk, The Undead That Saved Christmas, Vol. 2, and After Death. Kelly is the editor of the horror fiction anthology Mutation Nation, published by Rainstorm Press. Her alter ego, Savannah Klin
e, has written an urban-fantasy novel, Beloved of the Fallen, published by Ulysses Press. Visit Kelly at kellysdunn.com.

  Residing in the land of swamps and simulacra known more commonly as Florida, Kurt Fawver is a fine purveyor of literature both wondrous and horrific. He has published short fiction in numerous magazines and anthologies and has also released a collection of short stories—Forever, in Pieces—through Villipede Publications. You can find Kurt online at www.facebook.com/kfawver.

  Nancy Holder is a New York Times bestselling author of approximately eighty novels and over a hundred short stories. She has received five Bram Stoker Awards for her supernatural fiction and a Scribe Award for Saving Grace: Tough Love, based on the TV show by the same name. This is her second tribute story to the master, having also appeared in Hellbound Hearts. Recent publications include Buffy: The Making of a Slayer and On Fire: Teen Wolf. She is the coeditor of the young-adult science-fiction anthology FutureDaze2: Reprise, from Underwords Press. She lives in San Diego. Tweet her @nancyholder.

  Lisa Majewski is a screenwriter and animal activist who graduated with honors from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Frequently asked when her love for the macabre began, she replies, “At birth.”

  Seanan McGuire is a professional author and amateur watcher of as many horror movies as she can get her hands on. She began pursuing both professions at approximately the age of six, which explains a lot. (She had more early success with horror movies and began publishing her fiction in 2009.) She also writes as Mira Grant, because one name was not enough. Seanan enjoys haunted houses, haunted corn mazes, haunted hotels, and the occasional cemetery. She also enjoys Disney Parks, creepy dolls, and spending time with her cats. You can find her at www.seananmcguire.com or on Twitter as @seananmcguire.

  Shaun Meeks lives in Toronto, Ontario, with his partner, Mina LaFleur. Shaun is a member of the HWA and has published more than fifty short stories. His most recent work has appeared in Shadow Masters, an anthology from The Horror Zine, Zippered Flesh 2, Fresh Fear, Someone Wicked, Van Gogh’s Ear, Vol. 8, and Of Devils and Deviants. His short stories have been collected in At the Gates of Madness, Brother’s Ilk, and Dark Reaches. His new novel, Shutdown, is due out this year. To find out more or to contact Shaun, visit www.shaunmeeks.com.