The Beautiful Dead

by Banner, Daryl

  I drag myself quickly as I can manage down an aisle. Looking for a place to take cover, I’m just about to round another corner when I stop suddenly, hearing voices. Peering carefully around a shelf, I see two ratty-looking half-men with clipboards in the next aisle mumbling and muttering to each other.

  Taking this moment to breathe, I cover my face and beg forgiveness … from whom, I don’t know. That last sight of Helena, her head having lost its body …

  I can’t break down now. I have to keep going.

  But what if there’s no one left? What if my other companions have also met their Final Demise here? A pang strikes through my chest at the thought of Grimsky having met his … The one who saved me over and over, and I’d be forever the selfish friend who wasn’t able to pay back the simple favor just once in return.

  “Please be alive,” I beg under my breath. “Please.”

  I shake my head, shake it harder, trying to rid myself of the Queen’s screams still echoing in my ears. Behind my eyelids, the final image of Helena … headless, armless. That tool was in my hand—my hand. I did that to her, no one else. I brought all of them to this place …

  This is all my fault.

  The two half-men walk away, leaving the path clear. As soon as they vanish from sight, I take an imaginary breath and continue hobbling one-legged down another aisle, twisting myself through this maze of body parts and shelves housing them. I’m met by a wall with a door which, recklessly, I push open. Inside is a narrow hall with a long row of cages holding a person each. To my disgust, I find some of the cages only hold what seem to be pieces of people—a pair of legs here, a ribcage there.

  Steeled as I may be to the many perverse things I’ve seen so far in my time here, no sight has yet desensitized me to the villainy and unspeakable horrors that are clearly committed in this place over and over again without seeming regret, reluctance, or guilt.

  I wonder, when one joins the Deathless, do they lose their conscience? Does something within us, something innately Human and aware and sensitive and empathetic, simply disappear? How else can these abominations—yes, I said it—stomach the things they do to these innocent Humans? Imprisoning them, pulling them apart, eating them limb for limb, organ for organ, down to their very beating heart?

  And for what? To see the sun for a fleeting moment? To taste with tongue? To steal the human experience which, arguably, never again should belong to us?

  “Winter!” cries out a little girl’s voice.

  That bright voice brings me to life in an instant. Excitedly, I hop down the aisle of cages—many of their inhabitants stirring awake at the sound of the girl’s voice—and find among them a cage holding a very familiar, very frightened little girl.

  Human girl. “Megan,” I breathe, amazed at the sight of her dirtied face still wetted by tears. “You’re alive! Are you hurt?”

  “You are one of them!” she says, but her voice isn’t disgusted or afraid. Rather, it seems fascinated.

  “No. I’m not one of them. I’m getting you out of this cage.” I reach up to grab the lock and, with whatever laughable strength I have, try breaking it off.

  “You’re being bad, just like I was being a bad girl,” she goes on, hope lighting up her eyes. “You are defying your crypter masters. You’re a rebel, Winter!”

  “Yes, yes, I’m a bad girl,” I agree, still struggling with the lock. “A bad girl who can’t break a simple dumb lock.”

  After wrestling with the lock for so long—with one of my arms not fully functional, at that—I take a break. Or maybe I’m giving up, exhausted mentally, which I hadn’t taken to be a trait of my kind. I realize now that I have the attention of every Human prisoner in this narrow hallway of cages. All of them watch me with the same look in their eye: slightly hopeful, slightly scared to death.

  If I can’t break this one little lock, how can I possibly break them all?

  A door at the opposite end of the hallway flips open suddenly and a prison guard—or another member of death’s tech support—staggers in, a mess of keys dragging behind him. Seeing me, Miss Rebel, he starts to hurry in my direction, grunting, the keys frantically rattling behind his disjointed body and his knobbed fingers reaching out to seize me.

  Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

  Bracing myself, I squeeze the fist of my good arm and, with no grace whatsoever, I take one very bold and awkward swing at the ghoul’s face the moment he’s within reach.

  Contact. But now the fool’s screaming. The fist I punched him with bore John’s ring—How could I have forgotten? This time with the intention not of hurting him, but just shutting him the hell up, I throw another clumsy punch—and his entire jaw falls off. Staggering now, he reaches out for me while producing a sickening moan—how he manages that without a mouth, I can’t explain. Shamelessly, I tackle him to the ground, feeling far more terrified than I’m acting, acting far more valiant than I feel—and that’s when I notice the steam issuing from his face where I’d punched him.

  So I press my ringed finger to his face. In a moment’s moment, he slumps flat to the ground. A once proud keeper of keys, now reduced to a motionless mass on the floor, not a scream left in his bony body.

  “Winter, you did it!” Megan shouts, overjoyed.

  “He’s out, that’s for sure,” I say, admiring for once the clunky steel thing on my thumb, “but he will reawaken.”

  “Find the keys!” Megan begs me urgently. “Hurry before he wakes!—or someone else comes!”

  “Yes, yes,” I agree, distractedly throwing my attention back to where it belongs. I fumble through the length of chain in pursuit of a key. The right key among hundreds. “This … may take a while.”

  “Hurry!”

  Knelt in front of the cage, one by one I bring a key to the lock with no winner. I’m preoccupied, thinking about John’s innocent gift to me and how it inadvertently saved my life. Twice. Or maybe John knew exactly what his gift would do … Maybe he knew he was equipping me.

  At Megan’s suggestion, I throw a few lengths of chain at her so she can help too, picking through key after key.

  “You’re a very, very brave girl,” I tell her after a while, pulling yet another unsuccessful key from the lock.

  “When I get home,” she says, tossing aside a failed one of her own, “I’m not going to tell my mom and dad where I buried it. But I will tell them that I’ll always obey, no matter how bad I want to go running in the woods.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We still have a Necropolis to flee and a menagerie of ghouls in our way.”

  “Got it!” she exclaims, twisting a stub for a brassy key, the cage door flipping open like the turn of a page.

  And then she’s rushed up to me, crushing herself into my chest with a hug and a muffled, “Thank you.”

  I hold her, stunned by this action. I can’t even bring myself to say anything like “you’re welcome” because for some reason I’m not sure I deserve her congratulations.

  “Over here!” shouts a prisoner. “Me, me, me!” cries another. Some old man rattles the door to his cage, unable to speak apparently. “Down here!” yells another.

  Of course we can’t free one without freeing them all.

  I face the cages. “When I free you from your cage,” I announce, like I’m addressing a classroom, “stay behind me. It’s for your own good! Don’t go running off! I want all of you safe. I can protect you.” This, coming from a person with half a functioning left leg and broken arm.

  And a steel ring.

  Megan, arguably more able-bodied than I even in her hunger and weakness, unlocks every cage that housed a living person. My party, now grown to twelve, stands patiently before me, awaiting our next move.

  But I don’t know our next move. “Does anyone know the way out of here?” I ask kindly, trusting my expression doesn’t look too devoid of hope in their presence, seeing as they’re depending on me for their freedom.

  Of course, the one soul who should spea
k up is the one that can’t. The old voiceless man shuffles his way to the front of the band of Humans, excitedly indicating with a series of gestures that he knows where to go.

  “Stay closest to me, and,” I tell him, trying not to sound as disheartened as I feel within, “lead the way.”

  All too eager, he does. Following him, we exit the far end of the hall and, tiptoeing, shuffling and staggering as we are, empty into an alley.

  Continuing without pause, I cautiously peer around every corner before permitting us to move. The streets coil through warehouses both occupied and abandoned utterly, junkyards and burnt remains of buildings … Where this old man is directing us, I’ve so little strength to debate. My trust in him may be modest, but it’s all I have to keep throwing one good leg in front of a bad one.

  When we round a corner, I see a woman ahead of us digging a hole in the ground for no apparent reason. Her hair falls like a cape around her shoulders, covering the most of her, until she staggers somewhat in fighting with her spade, revealing her face and part of her right side …

  Her right side, where half an arm is missing.

  I can’t believe I’ve found her. There is no mistaking it. I recognize the wholeness of her face—the fact that she has one. Her hair, the same color it was when I drew her from the earth. This woman is my Raise.

  I rush up to her at once. “You! It’s you! I can’t believe of all places, you ended up here! … I’m taking you home.”

  She gazes upon my face slowly, as though she were heavily medicated—though I know that not to be the case—and a look of confusion clouds her eyes.

  I hesitate. “Do you not remember me? I was the first person you met in this world. I’m the one you—the one you ran away screaming from. My name is Winter … and your name was … well, your name was going to be Helen, actually.”

  I can’t help it. I’m going to name her after my own maker. Call it a guilty conscience or just respect, but it’s the first and the last name that comes to mind.

  She makes a tiny moaning sound, like some strange alien who can’t speak. For a moment, I wonder if she can.

  I reach for her hands, but she slips away as though she were made of mist. Her expression is foggy, even her eyes having trouble focusing on mine. Like she’s miles away.

  “You should come with us,” I tell her, not knowing what else to say. “You will be free, Helen. Don’t you want to be free? You don’t want to stay here, trust me.”

  She stops all motion, suddenly petrified as a statue. I’m startled, unsure of her peculiar behavior. I’m so afraid something awful has been done to her, like they swapped her brain out with a shoe.

  Then, in a clear and tinny voice, she recites, “My name is Deathless.”

  The entire group of humans behind me, they take one collective step away, aghast at what my Raise just uttered.

  I peer back at them, disturbed by their reaction. “I—I’m sure she is just confused,” I assure them. “She just needs some comfort. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  Then without warning, Helen launches herself at me, teeth-bared, and chomps down on my arm. I can’t even bring myself to cry out, completely caught by surprise as I am with her sudden and strange decision to sink her jowls into my arm.

  “Stop that!” I finally manage to say, attempting to keep my balance with her teeth in my arm. “Stop that right now!” I feel like I’m scolding a rabid dog. “Helen! Stop!” And I press against her face with my good hand.

  The effect is instant. Helen—Deathless—whatever she is, her eyes rock to the back of her head with only whites showing. She shudders twice, then releases her teeth from my arm—taking half the flesh with it—and drops to the ground as though I’d somehow cast the unlife right out of her at the touch of a fingertip, and then I see it …

  The steam, issuing from her pale little face.

  I hadn’t meant to do that, but it certainly stopped her violent tantrum. I survey the worried, uncertain faces of the Humans at my back—Megan’s especially. She seems to be keeping her cool along with the rest of them. Really, our priority of getting out of this place is so strong, I’m sure they’re just about prepared to endure any sight, no matter how strange or disturbing or—

  Hey, a chunk of my arm is gone.

  “Did you know her?” Megan asks, eyeing the corpse.

  I kneel down, feeling quite responsible for my accidental incapacitation of the person I’d hoped to save. I curse, placing my bare hand to her cheek, as if in attempt to quiet the hiss of smoke that dances from them.

  “I don’t think you killed her,” Megan goes on, as if to comfort me. “She’ll wake up. I … don’t think you can kill something that’s already dead.”

  “So it seems.” I regret ever answering the Whispers and bringing this poor soul into the world.

  “Winter, we have to go. They might find us.”

  “I can’t leave her.” I shake my Raise to no avail. She doesn’t even flinch. “I left home to find her. She’s the only reason I’m here. Helen, wake up!—Helen, please …”

  “She’s Deathless,” the girl tells me as soothingly as she can manage. “That means—”

  “I know what it means.”

  “That means she’s never turning back. She’s gone. She’s one of them, forever.”

  I stare down at the face of this innocent person I’d brought into this world … only to do her the worst wrong imaginable, letting her run away, letting her fall into the most cruel of fates … And now, I’m told there is nothing I can do. I’m told I am helpless.

  “They’re coming,” says Megan.

  “I’m not leaving her!” I declare boldly. Me and my hero complex.

  “You must!—She’s not moving on her own!”

  Without a thought, I grab hold of “Helen” and, impressed once more with my unbecoming strength, sling her over a shoulder. Limping as I am, dead arm dangling, I am determined not to just leave her here in the streets.

  “Onward,” I urge the others. “We have no time.”

  “Oh, Winter,” Megan says in a pitiful tone, gazing sadly at the lifeless woman I now carry.

  Again, I’m laden with yet another awful thing I’ve done. What’s next? Do I end the world? Biting my lip and fighting a most terrible urge to break something, I beckon forth the old voiceless man to lead us to freedom. As we make our way down the alley, three times I buckle, nearly dropping my Raise. Once I’ve gained good balance—three times—we continue on. After a long journey of unwanted sightseeing, cement streets, and negotiating with doors and alleyways, a very large multicolored wall looms forth, extending beyond our view. A jolt of optimism works its way up my spine … Is this the outer wall of the city?

  “Are we close?” I ask the old man, who just grunts.

  Set before the wall is half a church. An entire side of it missing, the old man seems to suggest with a point of two fingers that this is where we need to go. So relieved I could sigh a hundred pounds off my body—which may or may not be Helen’s hundred—I trudge with the man to my left, Megan at my other side and a trail of anxious, starved Humans behind.

  But as we draw closer to the wall, I realize we are not alone. At the foot of the church there is a figure shrouded in an oversized hooded cloak. It’s a person who, upon our approaching, does not stir.

  “Wait, hold back,” I tell everyone, spreading my arms in front of them. Thankfully, the Humans obey, old man included. Helen teetering on my shoulder, I realize at this inconvenient time how very limited in mobility I am.

  Megan clings to my arm, shaking. “Who is that?”

  “No idea,” I admit, “but he is clearly waiting for us. Stay back while I … while I handle him.”

  Bravely, I step forward, like I have any idea what I’m about to do. Maybe my courage has something to do with a shimmery steely thing on my thumb. Certainly has nothing to do with balancing a dead person on my back. As I draw close to him, however, all my resolve crumbles to the cracked and dusty pavement. Th
e figure seated on the steps of the church is a short man with a gnarled mess of metal for one leg, and a flashing emerald-green eye.

  “Dearest Winter,” he mutters dryly, neither budging nor looking up to acknowledge me, “of a kind and so brief time here in this befouled land. How did you enjoy your temporary lodging with us?”

  “Your lodging could use a facelift,” I spit back.

  “I never properly greeted you, raining as it was in that mist-ridden field, and past company considered. My name is Deathless.” His mouth is the only thing that moves, his entire body a statue. “But perhaps I should clarify that all our names is Deathless, even the King’s, even the girl on your shoulder. We all bear the same name. Taking her somewhere, are we?”

  When we first met in the Grounds, he caused my friends—and myself—to drop dead without so much as a twitch of his eye. Where his seeming power comes from or how he does it, I cannot question. All I know is, I must be very careful, because more than just my life will be forfeit should I inspire him to drop-dead me again. I could wake up buried alive twenty feet in the ground, and my every body part buried twenty more feet away. I could wake up in the center of a crowded Well of the disassembled, all of us voiceless, helpless, abandoned …

  “She belongs to me,” I declare. “I’m—I’m taking her home to Trenton.”

  “And the humans?” he asks tiredly, like this bores him.

  I have to be the hero, even if it’s completely faked. Pretender I am. Pretender, forever be. “What’s it going to take to free my companions from this place?”

  “What’s it going to take to keep you here?”

  “I wouldn’t in my worst dreams desire to stay here in this depraved place. And I can assure you, neither would any of my friends.”