“I’m sure I do,” I tell her with a smile. “I’m sure we all do. We have to have moms, don’t we?”
“Crypters don’t have moms,” the girl states.
Crypters. Suddenly my eyes are wide open, like the simple word arouses life into me, energy where there was fatigue, alertness where there was drowsiness.
“Crypters,” I repeat, realizing what she is. “You’re a Human girl.”
She wrinkles her face again, puzzled. “Aren’t you?”
This poor little girl. Where’s her family? Where’d she come from? “Yes,” I lie to her, just to comfort her, just to put her at ease, just so she doesn’t start screaming again.
Then she says, “Your hair is pretty.”
I’m touched. “Thanks. You have pretty hair too.”
The girl clings to the bars of her cage to support herself as she keeps her reddened eyes on me. Her wavy brown hair is a tangled mess. Her clothes are torn and dirty. Her face is blackened with soot except for small raccoon circles around her eyes, cleaned completely by her recent tears. Real Human tears.
I clear my throat. “I’m Winter. What’s your name?”
“Megan.”
“Nice to meet you, Megan. Do you have a mom?”
She nods. “Mom and dad are probably looking for me right now. I was bad.” Her face still partway wedged between the bars, she casts her eyes down at the ground. “I went where I wasn’t supposed to go.”
“Where was that?”
“The woods. That’s where they got me.”
“Who got you?”
“Them.” She looks off to the side, squinting in the distance.
I follow her gaze. I see many other cages now, large as dog kennels, a generous five-by-five square feet of space in each, roughly, arranged in seemingly countless rows with narrow aisles between them. These cages extend into the distance where a tall warehouse stands, and even from this far away I can make out graffiti pouring down its walls and spirally smokestacks issuing from tall pipes that jut out of its roof. Other buildings and factories and metal sheds stand all around us, giving the impression that we’re housed in the middle of an abandoned industrial city. Maybe that’s exactly where we are.
“When my mom finds me,” says Megan, “the first thing I’m going to tell her is I’m sorry.”
A sigh escapes my lips. “I’m … sure she knows that.”
“Sorry because my little brother wasn’t careful either, and he was killed,” she goes on, stonily. “And now me.”
I put a hand to my mouth. “Oh, Megan. I’m … I’m so sorry about your—about your little brother. Listen to me. We’re going to get out of here, okay?”
Sweet as my dialogue is with the little Human, Helena has to go and ruin it. “There’s no use,” she calls out, annoyed. “We’re all going to die soon. Give it up.”
“This,” I snap, spinning around to glare at my maker, “is not your prisoner-conversation. You are not allowed. This is my prisoner-conversation, between me and this sweet little girl Megan. Go find your own conversation!”
I turn back to the girl. “Tell me about your home.”
She responds: “I’m really hungry.”
Hunger. That gives me a sudden thought. Adjusting myself on the dry, gritty ground, I very quietly ask, “Do you know a John?”
Her lip starts quivering again. Her eyes swell. “Will you make sure to tell my mom and my dad that I—that I hid the thing by the anvil?—Please?”
“Did you know a John?” I repeat, hoping the blasting wind masks my voice enough so Helena doesn’t hear this. “Where do you come from, Megan? Where do you live?”
“I buried it,” she goes on, her face so pushed into the bars that her mouth stretches twice its width. “I buried it so it would stay safe. Tell them that.”
“Megan,” I persist, an unanticipated sense of urgency finding me suddenly, shaking my throat. “You have to tell me where you live. Please.”
“Promise you’ll tell them that.”
And then I hear the chains. From the vast rows of people-coops draws forth a singular figure—what appears to be part man, part skeleton, part office nerd—and he lazily makes his way through the maze of cages. For the first time, I realize how many people are imprisoned here with us … All of them making small noises and gasps, scuttling to the opposite sides of their cages as he passes. All of the prisoners deathly afraid of him, this half-skeleton in a tattered dress shirt and tie—I take him to be a prison guard of sorts. Or Death’s tech support, one of the two. Lengths of chain drag behind him, rattling with the weight of what appears to be hundreds of keys.
As the guard turns onto our little row, I realize he’s headed directly for my cage. Whoever he is, whatever purpose he’s here to carry out, I’m clearly about to learn. He frees one single key from the chain that drags, fumbles with it in his hand to unlock my door.
No—To unlock hers.
“Tell them,” the girl almost yells, her voice going up an octave as she realizes the skeletal guard has come for her. “I hid it. They’re going to be looking for it. Please!”
“Tell me where you live,” I urge her, desperate. “Tell me quickly so I may find them!”
“The apples,” she says, tears falling down her face. “I forgot to tell my mom about the tree by the lake. No one … no one’s going to know about it after I’m gone …”
The guard has opened her cage now and steps inside.
“I’ll tell them,” I promise, no idea how in the world I’ll be able to fulfill it. “Just tell me where they are!”
And the guard neither threatens her nor utters a word. He merely stands at her side quietly, then with care extends a skeletal hand in her direction, offering it. The girl peers up, her body visibly shaking. With long and painful hesitation, the girl finally takes the guard’s hand, lifts herself up off the ground, then seems to walk with the guard hand-in-hand out of her cage … almost like she were perfectly willing to go with him all along. And as they walk away, she neither looks back nor makes another sound.
Then they’re gone. I just stare after her, mystified, confounded, aghast at what I’d just witnessed …
“Good try,” Helena grunts. “We’ve been trying to find where the Humans live for quite some time. You would have done the Mayor of Trenton a great service had the little bleeder spilled their whereabouts.”
“I wasn’t—” I start to say, then sigh. “What’s the use, anyway … We’re not making it out of this place, are we?”
“No, we’re not.” Still leaning on the bars at the corner of her cage, she seems to inspect her nails. “What you said to that girl, that was … sweet. Who’s John?”
“I … I don’t think ‘sweet’ is going to get us out of here,” I mutter, dodging her question. I’d really hoped she hadn’t heard his name …
“Get comfortable. We could be waiting here a few decades before we’re tended to,” Helena sings, her accent thick as it’s ever been, “and then this whole turmoil will at long last conclude. I could use a cigarette.”
“Where are they taking that little girl?” I ask, but I really—I really almost don’t want to know.
She tells me anyway. “A number of things a Human is used for here. They could take her for all the information they can get—kindly at first, then with more cleverer means, then manipulative means—then strip her of her humanness and eat her. Or—”
“Eat her??” I’m standing now, gripping the bars with two very tight fists. “It’s true?—The Deathless eat us?”
“Humans. Not us. They have other uses for us.” She looks up at me, her eyes turning dark. “I wonder if this was part of your agenda all along. Maybe a plan of yours since the first day. To rope me in, have me imprisoned and die by your side. Dying at the side of the one I gave Undeath to … How poetic.” That last word she spits at me like a fireball, her mouth wrinkling with abhorrence.
“Yes,” I admit sarcastically. “This was my plan. You have me all figured out, Helena.
I wanted us to get eaten, or whatever’s going to happen to poor, miserable us. This is my idea of a good time. Aren’t we having fun?”
“You were young and you were stupid. I should have known you hadn’t the strength to survive this world. I should have gone with my instinct, told the Judge my suspicion that you were incompetent, self-serving, idiotic, reckless … You would sooner watch the city burn than live another day in that putrid skin of yours.”
“How was I supposed to know how to do a proper Raise??—and with such a bang-up example, I might add!”
“I did mine flawlessly!” she snaps. “You didn’t run!”
“YES I DID!” I scream at her, finally, once and for all having had enough of her foul distaste for me. “I RAN! The moment you ditched me on that filthy porch of mine, I had enough! I bolted! You didn’t know that one, did you? I ran until my feet could’ve fallen clean off!—those pretty feet Marigold made for me! I ran until there was no more ground, until all that stretched before me was a cliff and a very, very dark place below. I even fell over, hanged from that cliff, and do you know what my first thought was?—all this running, all this life, all this death has led to this. A cliff. All I needed do was let go my little stupid fingers, and this little stupid girl you can’t stand would’ve fallen to the mist below. This little stupid girl you named Winter, she wouldn’t be here right now. Not a day goes by, not a minute goes by where I wonder if it might’ve been a better decision to have let go that day.”
I don’t realize, but through all my angry words, tears somehow came to my eyes. I wasn’t actually aware that the Undead could physically cry until this very moment, my fists clenching the bars of my cage so tight they could draw blood, had I any in my veins.
“And it wasn’t you who saved me,” I point out to her, to Helena whose full attention I now have, whose normally superior and hostile form is, at the present moment, replaced with apprehension. “It was Grimsky. He was there to save me, not you. He gave me this life, not you. Whether you pulled me out of the ground or Grimsky himself, I have him to thank for my Final Life. You gave up on me at that doorstep … You let me run.”
Still squeezing the bars with my hands, I stop talking. The wind thrashing around like a sandstorm, I watch her face with fiery, silent assault. I wait for her to prepare her nasty response. I want her to burst into flames.
“That was brave, what you did,” she whispers.
I think I didn’t hear her correctly. “What??”
She nods her head to the side. “Back in the Mists. When you stood up against the Deathless army. Just a sword in your hand. That was brave.”
I stare at her, unable to grasp what she’s saying. I’m still so angry from my outburst that I half-yell my next sentence. “I was scared!! I didn’t know what to do!”
“Whatever it was, I didn’t teach it to you.” Her voice is numb, detached. “You did that, all on your own. That was Winter. Maybe it was a bit of the real you peeking forth … the Old you. Maybe you lived a brave life.”
“The Old me?”
She purses her lips and looks off. “As they say, life is short. Death is shorter.”
I turn away too, annoyed. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Give it a few decades.” She casts her gaze the other way, hiding her face. “You’ll realize how very little you know about this new dead world … about life, unlife … about your humanity and what you think you value.”
I drop to the floor, somehow unable to hold up my own weight any longer. All the fight and anger has left me and all that’s left is the deep seed of desolation. No matter where we stood before, Helena and I are in this ugly context together. Also in mind is my half-awareness that somewhere in the city are the Judge and her two men. Somewhere else, the innocent Marigold.
And Grimsky.
“This is all my fault,” I finally say. “This is all on me.”
“Yes, of course. This is all about you,” Helena quietly mocks me. “Let’s not think on my part in this. How I misguided you. Pay attention instead to Winter as she weeps and feels sorry for herself. Please, pity our plight.”
“We could die here.”
“We’re already dead,” she states unnecessarily.
I try to weep, but I just can’t. I shut my eyes and push my hands into my face. I beg to be turned to stone, to become a statue instead of this thing I am. I beg to be forgiven for this utterly unforgiveable situation we’re in. Somehow though, I fear it’s only going to get worse.
Time passes.
Neither of us stir. We may as well be stones.
It could be minutes later, hours later, days later, when I hear once again the sound of dragging chains. I look up, shaken. In the distance stalks another shirt-and-tie man down the rows, a different one than before, limping and grunting with every footfall. Again, the people escape to the opposite sides of their dirty cages, eyes wide and watching as he passes, but he isn’t coming for any of them. No, of course not.
This one’s coming for me.
C H A P T E R – T E N
H O P E
“Well,” I say, almost hoarse from the length of time we’d spent in silence. “Seems like you won’t have to put up with me much longer. It’s my turn now.”
She says nothing.
“It was nice knowing you, Helena. Thanks for this wonderful whatever and, you know, good luck with your next Raise. Hope she’s a better one. Happy never after.”
And then the guard plucks a single key from his length of chain and pops open the door—to the cage opposite mine.
I was certain he was headed for my cage, but seems I’ve called another false alarm. After the cage is opened, the guard peers around as though confused. It seems he can’t locate the prisoner. I lean to the side, curious if I can see for myself whoever the cell was holding.
And then a teenage boy bolts from the cage—dust flying in the air—and tears off down the aisle.
“Helena!—Look!” I cry, pointing.
The boy, who was cleverly hiding under a blanket masked by the dirt and sand of the ground, is disappearing quickly now into the distance. The guard, despite this, looks entirely unaffected by the boy’s escape. Leaving the cage wide-open without a care, he simply begins to limp leisurely, backtracking down the aisle and out of sight.
“What just happened??” I ask, blinking anxiously. “Did he escape?—Did that kid escape, just like that?”
Helena huffs, annoyed. “This city is impossibly huge. The streets are like a Hell-damned labyrinth. He’s a fool. He’ll be punished and brought right back. You’ll see.”
I’m gripping the bars of my cage, squinting. Maybe I can see the boy if I look hard enough. I’m bursting at the seams with something I haven’t felt in quite a while, something I cling to without hesitation … Hope.
Minutes pass and I’ve dropped my hands from the bars. My eyes are still squinted, peering into the distance. I have a few false alarms, but I don’t see the teenager or the prison guard. I stay focused, sure I’ll see them very soon.
An hour passes. I’m no longer looking for the teenage runaway. I’m inspecting my hands, bored. I’m wondering if I got manicures when I was alive. I wonder what my favorite color was. Midnight Blue or Winter White.
I wonder what my name was. My real name.
More hours pass. I’m sitting in the corner drawing figures in the sandy ground. A smiley face. A little boat on the waves. A tree with big fluffy leaves. I draw a giant shiny sun in a sky full of happy clouds. Anything that pulls me away from this dead world. This is the way the Undead dream, I’m convinced. I draw the outline of a cat, whiskers included. Maybe I liked cats when I was alive.
I lay on my back, spread-eagle, and stare up into the grey sky cleaved by the bars above me. I smile for no reason, just to remember what it feels like. I can hear Helena stirring in her own little prison. It feels like it’s been days since we’ve spoken, though I know better.
Or do I? Ever since my Second Life started, I’ve been s
o very bad at tracking time. I assume it has to do with a few trivial things, like not sleeping, not having meals, not having mornings or sunsets or late afternoons … All of this, start to end, just one long day.
For someone back home, it must feel quite differently. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, pretending that the Human John is next to me. “I told you I’d be back by morning … but it’s come and gone, clearly. However have you been managing on your own?”
I hear more stirring in Helena’s cage. “Doing alright in there?” I ask her. No response. “I know, I know, the accommodations here are just awful. I’ll be sure to request a mattress at the very least, if I can ever manage to phone room service.” No response. “Listen, I know you wish you’d never Raised me, but I—”
“Actually,” Helena quietly interrupts, her voice lofty and calm, “I was thinking about my life.”
“Wishing I’d never entered it?”
“My First Life,” she amends.
I turn my head. Helena’s never mentioned anything about her Old Life before. In fact, until now, I hadn’t known she already had her Waking Dream.
Well now Helena, don’t keep me in suspense. “What about it?” I finally ask.
“Nothing.” She looks down, lets out a tiny sigh.
“Come on, Hel,” I urge her quietly. “Tell me.”
She chuckles. The sound is so uncharacteristic coming from her, I have to be a little surprised and wonder what I’d done to inspire it. Then she says, “Hel. No one’s called me that before. I think I like it. Hell we’re in, after all, Hell we’ll forever be in. I brought us here.”
“Nonsense. I did.”
“I’m responsible for you.” She shrugs, her back still facing me. “I’m responsible for everything you are.”
“Well, I’m a brave fool, according to you. So there’s that much.”
“Braver than I.”
“Whatever. I bet you were brave in your First Life.”
She shrugs again. A moment passes. I almost think she’s given up on saying anything more.
The Beautiful Dead Page 12
