Ashes

by Haunted Computer Books

  "Good man," said the lieutenant, though his expression was of sorrowful weariness. "The war's over for one poor fool, at least."

  Some of the prisoners below were mumbling. The lieutenant leaned over the sentry box. "Any man crossing the dead line will be shot," he said in a commanding voice.

  The rumbles of discontent continued, but no Yankees approached the fence. Wilkie stared at the corpse until his vision blurred. He felt the officer's hand on his shoulder.

  "Reload, private, then come with me." The lieutenant ignored Wilkie's tears.

  Wilkie knelt in the sentry box and rubbed at his eyes. He opened them and let the heat dry them. Even staring at the clouds, he could still see the corpse, as if the vision had been burned into his retinas. Wilkie tried to tell himself that it wasn't his shot that killed the prisoner, but he knew he had aimed true for the chest. Then he grew angry at himself and rapped the gun with his knuckles, letting the pain distract him from such thoughts.

  He climbed down the ladder, the musket cradled across one forearm. Guards opened the front gate, and a second private joined Wilkie and the lieutenant. They walked the no-man's-land between the wall and the dead line, eyes straight ahead, not acknowledging the watching Union soldiers.

  "If I had a gun," said some brave anonymous soul.

  "You'll get yours, Reb," said another. The lilting opening notes of "Amazing Grace" issued from the lips of a third.

  When the detail reached the corpse, Wilkie and the other private rolled it over, so that the dead man was staring sightlessly at the sky. The lieutenant stood some distance away, talking to a Union officer.

  "He just up and ran," Wilkie said to the private. "I had to shoot him."

  "Hell, you're lucky you found a good reason. I seen 'em killed for less." The private spat a stream of tobacco juice to the ground. "Chamberlain, over in Second, tossed some bread scraps over the wall just down the foot of the dead line, then sat waiting for some Yankee to reach for it."

  The private folded the dead man's arms over his chest and grabbed the shoulders of the bloodstained tunic. Wilkie balanced his musket over his arm again and grabbed the man's ankles. Pale, wrinkled toes poked from the boots.

  "Boots ain't worth stealing," said the private. "Lately the dead have been just about worthless."

  Wilkie said nothing, surprised by the dead man's lightness as they lifted him. He must be hollow, Wilkie thought.

  "Except I hear the prisoners are selling rights on the corpses,” said the other soldier. "First out on burial detail get the best trading, you know."

  Wilkie nodded, grunted, hoping to hurry the private along. The lieutenant finished with the Union officer and joined them.

  "Tibbets," said the lieutenant. "Eighty-Second New York."

  Tibbets. Wilkie tried the name on his tongue, pushed it against his teeth. Tibbets, a man with family somewhere, a man who may have enlisted under the same sense of duty that had brought Wilkie to their shared destination. A man. A name.

  A corpse.

  Flies buzzed about them. They reached the front gate and laid the corpse out in the line of the twenty other fresh dead just inside the wall. Tibbets would rest there until the morning, feeding flies in the company of his cold comrades. Wilkie and the other Confederates left the compound as the Union soldiers dispersed. A single death was not the subject of much rumination, not when thousands had already made their final exit through those gates.

  Wilkie had grave detail the next morning. He had slept fitfully, his dreams haunted by Tibbets's rigid face. He waited by the wagon while Union soldiers tossed the corpses as casually as if stacking cordwood. Another fifty had died during the night, and the air was ripe with disease. When the first wagon was full, it began its trip to the dead-house, where the corpses were counted.

  The Union volunteers marched in the wagon's wake, Wilkie bringing up the rear. When they reached the dead-house, the corpses were unloaded and brought inside for identification. This gave the prisoners a little free time. Some sat against trees, smoking, but a few slipped into the bushes surrounding the dead-house. They were the hucksters, ones who smuggled goods inside and profited from the hardship and deprivation of their fellow soldiers.

  Guards were scattered around the grounds, and escape was rare. The Confederates turned a half-blind eye to the trading. An unwritten rule was that a huckster had to share a portion of his trade goods, slipping some eggs, tobacco, or the occasional greenback to the captors. It was a system that worked well, the kind of thing befitting a civilized camp. Except for those on the inside who had no money or barter.

  Wilkie went into the shade of the woods and rested his musket against an oak. To the left of him was the mass cemetery, a long shallow ditch waiting for the day's dead. The thin layer of loose clay over the bodies did little to quell the stench of decay. Five thousand were already buried here, according to the corpse counters.

  Wilkie lit his corncob pipe. The tobacco was stale, but at least it burned the smell of death from his nostrils.

  He heard a rustle in a nearby laurel thicket. "Is that you, Yankee?" he said, to warn the prisoner not to attempt escape.

  The bushes shimmied and the waxen leaves parted. A man in a shabby Union uniform stepped out. Wilkie first saw the toes protruding from the boots, then his gaze traveled slowly past the bloodied rips in the tunic to the man's face. The top of his skull was peeled away, but Wilkie knew that face, those eyes.

  Tibbets.

  Wilkie grabbed for his musket, accidentally knocking it to the ground. As he fell to his knees and scrabbled for it among the leaves, the boots approached, crackling in the dead loam and forest detritus. Wilkie gripped the musket and brought it to bear. What good was a musket ball against a dead man?

  Tibbets stopped several feet away. His hands were spread wide, palms up. The dark eyes were solemn, the lips pressed tight. He was waiting.

  "I . . . I didn't mean to kill you," Wilkie sputtered.

  Tibbets said nothing.

  A single sentence flew out from the chaos of Wilkie's thoughts: You can't talk when you're dead.

  But neither could you walk. Neither could you stand there before the man who had shot you and make some silent pleading demand.

  Tibbets raised his arms higher, then looked briefly heavenward. Wilkie followed the dead man's gaze. Nothing up there but a rag-barrel's worth of clouds and the screaming orange eye of the sun.

  When Wilkie looked again at Tibbets, the corpse's hands were full of goods. Eggs, squash, a small rasher of bacon. And soap. Wilkie hadn't seen soap in six months.

  Tibbets held his hands out to Wilkie. The meaning was clear. The goods were a gift to Wilkie. He set down his musket, trembling, and reached out to the corpse.

  The eggs were cool to the touch, cooler than the dead fingers. The bacon had oozed some grease in the heat, but hadn't yet spoiled. The squash was shriveled but whole. And the soap . . .

  Wilkie put the soap to his nose. The scent made him think of Susan, her clean hair, the meadow behind her father's cornfield.

  Wilkie gazed gratefully into the dead man's eyes. "Why?" he asked.

  The pale lips parted, and Tibbets's words came like a lost creek breeze. "You cried."

  Tibbets turned and headed back toward the stand of jack pine.

  Wilkie bit into the neck of one of the summer squashes. It was real. The impossible had become probable, and all that was left was for Wilkie to accept the evidence of his eyes, ears, hands, and mouth. "Wait," Wilkie called after Tibbets.

  The dead Yankee paused, tilted his head as if heeding some distant command, then slowly waved for Wilkie to follow. Wilkie looked back toward the stockade, where nothing waited but the duty of another day's death watch. He peered through the branches to the dead-house, where maggots roiled. When he looked back, Tibbets was gone, the pine limbs shaking from his passage.

  Wilkie stuffed the food and soap into his pockets. Leaving the musket, he slipped into the pines and wandered until he saw Tibbets far a
head. Wilkie walked, occasionally breaking into a run, never gaining on Tibbets. His limbs were heavy with fatigue, his uniform soaked with sweat. A blister rose on his big toe. Surely he had followed for hours, yet the sun still hung high in the sky.

  At last he heard the soft twanging of a mouth harp, the duet of a banjo and guitar. Laughter came from behind the next stand of trees, and wood smoke filled the air. Someone was broiling meat over a fire. The clank of flatware and tin was accompanied by the rich aroma of brewed coffee. An unseen horse whinnied.

  Wilkie burst into a run, using the last of his strength. He fought through a tangle of briars and scrub locust, kicking at the vines that kept him from those delightful sounds and smells. Finally he fell from the grip of the forest into an expanse of twilight. The air had gone crisp with chill. Campfires dotted the horizon as far as he could see. Around them huddled groups of men, joking, eating, drinking, writing letters or playing music.

  Rows of tents stood lined in uniform rank, not a rip among them. This had to be a Union camp. If so, he would gladly surrender for just one good meal and a chance to hear that peaceful laughter and camaraderie. Wilkie approached the nearest campfire.

  Two men rose from the log they were sitting on. One was dressed in a Union cavalry uniform, bright with polished leather and buttons. The other was Tibbets, in his prisoner's rags. Tibbets made a motion with his hand for Wilkie to sit. Wilkie nodded to the cavalry officer and sat rubbing his hands before the flames.

  "This is Wilkie," Tibbets said.

  Wilkie glanced up, about to ask the dead prisoner how he knew Wilkie's name. But in the land of the impossible, why shouldn't he?

  The officer gave the open-handed Rebel salute. "Welcome."

  Wilkie wondered why no one brought weapons to bear on him. Then he noticed that none of the men were armed. He studied the men sitting across the fire from him. They wore gray Confederate jackets. One of the men had cornbread crumbs in his beard. The soldiers nodded in greeting, then turned their attention back to the warm pork that filled their hands.

  "Where do I go to surrender?" Wilkie asked the officer.

  The officer's mouth fell open, then, after a moment, a laugh rolled from deep inside his chest. The other men around the fire joined in, along with several groups from nearby campfires. When the officer regained his composure, he said, "You don't have to surrender, son. Why, the war's over."

  "Over?" Wilkie knew the South was getting beat, after Chattanooga and Gettysburg everybody recognized it was just a matter of time, but there was still plenty of Confederate pride and bodies yet to be used up. He couldn't imagine Lee handing over his sword without playing a last trump card or two.

  "It's over for all of us," Tibbets said, waving his arm to indicate the entire camp that seemed to stretch on toward the stars.

  "But you're dead."

  The laughter fell away. Wilkie looked around, expectant, a sheen of fear on his cool skin.

  "How many did you see die?" the officer asked quietly and not unkindly, like a wise uncle explaining something to a wayward nephew. "How many did you help kill?"

  Wilkie looked at Tibbets.

  "The bullet bites both ways," said Tibbets. "Doesn't matter whether you're breathing or not. You're still dead."

  "This is a war," Wilkie said.

  "War's over now," the cavalry officer said. "A civilized camp is in the best interest of both sides."

  The officer sat and pulled a stick from the fire. It bent with the weight of a hunk of cooked ham. He passed the stick to Wilkie.

  Someone strummed the guitar chords to "The Battle Hymn Of The Republic." The officer began singing in a rich bass voice. The Confederates wiped their lips with their sleeves and added their voices to the chorus that rose across the camp. Wilkie didn't know the words, so he listened as he ate, listened, listened, as the night fell on, forever.

  ###

  MURDERMOUTH

  If only they had taken my tongue.

  With no tongue, I would not taste this world. The air in the tent is buttered by the mist from popcorn. Cigarette smoke drifts from outside, sweet with candy apples and the liquor that the young men have been drinking. The drunken ones laugh the hardest, but their laughter always turns cruel.

  If they only knew how much I love them. All of them, the small boys whose mothers pull them by the collar away from the cage, the plump women whose hair reflects the torchlight, the men all trying to act as if they are not surprised to see a dead man staring at them with hunger dripping from his mouth.

  “Come and see the freak,” says the man who cages me, his hands full of dollar bills.

  Freak. He means me. I love him.

  More people press forward, bulging like sausages against the confines of their skin. The salt from their sweat burns my eyes. I wish I could not see.

  But I see more clearly now, dead, than I ever did while breathing. I know this is wrong, that my heart should beat like a trapped bird, that my veins should throb in my temples, that blood should sluice through my limbs. Or else, my eyes should go forever dark, the pounding stilled.

  “He doesn’t look all that weird,” says a long-haired man in denim overalls. He spits brown juice into the straw that covers the ground.

  “Seen one like him up at Conner’s Flat,” says a second, whose breath falls like an ill wind. “I hear there’s three in Asheville, in freak shows like this.”

  The long-haired man doesn’t smell my love for him. “Them scientists and their labs, cooking up all kinds of crazy stuff, it’s a wonder something like this ain’t happened years ago.”

  The second man laughs and points at me and I want to kiss his finger. “This poor bastard should have been put out of his misery like the rest of them. Looks like he wouldn’t mind sucking your brains out of your skull.”

  “Shit, that’s nothing,” says a third, this one as big around as one of the barrels that the clowns use for tricks. “I seen a woman in Parson’s Ford, she’d take a hunk out of your leg faster than you can say ‘Bob’s your uncle.’”

  “Sounds like your ex-wife,” says the first man to the second. The three of them laugh together.

  “A one hundred percent genuine flesh-eater,” says my barker. His eyes shine like coins. He is proud of his freak.

  “He looks like any one of us,” calls a voice from the crowd. “You know. Normal.”

  “Say, pardnuh, you wouldn’t be taking us for a ride, would you?” says the man as big as a barrel.

  For a moment, I wonder if perhaps some mistake has been made, that I am in my bed, dreaming beside my wife. I put my hand to my chest. No heartbeat. I put a finger in my mouth.

  “I’m as true as an encyclopedia,” says my barker.

  “Look at the bad man, Mommy,” says a little girl. I smile at her, my mouth wet with desire. She shrieks and her mother leans forward and picks her up. I spit my finger out and stare at it, lying there pale against the straw, slick and shiny beneath the guttering torches.

  Several of the women moan, the men grunt before they can stop themselves, the children lean closer, jostle for position. One slips, a yellow-haired boy with tan skin and meat that smells like soap. For an instant, his hands grip the bars of the cage. He fights for balance.

  I love him so much, I want to make him happy, to please him. I crawl forward, his human stink against my tongue as I try to kiss him. Too quickly, a man has yanked him away. A woman screams and curses first at him, then at me.

  The barker beats at the bars with his walking stick. “Get back, freak.”

  I cover my face with my hands, as he has taught me. The crowd cheers. I hunch my back and shiver, though I have not been cold since I took my final breath. The barker pokes me with the stick, taunting me. Our eyes meet and I know what to do next. I pick my finger off the ground and return it to my mouth. The crowd sighs in satisfaction.

  The finger has not much flavor. It is like the old chicken hearts the barker throws to me at night after the crowd has left. Pieces of flesh that
taste of dirt and chemicals. No matter how much of it I eat, I still hunger.

  The crowd slowly files out of the tent. In the gap beyond the door, I see the brightly-spinning wheels of light, hear the bigger laughter, the bells and shouts as someone wins at a game. With so much amusement, a freak like me cannot hope to hold their attention for long. And still I love them, even when they are gone and all that’s left is the stench of their shock and repulsion.

  The barker counts his money, stuffs it in the pocket of his striped trousers. “Good trick there, with the finger. You’re pretty smart for a dead guy.”

  I smile at him. I love him. I wish he would come closer to the bars, so I could show him how much I want to please him. I pleased my last barker. He screamed and screamed, but my love was strong, stronger than those who tried to pull him away.

  The barker goes outside the tent to try and find more people with money. His voice rings out, mixes with the organ waltzes and the hum of the big diesel engines. The tent is empty and I feel something in my chest. Not the beating, beating, beating like before I died. This is more like the thing I feel in my mouth and stomach. I need. I put my finger in my mouth, even though no one is watching.

  The juggler comes around a partition. The juggler is called Juggles and he wears make-up and a dark green body stocking. His painted eyes make his face look small. “Hey, Murdermouth,” he says.

  I don’t remember the name I had when I was alive, but Murdermouth has been a favorite lately. I smile at him and show him my teeth and tongue. Juggles comes by every night when the crowds thin out.

  “Eating your own damned finger,” Juggles says. He takes three cigarettes from a pocket hidden somewhere in his body stocking. In a moment, the cigarettes are in the air, twirling, Juggles’ bare toes a blur of motion. Then one is in his mouth, and he leans forward and lights it from a torch while continuing to toss the other two cigarettes.