Burn

by Geoff North

  Lawson had begun to circle the two, putting space between him and Cobe. “Don’t listen to her, boy. Eichberg and his kind fight dirty. They’d say just about anything to get under yer skin.”

  “I got under your woman’s skin, Lawman. I tore into the flesh of her chest and ripped her wide open.”

  “More gawdamn lies,” Lawson replied, clenching and unclenching his fists.

  “I ate her heart and made your daughter watch. Then I killed her, too. The ugly girl, Angel laughed. She said they had it coming. After I’d finished tearing Willem and Trot apart, I almost spared that homely girl’s life. Until she did this.” Eichberg held up his arm and showed them a bloody set of teeth marks left in the skin. Two of the puncture marks were bigger and deeper than the others, a perfect match for Angel’s overgrown buck teeth.

  The Lawman moved in with lightning speed and grabbed the arm. He twisted it up behind Eichberg’s back until something snapped at the shoulder. Lothair, oblivious to the pain, wrapped a foot around one of Lawson’s legs and pushed back. The two toppled to the ground, rolling, twisting, and biting.

  Cobe had moved in closer to Jenny. “Is it true what he said? Did you kill the others?”

  She stared back at him. “Didn’t want to kill… anybody.”

  “Where’s Willem? Where’s my brother?”

  She looked around slowly at the burned corpses everywhere. “Don’t know… for sure. Guess he could be around here somewhere.”

  Cobe jumped at her, screaming. Jenny beat his swinging arms away and wrapped the fingers of one hand around his throat. She lifted him from the ground and squeezed. “You shot me… between the eyes… You left my body to rot… in that dead city.”

  Jenny threw him to the ground but kept the fingers locked around his neck. Cobe was beginning to lose consciousness. Beside him, perhaps six feet away, or maybe six thousand, the Lawman was losing his battle as well. Lothair was on top of him, beating the Lawman’s face in with his fists. Cobe could no longer hear the men grunting and swearing at each other. The roar of the fire around them was gone. All he could hear was buzzing. Stars were swimming back and forth in his eyes.

  And then Jenny’s hand pulled away. Cobe gasped air in and the sound returned. A dark shadow fell over Lothair and Lawson.

  “Hello, Grandfather.”

  What remained of Kelvin Eichberg was a steaming, stinking mass of black bones and glistening organs. An extra appendage seemed to have grown out from left his shoulder blade, and Cobe realized after a moment that it was one of Hank’s arms, snapped off at the elbow and fused into the creature towering before them.

  Lothair crawled off from Lawson’s chest and stared up into the red eyes, “Kelvin? You’ll have to forgive me. I know it’s been a thousand years, but I was expecting you to look somewhat… healthier.”

  “You’ve traveled a long way to find me.” His voice sounded like rusted nails being scraped along rock, followed by an awful whistling as he inhaled. He turned slowly one way and then the other, surveying the death and destruction. “Everything gone… you murdered all of my livestock.”

  “I needed to find you, to find him.” He pointed down at the Lawman. “No one was willing to cooperate. I punished them.”

  “I will not share this world with you. Your time here ended long ago.”

  Cobe shouted at them. “Neither one of you belong here! You’re monsters and killers!” He shot Jenny an especially hateful gaze. “All of you… You’re all the same.”

  “Do you hear that, Grandfather?” Kelvin wheezed. “Perhaps the boy is right. Maybe all the time we’ve spent below has left us unfit to live above once again.” He kicked Lothair back down into the dirt. He placed one blackened foot against his chest and started to press. “And now that I see what this world has become, the less I want to be a part of it.”

  Lothair hammered at the length of black bone pushing the life out of him. It started cracking, and Kelvin pressed harder. The ribs started snapping in the old man’s chest, one after the other like rotted old sticks. Lothair clawed at Kelvin’s exposed kneecap and tore it away. Kelvin lifted the foot and stomped it back down violently. The skin at Lothair’s sides ruptured open as his fractured ribs exploded outwards, ejecting organs and intestines.

  Kelvin’s leg snapped in two a moment later and he toppled forward. His ruined body slammed into Lothair’s. The grandson whispered into his grandfather’s ear. “Is this what you envisioned so long ago… when you began freezing children in the concentration camp? Did you ever imagine it ending… like this?”

  There was a thunderous crack and the top half of Kelvin’s head vanished in a spray of blood and brains. The Lawman rose and turned in the direction where the blast had came from. “Maybe it would be best to lower that thing now before you hurt yerself.”

  Trot turned the shotgun around in his hands and stared down the smoking barrel. “Can’t believe I really hit him… my first time.”

  Sara appeared out of the smoke and took the weapon from him. “Give me that thing before you blow another skull-full of brains out.” She dropped it into the dirt and gave the Lawman a sidelong glance. “See you’ve gone and gotten that face of yours beaten in again. Anything I need to tend to?”

  “Nothin’ time can’t mend on its own.” He grinned when Kay and Willem appeared a moment later. “I had a feelin’ Eichberg was full of shit when he said he’d killed you all.”

  His daughter frowned. “Only Angel. She held him off while we escaped out onto the water in Agnan’s boat. We were trying to make it to the other side of the lake to get the rest of the guns.”

  “There was nothing I could do to stop her,” Sara added, fearing Lawson might hold her responsible for the girl’s death. “She jumped out of the boat and swam back, giving us a chance to get away. Those damned water serpents were circling all around—by the time I saw an opening to go after her, it was too late. He’d already broken her neck.”

  “Don’t blame yerself,” Lawson said. He wiped his blood-smeared face on the sleeve of his shirt. “Sounds like she went quick. That’s more than most people can say after tanglin’ with Eichberg and his kind.”

  Cobe went to his brother. “Thought I might’ve lost you a second time.”

  “I ain’t a little kid no more.” Willem jabbed him playfully in the gut. “A lot tougher, too. I don’t need nobody to protect me no more.”

  “What about her?” Kay asked.

  Everyone looked at Jenny who was standing off on her own. Lawson picked the shotgun up off the ground. “We could put another bullet or two in her brain, make sure she stays dead this time.” No one said a word. “Or we could let her be. It sounds like Lothair got inside her head during one of them dream states. Maybe she’s innocent for what happened to Willem.”

  “She had no problem murdering the people in this village,” Sara countered. “We saw her kill a few while we were trying to make it to the boat.”

  Jenny finally responded. “They were trying to kill me… It was self-defence… It was him that started it all.” She pointed at Lothair still writhing helplessly in the dirt. “The fires… the murders… all of it was him.”

  “But you were with him,” Cobe said. “You didn’t try to stop any of this.”

  Jenny lowered her head. “I… I was with him… I was angry at myself. Angry for what I did to Willem. And even angrier for what you did to me… It isn’t an excuse… I’m just telling the truth.”

  “Been a lot of wrongs committed in the last little while,” Lawson said. He squatted down over Lothair, resting the end of the shotgun barrel against the man’s chin. “Most of ‘em because of you.”

  Eichberg tried squirming away but his broken body wouldn’t cooperate. Most of his insides were splattered around him in a gory puddle. He was trying to speak. The Lawman leaned in close and listened.

  “It doesn’t have to end here like this… There is much I can teach you and your people… I can help you rebuild civilization. Just need you to put my… org
ans back inside.”

  The Lawman chuckled. “You want to teach us about being civilized?” His finger tightened around the trigger.

  “Wait, don’t shoot.” Jenny walked to them and pulled the weapon out of Lawson’s hands. “He’s family… My responsibility.” She placed the barrel to Lothair’s throat.

  “You don’t have to do it,” Lawson said. “Killin’ him won’t grant you instant forgiveness from all of us.”

  “Not doing it for any of you. This is all me.” She pulled the trigger. The blast tore his throat and neck apart, separating head from body completely.

  The Lawman leaned down and stared into Lothair’s pink eyes. He saw confusion there. A thousand years without sleep was coming to an end. He saw fear. And then there was nothing.

  Chapter 51

  Dust and Cloud were waiting faithfully at the shore beneath Boom’s Reach when the six returned. Trot helped Lawson lift Angel’s body from the boat, and he assisted him digging a hole in the sand to bury her in. Finally, when it was all over, he asked. “What do you think happened to her?”

  “Lothair bust her neck. You saw it, didn’t you?”

  “Not Angel, what happened to the old lady?”

  “Agnan?” Lawson peered out over the dark water. “She may have been old, but she was too smart to let the likes of Eichberg get a hold of her.” He walked down to the lake’s edge and pushed the woman’s boat out into the gently lapping waves. “Maybe she’ll need this, maybe she won’t.”

  Trot and the others gathered around him and watched as it slid silently towards the island. The flames had finally subsided, but smoke continued to billow forth from the small piece of land like a dying volcano.

  “So much for settling on Victory Island,” Cobe said solemnly.

  Lawson confessed. “It wasn’t the best idea bringin’ you all here, I admit.”

  Sara wrapped an arm around his waist. “It’s over now, that’s all that matters.”

  “Yeah.” He squeezed her back. “I reckon the worst of what’s happened since these fuckers started waking up is finally done. We can breathe again. We can head back home and get on with our lives.”

  “Back to Burn?” Trot asked.

  “Well we can’t return to Rudd,” Kay said. “It’s in even worse shape than the village out there.”

  Lawson shrugged. “Not Rudd, maybe not Burn, either. There’s plenty of places between here and there folks could live. Lots of open land not already overridden with rollers and howlers. We’ll find it.”

  Jenny shook her head. “Not together, we won’t.” She turned and started towards the mountain trail.

  “You just gonna let her leave?” Willem looked up pleadingly at the Lawman. “After all we been through?”

  “She ain’t like the rest of us.”

  “Neither am I anymore.” The boy jogged after Jenny.

  Lawson and Sara watched them go. “It’s never going to be easy,” she said. “There are thousands more like her already risen. Most of them are brain-dead animals, but there might be others like her… like Lothair. Maybe they aren’t all intent on taking over the world. Maybe we can learn to co-exist with some of them.”

  “I don’t know if such a thing is possible.”

  “What isn’t possible? Living out there amongst them, or the idea of even trying?”

  “This is one debate I’ll never win,” Lawson grumbled. Cobe had already started after his brother. Kay was helping Trot climb up onto Cloud’s back. All seven of them were leaving this place together whether Lawson liked it or not. He went to Dust and patted the animal’s neck. “The rest I’m leaving up to you, old friend. Use that big nose of yers, and sniff us out someplace safe to live for a while.”

  Dust snorted contentedly as the Lawman settled into the saddle. Sara jumped up behind him and they rode off, up the rocky trail, and out into the world.

  Chapter 52

  Four years later

  The sun set behind the sky rocks in the west painting the distant range dark purple. Lawson and Sara sat in the grass on top of the highest hill outside of town and watched the navy blue blanket of night settle over the crimson strip of remaining day.

  “They are not too young to begin a family,” Sara insisted for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Just because you and I were both over thirty years of age when Kay was conceived doesn’t mean they can’t be fit parents.”

  “The boy hasn’t even turned twenty yet. What kind of father can you be when you’re still half a child?”

  Sara laughed. “What kind of father were you for the first fifteen years of Kay’s life?”

  Lawson tilted his head to one side and grimaced. “Alright, you got me there. Cobe will be there for the baby, but it’ll put a strain on their relationship seein’ how he’s the town’s only practicin’ Lawman.”

  “Angel has a grand total of thirty-four citizens living within its walls, and maybe two dozen more out in the surrounding farms. Cobe won’t be that busy keeping the peace.”

  “Maybe,” he replied with a shrug. “But a town don’t need to be big to support its fair share of trouble-making arseholes. He’ll have his hands full, you’ll see.”

  “Can you shut-up for a few minutes and just enjoy the sunset?”

  Lawson pulled out his tobacco pouch and began to roll a cigarette. He lit it a few moments later and enjoyed three or four long drags before speaking again. “I know they’ll be fine. Guess I’m still not used to worryin’ about family… and now we’re goin’ to be grandparents.”

  “You’ll worry after them until the day you die. That’s what having family means.” She rested her hand on top of his in the grass. “Do you think Willem and Jenny will be okay back east?”

  “Those two are different. They’re strong. I got no worries about them whatsoever.” He crushed the cigarette out in a patch of dirt. “It’ll be dark soon. We should get back. Me and Trot spotted a pack of howlers to the north this afternoon. Wouldn’t want to run into any tonight without my guns.”

  Sara pulled him up and kissed his wrinkled forehead. “It’s a good life we’ve made for ourselves.”

  Lawson looked down over the pretty little town they’d named after an ugly girl. He hugged his wife and nestled his cheek into her sweet-smelling hair. “A man couldn’t ask fer one better.”

  Chapter 53

  The townsfolk of Burn watched warily as the newcomers arrived. Nobody spoke a word as their horses trotted through the streets, heading past the old hanging tree and finally coming to a stop in front of the Law Building.

  Willem dropped down from Cloud and sneered at a cluster of open-mouthed old women staring at them. “None of ‘em remember me. Nobody much paid attention to a one-armed boy back then… can’t say it comes as much of a surprise they don’t recognize me now a foot taller with two arms and grey skin.”

  Jenny stayed atop her horse and turned slowly in the saddle, taking in the multiple glares and hateful sneers directed her way. “They sure as hell haven’t forgotten me.” She pointed to the thickest tree branch hanging over the Law Building’s roof. She winked at the Burn residents. “Remember me, you ignorant bunch of mother-fuckers? Recall how you tried to hang me from that goddamned branch? I think my first order will be to cut this fucking eyesore down to the ground.” She spat on the tree trunk and finally dismounted.

  A big man getting on in age pushed through the gawkers and stood before her with his thick arms crossed over his chest. Willem remembered him as Jude, Lode’s blacksmith father. He was balder and fatter now. “Who in hells do you think you are making a demand like that? I’m the town leader of Burn!”

  Jenny kicked him between the legs and broke his nose as he dropped to his knees. She reached into a saddlebag hanging on one side of her horse and pulled out a long length of rope. She looped it around the gasping man’s neck and threw the other end up and over the tree branch. And then she pulled. She kept pulling until the slack was gone and Jude was yanked up off from the ground. Willem stepped
in and helped. Together they hoisted the three-hundred pound town leader up off his toes. He wriggled and squirmed, clawing uselessly at the noose digging into the folds of fat at his throat. Jude’s eyes bulged, his cheeks and lips started to turn blue. Jenny and Willem released the rope simultaneously and the man fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

  “I’m town leader now,” Jenny announced. “If anyone doesn’t like it, speak now.” No one made a sound, except Jude, coughing and gasping for air. Jenny prodded Willem towards those standing closest. “And this here is Burn’s new Lawman. If anybody has something to say about that, you can take it up directly with him.” Not a word was spoken.

  Jenny pulled him back, kissed his cheek, and whispered in his ear. “Go on, climb the stairs and take your place.”

  Willem walked through the crowd. They pulled back, giving him room. The big revolvers made a squeaking sound in their holsters as he climbed the porch steps and entered Lawson’s old office. He appeared again a few moments later, ascending the tower stairs.

  People started to whisper and mutter as he leaned out over the tower railing. A few more gasped as the rays of the setting sun caught the red glow in his eyes. Willem stared down at the wicked town residents. They were ignorant. They were uneducated. They were immoral and cruel. Was this how Lawson saw them during his years of service? Had he seen redeeming qualities in any of them? He’d obviously seen something of merit in Willem, his brother, and Trot, or none of this would’ve come to pass.

  He pulled the old chair forward out from the shadows and sat. People continued to stare for a time, but eventually started moving on. Jenny was still down there, grinning up at him. She waved, but Willem didn’t wave back. He didn’t smile, either. They could share those intimate feelings that had grown between them in private. In public, things had to be different. The citizens had to respect him, and to earn their respect, he needed them to fear him.